The writers’ Ernest Hemingway and J. D. Salinger were two of my idols for writing
when I was much younger. Hemingway had a rule, which was to apply the seat of the
pants to the seat of the chair and start writing. But not all authors can survive with
such a simple approach. I can’t imagine hanging upside down like the author Dan
Brown from the ceiling, or J.K. Rowland’s has to write in a castle room in Scotland
and often takes a bus to places she needs to travel too. I have heard of all kinds of
authors who had similar quirks like pulling the shades down and composed by
artificial light.
For stimulation, Honoré de Balzac wrote in a monk’s costume and drank at least
twenty cups of coffee a day, eventually dying of caffeine poisoning. Johann Schiller
started each of his writing sessions by opening the drawer of his desk and breathing in
the fumes of the rotten apples he had stashed there. Victor Hugo went to perhaps the
most extreme lengths to ensure his daily output of verbiage and would give all his
clothes to his servant with orders that they are returned only after he had finished his
day’s word quota.
Compared to such strategies, my daily writing regimen is drearily normal. Perhaps
that is because I write fiction and non-fictional books, “George the Dragon Slayer”
and my other three fiction books about George’s adventure are a hunter-gatherer of
language who records the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces, leak
from their pens, and luminance up on their computer screens. I drink too much coffee
and rotten fruit doesn’t inspire (literally “breathe into”) me. My lifelong, heels over
head love affair with language is my natural caffeine and fructose.
To be a writer, one must behave as writers behave. They write. And write. And write.
The difference between a writer and a wannabe is that a writer is someone who cannot write, while a wannabe says, “One of these days when...., then I’ll . . ..” Unable not to write, I have written every day since I was in high school writing for the school
newspaper. It was then where a teacher informed me so many years ago, that I should
write and I had a great imagination. But then she asked me what was my infatuation
with dragons and I told her I was a dragon slayer.
A grocer doesn’t wait to be inspired to go to the store or a banker to go to the bank. I
can’t couldn’t afford the luxury of waiting to be inspired before I use to go to work. It
didn’t matter if I was the Director of the school, teaching English or Business to my
past Chinese and Canadian students it was my job, and it happens to be a job that
almost nobody gives up on purpose. I loved my job as a teacher and a writer, so I
wrote and taught every day that I could. My daughter today is an artist for Disney and
also a writer with 5 childrens short stories published.
Long ago, I discovered that I would never become a great Canadian novelist. I stink at
cobbling characters dialogue, episode, and setting. A writer has to find out which kind
of writer he or she is, and I somehow was born a teacher with an ability to
communicate ideas about language and business.
Many writers wrote only in the early morning, or at midday, some at midnight. Early
on, I also discovered that I am more lark than owl -- a more morning person than a
night person -- and certainly not a bat, one who writes through the night. I am usually
up around 6:30 a.m. to take my dog out for her morning walk and banging away at the
keyboard within an hour, as I only need to have my three cups of coffee to keep me
going.
I write very little on paper, almost everything on my computer. My work possesses an
informational density, and the computer allows me to enter many ideas into the hard
drive and accumulate that density. Theodore Sturgeon once wrote, “Nine-tenths of
everything is crap.” The computer allows me to dump crap into the hard drive without
the sense of permanence that handwriting or type on paper used to signify to me. I’m
visual and shape my sentences and paragraphs most dexterously on a screen.
The computer has not only trebled my output. It has made me a more joyful, liberated
and better writer. Genetic and environmental roulette has allowed me to be able to
work in silent or noisy environment. In the past, working mostly in a University or a
High school in China, phone calls and e-mail messages and all the Chinese and
Canadian staff and student’s chirp and hum and buzz in my office room. As the
Program Director, I often have to answer them during those precious morning hours
before my own classes begin.
That’s all right with me. Factionalist’s live with their characters, who get skittish and
may flee a noisy room. As I had to correct my student’s essays or next class lessons
my readers and students are my covenants, and they will usually stay through outer
worldly intrusions.
Besides, the business of the writing gives me the privilege of being a Professor. In
fact, I consider writing only about half of my job. Writers don’t make a comfortable
living, writing books. They can make a better living, selling books. After all, I do
have to support my writing habit. When you are heels over head in love with what
you do, you never work a day. That’s was me before I retired - butt over tea kettle in
love with being a Business teacher and writer -- a job that nobody who works at it
would give up on purpose.
Imagine a job that nobody wants to leave, or a book unwritten!

 
 
 
 

Thousands of people today don’t believe in meaning and purpose as something to discover or pursue in life. And others believe in a life purpose but won’t take the risk to identify or honour it. Those with positive influence feel otherwise. They have found that there is a purpose to their life, and that purpose usually involves some aspect of turning their “mess into a message,” or using what they’ve learned (often the hard way) to be of service to others. People with a sense of purpose are driven, focused, committed, and lit up from the inside — unable to be deterred or distracted from what they believe is the reason they’re on this planet. This sense of meaning and purpose gives them inexhaustible drive and offers guideposts to follow along the path. It informs them of what they wish to attend to in life, and what they need to walk away from because it doesn’t support their higher purpose.
People who impact the world for the better know that they are not perfect. They understand how their knowledge isn’t “complete” — there are always gaps, biases, limitations and prejudices, and new places to go with their expertise.
Those with huge positive influence understand the power of relationships, connection, and engaging with the world openly. They’re not afraid to get “out there” — connecting with others, sharing their knowledge and talents, offering their authentic and often contrarian viewpoints and opinions. They know that positive, supportive and authentic relationships are the foundational building blocks to anything and everything they want to achieve.
We’ve all met authors or “experts” who keep their knowledge secret, close to the vest. They’re afraid to let it out for fear someone will steal it or make money on their ideas. Those who make a true positive difference can’t help but share and teach what they’ve learned. They don’t see their knowledge as just some commodity to sell, as a meal ticket or a money maker — they see it as information that has to be shared with the world for its betterment. They believe their ideas and innovations are of use and value to others, and can’t help but share those openly, and teach others what they’ve learned. They love the universal principle — “the more you give, the more you get.”
They are happy to help and support others, and have an overflow of positive energy that enriches the lives of everyone they work with and connect with. These positive influencers want others to grow. They walk away from “success-building” opportunities that will be hurtful and damaging to others. They know that those unethical, demeaning or destructive approaches go against the very meaning and purpose they’re committed to.
Positive influencers use their power well and wisely. They understand the widespread influence they have, the power they have to build up and elevate, or tear down. Those who impact the world for the better are careful and judicious with their words, actions and behaviours. They operate with heart, and care deeply about their leadership and communication process and style, and the influence they have. They take it seriously, as a special honour and responsibility not to be flaunted or misused. They understand their special role, and accept it with grace, compassion, and care.

A person, who encounters the necessity of writing a story, often faces a number of
problems, the majority of which are in no way unique and plagued writers throughout
time and sometimes even me. Thus, in order to write efficiently and successfully, one
needs to know what he/she fights against.
The most common problems essay writers have to deal with are as follows:
 Writer’s block :
An overwhelming feeling of impossibility to write due to some inner or outer reasons
(depression, personal problems, illnesses, and external distractions) is called Writer’s
Block. It may severely cripple one’s ability to write for shorter or longer periods of time.
In order to find more about it, study my  Writer’s block  article.
 Plagiarism :
Plagiarism may be called a real scourge of the world of modern academic and authors
writing. In the age’s past, the copy/pasted content was, on the one hand, harder to come by and, on the other hand, more difficult to distinguish. The age of internet development made it widely available and produced the whole new discipline of discerning plagiarized materials.
 Lack of time :
Another situation that may harm one’s ability to produce creative writing is lack of time.
It doesn’t matter what leads to it: uncontrollable circumstances, personal problems, other occupations, hard drive crash, poor time management or anything else. The result is that you don’t have enough time to complete your short story or manuscript.
 Lack of talent :
Sometimes authors feel that their abilities are just not enough to perform this or that in
writing. It may be true or just a result of lack of self-confidence, but all the same, it
interferes with the process of writing and may paralyze corresponding abilities even if
they exist or don’t exist.
 Lack of skills :
Lack of skills is, of course, one of the most common complaints authors have when they encounter a particularly difficult chapter of their story. It may be an outcome of
neglecting one’s writing for a considerable period of time, poor education or something
else. If you want to get rid of this problem, there is, unfortunately, hardly any other way
of doing it in addition to practicing as often as possible.
 Lack of motivation :
Needless to say, there are situations when a writer doesn’t feel him - or herself motivated enough to go on working, however important the assignment may actually be. It is a natural and wide-spread state that may be the result of many outside and inside reasons. As you may see, even a short list of problems commonly encountered by writers, who try to write short stories, children’s stories or even books, looks quite imposing. Learn and the ways of dealing with them and face your enemy prepared and most of the time the enemy is yourself! Now you may understand why we work in groups. Keep on writing…

Breaking the rules can pay off – but first, you have to have rules
What writing rules do you live by? Which rules that you’ve set for yourself have you broken – or want to break? As you evolve as writers, you become aware of the “rules of writing,” the conventions shared by the writing and reading community. We learn to adopt some, cast others aside, and develop some for ourselves. The truth is, a rule is a rule because it is widely shared.
Another truth is no two writers prioritize the same rules: there is no one list of rules to live by. But there is a sea of “good ideas,” and there are the expectations of readers.
Asked to draw up a list of advice from this sea of best intentions, every writer will come up with a different list. Just look at the incredible variety of ideas in this compilation of “ Rules of Writing .”
Note: Words of wisdom, that no two authors will sport the same list. It’s up to you to navigate this sea and prioritize the pickings to best suit your needs.
Writing is a complex matter, covers a huge range of subjects, and there are as many  ways to write  as there are writers. Each writer/author  writes differently , is at a different stage in his/her career, and has unique writing goals. Hence, floods of “rules.” I noticed when people in my own group were reading their one page from their short-story some writers favour giving broad suggestions, others go narrow. The more general, the more widely applicable, but specific advice can be more practically helpful.
For example, “use good grammar,” this is a sound piece of incredibly general advice. On the other hand, the use of a single word: “Never use the word ‘then’ as a conjunction – we have ‘and’ for this purpose. Substituting ‘then’ is the lazy or tone-deaf writer’s non-solution to the problem of too many ‘ands’ on the page.”
Pieces of advice often apply only to a specific type of writing or to a particular point in your writing career. You can find rules of writing for beginners, the struggling writer, and emerging authors. Other lists veer more towards notes on the writing lifestyle or how to boost productivity.
So, writing advice is writer-specific. How much of it applies to you? The best approach is to  read lots of writing advice  and cobble together a list that works best for you. My favourite piece of advice in this compilation is from Mark Twain, who makes this profound observation:
“The time to begin writing is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.”
Develop your own lists of writing rules:
The point is, you are the one who should make your own list. And since we all evolve as writers, you should ideally have three. The first list is your foundation, the second holds your aspirations, and the third is the one you “give away” if anyone asks you for general advice. These three lists serve as your mantras and goals and reflect your current understanding of the craft.
The lists in the writing rules compilation are for public consumption – are they really the lists these authors had (or have) posted by their computers? In creating a publishable list, some famous authors packaged up advice they thought would be most humorous, writing first and foremost to entertain. Perhaps they chose to make writing look easier – or harder – than it really was for them.
What you think the best generic pieces of writing advice might be vastly different than the advice you need to finish your current project. You might already have a set of foundational rules you work by, perhaps intuitively. As a reader, you’ll have absorbed many of the conventions of great writing and you’ll naturally do the same.
Still, it can be enlightening to look down compiled lists of advice and see what you can cull for your own. Rules are there to light up the way, not stifle creative impulses. Looking through lists can trigger productive thinking. “Ah! That writer does the same as I do!” or, “I never thought of that… that’s exactly what I needed!”
Your personal rules should be ones that consistently help you, the ones that most markedly improve your writing. You have strengths and weaknesses like all other writers, and you are at a particular point in your writing journey. This makes you unique. But you are also evolving. Your goal is to get better – to have more and better ideas and express them more effectively so that readers enjoy them as much as you do. So, your priority rules can change – and some can be aspirational.
What worked for you yesterday may not be the best advice for you tomorrow because now you’re a more mature writer. Your aspirational rules expand your horizons. Pick them to push you up the learning curve. Perhaps you want to focus more on precision, detail, or scrubbing out “glue words.” Perhaps you want to up your tally of strong verbs. Perhaps you want to reach a certain word count each day. Put these on your aspirational list.
Once you digest an aspirational rule, pick a new, more ambitious one. Climb. Climb higher. Climb to the top.
The evolution of your lists
Make your lists of rules, stick by them, and change them when you are ready to level up. The power of “knowing the rules” is that you plug into a base of knowledge that is shared. This means you have the power to use exceptions to your advantage as well!
The rule about breaking rules is it’s great as long as it improves your writing. This means an exception must improve meaning or heighten the experience of the reader in a significant way. Some of the best examples of writing in the world are ones that broke conventional wisdom in an extremely clever way.
Also bear in mind, knowing writing rules doesn’t mean you’ll have the ability to produce stellar written work: that comes from somewhere deeper, where ideas and experiences live. For all the rules, brilliant writing is still about the “magic, and still learning to write the best of your ability.”

Facebook is the best advertising around, allowing peers to share and recommend your writing with minimum input from you. These days not having a Facebook page is like denying fans who want to sing your praises the convenience of an online clubhouse.
Facebook is incredibly user friendly, and setting up an author Facebook page should be relatively simple even for those new to the website. While the design changes every six months or so, the steps to set-up a page are usually either kept intact or simplified.
The first step
The first thing you’ll need is an email address. While you might already have one for personal use, or even one for personal and one for writing, it’ll be easier to manage your social networking from a dedicated email account.
Once you have an email address you can sign up to Facebook. There’s no need to open a new account if you already have one, although it will give you the ability to keep your writing and personal lives completely separate.
Go to facebook.com and enter the requested details to sign up.
The second step
Using your personal Facebook profile, click the cog icon in the upper right of the screen on Facebook’s dark blue toolbar and select ‘Create page’. Alternatively, you can click here. Six squares will appear, you want ‘Artist, Band or Public Figure’ so click that.
Select ‘Author’ from the drop-down menu and enter your pen name.

Voila! You’ve created a Facebook page for use as an author. You can switch between your personal account and your author page using the cog icon’s drop-down menu, under the option ‘Use Facebook as’.
Sprucing up your page
Facebook frequently changes the layout of their pages but one thing that has remained consistent is the use of profile pictures. Your page, or ‘profile’, will feature a 160x160px size photograph in the top left, taking pride of place. This photograph will appear next to any comments you make on the site, reduced to about 32x32px.
It’s up to you whether you use a picture of you, a picture of one of your books or some other imagery that you feel communicates what you’re about as an author. Remember that at 32x32px, detail doesn’t count for much, so you should try to choose something with a recognizable style or colouring. Refer to our article on Fantastic Author Photos for some ideas.
J.K. Rowling and Stieg Larsson both have close-up photos as their profile pictures, meaning they are easily recognizable in both 160x160px and 32x32px forms.
Before you have a profile picture there will be a large square with an ‘Add profile picture’ button on top. Clicking this will allow you to upload a picture from your computer.
Facebook currently allows a cover photo, an 851x315px background image on top of which your profile picture appears. These are only visible to people already on your page and maybe partially obscured depending on how someone is looking at your page. While the profile picture is a vital part of your profile, establishing your brand and making you more recognizable online, the cover photo is generally used more for decoration. Both can be changed at your discretion.
A nice way of utilizing the cover photo space for more than just decoration is to include a call to action, encouraging people to click on it. This will bring up the image with the description on the right-hand side. By including a link in the description you can advertise something such as a giveaway or a new book.
A great example is Hilary Wynne’s author Facebook page:
Adding some detail
The ‘about’ section under your profile picture and name can be altered by clicking on it or by clicking the ‘update page info’ button.
It’s up to you how much detail you add here, options range from ‘awards’ to ‘favourite books’. The essential features are ‘short description’ and ‘bio’. ‘Short description’ is a description of the page as it pertains to you. Rowling’s is ideal:
The biography is the same information you would use for any self-promotion: a short personal history, perhaps including education or career highlights, the type of fiction you write and the work you have published. See our article on the 6 essential features of a fiction writer’s website for tips on writing the online bio.
Likes
A ‘like’ is how someone subscribes to your page, making your updates visible to them. The number of likes you have will be displayed to both you and anyone looking at your page.
If you’re using a personal email account you can have Facebook send notifications to your contacts, inviting them to like your page.
Advertising your page on Twitter is a good idea. Social media is at a point where as soon as people hear about you they’ll assume you have a fan page on Facebook. You can also add ‘like’ buttons to other websites, allowing an instant connection to your Facebook page.
Clicking here will allow you to adjust the appearance of the button, and decide on the page you want the button to apply to. Once you’ve made your choices you’ll be given a code that you can include on any website, creating a ‘Like Button’. Clicking this button will allow fans to ‘like’ your page, even if they’re not using Facebook at the time.
You can also advertise your page, paying a small fee to design an advert that will appear on Facebook to an audience of your choice (size and targeting being the main determiners of the fee). This can be done by clicking the large, blue ‘Advert Manager’ button or the ‘Create Advert’ button which is part of a drop-down menu summoned by clicking the cog icon.
Adding content
Of course, to be worth liking you’ve got to give your audience something. You can post statuses, links to online content, pictures and videos straight to your page. Anyone who likes your page will have these appear on their newsfeed (a Facebook feature that displays relevant posts to members) and anyone looking to see if you’re worth liking will find a wealth of content.
But your content needs to stay relevant. Fans interact with you as an author and that’s the side of you they want to see explored. Mitch Albom lavishes his fans with relevant Facebook content, from photos of book signings and stylized quotes from his books to video interviews and news about upcoming events.
Fans can individually ‘like’ your posts and, depending on the settings you choose, leave comments under them. Relevant, interesting content is what will get you likes.
Book pages
Having created your author’s fan page, should you also create fan pages for your books? Some worry that they will divide their fans and make it harder to manage their social media.
The truth is that creating a fan page is so easy that the question isn’t ‘should there be a fan page?’ it’s ‘should I be the one to control it?’ Eventually, someone will set up a page and then it’s out of your control. You can try and start an ‘official’ page afterwards but then you are splitting your fan base.
If you control both book and author pages then you can cross advertise, ensuring that the audience of one page knows there’s another. Another helpful feature is that anyone adding your book to the list of things they’ve read, a practice which has recently grown in popularity, will be linked to the book’s Facebook page.
Your name will also appear underneath, in case they love the book but don’t yet know much about you as an author.
What next?
If you follow these steps you’ll soon have an Author’s Facebook page you can be proud of. The next step is to build your audience by producing high quality content at a reliable pace.
Our article on producing social media content will guide you on your way to the kind of content that people enjoy and share with their friends. You can also sign up for our free Social Media dashboard for authors to help research content to post and to schedule your posts in advance.
Facebook is designed for usability so if you follow the stages above and explore a little, you’ll be a master in no time

