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Category: Method To My Madness

Method To My Madness | Podcasts

October 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

https://youtu.be/gmoai83EKAg

Hey everyone, Trynda here.

Today, I’m bringing you a Method To My Madness about podcast. I thought I would do this video instead of something about character sheets or outlining because everyone’s kind of doing that for NaNoWriMo already and I wanted to talk about stuff that gets me out of the slump when I’m writing and I just don’t feel like writing anymore.

So, I’ll get right into it then.

I’ll start first off with the Dead Robot Society Podcast. Dead Robot Society is hosted by the authors Terry Mickson and Paul E. Coole, listening to these two talk about writing always gets me back in the mood to start working on my manuscripts and start treating my work like it’s actually important and getting me out of those slumps when I just don’t feel like writing. The both of them are really funny and they have a very good dynamic together so, I’ll definitely recommend this if you’re looking for any podcast and you haven’t heard of them yet.

The next one I’m going to talk about is the Story Grid Podcast. It’s a podcast hosted by author and editor, Shawn Coin, and author Tim Crawl. These two go back and forth talking about story structure and story craft while team Tim works on his first fiction work. So, it’s a vey good podcast to learn about terminology and concepts that you might not have known about. And it sometimes makes you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing but at the same time, they talk a lot about topics that you don’t think you know but realize that you do know after listening to them especially Shawn explaining how authors go about writing stories and it’s really helpful. I find when I feel lost and I’m not sure where there’s a problem with my manuscript.

The next one I’m going to talk about is the Creative Penn hosted by Joanna Penn. The Creative Penn is a podcast that kind of touches all the basis that an Hindi author comes across while they’re publishing and marketing and doing all the things that they have to do to get their book into the world. I really like Joanna’s podcast because she’s got lots of industry news that I wouldn’t hear about otherwise and she has lots of different guests on that give a lot of different points of view and really get you thinking about things that you wouldn’t otherwise or give you knowledge about tools that you wouldn’t have known if you didn’t listen to the podcast. I found quite a few different handy tools through Joanna and the other podcasts and I really think that all three of these podcasts are really good at helping writers find different avenues to get their books into the world.

The next one’s a a bit new to me and that is the Sell More Books Podcast hosted by Jim Cockerel and Brian Cohen. I recently found out about them through the Creative Penn podcast, I started listening to them to find better ways to market my books and this podcast I found really helpful for finding out about different areas of the industry and market place like create space and KPD select that I just don’t have experience with because I don’t have a book that’s published through them. So, I found it very helpful for things that I just don’t have experience for and learning new things about marketing that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

The last two I’m going to talk about aren’t really writing related and that is the Joe Rogan podcast and Rooster Teeth Podcast. I listen to these two podcasts because they have a wide variety of topics that aren’t writing related and they have a lot of different perspectives that I think is good to get the juices flowing for creativity and they have a comedic theme to them so, it’s cheerful and light and often quite funny. So, I think those two podcasts are really good because they don’t really hold anything back and they don’t have a specific aim other than entertainment. I definitely recommend it for anyone who’s looking to get some ideas or the juices flowing for brainstorming because they have a lot of different content that kind of suites a wide variety of people.

So, I think that’s if for now guys, make sure to like and subscribe to my channel if you like this video. Revival Episode 4 is still available for preorder, it launches on November 1st so, make sure to check out the link for that. Patrons can expect to see Revival Episode 4 within a week and there’s also some worldbuilding content that went up this last week for them so, make sure to check that out below if that’s something that you’re interested in. I reached 300 followers on my Twitter recently so, I decided to do a giveaway, by the time you’re seeing this video, the giveaway should be active. So, check out the link below for my insta freebie profile and you can get all the books available for free right now all in the same place.

I’d love to hear what you guys are listening to for podcasts so, leave them down below in the comments and I will talk to you guys later.

