: Chris Goebel's Eclectic Editor's Blog Archives :
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Chris Goebel's Eclectic Editor's Blog Archives To view December and January 2006, including personality test information and my STAR TREK and Dr. Who phases, click here. This page covers entries for August 8, 2005-October 21, 2005 and October 23 to November 30, 2005. The October and November sections provide information about FREE website improvements, writing tips, the growth of Humdinger's website and the pirate story contest. The oldest section discusses Hurricane Katrina, George Carlin, a million writing tips (almost), nearly as many website creation tips, Rocketman, 9/11, Performance Poetry, e-mail viruses (and how to avoid them) and Especially . . . stupid things NOT to do when creating websites (Chris excels at committing unforgivable acts of stupidity in non-editorial life). Who says editors have to be Practically Perfect? |
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October 23 to November 30, 2005 PREPARING FOR THE DECEMBER HUMDINGER, HOW TO GET AN EDITOR'S ATTENTION PREPARING FOR THE DECEMBER HUMDINGER This evening, I will be putting the final parts of the December Humdinger in place. What has made it difficult is the number of multiple submissions I receive per writer. I'm sure it doesn't seem like a lot when a poet sends 5 poems (or in some cases, over 50!), but things add up, especially when you have hundreds of e-mails. So, I'm behind with e-mail submissions, not an insurmountable obstacle, yet a troublesome one, because it usually means no sleep for this editor before I publish the new 'Zine. HOW TO GET AN EDITOR'S ATTENTION I never thought I'd answer e-mails out of order, but I confess that I sometimes do. I Always answer the e-mails of authors that have previously published with Humdinger first. You've got to give loyalty some credit, the same that you'd enjoy if you were one of the first Humdinger writers (or if you are a Humdinger writer already). Okay, so familiarity gets attention. Beyond familiarity, succinct e-mails with single submissions appear simple and easy to deal with, so I read those immediately. Multiple submissions take more time and I return to those later. Occasionally, I receive an e-mail that is formatted by WordPerfect or some other program that's not quite compatible with Word, which I use. In that case, I e-mail the writer and request a resend as an attachment and hope it works. Of course, attachments are something I like now, because they are ready to go. If you paste your document in the body of the e-mail, my e-mail formats it with hideous looking code that I must delete and reformat. Needless to say, I don't look forward to that! Finally, if your manuscript has multiple errors, it will take a while for me to dedicate the necessary time to doctoring your manuscript. Some People tell me not to say I do this for free, but I do ;-) Why? Because I'm an editor who Loves Writers! Does that make me one of the best deals on the Internet? Shhh! They might hear you. 11-27-05 HOPE YOU HAD A DECENT THANKSGIVING PREPARING YOUR MANUSCRIPT FOR SUBMITTING HOPE YOU HAD A DECENT THANKSGIVING Yes, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving and hope yours was the same. I took time away from Humdinger and enjoyed time with family and am thankful I can do that. We all need time away to rest and this is something I guard carefully to stay pretty consistently happy. PREPARING YOUR MANUSCRIPT FOR SUBMISSIONS All right, it takes quite a bit of time and effort to discover all of the things you need to know about getting your work published. Luckily, Humdinger educates its writers about how to properly do things. Here are some ground rules: 1. SEND A QUERY LETTER Humdinger requests your submissions, but not all publications do. In fact, they often request a Query Letter, a one page or so letter that introduces you and your subject for the publication’s consideration. Humdinger does not require a query letter, but Number 2 is nice. 2. INTRODUCE YOURSELF In a few sentences, let the editor know something about you. I most enjoy interesting details, such as they are a college student who hates his/her major or they work part-time with a rock band, etc. 3. SINGLE SPACE BETWEEN SENTENCES No matter how many times I say it, I still see it. Double spaces between sentences are a No-No. 4. PROOFREAD YOUR WORK Spelling errors and mistakes seriously detract from your work. If you have Word, the program indicates these errors with red and green. 5. READ YOUR WORK ALOUD TO YOURSELF This helps ensure that your work will sound alright to another person. 6. SUBMIT ONE STORY OR THREE POEMS Don’t overwhelm busy editors with more than they ask for or are prepared to handle from one author. I have people sending me books of poetry and tons of short stories. It would be great if I had no other submissions, but . . . just pick your best story or poems and submit those. Humdinger will work with you on this type of submission and help you get it looking its best. 11-21-05 HUMDINGER DURING THE HOLIDAYS, A NEW SECTION TO THE EVER-GROWING WEBSITE (Creating a Literary Website), AND HUMDINGER FOR CHRISTMAS HUMDINGER DURING THE HOLIDAYS As the holidays approach, Humdinger will be as busy as anyone else. I think I will likely consider Humdinger’s readers and writers daily, though my thoughts are less likely to teleport me back to my computer during Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas shopping. As a result, I may not respond to some of our writers for a few days or a few weeks. Things that inevitably slow me down are: editing a piece more than once, receiving a submission in a non-Word format and those darn double spaces between sentences (my bane!). Those are above and beyond the call of daily life. However, readers and writers alike can be certain that Chris will come through just as surely as Santa Claus . . . with a personal response. A NEW SECTION TO THE EVER-GROWING WEBSITE Some of you have to be considering creating your own website (if you’re not, then get with it). I’m very serious about marketing your work; you must get your name and your book’s name out there if you hope to get published one day. How will people buy your great book if they don’t know it or you exist? Exactly, they won’t. And word of mouth sales take a long time. So, consider the laborious process of website creation: it’s like having a Corvette, a labor of love. I drive an Eclipse because I’m not into labor pains (and true to my word, that blue baby’s never caused a problem), much like I use Website Wizard for the website because it’s very user friendly, though not free. But, if you’re in love and willing to do the work, you can produce a very nice looking Free website. Humdinger’s sharing this information with you a bit at a time through a new page called Create a Literary Website, which you can visit by clicking here. HUMDINGER FOR CHRISTMAS My friends and family will be here tomorrow through Sunday, so I may not get to the website often, but I have a few Christmas (Hannukah too) surprises in store for the website and they’ll be up soon. It’s very exciting, seeing what free “decorations” I could find for the website. I can barely wait for you to see. 11-19-05 GET A FREE GUESTBOOK FOR YOUR WEBSITE CREATE YOUR OWN CUSTOM LOGO FOR FREE CLIP ART ON THE WEB—FOR FREE, OF COURSE GET A FREE GUESTBOOK FOR YOUR WEBSITE There are things to do and not to do. One is to believe that everything’s for free. On the Internet, you may not always have to pay for everything in cash, but you will sacrifice something. Many times, you sacrifice space on your website. For example, tonight I searched for a free guestbook for Humdinger. I found several and most of them wanted to post banners on your website, some of them quite large. I finally found one at: http://www.free-guestbooks.net that appears to have no ads. I’m not using free-guestbooks.net, though, because I discovered Website Wizard (Humdinger’s host) has custom forms, so I made my own. After spending an hour looking for guestbooks. CREATE YOUR OWN CUSTOM LOGO FOR FREE I purchased a logo maker, actually. Then I discovered that my $10 or so Logo Creator doesn’t have what I need. As you would expect, it’s cheap and part of the reason is because Logo Creator’s hard to maneuver (one could argue that I don’t have what Logo Creator needs). So, I went hunting online and found something wonderful. Not only does the website allow you to make regular or animated graphics in the colors and font of your choice, but there are also animated versions. Quick, easy, painless. AND if you care about people with principle, Cool Text.com says that they will always be free. Cool Text.com helped me created most of the animated text graphics on the website, including the Recommended above! CLIP ART ON THE WEB—FOR FREE, OF COURSE Clip art on the web is everywhere. Type in clip art on Google and watch out! Of course, you need to know which type of clip art you want. I wanted animated, so I typed in things such as: free animated holiday clip art and found quite a bit. You should note that animated art and particularly flash can seriously hinder the speed of your website, so test carefully. Today’s prize was: which has a great deal of free clip art and links to more useful websites. Also noteworthy today was: with zip files of set of graphics for websites. The Home and Welcome buttons are from 7rings.com. If you like Art Nouveau, which I do most days, then you will appreciate this artist’s work. provided the poetic animated art, which I believe they said they may have gotten from http://www.deviantart.com an angst-driven site dedicated to art and other things. What sucked today was Xara logo creator, which was a link from Feeble Minds. I tried to use it and it linked to the Xara site, which requested that I download. Which took A While. Which thereafter displayed An Empty Box. What you do from there is nothing, if you’re Chris. I don’t work well from the empty box. Must be because it resembles nothing. I also found some of my favorite art online, Josephine Wall's. Here is a button someone created with her painting, "Astral Voyage." 