Shrinking Violet Promotions

The Curious Lifecycle of a Blog

2011-11-28T04:24:00.000-08:00

There have been a lot of articles lately on whether or not blogs are dead or have been replaced by Twitter/Google Plus/Facebook etc. (There is a particularly brilliant post over on Roni Loren's blog about the ten stages of blogging, which is a must read. What stage are you?)

A lot of bloggers, some quite high profile, have expressed increasing blog fatigue. (Although for the record, I would like it noted that here at Shrinking Violet we copped to blog fatigue YEARS ago, and consequently instituted a rather robust hiatus policy. ☺ )

When Mary and I started this blog nearly five years ago, there simply weren’t many blogs on promotion or marketing for writers, and even fewer for introverted writers. In 2007 there were about 50 million blogs total, an intimidating enough figure. But in 2010 the number of blogs rose to152 million!

In addition to this blog, we both had personal blogs, my own going back to 2006. That’s a lot of blogging and it makes sense that at some point one would run out of things to say.

I haven’t hit that point yet. But. I do find I have less and less to say about marketing and promotion. There are now millions of blogs and sites out there that all talk about this, some ad nauseaum. And frankly, there’s not much I can say about the subject that I haven’t said before somewhere on this blog.

That doesn't mean I'm done blogging. What that does mean is that I won't be blogging as often. Especially with a couple of gnarly deadlines breathing down my neck and a whole calendar full of travel in the coming months. I simply need to give myself permission to take some of the pressure off.

I figured fellow introverts would be the most understanding.

I DO plan to be back, but it most likely won't be until after the holidays. At that point, I'm sure I will be starved for talking about all sorts of things.

I hope you all have a wonderful couple of months and use the time you aren't reading Shrinking Violets for recharging your batteries!

A Social Media Survival Guide by Jenn Reese

2011-11-21T04:39:00.000-08:00

We've all seen them. They're as numerous and frequent as deer flies in high summer (and just as annoying): the constant stream of articles telling us how best to use social media, or worse, how to become a social media MAVEN. Well dear Violets, into that cacophony comes the voice of reason. Jenn Reese's voice, to be exact. When I read this over on her blog, I just had to beg her to let me share it here, and she graciously agreed. It is truly the sanest, smartest social media advice I've read yet.

My Social Media Survival Guide by Jenn Reese

What this post is: my guidelines for navigating the social media waters.

What this post isn’t: a set of instructions or guidelines for anyone beside me. We all use social media differently, use it for different reasons, and expect different results. I would never presume to tell anyone else how to achieve their specific goals.

Social media I use: Blog, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest

Social media goals: Enjoy myself. Connect with existing friends. Make new friends. Laugh. Learn. Share opinions and links to things that inspire, tickle, intrigue, or outrage me. Goof off.

MY SOCIAL MEDIA SURVIVAL GUIDE

1. Respect that everyone’s Social Media Survival Guide is different.
We’re all different, want different things, have different lives and different tolerances for technology and being social. Don’t expect other people to share your goals and priorities. (This should be the Golden Rule of social media, in my opinion. Maybe this plus the next one…)

2. Be yourself.
Life’s in the details, and that’s what you get. Quirky passions, interests, foibles, and bad jokes. What I ate for breakfast, what I should have had for lunch, what my cats are doing RIGHT AT THIS MINUTE. These are the things that make us unique, even in the vast ocean of people who, on paper, look exactly like us.

3. Never track friends/followers/subscribers.
This isn’t a videogame or a race and I’m not judging success by numbers. Friends and acquaintances aren’t commodities and the only metric for success is if I’m having fun (see goals, above). Some corollaries:

Never use any service that tells you when someone stops following/subscribing/friending you. That way lies madness, heartache, and unnecessary hurt. Don’t do it to yourself.
Never get upset if someone stops following you. They’ve got their own Social Media Survival Guide and you should let them do what they need to do, guilt-free.
Never beg for followers. This makes the people who follow you already feel like livestock.
Don’t expect people you follow to follow you back. If you’re following them because they’re interesting, then it shouldn’t matter if they don’t follow you back. Again, they’ve got their own Guide.
You don’t need to follow everyone who follows you. Do whatever works for your life and lifestyle.

4. Don’t create social guilt or impose on others.
This goes back to respecting other people’s Survival Guides. People who care about you will try to please you even if it causes them stress. Just don’t put them in that position in the first place.

Don’t ask people to retweet, blog, or share anything. If they want to, they will. Asking them to creates obligation.
Don’t get upset if your friends don’t retweet, blog, or share something you wanted them to. You don’t know what’s going on in their lives, and you don’t know their Survival Guide. Don’t take it personally.
Don’t expect people — even close friends — to read all of your tweets, blog posts, status updates. If they don’t, for whatever reason, don’t take it personally. Their lives are about them, not about you.
Don’t expect people to respond to your comments all the time. It’s great if they do, but sometimes life gets in the way. It’s not always easy to respond to every tweet, blog comment, or “Like” of Facebook. Some people don’t even check their social media every day, and that’s fine. Respect other people’s Survival Guides.

That’s pretty much it: respect that we all have different Survival Guides, don’t take anything personally, don’t create obligation, and be yourself.

Feel free to share your Survival Guide tenants with me, but please remember that my list isn’t intended as an attack on your list. Unless we have exactly the same goals and the same lives, there’s no reason for us to have the same Survival Guide.

(And if none of you read this, share it, or retweet it, that’s perfectly okay.)

# # #

Jenn Reese writes science fiction and fantasy adventure stories for readers of all ages. She has published short stories online and in various anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award-winning Paper Cities. Her first novel, Jade Tiger, is an action-adventure kung fu romance for teens and adults. Her newest book Above World, a middle grade adventure series for Candlewick Press will be available in February, 2012.

Writing as Therapy?

2011-11-14T04:18:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I have heard people talk about writing being excellent therapy. Not writing in personal journals mind you, but writing fiction.

I laughed. Long and resoundingly. How self indulgent, I thought, to presume one’s inner struggles would be remotely interesting to anyone else. How narcissistic, to have yourself in the starring role of every piece of your fiction.

But dear reader, after fifteen books and over 17,000 logged hours of writing time, I am no longer laughing. Turn’s out, the joke’s on me.

For me, writing has been incredible therapy, albeit not in the way people told me it would.

It has not provided me an avenue to work out my past and my own emotional baggage on the page. Instead, the hard work I do to make my writing better has spilled out into my non-writing life. How could it not? One of the first lessons we learn about characters is that whatever conflict they are going through affects all aspects of their lives. So when we as writers push ourselves to strive and grow, of course that is going to spill out into other aspects of our lives as well.

One of the things that became clear to me over the years was that writers must not only be keen observers of human nature, but must also understand what they see. They must be able to put it in a larger context, not just record the details. In order to create satisfying, transformative character arcs and journeys, we must become intimately acquainted with the human psyche.

I have spent years pouring over books discussing archetype and theme, character traits, and the psychology of story. In the process, I have learned much about myself—what motivates me, what role story has played in my life, what makes passions are, and what my hot buttons are.

As I struggle to drill down to my most important core themes, to find my most unique voice and worldview, I have no choice but to discard all the masks I wear for the world, to set aside all the roles I play and pare down to the essence of my Self. Not to be self indulgent, but to create work as uniquely my own as I can. To serve the Story rather than the teller. To get the hell out of the way so that the characters can come to life on the page.

For someone who has worn masks all her life, who has been only too eager to be whoever you want or need me to be, this has been the riskiest thing I have ever done. And I would never have done that if not in pursuit of perfecting my craft, of trying take my stories and my characters farther and deeper.

When I put pieces of myself into my characters it is not in some misguided wish-fulfillment fantasy, but instead to help find a point of access to that character. To use that one aspect of myself or that one vivid memory to enter the fictional character’s body and soul. To make them real to me so that I in turn can make them real on the page. It is like sourdough starter, or the fermented mash used for good scotch.

But in order to give my characters even just one small piece of me, I have to cobble together enough self-knowledge to understand that piece and what role it will play in my character’s journey.

And all that is aside and separate from learning just how much rejection I can take and still get back up again, how badly I want something, and what lengths I am willing to go to make it happen, what it feels like to follow your dreams, and reach them, stumble, then reach for them again. I have had to learn to be brave enough to admit to wanting, then braver still to put that wanting aside and forget about it as I focus on the work. Learn to love the work for its own sake.

So yes, it has been therapeutic. Not in the way pouring out one’s past to a therapist would be, but rather in the way that going on a long hard journey shows you things about yourself, teaches you lessons, strips away some of the veneer and leaves you more intimately acquainted with your essence, perhaps more than you are comfortable with. But writing—any creative process—is not about comfort.

But then, neither is therapy.

Grave Mercy Cover Art

2011-10-31T04:27:00.000-07:00

I find myself in the position of having something exciting to share, but no real blog home from which to share it. My R.L. LaFevers author blog has now become a part of my new middle grade website, and my new YA website is not finished yet.

BUT.

I have a brand new cover to share, so I'm hoping you will not mind if I take a moment to unveil it here. (Plus? I am sick with a horrid chest cold and have absolutely ZERO ability to write a decent post for today. /whine)

Ta da! This is the cover for my upcoming YA:

As you can see, it is quite a bit different in tone and feel from Theodosia or Nathaniel Fludd...that and the older target audience has necessitated a slightly different author name as well as a new (still-under-construction) website.

Once again, I am in awe of Houghton Mifflin's art department. ::pinches self::

Lia Keyes: Making Full Use of Goodreads

2011-10-24T04:02:00.000-07:00

With more than 3 million members, Goodreads is the largest social network for readers. If you’re an author, and you’re not controlling the content on your automatically generated Goodreads profile, you’re missing out on a major opportunity to reach readers who haven’t yet heard of you, and connect more deeply with those who have.

You may already have a website with a blog. You may be on Facebook and Twitter. You may be thinking you can’t possible deal with another social network/time-suck, but Goodreads should be a vital part of any truly efficient author marketing plan. Why? Because you want to reach as many readers as possible, right? Not all of them are on Twitter. Facebook is fabulous, but it’s not JUST about reading. Goodreads is where you’ll find the deepest concentration of confirmed book addicts looking for the next great read. They go there to catch the gossip, join groups focused on their favorite genres, vote for the best book covers, book titles and myriad other topics. You can get involved in the discussions there, find new friends and fans, and present your best front to readers who don’t visit your website or blog or Twitter or Facebook accounts because they don’t know you exist. Yet.

There are lots of social networks for readers (LibraryThing is another) but GoodReads is far and away the most versatile and interactive place to promote your book. Even before you’ve published you can make friends and build a following by being an active member of the community.

To build an online presence and wait for visitors is naive. Go where the readers are, create a GoodReads profile that drives traffic to your blog. Once they arrive at your blog you’ll be able to lead them through a customized exploration of your online world, but you’ve got to get them there, first.

Setting up a GoodReads Profile is easy:

Register as an author (if you’re published):

To do this, search for one of your books. Then click on your name. This will take you to an author profile page. At the bottom of that page you’ll find a link that says “Is this you?” Click on that to request admission to the author program. After you’ve been approved you can upload an image of yourself, enter a short biography (make sure you get your website url in the first two sentences, as the rest gets cut off with a “read more” link once you’ve saved it).

Update your Goodreads blog section

From your current blog via RSS so you don’t have to manually add posts. This will save you a lot of time!

Add your book trailer

There’s a section on your newly created profile that says “Videos about Your Name.” Click the link that says “add new”, fill in the form, and upload the video. It’s important to tag the video appropriately, as Goodreads automatically adds your video to various video lists according to the tags you choose. If in doubt, check the profile of an author working in your genre to see what tags they’ve used. Or browse the video lists to see which ones you’d like to appear on and use the tag that will take readers there. (Click “explore/videos” to see the lists).

Add Your Book to Lists

You can categorize your books into lists HERE. Either create a new list or search the existing lists and add your books there. Your book’s position on the list is dependent on votes, so bring friends and followers over to vote for it and watch it rise closer to the top of the list and gain more exposure.

Join Relevant Groups

Goodreads groups are a great way to make friends with readers interested in your genre or topic, but it’s not an opportunity to spam! Really make friends with others who share your interests and fascinations. Just like your other online presences, this is your chance to participate in a two-way conversation and form a personal connection.

List Your Book for a Give-Away

At the top right of your book’s page there’s a link that says “list this book for a give-away”. Avid readers are always short of money, so give-aways are popular and a great way to garner more exposure for your book.

Add dialog excerpts to the Quotes section

Is snappy dialog your forte? Showcase it by including an excerpt in the Favorite Quotes section of your profile. Cassandra Clare and Neil Gaiman are examples of how this can work to your advantage.

Create a “Q & A with (Your Name)” Group

I’ve seen this used really effectively, especially around book launch time, notably by Cassandra Clare. You can set a date for when you’ll be available to answer questions, perhaps a window of three days. Promote it heavily for a week or so before, inviting questions in advance. Then prepare to spend a busy three days answering them all. But with a pre-advertised end to your involvement, this is not something that will continue to eat up your time. Set a moderator to watch the group in your absence to alert you to any unpleasant or inaccurate chatter, and check in once a month to see what’s being said. This is a great market research opportunity for your next book! When you next want to conduct a limited time Q & A session you can edit the group description with the new dates. Find out more HERE.

Events, Quizzes, Trivia Questions, and More

Add your book signing engagements and author appearance events HERE. If you have a short story or excerpt you’d like to share as a teaser, you can add it to your author profile. You’ll want to add the right tags to it before saving. Once it’s tagged, readers will either find it on your profile, or search on the Stories and Writing page HERE. Visit the page and you’ll understand why tags are important. Create a quiz HERE or ask a Trivia Question HERE to get people interacting with each other and talking about your book.

Advertise Your Book

While most of the strategies I share here are free social media options, this is one time where spending some money might not be a bad idea. After all, this site is full of readers, right? Check out the rates and info HERE.

Link Everything Up!

At the top of your profile page you’ll see two tabs – Apps and Widgets. These two pages have everything you need to seamlessly link up your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, iPhone, and blog. Without links, your Goodreads profile is only half as effective as it might otherwise be. I’ve added the Goodreads Facebook app to my Facebook Fan page, for instance, which creates a tab on my Facebook Fan page that shows FB users who ‘like’ me a mini-Goodreads profile page, right there on Facebook, effectively exploding the potential number of people who get to see it. You can also add your Twitter account so that you can automatically let Twitter followers know what you’re reading every time you update your book list. There’s quite a variety of widgets you can add to your blog’s sidebar or your website, too. I particularly like the “Favorite Quotes” one, but there are also widgets for showcasing the books you’ve read, your TBR pile, your favorites, or your own books.

Are You Convinced Yet?

You should be. As the largest social network for readers on the net, you need to be there. And if you set up a page and want to show it off, feel free to leave a link to your page in the comments here so we can friend you!

Lia Keyes is a British expat writer of speculative fiction for young adults, represented by Laura Rennert, Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

Thank you so much Lia, for this MOST comprehensive explanation of all Goodreads has to offer!

The Long, Slow Slog Toward Mastery

2011-10-17T04:46:00.000-07:00

I started reading Malcom Gladwell’s OUTLIERS this week, and I thought it would be interesting to look at the number of hours we've spent writing. Gladwell talks about how it takes around 10,000 for a person to achieve mastery, in any field. It made me curious to see where I fell on that spectrum.

One of the things that Gladwell also talks about is that any person’s success isn’t only about passion or talent or hard work. More nebulous things like opportunity and access also come into play. Looking over my numbers I see a couple of glaring advantages I’ve had. One, the luxury of having a supportive spouse with excellent health care benefits which allowed me the time to accumulate some of those hours. Also, a job that allowed me to write on the job, and thus practice my craft AND get paid for it as well.

Hours Spent Writing

1994 500

1995 500

1996 200 (went back to school for a year)

1997 750 (got a PT job, but one for which writing was a part of what I did)

1998 750

1999 750

2000 600

2001 600

2002 700

2003 1500 (quit to write full time)

2004 1500

2005 1500

2006 1500 (reached my first 10,000 hour mark this year! W00t!!)

2007 1500

2008 1500

2009 1500

2010 1500 (Year end total = 17,350 hours!)

So how about you? How far along are you on your first 10,000 hours of writing?

What Sells Middle Grade Books?

2011-10-10T04:22:00.000-07:00

A long time ago in a blogosphere far away, I promised I’d talk about what sells middle grade books.

Then promptly got swept up in writing and revising my YA trilogy. Oh the irony! But today I am finally pulling this topic out of my hat. Since so many of the components of MG sales are teachers, librarians, and school visits, it seems an especially appropriate time to discuss this, now that school is back in session and fall is in the air.

One of the kind of funny things about MG is that when you talk to publishing houses and editors, they all bemoan the lack of MG and talk about how they are on the hunt for great MG books.

But.

It is YA that gets all the sparkly attention—higher advances, bigger publicity push, and often higher sales numbers. In fact, it is rare for a publisher to put a big publicity push behind an MG title unless it is part of a series and already a proven big seller. With YA there is a better chance of hitting the publicity lottery because there are simply more opportunities. If you look at PW’s list of Bestsellers for 2010 which lists 546 titles, only 108 of those were middle grade books. 2009 was had similar numbers, with only 96 middle grade bestsellers out of a list of 500 titles.

Part of that is because YA has a huge crossover potential to adult readers. There are huge numbers of adults who very happily read YA, but not MG. Also, marketing to YA readers is more of a cause and an effect. It’s easier to reach them because they’re older, online, and the role of the gatekeeper is not as much of a driving force in getting the word out about the book.

Also, in general, there are generally lower sales expectations for MG titles and (slightly) more willingness to wait for the slow build that happens as MG filters through the system. Many of the things listed below don’t even happen until a year or so after a book has been out. That means having enough publisher support to keep it in print long enough to find its audience, as well as accruing small sales milestones and accomplishments along the way. It means keeping the book out there long enough for the right people to stumble upon it and begin taking notice. It often means smaller advances, so the publisher has less capital invested upfront and can allow for that slower build.

Tools In The Middle Grade Sales Arsenal:

Write an amazing book. No, seriously. This cannot be said enough. Write a book impossible to ignore, or one that people cannot wait to press into eager readers’ hands.

Good Industry Reviews. Once upon a time, they only had to be good reviews, but a star or two never hurts. Especially with more and more library budgets being cut, they must radically prioritize their purchases and often will rely on starred reviews to do that. (However, do not panic if your book does not garner a star—many don’t and as long as the reviews are good, some sales will follow.) And how does one get starred reviews, boys and girls? That’s right—by writing an amazing book.

Attention from Book Bloggers. More and more, these book loving bloggers are having an impact on spreading the word about great books. There are fewer opportunities for MG out there than there are for YA, but there ARE opportunities.

Gatekeepers. Adults falling in love with your book and hand selling it to young readers. These gatekeepers can be indie booksellers, teachers, librarians, or parents. Even that Aunt who always gives books for birthday presents. I would also include the Junior Library Guild under this category, because they are in essence a gatekeeper for librarians and if they select your book, that recognition is an honor.

Foreign and Subsidiary Rights sales. (audio, movie, foreign rights) Nothing builds demand like perceived success (hence the huge smoke and mirror component to marketing.)

Bookclubs and book fairs. Again, this is a bit like hitting the lottery since there is only one game in town as far as these are concerned, but if your book is picked, it can really go. The downside is, especially with book fairs, it can also sit in relative obscurity as kids flock to the movie and media tie-ins and chotske toys and merchandise bookfairs also offer.

School visits, school visits, school visits. This is key and probably one of the biggest things a middle grade author can do to move books. However, these have to be set up properly. The author can’t just appear at the school, do their gig, and expect books to move. The book sales need to be an integral part of the visit. Usually the easiest way to do this is through presales arranged by the librarian, either through a local indie or a distributor or the publisher itself. I know a number of authors who have kept their MG books in print simply through their school visit sales.

Skype visits: These are happening more and more and possibly taking the place of school visits in some cases. They have a disadvantage in that you can’t (usually) set up presales of books. They can be especially effective for making sure readers know about subsequent books, however. (If any of you out there doing Skype visits do have a way you bring book sales into the picture, please let us know in the comments!)

Mass Market Bingo. No doubt about it, having your book selected to be featured at Target or Costco or any of the big wholesale outlets can have a huge jump in your sales.

State library and school readings lists. This is partly tied to the gatekeepers, but still deserves an entry of its own because it usually comes later in a books’ life, and it can be huge. A state list generates word of mouth in a way that few single librarians or teachers can. The other thing about state lists is that they are compiled by librarians and often have more breadth than starred reviews or literary favorites. Many are chosen for kid appeal or to reach certain reluctant reader niches. These aren't really something you can personally control, but they make a big difference in your sales numbers.

Social Media. Social media doesn’t have the same direct sales impact on MG that it does on YA. HOWEVER, it is still an important tool. Many of the above elements are initiated by one person loving your book; whether it is a librarian, the bookfair selection committee, the book buyer at Target, or a book blogger with a wide reach. And THAT is why it’s important to have some sort of social media/web presence—because it gives you a larger opportunity to connect with those people. In one of my favorite books, DRUID, by Morgan Llewellyn, the main character talks about needing to put yourself in the path of the gods in order for things to happen to you, and that’s how I view social media for MG books—you are putting yourself in the paths of the gods, widening your circle of acquaintances, being a part of the conversation.

Guest Blogger Audrey Vernick: The Rodent Brain Approach

2011-10-03T03:51:00.000-07:00

I’ve been known to say I’m figuring all this book-publicity stuff out as I go, but I think that might a little optimistic. I have no idea if I’m figuring it out. But I am definitely going.

In the beginning, I mostly had a stomach ache about all the things I knew I should be doing but wasn’t. Then I started to do some things—mailings, building an online presence, commissioning a book trailer, planning big events—and the source of my stomach ache shifted a bit. I was still worried about all I wasn’t doing, but now I was able to spread the worry out, as I had no idea if there was any worth to what I was doing. My picture books were all over the map—two nonfiction and two about a buffalo—heading to kindergarten and learning to play drums.

And now I’m in the funny position of trying to take the things that may or may not be working to help promote my picture books and applying them to my brand-spanking-new-to-the-world novel.

Oh! The Stomach Aches You’ll Suffer!

I know that for picture books, I need to appeal to the parents, teachers, librarians and booksellers who help match books with children. The same is still largely true with middle grade, but in a different way that I haven’t been able to wholly figure out yet. I spend a fair amount of time thinking about this.

Allow me, if I may, to draw your attention for just one moment to the psychological theorist Jean Piaget, who studied his own children as the basis for his child-development theories.

I have a twelve-year-old girl, a reader, right here in my house!

What attracts the twelve-year-old Vernick to a particular book?

The cover. Definitely. And the recommendation of a trusted friend. (Two factors that have strong effects on adult-reader-me, too.) And two factors that writer-me has no control over.
This is why I try not to think too much. But I have the kind of brain that gnaws at things: a rodent brain.

All this is a dizzying roundabout way of saying that though my path here has been heavily weighted and full of rodent-think, I ultimately arrived at a philosophy akin to the Shrinking Violets message: for now, until I figure out more, I’m doing the things that come naturally.
For a long time, blogging was not on that list. I was repeatedly told I had to start a blog. I started one in conjunction with my nonfiction baseball picture book and quickly learned that the world really doesn’t care how much I hate Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett. Also: I am passionate about baseball, but I didn’t really enjoy blogging about it.

I was disheartened.

I was encouraged to try again. It’s possible I was a little bullied, too—pushed to try again even though I didn’t want to.

Still, I jumped in, reluctantly. I started a blog about literary friendships—real-life writer-friends and the friends people find in children’s books. I figured until I found my footing, I’d interview other writer and illustrator friends and shine a light on them.

I discovered some things that delighted me: a shocking number of children’s writers wanted to be young Laura Ingalls; Roald Dahl, a writer whose books were not on my childhood radar, had a profound impact on many of the writers and illustrators whose work I admire; and everyone, like me, seems to love James Marshall’s George and Martha.
My rodent brain, ever-gnawing, doubts there’s a direct connection between my blog and finding readers for my books. Unfortunately, I think my rodent brain is right.

I think the knowledge comes, but it comes slowly, more on a year-by-year basis than the week-by-week schedule I’d prefer. So I’ll keep gnawing and doing what feels right. And worrying about the things I’m not yet doing. And the efficacy of the things I am.

But I’m also taking pleasure in the connections I’m forging with authors and illustrators through my blog. By learning how inspired they were by the authors and illustrators who came before them—authors and illustrators who probably didn’t worry about social media expectations and effective platforms.

And really, this whole game, at its heart, is about connection. Chew on that, rodent brain.

~ ~ ~

In addition to writing for children, Audrey Vernick has published more than a dozen short stories for adults in a variety of magazines and literary journals. She receive an mfa from Sarah Lawrence College and has been honored twice by the New Jersey State Council of the Arts with its prestigious fiction fellowship. She also blogs about literary friendships.

Guest Blogger Jennifer Nielsen: The Rules of Readings

2011-09-26T01:45:00.000-07:00

When my kids were little, long before I was published, I used to volunteer in their classrooms and read out loud. More than once, other adults stopped, thinking they were listening to an audiobook or tape recording. However now that I have books of my own? My reading-out-loud skills seemed to have gone the way of the dodo.

Truly, I suck at reading my own stuff out loud. Which is why I was so thrilled when Jen Nielsen offered to share some tips for this most critical author skill!

# # #

Last spring, I was invited to do a reading from my forthcoming novel, The False Prince, to the sales and marketing team members from Scholastic. I was nervous, but reminded myself that I’d done plenty of readings before, and that after all, I was a theater major. And yet as I practiced in my hotel room, I stumbled over words, gave pauses where it made absolutely no sense to hesitate, and convinced myself that babbling incoherence was an inevitable part of my future.

Remember the rules, I told myself. You know what to do.

And thanks to those rules, the reading went well.

Doing a public reading can be challenging to every author – not just shrinking violets. Some people are naturally better at oral reading, some have stronger voices, and some are more comfortable in front of an audience. But regardless of where your talents are, everyone can give a good public reading. Here are some tips that can help.

1. Choose the right passage. For any audience, it’s best to choose an excerpt that’s heavy on action and dialogue, or emotional weight, and light on description and backstory. Be careful not to choose something that gives away spoilers.
You’re also looking for something that will run a total of two to four minutes. That may not sound like a lot of time, but you’re going to put a lot of energy into it, so that’s plenty.

Finally, from beginning to end, it should be a complete scene, including conflict, rising action, and a great climax (Hint: Some authors end the reading right at the climax and tell people to read the book to find out what happens).

2. Treat the manuscript like a monologue. For your audience, listening to you is much like listening to a movie that’s on in the other room. They can hear the dialogue and the action. But they can’t see the scenery or follow the movement of the characters. All of that is meaningless to them.

So prepare for some surgery on the excerpt. Eliminate anything that doesn’t add to your reading, even if it’s an important thread to the overall plot. This includes long descriptions (of anything), and backstory references irrelevant to this excerpt. They’d feel like moving through mud while you’re reading. It also will include dialogue that may make sense within the total context of the story, but that is extraneous within the small passage you’ll be reading.

3. Narrow your characters. Remember that the excerpt should be a complete scene in itself. Very often the chosen passage has a line or two of dialogue that is vital to the scene, but that is spoken by a character who doesn’t matter in your excerpt. Unless the audience is already familiar with all of your characters, if you can attribute that dialogue to another character just during the reading, it will be less confusing to the audience. Sometimes to accomplish this, you may need to make a slight adjustment to the plot. Go ahead. Unless you’re JK Rowling and the world is paying attention to every syllable you utter, it won’t matter.

4. Practice aloud. Forget about “reading” and focus on the emotional center of the story. Your reading should capture the emotion, not the plot. Each word can be a tool that reaches inside the audience and holds them captive. To do this, say the words as what they are. “Cold” should be spoken as if your breath was made of ice, and “warm” would be the opposite. If your character is hurrying, read it faster. If your character is hiding, your voice may become softer.

This is a technique known as “coloring words,” and it is the biggest difference between an ordinary reading and an unforgettable one.

Feel free to mark up your excerpt as you practice. I underline words I want to emphasize, put slash marks between places I want to pause, and draw arrows to show where I want to go faster. They work like stage directions for me as I’m reading.

5. Prep your audience. Part of every reading is first orienting the audience to the scene. The setup should be brief and clear. The audience needs to have a basic idea of who the protagonist is, a general idea of the book’s plot, the more specific circumstances of the scene, and finally, a brief introduction to the other characters they’ll meet. Rehearse this orientation so that it’s just as fluid as your reading.

6. Read with your whole heart. A good reading is a little bit of theater. Dive into it, holding back nothing. It’s the people who keep one foot in the safe zone who end up looking ridiculous. Don’t worry about overplaying it. You don’t have the benefit of costumes, scenery, or fellow actors, so all you have is how you read. Pour everything you have into it, bringing the scene alive.
And have fun. Because even if your reading isn’t perfect, if you’re having fun, then the audience will too.

The second book in Jennifer Nielsen’s Underworld Chronicles series, Elliot and the Pixie Plot, was recently released with Sourcebooks. She will also release the first book in the Ascendance Trilogy, The False Prince, with Scholastic in April 2012. Learn more about Jennifer and her books at www.jennielsen.com

Thank you so much, Jen! I have some upcoming school visits and I cannot wait to put these tips to the test!

Also, thanks so much to all of you who weighed in last week! It was great to hear what everyone has been up to. And ::drum roll, please:: the winner of last weeks comment drawing is Susannah Leonard Hill! (See? You weren't too late at all!) Email me with your address and I will get your prize right out to you!

End of Summer Milestone Monday Check In

2011-09-19T04:22:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite commercials of all time was that Staples commercial that had the father dancing around the Staples store, loading up his back to school cart and singing, “It’s the most won-der-ful time of the year…”?

Honestly, September has always felt much more like the start of a new year for me rather than January. I am a big fan of those academic calendars that let me buy new versions in July or August, because for more of my life than not, my calendar has been ruled by school calendars. First as a student myself, then as a parent.

I suspect this may be true of the internet as well, because I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how they had cut back on their blog reading and interacting online over the summer. We’ll see if that changes now that September has rolled around.

Of course, that means that I will need to be online more as well.

But first things first! Because it has been MONTHS, let’s do a violet check in! I would love to hear what you all have been up to, what you worked on during the summer, what you didn’t work on, any milestones you achieved, epiphanies you had, or break throughs reached. All that good stuff. Also, if you are a regular reader and have a book coming out, please send me a jpeg and release information. I am WAY past due for updating the sidebar there at the side. [Note, if you sent it to me earlier, and it hasn’t appeared, PLEASE send it again as it is buried somewhere deep in my computer folders.]

And, to entice you, if you leave an update in the comments, you will be entered to win a copy of Donald Maass's The Breakout Novelist: Craft and Strategies for Career Fiction Writers.

As for me, I have had a very emotionally intense summer. I have been writing the second teen medieval assassin book, which is dark! Darker even than the first book. Plus, I’ve got an actual deadline now so I’ve been trying to trick the muse into thinking she’s had the same stewing, fermenting, and playing time she got with the first book. This was also the last summer before the last child leaves for college, so I’ve been doing lots of living in the moment, enjoying the last few weeks and soaking them up.

I have also been redesigning my website and creating a new one for the medieval teen assassin books. Neither are live yet, but it has certainly made me think a lot about internet presences and connecting to our readers and what they are looking for from us. Lots more on that in the weeks to come. Also in the weeks to come, some way cool interviews and guest posts.

Looking forward to hearing what all you've been up to!

An Autumn Muse

2011-09-12T03:33:00.000-07:00

In honor of the changing seasons. And because I have muses on the mind, and Aunt Leaf seems like a most excellent muse...

Aunt Leaf by Mary Oliver

Needing one, I invented her -
the great-great-aunt dark as hickory
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,
and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,
and whisper in a language only the two of us knew
the word that meant follow,

and we'd travel
cheerful as birds
out of the dusty town and into the trees
where she would change us both into something quicker -
two foxes with black feet,
two snakes green as ribbons,
two shimmering fish - and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door
with the rest of my family,
who were kind, but solid as wood
and rarely wandered. While she,
old twist of feathers and birch bark,
would walk in circles wide as rain and then
float back

scattering the rags of twilight
on fluttering moth wings;

or she'd slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;

or she'd hang in the milky moonlight
burning like a medallion,

this bone dream, this friend I had to have,
this old woman made out of leaves.

Tranformative Change

2011-09-05T02:04:00.000-07:00

One of my very favorite writing books, which isn't really a writing book at all, is The Hero Within written by Carol Pearson. In it, the author talks about transformative change as we move through the different stages of our journey.

Transformative change.

For some reason that phrase has really resonated with me, always in the back of my mind as I write. Probably in no small part because I've reached the point in the manuscript when everything is building to that big moment when my character sheds her old skin and steps into her new self. When she is truly and completely transformed by the events of the novel.

Then on twitter a while ago, I came across this quote by @Quotebelly:

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." - William Arthur Ward

And it hit me; the act of adjusting the sails is not just about being realistic; it is also about being open to transformative change. A mere realist would batten down the hatches and hold on. But the act of adjusting the sails, of preparing yourself to accommodate what life is about to send your way, is a much more profound act of acceptance.

For some people, those bumps on life's road completely derail them or make them bitter or cause them to feel victimized. And while I hate tragedy and mishap as much as the next person, one of the only ways I can put my head down and get through it, is to try and see the situation as an opportunity for that sort of deep rooted change. To extract the life lesson that the universe is sending me. In doing that, in finding some nugget of wisdom to take from the incident, I feel that no matter what I have lost, I have also won.

The thing is, no one taught me that; not my parents or a church or a therapist. I have managed to learn that concept though stories.

Which is why in fiction, as writers, it is so vital that things in our story make sense, that the events in our stories are pushing our characters toward this transformative change. That is one of Story's most important roles in our lives, showing us what that sort of deep change looks like, feels like, how to recognize and respond to the opportunities when they arise.

Getting Naked with the Muse

2011-08-29T04:56:00.000-07:00

I suspect that many writers come to writing because they cannot find their voice in real life. They have trouble speaking their truths, whatever they may be, and writing is a place where they can do just that. (Although I am also willing to admit I might be projecting wildly here.) They don’t even have to risk anyone hearing it if they don’t want to, at least not until the writing kind of takes over and they find themselves pursuing publication.

Most everyone will agree that a great voice is what separates good writing from amazing writing. Not by itself, but it’s hard to achieve great writing without it.

After a certain point, when one has reached a certain mastery of craft, craft is no longer the issue; the uniqueness of the voice is. Not just in the words you use, but the things you have to say. They have to matter. And matter a lot. But in order to do that, you have to be willing to declare to the world what matters to you; what you think about, obsess over, are fascinated by. Even if they aren’t pretty or normal or even very common.

I have been a tiptoer. All my life I’ve tiptoed around my family and friends, not wanting to offend or, God forbid, upset or anger them. It’s hard to describe just how much I’ve censored myself in this quest to be a good friend, mother, daughter, or wife. And in a roundabout way, it served me well because I think it was part of the impetus to turn to writing—to have some place where I could say all the things I could never say in real life. That is why the Theodosia character was such a break through for me. And the only way I could write that first book was by telling myself it was just for me, no one else was ever going to read it. No one else was ever going to see that lens through which I sometimes viewed the world.

And one of the things I adore about the Universe is that it is very willing to send you feedback when you are on the right track. That book has been my most popular one so far, no doubt due to my willingness to untangle myself from my own fears in the writing of it.

Which brings me to the project I've just finished, GRAVE MERCY. Boys and girls, it terrifies me. Anyone who reads it will know that I am fascinated by sex and religion, death and love, duty and honor. I’m not sure I’m ready to confess to the world that my mind spends a lot of time mucking around in those places.

And yet…it does.

There is a scene in the third Narnia book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Eustace Scrubb has been enchanted and turned into a dragon. In order to remove the enchantment, he has to bathe in a magical pool, but before he can get in it, he has to strip out of his dragon skin. Not just the outer dragonish layer, but down past the scales and skin to the raw, tender Eustace part beneath.

That’s where I feel like I am in my journey; I am in the process of stripping off that old protective skin and finding the courage to step into that pool. Not just in writing, but in life. In striving to become a better writer, I find I have forced myself to become a stronger person. Once I have allowed myself to walk about with sure and certain feet, it is hard to get back up on my tiptoes and resume that cautious, tentative journey.

Stripping off those old protections stings, no question. Maybe even burns a little. I feel raw and tender and unbelievably vulnerable and exposed.

And yet, I am convinced that incredible freedom and beauty exists on the other side of that pool…

(originally posted on The Moody Muses blog)

Where Stories Come From

2011-08-22T02:01:00.000-07:00

A while ago on another blog (in a galaxy far, far away) someone wanted to know why people who weren’t young adults would be interested in writing YA. It struck me as an odd question, because I’ve never had the sense that writers were only propelled by their own demographic for their stories. But it is also a legitimate question in a broader sense, and it got me to thinking about why we write and where our stories come from.

My own theory is that our richest, most authentic stories come out of our own traumas and heartbreaks. Not necessarily in a direct correlation—I was beaten as a child therefore I will write about child abuse. But rather the core emotional issues, the wounds and scars that have shaped us will also shape our stories. And the nature of those will, in turn, help determine what age group we write for.

Stories are the psychological equivalent of pearls, if you think about it. At some point in our lives, we receive this grain of sand—some horror or trauma or huge obstacle that becomes a permanent part of who we are. And then the magic begins to happen. Time passes, we move on, we begin to heal, scar tissue forms, we begin to grow again, only this time our growth encompasses those painful experiences. And if you are lucky enough to have a creative outlet, those painful experiences cannot help but shape what you create, much in the same way the shape of your hand determines the way you play the piano or the choice of medium affects what your artwork looks like.

My childhood and teen years were my most emotionally tumultuous, one great big stewing pot of dysfunctionality. It tapered off toward the ends of high school, but it was too late. The scars and wounds I’d received in childhood were so much a part of me that they radically affected every aspect of how I viewed the world and how I interacted with people, thus ensuring high school was hard and not the glowing ‘best time of your life’ that so many adults think of it.

So it is no surprise that when I write, that is where my stories come from. That place, even though I am well, (WELL!) past being a young adult, Not only was that the most fertile for me story-wise, but the thematic issues I am drawn to explore lend themselves best to that age.

Once I hit adulthood, I got lucky, found unconditional love, got married, and had kids. My life has been pretty great so far. Not exactly smooth sailing, raising kids is never smooth sailing, but there have been far fewer traumas and upheavals, and very little scar tissue and lots of lessons learned.

Which is why I write for kids and young adults. How about you? Why do you think you are drawn to the genre you work in? Which of your core emotional themes and issues make it a perfect fit?

Quirks and Foibles

2011-08-15T02:06:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that the best writers, the ones whose books really stay with me, are connoisseurs of human nature. Being proficient at craft, or excelling at it, is good, but not enough, nor is a crackerjack plot. I relish learning things about the human condition and people.

I also think this is part and parcel of what propels some people to become writers—this desire to wrestle with and better understand the human condition. Do writers become observers of people so they have material? Or, do acute observers of people become writers so they have something to do with all that knowledge they’ve accumulated? Chicken? Egg? For most writers I know, this people watching begins at the earliest of ages.

I’ve also decided that people fall into two groups; those who like and are attracted to perfection, and those who are charmed by and attracted to quirks and foibles. I am willing to bet that a majority of writers fall into that latter category.

The thing about perfection is that it is often boring in its beauty, there is nothing innately interesting or human about it, no place for me in its vista. And I say this as a rank perfectionist—if I am not perfect, I have failed, so as a goal, perfection holds huge appeal for me. And yet, what I love most about people is their quirks and foibles. Their personal behavioral tics and oddities.

~The thirty five year old muscle bound guy who still has a baby animal calendar.
~The precision machinist who can’t get the sugar in the sugar bowl or the coffee grounds in the filter, but can execute the most precise of measurements on a metal lathe.
~The sleek, sexy brand spanking new black dodge charger being driven by an eighty year old lady.
~The woman who feels called to the priesthood, but also has an unholy obsession with Jimmy Choos.
~The guy who drives a gorgeous Porsche, but can’t stand driving in traffic so he rarely gets it out.
~The laid back surfer girl who cannot be in the same room with a change jar without sorting the coins into neat little stacks.

Quirks can also be physical—the kid whose ears turn bright red when he gets embarrassed, the stunning woman who bites her lip or nails, the kid whose twirled his hair so often he has a bald spot…

Quirks and foibles are often a chink in our armor, an indicator at how hard won our mastery of some skill or behavior really is. They are a physical manifestation of our deepest level conflicts.

Take a look at the people around you. What is it that most endears them to you? I’m betting it’s not their straight A report card or excellent punctuality record. No, I’m betting it’s that little something that only they do, it might even be a tad odd or strange…The thing is, a lot of this behavior can cross over into the highly annoying, it’s a matter of degree really.

But I wonder if we use that enough in our writing?

What quirks and foibles do your characters have? Not just pasted on to simply be funny or clever, but one’s you can trace back to their development as a person?

The Art of Revising: Micro Revision

2011-08-08T05:57:00.000-07:00

Micro revision is all about the scene. Is the scene—the building block of my novel—working? Is it carrying its weight? Has it earned its place in the story? This is also where I check for dropped plot threads or un-fleshed out characters.

However, you only do this once you've hammered out the story, otherwise the focus of the scene might shift.

The first thing to check is that you have indeed written in scenes and not in one long, every minute accounted for stretch from beginning to end. You only need to show the parts that impact the story. It is okay to have some stuff (the boring stuff) happen off the page and either recap it or relay it in a quick transition or conversation.

MICRO REVISION CHECKLIST

Plot

Every scene should move the plot forward in some way. However, moving the plot forward can be subtle. But there needs to be some reason for the scene to be there. Note: The reason it’s there can often be very, very hidden.

Ideally, each scene should perform a variety of functions. Shoot for three:
Move plot forward
develop characters
reveal backstory (in tiny bits and pieces)
foreshadow upcoming events,
raise dramatic questions the reader wants answer to

Does the scene have some source of conflict or dramatic tension? This doesn’t have to be head to head conflict. It can be in the form of a dramatic question that is raised. Or a ticking clock. Or things left unsaid, swirling about the room. Foreshadowing can also work.

Look for a way to add tension on every single page.

If you can’t heighten the tension, ask yourself if the character is fully reacting to the events around him. Is he fully engaged by the events of the story?

Do I start the scene as late as possible and still make sense? In first books especially there can be a lot of deadwood. Writers feel they must account for every minute of their hero’s time, not realizing they get to pick and choose the dramatic moments they show, and simply account for the rest in transitions.

Consider eliminating the character getting from one place to another unless it has a dramatic rather than logistical reason for being there. For example, in Beastologist, I had to find ways to imbue some of the travel with tension, because it was Nate’s first trip—an exciting milestone in his life and something he should experience “on screen,” yet not necessarily a huge thing in and of itself.

For weak scenes, try listing all the reasons the scene is there. If the list is mostly because the character needs to know something, can you find a way to incorporate that same information in another scene?

Are there any places you start to skim as you’re re-reading the mss? Better look at those closely.

Have you dropped any subplots or plot threads along the way? This is where my handy-dandy spreadsheets come in. (Which I will be talking about next week, as per Laurel’s request.) Sometimes when I juggle as many plot threads as I do it is easy to lose someone.

Check for smooth transitions. If you start a scene with a chunk of action that isn’t dramatic action, or a few days have gone by, you can easily fill that part in with an effective transition.

Characters:

Does the scene address the internal character arc as well as the external action of the story?

Have you gone deep enough into the character’s POV? Are you really living, breathing, feeling things through his filters?

Do the varying POV characters thoughts and actions flow smoothly? Is there a sense of continuity from one scene of theirs to the next?

Have I lost anyone? Dropped any secondary characters or forgotten about them?

Building On Theme

By now you should have a good idea as to what your theme is. Do your scenes explore this theme? Do your scenes wrestle with both sides of the question you raised? If your theme is about gaining forgiveness, do some of your scenes show the promise of forgiveness while others show the threat of eternal penance or punishment? Perhaps you can pull a little of this into your weaker scenes.

Is there an opportunity to build subtext into the scenes in some way, create a layer of something unspoken between the characters, or even something the character is hiding from himself?

Look for physical items that might make good concrete objects.

General

Keep an eye out for backstory or info dump; they can slow down your story. Flashbacks, too, can bring a story to a screeching halt.

Have you established a sense of time and place that the scene is occurring in. Would a change of location make the scene more fraught with meaning?

Look at your descriptions; do they illuminate something about the character as well as what they’re describing? The best descriptions are so deep in the character’s viewpoint that they tell us a lot about their worldview or current emotional state.

Have you pulled the senses into the scene?

What is it you want the reader to know by the end of this scene? What questions do you want her to be asking?

Do you give the same information more than once? If so, be sure to add something each time, some new revelation, some new nuance, otherwise say it only once.

If the book builds on clues or research or revelations, do those happen in an ordered sequence that actually lead to the proper revelation? Often I will cut and paste all the “clue” scenes into a single document and be sure they actually build on each other and don’t leave anything important out.

If you’re using more than one POV character, this can also be a handy trick for being sure the character’s thought build on each other—cutting and pasting all their POV scenes and reading them all at once to check for logistical flow and consistency.

Are there any vestigial tails in your scenes? Bits and pieces left over from something you had originally then removed?

Check for continuity of time.

The Art of Revising: Macro Revision

2011-08-01T05:44:00.000-07:00

Ah, revision. Some writers hate it, others love it. Personally? I come down on the side of loving it. Revision is a chance to take a raw idea and make it really sing. It's one of the few chances we get in life at a do-over. First draft turned out $hi!!y? No problem. Because you can revise as much as you want to get it right.

Probably one of the most important revision tools is distance. Give yourself the gift of a little time between finishing one draft and starting on the next. You will be astonished at how much is revealed by that bit of distance.

A secondly, nearly as important tool is to recognize that revising is not the same thing as polishing. Polishing is about smoothing and shaping what you've got on the page. Revising is about really looking at the story and seeing if it's working. Revising is when it's time to look at what you actually managed to get out of your head onto the paper and see if the idea holds up under daylight. Or if there’s really as much there there as you’d hoped. This is your chance to re-envision the story--to roll up your sleeves and see if the first attempt you made at telling it really utilized the best tools available for the job.

Revision, or Macro Revision, as I think of it, is all about the story. Does the manuscript contain all the vital elements needed to create a gripping story. Does it realize its potential? News flash: Most people’s don’t at the first draft stage. Seriously. Or if they revise as they go, you can bet their first pass at a scene isn’t perfect.

So here then, are the things to look at when sitting down to revise a story.

MACRO REVISION ~~CHECKLIST~~ QUESTIONS
(I changed my mind. This isn't really a checklist, it's more of a list of questions to ask yourself as you try to analyze your manuscript. If you use it as a checklist of things you must have, you will go mad. So don't.)

VOICE
Have you chosen the right person to tell this story?
90% of the time you will have, but sometimes there are times when the story is better told through someone else, less removed from the action. Think Dr. Watson in Sherlock Holmes.

Have your selected the right POV?
Is your first person narrative flat? If you can easily substitute third person pronouns and have the whole thing make sense and flow, chances are you haven’t taken full advantage of the first person form. Conversely, have you at least tried first person? What happens when you get totally inside your character's head? Does he come even more alive?

If you are working with a familiar scenario (dreaded move, new school, losing a best friend) what fresh, new, unique twist do you bring to it?

SETTING
Have you selected the best setting for this story? Is there a different setting that would add more inherent conflict? Create more tension? Echo your thematic elements?

PROTAGONIST/PLOT

Does your character want something? Or not want something? Is that desire driving the story or at least some of his actions?

Is your character an active participant in the story? If not, is he taking baby steps toward becoming one?

Is there something that keeps getting between the main character and his goal? Would the story be stronger if there was?

Is there a source of tension?

Is your story building toward something?

If not, what provides the dramatic push or narrative drive toward the end?

Do the obstacles the protagonist faces increase in difficulty?

Does he ever fail? (Remember, we learn more from our mistakes than our successes!)

Are their times when he makes things worse by his own actions?

Is there cause and effect in your story, or is it more of a string of unconnected events. (This happened and then this happened and then this happened, but nothing caused any of the other things to happen.)

Is your character a different person at the end of the book than they were at the beginning?

Could he have solved this problem or puzzle or dealt with the core issues at the beginning of the book? If so, have you given him a big enough growth arc?

Will people be emotionally invested in his journey? Will they care if he fail? What is at risk if he fails?

Are there measurable baby steps he makes on his journey? Or does he just wake up one day, able to tackle the problem? Do we see his growth on the page?

Are the ideas and issues fully developed? Is there a true beginning, middle, and end? Or do you go straight from the beginning to the end without fully developing the issues in the middle?

Do the actions and events in the book impact different parts of the protagonist’s life? School, home, other relationships?

Do your secondary characters have arcs, too? They will be smaller and more subtle, but they should be there.

THEME

Why are you writing this story? What piece of You is in there? Why are you the most perfect person to tell this story?

Are the themes universal? Is there room for Everyman in your story?

Do the actions and events of your story support the theme you’re working with?

Now that you know your theme, is there a way you can make it even more powerful?

Next week? Micro revision....

# # #

Also, last week's winners never checked in and I cannot find email addresses for them, therefore I have drawn a second round of names for the WRITING YA FOR DUMMIES prizes.

Erin Liles and Avery Michaels, you are our new winners! Please email me with you info so I can get these awesome prizes out to you!

Food For Thought

2011-07-25T04:33:00.000-07:00

I am supposed to be on hiatus still, but I was struck by a number of posts I read this week and wanted to share them with you guys.

The first was by blogger Jonathan Fields and talked about hyperconnectivity being creative kryptonite. For me, the two most important takeaways that have been reverberating for a week now were these:

But when we fill in all the organic in-betweens with texting, e-mailing, DMing and updating, we unintentionally kill the a critical step in the ideation process—percolation and contemplation—and along with it go creativity, innovation and despite your opposite intention, productivity.

And:

Hyperconnectivity gives us the perception of getting more done, it makes us feel like we’re doing more, because we’re using every free moment of every waking hour.

But the entire article is hugely worth reading. Check it out and see how it resonates with you.

This was followed by a fascinating experiment I read about conducted by author Monica Valentinelli, who signed off Twitter, FB, and IM, for a full 100 days. What made this experiment even so compelling was that she had a new book coming out during that time.

The results were fascinating. Again, you should really go read about the entire experiment, but here's a snippet:

The new release that I had hit a sales milestone on the retailer’s website, I continued to sell copies of my e-book, and I sold new stories. In terms of “success,” I encountered zero difference between being online-or-off.

And:

MY CONCLUSION: Good content is more valuable to a writer’s career than social interaction.

And then you know how it is, when something really sticks in your mind, you start seeing reinforcement everywhere. Late in the week I came across this most excellent blog post by Allison Brennan on the unrealistic pressures associated with social media.

One of the things I thought she said, but I can't find it now so maybe it was someone in the comment section, was that at RWA National, a panel of editors was asked if they would rather have an author who was able to write three books a year, but not have time for social media, or an author who wrote fewer books a year but was highly active on social media. Three out of four preferred the former.

(Also, it’s not just writers who get sucked into this vortex, singer songwriter John Mayer had some eye-opening things to say about his own experiences with social media, and what it cost him creatively.)

So what about you? If you use social media to unwind after a productive day, much like a glass of wine after work, that’s different and probably nothing in this post applies to you.

But if you’re chasing the social media/blogging brass ring with a sense of panic of nipping at your heels, then maybe you need to reassess. What could you accomplish creatively if you weren’t chasing the social media brass ring?

Does using social media dilute your need to communicate through your work? Is it interrupting the big chunks of percolating and fermenting time your work needs? Is it recalibrating your attention span?

Food for thought, anyway…

And now for the fun stuff! We have TWO winners for last weeks post because Deborah and Wiley & Sons are just that awesome. And the winners are...#20 and #18*! TheArtGirl and LauraC! Please email me** so I can get your prize out to you.

* (As chosen by Random Number Generator)

**(Note, if the prizes aren't claimed within a week I will draw a second round of names.)

Flipping the Switch from “Introvert” to “Extrovert”

2011-07-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

I am hugely excited to share today's wonderful post by editor Deborah Halverson. Not only is she founder of the popular Dear Editor site as well as a former editor with Harcourt, but she has written Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies.

What could be even cooler than that? We will be giving away a copy of Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies! (See give away details at the end of the post.*)

Flipping the Switch from “Introvert” to “Extrovert”

by Deborah Halverson

I am an introvert.

Over the years I’ve surprised quite a few people by saying that. I don’t act like an introvert, they say—and they’re right. I readily step up to open microphones, I eagerly shake new hands when they’re offered, I easily sit down next to random strangers at publishing functions and make new friends. I’m certainly not shy. I’m just most comfortable doing my own little thing in my own little corner with my own little family. A wedding DJ once told my now-husband and I, “If you want your guests to dance, you have to dance. They’ll do whatever you do—you’re the life of the party!” We nearly canceled the wedding and bolted for the Little White Wedding Chapel in Vegas. When the option is there, I’ll choose Fly on the Wall over Belle of the Ball every time.

