Stage 32 Webinar/ LK Watts Confessions/ Kelli Deeth

This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Feb. 4 Stage 32 Webinar: I mentioned this before about live webinars that you have to pay to see.  You go to the Writer’s Store and they sell them.  Here’s one: 

Constructing Powerful Story in TV & Film

At a Glance Webinar for beginner and experienced writers who are interested in writing for TV and features Learn how to use act breaks and links effectively to create powerful and memorable stories Discover the key tools and strategies that will make your TV pilots, specs and features scripts stand out

ABOUT THE WEBINAR

Creating a strong story is your calling card as a writer. In this live webinar, Jen Grisanti will share with you some of the key tools that will make your TV pilots, specs and features scripts stand out through the building of the act break and the links that you provide in your story. Jen Grisanti will share her strategy about how you can write act breaks that will make your story memorable and help you to tell it in the strongest way possible so that you increase your chances of a sale and getting staffed. It all comes down to your understanding of how to build your script. There is a strategy to this. Jen Grisanti will share her secrets on what makes a story strong from the point of view of a studio executive. Follow her tips and advice and it could lead you to getting hired!

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• The components of telling a strong and memorable story
• How to build a strategy going into your script--starting with the construction of the act breaks
• How to construct each act in a way that builds anticipation
• How to end your opening with a question and answer the question through your story 
• How to utilize the pivotal points in the A story and the B story to end your act with the maximum emotional impact
• How to connect all the pivotal moments in your story so that they link back to your goal
• The significance of your links and link backs to the construction of your story

WHO SHOULD LISTEN?

• Seasoned as well as new writers in TV and features
• Writers who want to learn the components of telling a strong story
• Writers who want to make their audience feel their story
• Writers who want to use a story checklist to set the foundation of their script
• Writers who want to learn the significance of structure
• Writers who want to learn how to tell and sell their story

The Writers Store does not offer any refunds for the webinar. All sales are final.

Product Details

• Return policy: This item is not eligible for return.

Meet the Author: Jen Grisanti

International speaker Jen Grisanti is an acclaimed Story/Career Consultant at Jen Grisanti Consultancy Inc., Writing Instructor for Writers on the Verge at NBC, former 12-year studio executive, including VP of Current Programming at CBS/Paramount, blogger for The Huffington Post and author of the books, Story Line: Finding Gold In Your Life Story and TV Writing Tool Kit: How To Write a Script That Sells and the upcoming book, Change Your Story, Change Your Life: A Path To Your Succ...

http://www.writersstore.com/constructing-powerful-story-in-tv/?mr:referralID=e0b6fe1a-8e10-11e3-beb7-001b2166c2c0

My opinion: After I read that, I feel inspired to write.  The Writer’s Store sells lots of TV writing books, Final Draft software, script covers, and notebooks.

Feb. 8 Meetup: Today I finished reading this script this guy wrote for Meetup.  I sent him this:

“I read it in 2 sittings.  It’s so good.  It’s like this big action/ sci-fi movie I can totally see in the theatres.  This is your first draft?  You must have put a lot of effort and work into it because it’s impressive.”

LK Watts Confessions: This is a blog I found a few months ago.  It talks about “Does fear hold you back from publishing?”

Here’s an excerpt of her post:

“Then I think to myself is it fear? Fear of the unknown and people writing reviews stating they can't write. Fear of being ridiculed for publishing a book that only sells one copy per year.

Thoughts like these go through every writers' mind, whether you're J.K. Rowling or a complete novice. But what separates these writers is that the J.K. Rowling's publish their books and try not to worry too much while they get on with writing their next novel. The other writers will dither and dither and make constant rewrites and corrections, consequently never getting their book published.

You don't want to rush your book and it's crucial to make it the best it possibly can be before you release it for the world to see. But what's important is realising when that time has arrived.

If you're a writer who find themselves worrying a lot about their book and you constantly change and rewrite it, I hope this post has helped you. I have a self help book about fear and anxiety and it's got one pivotal lesson:

Action brings satisfaction. No matter what the problem or fear is, doing something about it will always make you feel better.

So take action and have the courage to publish your book before you go completely insane.”

http://lkwattsconfessions.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/does-fear-hold-you-back-from-publishing.html?goback=.gde_114064_member_580970034412444467

Kelli Deeth: I was reading the Globe and Mail books section and read a book review called The Other Side of Youth by Kelli Deeth.  It’s a collection of short stories about young women and it seems really good.

“Kelli Deeth’s first book since her acclaimed 2001 debut The Girl Without Anyone is a collection of stories about missed connections and unrequited desire, in which characters struggle internally and with each other over issues such as marriage, childlessness, adoption, adolescent longing, friendship, and death.”

http://www.kellideeth.net/

Feb. 11 Republic of Doyle: I read in the Globe and Mail, that this Canadian show ended their 5^th season.  Wow, this show has been on for a long time.  I watched the first season about this father and son PI company as they solve mysteries in Newfoundland.  It’s a fun comedy-drama.

Jay Leno: I’m sure all of you heard that he’s ending his late night show after 22 years.  I started watching his TV show around 2004 for the 10 min. monologue and then I go to bed.  I can watch it at 9:35pm.  I stopped watching his TV show at Jan. 2013 because I had to go to bed earlier.

blog to book/ Project Nim

This is on my blog www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Feb.  3: I cut out this article from the Edmonton Journal way back in Mar. 16, 2011.

Making the leap from blog to book is harder than it looks 

By Addie Broyles

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF 

'Julie & Julia" was just the beginning.

Austin native Julie Powell's blog-turned-book-turned-movie set the precedent for just how far a little old food blog could go, and even though she wasn't the first blogger to score a book deal, the success of her book almost six years ago has agents and publishers scouring the Web for the next big food blogger to publish.

But for every Powell (and, for now, she's the only one: Columbia Pictures bought the rights to make a movie based on Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond's blog and books, with Reese Witherspoon rumored to play the lead, but production isn't guaranteed), there are thousands of food bloggers who won't make the transition to book author.

But the best - or perhaps luckiest - of that incredibly strong and fast-growing community of food bloggers are people like Molly Wizenberg, who has leveraged her popular blog, Orangette, into a writing career that includes a book ("A Homemade Life," Simon & Schuster, 2009) and articles in magazines including Bon Appetit.
 
Ten years after "blog" was just another made-up tech word that most Americans snickered at, bloggers are capitalizing on their online success to write everything from memoirs to culinary travel books to cookbooks akin to science textbooks and cookbooks that are traditional except for the fact that the author also took all the photos. (See box for a list of some of the recently published books written by food bloggers.)

At the South by Southwest Interactive Conference, Wizenberg and a handful of those bloggers-turned-authors will talk about the increasing impact of food blogs, including their effect on the book industry. 

In many ways, food bloggers are ideal first-time authors. A well-developed blog is like a virtual book whose chapters are spread out over many months. Bloggers not only cook the food and write the posts, they photograph the dishes and market the content through social media streams such as Twitter and Facebook, all without getting paid a cent.

But what some see as earnest enthusiasm, some in the publishing industry see as naivete. Kirsty Melville, president of Andrews McMeel Publishing, says that bloggers often lack experience in creating a longer-form package that feels like a well-thought-out book instead of a series of impromptu, casual blog posts. "A blogger has to be prepared to be edited and critiqued," she wrote in an e-mail. "Some don't like this."

But successful bloggers have already developed a voice, a niche and - most attractive to a potential publisher - a built-in audience. "Bloggers aren't reaching as many people as, say, a TV person, but the audience they have is very engaged, and it's a two-way conversation through comments, e-mails and social media," says Lisa Fain, a Houston native and former Austinite whose blog-turned-book, "Homesick Texan," will come out later this year. 

Another advantage of having a dedicated fan base? Readers who are eager to test recipes and give feedback. Steamy Kitchen blogger Jaden Hair says that more than 1,000 readers asked to help test recipes for her book, "The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook" (Tuttle, 2009).

Bloggers also can reach audiences that publishers didn't even know existed. When Fain started her blog in 2005, she thought only Texans or former Texans would want to read about making brisket and beans in a tiny Manhattan kitchen, but through the years, she's drawn readers from around the world who are simply curious about Texas culture.

Neither publishers or regular readers are interested in books that are a replica of a food blog. "Blog readers are going to be your biggest fans, and they won't be happy if it's all reprinted from the blog," Hair says.