Podcasts:
Dead Robots Society – http://deadrobotssociety.podhoster.com/

The Story Grid Podcast – https://storygrid.simplecast.fm/

The Creative Penn Podcast – https://www.thecreativepenn.com/podcasts/

The Sell More Books Podcast – http://sellmorebooksshow.com/category/podcast/

The Joe Rogan Podcast – http://podcasts.joerogan.net/

The Rooster Teeth Podcast – http://roosterteeth.com/show/rt-podcast

Previous Method To My Madness Video:
Method To My Madness | #Hashtags – https://youtu.be/2JTcPZ9wHm8

300 Twitter Follower Celebration Giveaway:
https://www.instafreebie.com/author/TryndaEAdair

My Books:
Pre-Order Revival (Episode 4) today – https://books2read.com/RevivalEpisode4

Revival (Episode 3) is now available – https://books2read.com/RevivalEpisode3

Revival (Episode 2) available – https://books2read.com/RevivalEpisode2

Get Revival (Episode 1) – https://books2read.com/RevivalEpisode1

Get a FREE copy of Revival (Prologue) – https://books2read.com/RevivalPrologue

Other Links:
Join my mailing list for a FREE Short Story – http://eepurl.com/cNQO8D

Official Website – http://authortryndaadair.ca/
Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/TryndaEAdair/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/TryndaEAdair
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TryndaEAdair/
Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5575169.Trynda_Adair
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/tryndaeadair/
Instafreebie – https://www.instafreebie.com/author/TryndaEAdair
Twitch Channel – https://www.twitch.tv/skyedwards

Go Not Gently by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist – http://audionautix.com/

Method To My Madness | #Hashtags

August 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JTcPZ9wHm8

Hi everyone, Trynda here.

Today, I’m bringing you a video about hashtags on social media. I’ve been doing a lot of research into how you use hashtags in your social media posts so, I thought I would share the tips that I’ve learned along the way with you guys. If you don’t know what a hashtag is, it’s basically a searchable keyword that allows two posts that are similar in content to be linked together. I’ve noticed that some authors don’t use hashtags as well as they could be so, I thought these tips would be useful to the community in general. If you’re interested in the hashtags specific to authors, then I suggest you hang on until the very end and we will get to those.

So, first off, I’m going to talk about formatting. When you’re putting hashtags in your posts, you don’t want to make them too long or too hard to read. They suggest keeping it no more than two to four words at max and if you have multiple words in the hashtag, you should be using CamelCase which is where you capitalize the first letter of each word in that sentence. When it comes to the frequency of hashtags you’re using in your post, it varies greatly between site to site. So, what I’m going to be covering today is Facebook, Twitter and instagram.

So, Twitter is basically where it all started originally and they recommend not putting more than two to four hashtags in a post otherwise, it comes off looking spammy and that really factors in heavily when you’re putting it on every single word. You want to try and avoid doing that because it comes off like you’re just a robot and that’s something you really want to avoid when you’re on social media.

The next one is instagram.
There’s a lot of variation on the amount of hashtags to put in particular post. Some people say between 11 and 30 which seems really high to me and some people said between two and three which also seems very low for instagram. So, I tend to put around five to ten hashtags on mine and I find that that works for getting a bit of engagement for me. A lot of this stuff depends on your audience and your analytics.

I’ll cover Facebook a little bit more in-depth because that one has a little bit more to it because it was a little bit late to the hashtag game and people didn’t seem to catch on to it the same way. This is mostly because on Facebook, it’s more influencers, brands and promoters trying to get their content across and this is just because most people who use Facebook have private personal accounts opposed to public promotional pages. So, with Facebook, they recommend not putting any more than two hashtags in a post.

Some people recommend putting them at the end of the post and some people recommend putting them in the post itself. I personally find that there’s not much difference for me so, I tend to put them in the post itself because it goes along my to me and it makes it easier to read I find. But that’s me and that’s my audience so, it definitely depends on what your audience is reflecting by how your insights area on the Facebook page is showing and if you haven’t looked at that, then you definitely should because that would give you all the analytics for the Facebook page and how your posts are performing. Twitter has something similar with the analytics area on their site and I would recommend looking into that as well. Instagram unfortunately doesn’t have a built in analytics area but a quick google search and you can find any type of analytics tool that suites your needs for Instagram.

