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Writer’s Block
My mind is blank and I can’t think,no inspiration not even a wink.
Just blank, blank, blank, blank I’ve hit the rock,I think it’s called the Writer’s Block.
The harder I try just to write, write, write, write,the struggle starts like a fight, fight, fight, fight.

I take a noun and then a verb,I think of a subject and add some words.Before you know it I’ve got the thought,the juices are flowing my idea’s caught.
However, I find when my pen hits the paper,those thoughts are gone like a mist , no a vapor.
So crumpled up in the piles of trash,blank pieces of paper that my hands have smashed.
 
Well, here I go, so I give it a shot,
to break this boulder, to break this rock.
 
So I took this time to write these thoughts,
to tell all writers be not distraught.
 
With words of comfort  and words of care,
this writer’s block we all must bear.
 

There’s truth to “the starving artist”. Sad as it is, there are writers out there
who are working so hard to break into print. To make a living by following their bliss.

If you are one of them, I salute your discipline. You look at the bestseller lists
and wonder how these writers managed to pull it off. Let’s face it. There are books being published that leaves you to wonder if the manuscript missed an editor’s desk altogether.

And still you struggle…the love of writing is in your blood. You secretly harbor the dream of writing the Great American Novel.

But you have your own reality show happening. Things like the roof over your head. Food. Clothing. Transportation. Utilities. This is supposed to be bliss?

If you are sick and tired of worrying about a life of poverty and have tormented yourself enough over dreams of your best selling book-signing party, listen up.

There is a way to put your love of writing to work for you. One in which you will make money! In some cases, there is serious money to be
made.

You will have to relearn some things. Toss out some rules you’ve lived by since you don’t know when. Forget your creative writing teachers.

But what if you could finally earn money with writing? Would you be able to put aside the established idea of breaking into print? It doesn’t mean you’ll never again pursue your dream of writing a best selling book. Just that living with financial freedom right now is more appealing.

Here’s the good part. You will become an eBook writer! Simply put…selling information online. You already know how-to information rules the bestseller lists. Now you will be offering information-hungry consumers the answers to
their problems.

No more rejection letters! Your customers will gladly pay you for your knowledge and research.
Simple Rules For eBook Writing
* write like you’re having a conversation * it must be reader-friendly * just the facts, no fluff * quality over quantity * don’t go on and on when fewer words will do * think like your reader * research books on the subject you write about

Just think back to your homework days of writing an essay…
* research * introduction * main points * conclusion

Haven’t you banged your head against keyboards long enough? Working hard for no results? You’ll think the work involved in writing eBooks is child’s play!

(c) 2007 Karen Cook

If your dream is to get published, the chance is before you. The web has opened the portals of opportunity to all aspiring writers, freelance writers, established writers actually, to all writers. It’s a whole new world with unlimited access to ideas and subjects for writers. Endless resources and information are available at the click of your mouse to help you get started.
It’s up to you to exercise due diligence to fulfill that dream of becoming a writer. It does not happen overnight. It all starts with that first, small step towards pursuing your dream. The internet offers all kinds of avenues for anyone who has ambitions to write. Where do you begin?
Read what the multitude of e-zines and newsletters have to offer. This gives you an idea of what interests people as they spend more and more time surfing the web. Find out what the current trends are. Pay attention to issues that tend to pop out here and there, again and again. Subscribe to pertinent groups or forums that can be helpful in your quest. Keep up with the current trends, stay abreast with the latest news, be interested in anything and everything. Open up your mind.Then, you can decide which venue is for you.Ask yourself,does mainstream interest you? Or would you rather explore specific areas of interest?
Assess your inclinations, your passions,your hobbies. What are your beliefs, your social, religious and economic outlook? Make a list. In your career, what is your area of expertise? Do you write reports? Do you keep a journal? A diary? You’re already a writer!
Get excited about writing down your ideas. The golden opportunity is before you, as never before. Actually, jumping in the bandwagon of writing for the internet can be overwhelming for the faint of heart, confusing for the skeptic, yet exciting for the go-getter. Which one are you?
The internet is open to all segments of society and to people from all walks of life. Access is not limited to the technologically inclined. It is no longer as initimidating as it was when the information superhighway first opened in the 20th century. People are less apt to admit their computer illiteracy, rather, more members of our society are learning how to navigate the cyberspace.
Learn about the basic rules of writing for the web. Cyber readers tend to be fast thinkers, speed readers, with only seconds to spare.If you want to grab their attention, remember, you only have precious few seconds to do it.
Take heart. You already know this. You love to see your by-line. The web will help you get your name out there. The more you write, the better you’ll get at it. Technically, if your work gets published on-line, you are considered published.
Only thing, writing for the web for the countless e-zines and newsletters and websites is not for those who intend to make a living from their writing. Not at the start.
If you are willing to write and submit your articles for free, don’t miss out. For the aspiring writer, it is a good way to start. The more you write, the more exposure you will get, readers will get to know your name. Writing for the internet helps to drive traffic to your website.
Give it a try.

As a new writer, are you confident you understand the practical process involved when you write a novel? If not, this may help.

Whenever a potential client asks one particular question, I know the person is a new writer who doesn’t (yet) understand the practical side of being a fiction or non-fiction writer. What’s the question?

“What is your best guess about how long it will take to edit my manuscript?”

It’s a logical question, right? So what’s the matter with it?

Let’s say you’ve completed your first draft and used Spell Check. The very next step that should be taken is to print out a copy and put it away for a few days or one week. Plan a time to sit comfortably with the printed copy, pencil and eraser on hand, and read it, preferably aloud. You find errors and what I call hiccups far easier when you do this than if you work solely from the computer screen.

You don’t do this simply to find typos, but also to see and listen to whether the story, as written, works. Does it flow from start to finish? What about plot and character development? Does character dialogue sound natural? It’s very easy to be so pleased you completed a draft you forget you also need to be an editor.

Do you think one attempt at this guarantees that your manuscript is now ready for the next step? I hope your answer is no. Make your changes, print out another copy, put it down for a few days, and repeat this process as many times as reasonably needed.

What writers usually do when they feel their manuscript is ready is ask one or more people to read it and give feedback. Often, what a new writer looks for is approval, a pat on the back (completing a manuscript is an accomplishment). What they need is honest feedback that helps them write a good read. Some people ask family or friends to do this for them. Sometimes this is beneficial; but it depends on whether the individual(s) can contribute quality comments.

New writers eventually reach out to an editor, which is important; but they don’t always understand what working with an editor involves. They may not realize if it took them months to write and edit their manuscript, it will take more than a few or several hours for an editor to work on it. How long it takes an editor has all to do with the technical and creative quality of the writing.

I always ask potential clients to send their first chapter to me so I get a sense of what will be involved on my part, and to determine if their manuscript is actually ready for editing. When I see a manuscript and writer would benefit more from a thorough critique, I tell the person so. Writers who need and get a critique learn how to improve the technical and creative aspects. They get information and rewrite examples that assist them to become better writers. A critique also benefits a new writer who has reworked a manuscript so many times she or he can no longer tell if it’s good or what it needs.

There’s another reason to get a critique: Cost. New writers know an editor needs to assist them, but some writers may be cost-conscious because of a penurious nature or necessity. A critique helps them write a better story, tidy the text, and write tighter. This can reduce the expense of working with an editor, especially if heavy editing was required and done before the editor gets it.

When a manuscript is in the edit stage, it takes hours and a good deal of them because the manuscript makes several trips between the writer and editor as the writer makes or approves suggested adjustments.* This part of the process can go on for a few months because changes or additions the writer makes has to be reviewed and considered as part of the whole story. Another reason for the extended time is that neither the writer nor editor works full-time on the manuscript, but as their schedules allow. With each revision, the time either person has to spend on it is reduced.

*Most writers prefer an editor use Track Changes so they can decide to accept changes or not.

Once I read a revised manuscript that flows from start to finish, with no hiccups, it’s ready for whatever the author intends to do with it, whether that’s self-publishing or submission to an agent.

If you are a new writer and committed to your creativity, learn what’s required of you and the process. It’s worth it when you hold a copy of your book in your hands and when readers give rave reviews.

Joyce Shafer, LEC and Author, has been a published writer and assisting fellow writers for nearly two decades. Her books/e-books, including, “Write, Get Published, and Promote: An Easy e-Guide for New and Aspiring Writers,” are available at lulu.com. Visit her Website at http://www.freewebs.com/editmybookandmore to learn more and get the e-guide at a discount. Email: jls1422@yahoo.com.

I am a struggling writer! I struggle to write something worthwhile!

Just the other day, during my brains agonising struggles, it dawned on me that over the last two months I had not written one article, not one sad ‘memo-to-self’ nor had I entered one word into my sad Blog, yet I have been sitting at my computer struggling about it all! I now see myself as the struggling painter, the one who has achieved nothing more than re-coating the drab-grey front door of my sister-in-laws house; she assuming that she has helped me somewhat on the road to enlightenment.

I looked around the other day (or twenty) for some path to follow, some enlightenment on the search engines for struggling writers and realised that here was the last place that I should be looking and that I should after all just write something and write it well instead of searching for the answer!

When I started writing four years ago I took pains to correct my grammar and to re-read closely the finished works. Then after one year I simply wrote for the sake of writing and forgot all about the presentation factor – I fell into the trap of quantity over quality! I would hastily write one article of about 2000 words, usually in-less than one hour, and then spend three or more hours publishing it to my Blog or website and any other websites who would take it!

To look at the Internet more deeply; the statistics last month (March 2007) show clearly that 500 people hopped along to my website! Now, of those 500 people, 400 of them did not stay longer than 5 seconds! In fact, of those 500 people only 12 of them spent longer than 30 minutes. This states that less than 5% of visitors spent any time reading anything at all! 95% of them just flicked through, skip read a couple of sentences and then moved on! And it could be possible that of those 12 people who actually logged on to my website for longer than 30 minutes, three of them fell asleep with my website still up, another three couldn’t get away from it as their mouse had failed, three more were Chinese and were just looking at the pretty pictures and the last three were all family members who felt sorry for me (I was one of them)!

I certainly have questioned these horrible statistics; do they go to prove that my articles and writing are not worth being read and that a simple skip over proves this or are the large search engines simply providing wrong results? I talked this over with a friend of mine and he said “if a web searcher does not find what he is looking for within 3 seconds he/she will promptly move on”! That is the average time it takes to make a judgement on a website and regardless of a sites alternative worth, if it does not immediately captivate and hold, then ‘swish’, away they go! In other words; if a searcher is looking for tips on modern-day cannibalism then an article on head-hunting in the 18th century would not hold sway, however well written and researched the article maybe!

A person going to the bookshop can spend hours meandering along the shelves, reading snippets on ‘Travel by Harley Davidson through Tibet’, a book on ‘how to translate in sixteen different languages all at once’ and laughing out loud at some graphically boosted diary titled ‘life at sixteen as a bitch”. And they only went there for five-minutes to pick up some postcards for Granny! Surfers who use search engines do not typically retain the same relaxed approach; they speed through results on a mission, they sit on the edge of the chair and rattle through websites with unexplained nervousness, typically boosted by a teaspoon-standing jug of coffee laced with an unreasonable amount of artificial sweetener!

And in this tone; the major search engines that host adverts relish in this type of behaviour from its customer base. Take Google, Amazon or Yahoo for example, companies whose revenue is largely generated through surfers clicking on opportune adverts! If a surfer clicks on an advert the hosting website is paid a certain fee; advertisers pay the likes of Google and Yahoo to host their advertisements on certain websites and these stay up for as many clicks on these adverts as they have paid for. Following on therefore, I can only assume that a website that has no content and is filled simply with adverts is the most ideal website possible for these search engines. Web crawlers will not be wasting time at websites reading interesting articles; they will be clicking on an advert to move away from this extremely boring site!

Since I started writing (and from the day that I started to submit my articles to article banks and websites in the hope of becoming known and extremely popular) I soon realised that I was becoming well-known but not in the way that I wanted to be. My articles started to appear everywhere, on sites that bear no relation to the articles content and in many cases amongst a mass of adverts – quite clearly the webmaster hosting my articles hopes that the reader will find my articles sufficiently boring as to click on an advert to escape and thus generate a couple of cents, pennies or roubles for the pockets of the host.

Today, I typed in ‘Seadolby Articles’ into the Google Search Engine. A few of the results that came up were;

1.The Grumpy Edinburgh article. I wrote this piece many years ago, a look into the typical grumpiness of the Edinburgh inhabitants through personal experience – a trait that still remains today. This article appears on a page with 16 different Google generated adverts and two affiliate money-generating links to Google products. The article is clearly displayed on a page with the title “Asia Information”. The last time I looked Edinburgh was in Scotland not in Asia, or was that the village of Edinburgh in Indonesia?????

2.My Article titled, Surviving Retirement, which is basically an insight into saving money for old-age, can be found on a website titled, Beach Umbrellas. This article is displayed there simply because I mention the word ‘umbrella’ in a sentence; “The financial security umbrella that most wage earners would like to shelter under after retirement is “. Of course the article is liberally inter-spaced with Google adverts!

3.A Website titled, ” Dental health, good gums”, has a link to my article on Free Gifts in Taiwan. The connection here passes me by! This website is filled with adverts from Amazon.Com and Google. Strangely enough the Google adverts give links to five-star hotels which confuses the issue even more!

4. And the one that I laugh hysterically about in a depreciative manner is an article that seriously criticises website advertisers and states how terrible they are, titled, The Online Advertising Scandal. This attacking article appears on a website titled ” Website Advertising”, a site whose sole purpose is to gain income from potential advertisers. Naturally this website comes resplendent with adverts that certainly give colour to the site and also lots of income, despite my article telling all and sundry that they are being ripped-off!

NB: I only give links here to my original articles as posted on my website. I simply have no wish to advertise or link to those external sites who host my articles to boost profits.

I’m no purist! My own website comes with its fair share of advertisements – should any visitor become seriously bored with my articles then they can click on an advert and generate some income for me. The difference is that my articles are original (I did after all write them myself), they are apt for the page they reside on and from my point of view are interesting to read, should anybody stay longer than to simply skip read the title in the hope of finding information on wooden legs or ‘how to make pancakes from wood chips’!

I fell into this trap four years ago! I regurgitated endless streams of articles, quantity to satisfy those websites who will display my articles in conjunction with advertisements! I wrote articles that nobody would ever read and scripts that were only useful because they carried an apt word here or certain content there and so would draw a particular category of advert or customer. Nearly forty percent (if not more) of websites out there seem to be totally arranged around adverts, many of them with my content, apt or not, to draw the crowds! I’m not proud of what I have done!

But now it is time to change! I cannot, it seems, erase the last four years of bad writing – the web does not give up the past, it keeps the ghosts of time gone by to be replayed time and again like a bad record! My bad articles will stay on the internet to haunt me, the only thing that I can do is to correct those that I display on my site and to only write new ones that I like and that I have researched well and then only to display them on sites to which they are appropriate.

And I must seriously get around to writing articles for magazines and journals, those in-print, so that some people might actually stop by to read in leisure!

But now that I am faced with this task I find myself unable to write anything worthwhile and so I sit here struggling with nary a word to put down onto paper!

We’ve all been there…”I know I need to be writing more articles to promote my business and my website and my affiliate projects, but I just don’t know what to write
about”.

Article writing can be a daunting task for many internet marketers, and most people will avoid it and delay it like the plague.

Fact is…if you just write what you know about then article writing is not that difficult. Don’t struggle initally with the details of your articles such as structure, paragraphing and correct grammar. If you spend too much time critiquing
and reviewing every word you write then you’ll probably end up never submitting a single article at all. In your mind it just won’t be good enough for anyone to read so “why bother at all?”

You can always go back and edit your article before you submit it, but if you spend all of your time editing as you write you’ll never be happy with your article and probably end up never submitting it to anyone.

