Before I chat a bit about Associated Content, I want to address yesterday’s blog post about Helium. After posting that blog, I received two emails from staffers at Helium letting me know they read my blog and agreeing with me that there’s a problem with ‘flickering’ recently on rating stars and they are addressing the issue to fix it.

How cool is that? I mean, seriously, the biggest issue I’ve had with AC for years is that they don’t communicate with their writers when you post it on their site, and here’s Helium reading a blog post and commenting on it and emailing me personally THANKING me for the feedback.

Once again, big kudos to Helium for their communication. I’ve kept my eye on Helium all this time, even though they pay so little at this moment compared to what I’m able to earn at other places, simply because I feel like Helium is ‘doing it right’ where growing a website of this nature is concerned. Slow, steady improvement and growth. Already, earning potential on Helium has more than quadrupled in just two year’s time. They’re going places… I’m not giving up on them yet.

Now, on to AC.

Associated Content Indexing Issues

One of the reasons many writers liked AC was because it provided upfront payments. In fact, when I first started with AC, there was no such thing as a performance bonus. AC paid somewhere around 6-12 bucks on average back then, with several writers earning 15-20 bucks per article on a regular basis. These writers could write about anything. Associated Content needed the library.

Then, upfront payments began to drop, AC became more stringent about what they’d accept, and that’s when shortly after the performance bonus was added. We were offered $1.50 per every 1000 page views, and unlike some sites, it was every page view, not just the ones they picked and chose.

AC then adds page view reporting. After all, it’s kinda silly to offer us performance bonuses when we have no idea how those bonuses are figured, right?

Unfortunately, AC tends to operate in a state of perpetual beta – that is, nothing ever works. Site glitches are the norm and not the exception, and logging in to find you can’t log in, can’t read email, can’t post in the forum, can’t submit an article, and sometimes can’t even load a page on the site–is sadly not uncommon.

Upfront payments dropped so that the average was more in the neighborhood of 3-6 bucks, and they rolled out the graduated performance bonus.

As time wears on, the page views begin to decline, questions are raised when page view reporting isn’t accurate or on time, when we lose page views from one day to the next, or then get a ’surprise’ bonus because they screwed up months before. How can we trust that anything is accurate? Are they picking and choosing what page views they’ll accept now?

Associated Content Veterans Leave Site

For the first time in the three years I’ve been with AC, people are leaving the site at a rate noticeable enough to me. Some of the people leaving are long-term AC writers who were quite well known in the forums there.

We all know, as one group leaves, there are plenty of other writers to take their place.

Coming off the heels of Helium being so responsive to a blog post I made, it’s tough to turn around and say that AC has a legitimate reason for not being more forthcoming with us. It’s too bad Helium isn’t quite able to be competitive with AC on income yet, or it would likely be picking up some of the AC exodus.

Associated Content and Google Juice

Well, this is the biggie. I remember once talking to Mark Ranalli with Helium and he said something about how he is trying to build Helium without putting all the eggs into the Google basket. He’s smart to do so. AC has, for whatever reason, lost its Google-juice. The love affair between AC and Google deteriorated (maybe if AC quit hiring all of google’s ex employees?)

Without articles indexing on Google, and without them indexing highly on Google, it’s impossible to earn via the performance bonus without a lot of work. Articles are indexing and then for some strange reason, UNindexing, and no one knows why.

Performance bonuses are going down for those who aren’t writing and they are not growing as fast as they once were for those who are.

Yet AC would have us believe they are paying out record $$ in performance bonuses. I believe it – but as a whole and not individual.

Associated Content Changing Direction?

I remember two or three years ago, Luke, the founder of AC, said that the vision for the future of AC was that the AC site itself was not going to be the landing page for articles. He saw AC more as a distributor, or retailer, or wholesaler of articles. I’m not sure what he was referring to – I asked about it back then, but no one else seemed to catch the ‘meaning’ of it.

I’m wondering today if what we’re seeing is the beginning of a change in that direction.

If so, what’s the future of the performance bonus going to be?

Associated Content on Life Support

I don’t think AC is falling apart as many people fear they are. I know the investment capital I’ve read about them receiving, can do some loose mathematics on how much they make each month versus what they put out each month, and I’m only looking at very basic things and I’m sure there’s more I don’t know about.

AC isn’t going under.

Unfortunately, what AC doesn’t seem to understand is something I just realized Helium does understand…

… when you drive away the good writers, you’re left with crap. Crappy content = crappy site = crappy revenue = dying site.

