The first PDF includes an introduction to Mur’s writing, one chapter, and an interlude listing writing excuses. The PDF has been released under a CC-BY-NC-SA license which means it is completely printable, distributable, even changeable provided that you release under the same license. I’m not going to distribute from here, instead please go to her blog to pick up the PDF download, and say hello.

LinkMe : I Should Be Writing – The PDF.

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Howto.co.uk/writing lists nine writing books online for you to read (currently). These are –

• How to Publish Your Own Book by Anna Crosbie
• Writing for Magazines by Adele Ramet
• Improve Your Written English by Marion Field
• Producing Successful Magazines and Newsletters by Carol Harris
• Write Your Life Story by Michael Oke
• Creative Writing by Adele Ramet
• How to Write for Television by William Smethurst
• Times of Our Lives by Michael Oke
• Spell Well by Marion Field.

Each is broken up into an index of chapters online and each chapter is broken up into web pages, with bookmarked links to sub-sections, and convenient arrow keys to move through the text. Links to purchase on amazon are available, plus some advertising, but this does not break up the reading experience, and the usability is done well on each book.

Howto also has a range of categorised other books available electronically as online reads. Of particular interest to writers, perhaps, you may find several holistic self-improvement books of various themes in the well-being category, there are some excellent howto research and howto read faster books in the Learning category, interviewing techniques howtos found in the careers category, and for the professional writer, a business category also.

If you happen to be about to give a speech at a wedding, check out the family category also. There is also an excellent child carers book available in there, as part of my own occupational interest.

Although some books at HowTo are obviously more U.K. based, the writing book selection contains many books as relevant to international readers naturally. For me, I immediately started reading through Adele Ramet’s Creative Writing title.

LinkMe : HowTo/Writing

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Installing and Setup

GenoPro provides a free 14 day trail of the program. Install requires a trial registration key to be sent out to you before you are able to open the program up. Once you’ve input this key, you are presented with the following screen.

As I didn’t want to start from scratch, I used a pre-worked file from a free program. My previous efforts in Family Tree Builder resulted in the creation of a double-twin persona to show an adoption. I deleted this character for the sake of the gedcom file (the standard file format for genealogical data), and the file imported into GenoPro had the main character with two parental groups associated. The import went quickly, and I found myself presented with a genogram or diagram of my families.

However, there were a few minor problems. My main character was showing the incorrect name (her birth name rather than her adoptive name, and a middle name had been brought in as a surname also in the import). So I had to go into GenoPro to change the details on this character. From here, I could also browse to find the photographs (the export to a gencom file had put these photos into a handy folder).

Note: although there are copious tabs available for data input against people in GenPro, there is only one alternative name section (and one nickname section).

The relationships in GenPro can also be labelled. I first labelled the link between my main character and her boyfriend. And on clicking the line between her adoptive parents and herself, I found another error. I then changed this relationship to one of adoption, and was given the ability to input the adoption date. The program calculated my character’s age at her adoption for me.

The adoptive link has changed to a dashed blue line. My basic relationships are now set.

Additional Features of GenoPro

GenoPro is sold not only to genealogists but with it’s genomapping features, the program is sold to people like social workers and even as a structural diagram maker. I decided to take a look at some of the many functions available.

1. First, Adding a New Person

Adding a person is a matter of drag and drop. Interestingly, you have an option for gender of male, female, pet or unknown. I added a male who may (or may not) become the boss of my main character, and later decided my protagonist should have a pet too.

You can obviously add very old people (from several centuries) and without a death date. You can also add future births, including well into the 30th centuries. But inputting dates with non-numeric calendars within it are not allowed. Hence my SciFi Alien is dateless (but still an entity).

Relationships between entities are again, a matter of drag and drop, after selecting the relationship. This is similar to using charting / flow diagram software. Relationships like this can be labelled and annotated.

2. Adding Other Functions

Adding a social grouping or organisation is a breeze. The default is a pink colour background, but I thought the police force should be an off-blue.

If I were to build a bigger character set for this Metropolitan Police department, I would probably take the organisation out to a separate genomap.

You can also add emotional relationships between entities on the genograms. Here I’ve selected a controlling relationship between one man and the main character. He is her boss, after all.

And here I added some more emotional relationship links to some of the characters.

3. Reporting

GenoPro doesn’t allow you to export this genomap as a PDF file. But it does generate an XML report saved to your hard-drive, which opens into a browser. The following are some of the reports available.

Reports can show timelines, relationship data, location data, the photograph galleries, ancestral family trees, and any other data you could wish for.

Summary

GenoPro is available as a single license for US$49, and provides some comprehensive mapping features for the writer interested in creating a family or organisational tree for their characters. The application is reasonably easy to use out of the box, and provides a lot of functionality behind the scenes. It’s well worth a look if you think you will be using it often enough to support the cost of the license.

LinkMe: Download the trial version of GenoPro

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With MyHeritage’s Family Tree Builder, the writer can download a free piece of software with enough functionality to allow for all those family trees, or even some proper genealogy if we wish.

Introduction to my Family Tree Making Criteria

I first discovered Family Tree Builder a year or so ago. As a family, we are currently trying to adopt another child, and within the very thorough (read – several years) process of being assessed as a potential adopter, both my husband and I had to produce family trees to go into a report. And we are talking “big” trees even at our first generations, because we come from large families.

