Another tip for writers: A simple reminder about conjunctions.

Another writing tip, this one uses the phrase A WHITE BUS as a reminder about conjunctions with which you can begin dependent clauses. This helps to make our writing more interesting.


A dependent clause is a phrase that must be attached to an independent clause — a series of words that can stand on its own as a sentence — to make grammatical sense.


Below, you’ll find the words or phrases that the letters in A WHITE BUS represent, and sample sentences in which they’re employed.

A

1. “After dinner, we’ll go see a movie.”
2. “Although I’d rather not, I’ll make an exception.”
3. “As you know, she’s rather eccentric.”

W

4. “When we’re done, let’s get some ice cream.”
5. “Whenever I go, I try to see something I’ve never seen before.”
6. “Whether or not you agree, I think it looks fine.”
7. “Where I go, they always have sales.”
8. “Wherever I go, I try to enjoy myself.”
9. “While I’m there, I play music on a jukebox.”

H

10. “How is it that even though you go there all the time, you’ve never noticed that before?”

I

11. “If you find out, please let me know.”
12. “In case you hadn’t heard, I couldn’t care less.”
13. “In order to enjoy your trip, take your time and enjoy the sights.”

T

14. “That I like wearing red — that has never been in dispute.”
15. “Though I’m flexible, I draw the line about that.”

E

16. “Even if it is true, I’ll forgive him.”
17. “Even though I’d heard the song before, I hadn’t known who sang it.”
18. “Ever since I met her, I haven’t been able to think about anything else.”

B

19. “Because I’ve been there before, I’d rather go somewhere else.”
20. “Before I saw the house, I was ready to just rent an apartment.”

U

21. “Unless you’re willing to wait, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
22. “Until we find it, we can’t leave.”

S

23. “Since then, I’ve had a different opinion of him.”
24. “So sure were you of your theory about them, you ignored evidence that you were wrong.”
25. “So that I’m sure I understand you, please repeat what you said.”

Author Norm Applegate: Into the Basement Shockwave

Source: Daily Writing Tips

Attention writers: 100 Words for Facial Expressions

Here's an excellent list of names to explain to your readers what you are saying about someone's facial expression. How many times to you use the same words? Well, spice it up, keep it interesting:

1. Absent: preoccupied 2. Agonized: as if in pain or tormented 3. Alluring: attractive, in the sense of arousing desire 4. Appealing: attractive, in the sense of encouraging goodwill and/or interest 5. Beatific: see blissful 6. Bilious: ill-natured 7. Black: angry or sad, or see hostile 8. Bleak: see grim and hopeless 9. Blinking: surprise, or lack of concern 10. Blissful: showing a state of happiness or divine contentment 11. Blithe: carefree, lighthearted, or heedlessly indifferent 12. Brooding: see anxious and gloomy 13. Bug eyed: frightened or surprised 14. Chagrined: humiliated or disappointed 15. Cheeky: cocky, insolent 16. Cheerless: sad 17. Choleric: hot-tempered, irate 18. Coy: flirtily playful, or evasive 19. Crestfallen: see despondent 20. Darkly: with depressed or malevolent feelings 21. Deadpan: expressionless, to conceal emotion or heighten humor 22. Dejected: see despondent 23. Derisive: see sardonic 24. Despondent: depressed or discouraged 25. Doleful: sad or afflicted 26. Dour: stern or obstinate; see also despondent 27. Downcast: see despondent 28. Dreamy: distracted by daydreaming or fantasizing 29. Ecstatic: delighted or entranced 30. Etched: see fixed 31. Faint: cowardly, weak, or barely perceptible 32. Fixed: concentrated or immobile 33. Furtive: stealthy 34. Gazing: staring intently 35. Glancing: staring briefly as if curious but evasive 36. Glaring: see hostile 37. Glazed: expressionless due to fatigue or confusion 38. Gloomy: see despondent and sullen 39. Glowering: annoyed or angry 40. Glowing: see radiant 41. Grim: see despondent; also, fatalistic or pessimistic 42. Grave: serious, expressing emotion due to loss or sadness 43. Haunted: frightened, worried, or guilty 44. Hopeless: depressed by a lack of encouragement or optimism 45. Hostile: aggressively angry, intimidating, or resistant 46. Hunted: tense as if worried about pursuit 47. Impassive: see deadpan 48. Inscrutable: mysterious, unreadable 49. Jeering: insulting or mocking 50. Languid: lazy or weak 51. Leering: see meaningful; also, sexually suggestive 52. Meaningful: to convey an implicit connotation or shared secret 53. Mild: easygoing 54. Mischievous: annoyingly or maliciously playful 55. Moody: see sullen 56. Pained: affected with discomfort or pain 57. Pallid: see wan 58. Peering: with curiosity or suspicion 59. Peeved: annoyed 60. Petulant: see cheeky and peeved 61. Pitying: sympathetic 62. Pleading: seeking apology or assistance 63. Pouting: see sullen 64. Quizzical: questioning or confused 65. Radiant: bright, happy 66. Roguish: see mischievous 67. Sanguine: bloodthirsty, confident 68. Sardonic: mocking 69. Scornful: contemptuous or mocking 70. Scowling: displeased or threatening 71. Searching: curious or suspicious 72. Set: see fixed 73. Shamefaced: ashamed or bashful 74. Slack-jawed: dumbfounded or surprised 75. Sly: cunning; see also furtive and mischievous 76. Snarling: surly 77. Sneering: see scornful 78. Somber: see grave 79. Sour: unpleasant 80. Stolid: inexpressive 81. Straight-faced: see deadpan 82. Sulky: see sullen 83. Sullen: resentful 84. Taunting: see jeering 85. Taut: high-strung 86. Tense: see taut 87. Tight: see pained and taut 88. Unblinking: see fixed 89. Vacant: blank or stupid looking 90. Veiled: see inscrutable 91. Wan: pale, sickly; see also faint 92. Wary: cautious or cunning 93. Wide eyed: frightened or surprised 94. Wild eyed: excited, frightened, or stressful 95. Wistful: yearning or sadly thoughtful 96. Withering: devastating; see also wrathful 97. Woeful: full of grief or lamentation 98. Wolfish: see leering and mischievous 99. Wrathful: indignant or vengeful 100. Wry: twisted or crooked to express cleverness or a dark or ironic feeling Author Norm Applegate: Into the Basement Shockwave

