Kristen Lamb's Blog, page 85

Lose the Illusion—It Never Gets “Easier”

The Spawn when he was “new.”

We all have to guard against fantastical thinking. When we are new writers, we think, “When I get this book finished, then it will get easier.” When, I land an agent…” “Once I score a publishing deal…” “Once I hit a best-seller list, then…”

There are certain things that with time and practice will get easier. Social media, blogging and even writing do get easier over time. Once our author platform is built and we understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, we go into a maintenance phase. We might hit some spots that require more work and attention, but overall, it does get better. When I started blogging, a post that took me half a day now takes a half an hour. Why? Practice. Experience.

A lot of us, our first novel takes three to six (okay, ten) years. Get that under our belt and each novel takes less and less time, provided we fully understand the fundamentals of our craft. For instance, when I began playing clarinet, fingering the notes was enough to make me break out in a sweat. I didn’t have the muscle memory and hadn’t logged enough practice where I could get lost in the technique of the music. I had to do too much “thinking.” Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star might as well have been Flight of the Bumblebee.

This is one of the reasons I love the new paradigm. Blogging teaches us to ship. These days, we can let go of the work (“publish”) and keep pressing forward, writing more books and progressively better books.

Technology changes. We just about learn how to use our fan page, and Facebook rearranges the digital furniture and changes the rules. By the way, we have an upcoming class—Facebook Changes? We Got This. The benefit of taking a WANA class with Lisa is you get a lifetime membership to her group, so as Facebook changes, you can quickly and easily adapt and not have to pay for a new class.

Anyway, Facebook aside, as a career, this writing thing will never get easier.

It will just be different. It makes me think of rearing children. When they’re a newborn, we can’t wait until they sleep through the night. Oh, when they get older, it will be easier. Uh-huh. But then they’re toddlers and yes, they sleep through the night, but now they can climb, paint the world with poo, and start having free will.

Bat Spawn and his trusty minion, Lazr Cat. And, no. I have NO idea how he got up there.

I tell ya, once the little buggers get free will, it’s all uphill from there.

When you have a toddler, suddenly that newborn that slept 80% of the day looks AWESOME. Oh, but once our kiddo is out of the toddler phase, then it will be easier.

I think you guys probably have the point.

Each phase of development has benefits and challenges. When our children are newborns, we don’t have to worry about their friends, their grades, or if they are wearing makeup behind our backs. We don’t have to keep up with their homework.

Science proves that newborns are lousy at turning in homework.

We just about get the kid out of middle school and then we have to ponder handing them the keys to 5,000 pounds of moving metal death (a car) and then paying for college and a wedding and…

Okay, I really want to go watch Bubble Guppies right now.

Guess who found Daddy’s chocolate?

This is a lot like our author career. Enjoy wherever you are. Enjoy your meantime. Yes, each stage has challenges. When we aren’t even finished with our first book, we can’t even tell other people we’re writers without feeling like a fraud. The upside? We don’t have to panic at sales numbers and reviews and wonder if the next book will be at least as good. I’ve worked with mega-authors like Sandra Brown, and it is hard to imagine the pressure that every book will hit the top of the New York Times best-seller list. Anything less is “failure.”

This job is easier if we’re realistic. The newborn stage, yes we are checking every thirty seconds to make sure our career is breathing. Was is a victim of SIDS? Sudden Inspiration Death Syndrome? But there is all kinds of joy ahead. Watching that novel stand then walk then grow on its own and make way for the next. It will never be easier. It will be different. But if we are doing what we love (writing) all the sleepless nights, worry, grief, pain, insecurity will all be worth it.

What are your thoughts? Did you suffer from magical thinking in the beginning and experience has taught you better? Do you think I am being too harsh? Does the future scare you? Excite you? What are you looking forward to? What will you miss giving up?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Is Technology to Blame for Emotional Barriers?

Image via Pink’s Galaxy Flikr Creative Commons

We have all been there. In a restaurant where people are texting instead of talking. They tweet and Facebook and seem to be lost in the digital world instead of participating in the real one. Many writers (and people) are skeptical of social media and technology. We’ve all been with that person who can’t stop chatting on the phone long enough to actually engage in the real-life conversation. Yet, is technology to blame for the emotional distance?

I never really knew my father, particularly in my early years. He left for work before I was even awake and frequently came home just in time for dinner. Then he would read for hours and say three words to us kids. We knew better than to interrupt him watching TV or reading his latest paperback. And my dad easily read three books a week. I think part of the reason I loved books as a child was I wanted some way to connect to my father.

My grandfather worked all the time. He was gone on the road most of the year. When he was home, he was immersed in a newspaper or any number of sports on the television. Baseball, basketball, football, fishing, golf all the time. Silence. No conversation. It might interrupt the crossword puzzle. My dad had tried to connect to his father for many years, but his father was too busy with his company. Probably why my father sought escape in fiction. His brother took refuge in sports and the youngest immersed himself in D&D and later video games.

When I did get to talk to my grandfather, I learned that his father was a minister and farmer. Too busy writing sermons, planting, caring for the community to really be engaged. Work was the only time there was a semblance of connection. Maybe this is why my grandfather looked to work for solace.