But the option isn’t always there, at least not career-wise. As an in-house editor and then a freelance editor, author, and writing instructor, my career has always required me to reach out to others and get them excited about the topic at hand. I must talk to kids in schools, to other writers, to bookbuyers and booksellers and librarians and publishers. I can only do my job if I put myself out there. So I do—with one quick flip of an internal switch. Bam! Extrovert Mode.

I make it sound instantaneous, but developing that switch has been a life-long process. That’s no exaggeration. I realized my preference for the quiet side of life in late grade school. Figuring that anything I did in a future career would require me to step out of those shadows I so enjoyed, I very consciously set about making myself comfortable with activities that extroverts take for granted. For me, the secret to flipping the switch to Extrovert Mode is being comfortable with extrovert behavior. Here are six things I’ve learned to do to cultivate that comfort:

1. Be prepared. If you’re well prepared when you step out, you’re confident and thus more comfortable putting yourself out there. Preparation may mean writing your presentation well in advance, it may mean researching the people who will be present at a gathering, it may mean, on a grander scale, joining Toastmasters or volunteering for small speaking gigs in order to get used to having a roomful of eyes on you. Preparation equals comfort, and comfort helps introverts step into the spotlight and enjoy themselves while they’re there.

2. Make it personal. Engage with a specific person during every outreach. Being an introvert doesn’t mean you’re socially repressed; I love making new friends and chatting it up with people one-on-one. It’s reaching out to anonymous masses that feels yucky. Yet that kind of outreach is often what’s required in this social media-dependent world of ours. So, make the anonymous personal by aiming every outreach at a particular person. I designed my writers’ advice site DearEditor.com with that in mind—all my posts there are direct answers to questions sent to me by specific readers. Similarly, if I write a guest post on someone else’s blog, I imagine I’m writing the post for one of that blog’s commenters, whom I’ll have identified before laying down a single word. When I write my books, I have specific young readers in mind whom I’ll imagine holding my book and laughing in all the right places. If I’m facing a roomful of writers at a conference or a crowd at a schmoozing event, I immediately pick out a specific person to talk to so that I feel I’ve got a friend in the room from that moment on. That makes me more comfortable about being there—and more likely to say yes when other presentation invites or parties crop up.

3. Lead with a question. Ask questions to drive conversations at gatherings and events. This takes the pressure to be enchanting off of you, the person you’re talking to will feel as if they’ve just had a great conversation because they’ve shared so much, and you’ll get more comfortable being at that gathering because you’ve just made it personal (see #2 above). Plus, you’ll learn the most fascinating things about people! That’s reason enough to get out and about.

4. Channel Miss Manners. Pushiness has no place in an introvert’s efforts to reach out. Embrace niceness instead—it works better, anyway. Catch more flies with honey, and all that. Be respectful about contacting people; having someone’s email address doesn’t mean you can use it carte blanche. When someone reaches out to you, respond quickly, if only to say that you can’t respond fully right now but will by the end of the week. I’m a nice person by nature, so being nice makes me comfortable about reaching out and thus more likely to flip the switch to Extrovert Mode when the time is right.

5. Make it worth their while. I feel more comfortable putting myself out there if I’m giving the people listening to me something for their time. And what I can give is information, so that’s what I do give—at school events, at writing workshops, on DearEditor.com. You can do that, too. As you learn about your passions (your book themes and subjects, literacy, the craft or business of writing), you’re collecting info that others would like to know. Share it. If people like what you have to say, they’ll tell their friends about you and buy your books. Your outreach will be successful, and you’ll feel happy that you haven’t abused anyone’s time in the process. Happiness equals comfort equals willingness to continue stepping out.

6. Be sincere. One reason introverts don’t like reaching out is that they feel like fakes when they shine the spotlight on themselves. So don’t be a fake. Only promise what you can deliver, only compliment when you mean it, don’t imply friendship if you’re just looking for a sale or a connection, and only ask others to do what you yourself would do for others. If you are genuine in your outreach, then you are comfortable with it—and being comfortable is how introverts flip the switch to Extrovert Mode.

My style doesn’t make for the most aggressive kind of marketing, but as an introvert I want no part of aggressive, anyway. I’ve seen websites where authors barter each others’ mailing lists, assigning value to their list of addresses based on the number of buys they scored with that list. Perhaps this helps them sell books, but such used car salesman tactics send the introvert in me scurrying to the dark corners. I know that the only way to get myself to step out of my comfort zone is to extend my comfort zone—and I am most comfortable when I am prepared, nice, curious, giving, and sincere.

Deborah Halverson is the award-winning author of Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies and the teen novels Honk If You Hate Me and Big Mouth. Armed with a masters in American Literature, Deborah edited picture books and teen novels for Harcourt Children’s Books for ten years before leaving to write full-time. She is a frequent speaker at writers conferences and a writing teacher for groups and institutions including UCSD’s Extension Program. Deborah is also the founder of the popular writers’ advice website DearEditor.com and freelance edits fiction and non-fiction for both published authors and writers seeking their first book deals. For more about Deborah, check out her website DeborahHalverson.com.

*For a chance to win a copy of WRITING YOUNG ADULT FICTION FOR DUMMIES, just leave a comment telling us:

A) what For Dummies book would you like to see out there on the shelves (That's kind of a no-brainer for me, Introverts for Dummies, of course!)

OR

B) If you could have an on/off switch that you could flip at will, what personal characteristic would it control? (Personally, I would love a clean-freak switch that I could flip once a week, then turn off once the house was clean.)

You Say Potato, Your Character Says Potahto...

2011-07-11T04:49:00.000-07:00

Last week we talked about your core voice—that part of your voice that is uniquely you and flavors everything you do. Whether you are a Red Rose potato, a Russet, a Yukon Gold, or a yam.

Today I want to talk about the more conscious aspects of voice: story voice and how one's voice can shift from book to book, and then creating characters’ voices, which you can have many of in any given story. Essentially, what you're going to make out of that potato.

Some authors' voices remain fairly constant throughout everything they write. Often that consistent voice is a large part of their appeal. Alice Hoffman, Jenny Crusie, and Meg Cabot are some that immediately come to mind.

Then other authors create unique, individual voices for each of their stories so that you might not realize they’d been written by the same person. Jane Yolen, Tamora Pierce, Suzanne Collins, K. A. Applegate, Garth Nix.

If you're the former, then the story voice and author voice remain fairly constant and you don't have to wrestle with the idea of different voices for different stories. However, as I mentioned last week, voice confounded me for a long time because of this need to tell wildly different stories. Until I stumbled upon the idea that story voice is which aspect of your author voice you’re focusing on.

The thing is, we all have many aspects to our personality: funny sides, serious sides, dark sides, places where our deepest fears lay. To me, it makes perfect sense that our body of work will cover more than one side of ourselves, thus different flavors of stories.

However, while we might vary in whether we want to focus on humor or seriousness or hope or despair, WHAT makes us laugh or cry or hope or despair is part of the essence of who we are and that will very likely remain constant throughout the body of our work.

Whether it is center stage or backdrop is the variable.

If you are writing a scary story, you will be drawing on what frightens you, the terrifying moments you’ve experienced, your nightmares.

If you are writing a humorous or light-hearted story, you will probably draw on what parts of life you find absurd or ironic. A romance would focus on how you define love.

My teen assassins in medieval France book that comes out next spring uses a wildly different voice than either the Theodosia books or the Beastologist books. Not just older, but a wildly, completely different voice. And yet I still feel that it is very much my voice. But it is my seventeen-year-old voice versus my eleven-year-old voice. My coming-of-age voice rather than my still-firmly-rooted-in-childhood voice.

Another other big component of the story voice is the set of emotional truths and thematic issues you are exploring. They will greatly dictate the tone and feel of your book.

It is also my voice as seen through a medieval lens and worldview rather than an Edwardian one—two time periods with distinctly different flavors and sensibilities. The medieval world was obsessed with finding a path to grace and assuring a place in heaven, while Edwardians were just stepping out of a dark, somber, restrictive Victorian society and embracing a lighter side. Not to mention the beginning advent of modern technologies. If I’m doing my job in developing my characters, the flavor of those different times comes through.

Which segues rather nicely into finding your character’s voice

This is probably the most conscious aspect of voice, adjusting your voice to convey a specific, fictional character. It’s the part where you climb into the character’s skin.

One thing I need to understand in order to make my characters breathe on the page is what piece of me is in that character. What of my own core emotional truths does this character have? This is usually the key for me to an authentic character voice.

The truth is, pieces of ourselves show up in all our work. I have been surprised many times by unplanned pieces of me that show up on the page, usually spotted long after the book went to print and I acquired some distance from the story. Since this happens even when we don’t intend it to, we might as well consciously choose which parts we include and let them do some of the heavy lifting for us.

But how do we consciously develop our characters’ voice?

Well, if voice is an author’s core emotional truths and personal wisdom, combined with their use of language, then to evoke a real-seeming, authentic character we need to understand their emotional truths, personal wisdom, and use of language. And while some of ourselves will be in them, they will in large part be wildly different from us, not unlike how kids have some of their parents in them, but are also their own unique selves.

This is where backstory comes in. Not because it belongs in the story—it doesn’t! Only the very littlest bit you can get away with. But the author needs all that backstory in order to understand what emotional truths and personal wisdom our character has acquired throughout their lives.

We need to know his formative experiences, emotional scars and wounds, hopes and fears, what sort of environment he’s grown up in, all those things go into creating our character. In order to get him to live on the page, he has to have a fully developed life of his own in order for us to be able to nail his worldview and, therefore, his voice.

I’m not suggesting we have to account for every moment of his life before he shows up on page one, but definitely the big emotional events that have shaped him.

Personally, I don’t find those character worksheets that ask what color his hair and eyes are, and what pets and hobbies and habits he has, all that helpful. What I need to understand is WHY my character has a ferret for a pet and WHY he has a constant tic under his left eye and WHY collecting boogers is his favorite—only?—hobby.

I often joke about not knowing what color my character’s eyes are because I’m too busy looking through them, not at them.

A key to getting this strong character voice is using deep point of view, going deep into the character’s head so that it is HIS perspective that colors the story.

But how do we get deep inside our character’s head?

For me it’s usually character journaling—creating a “journal” written by my character in which he confesses and contemplates his deepest thoughts. Almost like a therapy session. I'll often do a "therapy session" with the character on how he feels about the plot point that is about to occur in the story--that's where I find his emotional juice.

Whenever a story feels flat to me or has flat spots, I ask what is the core emotion the hero is experiencing in this scene? And why? Then, more importantly, have I managed to get it on the page?

If not, I dive back into the character’s psyche and try again.

This post is already beyond ridiculously long, so I’ve posted a sample worksheet/questionnaire behind the cut.

Okay, just to clarify, I don't answer each of these questions for each of my characters, but this is a list of things I look at when I'm trying to develop their backstory so that I can capture their personality on the page.

Gender - not that you don't already know what gender your character is, but be sure you really consider how gender affects worldview. Boys walking into a situation have very different reactions and notice different things than girls do. Frex, in middle school, a boy walking into the cafeteria on the first day of school might be wondering who is going to trash can him or who he could beat up if he had to. A girl, however, might be looking for who seems the friendliest or which social cliques to approach/avoid.

Family’s social status/income level - because poverty greatly affects worldview

Any ethnic background or influences

Family dynamics? Parents married, divorced, single? Siblings? Birth order?

What sort of student is the character? How popular are they at school?

Who is his best friend? Who is their worst enemy?

Do they have any hobbies? If so, how did they come to those hobbies? Why are they important? What do they illustrate about his character?

Are they athletic? Good at sports? If so, which ones. If not, how does that affect their life?

What is the character’s most treasured possession?

Do they have any superstitions?

What is their general attitude toward life? Optimist? Pessimist? What went into forming that attitude?

What are they afraid of?

What are his hopes and dreams? Both immediate and long term.

What does he long for?

Is there anything he feels guilty about?

What is he ashamed of? Proud of?

What is his relationship with technology? Do they have four TVs? No computer? A cell phone at age 10? An email account? (in historical or fantasy novels, this question is a whopper as it encompasses the other world you're building into your story.)

What are his character strengths?

What are his character flaws? What gets him in trouble the most often? What is he most embarrassed about?

Does he have any physical weaknesses? Uncoordinated, asthma, small for his age, etc.

Finding Your Wild and Precious Voice

2011-07-04T04:07:00.000-07:00

Right about now is normally the time we here at SVP take a summer hiatus. I have a big fat book due in a few months and am determined to have a complete first draft by the end of the summer, and thinking about marketing and promotion is SO antithetical to getting a first draft down. Plus, the kids are home from school, vacations are taken, and publishing practically shuts down for July and August.* Clearly life moves at a slower pace in summer.

However this year, instead of going all radio silent on you, I thought I'd share some posts on craft. I can talk about writing craft and processes without yanking myself out of the first draft mindset. Plus, not only is writing craft directly tied into our Favorite Piece of Marketing Advice, quite a number of you expressed interest in talking about craft, so we're going to give it a try.

(For those of you who aren't excited about that prospect, I DO have a couple of guest posts coming up, an interview with an industry insider about marketing and promotion and an interview with a very cool author. Coming soon!)

###

The truth is, I am a sucker for voice. That is the one thing that can pull me into a book faster than anything. It’s nice to have character development and narrative drive show up at some point, but honestly? If the voice is strong enough, I’ll read just about anything. If a book has all of those? I’m in love.

And I’m not the only one. At conferences and in interviews, time and again I’ve heard editors say they are looking for a great voice. The thing is, everything else—plotting and characterization tools—can be taught. Voice must ooze up from the very core of the author herself and because of that, takes time to develop.

The problem is, voice is difficult to define. It’s one of those I-know-it-when-I-see-it kinds of things. It can also, like a favorite fragrance we’ve worn for years, be impossible for us to detect in ourselves. How then do we recognize it? Work on it? Strengthen it?

Some people claim you don’t have to find your voice because it hasn't gone anywhere; since it's part of you, it’s always there. That may well be true for some people. However, I also think we can lose our voice or become disconnected from it, either through misuse or because we’ve had it workshopped right out of us, or the (false!) belief that our true voice isn’t valid or unique enough. Also, I think a number of writer's are drawn to writing precisely because they haven't been able to find a voice in real life, so they turn to writing to say what needs to be said and learning to do that can take time. So some writers do need to go in search of their true voice; others may only need to excavate or re-discover theirs. I suspect this may be especially true when writing stories for kids—we have to be able to reconnect with our child’s voice.

Of course, that brings us to the question of what exactly is voice?

For me, voice encompasses not only the words a writer chooses and how they string their sentences together, but also the very subjects they choose to write about, how they view those subjects, and in fact, their entire world view: hopeful or edgy, tragic or matter of fact.

Voice is an author’s core emotional truths and personal wisdom combined with their use of language.

And when writing for children or YA, it is critical that we try to reconnect with what our emotional truths were at that younger age.

One of the things that made voice so hard for me to grasp was that my voice changes pretty drastically (I think) from story to story. So how then, does an author’s voice and story voice fit together? Not to mention the shifting voices of our main characters?

A very brilliant writer and teacher, Barbara Samuel, gave me this extremely helpful analogy.

Think of your author voice as a potato. Your story voice, then, is whether you are serving that voice baked, French fried, scalloped, boiled, or mashed.

To stretch this poor metaphor even further (and this is me mangling it, not Barbara) then character voice is whether it’s plain mashed potatoes or garlic mashed potatoes; scalloped potatoes or au gratin, chili cheese fries or shoe string fries. (Lord, is anyone else getting hungry besides me??)

Your author voice encompasses your core stories, those thematic issues that you are drawn to time and time again. Perhaps it is finding a place to belong, or coping with great loss, being free of the past, or issues of trust. I know for me, finding one’s personal power shows up over and over again in my work and issues of power are very much a part of my core themes. I so remember being powerless as a kid—and that amazing feeling when I first learned I did have some power. In fact, I think that’s why I write fantasy—fantastical powers create such a great subtext for personal power.

I am also (clearly) drawn to historical settings, although I am unsure why that is. Maybe it’s a distance thing—maybe I need the distance of time to explore issues that would feel too painfully raw if I dealt with them in a contemporary setting? Or maybe that’s simply where I feel fantasy and reality meet in the most convincing way?

So how do we find or reconnect with our author voice? Well, that's the challenge, isn't it? Unfortunately, it isn't quite as simple as filling out a worksheet or answering a quiz. However, there are a number of things we can do to explore, identify, and strengthen our voice.

1) Embrace your inner odd duck.

This is the dedication in the second Theodosia book, and something I talk to kids about all the time. Our unique, crazy self is our secret weapon—especially when we’re engaged in creative pursuits. It’s our strange, uniquely individual perspective, emotional truth, and acquired wisdom that makes our work stand out from others’. If you’re a smart ass, or have way too vivid an imagination, or are too sensitive, or have attitude to spare, or have a wicked temper, or always look on the bleak side, whatever it is; embrace that part of yourself and incorporate it into your work. The longer I’ve been writing the more I think that drilling down to this unique core view of the world we each possess is key.

2) Ask by what emotional authority you are telling this story.

And no, I don’t mean the church lady type moral authority. What I mean is, what authentic emotional route do you have into this story? You know that saying, Write what you know? It’s talking about the emotional truth of what you know, not whether or not you’ve ever been a fireman or in love with a vampire. But perhaps you have risked all for something you believed in, or have fallen in love with someone deeply unsuitable.

So what is your personal emotional connection to this story? Why are you the one compelled to tell it? What piece of you, what experience of yours, is your route into the story or the characters?

3) What is the favorite thing you’ve ever written?

Do you have one piece of writing, an essay, a novel, even just a paragraph, that you love so much you can’t even believe you wrote it? If not, do you have something that simply stands out from other pieces of writing in such a way that makes you sit up and take notice? What sets it apart from your other writing? Can you identify what makes it sing for you?

4) Try to get a sense of what sort of stories really call to you.

Make a list of your fifteen favorite books of all time, then your fifteen favorite movies of all time. What commonality emerges? Mine were from a wide variety of genres and tones and it took a while before I recognized that one factor was a strong voice (yes, even in movies). Another was that the stories I loved the most took the hero to the mat emotionally, the protagonist was truly reborn by the experience of the story. Big sweeping, redraw your entire emotional landscape, type stories.

5) Looking back in time, what were some of the most pivotal moments in your life? Your childhood? How did that betrayal, salvation, glimmer of kindness, moment of despair, shape you? Pick a couple of these moments and do a quick, five or ten minute timed writing. Timed writing means stream of consciousness, only you will see it, no editing, kind of writing. You’ll be surprised how much truth gets on the page.

Don't be afraid to experiment, look deeply (no, even deeper than that!) play, get angry, get sad, shout, scream, yell, laugh. Try each of those out and see how it feels on the page. Remember risk is a necessary part of creating, and let yourself take some risks. All in the privacy of your own writing, of course. :-)

*That is not actually true, just a perception people have.

Save the Cat: A Bridge To Story

2011-06-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

So here is something I am learning about myself--it is very hard for me to blog about externally focused marketing type stuff when I am deep into my discovery draft mode. Therefore, today you are getting a post that I originally wrote when I was invited to guest blog over at Blake Snyder's blog (author of SAVE THE CAT). Also? Since I am hip deep in the discovery draft, I am feeling especially indebted to this wonderful plotting tool!

Save the Cat: A Bridge To Story

Much like the budding individualists I write about, I have a love/hate relationship with structure. A closet rebel, I get twitchy whenever told I must follow rules or take a particular action. And what is structure, other than a cohesive, integrated set of rules?

When I am writing, I want to create and play and not be encumbered by this banal concept of rules and structure. I want to be freeeeeeee. Or at least until my Work In Progress becomes a sprawling formless mass that threatens to envelop the entire west coast. Right about then is when I acknowledge that a little structure, judiciously applied, can actually be MORE freeing than an absolute absence of structure.

It’s kind of like a baby who is at the crawling stage. You can let him have free reign of the house, but you will have to intervene every 30 seconds and wear yourself out and crush his soul in the process. But! If you were to put up baby gates, well then, you are free to step back and let the little fellow roam freeeeeee, just as he was born to do—knowing that the gates will keep him in place.

Blake Snyder’s SAVE THE CAT plotting template, referred to by those in the know as the Beat Sheet or the “BS2,” is my writerly version of baby gates.

As consumers of story, we all have a very strong, intuitive sense of the elements that need to be in place to make a book or film satisfying. But as writers, sometimes intuitive knowledge isn’t enough to create a gripping, compelling narrative drive. For that we need help.

One of the things that I especially love about the beat sheet is that it takes narrative structure out of the lofty realms of literary criticism or writer’s workshops and puts the structure in terms that any reader would understand. Which is exactly as it should be, for that is who we are ultimately writing for—the reader—and Blake’s terminology and definitions help remind us of how the reader will experience the various stages of our story.

There is a question that many writers like to ponder: Which is more important, plot or character? Of course, the correct answer is that they’re both equally important; in fact, plot = character, for if you change one, you change the other.

I have come to believe that there is a similar correlation between narrative and structure. Story = structure. If you change one, you change the other. Without structure, there is no plot and without plot, there is no story, only a character study or an existential experiment. Without plot, characterization fizzles, since characters are best defined through their actions.

A story is an ephemeral thing—ideas, make-believe characters, things that never happened. It is all illusion and lies. What makes it all hang together in a believable, cohesive unit is structure. And if you get the structure right, it creates the foundations of the bridge you will need to bring the reader effortlessly from the beginning to the end.

The set-up, the catalyst, the midpoint—those are all the rivets that hold the bridge together. They make the imaginary world strong enough, real enough, that the reader can be carried from the beginning of our story to the end.

The beat sheet works like an all-purpose bridge. I have used it to write a short, 18,000 word chapter book and an epic 120,000 word historical fantasy, and it worked equally well for both.

The other thing? I write kids books, and kids and teens are a tough audience. They are sophisticated consumers of story–from books and comics, cartoons, movies, graphic novels, and video games, they are constantly immersed in story. In fact, they are probably the most sophisticated audience ever in terms of having an instinctive sense of narrative, and the incumbent expectations that stuff will happen, and it will happen sooner rather than later. So even if you are lucky enough to hook them, you need to keep moving along at a steady clip.

Starting a brand new book is always daunting. Whatever will I have my character do in all those blank pages? As I stare down that long corridor of empty pages, I have two choices: I can panic, which I often do, and run away to clean out the pantry, pluck my eyebrows, and scrub the kitchen grout. Or I can pull out my Save the Cat! Beat Sheet and jump start my process, one beat at a time.

With well over 14 books behind me, I know enough about myself as a writer to know that beginnings and endings are easiest for me. I know what to do with those. But middles now, middles are HARD. They are longer, for one, and much less inherently defined. Which leads me to what I think is the true genius of the Beat Sheet: the way Blake breaks down the middle of the book into Fun and Games, Midpoint, then Bad Guys Closing In.

As a reader, I am most likely to give up on a book once I enter the second act. If nothing is happening, if I get no sense of forward momentum or increasing tension, I often give up. This is the point where I expect the book to deliver on the premise of the promise, and if it doesn’t, I am sorely disappointed.

Which is why Fun and Games is such an apt description for the first half of the middle. As a writer, it reminds me to let go and have fun with this joyous thing called writing. To look for cool ways to thrill, amaze, and move my reader.

But my absolute favorite, can’t-live-without-part of the beat sheet is Bad Guys Closing In. All the truly brilliant ideas are deceptively simple. The beat sheet is no exception. This is the hardest part for almost every writer I know. In beginning manuscripts, it is one of the most common mistakes, jumping nearly from the middle to the end, without including the steady build-up of tension and stakes as the antagonistic forces of the story increase to the point of nearly breaking our hero.

Bad Guys Closing In tells us precisely what we need to do with this part of the book, what has to happen — but in only five words, so clearly it is not a formula or blueprint that will stifle your creativity. It is simply a better definition of what “middle” means. It not only conveys the mood and flavor of what happens, but tells us precisely what sort of scenes need to come here.

There are other story structures that do some of this, too; the Hero’s Journey springs immediately to mind, but for me, it is too structured to use early in the process—it forces me to look at a developing story in too rigid a way. It is much better applied to my story during later drafts. (Yes, I am a bit of a writing process slut. There! I’ve admitted it! And a children’s writer, to boot.) But the beat sheet is the one I always reach for first.

And lastly, probably the most important thing to remember about structure tools like the beat sheet and The Hero’s Journey is this: They are not artificial constructs dreamed up and constructed in some esoteric ivory tower or studio to be applied to stories. They have sprung up organically from years and years of studying stories and myths that have been written over thousands of years. They are, at their core, a reflection of the very human trials and tribulations we go through in our quest for a better understanding of our own lives. They are a map of the human experience, and since the human experience is infinite, so too are the ways you can use this tool.

Fortune's Wheel

2011-06-20T04:43:00.000-07:00

I can’t help but wonder if whoever designed the Ferris wheel (that would be Ferris, I’m assuming) was after a cheap, momentary thrill or if he was inspired by Fortune’s Wheel of the tarot, intentionally trying to create a carnival ride that would encapsulate life’s ups and downs.

For the truth is, we all have them—or will have them if you’re one of the fortunate few who have yet to experience any downward travels. And Fortune’s Wheel is starkly evident in the publishing world. No one is exempt. And truthfully, a person should consider themselves lucky if they don’t get Towered a time or two along the way.

We are all of us on this hairy, exhilarating ride, but, we are all on different points on the wheel. Some are going up, others coming down, and still others hanging in the air for that long, glorious moment when they are on top of the world.

Of course, people are more likely to talk about their ride UP, that thrilling ascent as they are on the rise, cresting when they reach the top and hover—sometimes for minutes, sometimes for seemingly ever.

But eventually the wheel turns. The problem is, most people keep that particular part of their ride private, not wanting to share that long hard descent with anyone. We don’t like to talk about that fall, whether it is a gentle, controlled descent or a rapid, breath-taking plummet.

The important thing to remember is that the wheel may not turn where we can see it. The descent will not necessarily be in a person’s public professional life, or perhaps they spent their early years in one big downward slide, and we will only get to see their upward trajectory. But just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. In fact, sometimes we won’t see the downward direction because they adjust course before it becomes apparent to others.

Part of that is the nature of the business. Our success is heavily seeded in the smoke and mirror nature of publishing; the desire to create the illusion that everyone wants/loves your book so that in turn, others will love/want it, too.

But another factor is simply human nature. We don’t like to talk about our failures or mistakes. We are a society that places a huge premium on success and wealth and happiness. The downturn of Life’s Wheel threatens all of those, and so we keep silent. Which in turn only further fosters a shame over the ups and downs of life that often can’t be prevented.

Lately however, a few brave souls have been speaking out on the downsides of a publishing career, the heartbreak, the rejection, the financial uncertainty, the sheer lack of control authors have, the envy that slips in, even when we don't want it to. The reality check that provides is a really, really good thing.

In fact, I have come to believe that that is the true value of networking; connecting with enough people and being around them often enough that you get to hear them share their real story, not the marketing hype, but the slog behind the appearance of overnight success, the number of times they had to get back up and start over again, the hugely trumpeted success that never materializes. You get to be there to hear their war stories and share their battle scars. Most writers will tell you that these battle scars are a rite of passage; they are simply part of the writing life.

When my oldest son graduated from college last year and I asked him what he thought was the most important lesson he got out of his college experience. He thought for a moment, then said: “That everyone has their own sh!t. Everyone has bad stuff they have to deal with, even if you don’t see it."

I feel the same way about publishing.

How many times have we all heard that we shouldn’t compare ourselves to other writers? Other careers? And yet, I’ve always wondered how you don’t compare, how can you prevent it when all the numbers and markers and metrics are broadcast everywhere, from deal announcements, to sales numbers, to blog and Twitter followers, bestsellers lists and FB fans. How do you NOT see all that stuff?

And then I realized that Don’t Compare is really shorthand for, Don’t let envy erode your own path to success. That is easier for me to get my arms around. The truth is, if we talk with enough people who are honest about their own situations, it becomes apparent that there isn’t nearly as much to envy as we think there is.*

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met or talked with high profile publishing successes who have lousy sales numbers, who are terrified of not earning out their big advance, who’ve become NYT bestsellers only to find their creative control over their own work evaporate, or dry up with the pressure to make the list again, who are expected to travel, often months on time, leaving small children behind, or who have waited years between sales, or whose second book tanked in a hugely public, painful way.

Once we know that stuff, the behind the scenes of huge successes, we see the painful trade offs that are sometimes made. That in turn gives us a better understanding of what is to be envied in our own situation, whether it is complete and utter creative freedom, low sales expectations and the lack of pressure that accompanies that, the six rabid fans who are always there to rave about our newest project, a handful of supportive indies who hand sell us like crazy, the reviewers who love us, or the opportunity to completely recreate ourselves when we go up in flames.

*(Conversely, neither is there a good reason for gloating. Even if your career appears to be Golden and Charmed, it is best enjoyed with a healthy dollop of humility, fueled by either the knowledge that fortunes’ wheel does have something to do with it, or the idea that that wheel will turn eventually, and your landing will be much softer if you have a cushion of humility on which to land.)

Some Tips For Introverted Parents Raising Extroverted Kids*

2011-06-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

Are you an introvert who somehow has managed to give birth to an extrovert? Or two? Parenting—even with all its joys and rewards—can also be unbelievably draining, most especially if you are an introvert with a child whose needs for interaction far exceed your own.

My own family is comprised of three introverts and one lonely extrovert, so it has been a huge shift in education and focus for us to step out of our own preferences and learn to meet that child’s needs. Meeting our introverted child’s needs was clearly a no-brainer, but that extroverted kid—well, he was a different story. It involved a radical internal shift and some extreme self-protection maneuvers.

One of the first things to understand about the extroverted child is that he needs and craves interaction as much as you need and crave solitude. Just as you need solitude to process and think and recharge—your extroverted child needs social interaction to do the very same. That is what his system requires to recharge his batteries and allow him to operate at optimum performance levels. However, to an introvert, the constant chatter as they interpret and process their experiences and thoughts and feelings can feel like an all out assault.

It is important to remember that they are not being overly demanding. At least not by their standards. They will feel drained and overwhelmed if they are kept from being able to socialize and share.

Extroverted children:

Are gregarious and outgoing.
Love to be around lots of people and other kids.
Prefer playing in groups.
Do not feel they have fully experienced something until they’ve shared it with others.
Talk a lot.
Find being alone extremely isolating and difficult.
Do not generally enjoy solitary activities.
Share. A lot. About everything.
Do not really get why anyone might want to be alone.

Being the parents, it falls on us to meet the kid’s needs. But being introverts, we can’t do this effectively unless we replenish our batteries on a regular basis. And clearly our coping strategies will depend on the age of the child: the baby that loves to be held all the time; the toddler who follow you everywhere, a constant stream of toddler-babble; the two year old who seems to be constitutionally unable to let you have two minutes peace, will all require different approaches.

As parents, it is our job to meet their very legitimate needs, but it is also our job to socialize them, and part of that can include learning to respect those who have different needs. Plus, you won’t be able to parent optimally unless you yourself have a chance to collect some energy. By insisting on a small recharging break each day, you may well be a much better, more effective, and certainly saner parent.

Coping Strategies:

Be sure your spouse understands and gets the whole introvert/extrovert thing. Their support will be crucial.
Create lots of opportunities for your child to interact with others, whether other adults, your extended family, or playgroups.
See if you can find another introverted parent who understands your need for solitude and see if you can spell each other for solitude breaks.
Do not feel guilty! You are not being selfish in needing this time—it is critical and will make you a much better, more loving, and effective parent.
If your spouse is an extrovert, try to let them take up some of the socializing slack. Washing the dishes by yourself might be more rejuvenating than trying to entertain an extrovert for a half an hour before bedtime.
Try to find ways to turn other duties/activities into recharging time. Play special music or listen to an especially soothing audiobook on your commute home; choose solitary activities for your exercise time—walking or running or biking rather than working out in a noisy, crowded gym.
Do not feel guilty! You are not being selfish in needing this time—it is critical and will make you a much better, more loving, and effective parent.
Teach your little extrovert to understand—and respect—others’ need for alone time. Have them do something for just five minutes, and for those five minutes, they cannot interact with you. Help them to build their self-reliance muscle because even though we live in an extroverted world, there will always be times when we have to work alone.
Insist on some kind of alone/recharging time every day—whether it is a bath once your spouse is home to take a turn with the kids, or a nap when your kids are napping, or even (horrors!) turning on the television or a DVD for half an hour. Let your housekeeping standards drop a bit and put solitude/recharging time at the top of your list.
Do not feel guilty! You are not being selfish in needing this time—it is critical and will make you a much better, more loving and effective parent. (No, this is not a typo--it is just that important to reinforce.)

When my extroverted son was in middle school, he got into online computer games and let me tell you, those were a goldmine! Guilds, leagues, clans, alliances, corporations, agencies, groups, people to talk to—he was able to shift some of his needs for feedback and socializing from his introverted family to his new online community. In fact, this sort of interaction can be critical for extroverted teens who live in small communities or have limited social choices available to them—it’s such a great, positive way for them to reach past their physical boundaries and connect—at that fully engaged, extroverted level—with people with similar interests.

One of the Meyers-Briggs' biggest uses is in companies that want to help their employees work more effectively together. I think understanding each others’ preferences is equally important in families. As parents, we need to help our kids step outside their own experiences and preferences so they can become fully socialized, interactive beings. What better place to begin than in our own homes?

And yes, I realize that is much easier said than done, but that doesn’t make it any less true. And repeat after me: You're not being selfish. You're saving your sanity.

[*Last week when I said I'd talk about what sells middle grade books? I lied. I was out of town for the weekend and just wasn't able to get the post together. So instead, I'm sharing this article that I wrote for GeekMom a few weeks ago. Back to our regularly scheduled programming next week!]

What Happens When The Chains Won't Carry You

2011-06-06T04:48:00.000-07:00

In the last few months I’ve seen a number of authors worried about what it means for their career when the Big Chains don’t carry their book. Many fear it sounds the death knell for their future, so I thought I would show a couple of actual, numerical examples of where it didn’t sound the death of a career. Namely, mine. One will be actual sales numbers, the other percentages.

[Please note, exposing my own sales numbers is not my idea of fun, but I have no one else’s to go by. Also? You will quickly see that this is by no means a brag-fest. Far from it. But, I am a true believer in the power of information and solid data as a vital tool in helping an author manage their career. Your mileage may, of course, vary.]

THE FORGING OF THE BLADE came out in Oct of 2004. It was envisioned as a young chapter book geared toward 2nd – 4th grade boys who wanted to read fantasy adventure books; a Lord of the Rings for the 8 year old set. Suffice it to say, it did not set the publishing world on fire. One year later, the hardback had sold a whopping 3,500 copies, 500 of those through the chains. So even with those paltry sales numbers, the chain percentage of overall sales was pretty small (14%).

However, the way to publishing success is often paved with happy accidents. About a month after that royalty statement, the (rather startling) announcement was made that FORGING OF THE BLADE would appear on that year’s Texas Library Association’s Bluebonnet List. I know you have heard that those state reading lists can breathe life into a book, but let me show you just exactly how much life . . .

The book went into a 3rd printing and I ultimately ended up selling nearly 15,000 hardback copies of the book. Which are still not Middle Grade Rock Star numbers, but they are a heckuva lot better than 3,500! Even so, only about a third of those were through the chains.

The paperback went on to sell over 26,000 copies and unfortunately my royalty statement for the paperback sales doesn’t break down the chain numbers. However, 11,000 of those sales were through a book club (for which I earned a whopping $773—or seven cents per book. Yes, that’s right, seven cents. Book club sales are terrific for exposure, but not exactly money makers.) Overall paperback sales were just under double of what the hardcover did.

This particular book has sold very few copies over the last couple of years and I expect it will be going out of print any day now, which is one of the reasons I’m so willing to share all the sales data. ☺

With THEODOSIA AND THE SERPENTS OF CHAOS, because it's still in print and selling strongly, I don’t know how kindly my publisher would take to me broadcasting the numbers far and wide, so for this one I’m going to talk in percentages rather than hard sales figures. But the point will still be made.

When the book first came out, one of the chains had placed a big initial order for the book while the second chain ordered zero copies. Of course, I panicked. Surely I would be handicapped from the starting gate!

But once again, that did not prove to be the case. To date, my chain store sales of that title are about 7%. Yep, 7%. And the paperback is now in its 5th printing. Clearly the less-than-stellar performance in the chains did not kill the book. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I found out the books are going to be published in Turkey! That's the seventh or eighth foreign country Theo will be visiting, and I think it's really interesting when you realize the book's been out since 2007, but happy accidents keep happening.

In order to hit a bestseller list such as NYT or the PW bestsellers, yes, you would absolutely need to be well represented in the chains. But as we talked about before, that is not the only path to success for middle grade books.

So please let this be heartening to all of you who worry and fret that without the chains your careers are in a deadly downward spiral! It is most definitely not the case.

Also, if there are any other authors with similar stories and percentages, feel free to leave an anonymous comment with your percentages/numbers if you’d like. Although of course, there’s no requirement. ☺

Next week we’ll talk about what does sell middle grade.

Solitude and Isolation by Jennifer Hubbard

2011-05-30T04:17:00.000-07:00

Solitude and isolation; aloneness and loneliness. These are issues that most writers must grapple with at some point in their careers, since writing is usually practiced in solitude. Even the writer who works in a busy cafe or a crowded household has to achieve a bubble of quiet within that space, to enable her to listen to the inner voice.

At first glance, these would appear to be non-issues for the introverted writer, who thrives in solitude. Yet introverts need human connection as well. We are not immune from loneliness; we are not invulnerable to solitude’s darker twin, isolation.

While solitude can be seen as the joyful state of being alone and liking it, isolation is another brand of aloneness. I can think of two kinds of isolation: the first, an aloneness imposed against our will, deprived of company by death or desertion, by the choices of others or by chance and circumstance. Most people recognize this form of isolation: we may have encountered it as “fear of abandonment” or “homesickness” or “mourning” or “the empty nest.” But there is also self-imposed isolation. At its most extreme, we might call this a social phobia. It’s the voice that whispers in our head that it’s just easier to be alone, that people are too unpredictable, relationships are too taxing. We are better off without others. We can go it alone. We don’t have to let anyone else in.

The difference between solitude and isolation is not a matter of quantity: people can be quite happy spending large amounts of time alone, or having a small circle of intimate friends. Rather, it’s a matter of quality. Solitude is an aloneness full of freedom, serenity, a sense of connecting with oneself. It may be joyful or peaceful, stimulating or relaxing. Even some unhappiness expressed in solitude may be healing: we may need time alone to work through our anger at another person, to mourn a loss, to have a good cry. This is still solitude, marked by feeling connected with the inner self.

Isolation, on the other hand, is marked by uneasiness. It may be characterized by numbness, a disconnection with oneself. Addictions often thrive in isolation: compulsive overeating, binge drinking. The aloneness is less a matter of choice than the product of an insidious whisper in the brain: Nobody wants to hear from me. I’m safer alone anyway.

In our society, with its emphasis on social relationships and extroversion, introverts are often assumed to be isolated. But most of the time, our solitude is just our battery-recharging time, the happy and fruitful aloneness we need. Our relationships are characterized more by depth than volume. When disconnection and loneliness arise—which can happen to anyone, introvert or extrovert—it’s important to reach out to those we trust, to break the grip of isolation.

All of us must find the balance that works for ourselves: time alone and time spent with others; time looking inward and time looking outward.

For more discussion of this issue, see Caroline Knapp’s essay, “Time Alone: Navigating the Line Between Solitude and Isolation,” in the collection The Merry Recluse: A Life in Essays, Counterpoint Press, 2004.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jennifer Hubbard is the author of THE SECRET YEAR and longtime Shrinking Violet. She also has impeccable timing. Thank you, Jenn!

An Interview With The Little Introvert That Could (aka Allen Zadoff)

2011-05-23T04:35:00.000-07:00

SVP: You’ve been called the Little Introvert That Could. What’s your secret?

I moisturize. Actually, that doesn’t help much. I think the key is accepting my limitations, even leaning into them a little. For example, I’m not great with social networking. When my first novel Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can’t Have was published, it was suggested I get on Twitter. I checked it out and saw that people who were good at it were tweeting a dozen or more times per day. They were funny and real, they were carrying on a conversation as part of a community. I could see what they were doing, but I couldn’t do it myself. So I was thinking, “I’m dead. I can’t tweet. I’m dead.” As if Twitter were oxygen, right? But then I thought, instead of trying to be a Twitter black belt, what if you just participated at any level? So I instituted Tweet Tuesdays. I’d send one tweet on Tuesday. That’s it. It sounds ridiculous, right? But instead of doing nothing, I was doing something. I was in the game. It’s a lot easier to go from one tweet to two than it is to go from zero to a hundred a week.

SVP: When did you first realize you were an introvert?

I was very shy in the womb. I hardly spoke to anyone. When I got out, the trend continued. As a kid, I was most comfortable in my room, watching TV, reading, listening to music. In my book My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies, the hero is a techie who hides up in the lighting grid and watches the world go by down below. People want to know where my inspiration comes from. I was that kid looking out his bedroom window at the neighbor kids playing, and I was afraid to join them. I can’t say why.

SVP: In what ways has being an author met or exceeded your expectations? What were some big surprises?

The young adult community is very welcoming to new writers. I was quickly embraced as part of a community of authors, readers, booksellers, librarians. People are passionate about their YA! That was a surprise. I was also very lucky in that my publisher and editor, Elizabeth Law at Egmont, was a fantastic tour guide. If you know her, you know she’s a delightful voice online and she has an amazing ear for story. What you don’t see is how she brought me into the fold, introduced me around, helped me find my way. She’s been a supporter, coach, and mentor, as well as a fantastic artistic collaborator.

Jealous! Allen got to have drinks with Lawsy!!

SVP: How has being a published author challenged you? Or did you know full well going in that publicity and promotion was part of the expectations?

Before I was a YA novelist, I published an adult memoir called Hungry: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin. I knew from that experience that promotion was a part of being an author, but I didn’t realize how big a part it really was. I come from the world of TV and film, and in those places there is a machine in place to promote things. But being an author, at least at the level I am an author, is more like having your own little theater company. You have to invite people, hand out postcards, sell the tickets, create a mailing list, follow up with people for the next show. You’re basically creating a community. Otherwise the show opens, and there’s nobody there. You’re sitting alone in the theater thinking, “I did all this work. What happened?”

SVP: Did your life B. P. (Before Publication) involve extroverted activities?

Of course it did. To tell the truth, I’m an introvert with a taste for extroversion. I really enjoy people. One of my favorite experiences was when I went to a friend’s wedding out of town, and a whole bunch of our mutual friends were staying in the same hotel. I was on vacation for the weekend, but I was surrounded by people I knew. I felt like a flower who had just discovered the sun. It was glorious. It also gave me a deeper insight into my introversion. While it’s a natural part of who I am, it’s also influenced by fear and a feeling that I’m not safe. When I feel safe with people, I relax and have a great time.

SVP: If your life BP did include extroverted activities, how did those prepare you for the demands of a promoting author?
Many people who know my work know I’m in recovery for an eating disorder going on fifteen years now, and long before I was published, I had many opportunities to talk to people about what it’s like to be a man with food and weight problems. Without knowing it, those experiences were helping me prepare for being an author. The difference is that in that forum, I’m talking to people who have had similar struggles with food. We’re not strangers because we share a common problem. When it comes to promoting my books, it feels a bit like I’m talking to strangers. I’m still learning how to be comfortable with it.

SVP: What are your three favorite promotional activities or ways to connect with readers? Your least favorite? Any embarrassing disasters you’d be willing to share with us?

Let’s start with embarrassment. That’s like mother’s milk to me. My novel Food/Girls won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award, and I was at the SCBWI conference to accept the award. It was in a banquet hall with something like a thousand people in the audience. I’d written a three-minute acceptance speech the week before, but I got the award the year Sid died, so there was a lot happening to honor him. First, Lisa Yee spoke about Sid’s life, then they showed a film about Sid, then Paul Fleischman, an amazing poet and Sid’s son, talked about what he learned from his father. Then Paul introduced me. As I was walking up to the stage, I thought, “I’m not giving this lame speech. I’m just going to speak from the heart.”
That’s quite a leap for an introvert!

So I walked onto the stage, thanked Paul Fleischman, looked at the audience of a thousand, and started to speak off the cuff. Now I don’t think anyone who was there saw anything bad happening, but the truth is I got about a minute into my acceptance speech, and I had absolutely no idea what I was saying. I was sweating and in trouble. I was thinking, “Why didn’t you give the speech, you idiot?”

SVP: In your newest book, MY LIFE, THE THEATER, AND OTHER TRAGEDIES, the main character, thinks “the best way to live life is behind the spotlight.” That sounds like an introvert to me! Is being an introvert and coming to terms with that a part of his character journey? In what way does being an introvert inform your writing?

Life/Theater is about a boy learning to come out from hiding and be seen in the light. It’s a perfect metaphor for the introvert’s journey, and it’s no coincidence that it’s me who is writing it. It gives me a lot of joy to write about shy, awkward, and uncomfortable characters who find the courage to be themselves in the world. That’s what we’re all trying to do, isn’t it?

http://allenzadoff.com
http://www.facebook.com/allenzadoff
http://twitter.com/allenzadoff

So doesn't that interview totally make you want to read his book? His voice and humor and humanity came through so loud and clear that it made me want the book right this minute. I was also struck at what a great example he is on working within our own limitations and strengths. Thanks for sharing your insight with us, Allen!

Aaaand, for a really cool opportunity, Elizabeth Law is offering a 30 page mss critique over on the Cynsations blog! If you haven't read about how she and Allen do the editorial dance, then get thee over there at once. It is most illuminating--and hilarious, as one would expect.

The Creative Freedom of Anonymity

2011-05-16T04:49:00.000-07:00

There is no shortage of anonymous bloggers, sources, and commenters on the web. It could even be said that such anonymity is a blight on the quality of online interaction—when people are anonymous they can often be much more careless, rude, or downright obnoxious. But for introverts, there can be remarkable freedom in anonymity, and I think we can use it to help gain new levels of creative expression.

As introverts, we like to think long and hard about what we say and how we say it. We are very aware of the affect our words will have on others, and the very many different ways they can be misinterpreted. We like to practice things in private until we’ve perfected them, only then going public with our efforts.

But that preference is not necessarily the best approach for expanding one’s creative horizons. Creativity demands risk, and risk is often uncomfortable for introverts. Especially risk with an audience.

And this is where I think a bit of judiciously applied anonymity can be invaluable. Sometimes we need to be invisible before we can find and speak our truth. We know we need to take the step of speaking that truth in a public forum, where others can encounter it, but we also need an extra layer (or two) of protection to keep that oh-so-tender and unexposed skin from all that, well, exposure.

I’m not talking about sock puppets, but rather a chance to get comfortable with a new way of being, a new way of interacting with people or of speaking truth on a deeper level than you are used to.

I know a couple of different writers who found their voice by creating anonymous blogs. It gave them a platform for attempting new things—for stretching outside their comfort zones, but with a safety net. I myself created an anonymous blog many years ago when I first started blogging. I found I really wanted to get the hang of blogging and commenting on other peoples’ blogs, but in a private rather than public way. (Again, I realize this is something only introverts will get—and even some introverts won’t understand. This is for those of you who do.)

As I think I’ve mentioned before, two of my strongest books came from projects that were initially just for me; my eyes only. They were safe playgrounds where I allowed myself to take risks and push the envelope, but away from any sense of an audience or judgment. The fact that they did end up being some of my strongest work has taught me a valuable lesson. It also wasn’t until I had blogged anonymously for a few months that I found my footing with blogging. In retrospect, I probably didn’t make any huge gaffes or errors, but I couldn’t have predicted that at the time. I easily COULD have made such gaffes or errors, and if I did, no one would know, so I felt secure enough to try.

Conventional wisdom says to blog, tweet and comment under your own name, as you are trying to build a brand, fer gawd sake, and you can’t build an anonymous brand. You can, however, use anonymity to experiment until you find the brand and personality you are most comfortable with

Sometimes I find myself having similar urges with pseudonyms—I could write anything I wanted, and no one would know it was me. I could, in essence, step away from my own backstory and start fresh. In fact, that’s an interesting question to ask ourselves: What would we write if we thought no one would know it was us? Would it be different from what we’re writing now? In what ways?

How would our online persona be different if we felt it was separated by a big enough divide from who we really are? Would that feel safer? Would that safety allow us to expand our creative boundaries? Speak more closely held truths? Take more risks?

[Also, if you get a chance, please take a second to fill out the poll in the sidebar! Last week's post on the writing process was hugely popular so we're trying to get feel for including more of those types of posts. Thanks!]

Guest Blogger: Anti-Advice from Erin Bow

2011-05-09T04:36:00.000-07:00

We're doing something new this week. Here on Shrinking Violets, we talk a lot about how the strongest promotional strategy is to write an aMaZinG book, so I thought it might be helpful to talk about the writing process from time to time. And we're going to start this new feature with a BANG! I'm very excited to have children's fantasy author Erin Bow here today to give us some anti-advice...

How to Get Stuck and Brood

(anti-advice for writers)

Hey fellow writers: here's a deeply bad idea. Google "How to Write a Novel." Three million four hundred thousand hits, and presumably at least some of the posters think they know, and can convey to the searcher, how a novel is written.

The top return is from the Snowflake Method guy, who gives us the "ten-step process for writing a design document." It includes step eight: "Make a spreadsheet detailing the scenes that emerge from your four-page plot outline." Further down Google's list are others, many others, who while they don't win my heart by naming themselves after well-known figures in fractal mathematics, do still offer the prescription, the method, the one true key idea that will make the grand words come to you and order themselves into some kind of story.

And then there are the books -- oh, shelves and shelves of books -- on how to write. A writer could crumple under the weight of all the words about writing. (Do painters have this problem? I suspect they do not, if only because painters don't assume they can write instructional books, and for some reason paintings on how to paint don't sell well.) Still, these books are attractive, because they Seem To Know What They Are Doing, while I, A Writer Of Very Little Brain, generally feel Entirely Surrounded By Vague Flailing. So the authority is tempting, even seductive.

But giving one's self over to authority has its downsides. Chief among them is that one generally discovers that one has been Doing It Wrong. This can lead to either strained efforts to Do It Right, or to Guilt.

I will acknowledge that trying new ways to write can lead to good stuff too: you can be stretched in new ways, think about new ideas. Sometimes one falls into the navel of writing, and finds it is dark there, without much room to manoeuvre. Perhaps trying someone else's writing method can help one pull one's head out of the place where it is stuck. One looks around, blinking in the sudden light.

But I think the Doing It Wrong and the Guilt are the more common reactions. Oh, fellow writers. Don't you already feel that you're Doing It Wrong? Don't you already have The Guilt? Why are you seeking out more? I wish we could be more gentle with ourselves. Here is my gentling manifesto:

No process that results in writing is a bad process.
No process that results in a miserable writer is a good process.
No one process works for everyone.
No process works for long.

No, you do not need to write 1000 words every day. No, you do not need to outline. No, you do not need to make a spreadsheet. No, you do not need to write first thing in the morning. No, you do not need to give yourself permission to write crap. No, you do not need to push through the spots where you are stuck.

What you need to do is not the same as what other people need to do. You need to write your own words in your own way. You need to find the process that helps you do that. And when the process breaks – for they always seem to break – you need to find a new one.

Me, I find a writer's notebook valuable, love to write snatches of overheard dialogue, descriptions of the people walking by in the street. Other people want to dive straight into a fictional world. I like to work in a highly ritualized way: the same few hours, in the same place, with the same cup of tea and the same music and the same smell from the same candle, etc. Other people think that's a bit much, and recommend prescription medication for me. Presumably some of them are coaxing spreadsheets to emerge from their four-page plot outlines, which I think is a little much.

The point is, it doesn't matter. What works for you, works for you.

And can we talk about “pushing through”? Oh, we live in a culture of pushing through. We go to work sick. We take pride in that, in our exhaustion and productivity, our general busyness. Working while sick, writing when we don't want to write. And, well, there's something to be said for it. Writing can be like dating: you have to think twice about standing writing up just because you feel like it. After a while, it will stand you up too. So, me, at least, I've got to be present, even when I don't want to be.

But being present is different than pushing through. I've learned to respect my deep resistance to pushing through. Sometimes I am not ready to write something. I need to brood – not brood in the Edward Cullen sense, but in the Mother Goose sense: I need to sit with my embryonic work and keep it warm. Or, since we are mammals, let me put it in mammalian terms. Sometimes, particularly before tackling something big, I need to wait. It feels like waiting to go into labor. You cannot will yourself into labor, though most of us, by the time we reach that stage, deeply want to. And even once in labor, there is no point in pushing before you're ready to push.

Don't worry, you won't miss the moment. It will track you down.

I have some pretty bad days when I forget this, when I try to rush the moment. Days when I work hard and do nothing, when I'm a battery hooked to a non-conductor, ending in tears of anger and frustration. Sometimes I do worse than nothing: Worse, because that pushing through pretty often puts me astray: I get somewhere, but it's not where I intended, or I've wrecked something important on the way.

Wait, wait. Be patient. Wait in a different way than that “blocked” feeling, that feeling that pulls you two ways like two horses: wound tight, but lethargic; defensive, but like a fraud. Do the ninth-month waiting. Feed and tend yourself lovingly, feed and tend the writing. Me, I write an essay, a poem, or if working on an essay or poem, a story. A friend of mine does fanfic. Go for walks, do your stretching. Breathe.

Is this too much? Especially for the boys out there? Let me try one more metaphor. This last year I learned to bake bread. I discovered that my favorite kinds of bread are the ones that don't need much kneading – or any at all. They get their rise from being swampy and goopy and much more wet than you usually think of a good dough being. (Hey! Just like my writing process!) They have to rise a long time. (Hey, just like my .... yeah, you get it.) And generally they're cooked hot. Very, very hot.

In the interest of being hypocritically helpful, I give you:

Things I learned about my writing from learning to bake bread:

You can overwork things: knead bread that doesn't want to be kneaded and you'll have bread that only double-stomached animals can eat, because it needs to be chewed as cud. Kneading develops the gluten, you see, the long strands of protein that give the bread its structure and strength. But you don't want a bread to be all structure and strength. You want it to have softness too. Whatever process you use for your writing, leave room for softness, for mystery, for levity, for surprise.

Enjoy the process. There's plenty of good bread in the world already, and most of us can get some without fuss. So why make it? For the smell, for the feel in the hands, for the pure satisfaction. When I sold my first book I had a bad spell when I forgot that writing was fun, because now I was a Professional Writer (Of Very Little Brain). Remember: for the smell, for the feel in the hands, for the pure satisfaction.

Rising time is as important as kneading time. In bread baking, it's obvious, as it is not in writing. Some times the right work of the moment is not to work at all. Things need to sit and develop. Don't poke them. Be patient.

No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can't put in your book can be used to wash the floor, to live in the soil, to lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.

But don't take my metaphor for it. Find your own metaphor. And run with it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Erin Bow is the author of Plain Kate, a Russian-flavored fairytale novel for young adults, out now from Arthur A. Levine books at Scholastic. In addition to ignoring books on writing, Erin ignores parenting manuals on raising two small girls, self-help books on marrying other writers, and cookbooks of all sorts.

Twitter: @erinbowbooks
website: http://www.erinbow.com

Introvert Innovation: Pamela Ehrenberg

2011-05-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the late post today! But it's worth it to read about this unique approach! Introvert Innovation at work!

How to Meet 14,000 Librarians Before the Babysitter Leaves

Shade helps. Also water and a fully charged laptop battery.

Last June, the American Library Association (ALA) conference came to Washington, DC: 14,000 librarians, three miles from my home. I planned to spend a full day, Friday, meeting librarians in the exhibit hall.

But at the last minute, I learned the exhibit hall wouldn't open until Friday evening, right around my preschoolers' bedtime. Weekdays were when I had childcare. I had to meet those librarians.

I sulked. I rechecked the ALA website. Finally, I bought foam board.

Friday morning, I collected my badge at the Convention Center. Then I crossed the street, put on sunscreen, and sat down to write in Mt. Vernon Square. The foam board announced, "YA Author At Work. Please Interrupt--I Love to Meet Librarians!"

And librarians came! From North Carolina, then from Paris. I met librarians from 10 states and four countries, plus a School Library Journal blogger and someone from the ALA's YouTube channel.

I even got some writing done.

Sure, my second location, closer to the main sidewalk, required propping myself up against tree roots. But I met two dozen friendly people who wanted to learn about my books and Skype visits. And I gained confidence as a publicist.

Of course, not everyone lives in a big conference city. But librarians, reading specialists, and other book people meet in state and regional groups too--often with trees or benches nearby. Just remember they want to meet you--and remember plenty of sunscreen.

***

Pamela Ehrenberg is the author of Tillmon County Fire (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2009) and Ethan, Suspended (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2007). More information about her Skype author visits and her online workshop, "Making Time to Write in an Impossibly Busy Life," can be found on her website, www.pamelaehrenberg.com. ; This posting was reprinted with permission from the SCBWI Bulletin (January/February 2011).

Guest Blogger Donna Gephart: 6 1/2 Thoughts on Marketing & Promotion

2011-04-25T05:15:00.000-07:00

Now that I’ve sold three novels, I wish I could talk to myself when my first book came out. I’d tell myself:

“Stop freaking out! People will read the book. You will get amazing e-mails from young fans, teachers, librarians and old boyfriends. You will even win a couple lovely awards.”

To you, dear reader, I say, “Do what feels comfortable. Say, “Yes” a lot. Let people know about your book and about you as a speaker, then move on and write the next book. If contemplating marketing and promoting gives you hives, think about the process as connecting and giving.”

Here are some examples from my experience that may be helpful:

School Visits:

When a friend told me a local middle school library was desperately in need of books, I gathered a bag of books our kids were not using as well as copies of my two novels and headed over there.

The librarian and I hit it off immediately. She was friendly and enthusiastic and really appreciated the donation of books. When she found out I did school visits, she invited me to give a (paid) presentation to the entire sixth grade class (about 400 students) and sign books at the school’s book fair.

A win for both of us.

Since that time, I’ve gone in to help her encourage reluctant readers to find books they’ll enjoy.

Media Attention:

A friend, Janeen Mason, suggested I contact her friend, Marilyn Bauer, who writes a local arts column blog for an area newspaper.

Marilyn is lovely! After she wrote about me, a reporter from that paper read my novel, How to Survive Middle School, enjoyed it and wrote a review in the newspaper, saying my book was good for both children and adults. (He even posted the review on Amazon.)

A parent read that review and told her group about me when they were looking for a keynote speaker for an event they were hosting. I spoke to that group about surviving parenting a middle schooler.

Another time, I wrote to a local reporter, telling her how much I enjoy her weekly “Meet Your Neighbor” feature. I’d been reading and enjoying it for years. The reporter asked if I’d consider being featured in the newspaper.

Of course I agreed.

After that article came out, I was contacted by several area schools about author visits.

Blogging:

I’ve been blogging since 2007.

A favorite feature is my 6-1/2 list – a cleverly disguised guest blog. Here are a few examples:

1. Erin Murphy and author Audrey Vernick give great tips about how to elevate quiet books.

2. Cynthia Leitich Smith discusses How to Promote Your Book Like a Pro

3. Cynthia Lord shares tips on creating great school visits.

Don’t blog in a vacuum. Follow and comment on other blogs. Doing guest blog posts is a great idea because it gives you the opportunity to connect with new readers. Thanks, Robin!

Your Book is Your Best Promotion Tool:

When you hear the advice, “Write the best book you can,” there’s a reason. Once your book comes out, it must stand on its own merits. Take my word for it, you’ll be glad you spent that extra time revising.

My first book, As if Being 12 ¾ Isn’t Bad Enough, My Mother is Running for President! had a lot of support from Random House. They flew me to Philadelphia to meet with influential librarians at a cocktail party during ALA. They promoted the book in print. They even gave out “Vote for Mom” buttons at a few large shopping malls across the country.

With all that support from Random House plus all my promotional efforts, the book did NOT break any sales records.

But instead of spending all my time and energy promoting that book, I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I wrote the next book.

ARCs of How to Survive Middle School were sent to reviewers by Random House. That’s it. I sent out an e-mail letting people know my book was out. And not a whole lot more.

Guess what?

How to Survive Middle School got starred reviews right out of the gate. It landed on the Texas Lone Star Reading List.

Before long, I got the happy news that it had gone into its FIFTH printing and sold out its advance. And it hasn’t even been out a year.

That had very little to do with what I or Random House did to promote it.

It was the book not than the promotion that made those things happen.

So, here are my 6-1/2 tips for you:

1. Write the best book you can.

2. Spend as much time as needed to revise and polish your book.

3. Instead of thinking about what you’d like to get (book sales), think about what you can give -- your time, advice, expertise, etc.

4. Connect in ways that feel comfortable and meaningful. Blogs, FB, Twitter, school visits, library workshops, articles for magazines – whatever works for you.

5. Don’t be shy. Let your friends, family and colleagues know about how excited you are about your new book. Give out your business cards liberally. Include your book and Web site/blog information in your signature line on every e-mail you send out.

6. If you’re introverted, get thee to Shrinking Violet Promotions. (Ha! We didn't even pay her to say that!)

6-1/2. Here’s the most important advice. My agent reminds me of it every now and again. Don’t get so caught up in worrying about sales and marketing and promotion that you neglect to do the most important thing for a long, healthy writing career: WRITE THE NEXT BOOK.

Donna Gephart tries to remember to WRITE THE NEXT BOOK from her home in South Florida. Her newest book, Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen, about a girl determined to get on the TV quiz show, Jeopardy!, comes out in 2012. Visit Donna online at www.donnagephart.com.

Debut Novel Expectations

2011-04-18T04:51:00.000-07:00

Dear R. L.

My debut middle grade novel has been out for a few months now, and I must say, the initial numbers are discouraging. It makes me wonder if I had unrealistic expectations in the first place. What are reasonable expectations for a debut middle grade novel? Can you share some thoughts on what a successful debut might look like?

This is such a great question that I thought I’d talk about it here, because so few debut authors have any idea on what to expect, either experience-wise or sales-wise. This is made even worse by the fact that so much of official marketing and promotion is about smoke and mirrors: it’s about making the book look more popular and ‘must-have’ than perhaps it really is.

So how can authors possibly gauge how well their book is doing? As we've touched on in a couple of recent posts (one by agent Erin Murphy and another by Sarah Prineas) there are so very many expectations a publisher might have for a book, and how success is defined by your publisher (and therefore you, to some degree) will depend upon those.

Middle grade novels in particular, rarely come out of the gate with the same big splash potential that YA novels can engender. I’m trying to think if any middle grade debut novels have ever hit a bestseller list. J. K. Rowling did, and so have Rick Riordan and Jeff Kinney, but not right out of the gate with their first book. Their first books did get there eventually, but it took a while. Okay, I just quickly consulted the PW 2010 Kid's Book Sales list and there are two: Big Nate by Lincoln Peirce and The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angelberger.

This is in large part because the end user isn’t the one buying the books, and is, in fact, not very plugged into the information streams along which books news travels. It takes a while to get word out to the gatekeepers, and then passed from the gatekeepers on to young readers. Younger middle grade novels can take even longer to find their audience because their niche is so specialized (emerging, independent readers) who stay at that reading level for only a short while.

Some publishers know this and actually plan for it, knowing there will be a slow-but-steady build for a given title. Other publishers, however, do still acquire books intending to use the Spaghetti Against the Wall approach (throw a bunch of stuff out there and see what sticks). Which is one of the reasons you hear so many insistent voices saying that the authors themselves must promote, promote, promote. And why others insist that authors write such a kick @ss book that the publisher will be compelled to do something different.

Part of your expectations will have to do with the size and nature of your publisher. Some publishers are big, bestseller producers, some are more backlist builders, and others are small independent publishers trying new things. This is where the advice and knowledge of an agent can be invaluable—recognizing what sort of book yours is, then matching it to the right type of publisher.

With middle grade especially, the first book is about laying the groundwork for your career. Because middle grade builds much more slowly, there are less flashy initial expectations. Especially when in hardback, the biggest initial consumers for these books are libraries and schools, and the wheels of book purchasing in institutions move slowly.

With the huge popularity of YA, the sales expectations for those books often come closer to the immediate gratification expectations of the adult book market.

The most commonly mentioned gauge of success for books is earning out the advance. Most publishers of middle grade books will be very happy if the author earns out the advance in the first 12 months. Some are happy if it earns out in the first 12-18 months. To know how many copies your book will have to sell, divide your advance by the per book royalty rate. If your book sells for $15.99 and your royalty rate is 8%, that’s a $1.28 per book. If your advance was $7,500, you need to sell about 6,000 copies to earn that back. If you get a $2,000 advance, your sales expectations are probably more in the 1500 copy range.

However, I have also heard that publisher can make money even if your advance doesn’t earn out, but I’m guessing that is for the larger advance amounts. I really don’t know where that profit/no profit line is for any publisher or specific book.

Many times with middle grade books, publishers will give an author a couple of books to build their readership, again because the advances tend to be lower and it takes a while for the gatekeepers to become aware of the books. They also know that if readers like your second book, they will often go back and look for your first book. Note that this is not a rapid trajectory to the bestseller lists, but a slow steady way to begin building a career.

This also gives you the time to lay the groundwork/foundation of your promotional efforts through making contact with librarians and schools, doing a few visits, building your new skill set. Very little of this can be done prior to having the book out, and then these connections don’t bear fruit overnight, so again, slow and steady is the keyword here.

Another thing to keep in mind here is that, unlike adult books, which are usually given about six weeks to take off, there are many opportunities for upticks in sales for kids books. State lists, reading lists, book club sales, book fair sales, etc. all provide additional chances for something good to happen. (Can you tell I'm an optimist?)

If you have an agent, see if they can have a conversation with your editor about what in house expectations are. If the editor isn’t forthcoming, then you will just have to rely on the first print run numbers being the best indicator of their expectations.

To show your publisher that you are, indeed, using this time to build your career, make up an overview of everything you are doing or have scheduled to promote your book. I would update them every six months on this so you keep them in the loop but don’t overwhelm.

And lastly, write that next book and see what ways you can push yourself and grow as a writer and make it even better than the first.

Twelve Tips For Twitterphobes

2011-04-11T04:21:00.000-07:00

It is no great secret that it took me a while to warm up to Twitter. And I am fully aware that I have probably not maximized it’s effectiveness in terms of marketing and promotion potential.

We talked last week about how it can be really important for introverts to learn to master skills they aren’t comfortable with before deciding certain activities aren’t for them; how competence can make you far more comfortable with an activity, which in turn might surprise you by actually being something you like.

So today’s post is for those of you out there who haven’t yet tried Twitter or who have given up on it or who are just plain flummoxed by it. Yes, I think one can have a perfectly fine marketing/promotional strategy without it, but as with most things, it’s best to fully understand and be comfortable with a tool before deciding not to use it.

Twelve Tips for Twitterphobes

1. If you’re not comfortable with the idea of a broadcast medium, don’t use it that way. Use it as a way to connect with other readers and writers on subjects that are of interest to you.

2. Do NOT pay attention to follower numbers. Remember, you're not using it as a tool just yet. You're simply exploring it as an option and getting comfortable with it.

3. Pick some role models of big, successful Tweeters you admire and study their strategy. Some of mine are Mitali Perkins, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Meg Cabot (I love that as successful and ‘big’ as she is, she follows everyone back.) It’s just such an inclusive strategy.

4. Try to talk a buddy or critique partner or two into doing it with you. That way you will have someone to have a conversation with.

5. Practice in private. Before going official, practice making small random observations and wry, ironic quips about life and jotting them down. And they don’t really even have to be ironic. Entertaining or relatable also work. I know it’s a big joke how everyone doesn’t need to know about what you had for breakfast, but honestly, sometimes those posts—wittily expressed or touching on the human condition in general—generate the biggest amount of conversation.

6. Find friendly people to follow. They don’t necessarily have to be people who follow you back, but people who at least respond to @theirname replies are good. It's easy to get one's feelings hurt to keep trying to connect with someone and have them ignore you, so just realize they're on Twitter for different reasons than you and move on to friendlier people with similar goals.

7. Just play with it for five minutes each day (it doesn’t have to be more than that initially) to scan the tweets of the people you follow. See if you can find just one thing that’s interesting enough to retweet.

8. To get started, you can ease into it by simply giving a shout out to a book you’ve recently read and enjoyed. If the author is on Twitter, you can say Just finished The Second Duchess by @elizabethloupas and loved it. (Which is mostly true, btw, only I haven't quite finished it yet. DO love it, though!)

9. If you read blogs or news sites or anything on the web, try linking to just one article you think others might find of interest. (To save characters, you can link using bitly or owly.)

10. One of the things that kept hanging me up was if we all follow each other, and we all retweet the same tweet that we find interesting, there’s a lot of overlap, but that’s just the way it works, so I had to let go of that repeating ourselves thing.

11. Not sure who to follow? Pick a peer or acquaintance and check out their follower list. Or pick an author you admire and see who they follow. There are also tons of lists out there that you can peruse. there are also Twitter directories where you can list yourself and your interests, as well as see who else shares your interest. Organizations such as SCBWI or Publisher's Weekly or Zen Moments are also fun and informative to follow.

12. Also? If you have a couple of separate interests, say in addition to being a writer, your day job is as a teacher, and look for people from both groups to follow and connect with, for that is the strength of Twitter: it’s ability to connect and tap into previous un-connected groups of people.

And that’s it. I can’t promise you fame, fortune, and unlimited book sales, but I can safely say if you give yourself two months, you will find that you are much more comfortable with it—and then you can make an informed decision if it is really for you.

Anyone else out there have some good tips for Twitterphobes?

A Uniquely Introverted Approach?

2011-04-04T05:10:00.000-07:00

In the comments a couple of week’s ago, someone said they were still looking for a uniquely introverted approach to being an author rather than settling for Extrovert Lite, and I thought that was an interesting point. It got me to thinking, what would a uniquely introverted presence look and feel like? Is there a way to craft presence that is truly based on introvert strengths and not Extrovert Lite?

If one’s idea of an introvert presence is to have to do absolutely no engaging or connecting, the answer is probably not. One exception to this might be if you wrote such a dynamic, compelling kick @ss book that the publisher gets behind it in a BIG way and does all the heavy lifting for you. Even then, they will most likely want you to have some presence, some way of your readers to find you, a web site, a Facebook or Twitter account, or a blog. But how you use them is up to you.

So how does an introvert take these tools and use them wholly in their own way?

I think part of that answer is to use them with a different end in mind; to connect with readers rather than to draw and create new readers. It is a small thing really, a shift in perspective, but one that is based solidly in the introvert’s personality and strengths.

Introvert strengths that can be used to connect with readers are:

1. We are good at connecting deeply and meaningfully with people.

2. We like to think and talk about big, important things and ideas. Not chit chat, but deep conversations.

3. While we do like to connect with people, it needs to be in keeping with our own energy levels. This is why the internet is such a huge breakthrough for introverts.

So we build our marketing presence on those three principles. In fact, it will not so much be a marketing presence but more about creating opportunities to connect. It might seem like a matter of semantics, but it radically shifts the focus and the goal of what you’re doing—and that goes a long way to taking it out of the Extrovert Lite category and putting it solidly into the Truly Introvert category.

The thing is, if you’re a writer, I’m guessing that means you had something to say, something that compelled you to give voice to the ideas and thoughts in your head. Connecting in an introverted way is simply about extending that at the edges, just a little bit.

As an introvert:

DON’T pay attention to numbers and visitor counters.

DON’T promote your work or put a scintilla of pressure on yourself to shill your books.

DON’T feel like the focus has to be all about you.

DO pay attention to each reader that stops by—answer their comments, create a relationship.

DO have your book cover and title and appropriate links somewhere on your site or FB page, just as one additional aspect of who you are.

DO focus on and talk about things that move you, things that you care about and are passionately involved in. Chances are, those issues touch your work in some way and can be a faintly connecting thread.

As for what tools are best suited to introverts, well, I know there are many introverts out there who enjoy Twitter, but an equal number find it distressing. Luckily, there are many other ways to connect. I am one who prefers Facebook to Twitter (although I am on both) because it is mutual and it is less about connecting in real time and just about connecting. It suits my own personal rhythms better.

Blogging is also good because it allows us to have deep, lengthy conversation, rather than quick, shallow sound bytes, which I am not so fond of.

Skyping is my new favorite thing and will, I think, allow introverts to connect in a big way with their younger readers. There is something very intimate about sitting at home in front of your computer with a group of twenty, eight year olds sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor. It feels much more like a conversation than a presentation and I cannot recommend it highly enough. I also highly recommend finding someone to practice with Thank you, Sarah! Thank you, Gbemi!)

In fact, I think that is the secret to getting comfortable with any extroverted activity: practice, practice, practice until it is second nature. You just have to speak in public, network, give a presentation, tell someone your elevator pitch often enough that it is smooth and practiced and all the bumps and kinks are worked out.

When one is lacking a natural affinity for something, rock solid knowledge and familiarity can be a helluva great substitute.

The thing is though, the true trick, is to not give up before you’ve achieved at least technical mastery. That is the secret to Toastmasters—you just stand up and speak in front of people so freakin’ often that you’ve gotten used to it.

It is also hugely important to keep in mind that there are an entire array of non-internet based marketing tools out there, so if any sort of socializing feels like too much, consider one of those. Targeted postcard mailings, extensive ARC and author copy mailings to key libraries, schools, and indie booksellers. For just about the best outline of these sorts of activities, I highly recommend Saundra Mitchell’s Tools for Writers here and here. For an introvert who is just not interested in any sort of connecting or socializing, that might be the most effective use of your time and energy.

I also think that, as an introvert, it is extraordinarily easy to take a lack of comfort with an activity and label it as extroverted. For many introverts, transitions and learning in public is not a comfortable thing. But that is different than not actually enjoying the activity itself, so maybe pick an activity or two and give yourself time to master it to the point of familiarity and competence and see if that changes your view at all.

The thing to keep in mind is that there ARE introverts out there who like to do things that other introverts don’t. So to say that including any of those activities is the equivalent of catering to Extrovert Lite isn’t exactly accurate. There are social, energetic, enthusiastic, communicative introverts out there. We can learn from them.

Anne Lamott goes out there, warts and all, and is completely authentic; interestingly, one of the things people love most about her is her absolute honesty and vulnerability.

No one can tell me John Green isn’t an introvert. I also find it fascinating that his huge internet presence came out of simply inviting others to participate in the genuine connection between he and his brother. There’s a big lesson there.

Mitali Perkins is an introvert, yet she is a big user of social media—but she uses it to be involved in matters she is hugely passionate about, to connect with readers and writers, and people who care about the same things she does.

Suzanne Collins, Meghan Whalen Turner, Kristen Cashore, all have very quiet internet presences. They’ve also written amazing books that have done very, very well. But even then, Collins ended up having to go on tour to connect with her fans and Cashore speaks and reads at a huge number of events. She even talks about her road to getting comfortable with that, something that did not come easily to her. Turner seems to have been able to maintain a very quiet presence, but she is also a Newberry Medalist, so there is that.

Another approach to help you develop and maintain a more uniquely introverted presence online is to take a cue from Elizabeth Gilbert. A couple of years ago, Mary posted about how Gilbert’s technique of telling her story to just one particular person in her mind, garnered millions of readers.

Most introverts not only have that ability—to talk meaningfully with one person—but actually enjoy that activity. Find out what sorts of conversations you enjoy having, then find a way to gently and quietly bring them to your author presence.

The thing is, the internet is an amazing tool. An important thing to keep in mind is it doesn’t have to be wielded at full blare in order to be effective.

I would love to hear of any people you think have created a uniquely introverted presence, or ideas, suggestions, or tips you have that would help someone do that.

Shhh...

2011-03-28T03:23:00.000-07:00

We're off on an introvert's retreat this weekend! Feel free to borrow the idea if you're hungering for a little peace and quiet...

We'll be back next week...fully refreshed and rejuvenated.

Dispelling Ten Myths About Introverts

2011-03-21T04:37:00.000-07:00

As most SVP readers know far too well from first hand experience, the myths about introverts abound. If you get tired of being misunderstood by friends, family, and coworkers, consider printing this list out and handing it to them next time they insist you really do want to attend that company picnic or huge party.☺

1. We are not all shy.

Shyness is actually a trait that is quite separate from being an introvert, and while some introverts are shy, there are also some very confident introverts, just as there are many shy extroverts. Shy involves being nervous or timid about social situations, or having a fear of being humiliated or in the spotlight. Introvert means that we draw our emotional and psychic energy from solitude. VERY different things.

2. We are not anti-social.

Quite the contrary! We have many close, dear friends, but we also recognize that being with people just for its own sake does nothing for us and, in fact, drains our batteries right quick. We love to connect with people, but not just mingle with hordes of people for its own sake.

3. Introversion is not a mental health issue.

In spite of the American Psychiatric Association’s current inclination to view it that way, introversion is a temperament, a way of being in the world, it is most decidedly not a mental health issue. Unfortunately, as our psychiatric profession puts more and more emphasis on medication and external behavioral therapies, and total conforming behavior, that distinction is getting lost. I think the argument could very easily be made that the drawbacks they often attribute to being an introvert come from introversion being MISUNDERSTOOD, rather than introversion itself.

4. We don’t not like people.

We DO like people! In fact, we love quite a lot of them. We just like to do it on our own terms. In fact, part of our desire to recharge is so that we may connect with those we love in a more meaningful way.

5. We do contribute to society.

Puh-lease! Artists, writers, philosophers, therapists, the sciences—all these fields are dominated by introverts. There are also introverts in just about every field you can name, from the clergy to teachers to nurses to pilots and engineers. Well, maybe not salesmen, although I bet there are some introverts out there who have had very successful sales careers. The thing is, the very thing that makes us introverts—that inward focus and desire to surf the world of ideas as if it were one giant wave is what makes our contribution to society so valuable.

6. Introversion is not a weakness that must be overcome.

It is not something we need to be cured of, or coaxed out of, or shamed from. Just FYI, many of the traits we introverts have are (or at least were) considered virtues and the signs of a contemplative mind.

7. We do not have intimacy issues.

In fact, introverts have some of the closest, most in depth, intimately connected relationships on the planet. Mostly because they do not look for connecting for its own sake, or collect acquaintances like baseball cards, but because when they do spend the time and energy to have a relationship, it will be a deeply meaningful one.

8. We are not broken extroverts.

Really. We’re not. Stop trying to fix us already. Remember how years ago they used to try to ‘fix’ left handed people so that they would become right handed? Yeah, that didn’t work out so well either and created LOTS of problems.

9. Introversion is not the same as social anxiety.

Introversion is simply the need to recharge in solitude, we simply get our energy from solitude. Being around people does not make us anxious, although it can make us bored, annoyed, overwhelmed, and just plain tired. And again, a lot of social anxiety can be traced to trying to force introverts to do something that does not come naturally for them. Sort of like putting an extrovert in solitary confinement. We don’t claim they have solitude phobias, do we? (Although, come to think of it, perhaps we should.)

10. Introverts are not self-absorbed.

We are self aware, which is an entirely different thing. The thing is, when we are alone, we’re not just thinking of ourselves and our feelings, we’re thinking of you and your feelings, the human condition, society, spiritual matters, in general, pondering deep thoughts. Sometimes those include our selves and many times they emphatically do not.

Talking with Cate Tiernan

2011-03-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

I am very excited to be able to share this guest post by Cate Tiernan with you today. You sill see that she is most definitely One of Us, an introvert to the core. I first 'met' Cate online years ago through her incredible, gripping YA series SWEEP. Her most recent book, IMMORTAL BELOVED, was one of my favorite reads last year, on of those terrific books that make you forget you're a writer. I love when books can do that!

I can do blog posts. I can do blog posts out the wazoo. Need a blog post? I’m your woman.

If, however, you for some reason need me to speak to strangers in public . . . you’ll find me under the nearest bed, trying to self-medicate with chocolate.

I understand that this is part of who I am, part of what makes me me. This is partly why I’m a writer, working alone at home in my bathrobe, and not, say, pursuing a career in customer service, where as soon as someone was mean to me, I would cry.