11-17-05 HUMDINGER SEEKS TO INSPIRE AUDIO WITH YOUR WEBSITE (ooh!) OUR WRITING ROOM (possibilities) JUVENILE WRITERS FOR HUMDINGER (how we see it) HUMDINGER SEEKS TO INSPIRE While playing with audio options for the Humdinger website (see more about this below), I decided to create an inspiring audio message for writers. After that, I created a truly mind-opening and writer’s block killing PowerPoint presentation to help writers. Both are located on our inspiration page, Songs of Inspiration, which you can reach by clicking here. A FAVOR I NEED: If you do NOT have PowerPoint, do me a favor and let me know if you can still access this presentation by leaving me (Chris) a brief message at: This way, I can learn about how many readers I can reach with PowerPoint presentations, something I love to do in my free time (and yes, I do manage free time—it’s a survival skill). AUDIO WITH YOUR WEBSITE (ooh!) The current audio messages at Humdinger are on the Home and Songs of Inspiration pages. These messages were made by typing in the words I wanted to say. Male and female voices were available. The website I used was: http://www.formvalidator.net PROS: Using the text to voice option on the left-hand side of the screen, I accessed this free feature. Choices between male and female voices were available and this webmaster option has no charge (way cool). CONS: Both the male and female voices have words that they do not pronounce well and, as expected, the pitch varies at a sometimes unnatural rate. I preferred the male voice because it was stronger, but sin of all sins, “he” can’t pronounce “writer” correctly. “She” has problems pronouncing “and.” Overall: The current experiment is to see how visitors respond to the audio element on the website. Audio websites claim that audio increases visitor interest by 300%, not an unlikely statistic. Fun factor: Yes, the formvalidator webmaster tool will pretty much say anything you want it to say, creating hilarious phrases. OUR WRITING ROOM (possibilities) Humdinger’s Writing Room is another experiment with offering visitors an opportunity for Chance Encounters with other readers and writers. It also gives me a way to communicate with readers for scheduled meetings. PROS: The software loaded quickly and hasn’t poisoned anyone. I like the look of it (don’t you?). I selected a setting so that text on the page is saved, so that we can leave messages for one another, in case we don’t encounter anyone there when we visit. This is also a free service. CONS: Well, no one’s dropped any lines yet. Future Plans: I will hold scheduled conferences. Where can you get this baby for your website? We need to use this medium to test its efficiency, so give it a try and come by and write me sometime at Humdinger’s Writing Room by clicking here. JUVENILE WRITERS FOR HUMDINGER (how we see it) We will have at least one juvenile writer joining us for the December issue of Humdinger Literary E-zine. If you read Humdinger, then you know it’s largely an adult publication, though not horribly graphic or sexual. However, Humdinger has this stance on juvenile writers: we want to encourage them as we would any writer. We secure permission from their parents and work with them on editing. And, we encourage Humdinger writers and readers to read their work and use our feedback medium at the new Feedback for Humdinger’s Writers and Poets, which you can reach by clicking here. In this way, we encourage one another and mentor younger writers, making our publication a truly humanitarian creation. I am not the first person to commit a website to writers without charging, either. Another website that is a labor of love and humanitarian gesture that you should check out (for writers seeking literary agents) is: http://www.literaryagents.org/ 11-15-05 HOW TO ADD CHAT TO YOUR WEBSITE And WHY WE’RE HOLDING OFF ON WIKI OR WHAT IS WIKI? PLUS, HOW TO MAKE A PODCAST HOW TO ADD CHAT TO YOUR WEBSITE And WHY WE’RE HOLDING OFF ON WIKI OR WHAT IS WIKI? At first, I envisioned using wiki, which is an interactive document, for our website. My concern, however, is the required registration and being able to access it. So, I’m waiting to see what to do with wiki and am exploring chat. At the website link below, you can supposedly add free chat to your website. Let’s test it and see. Can you imagine how great this would be for your book’s website? You can schedule times that you will be live on your website. Awesome. http://www.everywherechat.com/addchat.asp Click here to visit Humdinger’s experimental chat room and leave a message for Chris. HOW TO MAKE A PODCAST Using my dear friend Google, I found out how to make a podcast, or audio broadcast for your website. It sounds amazingly easy (and you can hear samples) at the website listed below. Warning: it will make you want to become a radio star. Will Humdinger make podcasts? Sure, probably next year we will provide some seminars. http://reviews.designtechnica.com/guide31.html 11-14-05 GIVE A WRITER CREDIT GIVE A WRITER CREDIT You just wrote that damn brilliant opus. Fresh off the printer,your story sizzles like Aunt Jemima on hotcakes. Of course, you only spent google hours writing it. Chris worked diligently with you to edit and proofread. Then, you revised until sweat beaded on your forehead. Finally, the day came: publication date. The first of the month, Humdinger's punctual arrival. You can barely Well, people. You're right here. Give a writer what he or she lives for and let them know how much their stories amused, surprise, shocked, saddened, amazed you. Critique their poems and lavish our poets and writers with affection. Now. If you like something, let that writer or poet know today--before they croak from the breath-holding daze,awaiting Your approval. Come on, how often do you get the opportunity to make someone's day? Let the writers know what you think about their work by posting public letters at: DECORATING YOUR WEBSITE FOR FREE Delicious freebies. When you've got a website, it's Christmas year-round if you can locate free items to upgrade or improve it. Well, sometimes,those freebies are there, but you don't know how to locate them, or, more likely, you haven't thought to locate them. Right now, on Humdinger's home page, you'll see some animated figures (just wait until our Christmas issue!). Those are free to use. All you have to do is locate websites that offer free animated clip art. How can you find it? Oh, Google. I've been a fan of Google for years and so far, no one beats Google for finding content quickly and efficiently. Type in a few words to search. In this case, you might want to put [free animated clip art] or [free animated holiday clip art] and so on. Click on several websites to find the type of art you appreciate. In most cases, the free clip art is as easy as right click and save. Be sure to have a file, such as Internet Downloads, into which you regularly save images. You can then upload those images into your website Image Files. Oh, you lucky cat. Chris just gave you another life! 11-09-05 WRITING ASSISTANCE: WE ALL NEED IT EVALUATING WRITING MAGAZINES WRITING ASSISTANCE: WE ALL NEED IT When I read editors’ comments before, I might have found them stupid. After all, everyone knows to spell check, right? Uh, no. For a while, I had it in my head to provide a useful page for writers and readers to refer to when proofreading their work. Now, Humdinger offers you my Writing Help page with the Top 10 No-No’s on my list. Check them out; they’re darn evil. Number 1 angers me the most because typing classes really ought to have taught us how to format our manuscripts. Maddening. EVALUATING WRITING MAGAZINES Every writer knows he or she should subscribe to at least one writing magazine, but which one? Honestly, that depends on your needs. However, I will gently discuss the merits of several writing magazines in the near future on a special page (which I’ll probably title Writing Magazines). I purchased three magazines today and will analyze them for you in the near future. All of them offer useful information, which I’ll share in my review. Now, if I had to choose one. . . . (To be continued very soon!) 11-05-05 JACK OF GENRE THAT ALMOST WASN'T: NEWSLETTER NIGHTMARE ON WEBSTREET JACK OF GENRE THAT ALMOST WASN'T: NEWSLETTER NIGHTMARE ON WEBSTREET The recent issue of Jack of Genre is something I'm proud of, BUT it Luckily, I often work late when writing and sent Jack of Genre out when most of you were sleeping. I know, the first rule is ALWAYS SEND A TEST COPY TO YOURSELF BEFORE SENDING IT TO YOUR LIST. But I was excited and overconfident (you know that equals danger). So, I learned that lesson instantly and paid for it. But how to fix it? Remember my