Q). I’ve created a page as a secondary part of my original Facebook account. I’m having difficulties with it. I cannot figure out how to invite the people that I’ve “liked” or followed to be my “friend.” Maybe this function does not exist? If this is the case, I’d rather make a new, totally separate Facebook page for my book(s). Does Facebook not allow inviting others to be your ‘friend’ if you are an author or another business? How does this work?
A). You should be able to invite friends to like your page by clicking on the “Build Audience” menu at the top of your page. You can’t invite people with no connection to you.
Q). If an Author proceeds in the fashion you’ve outlined to create a Pen Name (Author Page) on Facebook, what are the chances of the Author’s ‘Real Name’ subsequently being identified through Facebook by (say) a Facebook User following a link from the Author Page, back to the Facebook User Profile, or something similar? ‘Discovery’ in such a manner would, of course, defeat the purpose of having a Facebook Pen Name. I’m guessing that the only other option (i.e., using a name other than a real name to set up a Facebook Account) is likely – eventually – to be identified as an Assumed Name – even if all one’s Facebook Activity were to be conducted via a different ISP and Computer)?
A). There is no public link between a Facebook page and the profile of the person running it. So, unless you actively create a link on your page to your profile or post on your page as yourself there is no way of a visitor finding out who you are from your author page.
Q). I used a different last name for my personal Facebook page and made my profile unsearchable.
A). Is it common/advisable for an Author to use his Pen Name as his Business Name? For example, if I sell through Amazon, but also want to use PayPal as a Payment Processor for Direct Sales from my Website – ignoring any Tax related considerations – would it be easier/better to use a Pen Name for receipt of Payments, or do Amazon (and Payment Processors like PayPal) not allow Pen Names as Account Holder/Payee Name?
You can upgrade your PayPal account to a business account and use your pen name as your business name. If you then use an email address with PayPal that is related to your domain example me@mypenname.com then nobody would see your real name.
Q). If I choose to publish my Kindle ebooks using multiple pen names would I then need to create multiple Facebook pages, Twitter pages, web pages etc., to market those names? Is this legal? How do authors with multiple pen names accomplish this?
A). It is completely legal to have multiple Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for your pen names. A lot of authors do this if they publish in very different genres. It can however be a lot of work to maintain.
Q). Is it beneficial to create a Facebook page if I’ve never been published? My writing group says yes, but as a ‘newbie’, I’m not even sure what to put on my page.
A). It is always good to start building a readership as early as possible. Then you have less of a hill to climb when you get the point of publishing your book.
Q). I currently have a long time Facebook page using my email address. I now have this new email address (the one I sent this comment on) dedicated to my wordpress.com blog. I would like to create a Facebook page to link to the Blog. The question, if I use my current Facebook to create the Author page, will it connect to the wordpress.com blog with this different address? Also, if I create the Author page on my current Facebook, will all my “friends’ see it when it is created? I do not want to have anyone see it yet. Would like to have time to develop and set up in conjunction with the Blog. Would it be better to open a completely new account on Facebook with the new email address?
A). You don’t have to open a new Facebook account as nobody can see the pages you own unless you want them to. You could theoretically have 20 pages, all managed using your one personal account. Your email address doesn’t matter for this.
Q). How important is a website for my books, and how do I go about making one? I just created my Facebook author page, and I invited friends from my personal page, and 67 have liked the new page. Does that mean these 67 are now my friends on my author page? A). Yes, the 67 people who liked your page are essentially friends with your author page. They will receive updates when you post something to the page. Q). My nickname is my author name and is the one familiar to all acquaintances (a large group, given that I worked in the reading world). Can I separate my profile from the author page–that is, ensure that the author page displays when my name is searched? Or should I eliminate everything from the profile that I don’t want potential readers to see?
A). That way people will see that you have a personal profile but won’t be able to see any more than that. Your author page will be completely open to the public so people will gravitate towards that to find out more about you. Make sure you always link everything to your author page and don’t approve private friend requests from people that you don’t know and you shouldn’t risk anything getting out into the public domain. Check on Here’s more on Facebook’s privacy settings.
Q). One thing though that I’m unsure of is how Facebook ads are paid for by using a page with a pen name/pseudonym. I know that Facebook requires you to have a profile (under your real name) to create a page, but how is the payment handled as far as ads go? I’m asking as I am only assuming that all Facebook needs (to verify payment details under your actual name) are to know that you have a genuine profile set up?
A). The Facebook ad manager is accessed through your profile, not your page, and payments are made by credit card. You can promote anything you like, your author page, external websites etc.
Q). I have three Facebook entries now: the profile, author page and a book page. I see no connection between the author and the book, except in a search box, where all three entries appear. Is that the way it should be? Next, my friend wants to add my book to his Books section. But my book does not appear. When we try to add a new book, an error appears, I guess because Facebook does not recognize me as an author. How do I get listed among other authors?
A). Facebook does not create links between author pages and book pages. To create a connection, you can like your book page as your author page. You should just need to like your book page for it to be added to your profile. Your book page will need to be classified as a book page for it to show up in his book section.
Q). I have set up an author Facebook page from my personal account. It is for a book I have written under a pen name. I liked a page relevant to my book, but it showed as a like on my personal page. Is there a way to “like” other pages from my author page to connect with them? Otherwise, they just see my like from my personal age, and it means nothing.
A). Wherever you have the option to take action on Facebook there is a small menu next to it where you can select whether to do so personally or as a page.

