Blogging Archives - Page 6 of 11 - Addicted to Writing

When You Can’t Write and It’s Not Writer’s Block

Posted on February 14, 2014 Written by Pinar Tarhan

While writer’s block can be one frustrating ordeal, it’s not that hard to get rid of. I have some great suggestions on inspiration in this post: Finding Article Ideas & Writing About Them: 30 Inspiration Tips for Writers.

But if you are suffering from a physical condition that prevents you from writing, especially if it’s hand/arms-related, I recommend you head to Sophie Lizard’s Be a Freelance Blogger and read my post there. (Yeah, I’m quite psyched about being published there!:))

For more on writing inspiration, you can check out these posts:

To wait for inspiration? Or to chase it? That’s the question.

When Inspiration Is Chasing You, Get Caught!

My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend’s Writer Ethan: Finding Love, Inspiration & Getting Published

How to Jolt Back To Writing Non-Fiction From Fiction: 13 Tips

Posted on December 17, 2013 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Are you fiction writer? A non-fiction writer? Or both?

If you truly love writing, want to make a regular income from it (or you are already making a living writing) and/or can’t wait to share what you have learned and experienced with the rest of the writers out there, chances are, you are both into writing fiction and non-fiction.

Stephen King wrote a book on writing, simply called On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Now, that’s the kind of writer I want to learn from. Not because I’m a horror fan, but because I admire his success, productivity and ability to write in diverse genres (Shawshank Redemption, for instance, is based on a story of his) and write in a variety of formats (novels, short stories, non-fiction books…)

Screenwriter John August (Big Fish, Go, Charlie’s Angels, Dark Shadows) runs a website where he shares his tips on screenwriting – one of my favorite go-to resources as an aspiring screenwriter.

Some novelists get to adapt their movies to screen themselves and writing magazines love publishing advice articles from published writers. Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, anyone?

I love writing fiction and non-fiction, and wrote about why we needed to balance the two here before.

But sometimes, one takes priority over the other, usually because of deadlines and where your productivity is gravitating towards at that moment.

For the last couple of months, even though I did my best not to neglect my blogs, I’ve concentrated polishing my screenplay and a TV pilot for competitions. I read even more about formatting, selling, contests’ reliability. I found great resources on both writing and selling, and I’ll be sharing them here soon.

But it’s safe to say I was lost in a world of fictional characters and story lines, and reading up on how to make them come alive.

Of course my non-fiction ideas didn’t stop flowing. So I noted them down, and after having taken care of 3 competitions with the nearest deadlines, I’m ready to immerse in non-fiction once again.

Getting back to real life is fun, though your mind and writing might take a while to adjust. So below are a few tips to make the transition easier and quicker:

1) Go through your old ideas. Having worked on different projects might have provided you new insights and angles. Use them. Brainstorm with your just-back-from-fiction mind. You might be surprised.

2) Keep writing new ideas down. Also make a note of what you have learned about writing/selling fiction. There are a million stories there.

3) Not getting hit by a new load of ideas? This post is bound to ignite some quality inspiration: Finding Article Ideas & Writing About Them: 30 Inspiration Tips for Writers.

4) Check the websites/publications you follow, including the ones you have written for or wanted to write for. They might have gone through editorial changes. Their submission guidelines or how they work with freelance writers might have changed. Is this still a place you want to write for? Update your market list accordingly.

5) If those websites are still up your alley, study the new articles. You need to know what they published recently. You don’t want to waste the editor’s time, or yours, by pitching an idea that was recently covered.

6) Do a “markets” research. There are probably new writing markets you might want to catch up on. Make notes of the ones that interest you.

7) Write. It’s like switching between rollerblades and your bike. Both are fun, both are you. They just work a bit differently.

8) Promote your writing. Remind your readers you’re alive and well. Of course this works better if you’ve kept up a presence in the blogosphere during your fiction marathon.

9) Read non-fiction: blogs, magazines, books, twitter feeds of the people that inspire you, entertain you and/or piss you off…new and old stuff. Read.

10) Read some of those awesome e-books you kept for referencing, and some new resources you found. Some of my new favourites came from Sophie Lizard’s Another 52 Free Resources for Freelance Bloggers post, for instance.

11) Keep reading fiction, but don’t make it the priority.

12) Exercise. Seriously. I know how easy it is to get caught up in the wonderfully exciting worlds you have created, but we need to be healthy. And exercising gives you even more ideas.