I looked around initially at the Genealogical software available, and baulked at the cost of some of these. I wanted a program which could put together a tree with enough details such as names, birthdates, links, images, and different relationships, hopefully in some quick charts. But I wanted it quickly – without the necessity of importing in gedcom files, or doing some thorough family research through archived files online or off.

This same set of criteria as I worked with for my own adoption reports, sit readily for many writers. Perhaps with the additional aspects of dealing with alternative worlds or historical dates – or future dates for that matter.

Whereas there is some very good software out there, built for the purposes of using legitimate data from archives, much of it is expensive, and for the writer, difficult to use for a variety of reasons. That software sometimes holds checking data programs which spit out error messages if you try to input a future date, or input an outer-worldly setting which its linked database doesn’t recognise as an actual place on Earth.

MyHeritage.com’s Family Tree Builder allows for different dates and places of birth, but is strong enough to allow you to input and create multiple levels of sometimes complex graphs of characters and their relationships. And it’s Free.

As I have recently moved over onto a new computer, and am busy developing some characters for my newer novel, I decided it was time to download FTB again, and take it for a whirl. The following are simple screenshots and annotations showing you me putting the program through it’s paces, and some of the functions found within.

Using Family Tree Builder

1. Install and Setting Up a New Project

Family Tree Builder comes with numerous language support, a linked community and can be used for legitimate genealogy research and documentation. Download it for windows, and the install will guide you through to creating a new Genealogy Project (or I could import my own family tree put together last year if I wanted to continue adding to this).

Note: the free version of FTB still comes with publishing ability to a website. For my fictional piece of work, I’m obviously not going to do this, but it might be a nice idea, should you be working on a collaborative project with another author.

2. Adding My First Family

After creating a project, the program guides you through adding your first family. Within literally minutes I had my initial family, complete with a mother, father and three children, with birthdates, and decease dates, and reasons.

3. Adding Photos

All the people (characters) in FTB can have multiple photos associated with them. Using the Photos functions I imported in two photos for one of my main characters, setting one of these to her profile photo also (which will appear in the tree panels, and graphs).

I also imported in more images for the other family members, some of which were associated to multiple people as these were group photos.

4. Adding More Relationships

My story involves an event which leads to one of these characters being fostered out to new parents – and therefore a change of name and identity. This character inherits a complicated relationship genograph, and I have used FTB to create these new people.

Unfortunately, FTB doesn’t allow you to print the family tree out showing multiple parentage, even with the new All-in-One chart for Premium account holders. Instead, you are confined to seeing each family individually in several formats such as reports and graphs.

To get around this, I went back, and created the same character as a separate identity for the original family, then married them off together at the date of the adoption. By making this temp person the main basis for a report, I now had a structural graph showing both sides of the family. This is not, admittedly, an ideal solution to showing something like adoption, but a good workaround for a free piece of software.

Note: the above chart, called the All-In-One chart, isn’t available in the free program. You must subscribe for this, which is a cost of £54 annually. However, if you have a less complicated need, where you are after a large family tree ancestor grouping up to your main characters, with any kind of dates input, then Family Tree Builder may well be a good solution.

5. Working with the Main Character

Despite the work-arounds above, to get the adoptive family chart onto the same chart, now I could work with the main character going forward. I simply added a new relationship to this main character, a boyfriend in this case. To get him onto the chart, there had to be a link between him and my main character, so I married her off again (marriage allows for all sorts of partnerships including divorces, separations, partners, and links between same-genders as you can see above).

Despite already being married off to her twin in the chart above, FTB allowed me to add her boyfriend also (with a warning I took no notice of) and my final chart now shows all the main players in my story. I can add to this accordingly with additions of bosses and others (perhaps in a new family tree for the main character) if I wish. With the free form of Family Tree Builder, my up-to-date relationship chart would look like the final one below.

Summary

There are some limitations in using Family Tree Builder for fictional family tree creation, particularly if you need to develop a complicated tree involving name changes and changes to parentage or partnerships. Only direct ascendents or descendents can be charted with this software, although unrelated people can be added to the program where you need it. With the free program, reports and charts are restricted to an either / or basis – either ancestry or descendents or immediate family.

With a bit of creativity you can develop workarounds to allow a full chart to be shown of your characters in most cases. However, I had to upgrade, and at some cost, to get to the graph I was actually interested in for my own fictional work. Family Tree Builder, as a free product, provides an excellent basis for the creation of large ancestral family trees, and as such I would recommend you take a look at it if you need such a tool in your writing set.

For a different product, consider GenoPro, which can create some complicated genograms (which will include the adoptive side of your characters). GenoPro is not free, however, and will cost US$49 for a single license.

LinkMe: Download myheritage.com Family Tree Builder

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Can it? I downloaded The Organized Writer after being impressed by some ideas Julie Hood provided for organisation through an interview at the latest edition of WOW – Women on Writing. After reading through The Organized Writer, I took some of the ideas and combined them with my own, and didn’t regret my purchase.

The Organized Writer’s Six Rules

Here are the six rules of every organized writer….

1.  Work with Yourself, Not Against Yourself
Understand your personality and what works for you.  Do what feels right and what appeals to you—not what seems to “be organized.”

2. Focus and Pay Attention
When possible, do one thing at a time. Do not let your mind wander. Picture the goal in your mind, and focus on it.

3. Invest Your Time
Pay attention to how you spend your time. Saving just 20 minutes each day gives you an extra 120 hours each year. Strive to improve the time it takes to complete a project. Be willing to invest a block of time if it will save you hours of frustration later.

4. Create Habits
You can create a new habit (or lose a bad habit!) in 21 days. For only three weeks of effort, you can create a lifetime of  good habits.

5.  Use the Right Tools
Make sure you have the right tools handy when you need them.

6.  Work Forward
Organize for your work ahead.  Don’t organize what’s already finished. You want to save time by going forward not just reorganize what you already have.

The Organized Writer Review

The Organized Writer is broken up into 30 days worth of work-book tasks, with separate sections towards topics such as recognising your organizing personality and what might work for you, to organizing your workspace, then your online life, and your writing projects.

Starting off with a survey, the e-book itself led me to discover that -  like many people – I suffer (or have room for improvement, in more positive speak) from a combination of being a packrack / perfectionist / procastinator in some of my organisation methods. Within the book, methods for both the computer-based versus paper-based writer are given, making me happy because I am predominantly electronic if I can help it. But there is plenty for those who insist on files and folders in real world terms also.

Ideas are based in the real world also – the planner system templates (see below) can be slotted into current filofax type planners you may already be using, or can completely build your own writer’s planner system. For deskspace, Julie Hood suggests using filing cabinets and a door if you don’t have a proper desk at this time. The e-book recognises that writing is a professional business, with professional needs supported by printable templates – but that not all of us have access to our own workspaces or even huge swathes of spare time in which to write in.

Importantly, the author and e-book discuss methods and ideas which aren’t forced upon you. It is recognised that everyone is different in their own organisational likes and dislikes, and in The Organized Writer we are simply given tools which we can pick and choose from to form our own working system. This philosophy is brought through the entire e-book, perhaps pinpointed in Rule No. 6 above – Work Forward. Here, the author proposes that we don’t expend wasted energy trying to re-organise what we’ve already done, but move forward small step by small step and day by day into more efficient systems. She also emphasises that we should not be beating ourselves up over not being properly organised beforehand, or even afterwards – that the ideas included in The Organized Writer and supporting newsletters and the website, can be picked up at any time.

This e-book, on Day 2, introduces the filing system, which she calls a “Master List” – of categories, and sub-categories which you must choose for yourself, and simplify as much as possible. This list of filing categories – for research, how-to’s , topic papers, and your writing project management system. The Master List of main categories, sub-catergories and topics can be introduced both into a paper-based system and onto your computer. The Master List introduction is available outside of the e-book. You will find the full Day 2 text on the website at http://www.organizedwriter.com/master.htm.

I was slightly confused by this section – not towards creating a list of main categories and sub-categories for filing into, but in the request to decide on only seven main categories. The e-book gives you a list of some you might choose (from Art to Women’s) for topical main categories. However, it then also provides a list of seven other main categories (including a generic “Other” category to one for “Manuscripts” and “Cheat Sheets”) which every writer should have, making a total of fourteen? I wasn’t sure.

Day 3 introduces the Sidetracked Writer’s Planner, with how-to’s for assembling an actual planner in three-ring binder form, and templates to print out to insert. Note: the Sidetracked Writer’s Planner is available in a separate and free e-book form from the website also, if you sign-up for the weekly tips emails.

There are plenty of templates within both the free Sidetracked Writer’s Planner e-book and The Organized Writer e-book – although the later has some additional templates for you, including more on the accounting side of things.

I don’t use a filofax or other planner like that – I’ve previously found myself to be gungho in any new year to buy and play with such things, only to forget to keep them updated once February comes around. However many of the templates provided are simple spreadsheets for tracking things like manuscript submissions etc. It would perhaps help someone like me if these were provided in electronic separate form as excel spreadsheets or similar, but for project managing my writing, I’m personally inclined to seek out electronic software or create something technical through Excel for myself anyway.

Day 4 provides another survey to pinpoint what organisation approaches work with you – linking each question to a section within the e-book if you need further ideas and advice on that particular area.

At this point I should note that the e-book does have an American standpoint, especially around the subject of taxes, although this subject is something that every freelance writer with tax and expense claims should recognise no matter what country they live in.

Section 2 introduces the “Time Map” – an hourly check of your days to work out where your time is spent, and highlight where writing can perhaps be introduced. This is, again, a simple method, but one I would recommend everyone take a look at. As a writer, mother, part-time worker, domestic cleaning engineer, child entertainer and chauffeur, and dog walker (amongst other roles), my own time is often strapped (or so I think) towards finding time to write on some days. I used the word “finding” loosely, because as the Time Map shows – it’s a matter sometimes to “make” that time, but the map certainly found me some I was oblivous to also.

The Organized Writer then provides quite a few different time management techniques, from the electronic to the physical, index cards, to email reminders, task assignments, to the DRAW method (Declutter – Read – Assess – Write). Many of these ideas are excellent if you need a more tightened approach to your own activity management to get work done.