I personally enjoy the “task” of article writing. Some days I may spend hours and hours working on something as simple as installing a plug-in to my Wordpress blog,
and at the end of the day I find myself wondering why I didn’t just outsource the whole thing to an expert.

Maybe you’ve just spent the last three weeks building your website with a particularly horrible or great website building program. You now know exactly how to use the program and what you think about it…so write about it.

These are the types of things that make allow me to turn to my article writing…because I now know how to install that particular plug-in to Wordpress or what I think of that website building program, and I can tell everyone else the pitfalls to avoid and the shortcuts I’ve learned. I’m now an “expert” at installing that plug-in and I want to share my knowledge with everyone else.

That sitebuilding program was “awesome” and I think everyone should get it. Or, this “sitebuilding program” was really hard to work with and the number of hours spent working with it were not worth the money saved.

If you’re really really struggling with your article writing you can always turn to all of those PLR articles you have saved on your hard drive, or find new ones by doing a search of private label rights.

I’m not a huge fan of writing articles this way, but if you do use PLR just make sure that you read, read, and re-read the content so that you really understand it. Then make sure you take the time to revise the PLR into your own words and your own personality with your own understanding of what the PLR article is about.

Write about what you know. Write what you’re interested in. Write about your passions. If you do this your writing will flow naturally and the articles will be easier to write.

Make your articles fun and interesting and full of yourself and your expert knowledge and youll find that what was something you avoided doing (writing articles) is now the thing you enjoy the most.

Online writing is not just about getting your spellings correct or maintaining a good flow. A good content writer is one who writes with the online readers needs and habits in mind. You may compose an eloquent and elegant piece that is packed with the big words. But if the reader cannot understand what it is that you are saying, the entire exercise will be futile.

To draw a parallel, critically acclaimed movies generally are not a big hit with the public. Or vice versa, Dabangg was held in contempt by many intellectuals but the movie raked in a lot of moolah at the box office.

As with other kinds of mass communication, the needs of the target audience should direct the style and the format of the work. A successful web content writer always thinks about the age, background, gender and technical know-how of the reader before his fingers hit the keyboard. So, what are the expectations of an online readership?

Research has revealed that online readers tend to briefly glance over sites rather than read them closely. Short and crisp sentences are a big must. The web content writer needs to capture the audience with active verbs and smart metaphors.
In addition, the great web content writer is a versatile one. The beauty of the online medium is that the target audience cannot be fitted into a single entity. A web savvy teen likes simple sentences, slang terms and most of all, plenty of multimedia accessories. Whereas an elderly Internet newcomer is interested in writing that contains lengthier explanations and detailed information with no other distractions. To be a successful web content writer, you have to be able to change your style to suit different audiences.

By understanding your core audience, you can surely become a web content writer, whose work is target oriented, valuable and has a greater chance of being read.

The Most Popular Writer Of The Urdu Popular Fiction- Razia Butt

The Urdu language is blessed to have great poetry and prose writers. Usually it is a trend that people respect the literature more than the popular fiction. However, one must realize that it is not the literature but it is the popular fiction, which reaches to most of the average Urdu speaking people. Gilbert Keith Chesterton once said, Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity, which is a great truth. The popular fiction of Urdu language is fortunate because it has writers like Razia Butt. The potential of Razia Butt cannot be undermined. Just because someones novels touch the hearts of masses, does not imply that they are too simple. In fact, it is even harder to produce bestseller novels. In the words of W. Somerset Maugham, “No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichs that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him. The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart’s blood.” The above quotation holds true for the Urdu bestselling novels too.
The life of Razia Butt is spent studying Urdu and writing in Urdu. From her very early childhood, Razia Butt loved to readUrdu novels. She was a very ardent reader. In her childhood, she used to buy novels whose diction she was too young to understand. Her elder sister used to accompany her in the reading sessions so that she would explain the story, plot, and diction to the little sister. Razia Butt has produced some of the best Urdu novels. Her novels were a unique blend of love, romance, and social values. The girls simply just love the heroes of the novels by Razia Butt. Razia Butts hero is always very caring, very loving, very romantic, and very expressive. Being with a hero of Razia Butts novel is just like living with a dream hunk. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that Razia Butts Urdu novels are always the best sellers. Contrary to the popular belief, Razia Butts Urdu novels have deep moral and ethical values as well. Razia Butt always allows movie or drama serial adaptation of her novels. This is another reason why every Pakistani is familiar with Razia Butts name. Those who have not read her novels have seen their movie or the drama serial adaptations. Most famous on-screen stories of Razia Butt have been Naila, Saiqa, Shabbo, and Najia. Razia Butt is a very graceful elderly woman now. Although, she has been an ardent reader however, now she says that she is not interested in reading anymore. The reason behind this is that her eyesight is very weak now. Now Razia Butt sees cultural and literary programs on television to quench her literary thirst. Her novels will always be an enjoyable read and a great source of inspiration for the new writers.