As an author eager to promote your book(s), and I didn’t write this you want to be able to reach a large number of potential readers and you want to be able to do it cheaply. Facebook is a rare platform that offers both of these things. It is used by two billion people worldwide, plus it is free to set up a page. Now you may be thinking that you already have a personal Facebook page. While that is great for getting the word out among your friends and family, you should also create a dedicated Facebook Author page for yourself, as this will provide a much better, public-facing strategy for how to promote your book on Facebook.
Why Create a Facebook Author Page?
There are several reasons that you need to establish a Facebook author page for yourself. Social media is an incredible networking tool, allowing you to easily provide a steady stream of content about yourself and your work, which your followers can then share with their friends. People have also come to depend on Facebook as a reliable way to learn about authors and other public figures, so book lovers should be able to instantly find and connect to your page if they search your name on Facebook. Furthermore, Facebook offers promotional tools that will enable you to create ads to reach people outside of your network.
Here’s How to Create an Author Page on Facebook
(1). Sign up for Facebook
If you don’t have a Facebook page, it is very easy to sign up at Facebook.com. You will need an email address you can use your own or you may want to consider creating an email account specifically for your authorial activities (if you haven’t done so already). If you already have a Facebook profile page, you can simply click the ‘Create’ button on the toolbar at the top of your Facebook page, select Page, and then select Community or Public Figure. In the form that follows, you can put your name for the page name and ‘Author’ in the category field.
(2). Build your profile
Your first big decision will be to choose your profile and cover photos. (Don’t worry, you can change them anytime you want!) Usually, the best choice is to use a nice close-up photo of yourself for the profile shot and a cover photo that showcases your book or books. If you write in a particular genre, it can help to have photos that reflect those themes in some way.
(3). Tell your audience about yourself
As you fill out your profile, you will also be able to provide information about yourself (i.e. your author biography), links to your website and other important links that you want to direct fans to (e.g. your author Instagram page, publisher’s website, etc.), and whatever kind of contact information that you would like to share.
(4). Post regularly
Beyond knowing how to create an author page on Facebook, you also need to understand what to do with it. Writing posts on your Facebook author page for your followers to read is your main responsibility in managing the page. This is the perfect avenue for making important announcements, such as the release date for a new book, information on a book signing, and other book marketing materials.
Facebook posts can also be a way of communicating some of your musings or tips about the writer’s life. If you’re having a creative writing blog or small writing epiphanies you can share that. Also be sure to snap photos whenever you can at an author event that you are participating in, or even just a nice picture of your workspace. Ultimately, you want to invite readers into your world so they feel more connected to you and your work!
(5). Explore Facebook features
Be sure to spend plenty of time exploring the many options offered under your Author page’s “Settings”. There are a number of items that you can add to the left-hand menu of your Facebook Author page. For instance, you can create an ‘Event’ if you are doing a reading at a local bookstore and want to spread the word. You can upload videos, whether it’s a promotional video created for your book, or perhaps a fun homemade video of your family unboxing your copy of your book after receiving it in the mail. There are also options that allow visitors to subscribe to your mailing list, see photos that you have posted, write reviews, and much more!
(6). Perform regular maintenance
Not satisfied with the look of your page? In ‘Settings’, you can change the template to spice things up. In general, it isn’t a bad idea to periodically make alterations, particularly to your profile and cover photos, to refresh your author page to reflect the current trends.
(7). Share across different platforms
Knowing how to promote your book on Facebook is critical. To get your current fans and friends connected to your new Facebook Author page, use any other tools you have at your disposal, such as posting the link to the author page on your Twitter account, putting it on the website for your book, including it on your business cards, and promoting it on your personal Facebook page.
(8). Post ads on Facebook
To reach beyond your network, take advantage of Facebook’s many promotional tools. Everything mentioned so far has been free, but creating ads will cost you a little. However, the costs are very reasonable, and it’s a smart way of advertising your book to new readers. Facebook advertising allows you to be hyper-targeted, so if you want to reach people with specific interests or in certain geographical locations, you can do that.
If you want to have one of the best Author Facebook pages around, take a look at these examples for some inspiration:
Check out a few of these authors that I recommend
Jodi Picoult. The best-selling author of books like (Nineteen Minutes and Small Great Things) has a great example of an Author page. You’ll see that her cover photo features her latest book, and her sidebar includes a link to sign up for her Monthly Email. Her posts tend to include a mix of information about her book tour, news about her latest projects, and her participation in causes that are dear to her heart. You can see from the comments on her posts that the page has a lively, positive fan following.
Susan Cain. Another Facebook Author page with examples comes from this non-fiction author of influential books on introversion. She regularly posts articles on themes related to her books, inspirational and thought-provoking quotes, posts about upcoming events, and plugs for other books and authors who she admires.
Markus Zusak. Young adult novelist Markus Zusak (The Book Thief, The Messenger) includes plenty of posts about his latest book and signing events on his Author page, but he also frequently shows his personal side with pictures of his pets, thoughtful posts about family and friends, and photos that he takes while on tour.

 
 
 
 

As an author eager to promote your book(s), and I didn’t write this you want to be able to reach a large number of potential readers and you want to be able to do it cheaply. Facebook is a rare platform that offers both of these things. It is used by two billion people worldwide, plus it is free to set up a page. Now you may be thinking that you already have a personal Facebook page. While that is great for getting the word out among your friends and family, you should also create a dedicated Facebook Author page for yourself, as this will provide a much better, public-facing strategy for how to promote your book on Facebook.
Why Create a Facebook Author Page?
There are several reasons that you need to establish a Facebook author page for yourself. Social media is an incredible networking tool, allowing you to easily provide a steady stream of content about yourself and your work, which your followers can then share with their friends. People have also come to depend on Facebook as a reliable way to learn about authors and other public figures, so book lovers should be able to instantly find and connect to your page if they search your name on Facebook. Furthermore, Facebook offers promotional tools that will enable you to create ads to reach people outside of your network.
Here’s How to Create an Author Page on Facebook
(1). Sign up for Facebook
If you don’t have a Facebook page, it is very easy to sign up at Facebook.com. You will need an email address you can use your own or you may want to consider creating an email account specifically for your authorial activities (if you haven’t done so already). If you already have a Facebook profile page, you can simply click the ‘Create’ button on the toolbar at the top of your Facebook page, select Page, and then select Community or Public Figure. In the form that follows, you can put your name for the page name and ‘Author’ in the category field.
(2). Build your profile
Your first big decision will be to choose your profile and cover photos. (Don’t worry, you can change them anytime you want!) Usually, the best choice is to use a nice close-up photo of yourself for the profile shot and a cover photo that showcases your book or books. If you write in a particular genre, it can help to have photos that reflect those themes in some way.
(3). Tell your audience about yourself
As you fill out your profile, you will also be able to provide information about yourself (i.e. your author biography), links to your website and other important links that you want to direct fans to (e.g. your author Instagram page, publisher’s website, etc.), and whatever kind of contact information that you would like to share.
(4). Post regularly
Beyond knowing how to create an author page on Facebook, you also need to understand what to do with it. Writing posts on your Facebook author page for your followers to read is your main responsibility in managing the page. This is the perfect avenue for making important announcements, such as the release date for a new book, information on a book signing, and other book marketing materials.
Facebook posts can also be a way of communicating some of your musings or tips about the writer’s life. If you’re having a creative writing blog or small writing epiphanies you can share that. Also be sure to snap photos whenever you can at an author event that you are participating in, or even just a nice picture of your workspace. Ultimately, you want to invite readers into your world so they feel more connected to you and your work!
(5). Explore Facebook features
Be sure to spend plenty of time exploring the many options offered under your Author page’s “Settings”. There are a number of items that you can add to the left-hand menu of your Facebook Author page. For instance, you can create an ‘Event’ if you are doing a reading at a local bookstore and want to spread the word. You can upload videos, whether it’s a promotional video created for your book, or perhaps a fun homemade video of your family unboxing your copy of your book after receiving it in the mail. There are also options that allow visitors to subscribe to your mailing list, see photos that you have posted, write reviews, and much more!
(6). Perform regular maintenance
Not satisfied with the look of your page? In ‘Settings’, you can change the template to spice things up. In general, it isn’t a bad idea to periodically make alterations, particularly to your profile and cover photos, to refresh your author page to reflect the current trends.
(7). Share across different platforms
Knowing how to promote your book on Facebook is critical. To get your current fans and friends connected to your new Facebook Author page, use any other tools you have at your disposal, such as posting the link to the author page on your Twitter account, putting it on the website for your book, including it on your business cards, and promoting it on your personal Facebook page.
(8). Post ads on Facebook
To reach beyond your network, take advantage of Facebook’s many promotional tools. Everything mentioned so far has been free, but creating ads will cost you a little. However, the costs are very reasonable, and it’s a smart way of advertising your book to new readers. Facebook advertising allows you to be hyper-targeted, so if you want to reach people with specific interests or in certain geographical locations, you can do that.
If you want to have one of the best Author Facebook pages around, take a look at these examples for some inspiration:
Check out a few of these authors that I recommend
Jodi Picoult. The best-selling author of books like (Nineteen Minutes and Small Great Things) has a great example of an Author page. You’ll see that her cover photo features her latest book, and her sidebar includes a link to sign up for her Monthly Email. Her posts tend to include a mix of information about her book tour, news about her latest projects, and her participation in causes that are dear to her heart. You can see from the comments on her posts that the page has a lively, positive fan following.
Susan Cain. Another Facebook Author page with examples comes from this non-fiction author of influential books on introversion. She regularly posts articles on themes related to her books, inspirational and thought-provoking quotes, posts about upcoming events, and plugs for other books and authors who she admires.
Markus Zusak. Young adult novelist Markus Zusak (The Book Thief, The Messenger) includes plenty of posts about his latest book and signing events on his Author page, but he also frequently shows his personal side with pictures of his pets, thoughtful posts about family and friends, and photos that he takes while on tour.