AC is catering to the lowest common denominator. That decision will come back to haunt them when the ‘good’ writers leave the site or begin using AC as nothing more than a means for a little residual income.

Michy’s Conclusion on Associated Content?

I’ve been asked a lot about AC recently. With all the mess going on in the forums over there, people want to know, “What should we do with AC?”

My advice at this time is this: don’t count on the performance bonus. Without Google indexing, getting page views becomes your job – promote, promote, promote, sure, but that takes time and a lot of effort to get minimum return. Instead, submit as much as you can for upfront payment right now, and be sure to keep hard copies of all your writing on your own computer, in case you need it later.

Now is just not a good time to submit display only, at least not until the glitches are fixed and AC gets some Google love again, if they ever do. I just really wish AC would be honest and upfront with us about the indexing issues at this point. It makes me sad.

I don’t think AC is going anywhere any time soon, but I see changes, major ones, and not necessarily good ones, on the horizon. Already, employees are missing/terminated, who has what job is up in the air, we don’t know what’s going on in the background… it’s sorta scary.

As with any storm, it could totally change direction or dissipate, but that doesn’t mean you don’t put up the storm shutters or evacuate when the storm starts to head your way.

And that’s how I see AC, right now.

Love and stuff,
Michy
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Popularity: 5%

Okay, many of you know, but I’ll just repeat it here for those who missed it, that I am delayed on doing the Suite101 site challenge, because the representative who was supposed to set up the challenge for me on Suite101 never responded to the three emails I sent him. When the original person who is on maternity leave returns, I’ll get her to get the challenge set up for us, and I’ll dive into that one.

I’m also needing to apologize for the delay in posting on the blog, but as many of you know, my best friend, Lynn, just spent a week in the hospital due to pulmonary embolisms and a pulmonary infarction. Poor thing… infarctions are supposed to hurt – bad. She’s home now, and I’m here trying to take care of her while she takes care of me…. and we’re just not getting much work done… LOL

Helium.com Discussion

Okay, let’s talk about Helium today. I know many of you commented on my Helium Challenge about the fact I said I liked the marketplace at Helium. I do still like the marketplace, but I want to address some of your very valid concerns and comments on my statement that I love the marketplace. Let’s talk about that.

Helium Marketplace

See, every major marketplace article I’ve submitted (by major, I mean anything more than 15-25 bucks or so) I’ve managed to sell, except for one. I completely understand the frustration that must come from putting a lot of effort and time into writing for a marketplace article and then having that article transition to the regular website.

However, to those of you who have said this, I’m curious why you put so much extra effort into a marketplace article that you don’t into your regular Helium articles? I mean, don’t you think that if you put the same effort into all your articles that your overall performance on Helium would improve?

Helium Doesn’t Require Exclusive

Also, consider this too… Helium doesn’t require exclusivity. So if you write a marketplace article and it isn’t purchased, you still get the kill fee and the regular upfront payment you’d get on Helium for a regular article and it will still earn share share as well. Plus, with Helium articles that don’t get purchased in the marketplace, you can put them up Display Only on Associated Content or you can put them up on Bukisa or SearchWarp or any other site you also write for that takes non-exclusive articles.

Because of this, I don’t find the marketplace too prohibitive.

Helium Marketplace and Leapfrogs

I do, however, want to vehemently disagree with the staff at Helium who says to leapfrog a marketplace to make it perform better. A keyworded SEO article is not going to sound as good as a well-written regular article for the marketplace. Leapfrogging a marketplace article means the people on the Helium site still have to vote on it, and it’s unlikely the new article will ‘win’ the leapfrog. We should have a chance to change things – period.

Rating on Helium.com

Now, I want to talk about rating on Helium.

I am quite pissed about the way the rating system works right now. See, I lost all my rating stars the other day after a bout of rating. If you don’t have a rating star, you don’t get any revenue share – at all. So I did a lot of voting and my score dropped. It dropped low enough, I lost all my rating stars.

So for that day, I received NO payment for my articles, none, zero.

The next day, without changing anything, without rating anything else at all, my score improves (because others ratings changed my percentage when matched up) and so the next day, I get one rating star back. I got revenue share that day.

The next day, the rating score dropped, even though I did absolutely nothing to make the ratings change (ie: did not rate additional articles or change anything), and so I lost my star. Again, I didn’t get any revenue share that day.

