Seven Techniques You Must Know To Get Editors To Notice Your Poetry

The Writer's Relief Staff has published Seven Techniques You Must Know To Get Editors To Notice Your Poetry

1-Skip the rhyme.
2-Keep it short.
3-Submit three to five poems per submission.
4-Avoid clichés.
5-Steer clear of one-word title
6-Use eye-catching titles.
7-Develop a strong bio

These are the bullets - but the entire post is well worth reading if you really want to get your poetry noticed. Stop by Writer's Relief today to read the full article.


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Blessings on your journey.

Hope Be Undismayed

I just made a blog post at Christian Women Take Root, entitled Hope Be Undismayed.

Yesterday God put on my heart that there was a deep need for hope. It seems that every day the world bombards us with reasons NOT to hope! We must always remember that the One in whom we hope is faithful!

He is the Alpha and Omega God. The God who created hope itself.

Be undismayed, my friends. Stop by the post to be uplifted and find scriptural references that may help you make it through whatever you are experiencing in your life that is eating away at your hope.

Blessings,
Mary

Gadgets and Stats and Blogging, Oh My!

Far from being an expert at any of the "high-techie" aspects of blogging, I do pick up some tricks of the trade along the way. If I see something that I think is interesting and/or could be helpful in my desire to "spread the news" about my blog posts, I try to figure it out, look for tutorials on-line, or just plain ask the person with the fuction I would like to have how to do it.

I haven't had anyone tell me to figure it out on my own! Quite the contrary! I have found without exception that bloggers are very helpful and supportive of each other. So I am going to act in kind and share the few tips I've learned in an effort to pay it forward -- or backward -- or whatever:-)

*I installed a gadget called a Stat Counter on each of my blogs. It measures how many visitors I have at each blog on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and since I began the blog. I didn't do this because I wanted to feel good (or not so good as the case may be:-) about myself. I am, of course, interested in knowing how many people I'm reachng, but I had another reason:

*****I am going to track over time which blogs have the highest traffic on certain days. In other words, so far one of my blogs had almost double the normal number of hits on both Saturday and Monday. I'm going to track the pattern for a few weeks on a the blogs.
*****Once I determine the heaviest days in terms of visitors, I'm going to post some "teaser" posts or begin a series on one of the heavier traffic days. Then I'll announce that the next installment will be published on XXX, one of the less busy days. My hope is that this will bring visitors back to the blog more often.

*I also recently installed a Share This button. Each time I make a new post I click on this button and a window opens to allow me to share my post (post a link) at several (many) social networking sites including, myspace.com, facebook.com, twitter and others. That means that every time I post something, a host of people will receive notice of it and I don't have to email people or manualy post a link on all these sites.

I have been offering my services locally to help other Christian writers set up their blogs, help them with functionality, etc. As I stated, I am far, far from an expert! But I have more than a basic understanding and am more than willing to help others. We're all in this together!


Watch for the lightbulb in future posts! These will be the posts where I share the "cool stuff" I've discovered. If there is a function or a feature you would like me to look into, leave me a comment. I'm game to try to figure it out!

Definitions of Some Literary Terms

I found these definitions at Guide To Literary Agents Editors Blog and thought they might be of interest.

Family Saga: A story that chronicles the lives of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time.

Hook: Aspect of the work that sets it apart from others and draws in the reader/viewer.

Mass Market Paperbacks: Softcover books, usually 4x7, on a popular subject directed at a general audience and sold in groceries, drugstores and bookstores.

Subagent: An agent handling certain subsidiary rights, usually working in conjunction with the agent who handled the book rights.

Remainders: Leftover copies of an out-of-print or slow-selling book purchased from the publisher at a reduced rate. Depending on the contract, a reduced royalty or no royalty is paid to the author on remaindered books.

TOC: Table of contents. A listing at the beginning fo a book indicating chapter titles and their corresponding page numbers. It can also include brief chapter descriptions.

To see a comprehensive list posted on their blog, click here.

Crayon Chronicles Won A Fabulous Blog Award!

My dear bloggy friend, Sitka the Therapy Dog gave my Crayon Chronicles blog a "Fabulous Blog Award!.

I'm so pleased to have been chosen! I shared at the other blog that I think his mom, Andrea, may have unduly influenced him, but that's okay by me:-)

Stop by Crayon Chronicles and check out the award.

Writing Stars from God

Just when we think we've "got it" all figured out, we realize that we need to be diligent about the areas of our lives that are not as we would like? OK, I'll be a little more transparent. I love, absolutely love, to write! Anything! About anything! I also love to read and blog and surf the net. When you're a writer, especially a Christian writer with a definite call on your life, these activities can vie for time and attention, can circumvent my creativity and wisdom, and worse of all distract me from what God desires me to be doing with the gifts He gave me!

So it's a bit ironic that I'll be speaking about "Your Idea to God's Plan" at the end of April, don't you think? There is definitely an irony in that and I will certainly share that at the conference:-) While I'm being completely transparent, I will confess I have a competitive streak. No, I don't care if I win a game of scrabble or monopoly. I just fight my perfectionism and so if I fail in a goal or a plan I can really get aggravated with myself.

