Kristen Lamb's Blog, page 99

The Secret to Success–Quitting

Want to know the secret to success? Quitting. Yes, you heard me correctly. And, if you’re a creative professional, it is in your interest to learn to get really good at quitting. Maybe you’ve felt like a loser or a failure, that your dream to make a living with your art was a fool’s errand.

Maybe, if you are anything like me, just maybe you had friends and family and people around you telling you that you were a dreamer, that you needed to get your head out of the clouds and to let go of your “magic beans” and learn to be something practical that made a good paycheck and came with dental benefits. Maybe, in an effort to counteract all this negativity, you found yourself wandering the inspiration books in Half Price Bookstore (namely because you were too broke to buy books full-price). And maybe, just maybe, you clung to the little dog-eared quote books full of really bad advice.

Bad advice?

Yes. Bad advice like:

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever. ~Lance Armstrong

You can never quit. Quitters never win and winners never quit. ~Ted Turner

You know what you call the writer who never gives up? Published. ~J.A. Konrath

Okay, well I won’t say this is exactly BAD advice, rather it is incomplete advice. Yet, this incomplete advice can get us into a lot of trouble.

Winners Quit All the Time

I posit this thought; if we ever hope to achieve anything remarkable, we must learn to quit. In fact, I’ll take this another step. I venture to say that most aspiring writers will not succeed simply because they aren’t skilled at quitting.

Ooooohhhh.

Learning Discernment

One problem many artists have is we lack discernment. It’s easy to get trapped in all-or-nothing thinking. If we defy family in pursuit of our art and something stops working properly, out of pride often we will persist even when the very thing we are attempting is the largest reason we will fail.

We keep reworking that first novel over and over. We keep querying the first novel and won’t move on until we get an agent. We keep writing in the same genre even though it might not be the best fit for our voice. We keep marketing the first self-published book and don’t move forward and keep writing more books and better books.

Learning to Quit is the Surest Insurance Against Failure

In fact, in my book Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer I even say, “Persistence looks a lot like stupid.” The act of never giving up is noble, but never giving up on the wrong things is a formula to fail. We have to learn to detect the difference between quitting a tactic and quitting a dream.

If I am trying to climb Mt. Everest, but I am repeatedly failing at climbing the one side, which is a sheer rock face with no way to get a footing, then it is suicide to keep trying the same thing. If, however, I regroup, hike back to the bottom and take another way up the mountain, I am a quitter…but I am NOT a failure. In fact, to win I must quit.

Learn to Quit from the Best

Most of us suck at knowing how and when to quit. This is one of the reasons it is a good idea to surround ourselves with successful people, because successful people are expert quitters. When I started out, I had all the wrong mentors. I had friends who quit writing when it was boring or who quit querying after a handful of rejections. They quit attending critique because they got their feelings hurt when people didn’t rave their book was the best thing since kitten calendars.

All this wrong kind of quitting is easy to fall into. Excuses are free, but they cost us everything.

My Life Changed When I Changed the Quitters in My Company

It all started with the DFW Writer’s Workshop. I attended and met people living the life I wanted to have…the life of a professional writer. They were the same as me, and yet very different. When I went to DFW’s conference–which I HIGHLY recommend so sign up NOW for the May conference–I found myself being pushed to yet a higher level.

I met and stalked Candy Havens. Candy is an excellent quitter. She wrote her first bad book and didn’t spend the next six years trying to resurrect it. She sought training and experts and moved forward. She quit outside hobbies and friends that took away from her goal of becoming a professional author.

The next great quitter I met? Oooh, this guy was a real turning point in my life. In fact, I regularly give thanks I met this person because his kind of quitting took me to a whole new level in my career. NYTBSA Bob Mayer. Bob is the best quitter I’ve ever met.

Bob taught me the importance of setting goals, because goals help us know when and what to quit. Bob showed me that it was okay to quit. It was okay to walk away from things that weren’t working and try something new. He walked away from the author life he’d always known, the safe route, and he quit. He decided to start a publishing company. It was the bravest kind of quitting I’ve ever seen. I know it was hard for him, and I am so thrilled to see him reaping the rewards for his hard work and bravery.

New York publishing should pay attention. If something isn’t working QUIT. Move on! If we have to defend and justify what we are doing there’s something wrong.