So, out of a four day period, I was paid for two days and not paid anything at all for two days.

Yet to be sure, Helium received revenue from my articles. My writing was no different, better or worse from one day to the next. In fact, my rating didn’t change any either – what changed was OTHER PEOPLE RATING and that affecting my rating score, causing me to lose revenue.

I’m totally pissed that Helium has a system in which MY MONEY/EARNINGS are not determined by how well I write, how well I promote or how well *I* rate, but rather are based on how well OTHER PEOPLE on the site rate.

It sucks, Helium staff/powers that be.

It sucks and it sucks bad. My performance should NOT be based on other people’s performance. My earnings should not be based on what other people do.

I say… have a minimum number of rates required, but drop that damned scoring. It isn’t indicative of my ability to rate. It’s only indicative of my ability to agree with other people on the site about what makes for good writing.

It sucks. It’s stupid. It’s asinine. It’s frustrating. It’s patently unfair to make our earnings based on this.

I try really hard to always be on a positive end of things, always speak positive thoughts and words and only go negative when there is a potential solution to a problem. I don’t mind the rating (I hate it, but if I must, I must) but I really don’t like that others’ ability to rate determines my ability to earn money! The money control should all be in MY hands.

I hope Helium will look at that, really think about it, and see why it’s just not right to make a writer’s ability to earn dependent upon someone else doing what they are supposed to do.

Associated Content Update

I have a lot to say about what is currently going on at AC. I’ll be back tomorrow with a more in depth post about that, so please stay tuned.

Bukisa anyone?

I just signed up for Bukisa, since so many are talking about it and it seems the exodus from AC is landing at Bukisa. I’m all for an extra revenue stream, but I have some serious issues with Bukisa, not the least of which is that they are Israel based. It’s really tough if it comes down to legal issues to get them to comply with American laws. There’s grammar and spelling issues in the text and instructions on the site, so I’m certain that means the content on site is not that great. The fluctuating payment amounts concern me, and it’s hard to tell how they determine them.

I’ve got a lot more to say about Bukisa this week. In the meantime, check out my profile there I’m using to test their system. If things go well this week, I’ll post my opinion and perhaps schedule them for a month-long challenge.

eHow

Someone wanted me to consider an eHow challenge. It’s on my list of things to do, but I don’t know when I’ll pencil it in. I’ll keep you posted.

Demand Studios (direct)

I won’t be doing a Demand Studios challenge. Sorry, without the revenue share, you will never convince me to write 5-15 articles and give up all rights to them. They just aren’t compatible with my goals.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more.

Love and stuff,
Michy
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Popularity: 5%

I have been so busy I’ve not been able to write my normal article idea blogs here. Between the challenge and then the vacation and then my friend having a pulmonary embolism, I think things have just been insane.

So what should you be writing about right now for both long term evergreen page views and for seasonal content?

Glad you asked:

End of School – End of school parties, end of school activities, graduation activities, graduation ceremonies, graduation parties, graduation songs, graduation anything.

Summer activities – I know you’re thinking it’s too early for summer, but it’s not. With indexing issues on AC right now, and with the wait time for review and then publication being anywhere from 1-3 weeks, and the fact that articles take some time to start getting traffic flowing based on folks linking to it and such. Get summer vacation stuff up, summer activities for kids, beach stuff, swimming stuff, etc.

Also good is weight loss for bikini/swimsuit stuff – they probably won’t get much of an upfront since they are saturated and they won’t index highly, yet they still manage to get good page views. (Shrug) Just make it somehow specific to summer, and you get better mileage.

Some good ideas for articles might also be: how to find summer day care for your children, how to find a house sitter while on vacation, how to find a pet sitter while on vacation. Get the idea? These are along the same summer lines.

Then there’s ‘advice for graduates’, ‘advice for college bound high school seniors’, ‘how to pick a college’, and much more about graduation and end of school/beginning of next year stuff.

And other articles that might work are: part-time income summer jobs for teens, summer jobs for teens, etc.

So there’s a few ideas of some articles that would work well for the coming up summer season but would also be somewhat seasonal and evergreen too. These articles won’t take off super fast, but they will pull in steady views.

Lastly, don’t forget the holidays – father’s day and fourth of July, both coming up this summer.

Hope this helps!