But it's inevitable that some of the signature stories, recipes and photos that won over fans will be part of a printed product. For Fain's upcoming book ("The Homesick Texan Cookbook," Hyperion, due out in September), she says she's reusing some of the "greatest hits" from her blog such as migas and chicken-fried steak, but two-thirds of the book will be completely new content, including photographs.

"My pictures are part of the package and the brand," Fain says. Her photos are all shot in her tiny New York kitchen, and if the publisher had insisted on bringing in an outside photographer and a stylist, the book wouldn't feel like her blog. Even the choice of typeface, color palette and design elements are based on what already exists on her blog. (You'll notice a shade close to burnt orange all over Homesick Texan. "Even though I didn't go to UT, I'm a secret Longhorn," she says.)

Most bloggers are self-trained in everything from cooking to photography, but for proof that the best of them are anything but amateurs, look no further than Aki Kamozawa and Alex Talbot. Since 2004, these Pennsylvania chefs have used their blog, Ideas in Food, to document their research and kitchen experiments. "We didn't even know what a blogger was when we started," Talbot says. "This was just a digital notebook ... to record what we were doing." Their book ("Ideas in Food," Clarkson Potter), which came out in December, has already become one of the most well-respected reference books to come out since Harold McGee's 1997 "On Food and Cooking."

It comes down to selling books, Melville says. Publishers make business decisions based on potential sales, no matter if they're dealing with a blogger, a TV star or an award-winning chef. 

But it's a crowded field. No one knows for sure how many food blogs exist. A few years ago, the blog search company Technorati estimated that there were more than 30,000 food blogs. (After tracking Austin food blogs for three years, I have found more than 200 active food blogs in Central Texas alone.)

"If you're doing great stuff, you'll get noticed," says Wizenberg, who, when she's not helping her husband run their relatively new Seattle pizzeria, writes full time. "The field is still open. The food blogging bubble has not burst yet, but bloggers starting out have to present a whole package in a way that you didn't have to when I first started." 

Even though dozens of publishers are printing books by food bloggers, getting a book deal isn't a good reason to start a food blog, simply because there are only so many authors they can sign on in a year.
For some published bloggers like Hair, books are just a way to help promote the website, which, in her case, will bring in more money over time than sales of her books. 

"I love that publishers are recognizing the power of food bloggers," she says. "But what's important is that we own our own platform. We're already publishers." 

http://www.austin360.com/news/lifestyles/food-cooking/making-the-leap-from-blog-to-book-is-harder-than-2/nRX9n/

TV production: I was reading in the Metro on Jan. 31, 2014.  “Filming of commercials shining spotlight on different side of city” by Stephanie Dubois.  It mentions over 100 commercials are shot in Edmonton each year.  I didn’t know that.

Feb. 6: I was reading in the Metro on Feb. 5, 2014 that a new film studio and sound stage will be built in Calgary.  It will cost $22.8 million and be open by summer 2015.  It will have “two purpose built sound stages with the ability to subdivide the larger studio.”  There will be a warehouse and workshop space.

I was kind of excited to read about that.  There isn’t a location for the studio yet.  Well I hope it happens.

Feb. 9 Project Nim: I found this on imdb.com.  It’s a true story:

“Tells the story of a chimpanzee taken from its mother at birth and raised like a human child by a family in a brownstone on the upper West Side in the 1970s.”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1814836

Dracula/ The Millers/ Do No Harm

This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Jan. 31 Dracula: I saw the TV show Dracula on Oct. 25, 2013.  Cut to Romania 1881.  Two men dig into a cave and find a coffin.  One man kills the other man, and it bleeds into the vampire.  Dracula becomes alive.

Cut to London 1896.

Dracula is now an American citizen and he has Renfield (Nonso Anozie), his assistant who knows that he is really a vampire.  He is played by a black man.  There is a gala that is thrown by Dracula and he goes by a different name. 

Dracula is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Dracula/ Grayson: I’m Alexander Grayson.

Lucy (Katie McGrath), journalist Jonathan Harker (Oliver Jackson-Cohen.  He’s handsome).  There is Mina (Jessica De Gouw).  As soon as Grayson and Mina look at each other, there is a connection.  They feel like they know each other.  Grayson sees that Mina looks like his lover from the past.

