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Alice

Alice has written 451 posts for CataUniversity

KISS… Keep It Short, Sweetie

By Alice ⋅ November 2, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

My father sent me a link to an online article the other day. Having a few minutes, I clicked on the link and started reading. The first few paragraphs were fairly intriguing. But my eyes roamed over to the scroll bar on the right. Did you know you can tell how long (big) a page [...]

Are You Here To Promo?

By Alice ⋅ October 31, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Between a rock and a hard place. That’s where today’s authors find themselves. In the middle of a turbulant storm. An industry in the middle of a revolution. And everyone is telling them the same thing: build your platform. What’s an author to do? During the decade or so that I ran the CataNetwork websites [...]

Klout for Authors

By Alice ⋅ October 28, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Twitter users will likely recognize the newest name in the social networking game: Klout. Klout measures your influence based on your social network profiles. For instance, you’d register with Klout (free at klout.com) and link your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger (and any other networks that Klout supports) accounts. Klout then reads what you’re writing about, [...]

The Easiest Way to Get Rid of Tabs in your Manuscript

By Alice ⋅ October 24, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Submitting a manuscript can be a little intimidating. And if you take the time to read the guidelines you’re probably the type of writer who wants to get your submission just right. Problem is, each publisher wants something different. Some publishers don’t want you to use tabs to indent paragraphs. So what do you do [...]

Don’t Break the Chain

By Alice ⋅ October 17, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

Have you ever heard the saying “inch by inch anything’s a cinch?” I’ll admit that I have a problem with making slow, steady progress. I’m more of a “burst” person myself. Meaning I’ll write five blog posts in a day and then not write anything for weeks. Or I’ll write five thousand words on my [...]

Farewell Dennis Ritchie (and that Steve Jobs guy too)

By Alice ⋅ October 14, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

My husband popped into my office today for fresh batteries (why the recharger is in my office, who knows?) and lamented the fact that the creator of C and the Unix operating system had died. My hubby knows C and is heavily “invested” in Unix based systems. He quickly reminded me that my cell phone, [...]

Meet RSS

By Alice ⋅ October 6, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

I have someone new to introduce to you today. His name is RSS and you’re just going to love him. Who is RSS? Okay, so he’s not a handsome hunk. In fact, RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. But here’s what you need to know about it. Think of your favorite website. Got it? Yeah, [...]

Attract More RSS Users with Post Summaries

By Alice ⋅ October 5, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

A question recently popped into my inbox praising how CataRomance.com offers a summary of each post via RSS. There’s a link at the end of each summary asking readers to visit the site to finish reading. To be honest, I’ve never liked summaries in my RSS reader, but many people do. And many experts say [...]

A Post Saved is a Post Earned

By Alice ⋅ September 15, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Okay, so I couldn’t think of a better title, but a recent visit to Jenny Cruise’s blog had me curious about blog posts I’ve written, saved, and never published. I think she had a crazy list. Like a hundred posts or something. I headed back over to my trusty blog to see what sort of [...]

Quick Tip: Create a list of character traits

By Alice ⋅ June 9, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Often when I’m creating a character that hasn’t come to me fully formed I try to figure out just who they are and what traits they have before I begin writing. Sometimes I’ll imagine them in certain situations and see how they react. Are they patient? Forceful? Aggressive? Submissive? Shy? One thing that’s helped me [...]

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