Love and stuff,
Michy

Popularity: 2%

SUITE101

I know many of you were looking forward to the Suite101 challenge I intended to do during the month of May to compare it to the AC and Helium sites’ challenges. Unfortunately, one staff member at Helium went on maternity leave and she was the one who was going to work on the challenge with me on the back end. The staff member taking her place has not responded to the three emails I’ve sent.

Unfortunately, last year when I was in the hospital and so sick, I lost my contributing writer status at Suite101 due to not keeping up with the minimum of 10 articles in 90 days. Because of this, I cannot log in a write for the site at this point, they I still get monthly payments of about 12-20 bucks every month for the handful of articles I did prior to getting sick.

I really am looking forward to doing the challenge, but until the staff there give me access back to my account to write again, I can’t do it.

Helium.com

I’m noticing a significant increase in my daily page views with Helium now that I’ve increased my number of articles. That is fantastic. It seems that with a little over 150 articles now, I’m earning about a buck per day, sometimes less, sometimes more. That’s not too bad considering that’s a buck per day for doing nothing – no promoting, no writing, nothing. I earned about 58 bucks from them last month between upfront payments (I put all the Michy Jr./Aimee Berkley stuff up there too) and the revenue.

Not too shabby. Helium is also improving the site every month with some new upgrade. This time, they upgraded the user information on the site that we can see about ourselves and then they are updating things like the submission template.

Helium.com Vs. Associated Content.com

I’ve been saying for about two years now that I’m seeing really good things from Helium – such as how they are moving slowly and growing slow-er than some. AC is currently having a world of problems due to indexing issues on the site with the big search engine giant Google.

I remember a conversation I had with Mark Ranalli, the CEO of Helium, in which I asked him why Helium didn’t have issues with things like duplicate content on the web, and why they didn’t push keywording and LSI and SEO tactics much for the writers on the site. He replied by telling me that while they (the staff) did try to teach and encourage keywording and SEO, their main focus was on quality writing, so the good stuff rises to the top. He basically said that Google was an ‘elephant’, and that he had seen elephants fall before… he’s smart in not putting all of Helium’s eggs in the Google basket.

Seriously, that impressed me. While he is wanting to grow the site and they do pay attention to things necessary to be discoverable on the web, the site has, can and will last and thrive even if Google were to drop out of the game.

AssociatedContent.com’s Woes

There’s been a lot of talk about AC recently and a recent decline and ‘readjustment’ of page views that resulted in a lose of income for some people. I erroneously, in my pissy mood, reported I had lost about 20-40 bucks. Upon inspecting page views and looking at reports (something I’m surely not making money while doing), I discovered I only lost about 12 bucks. Okay, 20 or 12 or 100 doesn’t matter though and it won’t make or break me. The problem isn’t the amount, but rather that it happened at all.

Indexing problems and bad page view reporting has caused AC to leave a sour taste in my mouth….

The good news is that so far, it’s just an aftertaste and I don’t think the entire plate of food is spoiled yet.

Many of us are taking a ‘wait and see’ stance. We’ll see. I’ll report more if and when I know it, but if you’re not sure what’s up and you write for AC, stop by the Performance Bonus section of the forum and find out. It’s very important. If your page views declined or your money did, that forum will explain why.

Michy’s On Vacation & Unsent Letters

Those of you who have submitted to Unsent Letters and who are on my forum should know I’m on extended vacation in the Galveston, Houston, Texas area. I’m enjoying myself immensely with my best friend Lynn, and we are painting the town… well, okay, maybe we’re whitewashing it a bit, but we are having a good time.

I’ve been able to sample some ethnic cuisine I’ve tried and some I’ve never tried, like Greek (lots of cheeses), Cajun (lots of spices) and Mexican (yum), but I also have on order to try Spanish (oh, they look soooo good on the menu), German and Indian. There’s more, but I can’t think of it now.

I’ve not been able to spend as much time on the computer between being ill and being on vacation, so Unsent Letters is dragging right now, but please rest assured I will be back to it full force and approving, rejecting and paying when I return sometime the first part of June. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, enjoy the Mother’s Day themed Unsent Letters from this weekend. If you haven’t submitted anything yet… what’s your problem? Get to writing! We have our Father’s Day and Patriotic blog themes ready for submission for the blog publication or you can submit to the regular publication and get a chance at an offer for the blog and/or the print book.

Good luck and see ya’ll soon!

Love and stuff,
Michy

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Popularity: 1%

One of the things I can remember clearly from a high school English teacher was that the word ‘got’ was colloquial, slang of sorts, and was actually not a real ‘part of speech’.