13) Eat healthily. Yes, you always need to do this, but if you have gone on a binge to make the deadlines, get a grip on your eating habits before your immune system decides to punish you. I’ll be posting about this too, so stay tuned.

Welcome back to the lovely world of non-fiction! If there are any tips you’d to add, comment away…

The Number One Tip for Querying and Pitching: Being Personal & Specific

Posted on November 27, 2013 Written by Pinar Tarhan

If you don’t have time for the whole post, don’t let me keep you. You probably already do this. It’s one of the most important steps of querying: Being personal and specific in your customized pitch – as in sending a well-targeted, well-tailored query to the right person and not bulk-querying haphazardly.

By now, this tip should be saying like vampires have fangs. Common knowledge. It’s not. It is, for some reason, blissfully ignored by a number of bloggers and writers. How do I know it? From the impossibly generic guest post pitches I’ve been receiving since I launched my blogs.

I don’t generally accept guest posts for my sites. I don’t advertise for guest posts. Because I can’t pay writers at the moment, and I don’t think it’s fair to ask, especially when I distinctly prefer to write for sites that pay.

That said, if a writer was completely OK with this fact, didn’t need the money and had something he couldn’t wait to share with my audience, something that was right up this blog’s alley, I wouldn’t necessarily turn him down.

But even though there are no pages or posts here (or any other of my blogs) that ask for guest posts, I frequently get pitched by e-mail and I can’t believe there are so many bloggers/writers out there who don’t seem to have read any tip on pitching someone, ever. Apparently, they have read all the titleson the benefits of guest posting, however.

I’m saying “titles” because they haven’t gone through the entirety of any solid article on guest posting (or querying) either. Because almost all of them underscore similar things. Some of the shared tips are: Address to the right person, make sure you read the publication and show this in your pitch.

I tend to get several generic pitches a month for the different blogs that I run. Some pitchers haven’t even tried: as in they don’t even have my blog’s name, my name or even the blog’s URL in the pitch. I still read them anyway because I want to give them the benefit of a bad subject line. I also like providing myself with material for future posts.

Some spice up the generic up , and add my blog’s URL in the subject line. Not the worst move but it screams “bulk” and that’s never good. The glaringly important issue here: My blog URLS and my blogs aren’t the same. It might not be the smartest SEO move on my part but trust me, there was some strategy involved in it. Anyway, the pitcher was too lazy to write (or even possibly check out) the blog’s name. Ouch. Seriously.

One blogger, the most recent pitch that prompted this post, has taken bulk-pitching to a whole new level. The subject line doesn’t mention anything about me or my blogs. The greeting doesn’t include my name. The post doesn’t have the name of the blog the writer wants to write for. I know which one through an educated guess because she has at least mentioned the topic.

She has, however, proposed a relevant topic with a suitable title, using a decent language.

I haven’t returned the e-mail. I don’t think that will hurt the blogger’s feelings much since she probably has sent the email to a couple hundred other bloggers as well. Besides, I don’t want to mess up with the statistics. When the pitch is generic, you will most likely get no response.

Here’s the thing to keep in mind. Editors, some of them are also writers, are busy people. Many are busy to the point they can’t even respond to the to-the-point, personalized and timely pitches if it’s not what they need at the moment.

It’s kind of funny. You’d think that it’d be common sense to check out the name of the person you are querying. And my name isn’t a secret. It’s even in the e-mail I use for writing-related correspondence. It’s also on the About section. Even on blogs where I have occasionally accepted guest posts (from writers who pitched well and for blogs I unfortunately can’t always produce content regularly for), my name is on the 98% of the posts.

I’m not going to say that all publications make it easy. They don’t. They post almost encrypted guidelines or don’t post at all. Editors’ names might need some minor detective work like calling the publication or asking other writers. Some publications ask you to contact for questions but often don’t return with the information you requested. But when it’s right out there, and you don’t use it, it’s on you.

Grammar and spelling are important. A creative subject line can work, so is crafting a concise message. But it all starts with at least trying to hide the fact that it’s a bulk offering. There might be several publications that cover similar topics with similar angles, but it’s up to the writer to make each pitch sound personal.

The upside of these e-mails, in addition to inspiring post ideas (and/or case studies), they help you get in the shoes of the editor/publisher, and show you why you have to work diligently on your pitches. Not that we didn’t know before, but boy is their job difficult…:)

Writing Fun and Inspiration Post 3

Posted on September 12, 2013 Written by Pinar Tarhan

I can’t resist saving funny and inspirational writing-related images whenever I run across them, and I love sharing them with you. So let’s have some laughs and smiles: