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Usually your daily dose of The Muffin arrives in the morning, or at the latest, early afternoon. But today, I'm on vacation. (OK, actually I drove 700 miles - half way to Phoenix - to deliver my youngest daughter and two grandsons to their husband/father, respectively, because said daughter had emergency appendectomy surgery while visiting here last week and cannot fly for six weeks.) So, for today, you're receiving it at midnight (if you're an East Coast resident) and earlier in other time zones.

For those of you interested in travel writing, I'd like to offer a few hints that can turn a long (and perhaps tedious) road trip into a writing sale.

On our journey to Colorado, we stopped at several spots along our Nebraska route. Nebraska's Department of Travel and Tourism has a fun program called the Nebraska Passport. Various sites around the state are highlighted, and once you've obtained your "passport," you visit the sites and receive a stamp. Some of the sites in the program are natural tourist draws. Who wouldn't enjoy spending a day on a white, sandy beach or visit a top modern art museum?

Places like these may be obvious candidates for a story pitch to a travel or regional magazine. And, this sometime presents a problem since they ARE so obvious.

But some of the sites are so unique and offbeat - in a good way - that they are prime story material. For instance, who would think a petrified wood gallery would be interesting? Like my husband said, "Once you've seen a piece of wood, you've seen 'em all."

Then we ventured into Ogallala, Nebraska's Petrified Wood Gallery and discovered not all chunks of wood are created equally. Niche and unique travel spots make the best stories and fillers. I've already decided which markets I'm pitching this priceless gem!

Before we left on this whirlwind trip that would lead us to Trinidad, Colorado, I plotted a route and checked travel websites to discover what places we may want to visit. I use Nebraska's tourism website regularly, so it was easy to navigate. A few suggestions from the website triggered stops that I may have otherwise not considered. (Same process for Colorado stops!)

Don't forget about checking with CVBs (convention and visitor's bureaus) to see what events are happening. You may discover a conference, exhibit or show that would lead to a story.

Whenever we travel, I use Yelp to get ideas for restaurants, hotels and shopping. Plus, I make sure I post a review when I return from a trip. I've discovered it's a good exercise in writing a concise, honest review - a skill any writer can use for any type of work!

The next time you head out on a road trip, consider your route and check with local, regional and state tourism groups. You may be surprised at what type of article sales you'll find!

by LuAnn Schindler

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Last week, WOW! team member Jodi Webb wrote an excellent blog post about getting your query noticed. If you missed it, check it out here. Today, I thought I'd continue the theme of queries with a writing exercise about creating unique article slants. (Hopefully, light bulbs will be going off above your heads soon!) I recently gave this writing prompt to my children's writers online class I teach for WOW! Here's the prompt:

An editor whom you've worked with before wrote an email to several writers and asked for someone to come up with a unique article idea to teach children water safety rules for the summer. She explained it's a topic that's been covered many times during past years in the magazine, but the managing editor thinks it's important to remind kids (and new readers) the importance of water safety in the summer. She invites you to turn in a query for an article with a different slant on water safety. The best idea/query will get the contract for the article.

I talk with my students about how important it is to cover subjects that have been written about excessively but that some readers new to the age group or magazine haven't read about before. I've been to conferences where editors talk about how they still need articles about Abraham Lincoln or George Washington (a subject that's been covered time and time again), but they need an article for kids with a new slant. I imagine the same is true for a magazine like Good Housekeeping--the editors still need articles about tips for saving money or household cleaning secrets, but the article slant needs to be new and original.

One of the best ways to think of new article slants is to just engage in old-time brainstorming techniques of lists or word webs or brain maps. I like to put my subject, such as water safety, in a circle in the middle of the paper, and then create branches off the center with any idea that pops into my mind whether it's been done before or not. I keep going until I get an idea that is new or fresh or important and then write my query. As a matter of fact, I did this very exercise for the next WOW! issue on fiction writing and came up with an article about dialogue tags, which Angela accepted and will be in the July/August issue.

If the above writing prompt doesn't fit your genre or freelance writing career, you can substitute almost any topic for water safety and get your creative wheels moving. Here's wishing you have many light bulbs go off this weekend!

post by Margo L. Dill, http://margodill.com/blog/
photo by thomasbrightbill www.flickr.com

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Remember preparing for the dreaded job interview? The first impression. It seems everyone from your Great Aunt Martha to the dry cleaner had advice—and most of it included the handshake. Firm. Confident. Not sweaty. Because if the interview was the first impression, the handshake was the beginning of the first impression. A lot of pressure for a handshake but…

As a freelance writer you can work for an editor for years without every meeting them in person(or these days without even talking to them on the telephone). Instead of job interviews we have queries—one written page to say “Hire me!” In place of the handshake we have the article title.

