Writing Online Content (Excerpt from The Social Media Gospel)

Today's (multiple) online conversations about how to write online content has prompted me to post this excerpt from my book, The Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News in New Ways. Actually, this is a version of Chapter 24 edited to be more readable...online.

*      *     *

A Bit of How To: Writing Online Content

Writing for the Internet is quite unlike writing for print, something I needed to learn before I could land paying gigs writing web content. Since it would be read on a screen, text had to be written for online readability. This meant content had to be brief, so readers wouldn't have to scroll down the screen. Some long-standing rules could be broken. For example, sentences could be incomplete. And, only a few words.

            
Paragraphs could be one sentence or one word.

                        
Seriously.

                        
This is what writing for online readability looks like.  

As for style, ponderous content just doesn't work well on websites. It's flat-out boring for blogs and e-newsletters. 

So, I quickly got into the habit of converting everything from passive to active voice. I started using more welcoming personal pronouns (e.g., our) and contractions (e.g., we're, instead of we are). I routinely stripped the words “that,” “to be,” and “in order to” from almost everything I wrote -- and everything I edited for others.

Because I’d already logged time writing short snappy magazine pieces and ad copy, my transition from print to web was relatively painless. Not so for those whose primary communication is oral (e.g., clergy) or whose style of writing is complex (e.g., theologians and academicians). 

Neither length nor heft are problems when writing for magazines or academic journals that simply post their print issues online. Length and heft become major problems when writing blog posts, e-newsletter items, or website content.

Here are some guidelines:

• Blog posts need to be short (i.e., 300 to 500 words). If the blog post is running longer, break it up into a series if posts. 

• E-newsletter items must be even shorter than blog posts (i.e., 25-150 words). You can get away with a bit more in both formats if some content is listed in bullet points.

• Website modules generally needs to run 75-125 words, depending on the site's design.

Now that mobile devices have arrived on the scene, another set of best practices has emerged. Smartphones and tablets have significantly smaller screens. Content is navigated by touch, which means fingers will block content. And the content moves – scrolling up and down; pushing in and pulling out horizontally. 

To maximize reading comprehension on a mobile device: 

• Sentences need to be short; no more than 14 words long.

• Words need to be three or fewer syllables.

• Paragraphs may run two sentences but making them one short sentence is more effective.

These new specs are easily accommodated by experienced digital content writers and anyone unfazed by the 140-character limits of Twitter. 

Just about everyone else needs to either get trained or be edited for online readability. ProTip: Getting edited by an online content pro is good way to get trained in this type of writing.

The Social Media Gospel: My Author Copies Arrive!

Of course I'd shoot a Vine video

of opening the carton

 of author copies!

 

And the thrill of doing so has not faded, nor have 

I become jaded about the gift of being able to write

and work with great publishers. Blessed by my

experience with the Liturgical Press team.

Habemus Book Cover! The Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News In New Ways

The Social Media Gospel: 

Sharing the Good News in New Ways

Foreword by The Rev. David L. Hansen (@Rev_David)

Soon and Very Soon!

July 2013

from Liturgical Press

This fabulous cover designed by Stefan Killen.
Grateful to Liturgical Press for welcoming
my creative direction and ongoing input.

An Author's Life: Beginning Again Again*

This post has been on my list of Posts to Write for a while, but before hunkering down tonight, I had to do one more thing. I reread all previous ones tagged "author" to get a sense of my own twisted history. Sentimental journey, for sure.

Four years ago, I invoked the pregnancy metaphor to write about book dedications and the ridiculousness (read: stupidity) of writing one book after another.

Such a great metaphor, here it is again: Having recently endured two book miscarriages, I needed to wait a few months before announcing that I'm expecting a new book to be out this Spring. It will be my ninth.

I wanted to wait until a mutually-acceptable contract was signed (done!), until I'd connected with my new editor (done!), and until I'd gotten far enough into writing to fall in love with this new manuscript, even when it's giving me heartburn and sleepless nights. Manuscript due: January 1, 2013. Publisher: Liturgical Press. Working title: Building Church and Faith With Social Media: Embracing a Future That's Already Here.

So there you have it, news about this author's life as well as an explanation for skimpy posting on this blog.

Had to laugh (at myself) as I read through my previous posts about my writing rituals. Yes, my nails are once again clipped down to power-typing length and our refrigerator is stocked with salami. For this book I've switched from Diet Cream to Diet Orange soda; from Cheez Doodles to corn chips. This change in protocol seems to be working so far.



*I've stopped numbering these posts for two reasons: 1) I've lost count; and 2) I stink at Roman numerals.

What I'm Reading

While everyone else is busy reading The Hunger Games, I've been mucking around with other dystopian-esque texts.

Last month I slammed through all 500+ pages of Michael Korda's memorable memoir, Another Life: A Memoir of Other People, which I lugged home in hardcover from The Book Thing. It's a page-turner account of Korda's decades in the publishing industry that includes great dish (is that slang still used?) about high maintenance authors. His chapter about Jacqueline Susann is scary-funny-juicy.

What makes this romp a dystopian text? For years I've been comparing the imploding mess known as traditional trade publishing with what has (deservedly) happened to the financial services industry. Korda's memoir affirms my every suspicion by revealing how the publishing industry sowed the seeds of its self-destruction during the 1960s and by the 1980s, had created a living hell for authors and real editors.

From there, I segued into reading A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church by Rembert G. Weakland, OSB, a frank memoir that spans nearly 60 years of his involvement with the Roman Catholic Church. Weakland's writing isn't nearly as engaging as Korda's, but that almost doesn't matter. The content is jaw-dropping enough without literary embellishment.

I've only read as far as chapter 10, "Ministering in the Last Years of Pope Paul VI (Rome 1973-1977), but that's far enough along to see how quickly and insidiously the Curia scrambled to regain autocratic dominance after the Second Vatican Council adjourned. Weakland's memoir affirms my worst suspicious about the institutional church.

Does this make me an Educated Seeker or a Glutton for Punishment? Or is that a distinction without a difference?

Contemporary Life Rant: Google It.

People laugh, albeit nervously, during my shtick about how my mother was the tech consultant for the biopic about Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest. Hanger scene? Lived it. And more! I mention this so you don't think I'm exaggerating when I describe another feature of my childhood.

My mother had a Zero Tolerance Policy for questions that began with, "How do you spell...?" or, "Where is...?" These were not inquiries born of intellectual curiosity, but evidence of laziness.

Go. Look. It. Up. 

I spent much of my childhood and adolescence flipping through a dictionary, thesaurus, or volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia. My mother joined the BOMC so we could have dictionaries in every room of the house. Asking for information that could be found in a book we owned guaranteed a swift trip to my room. Eventually, I'd figure out this was the safest place to be and it was stocked with reference materials.

The Internet had not yet been invented and Google didn't exist. Information had to be carefully spelunked. None of this technology was available while I attended college and graduate school. I spent a lot of time looking stuff up, sometimes in specialized libraries if the information I needed was legal or medical.

Now we have Google, which I initially didn't use because I thought it was cheating. I'm over that. Not looking it up online? Now, that really is evidence of lazy.

Technology makes it so easy to find stuff, that I'm routinely shocked when people ask me for information that I can -- and will -- procure for them via Google.  And while I'm not proud of the tone I'm starting to take while saying, "Google it," at least I'm not brandishing hangers to make my point. Yet.

An Author's Life: Not Weathering Weather Well

These crocuses? Saw them during a walk I took last week. They're lovely harbingers of spring and you'd think I'd be glad and grateful for their perky appearance. I am not. In fact I was somewhat bummed to see them and the daffodils that started blooming a few days ago.

What's my problem? I like seasons. I especially like winter because of its promise of deep dark snowy quiet. Like? Actually, I need an extended period of deep dark snowy quiet to write. That hasn't happened this year in Baltimore. No snow. None.

Praying for snow isn't working, so I might have to resort to magic: packing up humidifiers, storing down comforters, putting away sweaters, and getting out summer clothes. Yes, I am that desperate for snowfall.

Quote du Jour (Writing Department)

I'm in the throes of writing another book ... this would be the book I'm writing now that the book I was working on is in production. I love/hate/love being a writer. I love/hate/love the creative process. Knowing this, a friend recently told me to read Do the Work by Steven Pressfield. I did and, among other gems, found this:

We're poised at the brink of a creative breakthrough and we can't stand it. The prospect of success looms. We freak. Why did we start this project? We must have been insane. Who encouraged us? We want to wring their necks. Where are they now? Why can't they help us?

─  Steve Pressfield

An Author's Life: Support, Accountability & Twitter

Done with the wedding, enjoying the marriage. Next up: book.

Yes, I'm writing another book. Actually, I'm writing two but thought I'd start by finishing one . . . hopefully getting it into production right after Thanksgiving. I mention this to make a point about the power and glory of community built on and by social media.

Here's what happened this morning before I finally logged off Twitter to focus on writing (right after I create and post this):

Author Interview with Elizabeth Cunningham

Red-Robed Priestess: A Novel (The Maeve Chronicles)
Elizabeth Cunningham
Monkfish Book Publishing (2011)
Hardcover: 350 pages,

You better believe I jumped (up and down) on the option of interviewing author Elizabeth Cunningham. I love her work so much that I set aside the review copy of Red-Robed Priestess as a special treat and also because I knew it would be the last of the Maeve Chronicles. Whaaaaaaa! 

As ever, Elizabeth does a brilliant job of re-imagining history and capturing my attention at the expense of sleep. Tempted as I was to interview Maeve, I decided to ask Elizabeth about her writing process.

Is there such a thing as a “typical writing schedule”? How has this changed over time?
Maeve has a very exciting, harrowing life, but when it comes to writing I am a creature of dull routine, so the answer is yes.

For all of my writing life (35 years now!), I've worked in the morning, which is the only time I have enough mental alertness, doubtless because of coffee. I've always held jobs (from waitressing to counseling) that I could do in the afternoons, evenings, and weekends.

The biggest change is that I now work on the computer, even when writing my journal. I used to write two hand drafts of a book before typing (on a typewriter!), because typing was so excruciating. I really don’t know how I ever typed a whole manuscript.

For The Passion of Mary Magdalen I went from the first handwritten draft to revising on computer. Then, with much trepidation, I began composing on the computer with Bright Dark Madonna. I still type with two fingers and typos abound, but now I’ve written two books that way.

Do you have any special rituals that help you get started or keep you going?
Despite or maybe because of my dedication to routine, I procrastinate, which is perhaps necessary and even functional, like an animal circling before it lies down. There are many more ways to procrastinate now. I know I am speaking to the Social Media Queen not to mention the SWGOTU, but I do count checking the Twitter feed as one form of procrastination, email another. But the worst is giving in and reading ersatz “news” articles.

The only thing that really helps is the sure knowledge that I will enjoy the rest of the day if I do write; if I don’t, I won’t. What I like even better than writing is living in the story the rest of the time (aka daydreaming). For that to happen, I have to do some work. So eventually I take the plunge—or at least stick a toe in. The deal I have with the Muse is to show up every day; it doesn’t matter how much I get done. But I do have show up, tired, inspired or not.

Various tricks help when I am stuck. Getting up and going to the bathroom is always good. Also lying down for a few minutes helps immensely. Sometimes I create a new file, just as I used to switch to a different notebook. Somehow writing on/in a page or file that is not “the manuscript” is freeing. All the things I’ve mentioned, movement, change of position, are tricks to loosen or dislodge whatever is stuck.

How do you balance book writing with other writing?
When I am writing a novel, I don’t do much other writing, except answering emails to which task there is no end. I started writing blog posts a little over a year ago as a way to keep in touch with readers between books. I find it a challenging form but also rewarding for its immediacy. While I was still working on Red-Robed Priestess, I designated a day a week as blog post day. I am not posting that frequently now. But I reckon designating a day every other week or so is what I will do when I am working on a book again.