little Notepad trick? Copy documents from Word and paste into Notepad (under Accessories on your menu) when you're having text formatting problems. That's saved me more times than I can count. It worked too. Not only that, but surprise! Website Wizard had a Better format for my newsletter available and I only had to look around to find it. Now, Jack of Genre, the MUCH IMPROVED version is in color too! Voila. WRITERS: SOMETIMES, WE ONLY HAVE EACH OTHER In the recent issue of Jack of Genre, I shared some great stuff, such as my World Building ideas (which are great for fiction) and super savvy Book Marketing tips. I also mention meeting with the author of an awesome children's book and my top pick for Which Children's Book Do I Buy For This Kid for Christmas? This one: The Boy, The King, and The Chihuahua. This is the kind of children's book that adults secretly covet and hoard to themselves. The kind of book you hope to read night after night to your kid. No lie. If you care a whit about writing and creativity and dreams, then Salvador SeBasco's Salvador shared this with me today and I was awestruck. Great word and great feeling. While we talked and he discussed many aspects of his book, he also read it (at least parts of this 80+ page, age 3 to million-year-old children's book). And I thought, do his friends listen to this with rapt interest? I know his wife does; he's lucky to have a supportive and enthusiastic partner. But the rest? I suspect not. Writers have told me for years that it's hard to find friends and family that support your writing, enjoy it. Try to get someone 11-01-05 My Raging Poem Against Poverty November Issue of Humdinger and What I Learned Not do Do Note* Today’s Blog is lengthy but SUPER USEFUL. Take the time to read it because it will SAVE YOU TIME in the future! If you have a website or EVER plan to have one, read this blog. My Raging Poem Against Poverty First of all, I’d like to thank Middlepoet for inspiring me with the caliber of his work. It is true that we rise to meet expectations and I write better, become more inspired, when I work with other writers. In a positive sense only, I feed off the energy of other writers, which is the perfect justification to get you to join that writing group you were going to join but got too busy to do. That said, as Txpoet, I wrote a poem that did what my title today said, it raged against poverty. I read it to my first listener, a person generally not interested in poetry (ah, but This was Performance Poetry) and my listener cried. I’ve always wanted to make readers/listeners cry, mainly for a positive outcome, but to have that skill is rare, you must admit and so when you’re able to do that as a writer, it’s a big turn on and build up and inspiration. But, I did as Middlepoet suggested in his Performance Poetry article and wrote about something that I’m passionate about and I hate watching people suffer in poverty, so I got a raw onion and cut it open. If you’re brave, come into my kitchen and read that poem I wrote with me: You can click on this link and it will take you to the page. My poem is There is No Greater Gift to Give: An Attack on Poverty. The November issue of Humdinger and What I Learned Not to Do *Useful for those of you considering constructing your own literary websites in the future. SUPREMELY USEFUL AND TIME-SAVING INFORMATION! GETTING UPLOAD SPEED: I think most of us would like to please our readers in the same way. Make sure they don’t have to wait a million years to upload your website pages, offer quality content and have an easily to navigate site. As usual, easier said than done. But I have learned what not to do and am learning what I should do. For speed, what NOT to do is to pile all of your documents on one website page. The more writing, the longer it takes to upload. Likewise, that’s why I don’t have much animation on my website. More pictures + more animation=more time to upload=totally sucks. ORGANIZING PAGES: So, it would be logical to categorize writing into groups and place those groups of writing on alternate pages that link to your main page. The main page I’m referring to in this case is the Humdinger Literary E-zine page. From that page, I have links to a Mainstream Fiction and Narratives page, a Poetry page, a Comic Short Stories page and a Red Carpet page (where Middlepoet’s work is showcased this month). Still, I think the Mainstream Fiction and Narratives “page” will take time to upload because, though it has been categorized, I still had 40+ pages of written material on that page! At this point, you must be thinking, Man, November’s Humdinger equals close to 100 pages of written material. Not far from it! So, yes MORE USEFUL WEBSITE INFORMATION ORGANIZING PAGES: Tables are great for creating boxes for categories and adding color, BUT terrible for updating each month. I’m also convinced that the clickable boxes confused many readers. I don’t know why, but if you check other literary e-zines, or just zines, you’ll find that many use simple links to stories. If they are Small, which Humdinger is Not, then they could provide a separate page for each piece. If you’re going to do, as Elif Wisecup (a poet in this month’s Humdinger) is doing, a poetry website with a small amount of poems each month, go for it and publish one poem per page and link them all to the main page. Eventually, what I will do when I have associate editors is divide what we have into smaller chunks of pages that I can easily change each month. Since Humdinger is a multi-genre publication, we will divide our pages into genre. The problem was that this month, we didn’t have Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance or Mystery Represented. <sigh> Most writers submitted Mainstream, a combination of several genre and geared toward best seller-type fiction. MORE USEFUL INFORMATION . . . Yep, while I’m in the mood and have some time to share it . . . FORMAT: Hope you caught the point that if you plan to have an ongoing publication you CANNOT reinvent the wheel every month. Your time is valuable and better spent working with Content and not Format. Get a workable format, that is, decide which pages you’re going to have and how each page will look and link. Tables are not convenient to redo every month, so consider something simple. PICTURES/CLIP ART: I learned NOT to rely on clip art. I hate most clip art, anyway. They have some pretty crappy pictures, you’ve got to admit. Take your own pictures (as I have and continue to do). Even if you’re not a graduate level photographer, most people appreciate a decent picture and digital cameras, if they’re more than 2 megapixels (and sometimes even less for small pictures), make it pretty hard to screw up. And, you know not everyone knows this, but you MUST hold a digital camera still to get nice pictures. Fuzziness comes from moving that camera while taking shots. So, take a million pictures and keep the ones you like. Voila! KEEPING TRACK OF WHAT YOU’RE DOING: If you go to your Start menu on your computer and then go to Accessories, you will see an option for Notepad or Wordpad. Either is great to have open to take notes on what you’re doing with your website. I used my Notepad for the following: keeping track of authors’ emails and addresses, keeping track of emails on heavy days and the tasks I have to do, copying information from various sources, etc. FIXING FORMAT NIGHTMARES: Told you this information would be useful! Also, Notepad is GREAT when you cannot format something and need to reformat it. Take a Word document, for example, and it doesn’t fit right on your webpage. Okay, copy and paste that sucker into Notepad and then copy what you pasted into Notepad and try to paste it again on your webpage. Most of the time, that will fix a stupid format problem. As Website Wizard (my website hosts and I highly recommend them) told me, Notepad takes off extra code that somehow messes up format. GETTING THE RIGHT SIZE FOR WEBPAGES: Do NOT use average Word document sizes. You’ll have to change the margin of your pages so that your text will fit on the webpage so that virtually any computer monitor will have enough space for others to read what’s on your site. If text goes off their screen, can’t blame them for getting peeved. SAVING TIME DRAFTING FOR WEBPAGES: If it takes too long to type information onto a webpage (I can do that easily with Website Wizard), write your document first as a Word document or Notepad document and then copy and paste. Where I’m going next is still to find a free pdf compressor to compress whole issues of Humdinger. We will archive everything for our writers. As it does not profit us, you know it is for You. Writers should be able to say, “I had an article in Humdinger Literary E-zine last September and that article should remain there.” Finally, on WORKING WITH LIVE PEOPLE. Live people can be problematic. I know this from first-hand pestering. If you plan to have a website working with others, choose a way of running things that suits your style. The old adage, PLAN FOR THE WORST BUT EXPECT THE BEST is one I live by. Don’t give people who get upset with you a way to destroy you, if you can help it. Even friends get upset with one another and sometimes (though my current friends are not this type) your friends can even try to sabotage you. Business smarts would dictate that you trust others as far as you need to and remember wisely that people have off days and do weird stuff to one another out of spite. Protect yourself from rainy day problems and keep your hard work as safe as you can by sharing website codes, etc. with very few people (with no one if you can get away with it). REALITY: A website takes a phenomenal amount of time and upkeep. November’s Humdinger, though largely ready to go to print a week before November, took around 15 hours to get online. That does not count time spent emailing, copying and pasting documents, editing, reading, etc. That 15 hours was just spent copying and pasting onto the website, making links and archiving already prepared material. Like a wedding, you cannot expect all the pitfalls, but plan to have many. The effort is worth it, though, but only if you’re happy doing it. I find the process interesting and don’t mind it at all, not even the last-minute production. Pretty much once a month since college, I’ve had at least one all-nighter doing something. Getting November’s Humdinger up was an all-nighter. And guess what’s cool? I wasn’t alone for any of that time. People visited my website all night long! Neat, huh? Don’t let anything hinder your progress. Do what you must do and that is to discover and create your dreams. Pleasant dream making, writers, poets, readers—dream makers! 