And the females of my family were equally distant. My grandmother was busy cooking, the other grandmother too busy cleaning. My mom and aunts would shuffle us outside as soon as the cartoons ended so they could clean, organize, wallpaper, sew or talk over coffee.

When I was in college, I finally gave up visiting a long-time friend. She would invite me over for a visit and then spend the entire time on the phone while I twiddled my thumbs and wondered why I was there.

Thus, I am no stranger to having to compete with “things” for attention. Whether it was work, chores, books, papers, sewing machines, games or television, barriers have always been a part of life. So have poor manners.

I don’t know. Maybe the problem is more prevalent these days. Maybe my family is the odd duck.

Part of why I work so hard at teaching WANA ways is that, if technology is going to be an integral part of our culture, then we have a choice HOW we use the tool. We can use it to unplug from the human experience and drift along on auto-pilot, or we can actively resist our nature and use the same tools to become more involved in others. We can use technology to connect, laugh, love and offer support.

What are your thoughts? Is technology the problem? Is it how we are handling the technology? What are your frustrations? Do you find technology has helped you be closer to others, or that it’s become a barrier? Are you like me and grew up competing with television, phones and sports?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Why Settle for Your Reader’s Wallet When You Can Get in Her PANTS?

Okay, so I have to catch a plane to Tuscon this morning, so I’m taking this opportunity to rerun my all-time favorite post. Any of you who regularly follow my blog know that I am totally out of my mind a bit eccentric. Last time I was in Tuscon (speaking to their RWA group), after lunch, I had to dash to the Ladies’ Room. As I closed the door to the stall, I noticed all the advertising on the back of the bathroom door. This cluttered wall of ads made me think about all the authors spamming non-stop about their books on Facebook and Twitter.

Writers were becoming worse than an Amway rep crossed with a Jehovah’s Witness. I mean, could the author book promotion get any more invasive?

Wait…

Maybe it could.

I’ve blogged so many times about the dangers of automation and how spamming people is counterproductive. I’ve talked until I am blue about how advertising our books has a terrible ROI (return on investment) and how most people don’t pay attention to it. Ah, but then it hit me. The main reason spam doesn’t work is because people ignore it and no longer “see” it, but what would they see?

Panty Prose—Not Advertising, Padvertising (TM)

We all know that roughly 85% of readers are women, and what do women need? Panty liners. YES, but what do they need more than springtime fresh girl parts? More FREE! books. Indie authors shouldn’t spam about their latest book release or free title on KDP select.

Why?

Because it’s rude? No! Because it is obnoxious? Not quite. Because it smacks of desperation? Not at all. The reason authors shouldn’t spam about their books is because spam is for amateurs.

The real writer of the Digital Age doesn’t settle on blasting out non-stop self-promotional tweets. That is SO 2011. The REAL writer of the Digital Age realizes a captive audience is a a buying audience.

Catch readers with their pants down with Panty Prose.

Panty Prose is perfect for the indie author. Most readers are female and even females need something to read in the bathroom. We at Panty Prose (a new imaginary division of WANA International) have teamed up with Always against their will to offer your readers the best deals right in their pants.

Panty Prose not only offers you Padvertising to a guaranteed clientele, but we have all kinds of layouts to suit your Padvertising needs. Technology is your friend with Panty Prose. Put your book where it counts…

At Panty Prose, we even make it affordable for you to place your face in your reader’s pants…

As you can see, Panty Prose is inserting your ads into a virgin market begging to be tapped.

Why are all the romance authors giggling?

Anyway, while others might see a protective strip that gets tossed in the bin, we see an unused space to Padvertise your latest novel AND save trees! Instead of throwing away that paper strip, we can print of lines from your book so fans can collect them ALL…

Make Your Readers Want MORE….

Make Your Readers Your Fan for ALWAYS….

My brilliant WANA International Operations Manager, Chad, was happy to step in and help me launch the Panty Prose Motivational Series:

Panty Prompts for Writers:

Serious Chad, the choice for the Serious Writer.

Panty Praise:

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Available in “You’re Losing Weight” and “No, Your Butt Doesn’t Look Big at ALL”

Panty Prose is dedicated to keeping women fresh while selling your books. Attending a writing conference? Well, there is a bathroom and everyone knows that even agents have to go potty sometime. Why not help them out? Keep them springtime fresh and give them your query. Elevator pitches are for losers, when you can use the Panty Pitch. The Panty Pitch comes in three fragrances, Sonnet’s Eve, New Office Supplies, and Cinnabon.

Panty Pitch:

Save agents time and keep them fresh!

Panty Prose for the Published Professional is a smart, savvy way to stand out from all the competition that still is relying on scheduled tweets and auto-DMs. Make an impression that will last for Always.

Yeah, I am a wee bit tired. I’ve been three weeks with no day off and, when I’m tired, my humor gets warped, even for me. But you know I am on to something! WANA is dedicated to giving you the evil genius you need for success. Aside from Panty Prose, what other “free spaces” could we exploit for book advertising? You know, to catch those who missed our 23 tweeted links, 6 auto DMs and five form letters.

