$30 Writing School [With CD-ROM]

496 Pages·2004·66.15 MB·English

by  Dean, Michael W

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Acknowledgments
Thanks: Lydia Llam. Kevin Harreld. Kimberly Valentini. Jack Dean. Amelia
Worth. Greg Dale.Tiffany Couser. Mike Di Luna. Skip Lunch. Carla Segurola.
Saby Reyes-Kulkarni.
About the Author
MICHAELW.DEANis an author,filmmaker,and musician who lives in Los Ange-
les.Dean is the author of $30 Film School,$30 Music School,The Simple Pleasures of
a Complex Girl, and Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women. He has been
reviewed in Spin Magazine, Maelstrom Rock ‘n’Roll, The Face, New Music Express,
and Film Threat Magazine. Dean has also directed and produced the critically
acclaimed music and art documentary D.I.Y or DIE:How to Survive as an Indepen-
dent Artist. He sang and played bass in the San Francisco band Bomb and has
released 12 records with five bands on labels ranging from independent to Warner
Brothers.
Contents at a Glance
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
1 I’m Living the Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Myths & FAQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3 English 101. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4 Outlines Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5 English 102. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
6 How to Write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
7 On Writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
8 Working with an Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9 Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
10 Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
11 Selling Your Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
12 More on Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
13 Writing on the Road. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
14 Self-Publishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
15 Copyrights and Rights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
16 Promotion ...Telling the World. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
17 In-Store Appearances and Touring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
18 Closing Arguments (a.k.a.“The $30 Manifesto”). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
19 Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
A Recommended Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
B Recommended Surfing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
C What’s on the CD-ROM?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Chapter 1 I’m Living the Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2 Myths & FAQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
FAQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Chapter 3 English 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Grammar Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Parts of Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
“Punks Not Dead”—Grammar Errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Apostrophes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Misplaced and Missing Apostrophes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Unnecessary Apostrophes Used. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Necessary Apostrophes Not Used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Hyphenation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
A and An. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Commas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Footnotes and Endnotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Ellipses ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Semicolons (;) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Colons (:). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Who/Whom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Ending a Sentence with a Preposition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Beginning a Sentence with a Conjunction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Stress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
x Contents
Capitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Was/Were . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Anyway/Anyways. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Then/Than . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
There/Their/They’re . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Quotes and Parentheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Paragraphs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
When to Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Line Breaks Rather Than Tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Paragraphing One Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Double Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Chapter 4 Outlines Rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Why an Outline? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Separate Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Writing an Outline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Beginning,Middle,and End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Supporting Your Claims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Logical Progressions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Writing a TOC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
How to Write an Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Chapter 5 English 102 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
How I Write Fiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Outlines for Fiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
What’s In a Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Other Story Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Tense. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Active and Passive Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Linear versus Nonlinear Structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76