You have discovered a proven method of earning big amounts of dollars on the internet. You want to write an instructional book about it and sell it to the millions of people through your website. The first problem is that you are not a writer and you dont know how to start the book. The second problem is how to promote the completed book effectively on your website. You need a miracle to put your entire plan to work because you are not a writer. Worry no further because you can find your miracle in the person of a professional manuscript writer.

A professional manuscript writer can produce written works from books to website contents. Hiring your own personal manuscript writer is quite easy actually. You can shop around in many online sites that offer manuscript writing services. Once you find the lucky candidate you may ask him or her to start working on your project immediately. But of course you need to prepare for this extra expense because these services are kind of expensive. A copywriter typically charges clients by the hour and has to be paid on a weekly basis. Other manuscript writers prefer a flat rate.

In other words, manuscript writers will write a book for you that you can register as your own work or they can write rich articles for your website. Some call them ghost writers. Because they remain incognito even when their works are published and earned millions. The articles you paid them to do, you can proudly call your very own brainchild.

The benefits of having your own manuscript writer are that he or she can write contents for you that can move your reader into action and these articles can solicit positive reviews. A good book and web content is easier to sell to your target market therefore more earnings for you. Many business owners also hire the services of these writers simply because they dont the time to do it or even if they do write their own articles and manuscripts, they still hire a professional manuscript editor to polish their work. A manuscript writer can be a manuscript editor as well. Thus saves you the time that is required of you when writing on your own.

One of the advantages in hiring manuscript writers is that they can make of punctuation marks correctly in the document they are working on. Using punctuation marks wrongly can defeat the emotion you want to put in into the work. If you are excited about a discovery you are writing about, your readers must feel the same kind of excitement within themselves. That is what is called effective writing. Your readers should find themselves sharing your dreams and goals and if they feel that, asking them to purchase the product will be as easy as pie. A wise businessmans goal is erase any hesitations or apprehensions from the minds of his or her prospective buyers. Only through more persuasive written articles can a businessman achieve that and professional copywriters, scriptwriters, and manuscript writer can deliver just that.

If you are looking for hiring a freelance writer, the first thing you might want to do is to create a freelance content writer contract. Though, you hope to be able to trust the people you work with, many dishonest people are also out there who take advantage of you. By creating an agreement with the person you work with, you just protect yourself, your business and thus, your right to the work has been formed.

A lot of companies are there who hire online freelance writers and sign a contract while hiring them as freelance writers to their company. There are many good reasons for to create a contract before you start to work on any project. Money is the most important aspect in this regard. When you enter into an agreement with writers, you expect a certain level of quality and commitment in return for the money you pay to them.

By creating a contract, you can specify exactly what you expect to receive for your money from the content Writer. You can also create some guidelines detailing about the amount of money you will pay for the project on completion. Therefore, while Hire Freelance Writers dont forget to create a contract with them for your safety. This written agreement will also keep you out of trouble if the writer attempts to sue you for copyright infringement.

So, when you are looking for freelance Writers make sure you will keep in mind all these aspects. Its not only important for the employer but also for the hired freelance writers, as the writers will get to know all the terms and conditions and will signed it when get agreed to it.