11-01-05 Listen to "The Raven" and Watch"Thriller" If you've come to read November's Humdinger, be patient! In the meantime, Chris has a surprise for you. You can listen to Basil Rathbone reading "The Raven" or watch Michael Jackson's complete "Thriller" video with these special Chris-found links: http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/raven/ Basil Rathbone reads "The Raven." Text of "The Raven" is on the same page. http://www.clipland.com/Video/908729029/# See Michael Jackson's "Thriller" before it disappears. The whole 13 minutes!Michael Jackson's "Thriller"ideo in its entirety. 10-31-05 E-zine Thoughts at 3 AM I’ve rested the past few days, knowing that the November issue of Humdinger’s coming. I’ve rethought much and have new surprise ideas for formatting the E-zine. Every month is my guinea pig edition, just waiting to become a new experiment in creativity and function. But for now, this requires a bit more rest. I’ve been at the e-mail most of the day and evening, addressing your concerns and submissions. What a wonderful lot of writers there are out there. Goodnight guys. Our Pirate Short Story Contest I was lucky enough to get Stephen Nichols of The Realm fame to judge Humdinger's Pirate short story contest. I had a feeling who would win, but I don't judge contests to allow entrants my impartiality, at least. Steve did a great job, even deciding to comment on each story (instead of just the winning entry) and provide what I'm sure he hopes is useful feedback for writers. Steve, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to help judge our contest and give us a few laughs besides! Do I agree with Stephen Nichols' choice of Alex Gundy's "The Story of Luc LeReut" as the winner? Yes. Alex Gundy was onto something when he wrote "The Story of Luc LeReut" and I think Al should immediately begin drafting that long-awaited pirate novel. I'll buy the first copy. My sincere congratulations, Al . . . and I mean it about that novel. For the other writers, I noticed some useful input regarding how to improve the stories and how to write grander short stories in general. I felt badly about Blick's story, though. Since we were in regular correspondence, I begged him to enter and he wrote something quickly, but his heart wasn't in it and he submitted a brief something as a favor for a friend. I loved the originality he brought into it by making it related to baseball. Steve commented that the story has long sentences, though I wouldn't say it's a case for run-on mania. For the record, Blick's far and away one of my favorite authors, particularly because he makes me laugh :-) What Steve pointed out that We All need to heed is that longer sentences tire modern readers. We need to consider this when drafting our short stories and novels. However, never leave your heart for your pocket. Sometimes, a writer's gotta do what a writer's gotta do.
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August 8 to October 21, 2005 10-21-05 About Humdinger Three (November) Humdinger Number Three November's running in quickly and soon, the November Reading Online Have you read most of the stories in the E-zine? Though it's not always easy to read online, I'm growing HURRICANE KATRINA JOKES WERE NOT WRITTEN BY GEORGE I didn't believe it when I read the list that was emailed 10-16-05 Let Me Know if Pages Take Too Long to Upload Let Me Know if Pages Take Too Long to Upload I have DSL and I've often wondered if some of you experience My plan for Speed is to create more pages for the Zine and links A Cool Contest Judge I've got a cool judge working on the Pirate Contest. I thought I Went to a Big Fat Greek Festival Friday Night, I went to a Big Fat Greek Festival and learned that *Notepad Wonders* Notepad is on most computers through your Start menu under Accessories. If you cannot format something you downloaded, paste it into Notepad and most of the time, it will strip formatting so you can repaste the text into another program. I've had to copy many documents and paste them into Notepad so far. I've also used Notepad to hold information and to take notes. I'm starting to like it. You can save Notepad information or not and I do a little of both. 10-13-05 Helping Writers Some of the writers I work with have to be wondering, Why is Chris doing all this to help me for free? I don't know. I certainly don't have to help with huge proofreading and edit jobs but I also understand the What Comes Around, Goes Around principle. Goodness begets goodness, guys. So, I help everyone I can and know that one day, I'll need some support. Right now, Humdinger's writers receive proofreading, editing and marketing assistance. They receive promotion through publication and our Brief and Bizarre Bios page with links to other examples of their work. Some of our writers already have some fans! Then, I provide private and specialized marketing assistance and planning. Each writer's case is different, anyway. Some need formatting help, while others need assistance with organization. Having a good proofreader is essential for writers. But I work with what I get and the results make me smile Every Day. So that's what I get out of helping our writers. 10-11-05 Exciting Things are Happening What kind of submissions are we getting at Humdinger Literary E-zine? Wow submissions. I’m particularly pleased with some comedy and literary fiction I received today. Laughed hysterically over one. I’m working with some authors who send in book chapters and I help with editing. The poetry submissions have been awesome and we’re getting responses from poet laureates. News spreads. I’m still trying to attract Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers, which amuses me, since they are not represented well by agents or e-zines. Still, I read almost any genre, so that's my vision for Humdinger. The writers I’m working with respond to my bust-my-butt editing and resubmit with us for future issues, so I have an awesome group of regular and prolific writers. I keep space open for new talent as well. Other zines are shocked that Humdinger is pulling off monthly editions. The work is demanding. E-mails alone would stagger any but the bravest of staffs. The process we use now is that, first, we receive a submission. Rarely are they perfect, so we make suggestions. Proofreading suggestions are about punctuation and spelling. Editorial suggestions regard clarity and coherence. This is where we indicate if we didn’t understand something or make suggestions for a cleaner manuscript. If the writer agrees (and most of the time they do, a typical response might be, “Your suggestions were dead on”), then we request a Brief and Bizarre Bio. Some of those are hilarious. Writers, and I include poets with that term, discuss funny things about themselves. More writers are sending links and pictures too, so it’s a community, not just an electronic magazine. November’s Humdinger E-zine is pretty full and we’re starting into December, with the exception of contest entries. We’re not getting many and I’m nonplussed. Writers would rather submit to us and get published without compensation. Honestly, though, with the editorial service we provide, that’s enough. I had to pay $150 one time to get 70 pages of text edited. Rates are up there. Still, which writer hasn’t dreamed of writing Want to enter a Writing Contest? This link will take you to three months’ worth of contests. Enjoy your time with us and appreciate how well our writers handle their craft. ‘Night, Chris
10-10-05 Get a Clock for Your Website, Why You Should Write Get a Clock for Your Website Just got the clock above at: The clock's set at Central Time Zone, by the way. I had to copy and paste the clock code into the code for this webpage, but I'm getting better at it. This website offers traditional face clocks, too, but I tried them before and they didn't work. Who complains about a freebie? Why You Should Write If you haven't seen my Songs of Inspiration page recently, you need to read it. According to Edgar Rice Burroughs (author of Tarzan), he wrote because he couldn't do any worse than what he was reading. Read more to convince yourself to write that next great novel.