Be honest. How much time and thought do you put into your article titles? Sure, you craft a great idea and format, find sources, toot your horn with clips and experience, compliment the magazine and/or editor. I used to slap in any title that popped into my head as I was typing up the query. Then I realized that in a flood of queries, titles are easy for editors to remember. Titles can say I’m professional, I pay attention to details, I know your magazine. A lot of pressure for a title but…

This is where research comes in handy. You did research the market, didn’t you? Try to use a similar format to past articles—every magazine has their favorite title type.

Article Quote – Use a source quote or an especially good phrase from your article, usually the first paragraph. For instance, if you were writing an article on job interviews and used the first paragraph of this article your title could be “A Lot of Pressure for a Handshake”.

Number – Many magazines like “number” titles: “Five Ways to Organize Your Life”, “Six Fun Car Games”, “Three Things to Do with Avocados”.

Funny – Especially if your article has a tinge of humor to it carry that theme through to your title. An essay on capturing a bat in my house was titled “Living in a Bat House” as opposed to the more straight forward, but less fun “The Day I Captured a Bat in My House”.

Alliteration – Don’t carry alliteration for more than three words and don’t feel all the words in the title have to match: “Delectable Desserts”, “Help with Heart Health”, “Doggie Disasters in Your Garden”.

Familiarity – Take a well known book, song, or saying and give it a twist to create a memorable title. “Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue” became “Three Cheers for the Red Freshman”. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” became “Invasion of the Bulb Snatchers”. Just make sure it isn’t an overused title twist. For instance, I imagine at one time editors were drowning in titles that were twists on Nike’s “Just Do It” and the Mastercard “Priceless” line is finding its way into many article titles.

One last note: You’re probably noticing that my blog title is, well, lackluster. That’s because I’ve received advice to be straightforward with blog post titles since it makes search engines easier to find your article.

One last, last note: Even if you come up with a great title don’t get too attached to it. Editors often change it anyway to match the issue’s theme, the space available, or a thousand other reasons. But your title did its job—it helped get you the assignment.

(C) Copyright wow-womenonwriting.com Visit WOW! Women On Writing for fresh interviews, news, How Tos, and writer's markets. Enter the WOW! Quarterly Flash Fiction Contest Open Now!

We haven’t talked about our marketing calendar countdown in a bit and I can feel that clock ticking. There are a few other marketing strategies to consider employing, but they need to be addressed a good five to six months out, so I want to talk about them before too much time gets by. Especially since this marketing angle is particularly well suited to introverts: magazine articles.

Magazine articles based on some element or angle from your book can be a fabulous way to generate interest in the topic and get the word out about your book to a very specifically targeted audience. But since most magazines, especially print magazines, have a huge lead time, time is of the essence.

For example, for Mary’s book, THE ONE ABOUT A KID, she could have written an article highlighting the Challenged Athletes Foundation and pitched that to any one of a number of children’s magazines or even with that particular topic, mainstream women’s or consumer magazines. With Donna Gephart’s book, if she’d wanted to she could have written a short non-fiction article explaining the election cycle process for a kid’s magazine, which would have been a great way to get her name and book title out there in front of the reading public. It has the added benefit of requiring no face-to-face time, and usually has a high built in interest factor for you since you were passionate enough about the subject to write a book on it. Plus chances are you’ve already done most of the research.

When WEREWOLF RISING came out, I had always meant to do this but got swamped with other things at the time. I could easily have written a couple of articles using my research material. Maybe one on the social structure of wolf packs or the origin of the myths of werewolves.

This doesn’t work with all books or all subject matters. Some clearly lend themselves better to these sorts of articles. For example, I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to think of a magazine angle for TEN LUCKY THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO ME. The only things I could come up with were a short article on the effects and chances of truly being hit by lightening—which might be interesting for kids but Mary’s book doesn’t really deal all that much with the topic. Or perhaps, since her book is about friendship and she has great credentials due to being a coach and her prior vocational experience, an article about the ins and outs and dynamics of friendships and how to navigate that. Social tips for girls who aren’t particularly skilled or experienced in navigating the sometimes treacherous waters of friendship. That sort of thing.

Sometimes, especially with certain subjects (wolves, Egyptology, psychological issues) well-established print magazines might prefer someone with serious subject credentials. However, the good news is that there are hundreds of e-zines on the web and they are always looking for material. Plus, if they deal with a subject you touch on in your novel, you are targeting an audience with a built in interest factor. Depending on the age and readership of the magazine, these articles can run from the very short (250 words) to full length (2,000 words.) The other good news is that having an upcoming book release does give you some writing credentials when approaching the magazine.

So go forth and do what you do best: write!

Until next week!