I’m going to get into some specific author related hashtags now. If you’re ever wondering what type of hashtags people are using, you can look at other people’s posts and also search on their actual social media platform itself. That can be a huge help for finding what hashtags people are talking about at that time. You can also use a site called Hashtagify.me and that’ll tell you which ones are doing better than others and which ones have a bit more conversation going on about them. So, some of the really popular ones are:

Writing Specific

  • #amWriting 
  • #amEditing
  • #WIP
  • #writersLife
  • #writersTip

Genre Specific

  • #Fantasy /  #ScienceFiction
  • #amWritingFantasy
  • #amWritingScienceFiction
  • #YALit
  • #Mystery

I could go on forever because it’s basically whatever genre you’re writing in and that’s a really popular one that helps you connect with people or your same genre.

There’s also a few more like I do such as #MotivationMonday & #ShakespeareSunday.

Those aren’t necessarily specific to the author community but those ones can help you get your exposure out there to communities that you may not necessarily connect with otherwise.

So, I think that’s it for now guys, if you enjoyed this video, make sure to leave a like and subscribe to my channel. I would love to hear what you guys are using for hashtags in your posts so, leave a comment down below so we can chat about it a little more or you can connect with me on social media, I’m @TryndaEAdair on all social media platforms. Revival Episode 3 is now available and you can also preorder Revival Episode 4. If you haven’t experienced anything in the Revival series, then I’ll recommend checking out the Revival Prologue which is a free short story that I wrote back in 2012.

So, that’s it for now guys and I will talk to you guys later.

Go Not Gently by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist – http://audionautix.com/

Method To My Madness | The Smartpen

May 10, 2017 / / 0 Comments

https://youtu.be/1g4CQVmQaXY

Hi everyone.

Trynda here, now that camp NaNoWriMo’s done, I thought that I’d bring you a video talking about my smart pen.

If this is the first video of mine you’re watching, then welcome to my channel. I am a writer primarily known for my post apocalyptic series, revival, and I am known for writing long hand.

I find writing long hand helps me get past writers’ block and it cuts off the distractions that I would have on the computer. So, I really like writing long hand and I’d be doing it anyways.

The one that I specifically use is the Livescribe 3 and I’m going to tell you a little bit more about it, how it works for me and some of its pros and cons.

I feel like I should preface all these by saying that I’m not sponsored by Livescribe, I just enjoy using their product.

First, I’ll start with how the Livescribe 3 pen works.

It basically has a camera in the tip of the pen that when you press down on its specific live scribe paper, it records your pen strokes as you write where you can convert it to text or convert it to a PDF. And that’s how I mostly use it. I use it to write up full manuscripts and export those to text files where I edit them and type them up. So what’s different about the Livescribe pens is that they use a specific dot pattern on the actual page to tell where your ink is.

The biggest downside to the Livescribe 3 pen is its app. Most of the time, I’m fighting to get my text of off the app, it crashes a lot and sometimes you lose sync for no reason and that’s the biggest downfall I find to this pen. Some things to keep in mind also is that the Livecsribe three pen is quite bigger than most but I find it useful really quickly.

I don’t know if it’s necessary a pro or a con but one thing I have noticed is the neater you write, the better your text file is going to come out. So, if you have a lot of scribbles or you’re writing a little sloppy that day, then you are going to see the computers having a hard time converting it into text and some of the words will come out jumbled and that is something I have noticed does take up some time editing after, but the amount of time I save with having the bulk of it typed up already into text that I can edit, it really balances out the amount of time I spend cutting out those gibberish paragraph and stuff that just don’t make sense and a large part, I do rewrite as I go back anyways as my editing process.

So, I do go along and I do a fast edit as I go because then, I’m catching a few things as I go along like plot holes and other things like that. I’ll definitely recommend this pen to anyone who’s looking to cut down on how much they type up after writing long hand.

So, that’s it for now guys, if you enjoyed this video, make sure to leave a like and if you want to see more videos from me, make sure to subscribe to my channel.

If you have any questions or you want me to explain a little bit more, feel free to leave a comment down below with Mother’s Day coming up, I always recommend my short story, Revival prologue. It is a post apocalyptic short story available for free where you follow a mother and daughter through the world after they leave their bomb shelter and if you haven’t checked out my Patreon, make sure to check that out, there’s always awesome stuff going up there and I’m going to be putting up a short story soon so, keep an eye out on those and I will talk to you guys later.