So what do you think? Has the book spam gotten completely out of control? Are there other ways you can think of that are utterly invasive creative ways to market our books (Keep it PG, Please )?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Enemies of the Art Part 10–Having a Thin Skin

Doing critiques….

Being a writer is great fun. We are storytellers and we love entertaining people. The new paradigm is AWESOME. Suddenly, if you want to publish your work, you can. We no longer have to go the traditional route and self-publishing is certainly an option. Yet, we MUST be careful. Our product should be AS GOOD as anything out of NY. I see a lot of writers who rush to publish when they aren’t ready.

They don’t have a core story problem, or don’t yet properly understand the role of antagonists and how to use them. Many don’t yet grasp narrative structure or POV. There is A LOT that goes into writing a novel a reader will enjoy. Just because we made As in English doesn’t automatically qualify us to create a work of 60,000 or more words that can keep a reader riveted. There is a lot of stuff “behind the scenes” that readers don’t know about, but they can sense when those elements are missing.

Writing Group Nightmares

I was part of a couple critique groups for a few years, and there were certain writers who I’d just ignore. In the past, when I’d pointed out they had 47 adverbs on page one, they threw a fit. If I mentioned they had no plot? They went berserk. Eventually, I just left the pages unmarked and kept quiet.

I tried running an on-line writing workshop to help writers with this big picture stuff, and I finally gave up. It did less teaching and more “ego babysitting.” There were participants who acted so badly, I just had to ask them to leave. They came to me (me being an expert) claiming they wanted to learn, and yet instead of learning they argued every last little point and acted like toddlers, wailing how I was “trying to destroy their art.”

Um, no. Narrative structure is pretty basic. Being in ONE head at a time is basic. No flashbacks every thirty words? Pretty basic.

One writer, upon being escorted out of the group, blogged about how we’d “wasted her time” because we wanted her to have a core antagonist.

*head desk*

There is a learning curve in writing, just like EVERY art form. I played clarinet for many years. I started by learning how to read music, then how to finger the notes, proper embrochure (mouth position), etc. I didn’t start out playing Flight of the Bumblebee. I started with Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  I didn’t scream at my conductor that he was ruining my music when he wanted me to learn how to read music.

I happened to be president of a writing group years back. During a critique session, one of the participants brought an article she wanted to submit about how eating from home was healthier and less expensive. Her target readers were retirees with limited income.

In critique, my only comment was that, to perhaps make the article stronger, she might choose some restaurants her readers might frequent and add up the cost of some of the meals. This way, in black and white numbers, she could show them how much money they’d save using her recipes. Later, at a board meeting she lunged over the table, wagged her finger in my face and screamed how I was abusive and had called her a fat cow in critique.

Huh? Lady, WHAT are you smoking?

Obviously, I grew tired of lunatics and amateurs. I’d had my work critiqued, too and sometimes the critique was nothing short of brutal. Bring it ON! was my motto. I’d had critique sessions so blistering that I later cried in my car…but I tried harder. I relished every bit of feedback and worked my tail off. If something seemed off-base, I read craft books until I knew what I should ignore.

We ALL need good critique. We never outgrow it.

Just because someone tells us our words aren’t all unicorn kisses doesn’t mean they are trying to destroy our art. We need to be open to feedback or we can’t grow, learn, change, and become masters of our art. We need to toughen up. Reviewers can be great and give helpful feedback, but some can be jerks who have nothing else better to do than write a nasty comment guaranteed to make even the best of us cry.

The downside of publishing outside the traditional model is that we haven’t been vetted. It’s probably easier to dismiss a ranting review if Simon & Schuster published your book. You know editors have looked at your work and it passed the test.

We NEED Threshold Guardians

If you want to be a non-traditional author? Join good critique groups. If you are in the DFW area, DFW Writers’ Workshop is full of professionals, not a bunch of people who want to play writer so long as all the critique is a fluffy kitten hug. Listen to beta readers. Hire professional editors—content editors and line editors. Content editors will help with the overall structure of the book and the characters, how the story reads. Line editors will make sure you don’t embarrass yourself with mass amounts of typos.

Toughen Up, Buttercup

This is one of the many reasons I encourage writers to blog. Blogging helps us build that rhino skin we will need to be successful. A lot of critique will be subjective. But, we are wise to listen without letting it unhinge us. If we go nutso every time someone points out a problem, then we can’t grow. People will eventually just remain silent and let us fail publicly.

Have fun storming the castle! *waves*

I’ve had people I have tried to correct on very basic things who just ran and self-published. Okay, but likely the reviews are going to reflect advice given but ignored. We will all get critique. It’s our choice whether or not to listen and what advice to take. Yet, brutal feedback will happen and it comes with the job (even with great books). We are wise to take most of the tough stuff in private so we can fix it and save the embarrassment of that same criticism being in a one or two-star review that is out for the world to see.

Professionals get tough. It’s how we mature and keep getting better. It isn’t the world’s job to babysit our egos.