7 Sentence Structures

Sentence structure can be categorized into seven patterns: one simple, three compound, two complex, and one compound-complex. Here are examples of each pattern with accompanying formulas, all to help you think of how to craft sentences in a greater variety of syntax:

1. Simple sentence (independent clause): “I went for a walk.”
(An independent clause is set of words that includes a subject and a predicate. It can be a sentence or part of one. A dependent, or subordinate, clause is one that cannot stand on its own but provides additional information to supplement an independent clause.)
2. Compound sentence, IC+CC+IC (independent clause plus coordinating conjunction plus independent clause): “I went for a walk, and I was soothed by the gentle night air.”
(Coordinating conjunctions are words that link one independent clause to another to form a compound sentence. These words can be recalled with the mnemonic FANBOYS and include for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.)
3. Compound sentence, IC+S+IC (independent clause plus semicolon plus independent clause): “I went for a walk; I was soothed by the gentle night air.”
4. Compound sentence, IC+AC+IC (independent clause plus adverbial conjunction plus independent clause): “I went for a walk; consequently, I was soothed by the gentle night air.”
(Adverbial conjunctions are adverbs that serve, when following a semicolon, to link independent clauses. They include consequently, however, moreover, nevertheless, therefore, and thus.)
5. Complex sentence, DM+C+IC (dependent marker plus clause plus independent clause): “Because I hoped to be soothed by the gentle night air, I went for a walk.”
(Dependent markers are words that provide a relative context for a subordinate clause. They include after,although, as, “as if,” because, before, if, since, though, until, when, where, whether, and while.)
6. Complex sentence, RP+C (relative pronoun plus clause): “Whatever doubts I had about taking a walk dissipated when I was soothed by the gentle night air.”
(Relative pronouns are pronouns that relate a subordinate clause to the noun it modifies. They include who,whom, whose, whoever, whosoever, whomever, which, what, whatever, and sometimes that.)
7. Compound-complex sentence, DC+IC+CC+IC (dependent clause plus independent clause plus coordinating conjunction plus independent clause): “As I headed out for a walk, my doubts about doing so dissipated, and I was soothed by the gentle night air.”
There are, of course, many variations to these patterns; even a simple sentence, for instance, can begin with the object in the example converted to the subject of another simple sentence: “A walk was my next order of business.”

---

Norm Applegate author of:
Shockwave

Amazon Lending Books - good or bad for the author?

Change is difficult. I'm sure we're going to see a lot of chatter about this one...I'm not so quick to say lending books is bad. Bad for who? Not for Amazon. Maybe not for the publishing company. They are being compensated. Amazon has been working a deal with them. Not all companies are participating, yet. I predict all the big ones will! 

Question: what does it mean for the author?

Think about Apple's iTunes. The music industry was against it. Now look. Buying a single song for $0.99 works. Artists, record labels, everyone is benefiting.

Think Netflix. Streaming movies...brilliant!

Are we surprised books are next? Shouldn't be. It just how does everyone in the supply chain get compensated. 

...so here's the article from Fox News.