Not discussed in the e-book itself is another concept which the author introduces in the interview published in WOW’s Edition 26 on Time. Here’s a quote from Julie Hood towards assessing and chunking activities for use when you do find you suddenly have a few minutes of spare time -

Another suggestion is to think about how you can chunk your writing activities into smaller and smaller pieces that only take short amounts of time. While we would all love to have big blocks of writing time, those can be hard to find. Make yourself a 15-minute list, a 30-minute list, and an hour list. On each list write what you could accomplish in that amount of time. For example, some of the things on my 15-minute list are: pick a title, find a market, and read my blog reader.

Type these lists so you have them handy whenever you get a free moment.

I love this approach. In my own day I often find myself with twenty minutes spare waiting to go to work, or school,having rushed to prepare myself. It’s not enough time to start or continue with a major writing project, but is often wasted while I just wait around. Finding an hour or two for writing is easy – I schedule that into my diary, booking an appointment with myself for my writing (this is an approach talked about within the e-book also). But using those wasted fifteen minutes of waiting time by preparing with a list of activities I could do in that period is a simple but effective technique I hadn’t thought about until now. There are indeed many tasks such as reading my own blog reader which often get shunted away until they become a massive clean-up exercise at the end of the week – which is not only disheartening, but eats into my dedicated writing time. Until now, that is.

The Organized Writer e-book goes on to deal with de-cluttering and organizing your workspace, desk, filing etc, providing other templates to print out. There is then sections in the book giving links to websites for bookmarking favourites, researching, or creating your own website.

These sections in the e-book perhaps need some updating. The filing tab template goes up to the year of 2006, although there are spaces to print in your own labels for the three years after this and forwards. In the Online Workspace section, whilst discussing your computer’s hard drive there is reference to Windows ME, showing this datedness also. There is a section on communicating through the web which highlights emails and community forums, however probably now needs to emphasize the distraction affect (and positives) of today’s social networking sites such as Facebook, or Twitter for the writer.

A section on grabbing ideas supplies several templates for “idea grabbing” and indexing – into your master filing system. The e-book carries on giving tips on query letters and emails, submissions and manuscripts – suggesting we should create templates for these letters and emails in readiness for filling these in. After the tips on US taxes, there is a Skills section, and a Household Organization section.

There is a software product suggested in the submissions section called The Writer’s Database which I had never heard of before, but appears still available to download. There are plenty of other software packages out there now, for free, for tracking queries and submissions for writers also. Several are listed in my own free ebook, The Ultimate Guide for Writers, published this month.

The last two days of the 30 day daily task approach re-iterate reviewing your time, and assessing your own productivity. The book is rounded off simply on Day 30 with a thank-you for reading that far from the author. An appendix containing all the printable template forms rounds off the 212 page e-book.

The Organized Writer provides many workable ideas, combined with some how-tos on things such as writing query letters, or setting up a website. The e-book does nor preach or espouse a “do it like this, and you will be much more productive” approach. You can return to it, to apply new techniques as you find the need, and holistically, you can also seek out other organisation approaches which suit you in your external life, as long as you schedule the writing activities in, as a priority.

There is enough detail and copious templates in The Organized Writer to support a completely chaotic writer through the development of a working organisational approach – allowing him or her to finally get on with some productive writing.  But there is also enough flexibility for somebody like me, who already is quite organised in some aspects of her writing life, to add to, and simplify her own methods with better ideas – and ones from someone who understands the special requirements of the writing practice.

Am I more organised after reading The Organized Writer? Yes, put bluntly. I am about to use several of the ideas found within, including the Master List to categorisation, and I am assessing my time through a Time Map (which I’m taking out to a calendar and diary system). I am combining quite a few methods into my current approaches, then simplifying down. I am also creating a planner type system – only my one is in electronic form, with some additions in my Writer’s Notebook and a Writing Diary / Log system.

I would recommend The Organized Writer for all writers out there, no matter what your current approach, personality type or requirements. All can benefit from some of the ideas and methods discussed in this e-book.

LinkMe: The Organized Writer ebook -available from OrganizedWriter.com

Addendum:Jan 22 2009: Julie Hood has pointed out a couple of errors in this review which I have now corrected. You will find The Organized Writer ebook available through OrganizedWriter.com for $14.95.

Addendum : April 16th 2009. Originally published in January of this year, the article had an incorrect link in one Url. However all attempts to correct this and amend the article have reverted back to the original on Updating. To make up for this, I am now publishing as a completely new article and feature for this month, and hopefully will be able to delete the incorrect article published previously.

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Technology and Access

Screenshot 1

This is a course which runs through your browser. On purchase, Tom will send you a link to access the course. Please don’t share it. You will need Flash and Apple Quicktime installed for the course to run. I didn’t have Flash installed correctly (who knew?) but the first page of the course sends you to download and install Adobe Flash for problems such as I encountered. The guided visualisations in the course require Quicktime for the audio – which again needed updating from my own browser side.

Once into the course, you are presented with a graphical interface (See Screenshot 1) with a left hand sidebar contents pane, and the course running in the centre panel. The course itself runs like a movie – you have both a slide presentation, plenty of graphics, mind maps  and Tom’s audio narration helping you through both the course contents and the interface controls. You can quite simply run the entire course at your own pace, and return to various sections easily with the player controls.

