P is for Pen Name

In an email thread a couple of months ago, as Lucky 13s, we were discussing pen names. I was blown away when I realized how many of us were using pen names! The reasons ranged from a hard to spell last name, to not wanting steamy writing to be reflect negatively on their parents (which totally made me giggle), to their name being the same as an evil dictator's, to having a name that is much too common to be easily Google-able.

I found the entire conversation fascinating! I seriously had not ever thought there were so many good reasons to use a pen name.

(For the record, Peggy Eddleman is not a pen name. As the owner of a last name that gets misspelled virtually every single time it's written, you'd think I would have considered that. Nope! I just figured Eddleman is a very uncommon last name; Peggy is an uncommon first name. People weren't likely to have to sift through the lawyer Peggy Eddleman, the comic Peggy Eddleman, and the renowned chef Peggy Eddleman to find the author Peggy Eddleman. Know what I mean?)

But anyway, it got me wondering about you guys.

Do you use (or are you planning to use) a pen name? Why or why not?

And if you are, how did you go about choosing what your pen name was? I've got to admit. I think I nipped in the bud the mere thought of whether or not a pen name was a good idea, simply because of how VERY HARD coming up with a name is! I mean, seriously. I have a hard time naming my MCs. I'm supposed to name myself?! I don't think this....

is going to cut it. Turner Sixty North just doesn't have quite the ring to it.

O is for Overkeep Receipts

Happy tax day yesterday! (Or at least to everyone in the states. Or was it tax day in other countries? I have no clue.) Anyway, speaking of doing your taxes, I have a little advice I'd like to share that falls into the "Don't do what I did" category.

Do you aspire to one day get paid for your book(s)? Then listen up.

Start saving your receipts NOW.

There are a ton of things that you may be able to write off as a business expense once you start to earn money for your books. AND HERE'S THE THING: You can go back to expenses for previous years. So let's say your eventual book deal is three years down the road. Then three years down the road, when you figure your taxes, you can claim expenses you incurred right now. (Here's the fine print. I am NOT a tax professional, and you should definitely consult your tax professional on all of this.)

Me-- I knew this! I just figured that I'd remember which conferences I went to, and I'd go through Amazon's history for the rest. Yeah. That isn't working out for me so well. I wish I had kept a manilla folder at my desk, and stuck every single writing-related receipt in it over the past four years. I have a LOT of work ahead of me this year because I didn't. DON'T TO WHAT I DID. Whatever point you are at right now, start over-keeping your receipts.

Here's some things to keep:
(Again, consult your tax professional.)

• Conference Tuition (along with any extras, like pitch sessions, manuscript critiques, intensives, boot camps, etc.)
• Mileage to conferences (or plane tickets, car rental, etc.)
• Food purchased while at conferences
• Books (not just books on craft; any that give you ideas / inspire your writing)
• Computer / laptop
• Internet (because of such an importance placed on social media, and also for research purposes)
• Subscriptions (to writing magazines, Publisher's Marketplace, etc.)
• Printing supplies (if you have to print out pages for revising, or for critiquing the work of others)
• Mileage to meet as a writing group
• Software used for writing
• If you hire an editor / consultant
• If you pay someone to design your blog
• If you pay someone to design your book cover
• Home office expenses (including a portion of utilities)

Seriously, stick all this stuff in an envelope and keep it. And stick all email receipts in their own folder in your email. You might save a few receipts you won't be able to use. But that's better than finding out there were things you could've used that you didn't save receipts for. The point is-- it is so much better to OVERKEEP your receipts than to underkeep them! Trust me.

If you think of any items I missed, please mention them in the comments, and I'll add them to this list. And if you're already earning money for your writing, tell us what has worked (or hasn't worked ;)) for you!

N is for Never, Never, Never Compare

Why is it so bad to compare ourselves to other writers? Compare our books to other books?

Because quite often, we compare our WEAKNESSES to other people's STRENGTHS. (Or, the equally consequential method of comparing our strengths to others' weaknesses.)

Not only does it make us feel like crap (or in the opposite case, make us feel like everyone else is crap), but it STOPS US FROM GETTING BETTER.

No book is perfect. Let's just go ahead and get that out there. Those books you rate a 5 on Goodreads-- the authors just did the same things we're trying to do. Make our weaknesses not be negatives, and make our strengths shine to their fullest potential.

If we read a book and think, Holy wow! This author is SO GOOD at [fill in the blank], there is NO WAY I will ever be this good! I might as well stop right now. Well, um, yeah. They're amazing at [fill in the blank]. That's their strength. Does that mean we should stop? NO! That strength of theirs might not be our strength. In fact, it might be our greatest weaknesses. But did we notice the things they weren't so strong at? Maybe not, because we were so blown away by the thing they WERE good at, but those weaknesses were still there. No author has strengths in everything. But do you know what? YOUR BOOK CAN BE THAT SAME WAY. You'll just have a different strength that shines. A different thing that will blow others away.