Have you ever had someone go nuts in a critique group? On-line? Argue with reviewers? Have you ever had a critique that left you in tears, but you were later grateful?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

To Find Success, Learn to Embrace the Climb

Image courtesy of Flikr Commons RVWithTito

Funny the memories that come back sometimes, and we have no idea what prompted them. Last night, as I was walking out of the grocery store, a memory flashed in my mind, a moment I hadn’t thought about in easily ten years. I was one of the poor kids at a very wealthy university where most students were in fraternities and sororities and drove luxury cars. In a parking lot filled with BMWs, Mercedes and Land Rovers, my car looked like the egg Mork took to Earth. I drove a Geo Metro, basically a pregnant roller skate. It would rattle like it was going to fly apart if I ever got above 65, so it kept me from speeding .

Morks’ Ride

My Ride. Dismissed as Coincidence.

Anyway, I worked a lot of jobs and one of those jobs was running a paper route. Suckiest job on the planet. Every night I woke a little after midnight to get to the warehouse, roll papers and bag them, then deliver to three large apartment complexes, no matter how bad the weather. Also, apparently only people on the third floor ever ordered the paper. LOTS of climbing stairs.

Gated apartments were all the new rage in the 90s, and it wasn’t uncommon for the security code not to work, and I’d have to climb a fence. One complex was determined to kill me. They ran the sprinklers all year, even when the temperatures were in the 20s…so I could have fun sliding across large sheets of ice with a thirty-pound bag of Sunday papers.

I worked from one in the morning until about six, then would come home and snooze for an hour on a mattress that had been left by the previous owners of the duplex I rented. I didn’t have “per se” a bed. I’d roll out of my mattress and go to class until lunchtime, often in the same sweatpants and ball cap I wore to work. I didn’t really have any friends. Was too tired for them. When you have a paper route, it is seven days a week, 365 days a year, no holidays. The only way to get a day off is to pay another runner to take your route for a day.

Hey, Kristen! Jeff’s here to take you to sell papers!
Image via Flikr Commons Curtis Gregory Perry

As if this wasn’t tough enough, another aspect of the job required we go door-to-door selling subscriptions. We were expected to have so many new subscriptions per month. A van would pick us up and dump us off who knew where, hand us a map, then arrange to pick us up in three hours. For three hours, we were on our own (and this was before cell phones). One time, I recall being so cold that I hid in an apartment laundry room where someone was running a dryer. I’d been out in the cold for hours with no proper coat (and no subscriptions) and I was frustrated, broke, dirty and hiding in a laundry room.

Hiding in a laundry room will humble even the best .

The real fun would come when I’d go to my International Law class to be lectured by a Social Work Girl (who sported a $1,000 Prada handbag and drove a BMW) how I was heartless and, in her words, “didn’t understand the plight of the poor.”

So last night I have no idea why this memory came back. I’d try to forget the whole “desperate enough to hide in a laundry room” thing, yet there it was. Maybe I remembered this because of yesterday’s Embracing the Meantime post. I can tell you that this “meantime” was tough. Every day was a new struggle.

I bemoaned that I wasn’t one of the trust fund babies who didn’t have to check in with their parole officer financial aid lady. I longed to be one of the skinny, rich sorority girls who didn’t live on generic mac and cheese and who could actually afford to buy ALL their text books. I “winged” most of my classes and had no idea how I still managed to get good grades.

Yet, in later years, I found out many of those kids never finished school. They threw up in the showers to stay thin and many struggled with alcohol and drug addictions. A few committed suicide. They had everything, yet, in their eyes, they had nothing. They had no hope.

Hope was all that kept me going, the sheer force of will that told me that, if I endured, if I hung on and didn’t quit, that life would be better. I had to climb the mountain. I wasn’t delivered by helicopter, and I was so much better for that. Many of those kids were delivered to the summit by “daddy” and it was the worst thing for them. All they had was the view, and they lacked the euphoric feeling of accomplishing something on their own. “Having it too easy” destroyed a precious part of their souls.

As writers, many of us wish we had it easier, that we didn’t have to have a day job, or have to take care of kids and parents and clip coupons to survive. We want our first book(s) to be runaway best-sellers that make us rich. Yet, I will challenge you to embrace this time and your struggles. Embrace your climb. Pay attention. Write notes. It will make your writing far richer.

Many of you right now are in a ROUGH meantime. You are in the climb of your life with no ropes and barely keeping your grip. These are the experiences that will one day make you an indomitable artist and help you create great fiction. Yes, we spend most of our time in the valley, but when we seek to achieve something big, there is always the climb. We might relish the few moments of being at the summit, but we will always remember the climb. The climb is what makes us stronger.

And the WANA Way? We are not alone!

Are you struggling? Is life tough? Can you think of how this will make your stories better? Have you been through rough times and used that to fuel your fiction? Tell us about it!

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

To Find Success, Learn to Embrace the Meantime

I came from a broken family who only knew broken ways. I felt adrift and couldn’t seem to find direction. Everything I did was always to please others, yet it left me empty and even more lost. I saw others being happy, successful, but every day felt like just more pain. I was terrified of making mistakes, paralyzed by the thought I might “fail” or be a “failure.” That’s one of the reasons I blog so much on changing our relationship with failure. If we don’t, we can never see success.

