From Words to Brain to Come Out With 40k Books!

Congratulations to nhile, the winner of last week's drawing for Writing Great Books for Young Adults!

Some of you might recognize the name 40k Books from my twitter stream or the recent interview with Tom Stafford. They are a new press that spends a lot of time thinking about digital books and the future of publishing. Their publishing model focuses on essays and novelettes, and they publish these works internationally in several different languages. I recommend their twitter feed, where they share useful links about writing and publishing.

Today, I'm happy to announce that my essay From Word to Brain will be coming out with 40K books in a few months! Here's a short description from the original query letter:

Tips for YA Writing from Literary Agent Regina Brooks -- Plus signed book giveaway!

I recently read Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks of Serendipity Literary Agency. Brooks gave some useful writing tips, and I'll share six of my favorites here.



1. To get into young adult minds, there are the usual techniques of eavesdropping on their conversations and talking to them. But for a high-tech option, try going on Facebook. Teens these days live out much of their lives on the internet and it's a great way to see how they think.

2. On coincidences in stories: It's much easier to get away with a coincidence if it makes the characters situation worse. If a coincidence happens to solve one of the characters problems, it will seem like a copout.

3. Focus on what is unique about the setting of your novel. How does this particular town, planet, or culture  shape the behavior of the characters in a way that another setting wouldn't?

4. If you are writing for particular age group and don't know what vocabulary is appropriate, spelling and reading textbooks at that grade level can give you a general idea.

5. People often recommend reading your manuscript aloud to check the writing. Brooks recommends against this because you, as the author, already know how you're supposed to inflect all the sentences. She recommends instead to have someone else read the manuscript to you, both with natural inflection and in a flat monotone.

6. On theme: Brooks describes theme as the moral of a fairytale. She spends an entire chapter explaining the concept, but one tip that stuck with me was that the theme should play a major role in the protagonist’s greatest choice -- the choice that resolves the conflict.


I received a review copy of this book from the author to review.

Tips for Dealing with Carpal Tunnel and Repetitive Strain Injury

I've gotten enough questions about carpal tunnel that it’s easier to write a blog entry than rewrite the same e-mail repeatedly. Even if you don't have full-blown repetitive strain injury but just suffer from the occasional wrist pain after a long day, you may find some of the software or equipment I mention to be useful.  Prevention is better than treatment.

I've had repetitive strain injury from computer use for about seven years. At its worst, it hurt to turn doorknobs, but now I've found ways to keep it under control. These are the treatment options that worked for me and also the tools and the technologies that I now use to work at a computer.



First, the obligatory disclaimer. I am not a doctor. What I share is what worked for me, but other cases might be different.

Books and resources:

1. It's Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome  is  worth reading to better understand repetitive strain injury. It has exercises too, but I found them less useful than the other books mentioned below.

2. Sharon Butler has a good book with stretching exercises called Conquering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Since then, she has developed more specialized stretching programs that she sells on her website.

3. The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook is a good book for a massage based self treatment. It covers soft tissue pain in all areas of the body, and not just the arms.

4. Another book worth looking through is Pain Free at Your PC by Pete Egoscue, for its alternate viewpoint on ergonomics.

Professional Treatment: 

I tried many kinds of therapy, including physical therapy, massage therapy, shiatsu, acupuncture, and Alexander technique. These might have helped a little, but not much. The only therapy that made a difference was active release therapy. It's a soft tissue release technique, and I had it done with a chiropractor. This gave me noticeable results after the first appointment, and after a few weeks I was able to start typing again. This is pretty impressive since I had been unsuccessfully trying therapies for over a year at that point.

Self treatment:
1. I highly recommend the Armaid for forearm and wrist pain. It helps get rid of knots and loosen up the muscles.
2. If you suffer from tight back muscles, the Theracane (in conjunction with the trigger point therapy workbook) is also nice for treating muscle spasms.


Office Equipment:

1.  I highly recommend typing gloves from Handeze. They are inexpensive and offer really good support to the wrist. Many of people are told to wear hard wrist braces. I didn't find them useful and found that the pain would return in a different place after a few days. One thing the hard wrist braces are good for however, is to wear to sleep if you find that you bend your wrists in a weird or irritating position at night.

2. For upper back pain, get a reading stand that will hold books and papers vertically on the desk so you don't have to bend over them.

Computer Hardware and equipment: There are many resources on ergonomic computer set up, so I won't cover that here. I'll give my preference is for hardware, but this can be subjective and these things are expensive, so ideally you want to try them out before you buy them

1. An ergonomic keyboard is very important. I swear by my Goldtouch, but since they switched manufacturers, their keyboards haven't been as good and actually seem to exacerbate my symptoms. Some friends of mine prefer the Kinesis keyboards, but they take some getting used to.

2. Ergonomic mice also help. I don't have a clear favorite here, but I like the 3M vertical mouse and the Kensington trackball. I've never used track pads but some people like them.

Computer software:


1. Install a stretch break reminder software on your computer. You can find lots of them for free online


2. Because mouse clicking irritates my wrist, I use a software that clicks the mouse for me when I stop the pointer. The Windows version is called Mousetool. It's been so long since I downloaded it that I don't remember where I got it, but you can find download sites for it via Google. Just remember to take the necessary precautions when downloading programs from unknown websites.


