Community Spotlight

Hi, everyone! Sorry I'm late. Let me squeeze by so I can get to my chair.

Don't you just love it when your favorite relative comes to town? My sister and I get to see each other only a couple of times a year, so her visit was a real treat. Unfortunately, catching up with my writing responsibilities afterwards always take more time than I think it will.

I see the table got bigger while I was gone. I want to welcome Jennifer Ortolano. Jennifer writes Blogging It Out and Through the Eyes of a Bulimic. Check out her blogs, but watch out for her sense of humor. She got me with her video.

Lori Calabrese has also pulled a chair up to our table. Link here for her web page. Lori is an award winning children's writer with lots to offer writers of children's books on her web site. Right now, she has a "Fishing for a Free Book" thing going on that looks like lots of fun.

Berta is the third new member of our community. I'd like to put Berta in the spotlight, too. From the list of blogs she's joined, I'm guessing that she lives and writes in Kentucky, but she has no links for me to connect and share. Berta, would you care to leave a comment and tell us more about yourself?

Do you remember what I wrote about not re-inventing the wheel? (Scroll down and read Day 7 if you don't know what I'm talking about.) While I was researching publishers, I found two more places of interest for our community: Funds for Writers , which is full of leads to paying jobs, contests, and grants for writers.

The second one is Selling Books. Don't let the title fool you. Along with marketing savvy, the site calls itself the "guide to writing, publishing and marketing books and ebooks" and it's not an empty boast. While I was exploring the web page, I took the opportunity to participate in their "blog carnival." That was new to me, too. Link here then scroll down until you find the paragraph about Ethel Herr's research article on our community blog. Look for me to use this again for other posts.

I also have a new nonfiction agent for our list (aka "The N-F A-List"). Loren Grossman represents a wide array of nonfiction book topics. To quote the news article, "The Paul S. Levine Agency is pleased to announce that Ms. Loren R. Grossman has joined the Agency. She will primarily handle non-fiction books in the areas of Archeology, Art/Photography/Architecture, Child Guidance/Parenting, Coffee Table Books, Education, Gardening, Health/Medicine/Science, Memoirs, and Sociology." So if you have a book idea in one of those categories, think about querying Ms. Grossman.

Links to Funds for Writers, Selling Books, and Ms. Grossman have been added in the column on the right for future reference.

That's it for today. Sorry I can't stay longer, but I still haven't caught up with everything. See you soon.

Day 7: Not Reinventing the Wheel

Hi everybody, sorry I'm late. A traffic jam at the one major intersection between my house and the coffee shop held me up. Being late is better than not arriving, though. That was the result for one driver. She was killed and so was the mail carrier who was sorting mail at the back of his mail truck when one of the cars plowed into him. Please drive carefully. We all want to be here to celebrate the holidays that are just around the corner.

OK, that was not the most cheerful way to start my post, so let's talk about something else. Today, I want to welcome two new writers to our table. The first is Wendy Love. Wendy maintains two blogs, but she is actively writing only on Dipsy Doodling Around Depression . She and her husband live in Ontario, Canada. Welcome, Wendy!

The newest member at our table is Lindsey Martin. Lindsey blogs at Keep Your Eyes on the Son . She is in college in the beautiful state of Arkansas. Welcome, Lindsey! Both Wendy and Lindsey are eligible for the drawing for the second edition of An Introduction to Christian Writing.

Part of brainstorming is to decide what NOT to do in our community. If this blog works only as a place to explore other resources for writers of nonfiction books, then I will consider it a success. Thanks to a suggestion Wendy made, I have an entry for a new category of links: Wheels Not Invented Here. In the business world, some companies find it difficult to use ideas that do not originate inside their own company. See the Wikipedia explanation: Not Invented Here. Our community, on the other hand, wants to find the best the Internet has to offer to writers of nonfiction books and provide links to them.

