Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
January 2, 2013
By Pat Edwards

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.” – T.S. Eliot
Happy New Year, writers! Because the holiday fell on Tuesday this year, 1st and 3rd first meeting of the new year will happen on the 15th.

TWS.com blog report
Tuesdayswithstory.com (and tuesdayswithstory.org – redirected to the .com domain) is technically a blog, not a web page. This week we received a report for 2012’s activity on our blog – a state of the union, as it were. https://tuesdayswithstory.com/2012/annual-report/ Very interesting!

This annual report reminded me to remind you all to review and update your personal web pages and blogs we link from TWS.com It also made me wonder, do we need a Facebook page? Should we Tweet, even if we’re not twits? Should we engage other media? Is our presence enough? A Google search initially brought me to TWS. A search today shows tuesdayswithstory.com at the third result. Let me know what you think. Like our blog, Facebook and Twitter, etc., are still free!!

12 Greek Words You Should Know
by Daniel Scocco
Along with Latin, Greek is probably the language that most influenced other languages around the world. Many English words derive directly from Greek ones, and knowing their origin and meaning is important.

Below you will find 12 Greek words that are commonly used in our society. The next time you hear someone saying “Kudos to you,” you will know where it comes from.

1. Acme
The highest point of a structure. The peak or zenith of something. One could say that Rome reached the acme of its power on 117 AD, under the rule of Trajan.
The acme of modular, factory-built, passively safe reactor design, however, is found in South Africa. People there have been experimenting with so-called pebble-bed reactors for decades. (The Economist)
2. Acropolis
Acro means edge or extremity, while polis means city. Acropolis, therefore, refers to cities that were built with security purposes in mind. The word Acropolis is commonly associated with Greece’s capital Athens, although it can refer to any citadel, including Rome and Jerusalem.
The Beijing Olympics torch relay reached the ancient Acropolis in Athens on Saturday amid heavy police security and brief demonstrations by small groups of protesters. (New York Times)
3. Agora
The Agora was an open market place, present in most cities of the ancient Greece. Today the term can be used to express any type of open assembly or congregation.
The most characteristic feature of each settlement, regardless of its size, was a plaza—an open space that acted as a cemetery and may have been a marketplace. It was also, the archaeologists suspect, a place of political assembly, just as the agora in an ancient Greek city was both marketplace and legislature. (The Economist)
4. Anathema
Anathema is a noun and it means a formal ban, curse or excommunication. It can also refer to someone or something extremely negative, disliked or damned. Curiously enough, the original Greek meaning for this word was “something offered to the gods.”
Some thinkers argue that while collaboration may work for an online encyclopedia, it’s anathema to original works of art or scholarship, both of which require a point of view and an authorial voice. (USA Today)
5. Anemia
Anemia refers to a condition characterized by a qualitative or quantitative deficiency of the red blood cells (or of the hemoglobin). Over the years, however, the term started to appear in other contexts, referring to any deficiency that lies at the core of a system or organization.
In comments to the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, the lone dissenter in last week’s decision to keep the federal funds target at 2%, said the U.S. faces “a sustained period of anemia” and that “in the second half of this year we will broach zero growth.” Last week Fisher wanted higher rates, his fifth-straight dissent in favor of tighter policy. (The Wall Street Journal)
6. Ethos
Translated literally from the Greek, ethos means “accustomed place.” It refers to a disposition or characteristics peculiar to a specific person, culture or movement. Synonyms include mentality, mindset and values.
Consumerism needs this infantilist ethos because it favors laxity and leisure over discipline and denial, values childish impetuosity and juvenile narcissism over adult order and enlightened self-interest, and prefers consumption-directed play to spontaneous recreation. (Los Angeles Times)
See the remaining six at http://www.dailywritingtips.com/greek-words/

Author Interview: The Marketing of At First Light – Part 2
The December 28 issue of Writer’s Mail featured the first part of an exclusive interview with Spike Pederson, author of the action-adventure novel At First Light published this past September. Here, Spike has come forward with additional details of his “self-marketing” plan – now three months into the process – with much more to come….
Writer’s Mail: Spike, if you were going to “self-market” again, what would you do differently?
Spike: Begin early to build an audience for the book. In my case, that is going to be my second book. One way for the author to do this is to gather email contacts through an author’s blog, so that when the second book is done, the author can notify everyone and start building the buzz for the book. Building a database can be achieved by setting up software such as AWeber on the blog site. Of course, in my case, this is still on my list of things to do, once I find time.
Writer’s Mail: In the course of your marketing effort, who has been most helpful to you personally and how?
Spike: Jerry Peterson has been helpful in pointing out paths. Many people I met on the net have helped, too. Meeting people who are growing with you as they launch their writing careers is a lot of fun.
Writer’s Mail: What lies ahead to promote sales of At First Light?
Spike: I travel a lot, so I plan on setting up author appearances at independent bookstores along the way. However, the independents are not everywhere. Barnes & Noble is everywhere. An author has to get the book in their “library” before doing author events at their stores. The real problem is the author has to be able to accept returns, which the corporate publishers do as a matter of course. This is a real challenge for any “indy author.”
“Hand selling” and bookstore hard copy sales are important. But the future is in e-book sales and that is where I am concentrating my main effort.
So, I plan to continue my assault on the net. Book blogs need content and are happy to host a new author. Many have 500 to 25,000 visitors per month. It would be hard to reach those numbers of potential readers and buyers by concentrating on physical stores alone.
I can recommend some helpful websites, such as Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/), which is social site for book lovers with 11 million readers — join right now! There’s also Absolute Write Water Cooler (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/), which is a writer’s forum with loads of information.
And there are many blogs with industry news and invaluable tips:
• http://www.thepassivevoice.com/
• http://www.thebookdesigner.com/
• http://www.thecreativepenn.com/blog/

Writer’s Mail: Thanks, Spike!

Catch up with Spike Pedersen on his blog at http://www.spikepedersen.com. Visit one of the links below to purchase At First Light:
• Amazon — http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0092G4L4E
• Barnes & Noble — http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/9781480237742
• Smashwords — http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/220594