Mina is a med student.  Grayson shows his technological invention of giving electricity.  He passes out light bulbs without wires and then all the light bulbs go on.

Behind the scenes are the factory workers powering it.  Then it stops because it’s going to blow up.

There are noises after the party.  A business man is killed.

They introduce the Order of the Dragon.  They murder people with politics and oil.  Grayson’s plan is to use his geomagnetic technology, and then the Dragon won’t have more money and power.

Grayson killed a man and delivers it’s head to the Order of the Dragon.  Lady Jayne (Victoria Smurfit) holds it.  They think it’s a vamp, but don’t know for sure.

Cut to Professor Van Helsing (Thomas Kretschmann) is teaching medicine.  Mina is the only woman there.

Grayson does an interview with Jonathan for the newspaper.  They shake hands in the sunlight and Grayson’s hand burns a bit.

Grayson: My parents are from Europe.

Jonathan: And that Thomas Edison didn’t run you out of the US?

Van Helsing and Mina talk about how Mina wants to be the research assistant.  She gets good marks, but not a steady hand in surgery.

Grayson goes to the opera and hooks up with Lady Jayne.

Grayson then gets into this great sword fight with a vampire hunter on the roof.

Jayne trains with swords and she’s a vampire hunter too.  She has kept a female vamp in a cage.

Jayne: Who is your sire?

Helsing visits Grayson.

Through the flashback, it turns out Helsing raised Grayson form the coffin in the cave in the beginning of the episode.

Helsing: The Order of the Dragon killed my family.

Grayson: The Order of the Dragon killed my wife Maria.

Maria looks just like Mina and she was burned at the stake.

My opinion: I’m going to say there is good production value.  This is the only TV show that I had kept watching after the pilot.  This is a great TV show.  There are 10 episodes this season and I have watched them all.

I was kind of hesitant at first because there is so many vampire TV shows right now.  There is so much Dracula in TV and movies already.  I’m also not into watching things set in the past without TV or internet. 

It’s very well-written.  There is a lot gruesome violence and some sex.  The story is what keeps me watching.

The Millers: I saw the first half of the pilot on Oct. 3, 2013.  I only saw half of it because then it was time for me to go and eat dinner.  This is not a well-rounded review.  Nathan Miller (Will Arnett from Arrested Development) is a TV news reporter.  He is reporting abut a mom who is making her kid hold a sign “I have a filthy mouth” and walk around the neighborhood with it.

Nathan doesn’t want to tell his parents that he’s divorced.  He is talking to his sister Debbie (Jayma Mays) and her husband.  The parents Carol (Margo Martindale) and Tom (Beau Bridges) call and say their basement is flooded and there are flying over and staying at Nathan’s place.

They see that Janice isn’t there and Nathan has to tell them he’s divorced.  I did laugh at the point where Carol and Tom saying “What?” about the news. 

Tom: I’m divorcing you.

My opinion: I didn’t watch all of it so I can’t say a lot.  I’m not a fan of sitcoms.  This is the set up where the dad lives with the daughter and the mom lives with her son.  If you like sitcoms or any of the actors I mentioned, you may like it.

Do No Harm: I’m talking about the TV movie starring Deanna Russo who was on Gossip Girl for a few eps.    I had to look her up. I saw it on Dec. 11, 2013.  I watched it because nothing else was on and I wasn’t feeling very good.

She plays Emily and her fiancé died in a plane crash and she attempts to commit suicide.  She’s in a mental hospital and meets Dr. Thorne (Lauren Holly.  She was in the TV movie Call Me Mrs. Miracle).  Dr. Thorne counsels her.  Emily’s friend Gillian (Sarah Allen) visits her a lot.  Emily puts her life back together and ends her relationship with the therapist.

Dr. Thorne then starts stalking Emily.  Later it’s revealed that Dr. Thorne has a daughter named Emily and she is comatose and living in a home.  It’s transference that Thorne thinks Emily is her daughter.

Emily’s new psychiatrist is killed by Dr. Thorne.  Emily’s friend Gillian does some investigating by going to the home.  She finds out about the daughter and Dr. Thorne is chasing her.  Gillian drives away in car and Dr. Thorne drives her car into Gillian’s car and Gillian is leaving a message to Emily.