But that bad feeling we get when we look at a strength of theirs that we don't possess, only has the power to discourage. And when we're discouraged, we turn off all ability to improve. Just say to yourself, I am comparing my weakness to their strength. It helps you put things in perspective! Then you can think, A master is at work here. If I pay attention to how they did things, then my weakness will become less of a weakness.

And by the same token, if we read a book where the author's weakness is our greatest strength, that critical Oh, my gosh. This got published?! feeling carries the same power. Yes, it got published because of the author's strength. If we spend the whole time noticing all the deficiencies in that area where we rock, we can totally miss out on learning from that area where they rock. Comparing our greatest strength to their greatest weakness has just as great a power to keep us from learning as does the opposite.

And that's what it's really all about, right? Getting better. Improving every day. Making our greatest weaknesses stronger, making our greatest strengths shine all the more, and making everything in the middle the best it can be.

And that's never going to happen if we compare.



Much gratitude to inluvwithwords at Out on a Limb for passing along the Sunshine Award to me. Thank you!

M is for My Goal Funny

This comic makes me laugh.

Used with permission from Debbie Ridpath Ohi at Inkygirl.com.

Wouldn't it be so great if all the words we write in a million other places "counted?" Because honestly-- I want credit for them SOMEWHERE. ;o)

L is for Leave Out

"I try to leave out the parts that people skip."

~Elmore Leonard

Best revising advice ever! If people are going to skip it, take it out. Of course, it's also paired with the understood Put in the parts people want to read.

Ahh. If only it were so simple.

But I don't know-- maybe it is that simple. Maybe the challenge lies in knowing which parts people will want to skip. And once you know that, it's as simple as leaving out those parts.

What do you think? Simple or not so simple?

And do you know what makes you think better? Staring at cookies! (Right? I know it totally helps me.)

Photo credit and recipe link for Cookies & Cups (thanks, Jo!)

Happy Friday the thirteenth, everyone!!

K is for King of the Posts

You know how on some blogs they have a list of popular posts on the sidebar? In Blogger, there's two ways to do that. The easy way and the hard way. I'm going to talk about both.

But why, why, WHY would you ever want to do it the hard way?! Because it's better. Here's why:

Blogger has a popular posts gadget. It makes it simple. The only problem is, it goes off of page views, not number of comments. Which is great and all, unless you use images in your posts. If so, a post that wasn't really one of your most popular might show up as being so, just because it contained an image that comes up as a search result a ton on Google. It might just be a popular image--- not so much a popular post. With me so far?

So, way #1 is easy, and might do you just fine. Way #2 is harder, but it will actually let YOU choose which ones appear in it. (Other thing to consider: Way #1 will update itself. Way #2 has to be updated by you.)

Way #1: The EASY way.

For the new Blogger layout: (just click on the image to make it larger)

For the old Blogger layout: (Click the image to make it larger)

Way #2 The HARD (albeit more flexible) way.

Step 1: Figure out what posts you want to spotlight.

Step 2: Save an image you want to use from each post somewhere on your hard drive.

Step 3: Create the html code. Now don't freak out if you can't write code from scratch! It's all going to be okay. Blogger is fabulous at writing code for you. We're going to let it. Go into Blogger just like you are creating a new post.

Step 4: Click on the button to insert an image, then select one of those images you just saved onto your hard drive from one of your posts.

Step 5: Click on the image. Select both Original Size (trust me for a minute) and Left. (I prefer the old Blogger layout, so my images are going to be from that. It's the same either way, I believe.)

Step 6: Obviously, we aren't going to want this image to be its original size when it's in our sidebar. But choosing Original Size makes this step easier. Click on the Edit HTML tab at the top. The code for your image should look something like this:

See that part I circled that says "s1600"? That's the part that matters (s1600 is in two places-- it's the one toward the end we want). That 1600 is telling the maximum height/width the image can be. We don't want it that big. We want it to be somewhere between 60 and 100. (I changed mine to 60. Take a look at my popular posts in my sidebar to see if that's a size you'd like. If not, change the number.)

Step 7: Click on the compose tab again. Now your image will show smaller. Like this:

With me?

Step 8: Type in the text you want to have show on your sidebar. (This will generally be the title of the post that goes with that image.)

Step 9: In a different tab, open that post, highlight the URL, then press Ctrl+C to copy it.

Step 10: Come back to your post, hightlight the text you've typed in, then click on the link link at the top of the post, and paste (Ctrl+P) the URL you just copied. Now it should look something like this:

Step 11: And you're done with the first one! Give your post a title (something like "My list of Popular Posts" or something else that will help you remember), then click SAVE. This will be a post that you will never publish, but that you will want to keep, in case you want to update it later.

Now, go through these same steps for as many posts as you want to have show.

