Monday, July 25, 2011

My Twitter Top Ten Writers!

I'm heading out tomorrow for a two week vacation in Florida! This will mean very minimal Twitter and Blog interaction from me. That being said, I'm going to leave you with some of my favorite Tweeters so you can have some reading material while I'm gone! (I'm going to finally finish reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire!)


Melissa Foster: Melissa is an amazing author and an even better person! She will never hesitate to help someone in need. She's published two novels, Megan's Way and Chasing Amanda and won numerous awards for them. Megan's Way is even being turned into a movie as you read this! Follow her on Twitter, Facebook or her Blog!

Aubrey Hansen: Aubrey is a wonderfully creative and outgoing person. She's a screenwriter, an author and an editor (with some occasional poetry). She's very enthusiastic and welcomes her insanity. Her novella, Red Rain, is coming out in September so make sure you check it out! Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and on her Blog!

Richard Allen: Richard is fantastically funny and very witty! I am always delighted to see that he's mentioned me on Twitter because I know that no matter what he says, it will make my day! He's published two books in his "Rumbling Heart" Series, Rumbling Heart and Recorded Butterflies. Go check them out! Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and on his Blog!

Nicholas J. Ambrose: Nicholas is a wonderful science fiction author who has independently published three novels, Morris the Misfit Monster, Progenitor and What Happened on the Sanctity Architect. He has also co-written three novels. He runs a site called EverythingIndie that helps independent authors by providing editing and revising, creating cover art, formatting ebooks and critiquing. Follow him on Twitter and his Blog! Follow EverythingIndie on Twitter and visit the site here!

Tamworth Grice: Tamworth is a horror and suspense writer! Her novel, Listening to Ian Magick is available on Amazon! I have yet to read her work, but I'm sure it is fantastic! Follow her on Twitter and her Blog!

Abby Jones: Abby has two finished novels that are just waiting to be published! She's an Urban Fantasy writer and she's a wonderful person to chat with! Follow her on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook!

Ania Ahlborn: Ania is a deep south aficionado and she's an independent horror writer! Her debut novel, SEED, is available in ebook format. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook and her Blog, and remember "in the darkness, something's watching you."

S.M. Reine:  Sara Reine has published two novels, Six Moon Summer and The 19 Dragons! Both are available on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble! Follow her on Twitter, Facebook and her Blog!

Robbi Sommers Bryant: Robbi has published 4 novels, 6 bestselling books and 1 book of poetry! She's a delightful person and a great tweeter! Follow her on Twitter, Facebook and her Blog!

Rebecca Scarberry: Rebecca is an awesome tweeter who enjoys promoting authors! She is currently editing her debut novel and herding cats! Follow her on Twitter!

Here's three more writers that deserve to make the list just as much as the others! (All three of them went to school with me!)


Amanda Dedie: Amanda is working on her debut novel, Invincible, which you can read about here. She's a wonderful person who's crazy and enjoying it! Follow her on Twitter and her Blog!


Rebecca Snow: Rebecca is an aspiring author who is working on a couple of different writing projects. She also enjoys doing graphic design! Follow her on Twitter and her Blog!


Roxeanne Williams: Roxeanne is a fun-loving writer! She's a nerd and she's proud of it! Follow her on Twitter and her Blog!

(Original Post on July 25, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers85 )

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Publishing and Scams

A friend of mine was contacted by a publishing company called "JustFiction! Edition" ( Link ).  My friend had never heard of this company or contacted them beforehand. The stranger part... They sent her a Facebook message. Neither on her blog nor her twitter did she have a link to her Facebook page. Seem like a scam yet?

When reading through JustFiction's policy an alarm went off. They wanted you to sign over rights to epublishing, but were not offering a book contract. If there is no print contract, what is the need for a publisher? You can publish independently and sell your ebooks while holding all of the rights in your hand. Why have a middleman between you and your money?

Here's what Writer Beware had so say about JustFiction!: "I am getting so many emails about these solicitations! It's not a scam, but it is a ripoff--JustFiction is a branch of Verlag Dr. Mueller, a.k.a. Lambert Academic Publishing, an academic author mill that's notorious for cold-soliciting authors."