Wendy pointed me in the direction of ProBlogger.(Thanks, Wendy!) This site is for serious bloggers, but beginners can find information of value, too. If you join the forums ($1.95/month) you can ask questions and receive plenty of answers. Blogging is an important tool in building a platform and in practicing your writing skills. Doing it well increases the potential for delivering your words to a satisfied audience of readers.

After I set up the category, I immediately thought of several other sites I wanted to add: Rachelle Gardner's blog Rants and Ramblings for all things about agents and publishing etiquette, Writer Beware Blogs! for wary writers who want to keep a whole skin and protect their wallet and Terry Whalin's Right-Writing for interesting reading on many nonfiction writing topics.

Finally, I am adding a site inappropriate for nonfiction writers, the NaNoWriMo link. In case you are unfamiliar with this site – as I was until Wendy got me interested – NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. This is the tenth year where writers try to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. While the focus is fiction, no one reads what you write. No prizes are given; you could even write the same word 50,000 times and no one would be the wiser. This led me to the idea to write 50,000 nonfiction words on a book I have outlined. I would follow all the rules, which are few, and enjoy the challenge. What do you think? Could you write around 1,700 words a day for a month? Check it out and get back to me.

Day 6: Walking In Sunshine

What a beautiful day, here in the world of our virtual coffee shop. October is definitely one of the best months to feel alive right down to your fingertips. The sky has turned that shade of blue that proclaims "No more muggy days!" The trees and bushes are putting on their annual fashion show in a burst of energy that will fade all too soon. I will cherish every minute of this exhilarating season.

My days in the community blog have gotten more exciting, too. I have some cool news to share with you.

First, I want to welcome Juan Lopez to the group at our table. Juan blogs at A Pen Itching to Bleed Onto Paper. He lives in northern California, is a youth pastor and works at a crisis center. Juan writes from a desire to share what God is doing in his life. Welcome, Juan!

Which moves me right into the next news: Juan, Marsha, and Jennifer are eligible for a drawing at the end of October. The winner of the drawing will received an autographed copy of An Introduction to Christian Writing, second edition, by Ethel Herr. The front cover rightly announces that this book is "an in-depth companion to the complete writing experience." If you want to be eligible for the drawing, join us at the table by following the blog before midnight on October 31^st. I will announce the winner the following week.

Moving right along with the good news, Ethel Herr has agreed to write a few pieces on doing research for our blog. Her book has a great chapter, Lesson 7, Part 2, that should jump-start anyone on researching. She has not picked a date, yet, for the pieces to be posted, so stay tuned.

Finally, I wanted to alert you to an opportunity to be published. Barbour Publishing is currently seeking writers for a new publishing project:  Heavenly Humor for the Cat Lover's Soul. Click through to see the Guidelines(73KB). They need 75 entries, 500 words each, for this book. If you can write humorous cat stories—drawing some inspirational Christian thought from each, they welcome you to submit entries for possible publication. You will be paid a small fee and receive some free books if they select your work to include in the book.

Come back tomorrow. I will begin a series on my experience as a student of writing.

Happy writing and walk in the sunshine.

Day 5: A Fist Full of Firsts

Welcome!

You may have noticed that another writer has joined our table. Meet Marsha Moore; she lives in London, England and blogs at Write On!. Today, we are helping Marsh celebrate. The mayor of London endorsed her book, 24 Hours: London. [Clink of wine glasses…] Congratulations, Marsha! Link to her blog to read the story.

We are also celebrating another first for Calling All Aspiring Writers with Marsha. She has agreed to write a monthly piece for our site. Beginning on October 15^th, Marsha will write on travel books. Her travel book about London is coming out in October and she working on one about Paris. Marsha is our first 897 Regular.