About the Bookwright and the Course

Stop by the ‘About the Bookwright’ section, where Tom runs you through his background. He provides this summarised in a mind map. Tom arrived into writing from a broadcasting and technology background, and you can tell. Unleash the Book Inside You combines this knowledge, his work in writing and providing coaching for writers into a self study course which has a real spirtual and creative feel also.

Sometimes elements such as planning stories or even doing software mind maps can appear a little cold – perhaps overly technical. In organising a book, or organising our life, I have found how easy it is to sometimes forget about the mind, my dreams, and where my inspiration ultimately comes from – and how to access these creative parts of myself. This self study course brings back some of the magic of this creative process.

Mind Maps

Screenshot 2

The course also centres around using mind maps for writing – inspiration and idea generation and planning writing. (See Screenshot 2).

Through the attachment tab, you can download all of the exercise mind maps as a PDF file. Mind maps are set as exercises also – and you are welcome to do these using coloured pencils and paper, or mind-mapping software. For the later, the course links you to free trials of either Tony Buzan’s iMap software or Mindjet’s MindManager software.

Guided Visualisations

Attached as part of the course components, you will also find several guided visualisations which run through Quicktime. These will run through a separate page in your browser, unless you have the QuickTime Pro, in which case you can download the source MP3 files.

The visualisations combine a narration from Tom, and some ethereal music, and guide you into a relaxed almost meditative state to locate your own creativity.

The Course Contents and Audience

Unleash the Book Inside You Self Study Contents

Part 1 : Inspiration

Your Guiding Motivation
About Your Book
Blockage Clearance
Visualisation 1 Embedding Mind Maps

Part 2 : Explanation

Using Models
Whole Brain Thinking
Three Mind Model
The Collective Mind
Definition of Inspiration
How do you spot them?
Entanglement
Cascade of Creativity
Visualisation 2 Journey to the Akashic

Part 3 : Preparation

Profiling Your Reader
Creating Rapport
Grounding Your Concept
Your Book Structure
Your Writing Plan
Getting the Start & End
Visualisation 3 Collapsing Thoughts

Part 4 : Publication

What is a Book?
Pre-flight
Publishing Options
Time Planning
e-Publishing

Part 5 : Execution

Getting in ‘the zone’
Making use of dream time
Keeping to schedule
Dealing with blocks
Producing your 1st draft
Recommended Reading
Mentoring & support
Visualisation 4 Future Entanglement

Part 6 : Resources

Useful Links – this is a dynamic html mindmap full of links.
About this presentation
The Bookwright Blog
Credits…

Note: this course needs time. Many of the modules may only take a few minutes to listen and watch through, and all-up there is possibly only a few hours of material which you can race through if you wish. But the visualisations are quite long, and you need to ‘attend’ to these. You also – as I found – may find yourself re-thinking something you learnt or heard at a later date, or while washing the dishes perhaps. Ideas need time to filter through your system.

Throughout the process, there will be times when you just want to rest, or others where you feel inspired to go and do the exercises – which again, can take as much time as you may like. The course has interspersed reminders and techniques to allow you to regain control of your own thoughts throughout the modules, for just this reason.

You will complete the self study course with a series of tools which will not only allow you to stop ‘thinking’ about writing, and actually ‘start’ writing, but which are also applicable to many other areas in your own life.

Give yourself time to go through this course, return to those parts that you particularly connected with, and listen again. Once you have purchased and accessed this course, it will always be available to you. Let the dialogue and connections filter in and out of your consciousness, and you will get the most out of this course.

The Course Audience

Screenshot 3

Don’t let the title throw you – if you’re a stuck first time wannabe-a-writer type, who knows there’s a book in there somewhere, then yes – this is the self study course for you. That book will come out.

But the course also did me the world of good. I’m not a first time writer, but can hardly be suggested as being successfully published and a full time author. However, I have enough internal dialogue going on to run my village’s electricity supply if only I could tap it and give it away. And I know there is one or more new books there inside of me which I have mucked around in progressing with. Not only that, but I was somewhat surprised to learn from one self study module (The Writer’s Journey) that my path through my last novel pretty much followed the course diagram, complete with the resistance and some learning at the last chapter. (See Screenshot 3)

The course is as relevant to completely new writers as to experienced writers who may have already produced some writing projects.

Lastly, Unleash the Book Inside You Self Study Course is not only about creative writing. Sections 3 to 4 do deal with the writing process itself, but the other sections and modules found within these are also as relevant to many other creative projects. There is a lot towards the mechanics of the writing process, but in going through this course you realise that you have also been taught something about the mechanics of the core of your inspiration, and how to find that.

This course is not just for fiction, nor is it just for creative writing. If you’ve got a non-fiction book or information product inside of you, then allow this course to implement creative, karmic and holistic methods to locate, structure and write it.

Details – Unleash the Book Inside You Self Study Course

Unleash the Book Inside You Home Study Course is available from the BookWright website, currently for £69 (normally £99). I believe so much in this course that I’ve signed up to be an affiliate.

This is an unbelievable value considering the contents. You couldn’t get so much into a paper-based normal book, and this purchase will give you graphical models, audios, guided visualisations, copious book structuring, writing and marketing knowledge and applicable scientific and creative techniques guaranteed to unleash that book inside you.