Dr. Thorne then kidnaps Emily to her cottage.  Emily has gotten a boyfriend Ian (Paul Greene) and he is looking for Emily when she disappeared. There are two detectives looking into the psychiatrist’s murder and the car accident that Gillian is involved in.

The best part is the climatic ending.  Emily is running away and she runs into a farm house.  Dr. Thorne has her shot gun and is shooting at the hay as Ian is running around the farm.

Dr. Thorne points her gun at Emily and fires.  She’s out.  Emily hits her with a shovel.  Thorne is arrested and Ian is an ambulance.  His arm was shot.

Cut to Gillian’s wedding.  Emily and Ian are attending it.  They kiss.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2214981/?ref_=nv_sr_2

My opinion: This TV movie was mediocre and kind of boring.  There are good TV movies out there like In Her Mother’s Footsteps.  It stars Emma Caulfield (Anya from Buffy) and I wrote about it on my blog.

 http://badcb.blogspot.ca/2010/01/flash-gordon-situation-in-her-mothers.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0844008/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Linked In/ Stage 32/ 10 yr old blogger Hannah Alper

 This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Jan. 18 Linked In: I signed up to get into this Linked In group about writing and screenwriting.  I got this one:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Another-year-sweat-tears-all-2069572.S.5824089364623273984?view=&srchtype=discussedNews&gid=2069572&item=5824089364623273984&type=member&trk=eml-anet_dig-b-pop_ttl-hdp&fromEmail=&ut=2eRLJ1_hhZgm41

"Another year of sweat and tears and all for nothing"

Raymond Thyer Author and Screenplay Writer Top Contributor

G'day, a new year has begun and another has passed by. What happened? I did all I could above and beyond the call of necessity and paid money to websites to make known my screenplays to movie Producers, I sent emails, letters and even paid for a professionally made video to give to movie makers instead of sending many words for them to read about my screenplays and once more I sat before my keyboard and it was new year's eve again and suddenly I realised that two other previous new year's eves had passed by and I asked myself is it worth the effort again this new year? I think my stories are no better nor are they much worse than what I see in cinemas and on television. 

Where have I failed? What more should I have done this last year and what should I do now to find a movie maker/ Producer to look at my screenplays. Do you know if you do please email me at ray.thyer@bigpond.com and I will be eternally grateful, I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year. Thanks in advance, Ray downunder.

Jessica Hinds

 

Screenwriter/Playwright at Freelance

You must find a way to enjoy the climb up. I was working/writing/submitting for 8 years before I broke in. And I consider myself lucky.

But you must remember ...this time...before you are a professional, is actually the best part. Right now you can write ANYTHING you want.

The moment you break in you will have producers dictating everything you write. And how quickly you write it. And then making you rewrite it to be worse. And then the director will change everything. And you first three scripts you are paid to write you will average about $3 an hour writing because that's how many hours it takes even at guild minimum.

So enjoy what you can at the moment. The freedom to write what is in your heart, the way you want to write it. And that positive love for your craft/art will help you not only become a better writer but will attract helpful people in the industry. No one wants to date the desperate girl. People want to work with people who are happy and "don't need it"

Keep writing. Two of the writers I coach are from Australia and are doing pretty well.

Jess

www.writeyourscreenplay.com 

Jan. 20 Stage 32: I’m going through all these emails from this social network group Stage 32.  I joined it about a year ago.  I see that I do have network requests and some are from Edmonton, and it’s some are in the US.  Mainly it’s people I don’t know.

At least with Linked In, it’s with people I do know like my friends, college classmates, and co-workers.

I’m deleting a lot of my Stage 32 emails.  Stage 32 has all these live webinars and they cost money.  I never paid to see them.

There is a section called "Stage 32 Success stories."

There are also lots of "Introduce Yourself" weekends where you post about yourself.

Tip of the week, Blog updates. 

• Andrew Wilson Introduce Yourself

Stage 32? why? Introduce Yourself 

Sorry I don't really see the point of Stage 32 - just another disctraction from work! Who cares who is in who's network? Prove me wrong!

• Mario Leone

What you focus on grows. If you cant see potential then you won't find it.

My opinion: I feel like my TV script isn’t going to get produced.