At what point, if ever, do you show drafts to family or friends?
Very early I read aloud to my husband. I am not at this point asking for an opinion. Just trying to see if there's any life to what I've written, if it holds his interest and mine. At a somewhat later stage I have friends I read to. I have never been in a writers’ group, and I think too much critiquing at an early stage is not a good idea.

For me the most important thing is to get a draft out. Then you've got something to work with, to revise, to edit, to fine tune. While  writing the first draft, I may ask my husband and friends for their opinions on something specific. I think it's helpful to writer and  reader if the writer specifies what kinds of responses would be useful.

When I am in the final editorial process before publication, I'm always open to changes that will strengthen the work, but won’t change something because someone else thinks it might be shocking. I also won’t change something if it's integral to the work—like Maeve’s twenty-first century voice as she tells you about her life in the first century.

How has writing the Maeve Chronicles affected your libido?
My libido has always been in pretty good shape or I wouldn't have written The Maeve Chronicles. It's getting better and better as I get older, which may be why Maeve has sex in chapter one of Red-Robed Priestess whereas in Magdalen Rising she had to wait (impatiently!) until chapter thirty-six!

How often did you wear that red bustier while writing The Maeve Chronicles?
Precisely? Never! The red bustier (a 50^th birthday present from me to me—or maybe from Maeve) is for performance only. Flashing cleavage helps me feel a little more Maevesque.

Alas, although it still fits lo these many years hence from said birthday, it now gives me acid reflux, so its appearances will be increasingly rare. It is my costume for a friend’s upcoming play Love and Madness in which I get to sing the heroine’s ditzy thoughts. A singing thought balloon in a red bustier. That will be me. Perhaps there is life after The Maeve Chronicles!

An Author's Life: Writing Rituals (XXI)

It's a well-founded sociological truism that stereotypes come from somewhere. Although they can be distorted and misused, stereotypes are grounded in reality. I know this because I'm a sociologist. 

And the stereotype about writers and cats? I know that one is grounded in reality because I'm a sociologist and a writer who is, once again, being supervised by a cat. 

Hand and paw to God, my creativity and productivity has been boosted significantly since Mozart arrived on the scene (aka, my desk).    

Is this the face of a muse or what?

 

Quote du Jour (Religion Department)

My startle response kicks in whenever someone characterizes me as  a "Catholic writer." Moi? Sometimes I think so. At other times I totally don't understand what the characterization even means.

Fortunately, I have this quote from a reflection titled, "The Apostolate of the Pen" to read and re-read for solace and comfort. It first showed up in the May 24, 1952 issue of America magazine, and I'm grateful it was reprinted by America editors in 2008.

...It's not easy to be a Catholic, and it is not easy to be a writer. To be a Catholic writer is doubly difficult. There is, on the one hand, the danger of yielding to the spell of art or human knowledge so as to fail in the requirements of the supreme truth. And there is, on the other hand, the danger of using divine truth...to compensate for possible failure in our fidelity to the requirements of art or human knowledge.

─ Jacques Maritain

An Author's Life: Writing Rituals (XX)

Every writer I know creates rituals to facilitate the writing process. I, too, have rituals. Many of them.

For example, it should come as absolutely no surprise that I begin big writing projects ─ personal or billable ─ by creating analog and digital filing systems. Color-coded. Then, after everything has been written, edited and delivered, I clean and rearrange everything around me.

Turns out I have another time-tested ritual for starting a writing project: I clip my fingernails way down ─ but not unattractively so, heaven forfend.

I do this not to give myself less to bite while on deadline, but to type faster, which is why I spent part of Sunday afternoon cutting off nails that, had they been acrylic tips, would've cost a fortune to replace.

Creating My Own Identity Crisis

For years, I've been indulgently self-soothing by going on about being stuck in Suburban Captivity. That's about to change because next week I'll be moving back (forward?) to a city.

Okay, so it's not The Center of the Universe City (aka New York) but it's a terrific city* and not in New Jersey. A few comments about New Jersey: it really is a lovely state and I've been fortunate to live in one of the more lovely areas for...too damn long.

Where am I going?

Baltimore. Yes, you may now call me "hon."

While there are many great reasons for this move at this point in this life of mine, I have caught myself wondering if this isn't the most exquisitely elaborate work avoidance maneuver I've yet to concoct on the way to writing another book.