Get a free copy of Revival (Prologue): https://books2read.com/u/mdKaXd

Get Revival (Episode 1): https://www.books2read.com/u/mgK6RR

Livescribe 3: https://www.livescribe.com/en-ca/smartpen/ls3/#compare_section

Livescribe: https://www.livescribe.com/en-ca/

Giant AuthorTube Collab Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnusrAe-LMAz0U3zVnRelrnADIy8JjQu

Go Not Gently by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Method to my Madness | Author Website Tips

March 19, 2017 / / 0 Comments

https://youtu.be/Fj2Nle1X0kc

Hi everyone, Trynda here.

Today, I wanted to bring you a video about web design since I went through college to be a web developer. I thought maybe it would be good to give some tips to writers trying to make their website for the first time.

So, I’m going to go to my website now and show you some things that I think might help someone who’s designing their website. So, I will see you there.

Ok. So, I’m here on my home page and this is probably what I would say is your most important page just because this is what everyone is going to see the first time they come here.

One thing you want to make sure you have is a nice big picture of yourself just so people see your face first and foremost because this is the you that you’re trying to sell.

Another thing you want to make sure you’re not doing is having a big wall of text. This is similar to how you would write a book blurb, you want to break it up into smaller by size chunks so they can get through it and digest it a little easier. I’ve put my tweets down below since that is my most active social media site, and also got my Bookbag just because I talk about my books and what I’m reading quite often. You could also put a Newsfeed or something else like that down just to give people a little bit more current up to date news about what’s going on with you and your writing. That’s something you can’t do, you don’t have to do, it’s all up to you what you put on your homepage but the one thing you want to make sure you have is a nice big picture of yourself and you want to make sure that you’re not putting a wall of text on your home page for people.

The next thing I’ll touch on is navigation. You don’t want to be making your website hard for people to go through. So, one example of this is my publications. I have a list of everything that’s been published so far but then, I also have pages for that individual item. So, instead of making people go to publications and then clicking to say Episode 1, they can just go and go straight to it from the menu. They don’t have to go and jump through hoops to get to that page. That goes for your homepage and your other pages as well. You want to be making people go to your publications page to get to Episode 1 when you can do that the same way with just inserting a link. It’s small things like that that make the usability of your website a lot better for people when they’re coming to read things. Another area you’re definitely going to want to have is something talking about your work. This could be anything from having a sample chapter displaying what you’ve worked on, I have my short stories and eventually, my novels will go up here as well. And I also have a paragraph talking about the novel that I’m currently working on, a novel I’m going to be working on and something that I haven’t actually completed.

So, I have a little bit of a broad scope in this but you could go into detail as little or as much as you want, it’s all up to what you want to put on your page but you should have something talking about your work just for people who aren’t following you on YouTube or Twitter and aren’t aware of what you’re working on.

The other thing I’m going to touch briefly on is if you have a blog. I don’t have a blog since I do YouTube but for those of you who do have blogs and you’re looking for a way to integrate it into your website properly, I suggest having a tab that links to it if it’s on a separate website but if you can’t, try and integrate it into your website itself. One thing with the internet is that people have very short attention spans so, the second someone has to click outside of your website, or go and search and search for something, you’ve already lost that reader. So, that’s something to keep in mind when you’re building that website. You want to keep people engaged on your site and not forcing them to go somewhere else.

The last thing I’m going to talk about is theme. You may have noticed that between my pages, I have a common theme that kind of translates between all of them and that’s a darker more historical feeling. And that’s because of the genres I write in, I’ve specifically made this website to reflect that. One thing I’ve noticed some authors doing is changing their theme depending on what book they’ve released, if it’s a romance, they’ll have more of a romance theme to their website, if it’s fantasy, they’ll have more of a fantasy theme to it or they’ll have the cover art even on the back of their website. That is something I’ve noticed but it all depends on how you implement it. I would say that it’s good to change it up every now and again, maybe every two to three years would be a good idea to change up how your website looks just so it’s fresh and it doesn’t feel out of date.