I’ll write about TV shows and movies to get me inspired.  Then maybe I could write a script and be motivated to pitch my script.

I will also put up articles about TV shows being produced in Canada and that shows that it’s possible.

Jan. 28: Yesterday I deleted 35 emails from Stage 32.  I had put them all in a folder in my inbox.  I had over 300 emails in it.  It had a lot of Network requests and Weekly Writer Store emails.  It wasn’t a lot of reading, but more like notifications.

Jan. 31 Hannah Alper: Eric Alper sent me this article about Hannah Alper.  She’ 10 yrs old and a blogger:

Hannah Alper has been called many things: “The future of social media”, “Eco-Warrior”, “Changemaker” and “Activist”. At 10 years old, she is all of these things. To celebrate the holiday season, Hannah interviewed Band Aid's Midge Ure on the importance of using your voice, the power of community, lessons to learn from music and why "Do They Know It's Christmas?" still holds up after 29 years -http://www.callmehannah.ca/2013/12/17/my-interview-with-band-aids-midge-ure/

Hannah created her blog, www.CallMeHannah.ca at 9 years old, with the goal of sharing her growing knowledge and concern for the environment. 

Having always loved animals, Hannah made the connection between animals and the effects of environmental destruction on their habitats and lives. Hannah has become an engaged global citizen seeking to further her own understanding of her connection to and responsibility to the world. Believing that even the little things that we do add up to make a difference, her journey and discovery meet her call to action through her blog.  Issues that Hannah has written about in the past year include eco-friendly living, fair trade, bullying, clean water and child labour. She seeks inspiration and motivation from those who have come before her and regularly features the stories of her role models on her blog.

Not limiting herself to her laptop, Hannah has put her words into actions. She organized a shoreline cleanup in her community, was the youngest WWF  Earth Hour Team Captain in 2013 and spoke at the WWFs Earth Hour event in Toronto, was the official “on the ground eco-blogger” for the JUNO Awards and launched We Create Change. 

 Her impassioned speech at two local schools motivated her peers to collect 97,500 pennies for Free The Children’s clean water projects, which led her to be a featured speaker on Free The Children's We Day across North America. An effective communicator, Hannah is comfortable and confident on both sides of the camera or in front of a crowd. She has honed her skills as an interviewer through conducting interviews with Craig Kielburger, Spencer West and Severn Suzuki. Hannah has appeared on CanadaAM, The Marilyn Dennis Show, APP Central, CBC’s Fresh Air and The George Stroumboulopoulos Show and hundreds of media outlets across Canada.  She has been featured in a spotlight from Chickadee Magazine and named as a Champion of the Earth in Owl Magazine. She also recently wrote a post for Yahoo worldwide on her advice for new-school wary kids: http://shine.yahoo.com/blogs/author/hannah-alper-kid-blogger-ycn-1776223/ and has a spotlight in Scholastic's Choices Magazine: http://teenbeing.com/life-skills/tween-blogger-love-hannah-alper/

Let me know if you need anything else, and thanks, as always, for reading!

Best,

Eric

My opinion: I checked out her blog.  It’s pretty good.  She writes, does interviews, and takes pictures.

This is from www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Jan. 15: I cut out this Globe and Mail article way back in Dec. 17, 2009.  I kept this article all these years.  It was vital information if I wanted to get published.  It’s a really good article.

This is an inspirational article.

From blog to book deal in just two months

DAKSHANA BASCARAMURTY

A tiny prairie dog foot covered in tufted brown fur strung on a necklace of dull, plastic dollar-store beads was posted on Etsy.com in October. The item's seller wrote, "I don't know if it's good luck, but it might get you laid at the club." While some may have indulged in a private chuckle, April Winchell in Los Angeles went further.

She posted a screen capture of the atrocity to her blog Regretsy, which showcases some of the more aesthetically unpleasing items for sale on the craft e-commerce site, with the caption: "I couldn't help but notice the dead prairie dog foot around your neck. So do you wanna ... ?" Just two months after that post - and dozens of unfortunate crafts and snappy comments later - she had a book deal with Random House.