Everything is Our Enemy

It’s hard to know when to quit. I’m a loyal person. I’m loyal to a fault and I struggle every day with this lesson. But I’ve recently come to a conclusion. People who reach their dreams don’t get there by doing EVERYTHING. Everything is dead weight. Everything will keep us from focusing. Everything gets us distracted. Everything is the enemy.

As you guys know, recently I had to let go of my critique group. It just wasn’t working. It wasn’t that I didn’t love every person in there, but with gas prices at $5 a gallon (and nothing in Texas is close) the attendance just was never great. Then, there were all the other dreams I wanted to achieve, so I had to let go. No bad feelings.

I love teaching blogging classes, but I had to let go of doing it the way I was doing it. It was too cumbersome and it was affecting how well I could teach. The tactic was endangering the outcome.

I had to realize that to win I had to quit. Sometimes our goals are correct, just how we are trying to get there is flawed. There is nothing wrong with having a goal of going to Florida from Texas. I can start out on a pogo stick, but no one would blame me for trading it for a car.

Sometimes we need to let go of inefficiencies, and if we don’t let go, then failure is just a matter of time.

Artists Actually Need More Quitting

Quit your day job. Today. This moment. Now, by quitting, I don’t mean you should throw your laptop in a waste can and take a bat to that copy machine that’s eaten every presentation you’ve tried to photocopy since the day you were hired….though that might be fun.

No, I mean mentally QUIT, then hire yourself to the dream. Screw aspiring. Aspiring is for pansies. It takes guts to be a writer. It takes guts to be any kind of creative professional. Hire yourself to the job you dream about. TODAY.

When I was at the North Texas RWA Conference I heard the best term EVER. No aspiring writers, only pre-published writers. If you want to be a professional author, you must quit to win. The day job is no longer the ends, but rather the means. The day job is just venture capital funding the successful art-making business…YOU.

You are a pre-published author…who happens to also be a stay-at-home-mom, a computer programmer, a salesperson, a whatever.

Learn to Quit Being Everything

Again, Everything is the enemy. Friends and family will want you to keep being the maid and the taxi and the babysitter and the buddy who can spend all day shoe-shopping. Many of us will try to keep being Everything to everyone and we’ll just try to “fit in” writing, but that is the lie that will kill the dream. We can’t be Everything!

We must learn when to quit and to be firm in quitting. Others have the right to be disappointed, but they’ll get over it. And, if they really love us they will get over it quickly and be happy for our resolve to reach our dreams. If they don’t? They’re dead weight and it’s better to cull them out of our life sooner than later.

Yes, this is hard stuff. Reaching our dreams is simple, but it will never be easy .

Next week we’ll explore some more ways to know how and when to quit. In the meantime, I do recommend Bob Mayer’s Write It Forward. This is an excellent book to teach how to set goals and make a plan for success. I also recommend Seth Godin’s The Dip–The Little Book That Teaches When to Quit and When to Stick. I do have to say that I loved Seth Godin’s book, but I was a tad annoyed to spend $11 on a 50 page book. It is a wonderful book with loads of great advice, but I suggest getting a used copy. I felt a bit gouged.

So what are some of your quitting stories? Did it work? Were you better off? Tell us your quit to win story! Do you need help sticking to your guns? Hey, your family doesn’t get you, but we do! Do you have a problem and you don’t know if you should stick or quit? Put it in the comments section and let us play armchair psychiatrist!

I LOVE hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of April, 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of April I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Last Week’s Winner of 5 Page Critique–Rachel Sullivan!!! Please send your 1250 word Word document to author kristen dot lamb at g mail dot com.

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Stress Less, Write More

Writers are no strangers to stress. Many of us work full-time day jobs and write, or we balance a family and write, or we balance a family, a day job, and school, and write. There is just so much to keep up with, and few of us are blessed enough to have a secret lab with a death ray that will vaporize intruders….though I’m still saving. Frequently, writers will whine say, “But I just don’t have tiiiime. Writing and work and blogging and social media. There isn’t enough tiiiiiiime.”

Granted, all of us are spread thinly, but the thing is we have the same 24 hours as everyone else. Often we DO have the time, we just lack focus. We don’t have a time management conflict, we have a values conflict. Very often we have plenty of time, we just have values or beliefs or weaknesses that are devouring our time.