Tom Evans also offers coaching / mentoring sessions with the Home Study students, and within England (and internationally) runs the Unleash the Book Inside You Workshops, which I personally one day am planning to attend.

LINKME: Unleash the Book Inside You Home Study Course (Affiliate Link)

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The Writer’s Planner is available from a page on Gayle Trent’s author website, for $10.00 (download) or  $13.95 (for a CD) via a Paypal payment to Gayle’s email address. For the download version, once payment is received, you will be sent the document itself as an attachment via your own paypal email address.

The Writer’s Planner comes in a word document form (.doc) , which can be opened immediately into MS Word if you have this or a free compatible word processor such as OpenOffice. As such, you are free to edit the contents on each page should you wish, and print off which ever pages you want to fill your own diary planner (such as a ringed binder or filofax). With the one purchase, you are free to print off these pages whenever you please – which means you can continue to use a planner like this every year.

The Writer’s Planner contains not only generic weekly diary pages (you will need to input the date, and any appointments or tasks you have in mind for the week) but articles of interest, URLs to writing sites, quotes (with images) from writers, writing tips; and several simple tables or forms for entering lists of books you wish to read, submissions of manuscripts, passwords for websites, ideas, and contacts / important information.

Peppered through these pages are articles written by the author herself on several subjects of interest for writers. Some of these articles are listed below -

• Confused About Copyrights?
• Should You Self-Publish?
• How To Meet Your Writing Goals
• Stuck In A Rut?
• Get The Word Out About Your Book
• Dealing With Editors Who Leave You in Limbo
• Host a Writing/Publishing Event

I would suggest that The Writer’s Planner targets newbie writers – especially people who have not as yet setup a system for submission or other tracking, or planning. Those writers may well get a lot out of both the articles and forms supplied within the planner, and as the forms are in Word format, as tables, they can be easily moved out into other documents also, and used as a basis for building other documents the writer may find they need as they progress.

The format – in Word .doc form also can, in my opinion, provide a risk that to some eyes the planner may look slightly less professional than one which arrives in PDF or pre-printed format. Transferring original documents always risk that the recipient’s computer and word processor systems won’t hold the same fonts used in designing the document. How the author originally designed the look and feel of the product can not be controlled on another system, and may look different from original intentions.

For instance, The Writer’s Planner uses Gaudy Old Style font predominantly for most of its page contents. articles and forms – in various sizes. This more conservative look produced by the font choice is complemented by the choice of black and white and (often) vintage images used with the author quotes scattered through the planner. However, the quotes themselves are huge, and in the Comic Sans font in my system – a font that is jarring against that of most of the design side of the rest of the planner. I remain unsure if my own system and converting the document when opening up into MS Word Version 2007 changed the font from the original choice of the author or not. But Comic Sans and Gaudy Old Style do not work well together (again, in my own design opinion).

However that is a minor point against the arrival of the original word file, which gives us the ability to change or edit each page as we please, remembering that the planner itself is under copywrite to the author.

The Writer’s Planner would make a good downloadable choice – especially for those who are new to organising their writing life through a planner system, and those after some decent resource links and articles to start them off with. The Writer’s Planner certainly supplies those, and is up-to-date with resources given it was released in 2008.

Note : There are other products available out there for creating your own planner system. You could use some of these as complementary templates to create your own unique customised planner, perhaps. Recently I’ve also reviewed a comparable product from The Organized Writer, Julie Hood. If you signup for the email newsletter onsite there, you get a free gift version of a PDF formatted e-book called The Sidetracked Writer’s Planner, which contains 30 pages of forms and a monthly calendar for the writer, including submission and query letter forms also. If you purchase The Organized Writer e-book, you are also given within this, additional templates for your Writer’s Planner. Additionally, there are free to download planner template packs availabe from D*I*Y Planner.com to supplement your planners. See my next review for details of these.

Gayle Trent’s The Writer’s Planner has some interesting features within. If you’re after a customisable (editable) planner system you can supplement with your own templates created or found elsewhere , and some authorative resources, then consider this package of templates and forms, articles and calendars for your own writing planner.

LinkMe: The Writer’s Planner

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A couple of weeks later in the winter sales, I found My Word Coach as a discounted game, and thought it an interesting purchase for somebody who would like to make a living out of writing.

My Word Coach also fits into two of my new year’s resolutions for 2009 – towards increasing my own literary skills for the sake of my writing, and improving my mental side. The arrival of both games console under the tree, and my purchase of My Word Coach brought about two questions, however:

1. Could I – an admitted non-gamer, take to learning using a little games console?
2. And would it really work? Would My Word Coach improve my vocabulary?

Below, in my review of My Word Coach for the Nintendo DS, you will find (possibly) the answers.

1. An Introduction to the Challenge

The DS (and big mother, Nintendo Wii) are known for their Brain Training Games, of course – Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training 1 and 2 were top of the U.K. Christmas DS charts a few weeks ago.

In fact, games consoles themselves – XBoxes, Wiis, and DSes sold like hotcakes around the U.K. My husband, playing Santa, had a hard job sourcing my little turquoise Nintendo DS, which came wrapped up under the tree, along with a cooking game, and of course – the expected Brain Training game itself.