10-09-05 Contest Judges, Inspiration, A Poem for Today Contest Judges If any of our contest entrants read this, good. I want you to know that I treat writing with urgency. Some call it passion, but to look at it, others might call it crazy. That's when they do not understand that urgency stems from passion. I am so passionate about writing that I want our writing contests judged on the day Humdinger is printed. Believe me, I have not yet found the right judges, though I have found qualified and witty judges, I still await their answers. As you may or may not know, I do not judge contests because I help most writers to refine their work. Therefore, it would not be fair. As our staff increases, as I hope it will next month, then I believe that we can have contests judged more rapidly. Inspiration Today, I added information about why and how Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of Tarzan and so much more, began writing. He inspired me, as do many other multi-genre authors and I think you'll find his story most inspiring: You can read it on our Songs of Inspiration page. A Poem for Today Recently, I found a Poem a Day website at: 10-07-05 Performance Poetry Though I've been busily working on Novembers's issue (!) of Humdinger, I still correspond frequently with authors and poets and enjoy it immensely. One thing I'm discussing with a poet right now is writing an article for us about performance poetry: the basics. Some call it Slam! Poetry. I think there are many varieties of performance poetry out there. What makes this different from Open Mike night at wherever? I guess we'll find out more about this in November . . . 10-05-05 One quote and One Beautiful Thought "We are the music makers, We are the dreamers of dreams" (Arthur O'Shaughnessy) Have you ever thought that, were it not for writers and poets, that the world could barely express its dreams? What if you never write that book? What if your dreams, your vision, change the world? Little do writers know their value in the world. 10-04-05 Strange but True Joke for the Day: In jest, I called someone a miscreant today and they thought I was cursing. Compassion, Cleaning Your Hard Drive and Captain Kirk does "Rocketman" Compassion Thank you everyone for sharing your concern with me over the rather frustrating creation of the October Humdinger E-zine. Thanks for letting me know when links don't work. Most of all, thank you for supporting Humdinger and its idea that writers and editors can actually have real relationships, not just form letters. Cleaning Your Hard Drive When I search for free software, I go to CNET and have not been disappointed. This particular blog makes suggestions about software that will help clean the "crud" out of your computer. If your computer's been running slow lately, you can bet there's something wrong and CNET usually has a solution. Here's their blog about these hard drive cleaners. The advantage is that They have already installed them into their computers and their computers are still living! http://blogs.download.com/Daily-Download/ Captain Kirk Does "Rocketman" I guess I couldn't be considered a Trekkie, but I did and do adore the orginal Star Trek. "Rocketman" While cruising CNET for necessary software, I encountered a link to William Shatner-yes, the Shatner of Star Trek fame- *reading* (as opposed to singing) this famous song. If we could be so lucky as to have such a person read our poetry one day, then we would be fortunate indeed. I was amazed at how mesmerizing the performance was, though I had seen it once before. http://video.download.com/3800-11171_53-5373.html 10-02-05 How the October Humdinger Almost Killed Me Many writers keep in touch with what’s going on at Humdinger through the Editor’s Blog, or as I sometimes type it, Ediot’s Blog, which may be truer about yours truly, Chris Goebel. Humdinger suffered a catastrophe. This will be Very Important if you would one day like to have your own website or e-zine. Today’s blog is also Important if you plan to publish your work online or deal with computers in your daily life. It also might be funny for a few of you because, as I’ve read, Funny is what doesn’t happen to you. Total time invested in the October edition of Humdinger from Friday to Saturday (with a 4-hour nap): 21 hours. I’m not done, but the work should have taken around 6 hours. Why did I go on with the overkill work? Because Chris Goebel does not like to let people down, Especially writers and poets! Here’s what happened: On due date, October 1st, nothing went right. Illness: A chest cold and hurt back muscle were the least of my problems. Computer Problems: My computer worked slowly, something slowed down work with Website Wizard and I had to switch computers to another computer whose keyboard tripped up the control switch, wiping out what I’d just written, sometimes up to five times in a row. File Problems: I have many drafts of writers’ works and some of the wrong drafts ended up in the October Humdinger E-zine and it took forever to change them and I’m not done. If you know about word processing, it took 13 seconds for me to highlight something and 18 seconds for me to create one link. When I typed, I did so blindly (which luckily I can do), because the lag between what I typed and it appearing on the screen was up to 30 seconds. Pictures: Some writers have sent in photos and I love that. However, photo files are tricky sometimes and some of them would not upload into either my computer or into my Website Wizard image file. I’m still working on this. Anchors and links: In the E-zine, you should be able to click on a writer’s name and the link will take you directly to that author’s work. Supposedly. I created anchors with the authors’ titles and then links to their names in the Table of Contents. Most of these strangely did not work. Some still do not. I’m working on that. I’m working on Everything. The Eight Lines Aced Poetry is still not up. The Pirate Short Story competition is still awaiting the judge’s final ruling on the winner, because the initial judge got caught up in something and I do not judge competitions. Why not? Because I help the writers prepare their work—even for competitions. I want you to have impartial judges and when I’ve edited for you, I’m no longer impartial. Most likely at that point, I think you’re cool and couldn’t choose between you and the other cool writers and poets. The Mystery Competition has a winner, but the story did not come through in proper format and we’re working on getting that before we publish and announce the winner. I’m copying and pasting this from Word because typing on Website Wizard is slow now. If you’ve read this far (and many will), I should add that Humdinger is getting major traffic and attention, which may be part of the delay. So far, I will work on corrections today and communication with Website Wizard to see how they can help me get speed up. If you get your own website, here’s my advice: 1. Keep everything in neat folders, the fewer the better. 2. Save everything in those folders onto a disk or CD-R, every day, if possible. The world’s not perfect and one day, your computer might crash or a server might go out of business. 3. Double check everything. 4. Have access to a back-up computer. 5. Protect your computer with more than one type of spyware detector and virus protection. 6. Erase your cookies regularly to keep the speed up on your system. And there’s more, but those are today’s thoughts. Meanwhile, thanks for hanging out with me and Humdinger. We think you’re cool. Your imperfect, yet dedicated and never-quitting editor, Chris Goebel 9-29-05 The October HUMDINGER
and Future Plans for the Website As many of the writers here know, I've spent a great deal of time assisting writers with editing and proofreading. Sometimes, if the piece is great, I spend up to two hours working on an edit. I know what it is to get a rejection letter and I always found them the biggest waste of time. Is my point to ignore writers that need tips? Not in my opinion. Because I care so much about writing and people, I'll spend time to assist new writers. Our October Humdinger writers are so varied that I thought last night some people would treat me as they did Bob Dylan: praise me on one side and boo/hiss the other. That's bound to happen with a multi-genre e-zine. I'm cool with it. Check our October Zine out on October 1st. It should look continually better from that day to the following days. Did anyone wonder how many hours it takes to put out an issue of the e-zine? Enough to discourage most editors from considering a monthly issue. In fact, you'll notice that some e-zines are quarterly and some can't promise consistent delivery. Never fear, Chris is here! I'm a totally writer/poet lovin' editor. I've been thinking of new ways to help writers on the website. Future Plans for the Website First of all, I'd like to add a handy page about the basic format for submissions. For example, we should single space for an online publication and only use one space between sentences, not two, as I was taught in business typing. Writers need a cheat sheet for punctuations tips, such as when to use colons, dashes, parenthesis and semi-colons. This page should be up by mid October. Also, I'd like to add members only sections to the website for contributors. With Website Wizard, I can make some pages password protected and share the password with a specific group. If you have ideas for Members Only Pages, send me an e-mail at: I also would like to have an interactive blog for writers, but I've got to find one. I'd like to work on some collaborative stories and will be exploring new ways to accomplish that online. 