Articles
On the whole, the articles listed on this page relate to writing and storytelling.
In the first part, I created a list of articles I wrote that focus on writing a novel. Thereafter, I’ve created an alphabetical list of articles written by others. They have been collected over many years.
You are welcome to consider any of the articles listed below for publication in your website/blog/newsletter. Permission is granted to reprint for free with the resource box and byline intact (this information is placed at the bottom of each article).
To view the articles, just click on the article you would like to view and you will be taken to the appropriate page.
I am aware the list is long. So, please don’t get overwhelmed and close this page. Do take some time to view it. Scroll down the list (all entries have been placed in alphabetical order) and I’m sure you’ll find something of interest.
Giving Up Too Soon So you feel beaten up and bruised and you’re ready to quit. You have no support system or the one you have is pathetically inadequate for the goals you’ve set. You’re so tired that the couch is looking more and more inviting everyday. You have bills piling up and you probably ought to get a real job anyway. The failure rate is statistically high and nobody is going to fault you if you quit. Who really cares if you give up and quit now? You do. Let’s look at each piece one at a time. You’re…
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Give More Than You Get A member of one of my writing groups confided in me that she was fed up with the way that she was feeling used by other writers. This writer is very talented and accomplished, and she’s a member of a few different groups that trade feedback and critiques of each other’s work. “I feel like I get back 10% of what I put in,” she said. And she was losing her energy, thinking about quitting these groups. As she put it, “I’m getting tired of needy people.” This writer was the victim of what I’d…
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Got the Contract! Now What? Hooray! You wrote a great book/screenplay/book proposal/short story/etc., and someone has offered you a contract. Congratulations. Before you eagerly sign on the dotted line, though, it’s very important to know what you’re signing, and educate yourself about what all the terms mean. If you have an agent or attorney, great. But if not, what do you do? Publishing and entertainment lawyers can be expensive, and it’s not always necessary to fork over the dough for each project. Consider these options: The National Writer’s Unionwww.nwu.orgThe National Writer’s Union offers many benefits for writers, and one of…
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Sunday, 10 March 2013 04:52
Good Reasons Why You Can’t Rely on Your Spellchecker
Written by Aneeta Sundararaj
Good Reasons Why You Can’t Rely on Your Spellchecker If you are reading this article, then you probably own a computer (or are at least using a computer to read it). I will make the underlying assumption, then, that you currently use your computer’s word processing software for writing and creating documents. I’m going to stick my neck right into that noose hanging out there on the Assumption Tree and assume that you always run your software’s spellchecker before you send your document along on its merry way. If you aren’t using your spellchecker, then you should get a big…
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Good Fiction is Credible Fiction So you want to write a good story? The kind of fiction that resonates with its readers; the kind that lasts longer on the shelf than the milk at your grocer; the kind that keeps people up at night like a narcotic? Well, then here’s a little advice my fifth grade teacher, Ms. Pendergast, gave me: do your homework. But you don’t like research, you say. That’s why you write fiction and not non-fiction, you say. With fiction you can just make everything up. You don’t need to do any research. OK, so how is…
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Sunday, 10 March 2013 04:32
Go With the Flow: Write With Transition Words and Phrases
Written by Aneeta Sundararaj
Go With the Flow: Write With Transition Words and Phrases One of the most common weaknesses I see in day-to-day writing is poor logical flow from one idea or point to the next. This usually takes the form of a bunch of seemingly unrelated phrases thrown together with little or no sense of sequence, continuity, or relativity. Although the overall subject may be obvious, the words to describe it seem to be scattered on the page like an almost random set of unconnected thoughts. On a regular basis, I see letters and reports in which each phrase seems to be…
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Going The Extra Mile There is one sure way to get what you want in life, but few people actually do it. Put this practice firmly into your day to day business activities and you will have an advantage over the rest of the crowd. Successful people realize their life long dreams by doing things that most people are not willing to do. If you can just do what is needed instead of what you want to do, you can accomplish a lot. People that get what they want in business don’t just give 100% each day. When the day…
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Glossary of Children’s Writing Terms ADVANCE: money paid to author by publisher once book is under contract. ½ of advance is generally paid upon signing of the contract, ½ upon delivery of final manuscript. Advances are paid against future royalties (see below), so the author won’t receive any additional payments until the royalty earnings have surpassed the amount of the advance. BACKLIST: books from previous seasons that are still in print. In children’s publishing, a book can remain on a publisher’s backlist for 50 years. COPYRIGHT: designates ownership of the book. Most publishers will copyright the text in the name…