With her contract she becomes the latest blogger to make the lucrative jump from the computer screen to the printed page in the past few months. In many cases, just a few weeks of blogging have turned into hefty advances from publishers. What's the secret to spinning sarcasm into six-figure deals? A handful of the lucky writers open up about how they struck it rich.

Write about something that actually interests you
 
When Christian Lander, a Toronto native who now lives in Los Angeles, created the witty blog Stuff White People Like, he had one goal in mind: to make three of his friends laugh. Before he would post anything to the site, he'd send them his draft. Even after Random House assigned him an editor to turn the blog into a book last year, he continued to run things past them.

"If they said it was funny, it went up, if they said it wasn't, it didn't go up," he says.
His own habits and preferences turned out to be great blog fodder, he says, which is why it was so easy to keep going.

Kate Hamill, an editor at HarperCollins's It Books division, says she looks for consistently witty, intelligent and original content when she's searching out blogs for book potential. She found that in Justin Halpern's Shit My Dad Says Twitter feed (a log of quotes from Mr. Halpern's 
curmudgeonly father), which is being made into both a book and a TV series.

"Content is the main thing and once we've established that the content is comprised of something we'd want to publish, the platform is the gravy at that point," she says.

Don't overpromote
 
If the content is good, the site will develop a strong following on its own.
Many of the blog-to-book authors sing the same tune: They never actively marketed their work.
Don't be a fame seeker, Mr. Lander says. "People can honestly see when you're trying to do something to do something else."

His blog went viral after he sent an e-mail with the URL to 20 of his friends, who passed it on to their friends and so on. It eventually found its way into the hands of influential bloggers.
It's the same story for Walker Lamond, from Washington, D.C., the man behind 1,001 Rules for my Unborn Son, a blog full of pithy, often humorous advice such as: #237. Don't throw sand or, when you're older, mud. His book was published by St. Martin's Press in October. Mr. Lamond largely credits the Tumblr platform - which shows you who shares your blog posts and how they spread - for his success.

Another way to get attention, he says, "is to reblog other bloggers' stuff. Any shout-out is usually reciprocated in some fashion."

Post your e-mail address
 
When Jessica Hagy, based in Seattle, constructed her blog Indexed, the design was simple: the blog's title, entries (clever graphs or Venn diagrams illustrating an unusual or funny relationship between things), links to archives, and most importantly, her e-mail address.

"If people wanted to ask me questions, I answered," she said. "You never know who's going to pop over."

At first the only ones writing to her were interested readers, but six weeks after she'd started the blog, a literary agent found it and asked to represent her in an e-mail. A few months later, she'd signed a book deal with Viking Press.

Resist get-rich-quick offers
 
"Take your time," Mr. Lamond says. "Everyone always makes you feel like 'We have to do this now or you're going to miss your opportunity!' "

If your blog is popular now, he says, it likely still will be in another month.

In addition to interest from a literary agent, Ms. Hagy says she received offers from people to buy the site or place ads on it. Scoring a few thousands dollars was tempting, but she resisted.
"I knew that people went [to my blog] because it was a pure, clean thing," she says. "I didn't want to sell out something that could be a lot bigger over time for something quickly now."

She maintained the ad-free aesthetic and the waiting paid off: She got a much fatter cheque from Viking than she would have from the previous offers.

Don't be picky with media
 
The first people who asked Mr. Lamond for interviews were small blogs and online magazines, and he happily obliged. After hearing about 1,001 Rules for my Unborn Son from one of those publications, an influential blogger from Glamour.com clicked onto the site.

"When she found it and blogged about it, all of a sudden my audience doubled," he says. As media reports increased, so did visitors to his site.

It was the smaller Web shout-outs and articles that helped Mr. Lander expand Stuff White People Like's audience, too. And though he has since been featured in both The New York Times and The Washington Post, he remains humble.

"I made a policy on the site that I do every interview request I get, period. For a podcast or a small blog, I make myself available to all of them," he says.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/from-blog-to-book-deal-in-just-two-months/article4310966/

Jan. 30 Being an actor: I’ve mentioned before about how I wanted to get into acting.  Here are some questions: Can you take your clothes off for the camera?   Can you kiss a guy that you hardly know for the camera?  There’s this kind of vulnerability to it.

Whenever you put yourself out there, there is criticism.  That’s the thing with my blog, some people will like it, some people don’t.