As the e-reader and tablet wars heat up, Amazon.com Inc. is launching a digital-book lending library that will be available only to owners of its Kindle and Kindle Fire devices who are also subscribers to its Amazon Prime program.

The program will be limited, at least at the beginning, in what is available to borrow. Amazon will initially offer slightly more than 5,000 titles in the library, including more than 100 current and former national bestsellers, such as Stephen R. Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People."

None of the six largest publishers in the US are participating. Several senior publishing executives said recently they were concerned that a digital-lending program of the sort contemplated by Amazon would harm future sales of their older titles or damage ties to other book retailers.

Moreover, Amazon will restrict borrowers to one title at a time, one per month. Borrowers can keep a book for as long as they like, but when they borrow a new title, the previously borrowed book automatically disappears from their device.

The new program, called Kindle Owners' Lending Library, cannot be accessed via apps on other devices, which means it won't work on Apple Inc.'s iPad or iPhone, even though people can read Kindle books on both devices. This restriction is intended to drive Kindle device sales, says Amazon.

The program, which is effective Thursday, comes a few weeks before Amazon ships the Kindle Fire tablet on Nov. 15, which is a direct competitor with the iPad.

The lending library reflects a broader effort by Amazon to lure consumers to Prime, a service that costs $79 a year.

Amazon Prime began as a membership plan to offer package-shipping perks. Then, earlier this year Prime added a video-streaming feature to the subscription. Nearly 13,000 movies and TV shows are now available under the streaming feature.

Amazon, the market leader in e-readers, made Kindle titles available to libraries beginning in September and libraries said the impact already has been significant.

At the Seattle public-library system, e-book borrowing rose 32 percent in the month after Kindle books became available, said Seattle's electronic-resources librarian Kirk Blankenship. E-book borrowing had typically been rising 10 percent or 15 percent a month, he said.

Norm Applegate author of:

Into the Basement

Shockwave

Do you go with a small publisher or self-publish?

An author friend of mine asked for some help. Her question was: do I go with a small publisher or self-publish? For me it’s self-pub but read my thoughts…

Don't pay a publisher any money! Everything they can do; you can do.

1). Editing! Pay an editor! Quality is important. Here's the name of the person I used on my last book, SHOCKWAVE. She's not free...For me she was worth it. I'm going to work with her again on my next book.

Deborah Levinson, she a friend of mine on my Facebook site. She is good.

Norm's Facebook 

2). Cover work! check out the cover for Shockwave, my thriller and short story Jumpers. Nice work...

Contact James Rone at jameron713@gmail.com tell him I sent you. He's an art student in Phoenix.

3). Use Amazon...they are the largest book distributor in the world.

Amazon Kindle for ebook. Look up Kindle Direct Publishing.

Amazon's Createspace for paperbacks. Here's the facts...1% of my sales are from paperback. Yes, it true...it all about ebooks now. I self publish on Createspace so I have paperbacks to give away.

4). Product Description: I looked at a pile of book descriptions on Amazon. I believe what I’ve done works. I combined what I liked from a number of successful authors. Look up my books on Amazon and you'll see the description I use. Lots of stuff for people to read...

5). Price…the ebook price for a new book is $2.99 your older stuff $0.99. However you might consider starting at the $0.99 price point. I know it's cheap but that seems to be the market, check out authors on Amazon not the big names, the indie authors. HEADS-UP - This may be shifting. Some authors are raising their ebook price to find the sweet spot, the right number of sales at the maximum price to generate the most profit. Remember, at $2.99 on Amazon you get 70%. At $0.99 it’s only 35%.

6). Go to Smashwords and format your ebook yourself from their guidelines. They have the best outline for formatting an ebook and publish on Smashwords. That gets your book into Apple's iPad, B&N. Sony. Diesel and Kobo...

7). Start a blog, use Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads and any other sites you have time to post stuff on.

...that was a lot of stuff...hope it helps.

all the best

Norm

Shockwave

Into the Basement

Amazon Kindle in France and 100 countries

Here’s an interesting news release from Amazon. They announced in early October that authors and publishers worldwide are now able to make their books available in the Amazon.fr Kindle Store (www.amazon.fr/kindle) using Kindle Direct Publishing (http://kdp.amazon.fr).

The Cloud Reader is another cool tool from Amazon that allows you to read ebooks on your computer. I use a Macbook Pro and it works smooth.

They also state, authors and publishers can utilize the new KDP website to make their books available in France, Germany, the UK, US and more than 100 countries worldwide, while continuing to own the rights to their books.

I didn’t know about 100 countries. So just for fun I selected the links at the bottom of an Amazon page for China, Japan and Italy and wow…my books are there.

So now the question is how do authors market in these foreign countries. It’s back to Twitter and Facebook. Curious if anyone has other ideas…I’m interested in hearing about them.

Norm Applegate author of:

Shockwave