Somewhere along the way, students stopped diagramming sentences, thus forgetting to learn parts of speech, and the word ‘got’ became misused.

I won’t argue with those of you who claim that if it’s in a dictionary, it’s a real word. “Ain’t” is in the dictionary too, but I bet you wouldn’t put it on your doctoral dissertation, now would you?

There are, in quality fiction writing, only two places where the word ‘got’ can be used correctly. In nonfiction writing, there is only one place where the word ‘got’ can be used correctly.

“Got” in Fiction Writing:

When writing fiction, the only two times it’s appropriate to use ‘got’ as a word is in your character’s dialogue or in a first person narrative, where the narrator is a character in the story telling the story to the reader through their eyes.

Otherwise, kill the ‘gots’.

“Got” in Nonfiction Writing:

The only time it’s appropriate to use ‘got’ in nonfiction writing is when you are directly quoting something someone else has spoken or written.

So when you see something like this: He got to the store on time.

You would rewrite it to: He arrived at the store on time. He made it to the store on time. He managed to get to the store on time.

ANYTHING except ‘got’.

The one I see the most frequently is this: He got out of the car. She got out of the boat.

Sorry, won’t work.

Try rewriting like this: He stepped out of the car. He exited the car. She stepped up on the ladder to get out of the boat.

Something, ANYTHING except ‘got’.

‘got’ and ‘as’ are lazy, lazy writing styles, and good, quality writers will avoid their use when real words that have clear-cut parts of speech are available that will likely paint better word pictures for your readers anyway.

Got it?

Love and stuff,
Michy

PS: Read the one about ‘AS’ too.

Popularity: 4%

Keith Knapp has been doing one form of writing or another since he was a kid. He started with short stories then moved to screenplays when he discovered a love for movies during high school. During this time he also became heavily involved in music (playing drums), and still does to this day. After moving from Chicago (where he attended film school) to Los Angeles to pursue a screenwriting career, Keith eventually found himself turning a movie idea of his into his first novel, Moonlight. It wasn’t by choice; the story simply wasn’t working as a script. Since then he’s devoted himself full-time to writing novels. He currently lives in Van Nuys with his three cats.

What compelled you to write your first book?

Oddly enough nothing compelled me to do it – it just happened. I had an idea for a movie where one day nothing worked anymore: no power, no watches, no cars, no cell phones, nothing. You know, things went back to the very beginning for people. Very Twilight Zone-ish. I worked on the script for maybe a year, and it just wasn’t happening. Someone suggested I try it as a book. Since I really liked the idea, really wanted to see what the characters I had so far had would do in such a situation, I gave it a go. Two years later I had Moonlight.

Tell us a little bit about your book/s.

Moonlight starts off with my original concept: one day nothing works anymore. Cars, power, watches, anything and everything electrical. Then The Reason for all that shows up in the form of one man – you can call him the Devil, Pure Evil, whatever you like – and it turns very supernatural and George Romero-ish. There are zombies (although not technically “zombies,” but the term works) because, wouldn’t you know it, us humans have really made a mess of this place, our bad guy knows this, and all he’s really trying to do is start things over. I’m really bad at summing up my own work, as you can tell. A bunch of other stuff happens and maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t.

Are you currently working on any writing projects our readers should watch for release soon?

I’m currently in re-writes on my second novel, Coda, about what happens to a group of people right after they die. I’ve also completed my first short story in maybe 20 years, The Boy Next Door, which is currently making rounds for publication. I hope to have both out by the end of the year.

Have you ever won any writing awards? If so, what?

I won a screenwriting award my senior year in high school for a short script (which I later shot myself). The script was pretty good, the movie itself was terrible (if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life it’s that I’m not a filmmaker), and I think it’s that award that pushed me to follow writing as a dream. It’s the only award I’ve one, the only contest (or what-have-you) that something of mine’s been entered in, and I didn’t even enter it – one of my teachers did – so you have him to blame. You know, a group of people comes out one day and says, “Hey man, this thing you wrote ain’t bad, so here’s an award and some money, keep it up.” I think once I knew that people outside of my group of friends and family was liking what I was doing, that’s when things clicked with me.

How did you feel the day you held the copy of your first book in your hands?

It was very surreal. And shiny. That was the first thing I noticed: the cover was shiny. I’m easily impressed by shiny things. Then there was about ten minutes of me paging through it and trying to grasp that 100,000 words I had written were now in this book format that anyone could buy – and man, it looked like a book, you know? My name was on every page. After those ten minutes, even though that feeling of accomplishment stayed with me, I put the book down and went back to work on Coda, ’cause really it’s the writing that’s important.

What type of music, if any, do you listen to while you write?

I’m a huge Metallica fan, but I’ll go back and forth between having them on and having complete silence. Usually when I’m doing a first draft I need complete silence – I’m in that world, I’m those characters, and a lot of times there’s no music in that world, so I choose to have no music in my world, either. But during re-writes, when my brain is a little more open, I’ll toss on “The Black Album” or “Death Magnetic.”

What inspires you and motivates you to write the very most?

A little angry golumn-type thing that’s in my chest. If I don’t write every day, he gets very mad.

The main characters of your stories – do you find that you put a little of yourself into each of them or do you create them to be completely different from you?

All the characters start out as me – or a part of me, at least. Write what you know. But as the story evolves, so do the characters. By the end of the first draft, while parts of me are still in every character, they’ve also developed their own voices, their own motivations, sometimes very different from my own. They end up with their own way of talking and doing things, which wouldn’t be how I’d do things. So during re-writes, now that I know these people better, it’s very easy to see where they stray.

For each of my two novels, about halfway through the first draft is when the characters start to really speak to me and take over. It’s then that I no longer know where the story is going or how they’re gonna get out of this situation or that event – I don’t do outlines. For example, in Moonlight there is a very long section where the characters are trapped in a high school. I had no idea how to get them out of there. The Devil had them trapped in there, so how do you get out of that? It was figured out, and not by me, but by one of the characters – which I was of course very thankful for.

Is there an established writer you admire and emulate in your own writing? Do you have a writing mentor?

I think if for nothing else than his prose, it’s Stephen King. He’s not what I call a Flowery Writer. He doesn’t try to impress you with big words or show off with word play and such. He’s just telling you a story, which is what I try to do. I prefer, when I’m reading, to not be aware that I’m reading at all. I like that feeling of just sitting there with the author, in their head, and he/she is showing you this movie. King is a master at this.

Do you have any pets? What are they? Tell us about them.

I have three cats – Jonsey, Ripley and Padme – and they’re my family. They pull me up when I’m down, make me laugh when I’m down, and sleep a lot, which is great when I need silence.

Bring us into your home and set the scene for us when you are writing. What does it look like?

I have this old desk, had it since I was 17, I think. I write on an old computer – it must be ten years old by now – in MSWord. I really don’t need anything more than a typewriter, but a computer of course makes it easier to fix your mistakes – which I make a lot of. A computer is also great for breaks; I usually take a break once an hour, jump on You Tube for some Metallica or Guns N’ Roses videos. I’ve tried writing by hand, but only when the ol’ computer’s broken and I have no choice. I really don’t like writing this way not because it’s time consuming but because from all my years of drumming I’ve developed carpel tunnel syndrome in my right hand which flares up if I use a pen too much.

Do you watch television? If so, what are your favorite shows? Does television influence of inspire your writing?

I watch way too much TV, and I think growing up in the “TV Generation” has affected how I write. I tend to go for very short, snappy scenes and chapters and end up with a lot of characters. I love 24 and am a huge Star Trek fan. I’m spending a lot of time now with the new BluRay set of the original Trek series that just came out. No one beats Shatner.

What about movies? Same as above.

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you Star Wars. And yes, I even like the prequels. Now that I think about it, I believe that’s why I usually end up with so many characters; there are lots of different characters in Star Wars, and love ‘em or hate ‘em, each character serves a purpose and is vey unique.

How long does it take you to write a book? When you started writing, did you think it would take that long (or short)?

It took about two years to complete Moonlight, although I’d had the idea for a number of years. I envisioned it’d take about two years, and ended up being right. Coda has also taken me about two years to complete, so I think I’m good for a book every two years.

Is there anyone you’d like to specifically acknowledge who has inspired, motivated, encouraged or supported your writing?

My mother. Writing all those short stories as a kid, man, I made her read them all and she loved them all. Of course, she was my mom, so she was bound to love them. I think it’s a law. We move over to my father – I made him read them all, too – and he’d actually give me feedback to improve my writing. I think between the two of them they created a good balance for what I needed to move on. My mother has since passed away, but I still make my father read everything. And yes, he still gives me that all-important feedback.