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Ghostwriting for Fun and Profit We’ve all heard of ghostwriters. For some, a ghostwriter is the ghostly assistant to junior detectives on a PBS kids’ show. For most, however, a ghostwriter is someone who writes for another, in the name of another. Many celebrities use a ghostwriter in their forays into writing. Probably the most-noted ghostwriting project would have to be the books by V.C. Andrews, which were taken on by a ghostwriter after the real V.C. Andrews passed away. Surprisingly, there are a lot of writers that would like to break into this type of business, even though friends…
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Sunday, 10 March 2013 04:11
Ghostwriting - Making Money by Being Invisible
Written by Aneeta Sundararaj
Ghostwriting – Making Money by Being Invisible My bookcase take up one whole wall in the family room, from floor to ceiling. It shows my eclectic reading tastes… fiction, non-fiction, Harry Potter next to murder mysteries and metaphysical literature. Also there are books I’ve written for the business sector – on negotiation, writing letters, communication skills, real estate sales and a lot more. The business books, however, have other people’s names on them. I’m merely the ghostwriter. These days, I’ve moved from writing fiction and being a ghostwriter to a new career as an information marketer on the Internet. (What…
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Getting Started in Column Writing You’ve written many articles for Websites, newsletters and now you’ve even conquered the territory of getting published in a magazine. What’s the next step, you ask? How to I make the editor ask for my work weekly or monthly? Enter: the column. Before you march up to an editor’s office or send her unsolicited mail asking to write regularly for a publication, learn all there is to know about this form. A column is written weekly, monthly or bi-monthly, and must be focused on one particular topic. You have to be consistent in what you…
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Thursday, 07 March 2013 06:00
Getting Motivated By A Motivational Speaker?
Written by Aneeta Sundararaj
Getting Motivated By A Motivational Speaker? In the past years, there has been a sudden rise of motivational speakers. They appear in television and in magazines as well as sold out seminars that are just brimming with people who are just craving to get some direction with their lives. A motivational speaker, instead of focusing on the financial gains that he or she will most probably get from these seemingly “needy” people, should focus his or her attention to actually motivating people to actually be the best that they can be through their sheer motivation to change their lives for…
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Don’t Mock Me! My favorite part of the Noah’s Ark story is not that he listened to his god and therefore managed to save mankind and the animals, and it’s not the rainbows, or even the dove as a symbol of divine peace and love. My favorite part happens long before the rains begin to fall. I love that no matter how much people laughed and scoffed at what he was doing; Noah still went right on building that ark. Think about how many days, weeks, months it took to build that thing and all the while they were mocking…
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Don’t Let Go Of Your Dreams – Not Again! Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.Edgar Allan Poe You wake up screaming! Your spouse calms you down; reassuring you it was just another nightmare. Even as you settle back and start drifting into slumber again, you wonder why the only dreams you have nowadays are bad ones. What happened to your once fertile imagination that was able to conjure exciting, almost always enjoyable dreams; pleasurable mental movies you could play against the screen of your inner eyelids…
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Latest Posts
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Sakshi
Written by Aneeta SundararajI have been in a state of ‘emotional unwell-being’ for seven years. There, I’ve said it. Why? Well, after my father died, I believed that if I reached out with love to ‘good friends’, counsellors, suitors, and relatives, there could be pockets of joy to offset my grief and loneliness,…
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The Creative Industry Needs to Look at Things Differently Post Budget 2022
Written by Aneeta SundararajOn 29 October 2021, the Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz tabled Budget 2022 in the Malaysian parliament. RM50 million has been allocated for the arts and culture industry. This comes after a year and a half after the entire industry came to an absolute standstill. With…
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‘The Covid Positives’ – life lessons learnt from the pandemic by Phanindra Ivatury
Written by Aneeta SundararajAfter a long drawn battle with the biggest catastrophe in our living memory, global humanity is finally getting to see some quintessential ray of light at the end of the treacherous tunnel in the form of COVID-19 vaccines, currently being rolled out to all parts of the globe. A ‘COVID-19…
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Chaos of Whole Books
Written by Aneeta SundararajIs it possible to read several books at once? Aneeta Sundararaj finds out.When I was a child, my cousin used to boast that he could read four storybooks at a time. As an adult, when he invested in an e-Reader, he continued to boast that he could…
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Writing for You? Or for Me?
Written by Aneeta SundararajWriting for You? Or for Me? ‘You must always write with your reader in mind.’ This was one of the first pieces of advice that I received when I began my writing career. Honestly, I found this extremely hard to do because more often than not, I couldn’t picture my…