9-26-05 New Writing Contests What are Anchors? New Writing Contests After hearing from multiple writers about needing some incentive (cash preferably) to write, Humdinger now has Paying contests. Writers do Not pay an entry fee. Please help me make this one of the greatest e-zines by submitting fantastic work, because I care enough about writers to dig into my own pockets (which aren't too deep) to show you that Unforgettable writing matters. If you've submittted to us already, then you understand that we do more than we have to do for you, because we Want You to Succeed. Check the New Writing Contests on our Writing Contests page. There are many categories of fiction and poetry to inspire you. What are Anchors? If you've visited a web page and clicked on some words to take you further down the page, then they used an anchor to help save you time. I've been using anchors on the E-zine and Writing Contest pages for your convenience. Consider adding them to your web pages so that your readers don't have to always scroll down the page to get to where they want to be. If you have Website Wizard, which currently costs Humdinger $30 a month, then anchors are pretty easy to use . . . and I can help you, since I know somehting of Website Wizard. 9-24-05 Speculative Fiction Versus Journals A Sound of Thunder Hurricane Rita I recently read somewhere that teaching had ruined more great writers than anything. I can't help but wonder if that is because teaching often focuses on facts: biographies, narratives, autobigraphies—literature as it pertains to history. Students are taught to journal about their thoughts on topics. Few students or teachers are encouraged to speculate or wonder about future events, beings, or technology. A Sound of Thunder Take, for example, A Sound of Thunder. I'm thankful that Bradbury speculated about time machines and the ramifications those could have on history. If a time machine is invented, then we have already experienced, through literature, possible mistakes that we do not have to make. All from a short story. Instead of rambling on about his relationships, Bradbury concerned himself with the future of mankind. Makes you consider what you're writing or reading, doesn't it? Is Science Fiction or Fantasy a vital part of society? Hurricane Rita Texas has its own hurricane now. We're lucky to experience only the inconveniences of a natural disaster: flooding, running out of gasoline, family members moving all over the place, loss of electricity, plumbing and/or water, crowded or closed roadways, empty supermarkets . . . But so many are alive and well. Few homes damaged so far. In central Texas, not much is happening. Not even rain yet. Count our blessings, that we should. 9-15-05 Internet Scams and Topica? What are Phishing and Pharming? How to Avoid Scams, Phishing and Pharming : Links You might remember that I was upset about registering with a Topica group because of the number of forms I had to complete. My thought was that they sold our information to others. In other words, for the "free" groups, Topica provided our information to companies and individuals interested in our demographic. I mentioned that I had registered for nothing else and had NO Spam e-mails or unsolicited e-mails. Phishing and Pharming After Topica . . . Daily I receive at least two e-mails that are Spam. Dangerous spam. Had I not had protection yesterday, I would have received a Trojan computer virus from one of those innocent-looking e-mails. I received a supposedly Christian e-mail that offered me money (a scam) and a fake PayPal e-mail that said my account needed to be fixed. Ha! I don't have a PayPal account! An E-bay e-mail came to me requesting that I update my E-bay information. Another scam I already knew about. The PayPal and E-bay scams are actually examples of Phishing, a way of obtaining important information about you, such as credit card information. Who knows what they plan to do with that . . . Also, these e-mails may do Pharming, which creates false websites (which may even resemble E-day, PayPal, etc.) that direct your computer to them through spyware programs uploaded into your computer. I received an additional scam, this time claiming they were African and wanted to give me money. Come on! Who wants to give a stranger money? Right. No one. Then, I got—yes another!—e-mail that just looked suspicious. Something about my account. Do I think Topica is responsible? Yes, I think they did provide lists of information to paying customers or to companies that sell these lists. No one else had access to my Humdinger information . . . How to Avoid E-mail Viruses To be safe, never open e-mail from someone you don't know. They'll try to make it sound important. Do not download anything from someone you don't know. And if E-bay or Paypal have questions, let them Call you on the telephone. Humdinger information and Jack of Genre Newsletter will come labeled as such in your e-mail mailbox. If the editor of Humdinger sends you an e-mail, it should mention your work or Humdinger in the heading. We do provide lists to others and never will. It's not worth it to us to jeopardize anyone's privacy or computer system. When corresponding with us, mention your writing or our e-zine to let us know that it's Friendly Mail. How to Avoid E-mail Scams, Phishing, Pharming and Other Crap You Don't Want Most scams can be located with a simple Google search. Type in a few words related to the questionable topic plus the word "scam." Most likely, your topic will come up within the first three choices. Here are websites you may find useful: http://www.ifccfbi.gov/strategy/pressroom.asp http://www.scambusters.org http://www.antiphishing.org/ 9-14-05 Looking to Science for Inspiration Hurricanes Katrina, Andrew and Ophelia SpaceShipOne and Voyagers 1 and 2 The Harvest Moon Including Great Science Sites! Observation: When you smell oncoming rain, do you smell the salt in the air? I do. Is it any wonder that oceans are salty? Hurricane Katrina: "Here Lies Vera" and Hurricane Andrew What do you think of Michael Jackson's efforts to raise money for Hurricane victims? Just wondering. Currently, Texas has around 240,000 evacuees from the Hurricane Katrina devastation, a large part of those from Louisiana. Houston received thousands in its Astrodome. In Austin, evacuees are getting set up with housing and attending school. 150 Austin companies held a job fair for Katrina refugees. Even as a neighbor to Louisiana, its hard to grasp such a large catastrophe. I visited New Orleans' Channel 4 Blog at: and some slideshows from the same site to learn more of the impact the hurricane had on the area. There, I saw a picture of Vera's tomb. Apparently, Vera died on the sidewalk and her body remained there for a few days until someone buried her. The sign over the tomb said, "Here Lies Vera. God Help Us." For some reason, that said it all for me. To comprehend large things, we must sometimes break them up into parts. Though I survived my personal experience with Hurricane Andrew (Miami) of 1992, I cannot compare Andrew to Katrina because Katrina caused such rampant flooding, which resulted in so many tradegies. Hurricane Ophelia My exploration of the topic led to Hurricane Ophelia, which was a category 1 this morning and will hopefully fizzle out before it hits the North Carolina coast. I lived in North Carolina when Hurricane Hugo hit the North Carolina coast. Though I lived 3 hours inland, the hurricane spawned 7 tornadoes and caused quite a bit of damage in Raleigh. SpaceShipOne Today's exploration took me further to http://www.space.com, an incredible website. I learned of SpaceShipOne and its recent venture almost 41 miles into space. Get this, according to an article at Space.com, if you travel 50 miles into space, then you are an astronaut. Hmm. Voyagers 1 and 2 At Space.com and http://www.nasa.gov, I also researched Voyagers 1 and 2, to learn that they launched in 1977, 9 months apart. The planets had aligned so that the spacecraft could jump from one planet's gravitational field to another. Both are currently traveling out of our solar system and are expected to send us data until the year 2020. Voyager 1 has traveled farther than any known spacecraft. Harvest Moon The Harvest Moon arrives on Saturday, September 17. It will appear brighter and the day and night hours should be pretty evenly distributed, to roughly 12 hours of each. If science isn't inspirational, I don't know what is. New discoveries inspire me to write science fiction/fantasy stories. My scientific background isn't strong enough to write pure science fiction, but I enjoy the ideas of science, in the same manner H.G. Wells and Edgard Rice Burroughs did. Speaking of, it bothered me today to realize that Tarzan was a fantasy story. I love fantasy, but Tarzan has always seemed Real to me. Tot ziens, a Dutch farewell. 9-12-05 Still Thinking of 9-11 and Thinking Like Leonardo, DaVinci, that is Still Thinking of 9-11 I'm glad that so many people found the links listed in my September 11th blog moving. If you haven't seen them, take the time to view them (below today's entry) and learn something new about yourself. Thinking Like Leonardo, DaVinci, that is If your creative genius is on a picnic, visit the website of the author of _How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci_. Michael Gelb has a brief video you can watch. http://www.michaelgelb.com/HomePage.php What I learned from reading this book was too much to list here. However, one of my favorite things was about DaVinci's journaling. Most people know of DaVinci's backward handwriting, but he also completed artistic and scientific studies of nature, particularly birds. He studied their flight, wings and habits. From his notes on nature, DaVinci developed one of the first hang gliders. What can you learn from observation? 9-11-5 Not Forgetting 9-11 Author Mark Blickley, Artist Barbara Friedman and 9-11 I could have said "Remembering 9-11," but I'm not sure we are. Check the links below and see whether you recall as much of 9-11 as you thought you did.