I’m a writer. To me, being a writer is basically trying to decipher yourself and others with a whole bunch of words--in the way that being a painter can be trying to decipher yourself and others with a whole bunch of paint. Or whatever your chosen medium is. But the point of the whole bunch of words is that ultimately, I’m trying to make a connection with other people.

I know: the irony.

But that’s what my writing is about. I’m trying to interpret the world around me (and the world inside me), and I’m trying to express that in a way that others will understand, and perhaps come to see themselves in, at least a little bit. For that reader, and for me, that’s a connection, and it means that we’re not alone: Someone understands us.

The trick is to do all this without someone really noticing.

People often tell me they’d like to be writers. They ask how I do it, and how they can do it too. I wish there was an answer like, You go to a certain website, and there’s a game there, and once you get to level sixty-five, boom! You’re a writer.

But no.

What I do is: I try to create worlds I’d like to live in. I try to create plots that are exciting, that I can live vicariously through. I create people I’d like to meet, or be, or love. Everything I see in the real world, everything I hear, everything I learn, taste, smell, feel--all of it is the raw material for my work. I take it all in and then I smush it together into a story, into characters, and I write it all down. And afterward, when I read it, I can see myself in the words. I can see my feelings and my heart and even things I keep hidden in the real world. And I put it out there in the hopes that my words will mean something to someone else--that someone else, shaped by entirely different experiences, immersed in a different real world--will somehow, as if by magick, see themselves in my writing.

The beauty is, everyone can do this. It is within every person to be able to connect with others this way. But--you need to know and understand yourself (at least mostly). You need to be able to understand others, put yourself in their sneakers. You need to love and value yourself and your uniqueness. You need to love and value others and their uniqueness. You need to pay attention to everything around you. And when you write, understand what you’re trying to say. Understand who you’re trying to say it to.

For me, writing is more than putting feelings on paper and showing the paper to the world, like, Here! It’s putting feelings on paper, showing the paper to the world, and saying, Do you feel this too? Does this help you understand? Can you see me? I’m trying to see you.

In my book Immortal Beloved, the main character, Nastasya, is someone who doesn’t understand herself, and truly does not want to understand herself--the more she digs down into her feelings, the more painful stuff she finds. The story is about her determination to keep going, to wade through the memories of her horrible past and pointless future, because she realizes how crucial it is to really know herself, really understand herself. Until she does, she won’t be able to know or understand or love anyone else.

Nastasya is a little part of me. Can you see me? I’m trying to see you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cate Tiernan was born and raised in New Orleans. She is also the author of Penguin Speak's vastly successful (and recently reissued) Sweep series. She currently lives in Durham, North Carolina with her husband and children. Her website is www.catetiernan.org.

What’s So Great About Those Bookscan Numbers, Anyway?

2011-03-07T04:40:00.000-08:00

Wherein I Expose Myself as a Bit of a Numbers Nerd

Okay, so a lot of the hoopla and hysteria has died down about Amazon introducing limited Bookscan data to authors. Now that the surprise has worn off and those that were liable to be shocked and dazed have recovered, let’s talk about just how useful a tool they can be. Especially now that we’ve talked at length about the very many different ways success can be measured and achieved, these numbers shouldn’t hold terror for you.

Because yes, I always come down firmly on the side of the more information the better and knowledge is power and any permutation of such sentiments.

Plus, isn’t it better to know if the numbers aren’t great early rather than later? Because if you find out early enough, at least you can do something if you want to. [Note: This is a luxury that applies mostly to children’s and YA books. As I understand it adult books have a much shorter window to ‘make good’ and by the time you realize it’s not happening, it may be too late to do much about it. Kids books, by virtue of their sales channels and distribution patterns, usually have six to twelve months, often longer.]

Important Caveat: You are only allowed to look at and play with your sales numbers if you can be professional about it and not panic and whine to your agent or editor. If numbers make you hyperventilate or break out in welts, best to come back next week. ☺ Also? Don’t engage in any of the following activities while you are in an active, creating phase. Save it for a fallow or dormant time.

So the first thing to do is begin recording your weekly sales numbers (by book) on a spreadsheet of some sort—either computer based or plain old paper. The thing is, four weeks of data is pretty much meaningless. It is putting that data in context where we can see patterns and trends and directions. So record your weekly sales. Not only are you compiling important information, but it is also a great metaphor/microcosm for the cyclical, up and down nature of publishing that you can see with your own eyes. Your book might spike one week, then be on a downward trend for the next two, then spike back up in the fourth week.

If you have more than four books out, as I do, and you only see three titles listed in the graph then a nebulous “other” listing, you CAN find out your sales numbers by individual title. Up at the very top left corner of the screen where it says All Books, there is a little orange arrow. Click on that to reveal each individual title’s numbers. (I actually just found this out last week.)

One reason it can be so helpful to see this information real time is that, if you’re lucky, you might be able to detect a cause and effect with your marketing efforts. After a series of Skype visits, or a blog tour, or school visits you may be able to see your numbers move, which will be a good indicator of which type of activities have an impact on your sales. However, it is also important to remember that sometimes the impact a particular activity has may not show for a while, so only use this in a reinforcement type capacity—not as a means of eliminating stuff.

See if you can get your agent to finagle some sort of performance expectation from your publisher or editor so you’ll have a benchmark you know you’re shooting for. Although a good rule of thumb is the goal of earning out your advance within the first 12-18 months, that is only one, very rough, measure. There are lots of others.

For me, where the Bookscan data has the greatest value is in the geographical breakdown. With these geographical numbers, you can do a much, MUCH better job of targeting your marketing and promotional efforts and therefore achieving a much better return on your investment.

The darkest blue areas are where you have the highest concentration of sales, the medium blue the second largest, and then the light blue is the third largest. For ease of discussion I’m going to call them Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 areas respectively. If you know where your sales are strongest, you can really tailor your marketing and promotion efforts, thus saving time and money and most importantly, energy.

For example, if you were going to do a post card mailing about your newest release to indie bookstores, it would make sense to perhaps start with the Tier 2 and Tier 3 areas, with the assumption that the Tier 1 areas are already big fans and well aware of your new release. However, you could send those Tier 1 bookstores some bookmarks or thank you notes for their support. A postcard or mailing you sent to the areas where you have few or zero sales would be more along the lines of an introduction.

Or let’s say you wanted to mail out some brochures about your availability to do school visits. Clearly it makes the best sense to mail those to the geographical areas with your highest level of sales, because you will have greatest name recognition there and most likely schools and libraries will have heard about you and be excited about your work and therefore more interested in having you come visit.

The same would apply if you were trying to put together a do-it-yourself book tour. It would make sense to target those areas where your books did pretty well to begin with so the bookstores could use your name as a draw and have a better chance of bringing in an audience.

Or if you wanted to do a mailing to key public and school libraries, perhaps it would be best to focus on your second and third tier regions to build on your mid-level market penetration.

Or maybe you can see that your books do really well in urban areas, but there are certain urban areas you haven't made a dent in. Perhaps those areas could use some of your marketing energy and resources.

You get the idea...

Hopefully all this number talk hasn’t given you a bad case of hives and you can see that this data holds some great potential for us authors, if we just spend some time thinking about how best to use it, other than using it to feed our paranoia. ☺

# # #

I want to thank everyone who weighed in with their time management suggestions last week! I will be adding them to the body of the post soon. In the meantime, I’d like to announce the winner of the book drawing is . . . Donna Gephart (aka Wild About Words). Donna, email me and I will get your signed copy of Mitali Perkins’ Bamboo People in the mail to you!

Managing Your (Computer!) Time

2011-02-28T04:57:00.000-08:00

As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, the INTeRnET can be an INTRovErT’s best friend. Never before have so many introverts been able to connect and socialize with others (also often introverts) from the comfort of their own home and on their own time table. It is a great tool—when we don’t allow it to overwhelm us.

This week I’m going to share some underutilized tools most of us have at hand that can help us control the internet and the demands it makes on us and our oh-so-finite time and energy. In order to manage all that is available to us, it is more important than ever to use all the time management organizational tools available to us.

Create Inbox folders (using Rule function with Outlook Express or Entourage) that send email directly to the designated folder where you can then choose when to read it when you're ready. It's surprising how much less overwhelming it is to not have every incoming thing cluttering up your inbox and demanding attention.

Consider the Digest setting for yahoo groups or listservs.

Organize your web browser’s bookmarks. Create folders on your toolbar that are separated or defined by their function and use to you. For example, instead of having an RSS feed where everything comes into your inbox, demanding attention, consider having a series of Blog folders grouped by their role in your life: whether they inspire, inform, or are for socialization.

Use a blogging platform that has a pre-scheduling feature. That way when you have a bunch of ideas or are feeling in a social mood, you can sit down and whip out a couple of blogs posts and then parcel them out on a more regular schedule. (Not that I ever do that. I write each and every one of these posts at 5:00 Monday morning then hit publish immediately!)

Depending on how you use Twitter (say, for broadcasting purposes) consider one of the many Tweet Scheduling programs. (I bet we could get Greg Pincus to tell us which ones he recommends!)

If you want to experiment with chats on Twitter, DO be sure to use TweetChat. I cannot even begin to tell you how much less stressful this is than just following the hashtag. Having said that, however, tweet chats are still pretty stressful for me (and my eyeballs.)

Freedom for PCs and Macs– I first heard about this from Lisa Yee. It's a program that basically locks you out of your internet connection for a set amount of time so you can, you know, write something.

If you work across multiple platforms and share the same content them, take advantage of the cross referencing tools available. For example, set up your blog to feed on Facebook (no, I haven’t done this yet) and set up your Twitter and FB status updates to cross feed.

So how about you guys? I know you all must have some brilliantly helpful tools and practices for managing all this. Please enter your favorite internet strategies and tips in the comments and I’ll add them to this post. Everyone who enters will get a chance to win a SIGNED copy of Introvert Extrordinaire Mitali Perkins’ BAMBOO PEOPLE. And if you don't have any tips, but you want a chance to win Mitali's books, you can just say "hi" in the comments. :-)

Lastly, in the comments to last week's interview with Jennifer Laughran, Jennifer left a terrific link that some of you might have missed, so I wanted to be sure and point it out to you. http://www.tribalwriter.com/2011/02/22/should-you-be-blogging-to-help-build-your-writing-career-or-is-it-a-waste-of-time/

I stumbled on the Tribal Writer blog a few weeks ago and find it very helpful. Justine comes from a slightly more entrepreneurial place than I do, but even if one is not geared that way there are still a TON of great thought provoking ideas.

An Agent's View: Talking with Jennifer Laughran

2011-02-21T04:19:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know I promised you practical tools for managing online information but I was just SO DANGED thrilled about this interview that I decided it couldn't wait another week, while practical online tips most definitely could.

I am HUGELY excited to share with you an interview with Jennifer Laughran of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, better known to those of you on Twitter as @Literaticat.

In an industry that can often overwhelm and confuse, Jennifer is an invaluable, accessible source of publishing insight and helpful information. After reading her blog and following her on Twitter for lo these many months, I felt sure that many Shrinking Violet readers would benefit greatly from some of that insight...

SVP: Are you an introvert? How about your clients, would you say a large number of the writers you’ve met are introverts?

JL: I am sort of a mixture. I can be quite outgoing, "on" - I am quite noisy and confident when in this mode, and I'm OK with talking to large groups or strangers. But I do need a lot of time to decompress afterward. I'd say for every hour of "on" I need two of quiet alone-time. I am not sure how my clients would define themselves in this regard. I'd imagine that most of them are kind of like me - able to be lively raconteurs, but possibly work better in solitude.

SVP: Your client list is widely varied and includes debut authors, those who have published a few books, and those who’ve been publishing for years. Can you pinpoint what qualities those authors or their writing have in common that drew you to them?

JL: They are all at the top of their form. Their work is all totally different, but always fun to read. They are all pretty much straightforward and open communicators.

SVP: What is your agenting style? Are you a hands on agent editorially? A shark?

JL: I do read and give notes, but the are likely to be big-picture or "Meta Notes." Like, I might tell you that I feel the main character seems too young to be credible and ask you to consider aging her up a bit. But I am unlikely to give detailed line-edits or copy-edit type notes. My authors tend to give me pretty polished work (and if it wasn't almost ready, I wouldn't have taken it on to begin with.) So, yeah. I consider myself a SELLING agent.

SVP: What do you think aspiring authors would be most surprised to hear about agents in general or you in particular?
JL: I think there is a lot of mystique surrounding agents. In fact, we are quite normal, and rarely drink writer blood.

SVP: What is the one biggest misconception authors seem to have about the publishing business?

JL: Many people think (quite erroneously) that there is some easy shortcut to publication that nobody is telling them, and that once they are published everything will be covered in rainbows and sparkledust.

In fact, getting published is mostly a very long, very slow, at times quite painful, slog. It is HARD WORK to be a great writer. Publishing is SLOW and AWFUL much of the time. I mean, don't get me wrong, it is probably better than digging ditches, and there can be moments of profound glory, but it isn't a get-rich-quick scheme by any stretch, and it won't make you happier or more fulfilled if you aren't those things to begin with.

SVP: You are not only a literary agent, but a bookseller as well. Did one lead to the other? In what ways does the bookselling inform your agenting?

JL: Well, I've worked in bookstores since I was twelve or so. My older sister owned a bookstore for many years and I was raised in a very booksellery family. I worked in children's bookstores throughout school and college. Then when I got older, I became a buyer and events coordinator for an awesome big indie in San Francisco. All of this has definitely informed my agenting - first of all, I came to agenting already knowing a ton of people in publishing, a ton about how publishing works, and A TON about kids books. Also, a bookseller is a tastemaker. Booksellers are evangelists for books that they love and handsell them to (often initially reluctant) customers. This is basically the same thing I do now, just on a different scale.

SVP: What is the biggest mistake you see beginning authors make?
JL: Beginning authors tend to torture themselves so much with the most minute and ridiculous things. Like endless stressing over word count, and how to format this and that and blah blah blah. While the internet is great and allows getting information to be easy, it is also awful because getting MISINFORMATION, or conflicting information, is just as easy, so many authors wind themselves up in knots. Here's the deal: Be a good writer, with good ideas. Follow the directions as best you can. When in doubt, use common sense and common courtesy. Stop freaking out. Here's a good blog post on the subject:

http://jaclyndolamore.blogspot.com/2011/01/dear-querying-writers-use-common-sense.html

SVP: Other than having a website, what other online activities and platforms do you think authors should participate in? If an author could only do three things to promote and market their work, what, in your opinion, should those be?

JL: I feel like authors should focus on their writing FIRST AND FOREMOST. If that means that they do less self-promotion, well, that's just the way it crumbles. I do think it is awesome and amazing when authors are great bloggers, or have entertaining and enlightening twitter-streams, or whatever... but maybe that isn't you.

I think that if you want an online presence but are not naturally internet-savvy, it is worth exploring the options (blogging? facebook? active forum participant? twitter? vlogging? group blogging? teaching online classes? a combo, or something else entirely?), then picking just a couple to really focus your energy on, rather than trying to become great at everything. If you have a blog you never update or that you clearly hate writing on, or a boring, self-congratulatory or irritating tweet-stream, it hurts you more than it helps you.

FURTHER, I think that when everybody does the same things to try to get attention, nobody gets attention. So while it is nice to say "yay, I am a debut author, I'm in a marketing group!" - look, there are 75 others just like you in the same "marketing group", and that kind of loses its impact. Not to say you oughtn't be in it - but I would really spend time focused on playing to your own unique strengths, and what makes your book and your point of view DIFFERENT from the other stuff out there. (Sort of like how you have done with Shrinking Violets!)

So three things... hm. Personally, I'd get to know real live booksellers and librarians and work on really building up my mailing list with quality folk. I'd have a fun and informative website. I'd probably have a blog and twitter, because I like doing them. But your three things might be totally different - and that is a GOOD thing.

SVP: Can you tell us what author platform means to you and how much of a factor that is when deciding whether or not to take on an author? Do you see an author’s platform affecting how an editor/publisher responds to a submission? Does that vary from publisher to publisher?

JL: Platform is really something that matters a lot when you are talking about nonfiction. Like, if you have written a book about polar bear rescues, and you are the president of the Polar Bear Society and have access to their mailing list of 2 million Polar Bear devotees, this is definitely important and worth mentioning up front.

For fiction, though, I am not convinced that platform really matters all that much. Sure if you are FAMOUS (have a TV show, or a show on NPR, or similar) that is awesome and will definitely help you immensely - but other than that? Nah. It can be a nice bit of extra sauce to a publicity package if, for example, you've written a thriller about kids dealing with climate change and megastorms, and you are an expert in that field - but it wouldn't convince a publisher to go for the book, if the book wasn't worthy on its own.

SVP: In what way has the rise of social media and increased online avenues benefited authors? In what ways has it made things more difficult?

JL: Social media gives people a chance to put themselves out there more easily. But it also gives people a chance to put themselves out there TOO easily. Sometimes the conversations we have online feel like a handful of great friends gossiping and gabbing in your kitchen... but in fact, you are in public, not at a sleepover. Personality definitely shines through and will help you stand out, but you have to figure out how to be personable and personal without being weird or offputting. It's a fine line sometimes. :-)

SVP: One thing writers hear a lot from agents is the recommendation to not compare yourself to others. While that’s most excellent advice, it is often hard to follow. Do you have any words of wisdom or tips to offer writers how to specifically guard against those unhelpful comparisons? Are there concrete ways that comparing can be detrimental, not just demoralizing?

JL: The thing to remember is, every book has its own path. Literally NO books that I have agented have been bought or published the same way. Some take a long time and lots of hard work to sell, some get snapped up in a hurry at auction. Some get a huge advance, some... don't. Some are rushed to press with very little in the way of work done, some take years. Sometimes books with a huge advance get a lot of publicity... but sometimes they get ignored. Some books are orphaned or ignored, but go on to be big successes. There is just no way to predict what will happen with any given book when you start out, and especially not once it is published and sent out into the world.

It kills me when authors compare themselves others, "my editor took longer to get back to me than she did with so-and-so, so she hates my book" or "I didn't get a good advance, so I'm doomed" or "I didn't get a pre-pub tour/get invited to BEA/have a tour set up for me, so my publisher doesn't believe in me" or whatever other insanity (and I have heard a LOT of insanity!). Authors have a tendency to be neurotic at the best of times, and the free access to too much information (via other author blogs, marketing groups, or similar) seems to exacerbate the neuroses for a lot of people, to the point where even very smart authors can make themselves sick, or stop being able to produce good work.

If you are caught up in the envy-paranoia-despair trap, I strongly recommend this blog post by Lisa Schroeder: http://www.lisaschroederbooks.com/2011/01/why-oh-well-needs-to-become-authors.html

SVP: What three authors, other than your own, living or dead, would you like to have dinner with?

JL: E. Nesbit, Bertolt Brecht and Oscar Wilde. I don't know if they'd get along, but it would amuse the heck out of me.

SVP: What was the moment you realized you wanted to be an agent?

JL: From being around the book business, of course I knew that agents existed, but I honestly didn't know what they did exactly and didn't think too much about it. Then I met a very cool agent at a book event and we went out for drinks and food after with a bunch of his clients. A bunch of happy writers and a fun, funny and smart agent. YAY! His enthusiasms and interests seemed aligned with my own and he clearly had a total dream job. So, I looked more closely at it, got an internship, worked hard (for years. for free.) while learning the ropes, and it turned out to be a really good, natural fit for me.

SVP: Do you believe that cream rises? That great writing will always find a home? Or in some cases does great writing overlooked due to the realities of the marketplace?

JL: I honestly think that great writing will find a home, provided it is accompanied by ingenuity, perseverance, patience and flexibility.

A person can be a talented writer, but if their work is old-fashioned and they won't or can't revise it ... or if they don't have the gumption to actually send their work out... or try another story if the first one doesn't sell... or if they get too freaked out by uncertainty or can't handle critique... well those folks might be better off in a different line of work.

Managing Information Overload

2011-02-14T05:01:00.000-08:00

The internet can be a wonderful thing, or it can be the most overwhelming time sink known to man. Indeed, it is both and I think one of the trickiest balances is finding how to use the internet so that it keeps one informed and abreast of one’s industry, without drowning us in too much information.

How do we find that balance? How do we learn to filter out the 24/7 onslaught of publishing tips, publishing trends, publishing warnings, writing rules, writing tips, and writing Must Dos? Not to mention all the marketing and promotional ~~directives~~ ~~orders commands~~ advice out there? The problem with the internet is that the information available is infinite, and our time is not. It is so easy to sit there and follow the trail of links, certain that they will lead us to the One Vital Answer that we seek, when all they are really doing is taking us away from more important and nourishing tasks.

For me at least, this is where the discipline part of writing comes in. I have no trouble producing pages, it’s the blocking out unnecessary ‘information’ that lurks everywhere, promising to inform and enlighten me to within an inch of my life.

For example, I keep reading everywhere that authors need to be ready for the coming revolution in publishing, whether than means e-books only, or no gatekeepers or fitlers, or all our books available free on the internet and the collapse of the paying model, such as what happened in the music industry. But you know? There just isn’t much I can DO about any of that. There is no proactive action I can take to ‘prepare’ myself other than be aware that it might happen. Some people feel that because of those coming changes authors need to be even more vigorous/vigilant about building an online presence and following so they can interact directly, but you know what? Nearly every author I know who has the desire and the temperament is doing that already.

Which is why I have stopped reading those sorts of articles. I found one or two sources which I've found to keep me informed, and I ignore the others.

The thing is, yes, it is good to be informed as to how the industry works in general. But 95% of the stuff we read about is not something in our control. Most of us have no control over distribution or what the publisher does to market us, or get word out, and most of us simply don’t know thousands of people to tap into.

So I try to limit my internet information intake to those things that help me do better those things I am committed to doing.

And I try to eliminate that information which serves no actionable purpose. For example, I don’t subscribe to Publisher’s Marketplace when I’m writing a book. Yes, those deals are fascinating and numbers are like crack to me, but dear gawd, every time I read one of those suckers I begin comparing and competing and get all tangled up in the very least desirable aspect of writing. The only time I subscribe is when I have a new project I’m shopping, then I cancel the subscription.

Even information I am interested in, profiles of new writers and books, for example, I only ‘take in’ on certain days or after all my writing is done for that day.

Which is I am so in love with my Holy Trinity of Guiding Principles: Trust, Nourish, and Persevere. Is this article, blog, tweet feed helping me to trust in my process and skills? Is it nourishing either of those by helping me expand my boundaries and try new things? Or is it helping me persevere in those areas of the business that I need to apply perseverance? If not, I need to seriously question whether it’s something I need to spend my time and energy on.

I highly recommend a cyber spring cleaning at least once every six months, although I think once a quarter is better. Our needs and process change and evolve, probably more quickly than we think we do. Go through and evaluate each of those online places where you spend your precious time and psychic energy. If you have one word for 2011 or developed a trio of words, run each cyber haunt through that filter and see if it still fits. If it doesn’t, stop visiting it.

It doesn’t have to be a permanent break up; you can keep it in your bookmarks, just don’t visit every day or remove it from your blog feed. It can just be a hiatus—to see how you do apart. You might find you don’t miss it a bit, that your psyche gives a big, relaxed, ahhh, now that it doesn’t have to process/juggle/wade through that cyber information.

So here is my challenge to you: see if you can reduce your online intake of information by at least one third. One half would be even better. Next week, I’ll present some practical technological tools for juggling the remaining half…

And the week after that? We have a Super Exciting, Seekrit Guest Interview which will make you all very, VERY happy!

Literary Agent Erin Murphy: Success Is Like A Snowflake, Too

2011-02-07T04:15:00.000-08:00

[I am very excited to share with you the wisdom and perspective of my agent, Erin Murphy in today's guest post!]

Success is Like a Snowflake, Too

It’s not just writing careers that are like snowflakes—it’s equally true that the success that each writer experiences is unique.

This is something my clients and I talk about a lot as we look at the big picture of their careers. Some big quantifiable measures of success out there in the publishing world for all to see: Bestseller lists; deals that Publishers Marketplace calls “very nice,” “good,” “significant,” or “major”; star treatment at conventions like ALA; special placement in chain bookstores; starred reviews and awards; Amazon rankings.

And those measures are even more visible today than they were just five years ago, thanks to the many authors and industry professionals who talk about their experiences on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. Sometimes I think it must feel impossible to believe anything else is important when you’re a writer.

These seemingly quantifiable measures are simply not as concrete as you might expect. There are many articles out there about the myth of the bestseller list and the Amazon ranking, and about the negatives of large advances. And the major chains (perhaps soon to be the singular “chain,” although I certainly hope not) carry such a small percentage of new books on the bricks and mortar shelves that I believe our entire industry needs to stop using a buy-in from the chains as any kind of requirement for satisfaction.

However, these things are not the only measures of success in publishing. It might appear that way, but it’s just not true.

In Robin’s case, it was tremendously helpful for us to realize that she had reached a benchmark point in her career: her publisher values her steady contribution to their catalogs and sees her as a lifetime author, someone whose work is valuable on their backlist and continues to grow in value as she continues to publish and grow creatively. While her sales figures aren’t bestseller-level, they are steady, and most importantly, her publisher is happy with them.

There are many authors out there that don’t know or understand that their publishers are happy with their sales, or aren’t sure their publisher will want the next thing they write. So having achieved this is huge, but it isn’t quantifiable. And it certainly isn’t as sexy as a significant deal or NYT Bestseller designation.

The danger of the most obvious benchmarks is that it’s too easy to fall into the comparison game, stacking up your own career against someone else’s. You can’t compare apples to oranges, and you can’t compare one snowflake to another and declare one prettier or better.

The author whose books have never been carried by the chains is jealous of the one who has a presence there. The author who has never had a starred review is envious of others who have. The authors who are unhappy with their advances are jealous of having never cracked the elusive “very nice deal” ceiling. But oftentimes there is a darker side to each of those scenarios. A huge buy in from the chains can mean equally high returns. The stress of earning out big advances can rob writers of their joy in creating the next book—or even block then entirely. Or that NYT bestseller might suddenly find themselves pigeonholed by their publisher for a type of book they’re not compelled to write anymore.

If each one would note the success she has achieved instead of what she hasn’t, the writing world would be a happier place. How many times have I pointed out to a client that she’s so fortunate that her books always get carried by the chains, for example, only to have her say, “But that always happens! I never get ___!” Yes! It always happens! And many other writers long for it to happen. Appreciate your successes; don’t downplay them.

This is not to say that it’s not okay to have goals to reach new kinds of success—but you will stay much more sane if those are goals you have some measure of control over. Most of the high visibility measures of success are completely out of your control—and therefore crazy-making.