Many authors have said that naming their characters is a difficult process, almost like choosing a name for their own child. How did you select the names of some of your lead characters in your book/s?

For me, a name is just a name. Pick one. I’ve had difficulty with last names, but now with the internet you can look up the meanings of various last names – there’s a huge online dictionary of just last names. It’s all organic. When I first start writing a novel, I’m meeting these people for the first time just like you when you go to read it – I don’t feel like I’m “creating” characters but more telling someone’s story. Those people tell me what their names are. It usually works out pretty well. I’ve been told a lot of the names in Moonlight have dual-meanings in the greater scene, but I never planned that.

Have you ever had a character take over a story and move it in a different direction than you had originally intended? How did you handle it?

As with the high school sequence in Moonlight, eventually the characters will dictate the story for me and bring it to a close, and I just let this happen. It really isn’t writing anymore at that point – it’s them telling me the story in my head and all I’m doing is typing it. I look at it kind of like sculpting. I start out with a lump of clay – that’s the idea. I eventually get it to look like a vase, let’s say. But only I can tell it’s a vase – it might look like an ashtray to you, or maybe still just a lump of clay. Then through re-writing, that’s when it gets scuplted by the characters, that’s when it begins to look more like a vase to everyone – what color it is, what kind of flowers are in it, how big it is – and it’s always the characters that do the sculpting. For this reason, this kind of “organic” writing, I tend to do five or six complete drafts per book.

Is there any lesson or moral you hope your story might reveal to those who read it?

I don’t like lessons and morals in stories, but they’re always there. I think whatever you pull out of a story, that’s that moral or lesson for you at that point in your life. All I’m striving for is to entertain some folks, help them kill some time, show them some fun stuff. If they get more out of it, great. If they get just a good read, great.

Now, anything you want your readers to know?

Moonlight can most easily be found on any of the popular websites: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. To learn more about Keith and keep up-to-date with what he’s working on, you can visit him on My Space at: myspace.com/keithknapp

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Most of us, when we started writing, did not say, “Oh, I want to be a rich and famous writer some day.”

Most of us started writing because we loved to write.

We never considered doing it for a living. While we might have had dreams of selling a novel one day, I think even then, most of us never really thought of making a life out of writing.

We lived to write. We didn’t write to live.

Now, I write full time for a living…

Where is the passion that was once there? Where is the ‘living to write’ feeling?

It started with Susan asking me about how to deal with the rejection and wondering if she should give up. Then it went to Rissa who said to me tonight on IM that she is saving Sunday to write fiction so she doesn’t begin to hate writing (now that she writes full time for a living too).

I think that’s the big issue for a writer… keeping your passion.

I see lots of people on content sites, like Associated Content, Helium and such, who started off writing on these sites because they loved to write. These folks were simply tickled pink that someone, anyone, would pay them a few bucks for their writing. Then, as the months roll on, and others start making more, and the writing begins to turn into a job…

… suddenly, they aren’t content with the paltry sums they are receiving, and along the lines, their writing becomes a chore.

Where’s the passion? What happened to that person who used to love to write, and would have written whether anyone paid for it or not? Where is that person who was tickled pink with eyes wide with wonder that anyone would pay them for their writing?

You MUST find that person again. Reconnect to him or her inside of you. Bring back the joy and love of writing again.

If that means taking the time to write only things you want to write, do it. If that means looking at the topics you’ve been writing about and changing it things that bring more joy to you, then do it. If that means writing more fiction, do it!

Don’t let the need and want for money get in the way of the true love of writing. It’s the love of writing that will make you good. A technical writer can be very skilled, grammatically correct, accurate. A journalist can get the facts straight and find good sources.

But it’s the writer with the love of writing, the passion still in them, who will shine heads and moonbeams above writers who write by rote.

If you really want to be successful as a writer, quit worrying about being successful as a writer and get back to the passion.

I sat with my friend Lynn at Joe’s Crab Shack and we talked about how I sometimes wished I was ‘too stupid to know any better’.

I wish I could go back in time and just write and submit and write and submit, and just not care about how many get rejected, rejoice in every one that gets accepted, and just write for the sheer love and joy of writing.

So tell me, if you’re a writer, what is your passion with writing? WHY do you write?

Love and stuff,
Michy

PS: Still on vacation in the Galveston area and really enjoying the sun, the pool, the lazy mornings of sleeping late, no kids, the food, the pool, the food, no kids, the food, and of course, the no kids.

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