So, to close up this video, I’m just going to give you a few other quick tips that you can implement even if you’ve already got a website and maybe this is some stuff you’re lacking. Some things to keep in mind is to make sure you have social media at the top and bottom of your pages just so of someone scrolls all the way to the bottom looking at your content, they have a way to get to other pages without having to go all the way back to the top. One thing you also want to do is make sure you have a Contact Me page or a Contact form of some sort. I don’t have a whole page dedicated to it, I have just one little form, just to save space on my website and make it a little cleaner. Another thing you want to make sure you’ve got on your website is this main logo here and that could be your name or your logo for your publishing company. It really depends on how you make your website but this should be there. So, someone always sees whose website they’re on and this image should always link back to your homepage because that’s just a standard thing that every website has these days and that is something that you should be conscious of when you’re making your website.

So, that’s it for now guys. I’m going to put a link down below for a website that compares between Wix, Squarespace and WordPress and a few others so, if you’re not as code savvy as I am, you’re still able to create a website that works for you. If you’d like to share your own experiences or give some tips that I didn’t cover in this video, feel free to leave them down below in the comments.

If you like what you saw, make sure to leave a like and subscribe to my channel for more videos and I will talk to you guys later. 

Go Not Gently by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Method to my Madness | Outlining

March 6, 2017 / / 0 Comments

https://youtu.be/4kLqNEhdxmo

Hey everyone, Trynda here.

With Camp NanNoWriMo around the corner in April, I figured I’d bring you a video on outlining and how I go about doing mine.

As you know from my newbie video, I am planser so, what I use is a worksheet that I found on a writer’s digest a few years ago and I use it kind of as a template so I can get my ideas down and see if I’m missing anything or creating potholes that I may run into a little later.

So, I’m going to go ahead and show you on my computer what that outline looks like and I will see you in a bit. For this outline that I’m doing today, I picked the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe just for the fact that most people have either seen the movie or read the book so they’ll know what’s going on in the scenes that I’m talking about.

If you want a closer look at this outline, I’m going to put up for my Patreon so, keep an eye out for that if you’re interested.

This outline structure is a three act structures so basically, what that means is you have your beginning, middle and end in the three acts. In the first two acts, you have your attention in your action rising and then in the third act, you have your climax where everything boils over and the resolution where everything ties up shortly after but this type of outline I found it works well for most stories but ultimately, it will come down to what story you want to tell and how you want to tell it.

The way that I do this outline is I often start with what’s easiest or what comes to mind first. Usually, I’ll start with the hook or the inciting incident. The initial incident is often the first plot point that you have in your story and this is what grabs the reader’s attention and keeps them moving forward and reading the story. After the initial hook or incident, you have the turning point and this is where the protagonist gets dragged into the next act. Often times, they’ll be resistant, trying to run away from this and you’ll just have to keep them pulled in.

The next big thing we have to consider is the midpoint reversal. This is in the middle of Act two and it’s the incident that changes the direction of the story so what that midpoint reversal would do in terms of changing the direction is often making the protagonists go from reactive to proactive. So, instead of running away from their problems, they’re going to be facing them head on and trying to find a way to fix them instead of hoping they would fix themselves. Sometimes, you’ll hear about a “saggy middle”, and often this can come from not having a mid-point reversal to drag your plot into the second turning point and keep your reader engaged.

So, the second turning point is the next major plot point and it’s what often moves the characters in the story into Act three. So, in act three, we have the final obstacle and this is where the protagonist has to overcome something in order to get to the climax. Now that we’re at the climax, this is where the height of the action takes place, where shit hits the fan or the giant battle takes place and then after that, you have the resolution.

This is where any loose ends or subplots get tied up into a ending that is satisfying for the reader. So, some things to remember is that you can always add, remove or change things as you need to.

If there’s something you don’t know or sure about, you can always skip it and go back to it later or just not include it if you feel like it. This outline isn’t meant to be constricting in any way so, don’t feel like you have to have add tons of details. I always add as little or as much as I want to add for any particular aspect of it. There is even a few times where I’ve gone back, I think, and added a line or two thinking that it wasn’t enough later on.

So, that’s it for now guys if you liked what you saw, hit the like button. If you have any comments or questions feel free to leave them in the comments section, and if you want to see more videos, hit the subscribe button down below and I will talk to you guys later.

Writer’s Digest worksheets: http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/write-first-chapter-get-started/novel-in-30-days-2011

At-A-Glance Outline: http://www.writersdigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/30Days-At-a-Glance-Outline.pdf

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Outline Completed: https://www.patreon.com/posts/8343847

Go Not Gently by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/

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