In order to understand how podcasts can help audiobook sales, you need to understand that our books appeal to a particular audience: people who wonder what life would be like if normal North American society disrupted. Podcasts are perfectly suited to speak to niche audiences with specific interests. There are tens of thousands of podcasts on everything from birdwatching to javelin throwing to 1980s heavy metal bands in which I don’t like that type of music. As a bonus, podcast fans are listeners, making them the perfect audience for our books.
Once I realized that podcasts could be a great venue for promoting our books, I set about figuring out who we should connect nursing, senior, and retirement homes and have Mark Newman of the Hamilton Mountain Newspaper read our book of short stories with/without our writers’ having to be interviewed unless they wanted to be and here’s how I did it…
I thought about the podcasts I listen to in my area of interest, and several dozen came to mind. To determine which podcasts, I wanted to be on in the future; I looked at my own phone and saw which ones I’d listened to in the last month. I then searched for them in iTunes, which suggested several similar programs about writing. I wrote down a list on a sheet of paper. New podcasts pop up all the time, so I periodically asked readers on Facebook page to tell me which podcasts they listened to for authors or writing and added them to my list.
At first, I thought it would be hard to get into a podcast. I was wrong. As I learned, pod casters are dying for content. Almost all podcasts have an e-mail address or a “contact us” web form. I simply told them who I was and included a link to books on Audible. This is important because no one wants to listen to someone who talks about “someday” publishing a book.
I started small. No, podcast was too small for me. Keep in mind that these are downloads from people who are already interested in the narrow topic of your book. It is perhaps the most precisely tailored marketing you can do. This brings up an important point: Do you need to be a dazzling speaker and have a great “radio voice” to be on a podcast? Nope. If you can hold a conversation, you can be a guest on a podcast. That’s all a podcast interview is: you and the host having a conversation about your short story.
It’s also important to note that you don’t need special equipment or a computer-programming degree to appear on a podcast. A cell phone (or better yet, a free Skype account) and a good headset with a microphone are all it takes. The total time required to do a podcast ranged from one to two hours. This was as easy as posting a link to the podcast on my Facebook page and e-mailing it to my e-mail list.
First, gather a great list of podcasts appealing to your niche audience. Secondly, contact the pod casters and be persistent. Finally, promote your short story in our book on our up coming website, social media, and e-mail lists. And that’s it, and I strongly believe this will create a new audience for our books, guild and future book five that is going to be published in 2021.

 
 
 
 

You’ve claimed your author profile on Goodreads, updated your bio and uploaded a flattering picture, enabled Ask the Author and fielded some questions. You’re eager to engage with readers on Goodreads, but before embarking on a massive book reviewing spree or setting up your first book giveaway, it’s important to review some of your fundamental account settings as a Goodreads Author.
Adjust your settings so your first and last name shows up in readers' feeds.
Your personal profile preferences stay as they were before you claimed your author profile, which means that your newsfeed updates might only show your first name. Considering how much your full name becomes a brand when you publish, you want to make sure your settings show both you first and last name – after all, “Jonathan” or “Jennifer” could be anyone of your friends; “Jonathan Franzen” or “Jennifer Weiner” on the other hand are very particular people! To check these settings, click on your picture in the top right corner to show the dropdown menu, then click on “account settings.” From there, make sure your Display Name shows your full name; if it doesn’t, add your last name in the corresponding field.

Customize your URL.
While you’re on your profile tab, you might want to think about customizing your Goodreads URL. This allows you to share a readable link, which looks better on your business card or your book jacket than the standard URL and can feed into your author branding. A great custom link is one that is consistent with your other social media accounts and instantly recognizable, for example: goodreads.com/rgay is consistent with Roxane Gay’s Twitter handle (@rgay) Under the ‘profile’ tab under settings, type in your preferred User Name. Assuming it isn’t already taken, start sharing that URL and invite readers to follow you on Goodreads.
Use a Goodreads widget on your website.
Letting people know they can find you on Goodreads is one of the fundamental ways to get more followers. Goodreads makes it easy to show off what you’re reading—whether it’s in your email signature or on your website. Widgets will automatically update the information when you make edits to the shelf, which allows you to amplify your activity.

Find customizable widgets under the ‘Widgets’ tab under account settings, then copy and paste the one you want to use to your website or email signature (you’ll find more directions on the Widget page).
Make every activity count.
While readers are most interested in seeing what books an author has read and recommends, there’s a ton of activity that you can do on Goodreads that will populate your profile and your friends’ update feeds. Go to the “Feeds” tab to review what activity you're sharing – at minimum, make sure you’ve checked “Add a book to your shelves.”
Sign up for the Author Newsletter.
The Goodreads Author Newsletter is a monthly newsletter that includes links to news, interviews, and marketing advice exclusively for Goodreads Authors. You can make sure you’re subscribed by checking the “Emails” tab and scrolling to “Newsletters and Other Mail.” While you’re there, subscribe or unsubscribe from any other updates you wish to receive from events, discussions, or groups that you’re in. While you’re in your Settings, explore the other tabs to review your other preferences: you’ll find everything from your preferred book vendors and Deals notifications to other apps you might have linked to your account. Goodreads Authors can subscribe to the Monthly Author Newsletter by editing their account settings.
 

You should heed the following five tips regardless of whether you’ve written a nonfiction or fiction book.
1. Keep it short.
Somewhere between 150 and 250 words and no more than three paragraphs. You don’t want to bore people into putting the book down and the fewer words, the less likely you are to put in unnecessary plot points.
2. Write in third person.
It doesn’t matter if the book is written in first person. This isn’t the book itself, it’s an ad.
3. Don’t overdo the language.
You want simple, straightforward terms. No purple prose or verbose writing.
4. Write a hook.
Just like your book needs a hook at the beginning, so does your book description. No one’s going to keep reading the description, let alone the whole book, if the first line is as boring as dry toast. Plus, this is often the only thing an online shopper will see before they’re prompted to click to see more, and you want them to click.
5. Use keywords.
Emotional words, like chilling or passion, work well for both nonfiction and fiction book descriptions. You can Google power words to find some good ones. Don’t overdo it, though!
You’ll also want to consider what people might be Googling that would lead them to your book. 

Thousands of people today don’t believe in meaning and purpose as something to discover or pursue in life. And others believe in a life purpose but won’t take the risk to identify or honour it. Those with positive influence feel otherwise. They have found that there is a purpose to their life, and that purpose usually involves some aspect of turning their “mess into a message,” or using what they’ve learned (often the hard way) to be of service to others. People with a sense of purpose are driven, focused, committed, and lit up from the inside — unable to be deterred or distracted from what they believe is the reason they’re on this planet. This sense of meaning and purpose gives them inexhaustible drive and offers guideposts to follow along the path. It informs them of what they wish to attend to in life, and what they need to walk away from because it doesn’t support their higher purpose.
People who impact the world for the better know that they are not perfect. They understand how their knowledge isn’t “complete” — there are always gaps, biases, limitations and prejudices, and new places to go with their expertise.
Those with huge positive influence understand the power of relationships, connection, and engaging with the world openly. They’re not afraid to get “out there” — connecting with others, sharing their knowledge and talents, offering their authentic and often contrarian viewpoints and opinions. They know that positive, supportive and authentic relationships are the foundational building blocks to anything and everything they want to achieve.
We’ve all met authors or “experts” who keep their knowledge secret, close to the vest. They’re afraid to let it out for fear someone will steal it or make money on their ideas. Those who make a true positive difference can’t help but share and teach what they’ve learned. They don’t see their knowledge as just some commodity to sell, as a meal ticket or a money maker — they see it as information that has to be shared with the world for its betterment. They believe their ideas and innovations are of use and value to others, and can’t help but share those openly, and teach others what they’ve learned. They love the universal principle — “the more you give, the more you get.”
They are happy to help and support others, and have an overflow of positive energy that enriches the lives of everyone they work with and connect with. These positive influencers want others to grow. They walk away from “success-building” opportunities that will be hurtful and damaging to others. They know that those unethical, demeaning or destructive approaches go against the very meaning and purpose they’re committed to.
Positive influencers use their power well and wisely. They understand the widespread influence they have, the power they have to build up and elevate, or tear down. Those who impact the world for the better are careful and judicious with their words, actions and behaviours. They operate with heart, and care deeply about their leadership and communication process and style, and the influence they have. They take it seriously, as a special honour and responsibility not to be flaunted or misused. They understand their special role, and accept it with grace, compassion, and care.
 