http://www.thinkandask.com/2005/200508159112001target.html
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/media/tribute/tribute.html http://www.fdnylodd.com/BloodofHeroes.html
http://www.cantcryhardenough.com/ Well, Americans, do you recall September 11th as well as those who live in New York? 9-10-05 Cursing, Ellipsis ... or . . . ? Space Opera and Lurking Cursing After my previous entry, I received feedback that told me I should not inflict my views concerning profanity upon others. Those weren't my views. They were a discussion regarding the use of profanity on the Internet and whether cursing is still allowed on the Internet (apparently so). Personally, I"m more inclined than the next person to spew a litany of vulgar language when I stub my toe. Akin to most Southerners, I know how to curse beautifully. Because of the permanency of fiction, however, I restrain myself when writing and seek alternative forms of expression. Of course, I'm not getting my toe stubbed when I'm writing, either. Er, not usually . . . Ellipsis How do you punctuate ellipsis, ... or . . . ? According to The Chicago Manual of Style (I'm using the 14th), it's . . . , with a space after the preceding and a space after the following words. Space Opera At Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), they discussed L. Ron Hubbard's concept of space opera, in which extraterrestrail beings get involved in Earthlings' lives. According to today's article, " . . . the modern-day science fiction genre of space opera is merely an unconscious recollection of real events from millions of years ago." Fact or fiction? Given the variety of conflicting stories, I would disagree. Speculative fiction writers view the future and past in myriad ways. Care to argue the point? E-mail me at: Editor@humdingerzine.com Lurking Have you been lurking? According to The Sacred Hall of Computer and Internet Terms and Acryonyms (http://www.pchell.com/acronyms/), lurking occurs when you visit online forums and chat rooms and observe without responding. You lurker! 9-7-05 Profanity on the Internet and Feedback on Topica Is profanity on the Internet legal? Of course, we've seen it everywhere, but I wanted to know what's going to happen. After all, Bono got in trouble for saying the f-word . . . but not on the Internet. Television and radio are more restricted by the FCC. Because of filters, I guess, the assumption is that children will not necessarily be exposed to profanity and worse things on the Internet. Filters may protect some of our privacy, too. You know that we have the right to "life, liberty, and the pusuit of happiness," but only so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others. Since filters guarantee that parents can control profanity, etc., then our rights to speak relatively freely on the Internet should be protected. According to Traditional Values Coalition at Current proof that profanity must be legal is from: http://www.satirewire.com/news/0105/profanity.shtml What is your take on profanity on the 'Net? Should any words be taboo? Let me know at: Editor@humdingerzine.com Feedback on Topica So far, I've only received one spam at my new e-mail after signing up for a Topica group and, for what it's worth, Topica did register me for the group I had selected, though they did not indicate it to me that day. For simplicity of use, though, Yahoo Groups are easier for sign-up. 9-5-05 (P.M.) Jack of Genre Newsletter for Writers and I HateTopica Today, the first issue of Jack of Genre Newsletter for Writers was delivered to subscribers. I'm assuming that many of my readers will be like me: a writer who needs to promote his or her work through various marketing methods. One of those methods would be the creation of a website. Another would be creating an e-zine. Future issues of the newsletter will give readers tips and shortcuts to create their own newsletters and websites. Jack of Genre also provides links to useful websites and I urge readers to check them all out to discover why I recommend these links. I'm picky about links in general. I reject sites that take too long to upload, are confusing, or difficult to navigate. Finally, Jack of Genre offers creative ideas, because the work world robs us of our creativity and we need to get it back. Often, writers for Humdinger receive challenges from me. I try to do everything I can to help writers write. It's like giving a pot full of gold away and it feels great. Jack of Genre registration: I Hate Topica I read today that one of the advantages of a blog is that you get the straight opinion of the writer. No one is paying me to say I like this or that. Well, I hate Topica! I went to join an e-zine ad swap and had to join Topica to get to the e-zine ad swap group. I had to go through at least ten pages of ads to consider, many with tricky wording to convince me to subscribe to something. At the end, I could no longer find the group I went in to sign up for this evening. I used a new e-mail address for the Topica registration, so you can bet that I"ll let you know if they send me junk e-mail, because so far, that e-mail receives 0% junk/spam. How do you like them apples? 9-5-05 (Early A.M.) Advertising Your E-zine and Errors Writers Make Advertising Your E-zine Today, I submitted my e-zine's website, humdingerzine, to more search engines. Search engines take time to get your website listed, though they do not charge, especially if you are a non-commercial site (You can register with Alexa, for example, at: http://www.alexa.com ). I also listed the website with e-zine lists, which provide a link back to my site. This is valuable, since many search engines use outside links to your website to determine its popularity (An exmaple of an e-zine list would be: http://www.ezinehub.com ). Finally, I advertised my writing contests with online bulletin boards to get both readers and writers. Most sources state that it will take a year to get your site well-represented online, so keep that in mind when planning your website or e-zine.
Errors Writers Make I'm seeing serious writing errors and place part of the blame on editors. Why? We receive submissions and have the opportunity to let briliantly talented people know what they need to do to make their work marketable. How can editors ignore this and send and resend rejection slips that teach the writer nothing about the publishing industry and its expectations? How many writers do we lose to this ridiculousness? Checking for Spelling Errors Enough said, Fred. What else can writers work on to enhance their writing? First of all, use http://www.dictionary.com to check the spelling of words. If you have a spell checker, do not trust it as the final authority. Many words have more than one possible spelling, such as your, you're or there, their, they're. Finally, print your work and proofread. Some suggest to read your story/poem backwards to help you locate improperly spelled words. Punctuation Use style manuals (I recommend The Chicago Manual of Style) to format correctly and use standard spellings and punctuation. Does the word need a hyphen? How do I use quotation marks? The style manuals tell us. I do not like The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, because it has far too few listings, but you must consider its purpose, which is to provide a uniform standard for a specific publication. Don't forget, you can get manuals affordably at discount book stores. Here are two online style manuals that provide quite a bit of useful information: The Chicago Manual of Style The Elements of Style from William Strunk, Jr. Dialogue Readers need to hear dialogue. Get a book you like and observe how the writer punctuates dialogue. That is how you must do it. If you read, then you have excellent examples in your own home. Have you heard the term, show, don't tell? That often refers to the author telling us what was said (She told him that she didn't like the job.), instead of showing us what was said ("You're a heartless creep and I'm quitting before I bash you over the head with this Twinkie," she cried.). The latter example provides deepter insight into the character. Organization Lose the reader and they can't finish your story. They're lost! The best way to avoid losing your reader is to draw a good map. Know what's going to happen in the beginning, middle and end of each story. Problems with chronological order are the biggest difficulties I've seen writers experience from the submissions I've read. Draw a timeline to help you organize those thoughts. Maps, timelines and drawings are not for immature writers; they are concrete tools for writers to ensure that readers get the maximum enjoyment out of reading their stories. 8-31-05 Organizing an E-zine I have learned how to work so much that I do not sleep. Though I'm quick, editing is a full-time job. Organizing an e-zine is another job altogether. First of all, I highly recommend buying a website creator, such as WebsiteWizard, that provides short- cuts to add the cool things you want to add tp your website/e-zine. Creating your own HTML survey might look lovely, but I would have made 10 surveys with WebsiteWizard in the time it took you to make 1 survey of your own. Next, draw pictures of your pages in the order you want them. Look at many websites and make notes regarding the ones you like. You'll get your best ideas from this. While you're making the website, if you haven't created folders for everything, you're going to be very confused. For example, I have regular submissions coming in from many writers. Now, I've created a folder for each writer's e-mail. But, I have another file, the editing file, that I save apart from the e-mail and upload to the site. Edited files are named by author and sometimes month, as well. Then, all _Humdinger #1_ files are placed in one big folder. That's the only way you can Almost keep track of everything. The Dreaded B-Word: An Attack on Women? One of my writers is going to offend someone. Well, the great thing would be if all of us could offend someone and then we would claim fame with the shame of it all. What's the offense this time? One of my writers used the B-word, the word women hate with a passion. It's probably caused more slapped faces than pinched butts have. Why did I allow it? After all, it was used in the classic sense: male is angry at female; male calls female the B-word. (I'm not afraid of the B-word at all. I just think it's funny to say it that way, as B-word). Is it all right to let writers make derogatory remarks about the opposite sex? Is fiction a slice of reality? Sometimes, we have to examine things we do not like, people, in order to understand one another. In this case, I wonder, what caused the writer to be so angry at women? Perhaps that's an issue women don't want to explore? What, exactly, is a bitch? A dog? An angry woman? If you know what the word Really means to men and care to define it, e-mail me so I can post some suggestions here. 8-26-05 America Responds to Humdinger It's an exciting time to be an editor. I've got submissions coming in from all corners of America (and some of the round places). My listings at Craig's Lists were truly helpful in letting writers and poets know about Humdinger. Do you ever wonder what kind of writing editors get? Most of it is quality work, at least what I've seen. Of course, too, just about every writer has to refine his or her work before that final submission. What do most writers need to correct? Hold on, my vision went blurry for a second...too long at the keyboard... Tips for Improving Your Writing Start with the "nugget," that little piece of gold, such as some bizarre dialogue or action to get the reader's attention. Avoid too much exposition. That's the storytelling. Let the characters' actions and words tell the story. Make it as easy for editors/agents/publishers as possible by using simple text documents. Few editors use WordPerfect now, though that used to be my *favorite* editing program. Many people don't like attachments because they can hold viruses, so send manuscripts by copying and pasting them into the e-mail. Avoid needless repetition. I do this. In your writng, check to see how often you say the same words. Is it necessary to repeat them? Get a strong editor. Nothing stops great fiction like a spelling error or confusing language. Double check your work and then get someone else to check for you. If they don't find areas for improvement (unless it's a very short poem), you need a new editor. I hope these tips help you write efficiently, clearly and prosperously! 