Anyway, in college, I ran across a book that changed something very important in my belief system. My roommate was watching Oprah and she was interviewing Iyanla Vanzant and talking about her first book In the Meantime. When I read the book, a large part of what was wrong became instantly clear. I was always either looking back—at my missteps, wrong choices, dumb moves, or even romanticizing the past—or I was looking to the future. I could be happy when…

Once I finished my degree, life would be different…

Once I landed a good job, life would be better…

Once, I had X, did Y, learned Z, THEN it would all be perfect.

What I was forgetting was the largest part of what we experience…the meantime. The meantime has a purpose. It changes us, grows us, prepares us for our futures. When we set about to become successful writers, we are sowing seeds of something great. Years later, Joyce Meyers took Iyanla’s teachings to the next level for me. She taught me that:

There is seed, time and harvest.

More accurately, there is seed…TIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMME, MORE TIIIIIIIMMMMEEE, PROBABLY EVEN MORE TIMMMMMMMEEEE, then harvest. (Repeat)

Joyce helped me understand that patience is more than the ability to wait; it’s how we act while we wait. We have to learn to get good at the waiting. We need to make use of the waiting. That’s part of why I write so many lessons about the character we need to be successful. The world is full of shooting stars, people who rise to the top, but who lack the character and strength of will to remain there. We can use the meantime to grow as people and professionals so that when fortune finally favors us, we have staying power.

The meantime has a purpose, but it’s usually longer than we’d like it to be. It’s the part the movies puts into a montage. It’s where the newbie and mentor finally are on the same page and we see the protagonist running in the snow, punching bags, or studying all night. It’s about three minutes long and has nifty music, and man, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could just do the tough part of this journey in a montage?

*sings * I need a montage, a MONTAGE!

 We all want to reach the mountain top , but nothing grows there. We will spend most of our lives in the valley on our way to the next mountain and the next. Once you finish your first book, then you need to edit, to publish. Then there is the next book and the next. Mountain after mountain with valley in between.

But the valley is where we grow. Valley is meantime. Make your meantime count. Learn, make friends, forge relationships. Instead of fixating on sales numbers of your book, let it go. Write more. Read about the craft. Take craft classes and write more books. Meantime is everything and if we don’t learn to enjoy it, we miss out on the largest part of life.

Do you struggle with your meantime? Is it hard waiting? I know I am still growing in that area for sure! Have you become good at waiting? Do you find joy in your meantime? How? Tell us about it!

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Enemies of The Art Part 9–Not Failing Enough

The Wright Brothers. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

You want to know my favorite part about the new publishing paradigm? It allows us to fail. I know you might think I’m crazy, but failure is the most vital ingredient to success. When I was researching for my new book, I studied the Wright Brothers and this is a story I feel every writer needs to hear.

The Wright brothers were not engineers and held no fancy degrees. They actually got their start in the bicycle business. At the turn of the century, bicycles were all the rage, but a lot of the designs were flat out dangerous. The bikes were difficult for the rider to control and accidents were frequently fatal.

“Ordinary” Bicycle from late 1800s. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The Wright brothers were determined to build a bicycle that was safer and easier to maneuver and maintain control, and after many attempts, they were successful. In fact, the bicycle design used today? We can thank the Wright brothers for that.

At the time, there was another race going on. Man wanted to take flight. Most people believed that the fancy Ivy League engineers would be the first in flight. These scientists were educated and had state-of-the-art equipment and laboratories. They also had loads of cash from government and private funding.

The problem, however, was two-fold. First, the “smart” folks of the day envisioned navigating the medium of air to be the same as navigating water. They designed machines that were sturdy, stable and bulky (patterned off ships). The problem was that all of these designs never could get off the ground, so it was impossible to gather data to make necessary changes.

The Wright brothers were inspired with the idea of creating a machine that could fly, but it was their experience making bicycles that offered them a very different perspective. When it came to bicycles, they’d learned that focusing on a sturdy build ended in crashes. Instead, they sought to design in ways that allowed the rider to rapidly use shifts in body weight and balance to maintain control. They believed that airplanes needed to be the same.

The problem? They needed a way to test the theory.

The brothers decided to risk it all and take their operation to Kittyhawk, North Carolina because of the large areas of sand dunes. They believed, contrary to “expert” opinion, that a “flying machine” needed to be light so that it could actually get into the air. They knew they were in for a lot of crashes, but they also understood those crashes were vital to success.

Every time they launched a new prototype, they could gather important information as to why the airplane failed to remain in the air. Eventually, their design won out and that’s why they’re credited with inventing the airplane.

Their theories had been correct.

Lighter construction was better and emphasis on pilot control and maneuverability was paramount. No one believed these underdogs would win the race to control the air, but no one counted on their tenacity, their ability to ignore the “experts” and their positive relationship with failure.

We can learn a lot from them. In the old paradigm, writers wrote and failed in private. Since we were lucky to have one book out a year, we didn’t have a lot of opportunities to launch our prototypes and see what worked. We had to rely on “experts” to determine what readers wanted. Still do.

The new paradigm has a lot in common with the medium of air. There are unseen updrafts, weather changes, and the wind shifts direction constantly. Indie authors, in many respects, have similar advantages to the Wright brothers. We can change, adapt and try new things. Is a cover working? No. Change it. Is the book too long? Try cutting it into smaller books and see what happens.