Here are some other ways to measure a successful writing career. They don’t get nearly as much attention and buzz as their higher profile cousins, but they can be vital in solidly anchoring a writer’s success:

• Passionate hand-selling by independent booksellers.
• Inclusion on state library lists.
• A happy, nurturing, and fruitful editorial relationship.
• A happy, nurturing, and fruitful relationship with the entire team at the publishing house.
• Acceptance of the author for inclusion on panels at state and national conferences for teachers and librarians.
• Regular publication of new books.
• Sale of subsidiary rights (audio, foreign, etc.).
• Regular requests for school visits.
• Generally positive reviews of each new book from the major publishing review media.
• Featured placement in book club catalogs, teacher resource guides, and the like.
• Inclusion of a book or body of work in the national or international discussion of an important or issue, indicating the book has helped raise awareness.
• Fan mail—especially deeply personal fan mail that shows a writer has reached readers at crucial moments or has turned non-readers into readers.

I could go on and on, and still just be talking about outward signs of success—we haven’t even touched on the writer’s joy in the process, satisfaction with pushing herself creatively, or engaging with readers directly, which are also valid, but very different, measures of success.

One of the many things that stood out for me when I read about Sarah Zarr’s much-talked-about speech at the 2011 SCBWI New York conference was what she called “the commodification of creativity”: valuing your creative work “only in the context of the marketplace.” Don’t let that happen to you. Each individual success is worth noting, celebrating—and claiming for your own.

# # #

Erin Murphy founded EMLA in Flagstaff in 1999. She works with publishers of all sizes all over the U.S., and has placed clients' books with every major children's house in New York and Boston, but she cut her teeth in regional publishing. Erin represents writers and writer-illustrators of picture books, novels for middle-graders and young adults, and select nonfiction. She is especially drawn to strong characters and heart-centered stories.

How Writing Careers Are Like Snowflakes

2011-01-31T00:53:00.000-08:00

And no, it’s not because they melt away into nothingness two seconds after hitting the ground. Don’t even let such a negative thought taint your mind!

It’s because no two are ever exactly alike. Pretty simple, huh? But one of the hardest concepts for us authors to grasp. Hell, even publishing professionals have a hard time accepting it, although they are aware of it more than the individual author since they have access to data for all their books.

Someone on Twitter last week (and I can’t for the life of me remember who it was—if it was you, let me know so I can properly credit you!) linked to this year old post by Christina Dodd. The whole post is definitely worth reading, a twenty year’s veteran’s look at the biz, but this nugget in particular really struck me:

9. From my vantage point, everyone in publishing is doing better than I am. From everyone else’s vantage point, I’m doing better than they are. The truth is somewhere in between — and an author who’s published is not going to get any sympathy at all from an unpublished author who’s written for ten years, finished three manuscripts and has twenty-five rejection letters. Believe me. I know. I was that author.

The fear of failure nips at our heels no matter what stage of our career we're in. It is so, so easy to sit from the outside looking in and be certain--absolutely certain--that Author A is a raging success and has it all and their books are selling like hotcakes. But the truth is rarely that simple. The really hilarious thing is I’ve had people say that of me, and I can never hold back a snort of wild disbelief. (See previous paragraph.)

A couple of weekends ago I attended ALA. While there I became convinced of two things.

1. Twitter does help buzz books. I can’t tell you how many times I heard people standing in lines for arcs saying, I heard about this book on Twitter. (Which will be the subject of a future post)

2. A big web presence or Twitter following does not guarantee actual book sales. Standing in line for free ARCs is a very different thing from plunking down cold hard cash for the book

I cannot tell you how many people I’ve talked to over the last month or heard talking on blogs, bemoaning their lack of sales, and yet these people DO have really big followings. These are people who are worried about earning out their advances, whose sales are far below expectations, or who are worried about their next contract. Every single one of them has what I consider to be a pretty healthy--if not downright BIG--web presence.

Which proves precisely what I’ve suspected all along: Big blog/Twitter followings propel a teensy percentage of people to publishing success, but no more and perhaps even less than a greatly written book, an award nomination, or the full force of the publisher’s marketing department behind the book.

It is ONE way in a myriad of ways to achieve success.

And the important thing to remember is that no one really, truly understands how one book becomes a success and the other one does not. Sure, there are certain things that must be in place: good storytelling (notice I did not say brilliant writing), publisher support, usually co-op of some kind, but not always. But any given publisher can have two books that should by all intents and purposes appeal to the same audience, and yet the marketing efforts that work so spectacularly on one, fail to have any effect on the other.

Even with Penguin’s big bestsellers, each book had slightly different ways it was marketed to its audience: NIGHTSHADE had an extensive and elaborate interactive Facebook presence and ACROSS THE UNIVERSE had a first chapter sent out through PW. Different approaches for different books.

This is especially important to keep in mind as you keep hearing that the midlist is dead. You’ll hear that on Twitter, in blog posts, at conferences. (Go here for a most excellent description of midlist. Actually take the time to read the whole series. It is the best, most comprehensive explanation I have ever read of the publishing business and the pressures it faces.)

The truth is, a majority of books that become successful do so in their own unique and individual way. This year’s Newberry Awards are a HUGE illustration of that. Most of those books were sleeper books that did not get a significant push from their publisher. Indeed, true midlist books, all.

Some get a surprising number of starred reviews, causing the publisher to take a second look at its vision of the book, some gather huge in-house support and enthusiasm as the book moves through editing and production, and that in-house enthusiasm helps propel the book. Others get state list nominations, or actual award recognition. Or the Junior Library Guild gets behind it. Others build more slowly over time with great word of mouth from teacher to teacher or kid to kid. Sometimes a big chain falls in love with a book and their enthusiasm helps propel the book. Or it gets picked up through the book clubs or book fairs. Or Target takes a buy in.

Or any combination therein.

And a lot of those things don’t even happen the first year out. In fact, looking at my own books, when any of those things have happened to one of them, it happened after it had been out for a year.

And absolutely NONE of them happened because of my online activity.

What has happened from my being online is that I’ve met a lot of great, like-minded people, connected with my readers (although 90% of this has been through the contact page at my author website or the Theodosia blog—not social media.) I have also been tapped for blog tours and guest blogs, book giveaways, and interviews. All of those have helped, but I’d be HUGELY surprised, I mean gobsmacked, if I sold more than 300 books through my online involvement. (Part of this might be because I write middle grade and my end reader is not actually online in a big way. I am going to be really curious to see how this differs—if at all—when my YA comes out.)

So as introverts, we need to really pay attention to the fact that there are SO MANY different paths to success. We need to question the pressure we’re feeling to be online and involved in social media and understand who is pressuring us and why. If it is just because other people are doing it and think you should do it, too, or it’s because Online Guru #43 says you should, then ppfffft. Ignore that. If it’s because your publisher is pressuring you, well that’s a little different. Perhaps a heart to heart conversation with your editor is in order so you can understand precisely what they are hoping your social media presence to achieve, then you can see if there is another way to achieve that.

If you look at the authors who seem to have hugely influenced their sales through their online presence (at least as best as we can tell, although some of them are very open about it) they are most often extraverts. If they ARE introverts, they are very enthusiastic, expressive, gregarious, and energetic introverts.

And maybe you’re not. And you know what? That’s okay because there are lots of different ways your book can find its way to success. Your career is like a snowflake. It will be uniquely yours and have its own sets of ups and downs, highs and lows, discouragement and reward. The best thing you can do for yourself personally, and your career, is find a way to not only accept that, but savor it.

# # #

And now, for the winner of last week's contest! The winning number is 15! Kenda, that's YOU. Please email me and I will get the SIGNED copy of Sarah Stevenson's THE LATTE REBELLION out to you!

Taming That To Do List

2011-01-24T04:24:00.000-08:00

If you’re like me, you no doubt had lots of plans and goals (not resolutions!) for this year. And if you are like me, you may already be feeling a teensy bit overwhelmed by all that you want to accomplish. My year’s to do list looks something like this:

Write 2nd #medievalFrenchteenassassinbook
Revise 1st #medievalFrenchteenassassinbook
Redesign and relaunch website
Promote 4th Theodosia book (pubs April 2011)
Promote 4th Nathaniel Fludd book (pubs April 2011)
Create Marketing plan for above
Attend agency retreat (Austin, TX, April)
Teach one day session at SB Writer’s Conference (June)
RWA Nationals
SCBWI Nationals?? (August)
Attend first World Fantasy Con in San Diego (October)
Write weekly entry for Shrinking Violets
Write weekly entry for GeekMoms
Write entries for my own blog
Participate in Enchanted Inkpot
Write entries for Theodosia blog
Comment more on other people’s blogs
Twitter
Facebook

That doesn’t even count the big personal To Do items like:
Do my taxes
College search for son
Get son settled in said college
De-clutter house of twenty years worth accumulated crap

So where do I even start? If I think of all that I have to do, I immediately feel fragmented and overwhelmed.

As introverts, our energy for this stuff is finite and we have to use it wisely so that we gain maximum benefits without draining our battering to the emergency levels. How do we do that?

And that’s when I realized that my word for the year really does need to be TRUST rather than confidence. Not only do I need to trust in myself a lot more than I do, but I need to trust that I will be able to get to what needs to be done.

Even so, when I look at that To Do list, I have to dig deep to find that trust. Trust that I can get to everything, trust that the things I don’t get to won’t really matter in the end, that if I just keep washing my bowl and washing it the best way I know how, that will be enough.
But trust isn’t much help in prioritizing.

True prioritizing has to come from a deep, centered place and takes more than a cost benefit analysis. We have to understand on the deepest level what our life and career goals are.

At this point in my life, my priorities are:

My family (But they are all very independent and (mostly) on their own now, so require much less of me.)
My health (Which seems so obvious but I am willing to bet I am not the only woman here who has put that on the back burner for far too long.
Writing (Although sometimes, quite honestly, writing comes before health, which I need to work on.)

Looking at those two lists side by side, another word I almost chose for 2011 kept floating around in my head: nourish. I got to thinking about trusting and nourishing almost being a complete directive on their own.

But to reach our dreams, and find the energy to tend to the business side of our dreams, something more was required. Perseverance.

Suddenly I had a To Do List Triage Protocol in place; a veritable Holy Trinity of words to use as my guiding principles as I pursue all that I want to do this year. By asking how the items on my To Do List help me achieve my goals by building trust, nourishing, or helping me persevere when it is required, voila! My priorities suddenly became much clearer. I was able to identify those tasks that are most central to my life/professional goals.

The unpleasant truth is, there are lots of tasks that simply have to be on our To Do list so we may continue to do what we love. And that’s where the word persevere comes in. If you are a published writer, a lot of those To Dos probably pertain to the business side of things. But here’s the kicker: YOU get to decide precisely which business things those entail. It could be blogging, Twitter, compiling a massive mailing list for postcard mailings upon the publication of your next book, putting together kick @ss brochures for school visits, teaching at a conference, whatever you are comfortable with.

Remember that no one can do it all, and no one really expects you to. (And if they do, send them over to see me and we’ll have a heart-to-heart wherein I will set them straight.) You will be the most effective in those promotional or marketing activities you actually enjoy or, barring that, can find a way to hate less. ☺

So now it’s your turn. Can you spend some time developing a To Do List Triage Protocol? I can personally recommend the three word approach. It’s totally freed me up. AND, if you share your ideas with us, I will enter you in the drawing to win a signed copy of THE LATTE REBELLION by our very own Sarah Stevenson! (Not even introverts can resist that offer!)

In the Spotlight: Sarah Stevenson and Lisa Schroder!

2011-01-17T05:54:00.000-08:00

This week we're going to shine the light on a couple of fellow violets who've had some pretty big milestones in their promotional lives.

First off, I was lucky enough to meet Miss Sarah Stevenson (whom some of you may know as aquafortis) at ALA Midwinter last week where she was signing her debut novel, THE LATTE REBELLION! Sarah has been a violet since the very beginning, so it was very cool to see her signing books and greeting her adoring fans like an old pro.

(And look at that, both she and Cindy Pon were wearing violet in honor of the occasion--although I will tell you right now, Cindy is NO shrinking violet. She is, however, the perfect person to follow around at big events like this because she very graciously takes all the social heat.)

Sarah even signed a book for you (yes, YOU) and we will be giving it away here as a prize in the next few weeks. Congratulations, Sarah, on the release of your first book!

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Lisa Schroeder, author of numerous books for kids and teens, including CHASING BROOKLYN (Simon Pulse, 2010) and IT'S RAINING CUPCAKES (Aladdin, 2010);also experienced a huge promotional milestone--she was on TV! ::shudder:: and has graciously agreed to allow us all to live vicariously through her experience.

An Introvert's Worst Nightmare - the TV interview

I only have myself to blame, really.

You see, when I met someone who worked for a local television station, I jokingly said to her, "Hey, maybe you could pitch a piece about my new novel for kids, It's Raining Cupcakes. Everyone loves cupcakes, right?"

She went to work and did just that, to another producer who works for the show Better Portland. And within a couple of weeks, I had an e-mail asking if I'd be willing to meet up with one of the hosts of the show and do an interview.

I read the e-mail and pretty much started hyperventilating. Me? On television!? Most people would probably be excited. I mean, it's a great promotional opportunity! I don't think excited is the word I would use, however. Terrified is the word I would use.

Still, I went through with it. I knew I'd be crazy to turn down an opportunity like this one.

The day of the interview, it was rainy and windy. Yes, yes, I live in Oregon, but we don't get big rain storms like the one that day very often. Fortunately, I found a parking spot fairly close to Cupcake Jones, the shop where they were conducting the interview, and I ran in, with my styled hair that I took two hours to do mostly intact.

They were making it a two-part piece. First, they'd give viewers an inside-look atthe cupcake shop. Then, the next segment would be me and my book. I watched as they walked around, filming the shop and interviewing one of the owners. I was so impressed with her. She did an amazing job - she sounded natural and not nervous AT all. I kept thinking to myself, how can I do that?

So, here are my tips, in case you are ever in the fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it) position of doing a television interview.

1. Don't be afraid to ask your interviewer to give you an idea of what she's going to ask you before you go on air. The more prepared you can be, the better.

2. Have a short description of your book nailed down. This you can practice up and down and sideways before the big day - and you should! More than likely, this will be one of the questions you're asked, and you should be able to answer with ease.

3. Try to forget about the camera. I know, not easy! But I kept telling myself, just talk to Brooke (my interviewer). I really tried to pretend it was me and her, having a conversation, and that was all.

4. Don't look at the camera. More than likely, you'll be told this before the interview, but it's good to mention here as well. For some reason, I kept looking out the window, and I mentioned it to Brooke afterwards and apologized. I should have kept my eyes on her, but I think when we get nervous, our eyes tend to wander, and mine certainly did.

5. Don't try to tell jokes. This advice came from my publicist. He said it's very hard to pull funny off in front of a camera, and unless you're a professional comedian, you shouldn't attempt it. Warm and sincere is a better way to go.

6. Keep your answers fairly short. The more you go on and on, the more likely you are to say something you don't really want to say. If your interviewer wants you to expand on something, she can do a follow-up question.

7. Don't drink or eat anything before stepping in front of the camera! When the shop's owner offered me a bottle of water, I took it. And proceeded to dribble water down the front of my blouse. ARGH! Fortunately, I had time before my turn was up, and my shirt dried. But seriously - don't risk it!!

8. And finally, bring along a change of clothes just in case. I was kicking myself for not doing this after the water incident, and it's something I'll do the next time (if there ever is a next time) for sure!

If you have any other tips I've forgotten, please do share in the comments!

An interesting side note - watching the show when it aired was almost worse than doing the interview! I kept thinking, what if it's awful? I took solace in the fact that this show is on weekdays at 1:00 in the afternoon. Not a heavy viewing time for sure! I had a few friends and family members recording it, but I knew they'd love me even if it was terrible. Would you like to see it? Here it is:

Wow Lisa. I am SO impressed! You pulled that off really, really well! I would have been terrified and hiding! Thanks for those great tips, although I'm hoping I'll never need them. :-)

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And lastly, the winner for last week's drawing for a Staples Gift Certificate is . . . Caroline! Email me, Caroline, and I will get that right out to you!

A Word Of Greeting For 2011

2011-01-10T04:42:00.000-08:00

Welcome back, Violets!! I hope you had a lovely holiday, full of peace, joy, and quiet! No? Neither did I. Well the joy part, yes. The peace and quiet not so much. In fact, On Christmas Day as we were headed off for the second big family gathering in 24 hours, we decided that we would designate Dec. 26 as the LaFevers’ Official Cone of Silence Day. It was awesome! We were all at home, engaged in individual pursuits, yet we would connect briefly throughout the day, but without a whole lot of talking. It was a much needed balm to all our introverted souls, and we plan to make it a permanent part of our family tradition.

With my deadline met and the holidays behind me, I have been filled with a white hot rush of all the things I can’t wait to talk about here on Shrinking Violets. I am struck again by how very bi-social I am: an extreme introvert when in my writing cave, but when I come out, almost extrovert-like in my desire to catch up on all the people and connections I’ve missed. Almost like a squirrel storing up nuts for the winter, I immerse myself in these social interactions until it’s time to go back to the writing cave. This year I want to learn to accept that and work with it more rather than fight against it.

With the New Year comes the urge to make new resolutions for the next twelve months. I haven’t made resolutions in a long time as I set goals on a continuing basis, an ever changing and evolving set of challenges I want to meet and things to accomplish.

Instead of New Year’s resolutions, one of the things I like to do is to choose one word for the coming year. That way, I have none of the painful self-loathing if the resolutions fall by the wayside, and just being mindful of that word can act as a touchstone for my growth and focus for the entire year. Some examples of the kind of words I mean:

One of the things I want to focus on in the next year is unmuzzling myself a bit—not letting fear of offending someone or their not liking what I have to say box me in quite so badly. Some words I’ve been considering for this have been:

Courage Truth Brave Risk

But none of those have quite clicked for me. Courage just doesn’t feel right; Truth, well, when I DO speak, I do tell the truth, so that isn’t quite right either. I feel I am brave already in many ways, and Risk, well, that word feels too big and loud for what I want to accomplish.

In my search for the perfect word, I stumbled upon Jessica Spotwood's LJ and fell instantly in love with her word. NOURISH. It is the perfect word. As she points out on her blog:

According to Merriam-Webster, nourish means to:
1. nurture
2. to promote the growth of
3 a: to furnish or sustain with nutriment: feed b: maintain, support

And I’ve sat with that word for a few days now, thisclose to selecting it as my word. But as I was typing up the list of words for the word cloud to spark your own ideas, when I typed Trust, I had a warm little zing that told me that was the word. Trust is going to be my guiding word for 2011

And actually, now Trust is no longer my word for the year.

While writing a draft of this post, I was talking about words with my twenty one year old son, explaining what I wanted my word to accomplish for me this year. He raised his eyebrow in this delight-if-annoying way he has and said, “Trust is an awful lot like faith.”

And I said, “Yes, and faith is a good thing…”

He said, “True, but for what you want to accomplish, it needs to be something you control. You need to own this, not trust it will happen. Your word should be confidence.”

Yeah, schooled by my own child. And I share this with you so you can see how hard it can be to find the right word, that nuance of how it frames and shapes your focus for the year. And how easy it is to shy away from the work we really need to do.

So what about you, fellow Violets? Can you think of a guiding word for 2011? If you do, please share it in the comments and we will have a drawing! The winner will receive a $20 gift certificate to Staples so they can stock up on organizational supplies for the new year (my version of crack).

If choosing a word is not your thing and you have resolutions or goals you want to share, that would be equally awesome (and yes, that enters you in the drawing as well.)

Introvert's Holiday Survival Guide

2010-12-19T10:46:00.000-08:00

Tis that season again, the season where introverts everywhere must dig deep to find the energy needed to survive the holiday--or pray they get snowed in!

In an effort to give you some tools to survive the holidays, I am re-posting our Introvert Holiday Survival Guide!

1. Find a quiet spot in your day, even if it is just for five minutes, and allow yourselves to just be…still, calm, centered. At least for five minutes. A true gift to yourself.

2. Tell everyone you’re going Christmas shopping, but instead indulge in an hour alone with a warm, soothing drink as your only company. No, it's not being selfish; you will have more energy and heart to deal with all your holiday demands if you take care of yourself! Trust us on this.

3. Give yourself some time this holiday—even just fifteen minutes—to do some writing or dream or make big plans for the coming year.

4. If your time is too frazzled to actually make progress on your manuscript, consider personal journaling or maybe even character journaling. Journaling your character's thoughts and feelings can be a great way to stay connected to your WIP without having to actually produce pages. In fact, one of my favorite writing exercises one year was this: Choose a character you’re currently working on and write his or her Christmas wish list.

5. Don’t forget ear plugs. They can be a lifesaver. Especially when the TV is blaring, the kids are playing too loudly, or the snow-blower is going down the street.

6. Don’t forget to plot—plot for a few hours solitude, plot for a quick escape, plot to get everyone to leave early. . .

7. Naps! Either a long luxurious two hour nap where you sleep hard enough to get bed head, or quick refreshing pick-me-up of a 20 minute cat nap, allow yourself a luxury of a nap. Special Perk: Writer + nap = work. (Or at least, that’s what I’ve managed to convince my family.)

8. A plea on behalf of all the introverted children out there in the world—for introverted children, having to get up in Santa’s lap and TALK to this perfect stranger, usually IN FRONT OF other perfect strangers can be the six year old equivalent of public speaking.

9. Fill your holiday well by doing the things that make your holiday feel complete and yours. Remember, this is not self-indulgence, it’s self-preservation. It’s also a way to honor the spirit of the holidays in a way that has personal significance for you. Better yet if it is something that no one else really cares for: a local production of The Nutcracker, Watching Love Actually (my favorite Christmas movie EVER), a certain collection of holiday music that makes everyone else groan when you put it on.

10. Don’t forget to recharge your batteries—and no, we don’t mean Duracell or Eveready! We really can’t state this one strongly enough. It’s something introverts have to be vigilant about during the best of time, but during the holidays, it is critical! Take the time to recharge your battery! Do not risk depleting your reserves! (Yes, that’s an order. Or maybe just a sternly worded warning: Whichever makes you most inclined to follow it.)

11. Enjoy the dead zone between Christmas and New Years, when life kind of stops—or at least slows down. It’s a fallow, fertile time when we’ve just capped the year with a celebration and have yet to start the new year with all its resolutions, plans, and intentions. It’s a time for dreaming, reflecting, of reviewing and savoring. If you haven’t had a chance to refill your well or recharge your batteries, grab some time now, while everyone is in this lulled state.

Wishing everyone a fabulous end to 2010 and an even MORE fabulous 2011! We will be signing off until next year (I have a mss due on Wed., and haven't EVEN started getting ready for Christmas yet!). We'll return on January 10, 2011 with lots more thoughts and interviews and profiles.

(Also, if you are a regular Shrinking Violet blog reader and have a book coming out in the firsts three months of 2011, send me a quick email with a copy of your cover. I'll be updating the sidebar for the new year!)

Online Persona Workshop Week Eleven: Wrapping Up

2010-12-13T04:36:00.000-08:00

Phew! You made it! You stuck with this workshop for all eleven sessions! Hurray YOU! (And yes I know, eleven is a strange, untidy number, but that’s how the cookie crumbled.) Hopefully you’ve gained some insights not only into why and how you are online, but also discovered some of the different layers and aspects of your self and how they might interact with your professional online presence. If not, well, you can repeat the course as many times as you’d like and no one will be any the wiser. ☺

Someone had asked a few weeks ago in the comments what sorts of numbers and metrics to shoot for in terms of followers. How many new followers/friends should we aim for each week? Month? Year?

The truth is, while I love measurable metrics as much as the next person, (Hel-lo Amazon Bookscan numbers!) I’m not sure this is the best way to approach your list of followers & friends. The thing we’re after here is building meaningful connections. It is much better to have a small, dedicated, truly interested group of 500 friends & followers than it is to have 1,000 who are all just mutually following each other to inflate their numbers. So . . I’m not going to answer that question. I think a much more effective approach—and saner—is to focus on the quality of the interaction between you and the community you are building.

Having said that, I also know it will not be enough to satisfy the truly metric-centric among you, so I will say that there seems to be a general sense that if you can garner 1,000 dedicated followers, that then you begin to have something. (If you Google 1,000 followers you’ll see lots of talk about it, but basically the concept revolves around a committed, dedicated core of true fans, not mutual number-padders.)

The truth is though, not all of us will find 1,000 followers—at least not for a long time. It takes a lot of work and stick-to-itiveness, very much akin to building a writing career. It will also depend HUGELY on your genre and who your ultimate audience is. Genres that are able to interact directly with their audience online (YA, romance, fantasy) will be able to build a following faster than those who rely on gatekeepers (PB, MG).

The vast majority of us will have friends and followers who find us after they’ve read our books and decide to seek us out online. We want to be sure and have a solid presence ready for them when they do. Another, smaller percentage of us will manage to build a significant online presence that will then lead our friends and followers to our work. You have to decide for your own self and your own path where you will put your energy. Where you WANT to put your energy. For every person who found a book deal through their blog, there are many more who sold the book first and developed on online presence to interact with the readers that book brought looking for them.

Where do you want to spend your emotional and creative resources? This isn’t a trick question and there isn’t one right answer. You have to do a cost/benefit analysis of how maintaining an online presence fits into the current stage of your writing career. If you are getting up at 4:30 every morning to write before work, then falling asleep at night sometimes before your kids do, then time is probably your most precious resource right now and best not to squander it. Better to spend your time learning the craft and pursuing your dream. But if your engine is set to high idle and you’re just raring to go, by all means, dive in and being putting some of that energy to work for you in building a social media presence. You can absolutely have a two-pronged approach to establishing your career!

By the same token, as an introvert, if your day job or family demands simply consume all your social energy, then you have to really think about whether or not you can be effective online if you’re socially drained before you even log on. On the other hand, if you feel isolated and alone and desperate for the company of other writers as you journey on your path, then you probably have a lot to gain.

One other thing that I think is worth mentioning is that there have been a rash of brilliant, honest, and soul-bearing posts lately about the ups and downs of the writing life and its demands. From the soul sucking experience of being out on submission for months and months to the very human feelings of envy and jealousy that nearly every writer experiences, to honest, realistic exposés of what the reality of being published is like when compared to our dreams. Take the time to read these posts and let them be an important counterbalance in your head to the constant inner whispering and urgings to go faster, do more, don’t fall behind, they’re pulling ahead, she has more followers, he has more blog readers. Just. Stop. Don’t only listen to (and try to keep up with!) all the success stories you see on the internet, but use the experiences of those who are willing to be honest as cautionary tales of what to avoid.

Most especially, don’t spend so much time and energy focusing on the cliques you don’t belong to and the friends & followers you don’t have, that you ignore or take for granted the ones that you do.