I started writing at helium.com a long time ago. I've written articles on all kinds of topics and made a little money in the process. I'm talking pennies, well . . . maybe quarters:-) When helium.com switched over to a new system of calculating their payout system, the rules became a bit more stringent and they now require writers to maintain a peer rating above a certain percentile, submit a certain number of articles to certain categories, and also peer rate others' articles.

Do you see where I'm going with this? I worked really hard to rate enough articles to get a "rating star." Since I already had a "writing star" I didn't bother to submit anything. Well . . . last week my writing star went away because eventually everybody "falls from grace." I had to fight hard my desire to just throw a couple of well-crafted articles up there so I could get my star back! I really didn't have time, but I really, really wanted to get back that star!

Now . . . God doesn't really care how many writing stars I have at helium.com or anywhere else. I know that. I understand and accept that if I had time, it would have been a fine use of my skills and abilities. But I am working on some freelance writing for pay, promoting my book and attempting to write some God-inspired pieces.

Chatty Kelly addressed this topic in her blog this morning. Her areas of temptation were different than mine, but Satan uses her 'growth areas' just as he uses mine to undermine our efforts to live rightly and do what we know we must do to please God.

So I'm not going to even visit helium.com this week! Well, that's a bit cavalier. I probably will visit, but I'm going to just do a check in to see if I get that star back:-) I promise I won't stress about it:-) OK, even that's not completely truthful. I promise I will try to not be distracted by the things of this world. I'll let you know how that goes!

for God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control. (2 Titus 1:7 RSV)

We Have A Winner!

Wow! That was really fun! Half of the fun was finding out who the winner of the journal would be! I'm not going to publish her name here until I ask her permission to do so. I'll deliver the journal to her on Sunday at church.

I have set up yet another blog! I've called it the Crayon Chronicles. It's still set on private viewing so far until I decide whether or not I will be able to make a go of it. Most of the posts will be about the 3 children I nanny for three days a week. I've been with their family for almost 2 years now. Oh, my gosh! Time flies. The little girl is four years old today! Her twin brothers will be two in January. Yep. Lots of drama in that house!!!!

I'll keep you posted on the new blog.

More Spirit-Inspired Ideas

I've been rolling around in my head the idea of doing a series of articles on parenting. Today the culmination of a couple of readings and issues that have been on my heart lately came into clearer focus. I think I'm going to call the series Godly Parents, Godly Children. I already have 5-6 titles/topics in mind and will probably add more. The series will be biblically based and was inspired by the concept addressed by Chips Ingram in his book, Effective Parenting in a Defective World.

The initial topics I have in mind are: (1) Absolute Obedience; (2)Wanting for Nothing (desiring God above all else); (3) Praying Through Life; (4) Developing Sound Judgement; (5) Clothed in the Full Armor of God; and a couple of others. My thought is that in order for our children to grow into godly adults, in order for us to adequately equip them for life as adults in the world, we must begin early and be intentional. We also must model what we teach. I'm going to use as my key scripture, Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it. [Job 27:11 NIV]

Another article or series of articles I'm going to work on is on blogs and websites that are focused on, managed by, intended to uplift women.

The third idea that the Spirit gave to me today is to interview some of the amazing Christian women I know and write articles on them and their stories.

I also may create an e-book of my journaling course available for download through lulu.com.

It's pretty exciting to be back on track! "Now then, stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes! [1 Samuel 12:16 TNIV]

I shared on my Divinely Designed blog that I'm praying the Prayer of Jabez every day and God's answering my request: He is enlarging my boundaries (territory)! I'm going to have be sure to take my vitamins every day if the current rate at which He's growing my ministry continues!

Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, "Oh that thou wouldst bless me and enlarge my border, and that thy hand might be with me, and that thou wouldst keep me from harm so that it might not hurt me!" And God granted what he asked. [1 Chronicles 4:10 RSV]

A New Story

Well I received a call today from a lovely woman who lives in an assisted living facility where I preached some time ago. She called to ask me if I could come back in January to recite another story! The last time I preached there I incorporated acting out the Samaritan Woman at the Well and the residents said they enjoyed it very much. I guess it was well-received after all!

I am scheduled to preach at the facility in December as part of my Lay Speaking duties and I haven't decided yet if I'll come up with yet another character to portray, either as the message or as part of the message in December. Since my writing goals do include developing one character per month, I imagine I'll begin working on December's soon!

I had considered developing the character of the Innkeeper's wife for January, but I may move do her story in December - I'm scheduled for the Sunday after Christmas so it would be very appropriate and timely.

I thought I would also offer to tell a story at one of the United Methodist Men's meetings next year. One of the men had suggested it, I may contact the program director to get on their calendar. At the time it was suggested I immediately knew I wanted to portray the wife of someone in the bible so I could be a little bit humorous and play the 'long-suffering' wife. Not sure if I'll take that approach or not, but I'll see.

After I met with one of my friends the other night to help her set up her blog, she emailed me to say she already had tons of ideas for blog posts! I am excited for her, even though I realized I had better be 'practicing what I preach' when it comes to maintaining blogs--post often!

I mentioned in Divinely Designed blog that I have been praying the Prayer of Jabez, asking God to expand/enlarge my ministry. I believe the phone call I received this morning confirms that He has already begun to answer that prayer and I imagine He will continue to do so.

How blessed I am!