We can write more books and if the first one fails, we can read the reviews and know exactly what to change. We can write more books and better books until we eventually take flight.

Traditional authors don’t have an insider’s view of the market. They see the sales reports only a couple times a year and have no control over any changes. If people don’t like the formatting or there are errors in the text, the book can’t be changed. The cover is all but set in stone.

And this isn’t to bash traditional publishing. Rather, it is to show you guys that failure is necessary. Many writers who go traditional are no longer in a situation of sink or swim. If it works out?

Great!

But if it doesn’t, you can take to the sand dunes of Amazon and see what works and what flops. If you are persistent, committed and open to learning, then the only reason for complete failure is giving up.

We now have a way of launching our prototypes (books) into the market, maneuvering (maybe going with KDP select for a time), and changing (swapping book covers or pulling a book for major rewrite).

This is one of the reasons I am such a fan of writers blogging. It allows us to get our voice out there and see what connects. What falls flat? When I first started blogging, I was insecure. I took a lot of advice from the “experts.” Thus my writing was more rigid, academic and less emotionally accessible.

Then I embraced my ability to write humor. People started subscribing with greater frequency, but I’d gotten so fascinated with my own comedic schtick, that people frequently didn’t catch when I was just joking.

I once wrote a post making fun of Facebook. Feeling pressure from the new Google +, Facebook had decided to New and Improve and added feeds in the sidebar to look like Twitter. They also allowed people the option to “subscribe” (again, knocking off Twitter’s “follow”). I jokingly named this move Twit+. I fielded e-mails for weeks from writers in a panic because they didn’t know how to use Twit+.

Note to Self: Reign in the stand-up comedy.

The lesson in all of this? I failed. A lot. I could try new things. What happened if I posted once a week? Three times? Five times? What length was best? What tone? By trying and failing, I was able to adjust and change.

Too many writers want a thousand hits a day in the first month of blogging. They want the first book to be a mega-best-seller, and to do this, they beat us all half to death with marketing.

STOP!

If you aren’t to the level of success you want, go do some more failing. It’s good for you .

What are your thoughts? Are you warming up to the idea of failing? Are you excited or terrified of the new paradigm? Why?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

PajamaCon Winners were announced via e-mail, so no need to do it here.

February’s Winner for My Blog Contest is: Yolanda Renee. Please send your 5000 word Word document to kristen at wana intl dot com. Or your query (one page) or synopsis) max 5 pages (1000 words).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Twitter Basics–The Proper Care and Feeding of Hashtags

Hashtags can quickly become a digital mouse plague. Image via news.com.au.

After my good friend Lisa Hall-Wilson used kidnapping and laser pointers to distract Kristen and take over her blog to talk Facebook, I knew Kristen would be wise to our Canadian tricks. So, I decided I’d try the opposite tactic when I wanted to come and talk to you about Twitter.

Bribery.

I brought along my Great Dane Luna to entertain the Spawn with rides and games of fetch…

…which left Kristen free to take a much needed nap.

And you know what they say. While the cat’s asleep, the mice will talk Twitter hashtags…What? That’s not how it goes? Well, it is now. *points above* Or did you miss the size of my dog?

Where was I? Oh yes, hashtags. Twitter can be one of the best places for meeting new people and sending traffic to your blog, but not if you get arrested by the ASPCH (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Hashtags) first. As your friend, I can’t allow that to happen to you.

So at least until Kristen wakes up, I’m going to give you a little class in the proper care and feeding of hashtags.

As you may have already noticed, when you add a # in front of a word or phrase (with no spaces between the words), that creates a hashtag that is clickable and which people can search for.

To remind you how hashtags are used, here’s a little “Anatomy of a Tweet” diagram.

When you put a hashtag in your tweet, that tweet is now seen by everyone who’s watching that hashtag, not just the people who follow you. Using hashtags and creating a column in TweetDeck (or a stream in Hootsuite) to follow them can introduce you to a whole new group of people you’d never have met otherwise.

Now that I’m sure you all know what a hashtag is, onward we go on how to care for them.

Don’t allow your hashtags to breed like tribbles.

This is a tribble.

Cute, right? Looks a little like an angora guinea pig.

One tribble is cute, but they’re born pregnant, so if you don’t keep a close eye on them, you end up with this…

Because we often hear about how great hashtags are, our tendency is to let them run rampant and breed like tribbles. Bad, bad hashtag owner.

Don’t use a #hashtag for #every #second #word within the #text of your #tweet. It gets really #annoying, you #look like a #spambot, and you make it #hard to #read. It’s okay to have a single hashtag in your tweet if you must, but limit it to one, and place the rest at the end.

You also don’t need to use every conceivable hashtag. Choose 1-3 good ones, and then trust your network to change them when they RT. That’s part of working together. Moreover, if you use more than three hashtags, Twitter considers this spam and you could end up with your account suspended. (See what I mean about the ASPCH coming after you!)

Clean your hashtags’ cages regularly.

Your hashtags live in columns/streams just like your bunny lives in a cage. And you know what happens if you don’t keep that cage clean? It starts to stink up the whole house, your bunny gets sick, and pretty soon no one will talk to you because you have a reputation for abusing your pets.

Don’t allow your hashtags to dirty up columns/streams any more than you’d allow your pets to live in a dirty cage.

When you re-tweet something, make sure you change the hashtags. If you don’t, you risk clogging up the column of anyone following the original hashtag. You also aren’t helping out the original tweeter as much as you could be if you got their tweet in front of a fresh audience through changing the hashtag.

Don’t include hashtags in the titles of your blog posts. Why? When people tweet your post from your blog or using Triberr, your title is what goes directly to Twitter. Which means…you guessed it—you clog up the column/stream of that hashtag. I cringe every time I see someone putting a hashtag in their title, and I consider calling the ASPCH myself.

If you’re scheduling tweets (even after reading this post by Kristen on the dangers of automation), never schedule two tweets in a row using the same hashtags. If you’re not going to be there to monitor the columns, you need to be extremely careful to spread out your hashtags so you don’t unintentionally clog up a slower moving hashtag column. Or better yet, don’t use hashtags at all.

Luna’s barking, and I think I hear Kristen waking up, so that means I have to turn the blog back over to her, but starting March 2nd, I’m teaching a month-long class on using Twitter to build your platform. Because I know everyone has different budgets, I’ve broken it down into two levels.

A Growing Tweeter’s Guide to Twitter (Bronze Level) – Each week you’ll receive 3-4 written lessons (full of screenshots). In addition to the written lessons, the class includes four live one-hour webinars in the WANA International Digital Classroom. 

A Growing Tweeter’s Guide to Twitter (Silver Level) – You’ll receive everything from the Bronze Level and have access to a private WANATribe group where you’ll be able to discuss each lesson with other classmates and ask me whatever questions you might have about the lessons or anything else Twitter related.

Thanks for allowing me to visit with you here today, and I hope to see you in class!

***

Thanks, Marcy, but after WANACon, I think I need a longer nap, LOL.

We love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Will announce February’s winner on Monday.

7 Things Confident Writers Don’t Do

One of the reasons I encourage writers to blog and to read blogs is that you will find inspiration all around you. A dear friend of mine, Steve Tobak, has a MASSIVE blog following and is the business blogger for CBS, Fox Business and Inc.

I love reading his posts about entrepreneurs because so much applies to authors (we are entrepreneurs of a different sort, but still entrepreneurs). The other day, he had a post called 7 Things Confident Leaders Don’t Do, and I am going to take the liberty of retooling this for writers.

In a world full of wanna-be best-sellers, confident writers don’t:

1. Do What Everyone Else is Doing

Find your own voice and tell your own story. Don’t write to the market. Find the publishing path that works for you. If self-publishing works for you, your budget and your personality, great. The stigma is fading, so be bold. If you want creative control and yearn to make the kind of living you see other indies making, go for it!

But, if you really want to go traditional, then feel good about that choice. Just make sure you have a great agent or lawyer (like Susan Spann) who can negotiate a contract that is favorable to you and your goals.

2. Worry About Weakness

Writers all suffer from an odd mix of narcissism and deep-seated insecurity. We have to have a big enough ego to believe that we have a story others will want to pay money to read, yet at the same time we worry the world will hate it and throw digital tomatoes at us.

Acknowledge weakness. Work to strengthen it, but don’t lose sleep over it. I see a lot of writers who are so terrified of failing, it paralyzes forward momentum. They edit the same book for six years trying to make it perfect instead of just shipping and moving on to the next book.

They bank everything on one book and spend hours looking at sales and reviews instead of just doing the one thing that will help them be successful…writing MORE books!

3. Waste a Lot of Time

If we want to have what no one else has, we can’t do what everyone else does. When others are going to the mall, watching television or goofing off playing Farmville, we need to be working. Real artists have a vision and go after that vision with focused intensity.

4. Try to Be Successful

Successful writers write. They know that success in this business rarely comes with one book. John Locke didn’t sell a million books in six months with ONE book. He did it with 12. I see too many writers publish one book and then beat the hell out of all of us spamming about their books. In trying to be successful, they do a lot of dumb moves that common sense would dictate is a bad idea.

Yesterday, I was on Twitter when I saw this:

I don’t know this writer and have never read his books, yet it didn’t stop him from trying to use MY NAME to sell books. On what planet is this a good idea? When writers TRY to be successful, they listen to dumb marketing advice and spend more time selling instead of writing.

5. Breathe Their Own Fumes

Be open to criticism. Surrounding ourselves with yes-men is dangerous and keeps us from growing. That’s one of the reasons I ask for thoughts and opinions at the end of my posts (other than I do LOVE hearing from you). I never mind disagreement so long as it’s respectful. I can’t grow if I don’t know what needs to come up higher.

When I wrote my short story Dandelion I sent it to people I knew would be brutal. All of them loved the story, but most saw things I didn’t. The changes took a good story to a fantastic story that I am very proud of. But I am human. I wanted a fluffy kitten hug of “Kristen, all your words are GOLD!” yet, I didn’t. The problems they pointed out were dead on, and I was able to make the right changes.

Too many new writers are publishing books without going to people who will give them honesty. The problem is that instead of getting the rough truth in private, they get the brutal truth PUBLICLY and PERMANENTLY in one and two-star reviews from ticked off readers.