And when I'm not wondering about that, I'm wondering if I've just created my own identity crisis. How on earth will I characterize myself next? I'm counting on more being revealed in the fullness of God's time and timing.

*Food, art, street music, gazillion churches, public transportation, tall buildings, colleges, crime.

Image: © Cynthia DiBlaisi

An Author's Life: Balls (XIII)

Finally back on track after attending the Associated Church Press ("serving religious publishers since 1916") convention in Crystal City, Virginia* where I had the pleasure of meeting folks I'd only encountered in print or online.

Thursday, I enjoyed listening to Cokie Roberts, who accomplished the miraculous feat of making me feel proud to be a Roman Catholic woman. Friday, I presented one workshop highlighting The Virtual Abbey as an example of faith community building and another that was an intro to managing social media. On Saturday morning, I got a last-nanosecond invite to join a panel about blogging ─ more about that in another post.

Here, I'll zoom in on a conversation, one that ended up being a Luddite memory fête. This always happen whenever I speak up about how high tech supports the world "high touch" (i.e., interpersonal and community engagement). Not a problem for me, I can talk typewriter ─ manual and electric.

And I can talk balls, which I did during a delightful hallway chat that included reminiscing about the relative virtues of Courier and Prestige Elite.

Courier was, of course, the preferred font for real writers writing real stuff like essays, articles and books. Only executives and their secretaries used Prestige Elite for letters and interoffice memos. I know this because like every other woman in my cohort, I worked as a secretary on my way to becoming a writer and author.

Epiphanous moment?

Perhaps this explains why I used Courier as the default font on my computers for the longest time and why I'm exceedingly fond of Georgia these days.


*Note: Unless you like the smell of cat pee, bring your own soap, shampoo, and body lotion if you stay at the Hyatt in Crystal City.

While blogging at Jewcy.com. . .

I spent the past week blogging over at Jewcy.com and learned a lot. Like what?

Like even though I write every day, there's a reason why I don't blog daily. It's the same reason why I never aspired to work on a daily newspaper or a weekly magazine. Those venues require very fast thinking and writing. Yipes!

Even more importantly, I learned more about what a difference a cohort makes.

Last week plunged me into the world of Generation X but mostly Generation Y Jews who do indeed seem to be more culturally tolerant than Jews of my generation. An entire world of "Funny, you don't look Jewish" Borscht Belt shtick is lost on them. This might be a good thing for interfaith relations; something I need to think about more and more carefully.

My posts were intended to work as stand-alone pieces, but if you read them in order, I hope you'll see the dawn's early light emerging in my skull mush:

"My Own Private Exodus" (Wednesday, 11/11)
"Multiple Spirituality Disorder" (Thursday, 11/12)
"The Hebrew Word for 'Holy'" (Friday, 11/13)

Again, I invite you to spend more time at Jewcy.com. That's my plan!

Next up: I have something to say about the GAP boycott called for by the American Family Association.

An Author's Life: Books about Writing (XII)

Last night's fun -- and I mean that with all seriousness -- included joining Dawn Goldberg of WriteWellU.com for "Writing Hour," her monthly tele-chat. (First Tuesday of the month; follow Dawn on Twitter.)

It doesn't matter whether I'm chatting with writers who have been publishing forever or folks just starting out, we seem to share the same concerns: how to make the time, how to hunker down, how to manage the naysayers. Relative to the that last point, I found myself referencing Julia Cameron's classic, The Artist's Way (1992) which, in Chapter Two, zooms in on the problem of "poisonous playmates" and "crazymakers."

While I was at it, I mentioned several other books about writing by writers. Kimberly (also on Twitter) asked if I'd posted that list on my website. Uh...no, but here it is now, on my blog! With the possible exception of Brenda Ueland's classic, most of these books will probably be familiar to writers at all levels of experience. All, for different reasons, had a significant impact on my authorial life. They're listed in the order I read them, a project starting in 1990. Although I'd been published by magazines since the late 1970s, the first of my seven books wasn't published until 1998.

• Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (1986)
• Natalie Goldberg, Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America (1993)
• Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)
• Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit (1938)
• Carolyn See, Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers (2002).

An Author's Life: The Publishing Industry (XI)

I subscribe to Publishers Weekly online to receive updates about what's going on in and around publishing. Being a published author, I've found that reading PW has come in handy over the years. The online version certainly speeds the spread of bad tidings.

For a while now, publishing has been looking like the banking industry before it imploded. Where do authors fit in this metaphor? Are we bank tellers? More significant? Less? Find out by taking Publishers Weekly's Annual Publishing Industry Salary/Job Satisfaction Survey. It opens up to Q1 right away. Click on "freelance writer/author" and then click on "next."

An Author's Life: Reviewers (X)

Only an uber-fool would stumble forward without having her book manuscript read in draft by several "first readers." Only an uber-fool would attempt publishing in the dangerous domain of interfaith anything without rigorous review.

Being a regular fool (read: author), I had eight first readers -- Christians and Jews -- checking all or parts of Why Is There a Menorah on the Altar?

I asked everyone to review my work for factual errors and too-weird-to-be-credible thinking. I discussed Jewish "family [spiritual] purity" laws and practices with someone who observes them. I consulted with a Roman Catholic canon lawyer after a first reader expressed concerns about the way I explained transubstantiation. I welcomed counsel and counted ninety-eight percent of it joy.

And then, my editor sent the final draft of my trade book for regular folks to a Famous Scholar in Biblical Studies who went vituperatively berserk. No joke, I'm talking about personal attacks bloated with sarcasm and disdain. Famous Scholar dissed my Jewish upbringing, my academic training, and my scholarship; took umbrage at my humor.

My editor was slightly freaked out, especially after I described the level of incivility that seems to come with this writing territory. Oddly enough, I found Famous Scholar's vitriol affirming because, as anyone who writes in controversial areas knows, whenever we write one of these:
Reviewers see this:

Supreme Word Goddess of the Universe

My fellow marketing communications consultants choose clients according to various criteria. Are the projects challenging and engaging? Will it be possible to deliver excellent work? Do they pay invoices on time? I, too, am concerned about these concerns.

But I also want to know if the hiring authority and client contact(s) are good-humored. Almost nothing is worse than trying to do-be-do creative thinking and deliver creative work around grim people; just isn't possible. Although it was not initially intended to serve as such, turns out using the title, Supreme Word Goddess of the Universe (SWGOTU), is an excellent screening device.

Despite my claims about having strategy smarts, coming up with the SWGOTU designation was not a strategic marketing decision. I created it decades ago while registering MS Office software. The screen prompt had requested a title.

At the time, I was freelancing for health and wellness magazines as a writer. I also had a plum gig editing (i.e., rewriting) all the crap other freelancers submitted to a national slick. I also needed a break from being the "Dr. Gould" of academia and state government. So, in a fit of whimsical grandiosity and for my own entertainment, I typed in: Supreme Word Goddess of the Universe.

I loved the way it looked on the screen. I loved being welcomed by that title whenever I rebooted my computer. I eventually put it on my business card -- that's when I discovered its true value. Some people became highly and huffily offended; others laughed out loud. The ones who laughed usually became valued clients.

Last year, a friend told me how someone positioned to engage my talents had been put-off by seeing SWGOTU on my biz card. In that moment, I realized I'd created a way to screen out grim reapers of creativity. I added this text to my website: If you're not incredibly amused by my use of the immodest title Supreme Word Goddess of the Universe, we probably won't be working together.

Since adding that note, I've been taken to task by at least one person from the world of church and faith who was earnestly concerned that I might be trying to compete with the BVM. I assured him that I wasn't and not because I look awful in powder blue.

Most colleagues in the healthcare industry tend to laugh, which is a good thing, because that's where I do most of my work these days. Contrary to popular opinion they -- and I include Big Pharma folk -- tend to be good-natured, big-hearted, and committed to excellence in healthcare. I like that about them. Recently, I've been wondering what would happen to all that bon vivance if I added, "Dr. Gould" back into the mix. Care to conjecture?