We all may be guild members and short story writers or even published authors but still have a problem with the English language and for this reason I did some research remembering my University English class in China so I started looking for my old notes and the following might just help you and me remember what I did teaching in my English and Business class.
You have my permission to share this with anyone you want as it will probably and hopefully learn something we forgot about in our own grammar class in school so many years ago..
Coordinating conjunctions are used to join grammatically similar elements (two nouns, two verbs, two modifiers, two independent clauses, etc.). The most frequently used are and, or, nor, so, but, for, and yet.
When a coordinating conjunction is used to join two independent clauses, you should use a comma before the coordinating conjunction. An independent clause contains a subject and a verb, and could standalone as a sentence.
· It rained for twenty days in a row, so it was no surprise when the river burst its banks.
Some writers may choose to omit the comma if the two independent clauses are short and well-balanced (about the same length).
· I like cheese, but I don’t like grapes.
Apostrophe
Apostrophes are hard-working little punctuation marks that can indicate several different things. They are mainly used to show possession, but can also be used in place of missing letters in contractions and abbreviations.
Used precisely, as it was designed to be used, an apostrophe gives clarity to a piece of writing. But used flamboyantly, here there and everywhere, it has advocates of correct usage tearing out their hair and some of us, not least myself, refusing to eat lunch in venues where the menu is overpopulated with apostrophes.
How, then, should apostrophes be used correctly? In this article, I’ll break it down for you.
Apostrophe Definition
Apostrophes first entered the English language via French and Italian during the 16th century. The apostrophe was mostly used as a substitute for other letters. Take, for example, this quote from William Shakespeare’s Henry V:
“In cases of defence, ’tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.”
Here we see our apostrophe replacing the “i” in “it.” That rule still applies to apostrophes today, though it’s not used as often as it once was. For example, when telephone was first shortened it appeared as ’phone, but the usage is now so common that it appears as phone without the apostrophe.
When Should I Use an Apostrophe?
There are some simple (and not so simple) rules to follow when you are using apostrophes.
Apostrophe Rules: Possession
If something belongs to someone or something, then the apostrophe is called for.
If a kid has some books, then the kid’s books will clearly express that.
Use an apostrophe + s to show possession for singular nouns.
· The dog’s leash
· The mailman’s bag
Here are a few more examples in full sentences:
· That must be my dog’s bone.
Ginelle’s plan will not succeed.
What about singular nouns that end in s, like bus? You can handle it one of two ways, depending on which style guide you’re using or your editor’s preference.
· The bus’s front tire
· The bus’ front tire.
Dash
Dashes are small punctuation marks that appear in writing and indicate pauses, breaks, parenthetical thoughts, and more. There are actually several kinds of dashes in the English language, so today I’ll cover them.
The Em Dash
This is likely the most common dash seen in fiction writing. It’s called an em dash because it’s about the same width as a printed capital letter M.
The em dash is excellent at setting off parenthetical thoughts. Use one before and one after the additional information:
· Neil ran—well, more like stumbled—across the finish line.
· I couldn’t believe—or even comprehend—what I was seeing.
As you can see, the em dashes in these sentences perform a similar function to parentheses. They add greater context to a detail mentioned in the sentence, though they aren’t integral parts of the sentence by themselves. Therefore, they’re set apart with em dashes.
Em dashes can be used alone to indicate a moment of surprise in writing:
· The baby cried and cried and—she stopped. Was someone playing “Baby Shark”?
· The match touched the wick, the fuse ignited—bang! The explosion boomed through the night.
And they can also be used in dialogue to signify an interruption:
· “And then I went to school but school was closed because it was a snow day, so I sledded all the way back home and made myself a hot chocolate, but then the power went out, so I—”
“Okay, okay. You had a rough day. I get it!”
Like any tool, it’s best not to overuse em dashes in our writing. If we do, our prose can become clunky and unsurprising. The old aphorism rings true here: less is more.
The En Dash
Not to be confused with the em dash, the en dash is a smaller dash so named because it’s about the length of a printed capital letter N.
Unlike the em dash, the en dash usually indicates time spans or connects compound thoughts:
· The unofficial Golden Age of rock and roll was roughly 1963–1981.
· From 1918–2004, the Boston Red Sox won zero World Series Championships.
En dashes can also be used for parenthetical thoughts:
· The thing I wanted – no, needed – more than anything was pepperoni on my pizza.
Whether to use em dashes or en dashes here is up to personal taste or style guidelines. However, if you do opt for en dashes surrounding parenthetical thoughts, you must always have a space before and after each dash.
The Swung Dash
This is the rarest of dashes used in English.
If you’ve never seen a swung dash before, no worries. They stand for words that have been previously referenced and are therefore clear from context. Swung dashes appear almost exclusively in dictionaries.
For example, let’s pretend we’re creating a usage example for the word “generally.” Here’s the New Oxford Canadian Dictionary definition:
· Generally: [sentence adverb] in most cases
For our example, we’ll use the swung dash to stand in for the word “generally,” since it’s already been established as the word being defined.
· “Though it’s ⁓ warm in Hamilton, sometimes it’s cold enough to snow.”
Unless you’re writing dictionaries, you might never use this dash. Still, it can’t hurt to be aware of it!
Ellipsis Definition
An ellipsis is three consecutive periods used as a punctuation mark in formal writing to denote missing or omitted text. For example, if you’re quoting someone but don’t need the entire text, put an ellipsis in place of the content you’re not including.
Let’s say you want to quote the principal of your local school who said:
· “We’ve determined positively, unequivocally, beyond a shadow of a doubt, using all facts and information available, understanding the importance of this decision, that we will need to build a new school within the next five years.”
But you don’t want it be so wordy. You would shorten it with an ellipsis like this:
· “We’ve determined positively . . . that we will need to build a new school within the next five years.”
The ellipsis is now widely used outside of its formal or traditional purpose for a variety of reasons. Authors use an ellipsis to show a pause in dialogue or narrative, or they use it to show a character or narrator’s thoughts trailing off.
· She wasn’t angry with him . . . she was simply exhausted.
· His eyes welling, he said, “I’m not sure what to do . . .”
Technically, the ellipsis should have a space between each period as well as a space before and after, unless next to a punctuation mark, where there is no space.
What is an exclamation point?
Exclamation points, also called exclamation marks, are punctuation marks that are meant to be used at the end of a sentence to display admiration or express excitement, astonishment, or some other strong emotion. The most common use, however, is after an interjection like “Hey!” or “Wow!” or “Oh!”
Some people go relatively mad with their exclamation marks. Have you ever received a text from someone ending with “?!?!?!?!” They’re obviously asking you a question and expressing their shock or dismay at the same time.
Most formal writing frowns on exclamation points. Some marketing brands will use exclamation marks, but are typically those in the B2C arena. B2B brands rarely use exclamation points, and academia has little patience for it.
Exclamation point use will depend on your editor and publisher and even your genre. If you’re publishing comic books, there’s a big use of exclamation marks involved. If you’re publishing for one of the academic presses, though, you’ll want to rid your prose of any such marks.
Situations to avoid exclamation marks include:
· A university term paper that is 50% of your grade.
· A highly professional email to the hiring manager when you’re applying for a job.
Using exclamation marks in quotes.
Put the exclamation mark inside the closing quotation marks if it applies to the words enclosed by the quotation marks.
· “There’s a spider on my arm!” yelped Eric.
If the exclamation mark applies to the sentence as a whole, then place it at the very end.
· And then the paramedics tried to tell Sarah it was “only a spider”!
Using exclamation marks in parentheses.
Put the exclamation mark inside the parentheses when it applies to the words inside the parentheses.
· Carmenn didn’t find out until later what kind of spider it was (a black widow!).
Put the exclamation mark outside the parentheses if it applies to the whole sentence.
Hyphen
Depending on which grammar system you subscribe to, you may hear some very different ideas concerning when and how to hyphenate. Different style manuals conform to different rules. With hyphens, it’s better to look up any case where you might be confused.
While it’s hard to create hard and fast rules for hyphens, here are a few instances where you will normally use them.
Compound Modifiers
When you use two or more words together as a single thought describing or modifying a noun and you put them before the noun, you should hyphenate them.
· off-street parking
· chocolate-covered peanuts
When compound modifiers come after the noun, you don’t need to hyphenate.
· parking is off street
· peanuts are chocolate covered
Hyphens with Ages
If the ages are being used as adjectives or nouns, you should hyphenate them.
· The five-year-old boy is ready for school.
But if the age comes after a noun and a verb, you don’t hyphenate it.
· The boy is five years old.
You also use hyphens when:
· Writing out numbers 21 through 99, like twenty-one and ninety-nine (and everything in between).
· Prefixes that come before a proper noun, like anti-Canadian.
· Avoiding confusing or awkward combinations, like shell-like or de-ice.
Hyphenation
Compound adjectives are made up of a combination of noun plus adjective, noun plus participle, or adjective plus participle. More often than not, these are hyphenated.
When should you hyphenate?
Parentheses
Parentheses are one of those tools in the toolbox which we often see but might not always fully appreciate. In this article, we’re going to change that. Let’s inspect the best ways to use parentheses, what makes them so powerful in our writing, and how they might impact our work.
What Are the Basics of Parentheses?
For starters, parentheses are those curved lines or curved brackets that surround part or all of a sentence. They express a minor (some might say parenthetical) thought on a subject. Unlike a regular statement, one marked by parentheses is usually an additional thought, aside, or statement that isn’t essential to the topic at hand.
For example, consider the following:
· When I saw the pink-frosted donut, my mouth began to water (sort of like Homer Simpson).
The Homer Simpson reference isn’t essential to the meaning of the sentence, but it’s a humorous aside to the reader. Therefore, I put it in parentheses. They’re a great way to insert quick jokes in your writing.
You can also use parentheses to list descriptive information, such as in this example:
· I ordered myself some coffee (large with two creams and two sugars) to go with my donut.
Finally, here’s an example of how parentheses are used to add additional context to a statement:
· When I arrived in Toronto, I had the overwhelming urge to shout, “Go Blue Jays!” (“Go Boston!” never crossed my mind.)
Absolutely! As in the previous example, you’ll find many occasions to do so. Just remember that if an entire sentence ends up in parentheses, all punctuation should stay inside the closing bracket.
· The library is the perfect place for cheapskate readers like me. ($40 for Professor Barry’s Dragon hardcover book? No thanks!)
However, if a parenthetical thought appears within another sentence, punctuation should go outside the parentheses.
· The Who first released one of their most famous songs, “The Kids Are Alright,” in 1965 (they subsequently re-released it numerous times on “Best Of” albums).
This is the English language, so we should expect some complicating factors. We know that punctuation goes outside parentheses if the parenthetical thought is not an independent sentence. However, if a thought within parentheses requires its own punctuation, that punctuation should remain inside the parentheses. Here’s an example:
· The cheapest plane ticket was over $2,000 (what a bargain!), so I was forced to dip into my savings.
I felt an exclamation point was necessary to underscore my sarcasm, so I included it within the parentheses. The sentence still requires a period at the end. Notice that I placed the comma outside the parentheses, since it doesn’t belong to the parenthetical thought.
I find it helps to imagine parentheses as a capsule. Everything belonging to the thought inside the parentheses stays within; everything belonging to the thought outside the parentheses stays out.
What’s the Difference Between Square Brackets and Parentheses?
Though they look similar, square brackets and parentheses are not interchangeable. You now know the purposes of the latter, which will always be used with curved brackets. Square brackets, on the other hand, are only used to express additional information inside a quotation.
· “Today’s game was a mess. We [the home team] didn’t execute on either end of the floor.”
Whoever said this (presumably a basketball coach) didn’t actually say the part in brackets. That was inserted by the writer to add context for readers. This is really the only reason writers need to use square brackets. Otherwise, use parentheses.
Summing It Up
Parentheses are used to express minor thoughts, asides, or humorous additions. They can be sentence fragments or complete sentences. They’re not to be confused with square brackets.
Period
Periods are used to end declarative sentences.
· I like dogs.
· Cats are funny.
Compared to many other punctuation marks, periods are simple! Put them at the end of your declarative sentence.
Common Questions about Period
How many spaces should you leave between words and sentences?
The best practice for writing is to leave only one space between words and sentences. Some people were taught to leave two spaces between sentences, but this is considered incorrect now.
If, for some reason, you need to use more space between words, then maybe consider using the ‘tab’ key instead. This will ensure that your words are correctly aligned.
In many word processors, you can quickly remove all double spaces using the ‘Find and Replace’ functionality.
To do this:
· Activate the ‘Replace’ dialog (usually from the ‘Edit’ menu);
· Enter two spaces in the ‘Find what’ box, and one space in the ‘Replace with’ box;
· Click ‘Replace all’
· Should I use a period after titles like “Mrs”, “Dr”, and “Capt”?
· In British English, the abbreviations Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms and Dr are not followed by a period. In these cases, the abbreviation ends with the same letter as the full word, e.g. Mister / Mr both end in “r”. Abbreviations where the final letter is not the same as the word it’s abbreviating, e.g. Captain / Capt. and Professor / Prof. should be followed by a period. The following sentence is correct in British English: Let’s give a warm welcome to Mr Sherlock Holmes and Capt. John Watson.
· In US English but not Canadian, ALL of the abbreviations should be followed by a period, e.g. Let’s give a warm welcome to Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Capt. John Watson.
Question Mark
A question mark replaces a period at the end of a sentence when the sentence is a question. Sometimes, question marks are known as interrogation points.
Question words like who, when, where, why, what, which, and how indicate that a sentence is a question. If your sentence begins with one of those words, then it is most likely a question and should be ended with a question mark.
A question mark indicates to your readers that your sentence should be read as a question.
Rules for Correctly Using Question Marks
Rule #1: You don’t need to use a question mark in conjunction with other ending punctuation, like a period or an exclamation point.
· Incorrect example: How are you feeling?.
· Correct example: How are you feeling?
Rule #2: You should always capitalize the first letter the word directly after a question mark.
· Incorrect example: When are we leaving? my mom wants to go soon.
· Correct example: When are we leaving? My mom wants to go soon.
Rule #3: If you’re writing a quoted question, you should put the question mark within the quotation marks.
· Incorrect example: “What’s for dinner”? Professor Barry asked.
· Correct example: “What’s for dinner?” he asked.
Slash
There are two types of slashes that you might find on your computer keyboard. What do they mean? When should we use them?
This article will illuminate all.
The two types of slashes are backslashes and forward slashes /.
Backslashes are used primarily in computer coding, so you don’t need to worry about them for grammar. Forward slashes, on the other hand, are punctuation marks used in grammar.
Here’s how they are used:
To Separate Lines in Poems, Songs, Or Plays
Forward slashes can be used to show line breaks in poems, songs, or plays.
Here’s an example:
· But soft / What light through yonder window breaks
These types of slashes are typically used if several short lines are written together on one long line.
To Indicate “Or”
The forward slash can also be used to show “or” in a sentence. For example:
· The waiter noticed that a patron had left his/her phone on the table.
The “/” in this case indicates that the phone belongs to either a man or a woman.
In Abbreviations
Forward slashes can used in abbreviations such as “w/o” to shorten words like “without”.
Here are some other examples of using forward slashes in abbreviations:
· care of = c/o
· air conditioning = a/c
To Indicate a Debate
Forward slashes can also be used to show a correlation between both sides in a debate:
· There are many strong opinions on both sides of the pro-choice/pro-life debate.
In a Date
You’ll commonly see forward slashes used in dates:
My birthday is 05/13/2021. Yes, that is my real birthday date. Damn it I hate getting old! I used the exclamation point instead of using profanity?