6. Fear Competition

Competition is just part of what we do. Good for us that books are not so cost-prohibitive that people can’t buy more than one. Thing is, there will always be someone who is a better writer than we are. Learn from them. I hear a lot of new writers (and I was once guilty, too) groan about certain best-sellers and tear down the writer and the book. Instead, read it. Try to see why that book resonated and broke out.

7. Try to Be What They’re Not

Most writers aren’t doing this “writing thing” until our dream job in sales comes our way. A lot of the reason that so much writer marketing is annoying and lame is artists are trying to be “power marketers.”

Less marketing and more writing.

Talk to people and build community and leave the mega-marketing to Madison Avenue. WANA methods don’t try to change your personality, so you have far greater odds of success because people will feel your social media activities are authentic.

What are some other qualities of confident authors that I might have missed? What are your thoughts? Opinions?

Note about PajamaCon Winners: We are giving the week for those who want to send in an entry to send it in. Will announce winners on MONDAY.

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of February, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of February I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Enemies of the Art Part 8–Being a Starter Not a Finisher

Image courtesy of Rennett Stowe Flikr Creative Commons

Starting is easy. It’s exciting, fun, new and shiny. Anyone can start something. Heck, The Spawn starts at least ten things before 7:30 in the morning. When we start something new, we are pumped. We have people around us cheering. Everything is fun. We seem to have boundless energy.

Starting is necessary, but starting needs to become habit and become focused. The world rewards those who finish. We can start a new book, but once the “new idea smell” has worn off, we must transition into the mature artist’s version of starting, which is Just Do It.

Stick to what you are doing. Get started every day. When the project is weary and tired and so are you, then start again and again and again. Mature professionals ignore their feelings. They know feelings lie and feelings are our inner three-year-old who is easily bored or distracted.

I’ve worked with some really talented people, people probably more talented than me. The problem? Lack of focus. Always something new, something better. This time this project will be different. Uh huh. The problem is that success involves a lot of what isn’t fun. In fact, being successful involves a lot of repetition and drudgery. It entails learning tasks we hate and doing chores that bore us.

Ask any multi-published author and they will tell you that a book they loved at the beginning, they hated by the end because they were so sick to death of it. Granted, after a little time passes, we love our work…because there is a completed project to reflect upon.

Chronic Starting is a TRUE Enemy of the Art

Why? Well, a number of reasons.

We Can’t Grow

Pressure, stress and being forced into areas that just plain hurt make us grow and mature as artists. If we aren’t finishing books, maybe we need to understand plotting and structure better. If we keep starting new books, we never push into that area that forces us to strengthen where we are weak.

Yes, we are artists, but art is a business. We need to learn the unfun stuff like accounting, budgeting, spreadsheets and hiring and firing. Being a writer is not a glittery unicorn hug.

Anyone can start a blog. Blogs are free. Follow some prompts. But sticking to it? Sticking to it when it seems no one is listening? That’s when we have time to see what works and what doesn’t. We learn. We grow. We develop character.

We Never See Rewards

We have to learn to ship. Artists ship. That was a wonderful lesson I learned in Seth Godin’s Linchpin. The world will never reward the half-finished book, the abandoned blog or the business we left to rot.

The first YEAR I blogged, I was lucky to have 50 visits a day and probably most of those were spam bots. But I kept pressing, kept learning and trying new things. I kept blogging even when it seemed that no one was listening. I knew that, even if no one ever listened, blogging was a great exercise in developing the character of a professional. It taught me to show up day after day after day even when there seemed no apparent reward.

What happened? One day my blog exploded in readership and went from 100 visits a day to 1000 and has grown steadily. But that took over TWO YEARS. And even though I travel all over the country speaking, and teach classes and run after a three-year-old while running a business and writing more books…I still blog.

We Lose Respect and Support

When I first wanted to be a writer, most of my family was not supportive AT ALL. Why? Because I was a flake. They’d been down this road before and been duped.

Others can only cheer for our new beginning so many times before we lose their trust. I wasn’t a finisher. I would start something and the second it was actual work, I was on to something new. In my family’s eyes? Why would writing be any different?

It took years to prove to them I was the horse worth betting on. Now? They are my greatest champions because they now realize I’ve grown up. I have earned support and respect by sticking to what I start.

Most of our peers want us to succeed. They, too, love being part of something new. But our job is to let them see the fruits of our dreams. If we keep darting off to something shinier, we lose the respect and support of people around us. Instead of being happy about our bold new adventure, they roll their eyes and make bets how long it will take us to quit.

And I am not judging any of you. I have been through this myself. When I write about enemies of the art, it is because I have battled these foes on the front lines, and I didn’t always win. We will always fight them. They will never go away. Right now, I am in the last leg of my new book, like 10,000 words from finishing. I have to fight the siren’s song of doing something new every moment of every day. So I get you. Really, I do.

Just remember, The world does not reward starters; it rewards finishers.

What are your thoughts? Do you have trouble focusing? How do you fight the siren song of the shiny?

Here’s some Eye of the Tiger. Just keep playing it and keep pressing!

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of February, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less) .

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of February I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!