THE CASE AGAINST LAZINESS AND DOUCHEBAGS.

Don't be a lazy writer
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
THE CASE AGAINST LAZINESS AND DOUCHEBAGS.
/

Okay. I know the title of our podcast this week sounds mean, but it’s truth. You want to be a good writer or good liver, right?

Digression: Not a liver like an organ, but a liver like someone who is alive. 

Anyway, digression over. 

You want to be good. So that means what? You guessed it. It means that you can’t be lazy. 

What’s a lazy writer? 

It’s someone who babbles and has a lot of words that really say nothing.  So here are hot tips about that. 

PROBLEM #1: USING WAY TOO MANY TO-BE VERBS.

TIP #1: Don’t.

A to-be verb is: is, are, was, were, has been, had been,

A to-be verb hides the real importance of your sentence in a layer of whatever. 

How about an example? 

Lazy to-be sentence: 

Being thrilled to be snowboarding is such a real feeling.

So the subject up there is so dull. It’s being thrilled.

How about we switch it up to having a real concrete subject: 

The yeti is thrilled to be snowboarding today. 

Whoa, way better, right? We now know the yeti is thrilled and that’s more concrete, but we still have that ‘to be’ verb with ‘is.’

One more try: 

The yeti snowboards, pumping his hairy fist in the air, screaming, “Yee-haw!” 

We now have a much better image of the yeti and his joy. Also we just all have an image of a yeti, which is always a bonus. 

PROBLEM #2: WRITING LIKE YOU’RE TRYING TO HIT A TEACHER-INSPIRED WORD COUNT ON A U.S. HISTORY PAPER ABOUT THE ANTEBELLUM AND YOU ARE JUST PUTTING IN WORDS TO FILL UP SPACE. 


TIP #2: Don’t babble. 

You know what we mean, right? 

We’re talking about the never-ending sentence. Something like this: 

If this economic crisis is able to be adjudicated with both the president and Congress’s  approval, there will likely be an increased number of regulatory-relief provisions that will also be passed, which should make a resulting impact on the home-owner’s monetary status. 

And all you hear is blah-blah-blah-BLAH-blah. 

Don’t do that in your fiction. 


Writing Tip of the Pod

Don’t babble. Don’t pad your thoughts down with meaningless words



Dog Tip for Life

Meandering with purpose is the best. Don’t bark for no reason because then people won’t listen to your important growls. 


SHOUT OUT

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song?  It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.

This week’s episode’s link.

Note: We hunt for ghosts and talk about douchebags in our random thoughts, which are not transcribed here.


WHERE TO FIND US

The podcast link if you don’t see it above. Plus, it’s everywhere like Apple Music, iTunesStitcherSpotify, and more. Just google, “DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE” then like and subscribe.

This week’s episode link.

NEWS

Over 170,000 people have downloaded episodes of our podcast, DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE, you should join them. There will be a new episode tomorrow! 

Last week’s episode’s link.


THIS IS WHAT IT’S ABOUT

Rosie Jones, small town reporter and single mom, is looking forward to her first quiet Maine winter with her young daughter, Lily. After a disastrous first marriage, she’s made a whole new life and new identities for her and her little girl. Rosie is more than ready for a winter of cookies, sledding, stories about planning board meetings, and trying not to fall in like with the local police sergeant, Seamus Kelley.

But after her car is tampered with and crashes into Sgt. Kelley’s cruiser during a blizzard, her quiet new world spirals out of control and back into the danger she thought she’d left behind. One of her new friends is murdered. She herself has been poisoned and she finds a list of anagrams on her dead friend’s floor. 

As the killer strikes again, it’s obvious that the women of Bar Harbor aren’t safe. Despite the blizzard and her struggle to keep her new identity a secret, Rosie sets out to make sure no more women die. With the help of the handsome but injured Sgt. Kelley and the town’s firefighters, it’s up to Rosie to stop the murderer before he strikes again.

You can order it here. 


IN THE WOODS – READ AN EXCERPT, ORDER NOW!

My new book, IN THE WOODS, is out!

Gasp!

It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!

Order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?

In the Woods
In the Woods

ART NEWS

Becoming

Buy limited-edition prints and learn more about my art here on my site. 

Author: carriejonesbooks

I am the NYT and internationally-bestselling author of children's books, which include the NEED series, FLYING series, TIME STOPPERS series, DEAR BULLY and other books. I like hedgehogs and puppies and warm places. I have none of these things in my life.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: