This entry’s prize is from the author: One custom banner for a blog or web site created to the winner’s specs and preferences, valued at $200. Men with Pens ask for a 7 to 10 day turnaround from the point that the winner transmits her/his specs. We’re also giving away two copies of Ricochet Infinity (Windows only). Just leave a 30-word comment on this post by June 23 to get an entry for a drawing.

My meeting James Chartrand of Men with Pens didn’t go smoothly. We met on Poewar and had a friendly debate about men vs. women bloggers. But as I got to know him, he grew on me. He oozes talent and confidence that many writers don’t have. Sure, his lyrical writing style made me feel insecure at times… so how appropriate that he writes about the topic.

The Fear that Holds Creative Writers Back

Creative writers generally work alone. They write alone, they think up their plot lines alone, they secretively select who they’ll show their work to and don’t really enjoy receiving feedback.

Creative writing is a personal matter, after all. The very action means that we’ve called upon ourselves, our experience, our minds, our skills and parts of our soul to create what we will.

The problem with creative writers is the tendency to think, “I’m not that good.” It’s a rare day when a creative writer stands up tall to proclaim, “I rock. My short stories are awesome. I’m fantastic at this! Wanna read?”

Right. I know. You wouldn’t think of being so bold. You probably say something like, “Oh… It’s really not that good. Kind of silly, even. I could let you see… but…well, okay.”

Not the impression of someone confident in a creation from the heart, is it?

Most creative writers set very high standards for themselves. They do so through comparison. They read the works of others and think, “I wish I could write like that.”

And instead of saying, “I’m going to try to write like that,” they avoid public embarrassment, bow their heads and go back to their solitary work, feeling disheartened.

Not good, that.

We know. We’ve seen it. We recently opened a new creative writing game that lets writers put their talents out there in a collaborative environment. They can practice, learn from others and improve by trying new techniques. Action brings reaction, after all. And a game that uses creative writing is fun.

But some writers, excited as they are to try the game, start to squirm. They create marvelous characters, write a few introductory parts… and start comparing themselves to other writers in the game.

That person writes fantastic dialogue. These two writers have marvelous chemistry. She pens great description. He’s aces at vivid scene settings.

The whisper of fear and self-doubt begins. “I’m not as good as they are.” The hesitations start. The excuses slip. “I’ll just read a bit more… I’m not ready to write yet.”

And another writer slips back into the isolated, lonely world of creative writing, wishing to be better but creating mental obstacles to stay exactly at status quo.

Who says that you’re not good enough? So you’re rusty. So you’re unsure. So you’re new at creative writing. So what?

Writers need to work hard to break the feeling of not being good enough. It’s a fear that we impose on ourselves and one that many of us carry forever. It’s also a fear that holds us back:

• We don’t experiment and try new techniques.
• We don’t learn to adjust and improve our writing.
• We don’t become comfortable with our talents and skills.
• We don’t learn our limits — or push the ones that exist.
• We don’t learn to trust that we can overcome obstacles.

Imagine what would happen if you stood up and said, “You know what? Here. Read it. I don’t care. I love writing and maybe I’m not great now, but I can be and will be. So honestly, truly, genuinely let me know what you think and I’ll work on improving.”

The more that you start putting yourself forth and taking steps forward instead of back, the more your creative writing becomes richer and better. But you have to take that deep breath and try.

And one day, someone will look at your work and sigh, “I wish I could write like that.”

You’ll be able to smile and reply, “You can. Just stop being afraid of what people think.”

About the Author: Want more great creative writing tips? Interested in improving your fiction or getting more solid advice from a pro? Visit James Chartrand’s blog Men with Pens, the Capturing Fantasy blog or hop on over to the hottest new creative writing game on the Internet, Escaping Reality.

How often do you get an e-mail from a prospect who asks, “I need help with my web site’s content” or “I need five articles on such ‘n such topic”… “How much do you charge?”

Web content — one page takes less time than five pages. Even on page can vary depending on the page’s content. Will you provide information, content, etc.? Or do you want me to come up with it from scratch?

Five articles. 500 words vs. 1000? About social networking or some obscure medical topic targeted to those in the medical profession? Big difference. Writing doesn’t have a standard process like other jobs.

New writers have emailed me asking how much should they charge for a project. As if I can give them a magic number. Like Deb says, our experiences vary so what I charge won’t work for most people. Not only does our writing experience differ, but also our topic knowledge.

This formula should help most writers get started in the scary world of coming up with rates. Yes, it’s scary. After lots of practice, I’m more comfortable providing quotes — but my stomach still stirs whenever I press, “Send” with my quotes.

1. Start by figuring out how much you want per hour.
2. Estimate how long it will take you to get the job done.
3. Add 10% to that time because there is almost always something to make the assignment take longer.

After gaining experience, you won’t need to focus on how long it takes to do an assignment. You’ll get faster in some assignments. So if you charge $20 per hour and an assignment originally takes five hours, that’s $100.

With experience, the assignment takes you only one hour. $20 isn’t fair anymore. Instead, charge a flat fee such as $100. You factor in experience.

However, for some clients — I charge by the hour because they’re open engagements. I adjusted the hourly rate based on experience.

Doing enough assignments and quoting will help you come up with rates to use as the baseline. Experience will help you get a handle on rates and feel good about giving quotes.

So when a writer asks me how much to charge, don’t be offended when I don’t offer numbers and point to resources instead.

What works for you?

In reading Writing Journey’s latest entry, a thought came to me about why many people say they couldn’t make it as a writer. Those of you who are writers — what do people think after you tell them you’re a writer?

• You’re a book author?
• You write for magazines?

I think these two are the most common things people think of when someone announces he or she is a writer. But they’re not the best ways to become a writer. Great writers can query magazines many times without getting accepted.

Consider diving into a writing career by writing for businesses instead. This doesn’t mean giving up hope of becoming a published book author or a magazine columnist. I’ve done both — just not early on in my career. Opportunities to write books and magazine articles came from networking not querying.

Here’s a Cliff’s version of how I became a writer along with resources I recommend for writers.

So, what do you write? Newsletters? Brochures? How did you break into writing?

I survived my first Writing Blog March Madness match up. However, it was no easy win so advancing rounds will be nail-biters. As if the first one wasn’t.

Community: The weakest spot in this blog is the lack of community. John’s right about that and it has puzzled me. For a while, I tried posing open-ended questions to invite comments. That didn’t work. I stopped because the blog entries looked pitiful having a question with no comments.

Gaming: I was relieved that John realized the gaming section was separated out. I worried he’d think I had something irrelevant mashed in with writing and business. I broke out gaming as much as I could from a technical standpoint (if you go through posts by clicking “next” and “previous,” you’ll see the games entries.). I was going to set up a different site for gaming, but as Mark of TheDiamondGames pointed out … meryl.net is established. Why start from scratch (in terms of SEO and ranks)? I thought he had a good point and took the route that I did.

Design: When I worked with Blue Flavor on this site’s design, we tried to make the site feel professional yet personal. With this design, I could stand to look at my own site… for the first time ever.

Usability & Navigation: The reason I provide a summary is based on my experience. I became frustrated with scrolling through some bloggers’ long entries and thought scanning ‘n clicking would be better than scrolling. But I could be wrong. What say you? I’m willing to change this and consider any other annoyances.

Purpose: I’ve always admitted that my blog has never been niche-based. It’s evolved over the years. I don’t think I can do better here unless I pick a niche.

Personality: I don’t want this blog to be about me, me, me. In promoting the business side of things, I try to show what’s in it for the prospect. In writing blog entries, I try to provide information you can use and not make it about my opinions. Personality matters as it gives the blog life, so I try to do that without crossing the line or getting too personal. Some things shouldn’t be out there for the world to see.

Content: Whew. John captured it, “She has a nice habit of giving tips and then illuminating them with examples from her own experience.” I’ve learned well from others’ examples plus examples help show instead of tell.

What can I do better so you leave this blog glad that you spent a little time reading it? How about enticing you to leave comments. What compels you to leave comments on a blog? That’s the missing link here.

The biggest reason I’m afraid to give presentations is fear of not being able to interact with the audience. My lipreading skills are imperfect and I don’t want to frustrate the audience by repeatedly asking, “What?” when they ask questions. A blog doesn’t have that problem and I respond to almost all comments — some are in private. But the interaction isn’t happening.

You’d think after eight years of blogging that I’d know the answer?

I admire John for taking the time for doing in-depth reviews of 32 blogs and including mine. Thank you, John.

Lest you think this is a brownnosing post — it will most likely not even be covered in the next round as I should have at least five posts by then. I want to understand how to improve on the weak areas. Who better to ask than you?

37signals asks eight questions before, during, and sometimes after working on a project or task. These questions work well for writers and other freelancers. Those of us who work solo rarely have anyone to check with us to make sure we’re on the right track.

So we need to help ourselves figure out if we’re on the right track with a task, project, client. Questioning also helps us gain credibility with clients because we might recommend a faster or better way of doing something or provide insight.