Online Persona Workshop Week Ten: Friends and Followers

2010-12-06T05:13:00.000-08:00

Because we all start from different places and come from different stages of our career, I’ve tried to bring a variety of guest bloggers on to talk about how they built their community of followers and friends. I have intentionally avoided including anyone who has thousands and thousands of followers because here at Shrinking Violet, it’s all about the baby steps.

Today we have some more tips and suggestions from Lisa Schroeder, Sherrie Peterson, and Becky Levine. As you read today’s tips, you’ll notice some repetition of suggestions and themes. This is not an accident; there really are a few key things that you simply have to do in order to build a following, no matter what stage of the game you’re in.

We’ll start with Lisa Schroeder, who not only has published four YA novels, (Chasing Brooklyn, Simon Pulse 2010) but a MG series and a picture book as well. Inevitably when I’m reading a comment at another blog that makes me nod my head and marvel at the wisdom and insight, it is one of Lisa’s comments. Her top two suggestions for cultivating online connections are:

1) Take a genuine interest in other people and connect with them as much as possible from a human perspective, not just an author perspective. Comment on blogs when you read something you find interesting, even if it's just to say thanks.

2) The best blogs are inspirational, educational or funny, or a combination of the three. They give something back to the blogging community. Be intentional about your blog while being true to who you are.

Sherrie is a pre-published author who started blogging about two years ago and totally impressed me with how quickly she developed a friendly, polished blogging presence and impressive following. She attributes her blogging and online success to the four Cs. (Also? She just landed an agent this week, a HUGE step in any writer’s journey! If you get a chance, do check out her excellent post on why you shouldn’t give up.)

Comment
When I first started blogging I found a Comment Contest hosted by Mother Reader and Lee Wind. The idea was to visit blogs of the people participating and leave a comment in the spirit of driving more traffic to little-known blogs. I signed up and visited at least three different blogs every week day for a month. I commented on posts that interested me and quite often, the people I visited would visit my blog, like what they saw, and become followers. You don't have to be part of a contest to comment on blogs. Just be sure that your comment is sincere. Instead of saying things like, "Great post!" let the author know what specifically you liked about it. Meaningful comments build relationships between bloggers.

Content
Make sure you have information on your blog that people want to read. Think about the blogs you follow. Do you go there for writing tips? Interviews? Book reviews?For the author's sense of humor? Find your own niche and then add your personal flair. Blog readers tend to gravitate to blogs that infuse personality with useful information. Nobody wants to hear every detail of your personal life, but if they get a sense of YOU, then they'll have more of a personal investment in your site.

Consistency
Pick a schedule and stick to it. I've never posted a schedule on my site, but if you look at my Google stats, you'll see that most of my hits come on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. People know that those are the days I have new posts up and they come looking for them on a regular basis. If you can only post once or twice a week, that's okay. You don't need to make excuses for your busy life, just make sure that you consistently provide great content for people who come to visit.

Cooperation
Cooperating with other bloggers for special events like the Comment Contest I spoke of earlier will drive traffic to your blog. Whether you decide to sponsor a contest with a few blogging buddies or sign up for Agent Appreciation Day or another type of blogfest, working with other bloggers raises the profile of everyone involved.

And we're going to end with three terrific tips from Becky Levine, the author of THE WRITING & CRITIQUE GROUP SURVIVAL GUIDE (Writer's Digest--January, 2010) and is one of the most connected people I know of online. (Seriously? I don’t know how she does it and often wonder if she’s developed the secret to cloning and simply hasn’t told us about it.)

-Take a few seconds to leave a comment on an update or three that you agree with, that made you laugh, that hit a chord. People will notice you're there, be happy for the comment, and will come back to read your updates and get to know you better.

-Go ahead and take a tiny risk every now and then. Put something out there that's funny or friendly or just goofy, and don't worry about whether everybody will agree with you. We're usually much harsher in judging ourselves (negatively) than anyone else will be.

-If you're in doubt as to whether you "should" post a particular update, or make a specific comment, think about whether you'd feel good about saying the same thing out loud, in public, face-to-actual-face with this other person. People can get their feelings hurt, or become angry, just as easily in a virtual world as in a "real" one. And in social networking, there is a much bigger crowd watching and listening.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And just in case that isn't enough terrific advice, I've got some links!

A recent #YALITCHAT on Twitter that discussed social media.

And Jane Friedman always has fascinating things to say about being online. I don't always agree with her (although often I do) but I always love to hear what she has to say. Here's a link to some of her posts on building an audience. Her suggestions can be a little overwhelming for an introvert, so only pay attention to those that resonate with you. (Always a good guiding principle.)

Online Persona Workshop Week Nine: More On How To Find Your Peeps

2010-11-29T04:21:00.000-08:00

Today we have another entry in our expanded section on how to find friends and followers, this one contributed by the delightful Vivian Lee Mahoney. Vivian is a writer, blogger, and a Postergirlz for Reader Girlz.

Vivian and I became acquainted online when she first started stopping by my blog. Earlier this year when I was in Boston, I considered asking Vivian if she wanted to try and meet in person, but I was too shy. However, while I was back east, she and her lovely daughters came to one of my booksignings, wherein she confessed she had considered seeing if I wanted to try and get together, but she was too shy. Is that the quintessential introvert meet up or what??

HOW I FOUND MY VIRTUAL PEEPS by Vivian Mahoney

When Robin asked me to write a few tips on how I found my niche in the virtual world as an introvert, it made me happy. How cool is it that a writer I admire so much, thinks I have a voice in the blogging world?

Then I started to panic. What can I write about that hasn't been covered in all the wonderful Shrinking Violet Promotions posts? I thought about this for some time, and then realized I might as well share the truth with you. I wear a mask.

Not a real one of course. I know, I know. A few of you are probably giggling or rolling your eyes. But, think about it. Isn't it somewhat intimidating that gazillions of people are on the internet and of those numbers, 99.99% of them are strangers? Now add to this equation the strong possibility that people you don't know will visit your blog and/or your website. Maybe it's through a Google search, a recommendation from a friend, or serendipity. In any case, people will find you. What will you do? You can't freak or run away. This is your space, your virtual home--or if you use your writerly imagination--your masquerade ball. It's up to you to create the right atmosphere.

Before I continue, I happen to have a few extra masks. Here you go. Ready? Look at yourself in the mirror. No need to hide your smile. You're absolutely fabulous. Come on now. Let's walk down the steps to the ballroom. I have three secrets to tell you...

1. Use anonymity to your advantage: Except for the .01% of the people out there, no one knows who you really are. You've got a mask on and can be whomever you'd like, as long as you're welcoming and respectful of your guests. Think of the mask as a buffer, something that will give you courage to be yourself in exponential form, without the worry of being found out. Share information, engage in conversation, and have fun! People will be intrigued and come back for more.

2. Be vulnerable: The mask allows you to be vulnerable, without the fear of being discovered. Sometimes it's easier to open up to strangers, and share things—your hobbies, your expertise, your loves, your life—within reason. Maybe the mask makes you feel safe to express yourself—after all, who will read what you have to say? Or maybe you're afraid/embarrassed to share things with the people in your real life, and the mask gives you the courage to let it all out. It's the things we can't always say and finally let out that will make people respond, because they relate to you and see themselves in what you have to say.

3. Be true: People can spot a fake a mile away, even on the internet. Although the mask gives you freedom, remember it will only give you bravery as long as you're true to who you really are. Your virtual peeps stop by to visit because they like you, trust what you have to say, and enjoy the conversation. There's no need to pretend you're something you're not. And you certainly don't need to prove yourself to anyone. You're perfect just the way you are.

It wasn't so hard, was it? Look at all the people having a lovely time at your masquerade ball. You made this happen!

Wear a mask and open up your virtual world. You'll find power you never knew you had. You'll be able to use your anonymity to your advantage, be vulnerable, and true. Your peeps will want to spend more time with you because they connect with you AND they like who they are when they're with you. Soon enough, you'll find you no longer need the mask and even better, you'll find yourself surrounded by a supportive group of virtual peeps. Be brave and let the world see what you have to offer. You can do it.

Thanks so much, Robin, for allowing me to stop by.

Thank YOU, Vivian, for such an honest look at such a terrific management strategy for being online!

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And the winner of last week's contest is Chris Eboch!
Chris, email me with your address and I will get a copy of the aMaZinG SHIP BREAKER out to you!

More tips on gaining friends and followers next week!

Online Persona Workshop Week Eight: Finding Friends and Followers

2010-11-22T05:07:00.000-08:00

Because finding friends and followers is such a big part of the whole online presence thing, we'll be having a few posts on this topic. This week, we'll hear from Jennifer Hubbard, a long time Shrinking Violet, YA author, and successful user of social media.

Introverts Finding Followers and Friends Online

I once read an interview with Brent Hartinger where he said (I’m paraphrasing here) that our public presence should be about the readers, not the writer; that the question should not be what do I want, but what do they need.

I think of the blog, or any online site, as a way to give. I talk about myself on my blog, but I try to talk about the things I’m going through that I think will resonate with others. “Here’s what I’m dealing with—how about you?” is the main message of my blog. I share tips, quotes that I find interesting, links to other posts that I admire. A couple of years ago, I started a “Library-Loving Blog Challenge” because I wanted to use my blog as a force for a greater good (in this case, raising money for libraries). In keeping with the above principle, I don’t require my blog readers to leave money; all they do is leave a comment, and I donate money. I invite other bloggers to do likewise, and I celebrate those that do. I did not start the blog challenge as a way to beef up my blog readership or promote my book; I did it because I wanted to help libraries. And it turns out to be incredibly fun!

I do talk about my book, but I try to keep it to the occasional mention of my biggest milestones. I don’t want my blog or Twitter stream to be an endless list of my awards, my appearances, my foreign-rights sales. In his essays, whenever Andrew Rooney talked about himself and the details of his daily life, he often said something along the lines of, “I’m writing about this not because you necessarily care about this little aspect of my life, but because I believe it will get you thinking about this aspect of your own.”

The trickiest thing for an introvert in carving out an online presence is balancing the privacy and solitude that introverts crave with the “social” aspect of social networking. But we manage to do this in our writing, too: we share deep and intimate parts of ourselves with total strangers. Yes, we have the filter of fiction or (in nonfiction) selectivity and a specific narrative voice. But what we’re doing in books is what we can do online, too: share the inner parts of ourselves that will resonate with others.

I had an interesting situation with my original agent, Nathan Bransford, because he had a very popular blog on which he showed my book cover, posted a couple of guest posts and contests related to me or my book, and often linked to my blog. Also, I often link to his blog, not just because he was my agent, but because his posts about writing and publishing are excellent.

Because we both have online presences, some people assumed that my agenting relationship itself was public. But in fact, it was a very boundaried relationship, and here are some of the boundaries we observed:

--The information we discussed online was already public. My book cover, my release date, my blog posts, his blog posts: all of that was public before we blogged about it or linked to it online.

--I was okay with being mentioned on his blog. I know that at any time, if I’d decided to be a hermit and ask him not to mention me there, he would have respected that wish utterly. Similarly, if he’d become a hermit and erased his online presence, I would have respected that. Not all of his clients had online presences to the extent that I did. But I was quite happy to be featured on his blog.

--We never blogged about details of my works in progress, when my manuscripts were being submitted, where they were being submitted, what my offers were, or any details of my contract negotiations. He did not disclose that information about any of his clients, ever.

--We respected each another’s confidentiality. If we knew behind-the-scenes details about each other’s personal or professional lives, we did not reveal them online.

And I think those are useful guidelines for any online relationship, especially if we have relationships that extend into the offline world. Early on, I set boundaries around what I would and would not talk about online. My relatives: almost entirely off limits, especially those who are minors. My cat: fair game (he doesn’t have the same privacy concerns that my relatives do!) My day job: Off limits (it’s irrelevant to my writing career, anyway). My writing toolbox: Fair game. My angst about writing: Fair game, unless it starts to sound whiny.

The thing for an introvert to remember is: you can choose what to say, when to say it, and to whom. The risk of revealing ourselves brings many rewards, but we can take those risks at our own pace.

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Thanks so much, Jenn, for those terrific words of wisdom! And for this week's exercise, try and spend some time thinking about what you can give others through social media! All commentors will be entered in a drawing to win a copy of SHIP BREAKER by Paolo Bacigalupi, which was nominated for a National Book Award! And it's an awesome book!

And this week's winner is Laura Ruby*! Laura, you win a copy of Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Email me and I'll get that out to you!

*I numbered qualifying comments one through eight (not counting Kimberly Lyn's since she was just acknowledging her prize) then hit the ol' Random Number Generator.

Online Persona Workshop Week Seven: More On Content

2010-11-15T04:36:00.000-08:00

~ One of the biggest questions about blogging is how often does one need to do it to be effective? Daily? Almost daily?
While there are advantages to blogging daily (the more often your content is updated, the higher up on the search engine returns you are placed) in terms of building and connecting with an audience, consistency is probably more important than volume. Blog every Monday or every Tuesday & Thursday, or whatever works for your schedule. But be consistent.

~ Tagging your posts with labels and subject tags is another good way to get them picked up by the search engines and included when relevant text strings are searched for which help drives traffic to your blog. It is also a great way to index your archives for your blog readers—something that is absolutely on my To Do List here at SVP.

~ There are lots of opinions out there on the advantages of having short posts, with the general feeling being short and sweet captures more readers. But personally, I don’t ascribe to that. (Clearly!) ☺ Some of my entries are like magazine articles and others are essays and others still are only a few paragraphs long. I think you should use however many words you need to make your point but also know that sometimes people won’t have the time to read the longer posts. However, if your content is consistently good, they will.

~ Pictures and graphics are a great way to help capture people’s attention, and there are a ton of places on the web where you can access free public domain, or creative commons licensed images. Here are some sources:

Wikipedia commons

Flickr

Public Domain Pictures

You can also buy credits at a place like iStock Photography or Getty Images.

~ While we’ve spent a ton of time thinking about and identifying core content messages, but it is also okay to change the subject once in a while and announce your book sale or reveal a new cover, or talk about upcoming appearances.

~ A really important part of blogging is interacting with those who stop by and engaging with them in the comment section. That might seem like a no-brainer, but when I first started blogging, I was told by a number of different ‘experts’ that authors shouldn’t respond to comments because there simply wasn’t going to be time to do that. My own feeling is that it depends. Many hugely popular authors don’t even have the comment function turned on. Others ask questions and have ongoing dialogs with their commenters. I think when you’re just starting out, unless you’re swamped with 100s of comments a day, it’s much friendlier to respond to comments and it could very well end up being that connection that brings people back.

The thing to remember is that most social media rules are a lot like writing rules—they don’t have to be religiously followed, you just need to understand what you lose/gain by not following them.

Each of us get to create and define our own social media parameters and boundaries. For every wildly successful blogger who got a book deal and hit the NYT bestseller list because of their huge online platform, there is a matching introverted, hermit of an author who barely has an online presence that has equally impressive sales.

A lot of introverts don’t care for small talk and find surface chit chat tedious at best. (And that’s not to say it’s either of those things in an absolute way, but it is for some). Because we move in an extroverted society, we’ve come to think of our interests as being out of the norm. One of the key things is to give yourself permission to talk about those things that ARE interesting to you and trust that, with a little bit of work and effort, you will be able to connect with similarly inclined souls.

But that’s the amazing, wonderful thing about the internet. We are not limited to our geographical sphere any more.

While I will be talking more about followers and such later, I will say that whenever I think of myself blogging or tweeting to connect with a huge group of people, I freeze. I get stage fright because I am certain that nothing I can say will be interesting to that many people. But when I think about talking to fellow introverts, or sharing a writing epiphany with a handful of other writers, or talking about the puzzling intricacies of human relationships with others who are equally fascinated by those interactions, that barrier disappears. It’s kind of like Elizabeth Gilbert talking about the writing of Eat, Pray, Love and telling the story to ONE person, one of her friends that she thought would get a lot out of it. If you blog and tweet like that, it will come across as authentic and real. Because it will be.

And lastly, I want to direct you to a DYNAMITE post about marketing called SHOULD I TWEET? from Betsy Lerner, former Houghton editor and author of the highly acclaimed, THE FOREST FOR THE TREES. It’s a terrific essay about marketing in general that is an absolute must read, but here are my three favorite excerpts:

It’s about finding the nerve your book strikes and going after it.

Maybe the best way to market your book is to send a hand written letter to every pastor in the country, or create a hoax, or stage a spectacle in Herald Square. Or maybe it’s just to write a book that will take everyone’s breath away.

Whether you should tweet is a little beside the point. The task at hand is to decipher what is most powerful in your work and connect it to every person, institution or media outlet who will listen. It’s not the form, it’s the content. What do you have? Why does it matter?

Which brings us to this week’s exercise. Can you name what is most powerful about your book/work and why it matters?

Commenters will be entered in a drawing for a copy of Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. (This week’s winner can choose that book as a prize instead of MADE TO STICK if they want.)

And speaking of this week’s winner—Kimberly Lynn! Step right up to the podium and claim your prize. Or, you know, email me. ☺

Online Persona Workshop Week Six: Creating Content

2010-11-08T03:56:00.000-08:00

I don’t quite know why I feel compelled to add a disclaimer here, but I do. So here I go.

A vast majority of people online do not sit down and strategize their online presence. They kind of jump in and splash around until they find a dog paddle stroke that works for them. So if you’re comfortable with that, that’s fine. Just like there are a thousand different approaches to writing books, so are there a thousand different approaches to your online presence.

But for some, an online persona will be a primary way for our readers to connect with us, we might want to put a little more thought into it. That doesn’t mean it is inauthentic—it merely means it is not 100% spontaneous. And that’s okay. Just like we can’t write a publishable book with our first attempt at a first draft, we should expect to have to spend some time thinking and planning how we want to come across online.

So. Content. It’s the core of your online presence. It’s not only how you communicate who you are, but it makes you relevant to others.

From your previous week’s exercises, you should have a pretty good idea of what tools are in your online persona toolbox: your passions, your general blog style, your unique interests, things you love, some places where those intersect with your writing self/themes/mission statement, the reasons you want to be online in the first place, and your writing strengths. Phew. I’m exhausted just listing all those!

Hopefully, some connections and ideas have begun to form in your brain. Some new angle or approach to a familiar topic, some passion that connects to your writing in a way you haven’t seen before. Some layer of yourself you haven’t been comfortable sharing until now.

You also probably have some idea of your communication style. (That doesn’t mean you need to limit yourself to that. In fact, I HIGHLY recommend you give yourself permission to experiment and take some risks, try on new blogging personalities. But I’ll talk a little more about that later.)

Information
Support
Community
Inspire
Entertain

It’s also important to keep in mind that there are many different approaches to each of these communication styles.

Let’s take information. Think of how very many different ways there are to inform: compile, synthesize, report, develop an expertise niche. (I truly believe that there will be a bigger and bigger need for compilation and synthesis. With over 14 billion blogs out there, the sheer tidal wave of information moving in our direction is beyond daunting. How do we even know where to begin looking?)

Not to mention all those ways of informing can be applied to thousands of topics that pertain to writing and publishing. Craft, industry, publishers, editors, agents, rejection letters, query letters, genre, writing processes.

What we’re looking for is a unique facet of ourselves that intersect with one of those broad based categories.

Similarly, there are many ways to entertain. Some bloggers entertain us with their voice. Others’ entertain by having their blog presence become almost an extension of their books (Deanna Raybourn, Gail Carriger). Some post short fiction or blog in character (Gilda Joyce, girl detective).

And if all that fails to jiggle something loose, you can always fall back on brainstorming. (I’m going to pick a few random examples from our comments and play with them for brainstorming purposes.) The thing is, you want to be certain the topic will sustain you and offer enough for you to talk about for a long time. Ideally you should be able to come up with about twenty topics relating to your broader subject matter. Then we’re going to expand each individual topic into specific posts.

If I were going to start fresh today, I might focus my online presence around being a Writing Craft Junkie, because the writing process—and creativity in general—fascinate me.

Writing Craft Junkie (Broad Subject)

(list of topics related to that subject*)

Different plotting methods (3 act structure, 4 act structure, GMC, Snowflake method, Hero's journey, etc.)
Different writers writing processes (There are so many writers! Endless possibilities!)
Different structural tools (charts, graphs, worksheets, templates)
Different characterization techniques and worksheets
Different schools of craft thought
Definition of common craft terminology
Nature vs nurture in building creativity
Writing craft book reviews/discussion
Writing craft website reviews/discussion

* I only did the first three just to illustrate what I meant. You will need to do it on all of them. :-)

Now that’s only nine topics, BUT, each of those has an almost endless supply of things that can be discussed within each of those topics. For example, the number of writers to interview on process is huge, as are the number of books or websites to review.

So even if you can’t go deep on a given subject, if you can go wide, you might be okay. As long as there are a ton of possibilities due to an ongoing, replenishing source of material, then it works.

Another example:

Happy Hermit (Broad Subject)

(list of topics related to that subject)

Joys of being alone (quiet, no demands, in control of own destiny, getting to know oneself)
Advantages of hermit lifestyle (use less energy, need less space, self sufficiency)
How to be alone (dining, walking, traveling, entertaining oneself)
Defining a hermit lifestyle
Things to do when you’re alone
Activities that are better alone
How hermits navigate the holidays

Get the picture?

Another fun angle would be to take something like Melissa’s passions and interests, which were: Uninspiring Cook, Lackluster Housekeeper, Reluctant Laundress, Houseplant Murderer, and play with an online personality surrounding that. It could easily connect to writing and writers, since so many of us share those same qualities—usually they are the first things we ditch trying to make the time to write! That would be such an awesome support/connect/humor type of blog! I think there is a great seed/nugget for a dynamite, affirming community there.

So, this week's exercise is to comb through all the work you’ve done in the previous five weeks and see if you can find two or three broad subject areas that have an angle or perspective that is unique to you, then brainstorm and see if you think it can sustain a blog or online persona.

If you’re feeling brave, share your exercise in the comments and you will have a chance at winninga copy of MADE TO STICK. This book is great at defining what elements go into making ideas 'stick' with us, something that will come in most useful when writing your blog content!

Content is SUCH a huge topic, that I am going to talk more about it next week.

Also, if you have any specific questions about topic you want to make sure I cover, include those in the comments and I’ll be sure to address them.

Online Persona Workshop Week Five: Taking Risks

2010-11-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

As one of last week’s commentors pointed out, sometimes we hold back on our online persona for fear of boring people or exposing too much of ourselves. I know I am absolutely guilty of this on my author blog. I hold back, mostly because I’m a little bit worried (read: afraid) that I will offend someone or a potential reader won’t get my humor and not pick up my book, or will think I’m too sincere, or or or or whatever. The reasons are as numerous and varied as my fears and neuroses, of which I have an abundance.

But here’s the thing. As creative beings, we need to take risks or our work is in danger of being bland or stale or clichéd. I know this. Absolutely know it and am happy to stretch myself in my work, pushing and digging, forcing myself to try things I haven’t. This same sense of creative improvement also needs to apply to our online personas.

People admire authenticity more than blandness. They may not agree with everything you say or do, but they will appreciate and admire that you are being authentic.

But there’s no getting around it; being authentic takes a lot of risk.

So let’s talk about risk. We avoid risk because we are afraid; we’re afraid that in exposing our true selves we will drive people away. But, if being plain vanilla and boring is going to keep people away anyway, why not throw caution to the wind and drive them away with the force of your views or personality? At least YOU will have gotten something out of it. And the chances are very, very high that more people will connect with that authenticity than your bland mask.

In order to create an impact, whether on blogs or in our stories, we have to take risks.

And here’s another thing about risks: If YOU don’t believe enough in your work, your voice, your self, to take a risk, how can you expect others to do so? Can we really ask agents or publishers or readers to risk their time and energy by spending time with us and our work if we aren’t willing to also risk?

I know everyone and their brother has seen the you tube of Susan Boyle’s phenomenal introduction on national television. (Or should I say, international television?) If you haven’t go watch it now. Just the first bit. Or even if you’ve already seen it, watch it again, because I want you to experience risk in a visceral way. (You can stop after the two minute mark.)

Think about this plain, frumpy, middle age woman in her unstylish frock walking out in front of an audience of millions. Oh the risks she takes! She is one of my risk heroes! In a society that is all about youth and beauty and success, the fact that she dares to walk out there and claim her dream is HUGE. Do not undervalue the risk that took. And then to compare herself to Elaine Paige! Well, you can hear the audience snicker. And when she—looking like she does—does her little booty shake? Never in a million years would I have risked that.

And then she opens her mouth. I think at that point if she’d even been averagely good, people would have been receptive, but that she was so phenomenally good! Wow. And the audience is totally with her, BECAUSE of the very things they were snickering about earlier.

A second video I'd like you to watch this week is Libba Bray giving her Prinz acceptance speech.* Watch how real and authentic she is. How she talks about Spanx and politics, things that would have been on my list of Things You Must Never Mention. Look at all the risks she takes, and yet it works so brilliantly because it all comes from such an authentic place.

If I were giving one of my writing workshops, I would encourage—no, I would insist—you take big risks. Embracing any kind of creative calling requires that we do that. And since your online presence is an extension of your writing self, I’m afraid that risk is required there as well.

Here’s a little secret I’ll share. Every single one of my posts here at SVP that has drawn the most traffic or garnered the highest number of comments has been one I’ve sweated and fretted over, considered taking down two minutes after putting it up, and generally had serious poster’s remorse over. Almost without fail, those are the ones that you guys respond to the most favorably. Clearly there is a lesson in there, and so I am sharing it with you, grasshopper.

This week’s homework is to explore what we’re afraid of.

Truly, what are we afraid will happen if we get a little more authentic on our blogs, or if we let our hair down as we tweet, or really cut loose with our FB updates?

The first exercise is to make a list of ten things you’re afraid people will discover about you.

Now look at that list, and make a second list of what you fear will happen by sharing more of yourself or your interests online.

Are those fears realistic? Are they even something to be feared?

See if you can pick one thing from that first list and play around with ways to let yourself bring more of that into your online presence.

When trying to decide on an online niche for yourself, keep in mind that sometimes we need a cause we feel strongly enough about to force us to take risks. It’s much easier for me to take risks here on SVP than it is on my own blog becauseit is almost always about using myself as an example of how if a terrified/incompetent/blundering introvert can overcome something, and so too can you.

As you look at all your layers and pieces of your self, try not to automatically reject those very quirks, foibles, and neuroses that will make you infinitely interesting to the rest of us.

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And because I'm a big believer in irony, there will be no contest for sharing the exercises this week because I think exploring risk is just too private.

However, the winner of last week's drawing is #6, Alex Beecroft**!

Email me, Alex, and I will get your prize out to you. Remember to tell me if you'd like a copy of The Hero Within or Made to Stick!

*I have spent hours trying to figure out how to embed it, and have given up. Apologies for my lack of technical expertise.

**Methodology: I assigned two consecutive number to every commentor who was willing to talk about their strengths, then plugged 1-16 into the random number generator.