8-24-05 Happy Birthday, Mom and The Editor's Life Happy Birthday, Mom. To a wonderful woman who has inspired in me a beautiful love of books, which has transformed into a twisted, unstoppable, insatiable addiction that has serious mind control over me and won't let me stop writing and will probably give me carpal tunnel syndrome and... Yet, reading and writing make me tremendously happy... Writers think that editors are slack for not personally responding to them. I still miss that personal touch and luckily, I'm not too busy (yet) to reply to writers with my own typing. However, since I posted Calls for Submissions, life changed. For example, it's almost 4 am and I finished reading submissions about an hour ago. Now, I'm too hyped to sleep and my shoulders ache. Fortunately, the writers received their personal responses. In many cases, I offered suggestions, such as, "Buy a car and give it to me;" you know, useful stuff. Truly, a good editor is essential. I can easily fix errors and can get straight to the heart of a piece. It worries me that I might hurt someone's feelings, but I'm delicate with the subject: "Your writing reminds me of two week old cottage cheese with a little bit of pineapple in it." I also make a serious attempt to respect the writer or poet's style: "Here, write like me. I'll let you copy my story and then put your name on it. Wait a minute. Better put my name on it." Of course, I have a good editor friend to double-check me, too: "Chris, you forgot how to spell your name again!" After all, editors suffer more than anyone else when they have errors in their own writing! See example below: Announcement to the World, All Kingdoms in the World and Other People Too: Chris Goebel made a mistake today and will be flogged publicly with an empty water bottle. We haven't decided where the flogging will take place, but on a Cartoon T.V. Station sounds appealing. The offensive mistake will be published for all eternity and the idiotic document is to be worn as a shirt for Chris, so that we may all mock and torment the wayward editor. 8-21-05 I am Stupid, Nice to Meet You What exactly is a brain fart? It is a moment such as the one I just had. Let me elaborate. I created this blog and consistently entered entries At the Bottom of this text box. I don't know about you, but I bet that if you were regularly reading the blog, you'd like to get it at the Top of the Page and not scroll down to the Netherpage regions to find out what's happening next to me. Tip: Writing a blog? Enter new entries at the Top of the Page. Don't you feel brilliant? I swear, you're learning valuable things here that will save you eons of time. Eons, friends. Just think, you learned here. Learned from a stupid person. 8-20-05 Colorized Writing: Write Me a Rainbow It's amazing what a kick writers get out of colorizing their writing. Let me explain: Humdinger gives writers a choice of background and font colors. Writers I thought wouldn't care, do. As Publish on Demand capabilities increase, I foresee that writers will be able to select fonts, font sizes and colors. Maybe, publishers will use colored paper for books to allow versatility in background colors as well. For now, I think color is a much-needed addition to writing. After all, our society is becoming more entertainment-oriented. Think of the atmosphere colored books can create. As a reader, I can get closer to the writer and perhaps slip into the same color-saturated mood. Fonts: Font-do, Font-don't Fonts, on the other hand, are still limited. While I can certainly provide my story or poem in any font, not just any browser can read it! That's what we have to watch out for on our websites. After all, we write for our readers and should make our writing as accessible as possible. 8-18-05 Word Documents and Websites: Take Out the Garbage I use Microsoft Word, by default, I guess. So, I took files for Humdinger, edited in Word and pasted them into the website. According to the wonderful Website Wizard tech who helps me, Word adds a lot of HTML garbage. In other words, it might screw up your page because it adds extra steps. The tech recommended Notepad for editing and I find that formatting Notepad-edited documents are easier. Great tip! 8-17-05 Website Wizard to the Rescue! Fixing E-mail Links WebsiteWizard came through! I'm so proud of them and so happy with my decision to go with this company. The logo creator had changed and they're trying to restore it. I couldn't get the links to e-mails set up because the links needed mailto: added before the e-mail address. There should be no space between mailto: and the address, such as in mailto:bozo@... That's not a real link, so I can't help you if you click on it. To get Website Wizard, go to my links page. Artella E-zine #8, A Dream Mag! Hey, I got Artella #8 today and Wow!! First of all, the digital collages really are an art form. There were pages and little envelopes holding a mini-magazine, and even writing seeds, objects that inspire writing. A CD accompanied the magazine with songs for various poems. There are contests too involving stories and art. I truly forgot the rest of the world while I experienced Artella. The objects, such as a ticket and a 1940's-style picture of a long-nailed beauty playing guitar, almost instantly inspired me. If I'd only had a pen in hand! Artella is a literary turn-on, what better compliment! See my links page to get it! 8-15-05 Logo Problems: Leggo My Logo! I lost my logo! One of the things that convinced me to use Website Wizard was the logo creator, which included nice backgrounds as part of the logo. When I edited the site today, I noticed my logo was gone and the logo creator has changed to no longer allow the logo. Naturally, I'll send an e-mail to them to see just how good they are. Website Wizard reps have to do two things: 1) fix the problem and 2) have patience with me. Wish them luck! 8-14-05 Writing 101 and Vocabulary: What's in a Word? Today, I revisited Jennifer Stewart's Writing 101 site and remembered how much I adore her use of vocabulary. She can write a page about one word. One of the articles there mentioned readability and how copywriters, I believe, aim at 8th grade readability. A Wrinkle in Time, The Outsiders, and A Raisin in the Sun are 8th grade novels... Should writers aim at higher vocabulary to encourage rich vocabulary in our readers, or should we settle for being easily understood? Someone once told me a book impressed them because the first page had a word they didn't know. I still write novels with a dictionary close at hand and sometimes open to any page to find a new word. I resubscribed to Jennifer Stewart's newsletter to get the vocabulary refreshers. It feels good. Are you writing? To join Jennifer Stewart's newsletter, go to my links page. 8-11-05 Webrebates Spyware: Wish I Could Give Them a Rebate! The cacophony the words make in my head now! Webrebates is a malicious twit of a spyware that upset website production yesterday and today. Don't know how I got the spyware, but it has many spiteful children that cause it to regenerate like maggots on rotting meat. What to do? Flame thrower? I did a Ctrl+Alt+Del to determine if any programs were tying up my system. I knew I didn't download a stupid program called webrebates, who would? Don't answer that... Cnet and Google helped me discover that it was spyware. I couldn't find any free spyware remover for webrebates. Spyware Detectors Long story short: when everyone in your family demands that you get a spyware detector and you insist that you know you don't need it and that spyware detectors are spyware themselves, because You are So much ahead of the game...Give it up. Get the spyware detector. 8-9-05 What's in a Name? My friend, Heather, had a baby boy today (technically she had him on the 8th, but I've been writing late at night when the house is quiet). His name is Lelan and I discovered that 7 pounds and 7 ounces weighs quite a bit when you hold him for a while! Incidentally, what's in a name? What would a character that you name Lelan be like? Maybe you can e-mail me those thoughts to share with Heather. Deadlines: Death for Creativity? This reminds me of deadlines and how life interferes with business. When I say "deadline" to writers, their creativity freezes and they suddenly have a million things to do or many reasons why they do not have the time to write. Why? Maybe people slow down for deadlines because of the way they think about a situation. What if you consider a writing deadline a challenge? That's the way I think of it and due dates don't bother me. Well, they make me nervous... The point is, as many famous authors will agree, to write and not stop until you're done. 8-8-05 Dreamweaver for Dunces How do great things begin? With hard work. I've been working on Humdinger's site for weeks, at least planning how to do it and I'm still clueless. I discovered I'm a Dreamweaver dunce. Am I the only person who can't figure it out for myself? With the Dreamweaver for Dummies book, no less. Website Wizard for Wonderful Luckily, I found www.websitewizard.com. I needed something user friendly. Bravenet.com was recommended to me and they have tons of cool things to add to your site, but Bravenet did not cater to the Internet ignorants, such as yours truly. Artella E-zine My goal would be to have a writers' site like Artella (http://www.artellawordsandart.com/), though I've discovered that a simple format for a website takes enough time. Far more pages than you can imagine. Let's put it this way, if you haven't made a website yet, don't plan to do it in a day. Or a week. Save Time on Website Construction What saved me the most time so far, besides the wonderful websitewizard (they are not paying me and likely don't know me yet)-well, what saved the most time was drawing a site map, pictures of each page I needed on Humdinger's website. Of course, I needed more pages than I anticipated. Well, it's 5 a.m. and the last day of my summer vacation. How a website eats time. I hope that many people will get joy from it and mostly, I hope that I will inspire and help writers from all over the world. Like I say, think big. |