• Once you get them all, click on the Edit HTML tab.
• Press Ctrl + A to highlight all the code in the post.
• Press Ctrl + C to copy it all. 
• For old blogger: click on the Design tab at the top. For new blogger, select Layout on the left.
• Click Add a Gadget in your sidebar.
• Scroll down and find the HTML/Java Script option, and click on the blue plus sign.
• For the title, type Popular Posts (or whatever you want it to say).
• Click in the content area, the press Ctrl + V to paste in all that code you created. Then click SAVE.
• At this point, you can move it to wherever in your sidebar you want, then click SAVE.

And you're done! Whew! I know it seems like a lot to do, but once you do it for the first post, it gets a ton easier. Really. I'm not kidding.

Or you can use the easy way and see if it works for you. You can always put in the work to do the harder way later! (Oh, and I should mention that there is a medium way. That's adding a link list gadget. That'll work, too, and let you choose which posts you want, but it won't allow you to have an image with it.)

Questions? Let me know.

J is for Juggling Blogs

We all read blogs, right? (Well, duh.)

Am I also correct in assuming that we all read a ton of blogs? How in the world do you keep up with them? How do you decide which ones to read? Google reader? Blog rolls? Comments? A list? Topics/titles that interest you? People that interest you, no matter what they write? Ritual of people you check each day? Read some every day? On specific days? Times you read, or when you are procrastinating?

I have a system, but it never feels like it's a GOOD system. (It involves opening everyone's blog who commented on mine over a period of time, ALL AT ONCE (no joke), then going through as many as I can. Then I come back to them at my next chunk of time. It's really important to me to get to the blogs of the people who comment on mine, but it leaves little time for me to get to any of the other blogs I follow. Know what I mean?)

I always feel like there really has to be a better way to get around to everyone's blog that I really want to read! So I would really love to hear how you do it.

And speaking of blogging, this is my 200th post! It feels like there should be confetti or something. Ah, well. I'll just wait for my year anniversary, then plan something that will BLOW YOU AWAY.

I is for Ideas Bouncing Theory

I think the most frequently asked question that an author gets is "Where do you get your ideas?" The first time I heard Brandon Sanderson speak, he told us his theory. I kind of love it, so I'm going to share it with you guys.

He said that every time he comes across something that he thinks is cool (inspired by a movie, a character, a book-- whatever), he writes it down, and sends it into his brain to bounce around.

Notice he doesn't just use the idea as soon as he gets it. That first idea is likely to have been done a million times already. He sticks it in his brain, and lets it bounce around with all of the other ideas in there. Any one of those ideas by itself could've been okay, but the magic comes when two ideas stick together. Usually when they stick, they are things that are unique. Different. They have their own sets of conflicts inherent to just plain being together.

When they stick, that's when you have an idea that will allow your own special twist on things, that will make it different from everything else out there.

He gave the example of his book MISTBORN. (If you haven't read it, ohmygosh READ IT! Seriously. It's fabulous. Even if you don't love fantasy, you'll still be able to appreciate the unfathomable amount of thought that went into it.) Anyway, Brandon watched a heist movie. I can't even remember which one, but after he watched it, he thought about how much he really loved heist movies, and stuck that idea in his brain to bounce around. He already had another thought in his head-- the magic system that he used for a previous book that hadn't worked out. He didn't love the main character or the setting, but the magic system was awesome. (And trust me when I say he wasn't wrong.) Those two ideas stuck, and he wrote a heist novel, where each person in the group had a different magical specialty.

Two common ideas--- a heist and a magic system where each person with a magical ability only has one ability--- that were unique and different and interesting when they were put together.

I don't know about you, but the idea of ideas bouncing around in my head not only sounds pretty effective, but makes it all sound SO MUCH MORE FUN.

H is for Have Eggs?

Every year at Easter, my hubby, my kids and I spend a couple of hours coloring eggs. Why do I love it so much? Because Egg is my middle name! Okay, if you want to get technical on me, it's the middle part of my first name.

Seriously, though. How many foods are there where you can decorate the shell it comes in?

Pretty, no?

I was going to... you know... actually talk about writing today. But I've been spending 12 hours a day working through first round edits, and right now, my brain is not really functioning on the higher levels. I'm pretty much at egg pretty, cracking bad.

Soon, though--- soon! I can feel it! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, I'm aware that it's just another tunnel, but the next one has lights! Light pretty. Dark bad.

Okay. I really should go now.

G is for Great Writer!

This is my first time EVER posting on a Saturday. So what kinds of things do you post on a Saturday? Funny things, of course! I know this joke has been around forever (so long, in fact, it's near impossible to figure out who to credit for it), but it still makes me laugh a big hearty laugh every time. Here's hoping it will get a chuckle out of you, too, even if you have heard it before.

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer.

When asked to define great, he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"

He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.

Happy weekend and Happy Easter! May all your eggs be colorful.



Also, huge thanks to Lyla Lee at Lyla Writes at for the One Lovely Blog award!