37signals asks the following questions. I’ve added notes to show how it affects writers. I’ll use a Help project I’m working on for a client’s web site as the example.

• Why are we doing this? To help users understand what the site is about and how to use it.
• What problem are we solving? Providing answers to user questions in how to modify their accounts and use the various features. Without the Help, they might spend too much time figuring out something or abandon the web site.
• Is this actually useful? While the web site’s design tries to make things obvious to users, it’s not always possible for them to figure out things without a little direction.
• Are we adding value? The current Help also has special sections for advertisers, product managers, and contributors. I’m breaking out the advertisers and product managers sections and moving them elsewhere. These have little value to the consumers.
• Will this change behavior? Not all writing will change behavior like interface design. In this case, the Help will guide the users to take the right steps to complete their tasks instead of taking the longer route.
• Is there an easier way? Yes and no. The Help uses a wiki. Though I’m not crazy about using a wiki, it has advantages over going another route. One, it would take longer to incorporate it into design based on the current goings-on. Two, the site wants to build a strong community and enabling them to update the Help will support the community concept.
• What’s the opportunity cost? This is why a wiki is a better way to go. the cost of integrating the Help with the design would be higher and take longer. Maybe after finishing the Help, we can integrate it into the design better.
• Is it really worth it? If done right, yes. Some sites have terrible Helps and they make more work for the user.

Jakob Nielsen’s Blah-Blah Text makes an important point that web site visitors want to cut to the chase. They don’t want to waste time with a welcome message or any of that.

We writers have learned that we need to have an opening, body, and conclusion. But we also know that writing for the web breaks many standard writing rules. Whether a site should have an intro depends on its purpose and audience (You’ve heard this a thousand times, I’m sure).

Yahoo! needs no introduction. Almost everyone knows what it is. Instead of an intro, Yahoo! gets down to business with headlines and a sentence for its latest news items. The rest of its content leads users to where they want to go as users go there for different reasons… search, e-mail, news, and specific sections.

Users go to Google to search. Some use it for news, but not like with Yahoo! Google compromised by providing two home pages — one with the famous signature Google logo and a search box with a few links around it; and the other customized for users (iGoogle). iGoogle’s default (for users not signed in) home page contains the more popular widgets.

On the flip side, few know meryl.net and what it’s about. The name gives away nothing. I chose not to put the blog on the home page because my business comes first and many people will find their way to the home page. Not all of my clients care about blogging, but they get a bite of it on the home page right after the introduction to the business.

A random testimonial appears on the top right letting current clients speak for my work. The newsletter provides a way to capture names and e-mails in exchange for providing visitors with information of value (at least, I try!).

When I first started doing casual game reviews, praising or picking apart a game came easy. Now, when writing game reviews, I feel like I’ve said it all before. The top 10 game journalism cliches captures the challenges game reviewers face. Here is the list along with my comments.

1. Top ten lists: I rarely do this. When I do, the top ten list article comes out at the end of the year. Sites like Mashable often write “## best sites for [enter a topic].” I prefer “## sites for [enter a topic]” because it’s easy to miss deserving candidates.

2. The historical open: This approach gives the writer a nice way to segue into the review. But during these times of information overload, I try to open a review with what it is along with a subtle hint of whether it’s great or blah. What do you want to know when you read a review? For me, I want reviews to tell me what the game, book, or product is about and whether it’s any good.

3. Headlines with a “?” at the end: I don’t have to worry about headlines since all the places I review for just list the game title as in “Diner Dash PC Game Review.” We could argue for and against this method, but it tells you exactly what it is.

4. 7/10 reviews: This would be 4/5 for some of us where ratings use the five point scale instead of 10, but 7/10 appears frequently in working with one client. The local newspaper started adding comments next to the rating such as “two out of five stars (good).” So, two to five stars are positive while one and zero (never happens) stars is negative. That’s no bell curve. It’s as if the newspaper is trying to be gentle and prevent readers from automatically thinking “two stars… don’t go there!” Reviews should be about serving the reader and potential customer, not making nice with the business. Kids today often get a trophy every time they play a sport regardless how their team played. Getting a trophy should make us proud because we earned it not because we signed up and played. How are we going to motivate ourselves to improve?