When I first started writing my memoir which will be published soon it was because of my memories and dreams of when I was very young and growing up to the point of where I am now. Hopefully, still alive and making more memories except for this time I am sharing them with you as a family member, wife and daughter or a friend maybe even a fellow writer which I don’t have too many still around because of a heart attack, car accident, cancer or disease I have never heard of or have moved to another city or province.
If I was writing in the old days, I would be using my old black underwood typewriter which was in its way a blessing because I memorized using the keys and by the time, I reached my university days it was easier to type my homework and thesis. So now let’s think of the old days… Before the Internet using google and all the software you use on your computer or the P.C. even the Mac… which I don’t know how to use?
How about semi-automatics and crack, speed, and marijuana! Before PlayStation, SEGA, Super Nintendo, even before Atari… which I don’t and never used!
Before cell phones, CD’s, DVD’s, voicemail and emails…
Go back… way… way back…
I’m talking about hide and seek at dusk, Red light, Green lights, Red Rover… Red Rover, playing kickball and dodgeball until the first… no… second… and even the third street light came on.
Not to forget Ring around the Rosie, London Bridge, Hot potato, Hop Scotch, Jump rope, You’re it!
Parents stood on the front porch of their house and yelled or whistled for you to come home – no pagers or cell phones with so many apps installed I don’t know how to use or interested in?
Take One Giant Step…
Seeing shapes in the clouds. The end of summer days and hot summer nights with no air conditioner with the windows open. The sound of crickets or running through the sprinkler in the back yard.
Cereal boxes with the great prize, on the bottom of the box. Cracker Jack with the same prize. Ice pops with 2 sticks that you could split in two and share with a friend.
But wait there’s more…

Watching Saturday Morning cartoons Tom and Jerry, serial adventures. Captain Midnight, Cisco Kid, Roy Rogers and Trigger, The Lone Ranger, Boston Blackie.
Your first day of school, bedtime prayers and goodnight kisses from your mother.
Climbing trees, swinging as high as you could in those long swings at the park to try to reach the sky.
A million mosquito bites and sticky fingers, jumping down the steps of your house or school.
Jumping on the bed and having pillow fights. Running home from the western movie you just saw till you were out of breath. Laughing so hard until your stomach hurts.
Being tired from playing, and work meant taking out the garbage, cutting the grass, washing the car or doing the dishes with sisters and brothers fighting it was their turn to do these small jobs.
Your first crush, your first kiss where you closed your mouth and your eyes were opened.
Rainy days at school and the smell of damp concrete and chalk erasers.
Oh, I’m not finished yet!
Kool-Aid was the drink of summer, so was a drink from the hose.
Giving a ride to your best friend on the handlebars of your CCM second-hand bike. Attaching a piece of cardboard to your bike frame to rub against your spokes.
Wearing new clothes on the first day of school. Class field trips with soggy sandwiches.
Getting strapped with a belt on the palm of your hands by the school principal for something you did or didn’t do? And all you thought about was the fate you had to face was when you got home from school.
Basically, we were in fear of our lives but it wasn’t because of a drive-by shooting, drugs, gangs etc. We simply didn’t want our parents to get mad at us.
When everyone’s mom was at home when the kids got there from school. When a quarter seemed like a fair allowance and another quarter was a miracle because now you could buy 3 comics or another small model plastic airplane that you assembled and add to your collection.
When any parent could discipline any kid or use him to carry groceries. And nobody, even the kid thought anything about it.
When your parents took you and all your brothe

r and sisters in a packed car to a drive-in movie and it was a real treat.
Now didn’t that feel good? “Yeah, I remember that!” Well, let’s keep going!!
Let’s go back to the time when…
Decisions were made by going “eeny-meeny-miney- mo.” Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, “do-over.”
“Race issues” meant arguing about who ran the fastest. Catching fireflies could occupy an entire evening.
It wasn’t odd to have two or three friends’ best friends. The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties.
Nobody was prettier than your own mother. Scrapes and bruises were kissed by mom and it made you feel better.
Getting a foot of snow on Christmas day was a dream come true.
Abilities were discovered because of a “double-dog-dare.”
Spinning around and around and getting dizzy then falling down was a cause for giggles.
The worst embarrassment was being picked la

st for a team. Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
I can’t remember all the names of my girlfriends but get embarrassed when I do meet one of the many at Walmart and realize why the hell was, I interested in them in the first place especially now with 4 – 6 kids.
Obviously, you could add your own list of memories when you were young that I have not included but if you can remember some or all of these then I think you are going to enjoy reading my book… called ‘Drawing Circles in the Air’ and I hope you have a simpler and less complicated life?

Formatting dialogue can be tricky, but consistency and familiarity with convention are
essential to proficient writing. Use these nine formatting rules to structure your dialogue on the page of your short story. I am only suggesting this because of what I did notice from the previous books that writers wrote and they always ended with “he or she said.”
Suggest you get creative, example “he said knowing how she would reply” or “with a
nervous answer she said, she understood.”
1). Use Quotation Marks to Indicate Spoken Word
Whenever someone is speaking, their words should be enclosed in double quotation
marks.
Example: “Why don’t we go ice skating.”
2). Dialogue Tags Stay Outside the Quotation Marks
Dialogue tags attribute a line of dialogue to one of the characters so that the reader
knows who is speaking. Dialogue tags stay outside the quotation marks, while the
punctuation stays inside the quotation marks.
Example: “There was blood everywhere,” Shane explained.
If the dialogue tag comes before the dialogue, the comma appears before the first
quotation mark.
Example: Shane explained, “There was blood everywhere.”
If the dialogue ends with an exclamation point or a question mark, the tags that follow
begin in lowercase. The dialogue punctuation still goes inside the quotation marks.
Example: “There was blood everywhere!” he explained.
3). Use a Separate Sentence for Actions That Happen Before or After the Dialogue
If an action occurs before or after the lines of dialogue, it should be given its own
sentence. For instance, if Michael gasps and then speaks, it would look like this:
Example: Michael gasped. “You’re dying you, idiot?”
4). Use Single Quotes When Quoting Something Within the Dialogue
If a character is quoting something or somebody else within their dialogue, use single
quotation marks to indicate that the character is quoting someone else.
Example: Eric started to cry. “When you said, ‘I never want to see you again!’ it hurt my
feelings.”
5). Use a New Paragraph to Indicate a New Speaker
Any time you change speakers, you should begin a new paragraph with an indent. If the speaker performs an action after speaking, you should keep that speaker’s action in the same paragraph. Then, move onto a new line in the next paragraph when someone else begins speaking. This helps the reader know who is speaking and who is performing the action.
Example: “Terry, I’m going to need you to take a look at this,” said Captain Barry. He
gestured to the photograph on his desk.
“My God,” muttered Captain Barry. His eyes darted from the photograph to his empty
coffee cup. He knew it was going to be a long night of discussion.
6). Start with a Lowercase Letter If Action Interrupts Dialogue
If action comes in the middle of a sentence of dialogue, the first letter of the second
fragment should be in lowercase.
Example: “At the end of the day,” the professor bellowed, “there are always more things
to do for the writers’ guild!”
7). Long Speeches Have Their Own Rules
If a person speaks for a long enough period of time so as to necessitate a new paragraph, the dialogue formatting rules are slightly different from normal. The opening quotation marks are placed at the first part of the first paragraph, as well as each subsequent paragraph. The closing quotation marks, however, are placed only at the end of the last paragraph.
Example: Carmenn took a deep breath and began. “Here’s the thing about sharks.
They’re vicious, vicious creatures. They only know how to do one thing: kill. Have you
ever seen a shark in the open water? Probably not. Because if you had, you’d already be dead.
“I saw a shark once. I was scuba diving off the marina, looking for starfish to give to my
sick wife. She believes that starfish are good luck. Well, one man’s fortune is another
man’s folly. All of a sudden, I found myself face to face with a great white. My heart
stopped. I froze up. I knew that was the end. If it hadn’t been for that pontoon boat, we
wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
8). Em Dashes Indicate Interruption
Em dashes (not to be confused with hyphens) are used to indicate interruptions and
abrupt endings in dialogue. When formatting dialogue with em dashes, the dashes should be placed inside the quotation marks.
Example: Tim began to speak. “I just thought we could—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” interrupted Jim.
9). Don’t Add Additional Punctuation When Using Ellipses
If you’re writing dialogue that ends with an ellipsis, you should not add a comma or any
additional punctuation. Ellipses are used to indicate the trailing off of dialogue.
Example: Ginelle let out a low whistle. “I guess this is the end of the line…” she said,
her voice trailing off.
Here are some other suggestions. Choose easier words, look for complicated words that you can replace with simpler ones. For instance, instead of saying “terminated,” say “ended.” Your goal as a writer is to show off your ideas, not your vocabulary.
Shorten your sentences
Long sentences are exhausting for your readers. Sometimes, you must use long sentences to explain a complex idea. It’s okay to use long sentences sometimes. But try to follow long sentences with shorter sentences to help your reader engage with your text.
Remove  jargon
Jargon and domain-specific language can impede your audience’s understanding. Use
terms that everyone will understand making your document more readable.
Eliminate extra words from your sentences
As I mentioned previously, the longer your sentences, the higher your readability score. By removing  glue words  from your sentences, you can make them shorter and clearer.
Use active voice
Active sentence constructions are typically shorter and cleared than passive constructions.
For instance, “Jane opened her present” is much simpler to understand than “Her present was opened by Jane.” Fixing passive voice can improve your readability score.
Remember, the more readable your writing, the more effective it is for people to enjoy your short story or even your book that you plan to write?