3. I also use voice recognition software. Dragon NaturallySpeaking has come a long way even since my college days. It does make mistakes, and annoyingly, the types of mistakes it makes tend to make you look like a bad writer, for example verb agreement mistakes or its/it's errors. I don't use Dragon for the final draft of anything important, but for first drafts that will still undergo several rounds of proofreading, it's helpful. If you use voice recognition, then you MUST get a good quality microphone. The microphone that comes in the box is worthless. I use the Plantronics DSP 400.  Here's a website that lists and rates compatible microphones.

Okay, so that is all the information I can think of for now. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

On a completely random note, I was recently interviewed on an article about work related injuries at Redbook. This is what happens when you spend too much time hanging out on HARO.

Erotic Romance, Condoms, and Social Responsibility

Hey folks. Sorry for the sporadic posting lately. My writing time for the last two months has been tied up on a sekrit project. In true graduate student fashion, I attacked the project with some top sekrit procrastination, and things got pretty hectic towards the end. But that should be wrapping up soon.

But enough about me. Let's talk about something more interesting. Like erotic romance novels. And condoms. And of course, science.

Raymond Moore at On Fiction recently described a study about the influence of romance novels on condom use. Erotic romance as a genre generally focuses on spontaneous and passionate sex. Since rubbers don’t exactly scream passion, love scenes rarely mention their use.

Our Brains Naturally Frame Events As Stories

"Stories are efficient summaries of reality, but that isn't all they are. Stories have an arc, they put constraints on the future - when you've heard the first half there are some things which are more likely in the second, and some less. I'm sure our minds use stories because they describe the way the world is AND because they say something about how the world could or will be."


I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Tom Stafford, psychologist at the University of Sheffield and author of The Narrative Escape.  See the rest of our conversation about our brains' narrative habit at the 40k blog.

Sally Feels Your Pain. Harry Just Points and Laughs.

You could say that fiction is about pain. When you boil them down, stories describe characters taking hits and trying to emerge as unscathed as possible. Neighborhood under attack by zombies? Run hard and hope you have some painkillers on hand if they catch you. Or what if it’s actually a friendly, attractive zombie who loves you? In that case, it’s all good -- until you realize that mortals and undead can never be together. Oh the agonies of unfulfilled love!


Read the rest of my guest post on pain, empathy, and fiction at Nathan Bransford's blog.   Older blog followers will recognize one of the studies. I also describe a new study about some interesting gender differences in empathy (Hint: see title).

Book Packagers 101

Congrats to Catherine Stine, winner of the Vordak ARC!

 I recently attended the Northern Ohio SCBWI conference, where I had the pleasure of meeting author Emma Carlson Berne. Berne is the author of over thirty fiction and nonfiction books for children and young adults. Some are written under her own name (check out her recent YA romantic comedy Hard to Get), while others were ghostwritten for book packagers under a pen name. Since we rarely hear about working with book packagers in the blogosphere, I thought I’d share my notes from her very informative session.

What is a book packager? 

A book packager acts as a layer between the writer and the publisher. Usually they come up with a concept and recruit writers on a work-for-hire basis. The popular series Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Gossip Girl were produced by book packager Alloy entertainment , and many nonfiction/educational book series for children are put together by book packagers as well.

How does the writing process work?

For fiction, the packager provides character sketches (sometimes with pictures) and a detailed plot outline. In nonfiction, the packager provides specification about style, content, and any limitations on sources to use. The writer is responsible for conducting the research.

What are the advantages to working with a book packager?

1.  If you’re hired on a work-for-hire basis, you’re paid a set fee. The amount of money you make is not dependent on whether a publisher buys your book or how well it sells.
2.  You're generally not called on to do any publicity or marketing for the books.  Your job is done after you write the book.
3.  Brene also found ghostwriting to be a good learning experience, comparing it to a paid apprenticeship in novel writing.

What are the disadvantages?

1. If you’re hired on a work-for-hire basis, the packager owns all rights, including rights to notes and drafts.
2. There are often strict noncompete clauses, so you can’t write anything else that is considered competition for the book.
3. After you finish te book, you have no control over what happens next. If the publisher doesn’t like what you wrote, they can hire someone else to rewrite it without consulting you. You can’t be too emotionally tied to your work.
4. Writing for a set fee can either work for or against you. If your book does really well, you won’t make any more money. On the other hand, if you’re writing a book that’s not particularly likely to become a runaway bestseller (say, a biography of a historic figure), that maynot matter.

How do you get a postion writing for a book packager?
Berne got her first job wirting nonfiction for a book packager through a personal referral from another writer. Since then, she’s also gotten a lot of work simply by cold calling book packagers to see if they’re hiring. When she cold called Alloy entertainment, hey looked at her resume, asked her to write a sample chapter, and hired her based on the writing sample. Now that she’s more established, editors sometimes contact her for jobs.

Is there a directory of book packagers?
Check out the American Book Producers Association at www.abpaonline.org for a list of members and contact information.