Most children around my small village either possess or are vividly aware of the Nintendo DS games console. And after opening and charging it, I could see why. Using the DS out of the box is childsplay – even for this confirmed games console-phobic. I had a game cartridge in immediately, the power switched on, and was playing my games quite merrily, all within only an hour of receiving and charging it.

Although I know that the games are setup so that you start off poorly – to allow you to add more internal games with improvement -  I must be honest with you and admit that I am incredibly poor at Brain Training. I started off with a brain age of over 80, and have only managed, over the period of ten days, to knock 30 years off that. The target of Age 20 seems beyond me at this point, but I have not done what was suggested – I have not “trained my brain” with the exercises every single day. I have skipped, and gapped my brain training, and introduced My Word Coach into the middle of it. Despite this, the results arisen out of using My Word Coach must speak for themselves regarding my own progress in mental training. I talk of this further in Section 4 of this review.

2. My Word Coach

As with all my other games, I must inform you that I do not read the instructions. Some games for the DS come with limited instruction pamphlets. For instance Guitar Hero instructions still have me not knowing how to use the stummer or the fret bars, nor how to power play – despite actually going to read them.

My Word Coach played out-of-the-box for me. I didn’t need any instructions, as the gameplay itself leads the player through everything. Anytime a new exercise or feature such as statistical buttons are added, a mentor comes on to explain how to play it. The coaches can be changed also – starting off with Doctor Alastair Archibald (looking like the proverbial professor), you can choose to change to three other coaches. The game itself is set at the “Word Training Institute” which is where your coaches are based.

Similarly to Brain Training, your vocabulary progress score is kept track of within the game, as you enter answers to the exercises included. You can see reports on your progress via various buttons, and game features.

The objective to My Word Coach is to present a series of word games to you for training purposes, and to improve your EP – Expression Potential. You are scored towards your communication abilities with others – based on your vocabulary, and command of the English language. An EP can be up to 100. The game suggests that true literary people might obtain an EP of 90, while Editors would achieve 80. On first gameplay you will be shown some other expectations towards EPs for various job roles.

Here’s the embarrassing bit – on first gameplay, I only managed an EP of 45. And it stayed at 45, despite flying through to “driving speed” several games over the course of a week. Taking pity on me, I suspect, I have now been granted an Expression Potential of – wait for it – 46! More on that later…

3. The Gameplay in My Word Coach

On initial startup, as with many DS games, you must setup your profile (so that your results are saved), choose your tutor,  and there is an initial round of tests to rate your base vocabulary level.

Word training games within My Word Coach are designed to test your vocabulary skills and introduce new words to you. There is a core of word training games and some recreational games which are released to you once you become more proficient. The later are not assessed or game results tracked.

As you become more proficient at the word training games, more games are released for you to attempt. Also, the level you can attempt to play the games at are increased and released to you also – starting from easy, to medium, then (apparently – as I haven’t got there yet) hard. Increasingly difficult levels add features to the games themselves also.

Word training games provided are -

• Missing letter – a simple spelling game where a word is spelled in the top panel, with one missing letter. You must write this (using your touch-sensitive panel and stylus) and move onto the next word. You are penalised or bonused dependent on timing also.
• Split Decision – words are shown, and you must choose the definition of these, selecting from two different definitions you must scroll to.
• Pasta Letters – a bowl of pasta soup is displayed, and you must drag the pasta letters to make a word, sort of like a foodie hang-man. Harder levels make the pasta disappear into the soup if you don’t get the word quick enough.
• Block Letters – blocks of letters drop down and you must select these to make a certain amount of words before the case fills. You can bomb away unwanted letters. Note: this particular mini-game requires you to turn the DS onto it’s side, which means that you use the stylus on the right hand side – not particularly good for left-handers.
• Word Shuffle – another definitions game where you have four definitions you must manouvre to, and several words to select from to grab and drop onto the definitions.
• Safecracker - rotate a dial to spell a word – in correct letter order. You are up against a computerised opponent here, and he’s quick – and has the added advantage of actually knowing what the word is he’s spelling out!

After each game you are given a results page which gives you the timing, how many words you correctly chose, and puts your results into context with your previous attempts at the game. The top three (regarding timings) are shown on the right.

After this results page you are also shown an animation for your rating. As you become more proficient you begin to “communicate exceptionally”. More words are added, and levels of the mini-games.

Finally, after the communication rating, you are taken to a glossary section showing you all the words from that mini-game and their definitions. If you knew these, you can exit immediately, or you may want to scroll down to find the definitions for those you did not know – as these will come back to haunt you in later games.

Each day you must reach a target of 100 words – the various games provide you with several words, but you will need to repeat a few games to reach the required level. New words are released to you as you progress, and these are repeated in other games.

If you’re serious about your learning, you can take a look at the results graphs and charts supplied also.