5. Realistic graphics: No comments on this one.

6. Quirky: Is it good or bad? Exactly the problem.

7. Fans of X will enjoy it: Guilty. I use this line when I don’t have a clever way to end the review.

8. Only time will tell: Pointless. Just give the details now.

9. Reviews broken up into standardized sections: This refers to “graphics,” “sound,” “gameplay,” etc. None of the places I review for use this. They provide a rating. One uses “pros” and “cons,” which gives you a snapshot of what’s good and bad about the game. I think that’s beneficial. Web writing rules apply here — if the review is long, use bold headers every few paragraphs. I rarely do this, though — it just doesn’t work as well for reviews.

10. “Fun.” I try to avoid this like the plague. Considering its synonyms (enjoy, amusing, cool, entertaining, pleasurable) often don’t work well, reviewers sometimes can’t help but use “fun.”

My biggest problem is describing different things such as the graphics and sound. You can only say the same thing so many ways. One thing about reviewing… it offers writers a wonderful way to put their creativity to work. [Link: Gamewire]

Gulp. I don’t know whether to be honored or afraid. For those not into NCAA basketball or love March Madness… here’s March Madness for writing blogs. Get the details on how Writing March Writing Blog Madness works.

I admit it. I’m competitive. Playing sports while growing up does that to you. Plus, when you have a difference… you want people to think of you as strong not weak. Of course, I’m going through a burnout period… so not posting as often or as detailed.

The list contains superior blogs, so like any competition… I don’t want to finish low. But then I know many blogs don’t appear in the list (and I know that’s frustrating as I’ve been there many times)… so I should be proud to be a contender. Thank you, John.

I majored in RTVF (Radio, TV, film) when I was a freshman in college. It only took one or two semesters for me to realize it was not the major for me. But I picked up one valuble lesson — I started watching films in a different way after taking a RTVF class.

I paid attention to the shot angles, the zooming in and out, and the cuts. This skill works for writing, designing, and other careers. Instead of shots, designers pay attention to the use of color, styles, and space. Writers watch for …

• verb usage (avoiding “is” and “be.”
• writing mechanics
• use of conversations
• style
• use of show, don’t tell

Having written so many game reviews, I feel like I use the same verbs and descriptions when writing a new review. In trying to change things up, I went to the Thesaurus and read reviews from talented writers. It’s still a struggle, but this process helps explore new directions.

The introduction says it well. “I wish there were no need for this book.” Unfortunately, there are enough scams and untrustworthy folks in the writing industry to warrant a book on the subject. I’d like to think I know better, but I got suckered when I was as a college student who loved the idea of getting published somewhere.

I was taken in by that infamous scam where you send a picture, poem, story or any other creative work, and you hear back saying you’re a finalist or your work made it. Order the beautifully bound book for cherishing. Check written, form sent and no gorgeous book arrived in the mail. Thank goodness, it was a small sum and the only time I’ve been taken (thanks to a lesson learned and this book).

“Submit your creative work and buy the book” scam is one of many. Others aren’t so easy to figure out. Writers know there are many trustworthy contests out there that require an entry fee. Because of this, it’s takes little convincing for a writer to enter scammed contest that has an entry or reading fee only to find out later the money is gone and no contest existed.

Then there’s the publisher that requires paying a set up, printing, copyright or some other fee. Legitimate vanity and print on demand publishers do this. This blurs the line between the good and bad guys, and the authors clarify how vanity press works including all of its related or similar terms and how to tell the difference between the legitimate and the rip-offs.

Writers get advice from Jenna Glatzer, an experienced author who has confronted unsavory characters in the publishing world, and Daniel Steven, an attorney specializing in publishing. They point out the scams as well as “what to do if you’ve been screwed.” Chapter titles like this and “Special Screw-Overs for Screenwriters” highlight the writing style you can expect from the book. No finger pointing or shaming, but rather frank and “we’re on your side” talk.

Contracts, copyrights, agents, deadbeats, and courses are covered. This well-rounded book also contains an appendix of six forms (agreements and a release) to help a writer dodge the dark side of the writing world.

Though you may not enter contests and all of your current writing associates are upfront and honest, having this book nearby should make you feel more secure. New opportunities continually pop up and the next one could be the one that goes bad. Considering the high cost of legal advice, Street-Smart Writer is a bargain since you’re getting a lawyer’s expertise in this book. With the lawyer-writer team, Street-Smart Writer is a worthy addition to your professional reference library.

P.S. Glatzer is behind AbsoluteWrite, the first place I send those interested in writing.

P.P.S. She also has a Writer Beware page.

Title: The Street-Smart Writer: Self-Defense Against Sharks and Scams in the Writing World
Author: Jenna Glatzer and Daniel Steven
Publisher: Nomad Press
ISBN: 0974934445
Date: January 2006
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Cover Price: USD: $16.95 Amazon: $11.86