If you are contacted by a publishing company asking to publish your book. It sounds too good to be true. If they offer to do it for no money at all. It sounds too good to be true. If they contact you through an email or account that is not associated with your writing, it sounds too good to be true.

What's the moral of the story? If it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.
YOU NEED TO DO YOUR RESEARCH! Check Writer Beware and Preditors & Editors. If they mention a publisher of agent that you've contacted or been contacted by, stay away from them.

(Original Post on July 19, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers84 )

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Writing Style

What is writing style? Is it the way you order your words? Is it the way you choose your words? Is it the way your story flows? Is it the figurative language you use? Is it the way your characters are developed? Is it the way you make the reader feel?

The answer is yes to all of those questions.
 
However, it isn't that easy. The problem with style is you can't pick a style and start writing in it. You can't choose J.K. Rowling's writing style and use it. You have to develop YOUR style. You must write over and over again until readers can feel that style and see it. For a lucky few, their style exists the second they start writing, but most of us aren't part of that lucky few.

Don't fret about style. Just keep writing and let your style emerge.

Style according to...

Peter Meyers: "In the simplest sense, writing style involves the exact literary methods used by an author to inject their own personality into their work; all of their mannerisms, quirks etc through the use of dialect, humor, irony, imagery and so on."

(Original Post on July 17, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers83 )

Friday, July 15, 2011

Alphabet Building

While writing my first novel, I decided to create an alphabet for one of my alien races. This was inspired mainly by the Elvish language that Tolkien wrote. Tolkien created the alphabet, both written and spoken, two different dialects AND rules for conjugating and all of those lovely things when writing Elvish words in English.

I did not go to that much trouble. I just took the English alphabet, with its 26 characters, threw in a few characters like "CH", "TH", "SH" and separate characters for "Y"as a consonant and a vowel. That gave me thirty letters. Then I drew some cool looking symbols. The problem arose when it came time to insert some of my alphabet in my book. I couldn't exactly draw it in there unless I printed it first.

There's a program called GIMP that does almost everything photoshop can, but it's free. However, it's a little tricky to get used to. I used GIMP to make all of my alphabet. It took a lot of time, but it turned out great. Here's an example:

http://bsmeyersauthor.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/example.png

What do you think? (I'd tell you what it says, but if you remember, I'm really paranoid. I'll just tell you that it is a real word.)

I created my second alphabet a few weeks ago. It also has thirty characters, but it was a lot more complex. It is made up of a series of circles, triangles and squares that follow a pattern and it's pretty cool! I'm not showing you that though, it's my favorite!

A few days ago I drew eleven very basic alphabets for another project I'm working on. Only two of them have been digitized using GIMP though. I'm currently working on a twelfth alphabet for that project. It's my hardest yet! It has forty characters and has been a pain to digitize. I have ten left to digitize. I really like where it's going!

If you're not already following the work of Aubrey Hansen (@aubrey_hansen) you should go check out her blog! If you have been following her work stayed tuned because I've inspired her to create an alphabet herself!

(Original Post on July 15, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers82 )

Thursday, July 14, 2011

I Made My First Guest Blog Post!

It's a honor that I was approached by Carlos A.R. de Souza, the Wizard Writer, and asked to write a guest blog post on his blog! Go check out my post about perfectionism and stick around to read all of his other great posts! Here's my post!

(Original Post on July 14, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers81 )

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Top Ten Authors I Would Die to Meet

Here they are, as suggested by @Tiffany_A_White

(Only numbers 1-5 are in a special order.)

10: This is a group of authors I want to meet. At the moment I have over 800 Twitter followers and almost all of them are writers. I want to meet you guys! At least one of you is going to be the next NY Times Bestseller and at least one of you is going to write the best Independently Published book out there!


09: Ursula K. LeGuin: She is an amazing writer who crafted A Wizard of Earthsea perfectly! She's a master of juxtaposition and her stories draw your attention in!

08: Earnest Hemingway: I don't want to meet Hemingway because I loved The Old Man and the Sea. I want to meet Hemingway so I can find out how on earth he though The Old Man and the Sea was a good idea.

07: Isaac Asimov: Asimov wrote so many books in his lifetime and all were devoted to robots. The three laws of robotics were absolutely genius. I love his writing and I especially love I, Robot.

06: J.R.R. Tolkien: Lets face it, Lord of the Rings is one of the most well known and best crafted series ever written. The amount of time and commitment put into not just writing the novels, but creating a phonetic alphabet, both written and spoken, with two different dialects and a complete set of rules for writing it in English, is absolutely amazing!

05: John Green: John Green wrote Looking for Alaska, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns. He wrote the whole way along to becoming a YouTube star and he's still writing today.  He showed me that writing was cool and fun and I try to keep that attitude with me!

04: J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter changed the way I saw books. Prior to reading it, I thought reading was a chore and I hated it. J.K. Rowling showed me the power a good book could have and she forever changed my perspective on reading!

03: Douglas Adams: I absolutely love The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! It's a fantastic roller coaster ride through the Universe with crazy twists and turns and a whole lot of nonsense! More importantly, his writing goes against the norm and keeps you interested! (R.I.P.)

02: Aubrey Hansen: This girl is the most creative person I've ever met! She's written scripts, poetry, books and she's working on an amazing fantasy novel as we speak. Go Follow her on Twitter, @aubrey_hansen and then go read her amazing blog!

01: Melissa Foster: Though her novel, Megan's Way, wouldn't be of much interest to most men, her novel, Chasing Amanda, is a kidnapping mystery! More important than her writing is her personality! She out of the blue offered to help me refine my query letters and she is always willing to help another writer! (Go Follow @Melissa_Foster on Twitter!)

(Original Post on July 13, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers80 )

Monday, July 11, 2011

The Best and Worst Part of Writing

Lets get this straight, writing is HARD work. It’s not easy to write a novel. It’s very time consuming and brain-power consuming, but that’s not the worst part about writing.

The great part about writing (I’m speculating here) is the day your book gets released and the days following when you see the sales and the reviews and you’re ecstatic knowing that your story is out there.

The even better part of writing (I’m speculating some more) is the day ten years later when you’ve been working on a novel for a while now and you’re not feeling that great about it. You take a break and you check your email or look around at some blogs and you see that email/blog post that talks about you. Naturally you read and you find out that your book has touched someones soul. The best part about writing is knowing your voice has been heard and that it has changed someones life.

The worst part about writing comes after you’ve been published and you’ve sold tons of copies. The worst part is when you read back through your book and you enjoy it, but you know what’s going to happen, so you don’t get that feeling of reading it for the first time. You don’t get to be JK Rowling in that line of a thousand people lined up to buy Harry Potter.

That’s what I think is the worst part of writing, but it does not overpower the joy of knowing your words changed someones life, even if it is just one person.

(Original Post on July 11, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers79 )

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Real Life vs. Writing

Once again I find that my real life is in conflict with my writing. Bo sooner was I finally able to write again did I find that I needed to start my summer assignments. I've been working hard the last few days to make it all work, but I no longer believe the first draft of my second novel will be done by August 1st. It's unfortunate, but I can't just push away my real life and focus on writing (can I?).

(Original Post on July 9, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers78 )

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Why Do You Write?

What drives you? You wake up every morning and know it's on your mind. Some days you write, most days actually. You've got a story to tell. Characters, plots, settings, events... but why? Why are you spending all of your free time putting words on paper. To what end does writing serve?

I write for love; to show the Universe that love is the most important thing there is; to show the Universe that love is the most powerful thing there is. I write for you; to show you that you can do anything; to show you that any insignificant human being is capable of saving the Universe. I write for me; to find satisfaction; to show myself that I'm capable of anything; to have my voice be heard.

Why do you write? It had to start somewhere.

(Original Post on July 6, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers77 )

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Overcoming Writer's Block

The best feeling in the world is that moment that you've been waiting for months to feel, that moment when the story goes on and your brain is bustling with idea, that moment that you overcome your writer's block and the novel is no longer on hiatus!

Over the past month, my second novel has been on hiatus because I honestly had no idea where to take it. I could have figured it out sooner if my life weren't so hectic with Regents Exams and finishing the edits on my first novel.

However, I'm glad that I took the time to wait it out because now I love where my second novel is going. That moment a few days ago when I was finally able to continue my second novel was amazing! It felt almost as good as the moment when I finished my first novel. It was like I spent a month trying to pick the lock on a fault door and then I finally just raised my fist and punched right through it! (Owe!)

(Original Post on July 5, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers76 )

Saturday, July 2, 2011

The Power that Comes with Writing

One of the best things about writing is the amazing feeling it gives you. When I write I know that I have the power to make the characters into whatever I want. I can twist the plot into any direction I wish to take it. I can take my setting from Earth, across multiple galaxies, to Atlantis, then to the edge of the Universe and then I can take it back in time 100 years and you can’t stop me!

When you write you are free to make anything happen. The entire story is yours. You can create an entire Universe and no one can tell you that you can’t. That, is power.

So get writing! The Universe Inside YOUR Head isn’t going to put itself on paper. It’s up to you to tell your stories!

(Original Post on July 2, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers75 )

Friday, July 1, 2011

I Guess I Got Your Attention

Since I started blogging almost 3 months ago, I have averaged about 20 views per day. My best day was 67 views and that was in April. Today I broke 100 Blog views! Apparently I’ve got your attention.

I want to thank each and everyone one of my 671 Twitter Followers for being awesome! However, I don’t have time to thank you all individually, so you’ll just have to accept this post as your thank you.)

Today is a new day for me. I am know longer hiding behind my computer screen and my age. I’m 16 and I’m proud of it. I wrote a novel and I’m still in high school! Today is a good day and I couldn’t have done it without all of you.

Twitter, you gave me a voice. I can say anything I want on Twitter and someone will listen. A voice is a very powerful thing. My friends, you gave me recognition. I can’t thank you all enough for supporting me over the past two and a half years. (Kaleena, Danielle, Shannon, CJ, Justin, Jamison.) My family, you made me what I am. I am who I am because of you. I may never run a business, I may never cure cancer, but I will do something big. I will use my voice to help the world.

I must also thank the wonderful Melissa Foster for her help. She’s supported me and helped me along since I started using Twitter. She’s an awesome writer and an amazing person. ( http://www.melissafoster.com/ )

Last, but not least, I must thank the amazing Ms. Jennifer Case! She was my 8th Grade English teacher. She showed me what a good book could do. Her encouragement and enthusiasm about reading, writing AND life has stuck with me to this day and it will always be with me.

Thank you, everyone!

(Original Post on July 1, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers74 )

Surprise: The Real Me

It's time for me to tell you who I really am. Over the past two years, I've been hiding who I am because I was afraid my age would effect how the world views me as a writer. In the past three months I've slowly reached out of my box. Today it is time for me to stop hiding behind my computer screen.

If you've been following me on Twitter, you know me as B.S. Meyers. While this name is based on my real name (and I will be publishing with this name) it isn't my real name. My real name is Benjamin Scott Meyers. I write science fiction books and I've never been published.

Today is the day I let all of you know that I am a writer that will stop at nothing to be published. I'm writing so I can share my stories with you. I'm not in it for money or for fame. I'm doing this for you. I want to show the world that love is the most powerful thing in the Universe. I want to show the world that any ordinary, boring person can do great things and I'm going to do just that.

My name is Benjamin Scott Meyers, I wrote a 50,000 word science fiction novel and I'm sixteen years old.

Head over Here to see some of what I do when I'm not writing and so you can finally put a face to my name!

Here's a sneak peek of The Greatest Story Never Told:

On the night of December 21, 2012, the world anxiously awaits what they expect to be the end of the world. Contrary to their catastrophic expectations, the stars have faded away, leaving massive holes in their place--the universe is on the eve of its final days.

Scott Torres, a lazy, jobless, twenty-three-year old, holds the key to saving the universe, he just doesn't know it yet. After falling unconscious, Scott is transported to a planet called Arancio, the home of the city of Atlantis, where he learns of his destiny to save the universe. Traveling across the universe with his new found Atlantean friends, Olgrin and Viera, Scott learns about himself, as well as love, and the meaning of life. Scott and his friends make it to their final destination, The Porta Commeatus, a black hole that leads to the Anulla, the space between universes. It is here that he confronts the darkness that threatens all of creation.

(Original Post on July 1, 2011 at: http://dft.ba/-BSMeyers73 )