Some Possible Problems in Game Play

So far, in my own limited gameplay I have encountered the following problems -

• Missing Letters – this is reliant on the recognition of your own hand-writing. You write the missing letters in capitals, however sometimes certain letters are picked up incorrectly. For instance, my capital “A” is often recognised incorrectly as a “Q”. To correct this, I have to make sure that I spread the A across the entire screen. This can be a good thing also – sometimes I’ve found my words in-filled with a letter and correct without me actually writing it correctly.
• Problems from a non-American perspective: Despite My Word Coach asking me whether I was in Europe or the U.K. (My Word Coach is distributed through the U.K. by Ubisoft), choosing this appears to have no significance. The game comes with a glossary of words which includes American English spellings. This means the Missing Letters game in particular can go a little wrong (for this English English person) until you realise that it is using an American word – and you need to spell it this way. Examples are ‘jewelry’ vs ‘jewellery’ , ‘homeopathy’ vs ‘homoeopathy’, ‘traveling’ vs ‘travelling’,  and ‘program’ vs ‘programme’. When you’re on a clock-watch and a non-American this can make recognising missing letters and complete words a challenge in places, and is one of the reasons many U.K. reviewers have suggested not giving this game to their British children for learning from. Watch the definitions also, particularly if your letters are scrambled – and partially disappearing into a pasta soup. For example I had a definition come up regarding what I would call a “footpath” but the game was looking for “sidewalk”. And from my supposedly local copy, I was also tested on a Scottish/Irish word which I’ve never heard in common usage, not even within my several Scottish/Irish friends. One of the recreational games uses an American-accented speaker reading out words also, which can be confusing for non-Americans when trying to choose definitions.
• Left-handed problems for one particular game which requires the DS to be used on it’s side.

4. Does it Work?

Yes, it does. Although progress is quite slow, and after receiving all six training games, repeating these multiple times to obtain my word score for the day’s session can become a little monotonous, and all for an EP rating increase of just one point if you’re lucky. Whether I will ever achieve that EP rating of 90+ is difficult to predict – there’s possibly more chance of playing the game more occasionally to refresh my vocabulary, and to simply “learn a new word” for the day.

I have learnt new words through My Word Coach – or more honestly, the definition of these. There are 17,000 words within My Word Coach. When you have a new word presented to you, there’s a good chance that you will recognise it, and have a general feeling of what it means or is associated to – but being tested on a glossary definition means putting a learning slant onto this. As a new years resolution I have set a task to both increase my own vocabulary and my mental suppleness. My Word Coach, as a portion of the many brain training type games out there meets both criteria for me, despite its possible problems. For this reason alone I would recommend it to other writers wanting both a challenge and to use that DS game console their children or they got over the last year or for Christmas.

What was drastically witnessed was how using My Word Coach for a week both updated my own vocabulary and greatly increased my reaction and thinking speed. This was evidenced when I returned to the Brain Training game on my DS, and suddenly found myself working through the brain ages and dropping this by several points at a time. My own mental processing powers and speed are being improved by both games, which is the whole point of any of these.

5. Features of My Word Coach

My Word Coach comes in various cover-prints according to country. The U.S. version has a blue-purple print, this U.K. version shows a yellow cover. Features included in the game are -

• 6 core word training games
• 3 difficulty levels
• A glossary of over 16,500 words and definitions using the Official Cambridge Dictionary.
• 4 different personal coaches to choose from (mentors).
• Save data / results for three people. Or logon as a guest.
• Available at Amazon.co.uk for around £15 from various games sellers. Click on the icon next to this link to open more details for the Amazon US version or to find it in other stores.

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Being a home-based writer turned things around on me, however. Without the legitimacy of having a boss breathing down my neck (perhaps it was my cleavage?) or staff being dependent on my own work output, then things got a little less functional. I am, perhaps, my own worst boss, or motivator. But now I have a handy little free tool to use as my lifestyle and writing boss.

For years we have all heard about the holy goodness that is found in an “affirmation”. Some productivity systems use these, and goals, and life goals, and small goals, large goals, life roles, systems, routines, and even sticky notes stuck up onto our morning mirrors (who ever asked me – I tend not to look into mirrors myself),

Affirmations always seemed a good idea – in theory at least – to me. But when following through, I often found that using them lasted only a day. Sticky notes fell off my monitor, not to be seen for several days until suddenly appearing posted onto the inundating backside of my dog. Other family members wouldn’t share the same religious fervour I did about prompting myself with an affirmation which I had also generously provided publicly for all of them also. Or if I hid them away, I found ways to avoid the general hiding place (ie. the whole room or house) for hours on end. My id, or ego, or whichever part of me which had initially nodded at my great affirmation idea, quickly seemed to not want the affirmation goodness at all.

Today I discovered the free Motivator software. This is a download for PC windows users, and once installed and registered (input your email address used to get the link), the motivator puts a little icon into your windows system bar. You can configure the text which appears in it, and the quantity of popups which appears on an hourly basis. Fonts and background images are configurable also.

To the left you will see a screenshot of some sample messages. I’ve input some writing ones specific to my current needs. I’ve left in the generic messages (“Smile!”) which come with the install. I would suggest that confining myself to perhaps four or five good affirmations will be the way to go in the future.

Now, I’ve set the motivator to popup an affirmation for me twice an hour, and I can’t avoid them. They keep me on track of what my real objectives are. Plus they remind me to be happy with the life I currently have.

They say that new habits take 20 days to form. With the aid of the free motivator software, I should be able to prove that, without irritating my family, or dog.

The Motivator software is free from the WCCL network, which also offers free giveaways on writing stuff, and software.

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