Another "first" for our community is a featured conference. The column on the right shows a fall writers' conference. Escape to Create is a non-profit organization that hosts a January artist-in-residence program in Seaside, Florida. This year, they have expanded their mission to host their first annual writers' conference to be held Oct. 14-16, 2009. This is a boutique conference that accommodates a maximum of 40 people. The award-winning visiting authors will have sessions on memoir writing, the profession of writing, and non-fiction writing that could be of interest to non-fiction writers.

The sessions are small and held in a private residence, so many opportunities exist for one-on-one time with the presenters. Please note that if you are unable to climb stairs, this would not be the conference for you. The sessions are held on the second floor of the home. If you are interested you can contact Mrs. Melayne DeMars at escapetocreate@gmail.com.

Finally, I have posted the first links to organizations that educate writers. The Christian Writers' Guild works toward the goal of giving students the tools necessary to keep them from the many missteps and pitfalls that can stall a writer's career. It is the one with which I am most familiar. I have just started their two-year apprentice program. I will start blogging about that next month.

The second one is The Creative Nonfiction Foundation. Quoting from their web site, the Creative Nonfiction Foundation "pursues educational and publishing initiatives in the genre of literary nonfiction. Its objectives are to provide a venue, the journal Creative Nonfiction, for high quality nonfiction prose (memoir, literary journalism, personal essay); to serve as the singular strongest voice of the genre, defining the ethics and parameters of the field; and to broaden the genre's impact in the literary arena by providing an array of educational services and publishing activities." They have contests that may also be of interest.

That's our fist full of firsts for our blog. Let me know if you find them useful.

Day 4: All It Takes Is Time

It is raining here. People come into the coffee shop, loosely close their umbrella, shake off the water and hang it on the hat rack in the corner. The clatter of spoons in cups and murmur of conversation drop into the background in the almost constant rumble of thunder. The room has a very cozy feel. This is a mint tea kind of day, so I sit here with a hot cup of tea in my favorite chair.

Today is another day of firsts for our non-fiction community blog. Sitting at the table with me is Jennifer - trumpets, please! – the first non-fiction writer to join me at the table. Jennifer blogs at Blogging It Out. She is new to the blogging world, so take the time to check out her page and tell her hello. Welcome, Jennifer!

What a pleasure to add another chair to the table just for Jennifer. With a little help from other people who have an interest in writing non-fiction books, our community can grow. If you will help by joining us at the table and telling others you know about the community, we can build some momentum. Jennifer has gotten the ball rolling. Now all it takes is time and enough people who care.

Day 3: The Who

You might have noticed that my blog ended rather abruptly, yesterday. I spilled lemonade on my laptop. Yeah, bummer, huh? Fortunately, it was not terminal – for the laptop, I mean, but it almost gave me a heart attack.

I had another crazy brainstorming idea while I was gone. All aspiring writers have rejection letters. Those one or two sentences can be very painful, but they are universally dull – at least in my experience. They range from the extreme of "no comment," after waiting three months to hear SOMETHING, through "the project is not right for us," to "you need a huge platform to sell this." It might be fun to collect rejection letters. Twice a year we could vote on the most creative one and award the winning agency/publisher an
"R" (a rejection letter) – pun intended. If we have no creative rejection letters submitted to the community, then we could hold a creative rejection letter-writing contest instead.

A community blog takes a lot of teamwork. The volunteers who commit to writing regularly on a topic in which they are skilled will be part of The 897 Regulars. Some of the talents the community will need: writers in these (and other) genres, cookbooks, travel, academic, devotional, narrative, memoire, biography/autobiography, journalistic, humor, (Please, help me, here! Add some non-fictional genres to the comments.) and experts in building platforms, writing queries, researching, interviewing, marketing, creating blogs and building a following, designing and using web sites, staying motivated to write, editing and self-editing, language usage, and publishing/self-publishing.

Other members of The 897 Regulars will be the volunteers who keep facebook, twitter, and other social network communities updated with the community blog news and those who manage the sidebar extras that we create for the right-hand column of the blog.

Today marks the first time any 897 Community content goes up on the blog. Two agencies who specialize in representing non-fiction work, Daniel Literary Group and Martin Literary Management become the first two members of the N-F A-List. If you know of any agencies that specialize in non-fiction representation and you have researched them thoroughly enough to recommend them to others, please either email me at lynndaell[at]live[dot]com or leave a comment.

Day 2: Brainstorming

This coffee shop is nice. The location is good, the tables are generously sized and the food and drink taste as good as they look.

I sit in the chair I have claimed for my own, back to the wall, ready to welcome those who come my way. Did I mention that the shop has Wi-Fi? I found that out yesterday, so I brought my lap-top, today. While I wait for you to find the coffee shop, I want to drink my lemonade and do a little brainstorming.

In case you've never been in a brainstorming session, the idea is to let the imagination fly, record every thought - no matter how harebrained, and see how well the creative juices can flow. So, here is a list of questions I am asking myself – and you, too, if you want to join me.

Who would be invited to join?
Anyone in the world who is interested in creating and publishing non-fiction books and who can speak English
Would like a diverse group that works in all the genres of non-fiction
Must be willing to share what they know best and generously support other aspiring writers

What should be in the posts?
Anything and everything related to creating and publishing non-fiction books including
Platforms – when you need them and when you don't
Identifying genre – difference between biography and memoire, journalistic and narrative, etc
Research techniques – the web, the experts, libraries, etc
Tips and ideas for writing in a specific genre of non-fiction

What reoccurring topics could be used?
Monthly:
site statistics - how many visitors, countries, etc;
each genre have a focused blog posting once a month;
the student's view of taking a writing course: college/correspondence;
Quarterly:
Birthday party for non-fiction books published since the last party;
seminars and conferences of special interest to non-fiction writers (and why);
blog parties to introduce all the new blogs to everyone;
funny story Friday night;
Fording the River, how my manuscript got published (by a person who follows the blog)

What else should be on the site?
Contests -(#1: choosing a better name for the blog!),
corporate sponsors (all related to publishing),
a list of agents specializing in non-fiction books and what they are looking for,
list of blogs and web sites of interest to non-fiction writers,
opportunities for visitors to vote on blog content and other issues,
a non-fiction award for web sites/blogs that are most helpful to non-fiction writers (award created here, sites nominated and voted on by the readers),
blogger award for the most informative blog posted on this blog the previous month (top three chosen by number of comments, winner by reader votes)

Day 1: Sitting Here Alone

Here I am sitting at the table in the corner with my back to the wall, ready to smile and wave a welcome to anyone who heads my way. On the table in front of me is a lined tablet and a fat mechanical pencil just waiting to capture my thoughts, as I sit here waiting to see if anyone else will show up. I have a fresh Dr. Pepper and plenty of time, so come on over and talk.

What am I doing here? That's a good question. Let me tell you how this got started.

Almost a year ago, my hobby of writing got kicked up a notch to the aspiring writer category. I began browsing the web to learn something about the business of publishing and the craft of writing. I've linked up with some great folks and learned a ton of new information. All of that came with much frustration, however. What I discovered – not the first to learn it, I'm sure – is that most bloggers, web sites, and all things publishing focus primarily on fiction.

Now don't get me wrong. I love fiction. Most of the books I read are fiction and 90% of the ones I buy are fiction. But the one I am writing is non-fiction. I have spent hours looking for a web site devoted to non-fiction ideas, issues, and conversation without success. Well, I saw the movie, too; "If you build it, they will come." So here I am.

If this blog is to be a success, I need your help. If you write non-fiction and are willing to contribute posts on this blog, e-mail me at lynndaell[at]live.com. (You know the drill, replace [at] with@.) Let's discuss your participation. Meanwhile, I'll just sit here, drink my Dr. Pepper, and write.

Oh, yes, if you've discovered any web sites devoted to non-fiction writing, leave a comment and I'll start a link list.