Free Money Making Tips

Angela Booth has a great free resource for the poor freelancer wanting to make a little extra money. It’s called the Fab Freelance ezine and it’s available through her writing blog. In it she gives tips on how to find clients, different places to find work, managing money and more. Click the link above to get some great help on freelancing.

Job Ads That Go Nowhere

The writer who is constantly searching various writing job boards for freelance work will know what I am talking about. These are not serious job ads, they are advertisements for freelance job boards. I have seen many tantalizing job ads that end up at sites that ask for payment in exchange for possible jobs. These are frustrating to come across.

The ad will always tell you about great revenue to be made, but will never mention anything specific. It will give a couple of links, which go straight to sales pages, usually. They don’t give a chance to see the writing job board itself unless payment is made. There is usually no way to tell if it is even worth the ten dollars a month, or whatever they charge.

The last thing you want to do at a job board is get directed to yet another job board. There are so many out there, and it is impossible to cover them all. Some are really good. Others not so much. If a job board has to
advertise on other boards, then they are probably not worth the time to even look at the ad.

Entertainment Blogger

I have been reviewing my writing over the past few months. Here is what I have found.

I am well on my way to becoming a regular entertainment blogger. I see perhaps one or two bands perform a week, plus other events and I blog about them all. I manage to get at least two or three interviews a month. Most of the bands I see are attached to indie labels or have no label at all. My blog, http://episodeswithentertainers.wordpress.com, is testament to my entertainment reporting.
Another facet of that is the blog I manage for Killaloe’s radio station, http://.chcrradio.wordpress.com. I have written articles about the DJs, the shows, the events they support and others for them. I have a lot of love for blogging. It is an activity I enjoy immensely. As an entertainment blogger, I offer services to help promote artists on the world wide web. Or, if you are a restaurant or club with live music regularly, promote them with a blog. Imagine sitting back and having people across the globe know who you are and what your music is all about. A blog is an excellent tool to promote yourself because it is far easier to update than a website. It can be updated weekly, daily or more and once daily with articles, reviews, concert dates and more.
Leave a comment or email me at stephaniefehr@hotmail.com for more information on what I can do for you.

Passing of Michael Chrichton


The venerated techno-thriller author, Michael Crichton, has passed on at the age of 74. The world of writers and publishers has been given a staggering blow. Who hasn’t watched or read Jurassic Park? Not to mentioned all the other books he wrote read by millions. He has influenced so much with his writing.
I’m young enough to have grown up with his books and influence on science fiction. Most of what I know about science came out of his books. I always thought that we should have studied his work in science class as extra credit. That was his appeal to me; his ability to meld information with gripping story-telling. He has influenced my own story-telling to a great extent. I was hit harder by this than I thought I would be. To think I will never read another book by Crichton that hasn’t already been written. I mourn the passing of a great author.

Evolution of Characters


My characters evolve over time. Rather than making up a new character for each story idea that pops into my mind, I tend to use the same ones over and over again. The name or a few background details may change, but the essential personality stays the same. And so, by putting these characters into different contexts, the evolve and grow. Eventually, they become full fledged people on paper.
I can trace some characters going back years. They undergo changes as they appear in different stories. In a well developed character, many of the original concepts will be gone, changed out of existence. Still, what made the character endearing in the first place is still there.
Watching the character grow through different situations is valuable. It’s back story gives it a history and something to work off of. It influences how the character reacts and individual plot points as well. Putting a
character into several stories can develop it in ways that are entirely new and spontaneous.

Back From a Hiatus

Yes, I am back, after a week of not posting. It was a hiatus desperately needed, as I spent time developing new ideas that will come into fruition in the near future. Ideas that will hopefully spark my creativity and get things going.

Sadly, all of my blogs have been neglected, so in the next few days, that will be remedied. I will be posting about the film festival and entertainment lineup that I had the pleasure of attending. I also am in the process of setting up contests on the CHCR blog. And many more local artists will be featured in the near future as well. Stay tuned.

CHCR Website and Blog

Somehow, I have managed to get to the point where I am both writing/managing the CHCR blog and working on their website. For those of you who don’t know, CHCR is a local community radio station residing in Killaloe. I have been involved with the radio station for approximately three years. As a paid member and now a writer for it, I have to say, I like it. It’s a medium that has brought together many people in the community, and despite lack of funding, has managed to grow over the last ten years of it’s existence. It’s goals of broadcasting to a wider audience, owning a building, creating a media centre, and going “green”, are slowly being met.

On the other hand, it’s refreshingly varied shows means that there is something for everybody. You can listen online at www.chcr.org, the CHCR website. The blog has news and show profiles. Here is the link. I invite you to check out this collective of creative people.

Imagination Prompt Generator

The Imagination Prompt Generator is a program designed to get your imagination in gear by providing a short prompt and inviting you to finish the sentence or thought. It’s useful for finding inspiration for articles, fiction, blog posts or just simply journal exercises. With prompts such as “I’d like to emulate _____ because…” or “My ten pet peeves are…”, it is sure to get you thinking and creating. And if you don’t like what you see, click on the next prompt button and you’ll get another one, ad infinitum.

Dmoz

This is a site good for researching niche related topics. Visit it to find websites or ideas for writing articles, PLR content and more.
I like it because it breaks down topics, allowing for a really concentrated search. It beats going through millions of results from a Google search. It has many different topics from health to arts to kids and teens. It is worth checking out for research purposes. Dmoz.

Video Games

Since I recently began to play video games on a regular basis, I became fascinated and amazed by the thought that goes into developing the storylines behind them. Especially role-playing games. Take Morrowind or Bioshock for examples. The straightforward gaming plot or quest is amazing and would make a great book. But story developers for video games have an additional challenge. They must create dozens of side-quests and hundreds of characters to round out the game and make it fun to play. Each of them has a name, a history, and a personality. All of this must be seamlessly intertwined with the main plot. For those of you stuck on how to develop a plot or characters, start playing video games and study them carefully. Video games aren’t a waste of time, provided you learn something from it.