Make your own word cloud poster

Want to make a promotional poster or logo for your book?  Try the free tool at http://www.wordle.net/

Type in a list of words or cut and paste a piece of text from your book into the tool and click “go.”  According to the website, “You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.”

Here is a word cloud I created using this toy:

Procrastination

This winter I am trying to finish a book about Marie Peary, the daughter of the Arctic explorer. Fact is, I’m not making very much progress. Too many distractions. First, there is the holiday rush to contend with—present wrapping, cookie baking, and so on. The biggest distraction of all, though, is the technology I am using to finish researching and writing the damn book. Yesterday went like this:

I woke up and decided to devote the entire morning to writing chapter 4 (I told you I hadn’t got very far). I sat down at the computer, opened up a new file, and titled it Chapter 4. Hmmmm. How to begin? I reread the draft of Chapter 3 and fiddled with a few sentences there. This all took about 20 minutes and I still couldn’t think of how to begin Chapter 4.

So, I decided to check in on my email. Three messages---all from students wondering about their final grades. It only took five minutes to read the messages, but one student gave a link to website she wanted me to review as a follow up for her final project. That took another 10 minutes. Oh yes, and while I was on the internet, I decided to check my Face book posts. Oops, someone posted something controversial on my wall—I then needed to post and upload a video and link in order to make a rebuttal. First, I had to find the link. Another fifteen minutes.

I decided to knock off for lunch at 11 a.m. and after that I had to watch the news and after that, I was a little sleepy so I took a walk to wake myself up. The walk made me tired, so I decided to take a little nap, and when I woke up, I didn’t feel like writing anymore. Therefore, I decided to devote today to working on Chapter 4, and here I am writing this blog post. Now that it’s done, I think I’ll have lunch because it is 11 a.m. After that, I’ll work on Chapter 4.

Technology tools you can use

One of my favorite email subscriptions is called “Free Technology for Teachers.” This daily message outlines three or four web tools that teachers K-12 can use for teaching and learning.  Although I teach college, I can usually find an application for higher ed in using these tools. I write about some of them in this blog, giving applications for using the tools for researching and writing historical fiction.

Last week, one of the tools in the mailing was a video showing how to sit at the computer if you are doing serious work—not just browsing the internet.  Here is the link directly from the Free Technology for Teachers, so you can check out both the video and the blog.

Researching historicaL fiction details

Looking for a fast way to find out what happened in a particular year in history?  Want to add more authentic time-specific detail to your historical novel?

For example, what novel would your protagonist have been reading in 1888? What was the latest technology in 1666? To what play would your London villain have taken his mistress in 1750?

The Timesearch website allows you to search the web through timelines.  Although it is a bit awkward to use at first, the tool does allow you to search by date, area and theme.  Themes include arts, literature, performing arts, politics, religion, science, technology and war.  Clicking on a theme for a particular year and area doesn’t give a whole lot of information, but is useful for finding tidbits of info that can help flesh out the historical time period about which you write.

Icons on the web tool allow a user to find text as well as images, linking to Google and History World. Interesting tool for researchers and writers of historical fiction.

Literature Map

I happened across an interesting website one day last week called Literature Map: A tourist map of literature.  When you go to the site, you type in the name of a writer, and the site develops a word map of other authors who write books similar to the author whose name you entered into the search box.  The site is useful for finding writers in a particular genre or who write in a particular style that you write. So, for example, if you type in “Hemingway,” you get a word map that includes Salinger, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Eggers and Wilde, among others. All are writers found in the literary canon, in this case.

I typed in my own name just for fun. The site didn’t recognize me.  No surprise there.  But when I clicked “yes” to the prompt “are you sure of the spelling?” the site added me to the database for “suggest a new writer.”  So that’s something.  Site visitors are then asked to vote to include writers in the database.  I’ll be curious to see the literature map the site creates for me as a writer of historical fiction, won’t you?  That is, if I win the election.

Book trailers

One of the biggest challenges to me as a self-published eBook author was to create a book trailer.  I did not have the time to learn Adobe Flash, nor the money to hire a professional.  So I decided to do it myself (you can view may trailer on this blog). I used the free online tool Animoto.  Caveat: the free part gets you a mere 30 seconds, but I felt that was enough time to plug my small nonfiction book.  If I ever self-publish again, I will probably upgrade to Animoto Pro.

Second, since my book is pure text and doesn’t really lend itself to visuals, I chose to use words as images, except for the photo of the cover and of me.  I happen to own copyright to both those images, so I saved some money there.  Then there was the matter of music.  I chose music for which I paid a license fee—about $50 for a 30-second clip. 

Since making that first book trailer, I have discovered there are some free sources or Creative Commons licenses for music you can use in your book trailers:

“14 Awesome Open Source Music Sites for Digital Creatives”

Need a historical map?

Need a map for your historical fiction?  Trying to get a fix on a historical location for your setting? The David Rumsey Map Collection Data Base and blog web site features historic maps for many geographical areas and timelines. 

According to the site, “Popular collection categories include antique atlas, globe, school geography, maritime chart, state, county, city, pocket, wall & case, children's, and manuscript maps.  You can browse map categories: What, Where, Who, When. The collection can be used to study history, genealogy, art, explorations, local and family history.”

The data base includes over 12,000 searchable maps.

Protect your computer and your information

Keeping your information secure on the internet is important in the digital age.  Google Good to Know gives you five tips for making sure your information stays safe and your computer virus free.  The site reminds you to:

1.      Create safe passwords and change them twice a year.

2.      Enable 2-step verification of password accessed sites.

3.      Update software when prompted because updates often contain important security fixes.

4.      Beware of suspicious sites that resemble authentic ones.

5.      Scan your computer regularly for viruses and malware.

Watch a video on how to perform these five tasks at http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/online-safety/

Get it done---a day at a time!

Every evening at 6 pm I get an email from http://idonethistoday  asking, “What’d you get done today?” I make a mental list of anything I did over the course of the past 24 hours with regard to my current historical fiction project. Then I take a few moments to reply to the email, and the site makes the entry on a monthly calendar.  When I log into the site, I can check the calendar for a full list of accomplishments I’ve reported.

Checking the monthly calendar makes me feel productive, even though on some days I didn’t accomplish much (or anything at all). Over the course of the week or the month, though, I can see that I did actually make progress in my research/writing/ marketing of my historical fiction. It’s all psychological, but it works to keep me motivated.  I believe in the tool’s pitch. The website claims that, “Inch by inch, anything’s a cinch. We’ll keep a calendar for you of what you got done. Look to your streak from yesterday to motivate you today.”

Stop Wasting Time!

If you are like me, you probably waste a lot of time checking email and social media sites before (or instead of) getting down to the nitty gritty of research and writing your historical novel.  Stay Focusd in a new Google Chrome extension that will help you stay focused on your work.

According to the website, the product works “by restricting the amount of time you can spend on time-wasting websites. Once your allotted time has been used up, the sites you have blocked will be inaccessible for the rest of the day.”

I need to take all the help I can get to avoid unwanted distractions! Like all the web tools I write about in this blog, Stay Focusd is free.

Civil War research tool

Do you write about the Civil War?  Do you use primary source documents as research for your historical fiction?  If so, the interactive Civil War poster found at http://teachinghistory.org/civil-war

might be a great tool for your research—or use it to inspire you to explore primary documents on your own as a basis for your research. 

According to the site, “As explorers of the past, we can look at a variety of sources—maps, letters, diaries, objects, music, images, and more—to piece together a sense of the Civil War’s complexity. The images and related resources from this poster are designed to get students thinking about how primary sources can help uncover stories about the past.”  Although this tool is designed primarily for teachers and students of Civil War history, it certainly has applications for researchers and writers of historical fiction. How do you access primary source documents for your research?  Share your tips he

Mobile device apps for writers

Have a mobile device?  Can you recommend a good writing app?  For the iPad, Apple’s Pages is a great full featured word processor with plenty of templates and some basic editing tools. Its $9.99 price may be a bit pricey, but this app is definitely the one to choose if you plan to do much writing on your device. If you want a less expensive app, particularly for capturing great ideas, making lists, or capturing quotes from readings, then Clean Writer may be a good choice for you.  It is a mere 99 cents.  Other good apps for writers include:  Advanced English Dictionary and Thesaurus (free) and Grammar App HD.  Do you have a favorite writing app for your mobile device?  If so, tell us about it here.

Researching old newspapers and the American old West

Recently I found a great website that is a product of the collaboration between journalists and scholars. Stanford University’s Rural West Initiative is a goldmine of credible research information for writers of historical fiction about the American West.  According to the site’s home page,

“The Rural West Initiative aims to create a unique collaboration between journalists and scholars to investigate the forces transforming the rural west.  We are generating reports and stories ourselves and will commission more from reporters, scholars, researchers, and students across the West. Our work uses extensive data visualization as well as text, video, and still photography to tell our stories.”

One of the links I found useful is the interactive map of the growth and decline of U. S. newspapers. So if you are wondering what your historical American characters were reading as early as 1690, you can find out at this site.

Should you make your own book trailer?

Book trailers have become very popular important tools for both print and eBooks. I recently made a book trailer for my book Writing Historical Fiction: Advice for the Digital Age.  You can view it here.  For my book trailer, I used the free online tool Animoto.  My trailer used text rather than images, so it was fast to make, and I didn’t have to worry about getting permission to use copyrighted images. Since I uploaded the trailer to YouTube, I had to purchase a license for the music I used in the trailer so as not to violate copyright. (More about finding music and copyright free images in another blog.)  Although my trailer was easy to make and not very expensive, it is also not very professional looking.  Lesson learned: It might be better to hire a professional to make your book trailer. But if you want to make your own, check out models at http://www.booktrailersforreaders.com/.

Other free online tools for creating book trailers are Stupeflix, shwup, flextime and masher.

Set your goals in writing historical fiction

I like to make lists to keep track of things I hope to accomplish in a day, week, month, and year. That’s why I was tickled to find a free task tracker called LazyMeter, which helps track my progress on a writing project. It is essentially a checklist that uses metrics to show you visually how much you have accomplished compared to what you set out to do.

There is a good article on the LazyMeter blog that explains how the tool can help you track your productivity, and why6 you just might prefer it to the old-fashioned pen and paper method.

Bookshelves

Recently my publisher decided to forego the publishing of print books for eBooks.  It is cheaper I suppose, and technology enables readers to download reading material instantly. My last book was published as an eBook, in fact.  All of my print books are now available as eBooks.  It makes me a little sad to think that I will never be able to hold one of my books in my hands again.

Although I own a Kindle and an iPad on which I have downloaded many books, I do prefer to hold a paper book in my hands.  I like the smell of the ink and the way the pages feel.  I like the sound of those pages when I turn them. I like to organize them on my bookshelves at camp, and I like the way the colors of the covers brighten the room. 

You can see my bookshelf here.

When I am visiting others folks’ homes, I like to explore their bookshelves to see what they like to read. That’s why I was delighted to find a website called Breathing Books devoted to showcasing photographs of other readers’ bookshelves. Call me old fashioned.

Here is the link for bookshelf voyeurs: http://breathingbooks.tumblr.com/