For me?

I have always struggled with organization, and frankly, if don’t make a list, I will be sorting baby pictures or writing out greeting cards in three minutes flat. I’ve always been envious of people who run their homes with military efficiency. You know the people I am talking about; those folk who aren’t afraid of their closets and actually know what is in every drawer.

Show-offs .

Know Where You Are Weak

Yet, I have to say that just because something is our nature doesn’t mean that we are to be a victim to our innate shortcomings. In fact, Bob Mayer gives a wonderful exercise in his workshops. He says to look at our Myers-Briggs personality…then look at the opposite of our personality, and likely that is the area we need the most work.

I am going to take it a step farther. I believe that the opposite of our personality could be what keeps us from ever enjoying great success. That simple weakness could be where all your minutes are hemorrhaging away, bleeding out your energy unnoticed.

More on this in a second…

Procrastination is Birthed from Fear

One of my all-time favorite books is Eat That Frog—21 Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracey. For those of you who follow this blog, I’ve mentioned this book many times before because I love it. It WORKS. Anyway, in Eat That Frog, Tracey gives an interesting rule.

Rule: Your weakest key area sets the height at which you can use all your other skills and abilities.

Tracey advises that you sit down and write out all that is required for you to do your job. We’ll take five for our purposes today. As a writer I must:

Have a good imagination
A solid command of grammar
Possess a modicum of talent when it comes to writing prose
Have the self-discipline to write
Possess superior organizational ability

When it comes to the first four, I totally ROCK….and then we get to that last part *winces.* Superior organization? Oh yeah.

That.

First of all, even when you write non-fiction, information needs to flow in an optimal way or it won’t be enjoyable reading (this is part of that ever-elusive “voice” we’ve been talking about).

Same thing applies to fiction, and the way we organize and deliver the story is a HUGE part of voice. If we hope to be a successful novelist, we have to be masters at organization. We have to balance narrative plot points, character arcs, POV, setting, dialogue and keep everything straight and give it perfect timing.

The greatest part of dramatic tension is relaying the right piece of information at the right time. We have to manage all these components over the span of 60-110,000 words. This is one of the reasons many aspiring novelists never get beyond the “aspiring” part. They believe that the talent to manage all of this information is something writers are born with, when in fact it is a skill that 99% of the time must be taught, and then refined with a lot of trial, error and shots of tequila.

Writing a novel is an entirely different creature, yet many new writers mistakenly believe that they can jump from short story to novel with no problem. Sure. That is like creating a three-bar melody and then believing we are ready to compose a symphony with a 100 piece orchestra.

Not happening.

And, if I look at where I have had the largest struggles when it comes to writing…it has always been in my ability to organize (or lack of ability as the case may be).

Ah, but if we look at my Myers-Briggs, I am an ENFP, which means I am highly skilled at concepts and BIG ideas…but I fall apart when it comes to execution because I have to work extra hard to manage the small details. If we look at the opposite of my personality we get…my husband. Seriously, there should be a picture of my husband below the ISTJ.

Tigger married Spock.

ENFP (The Inspirer)——ISTJ (The Duty Fulfiller)

“Kristen, you are being illogical.”

I have creativity, imagination and enough energy to power a small city, but it is clear where I fall abysmally short. Ah, the devil is in the details.

I think this Myers Briggs test is a great exercise for getting a clear idea of what specifically is in our nature that needs to be addressed, the weakness that is the biggest time and energy suck. But I want to take it another step.

The Pareto Principle

In Eat That Frog, Tracey also introduces the Pareto  Principle. In 1895, economist Vincent Pareto noticed that society seemed to naturally divide into what he called the “vital few” and the “trivial many.” 20% of the population had all the wealth power and influence and the bottom 80% got whatever was left. He later discovered that this principle held true in all economic activity.

In short, 20% of our activity will account for 80% of our results.

This means that if we have a list of ten things to do, TWO of those items will be worth as much if not more than the other eight combined. But can you guess which items we are most likely to procrastinate on doing? The items that will cause us the most stress and sap most of our energy? Right. The two activities that could make the most difference. We are also most likely to procrastinate where we are weak.

Can you guess where I procrastinate? Yep, any activity that requires organizational skills. Whether it is plotting my novel or filing invoices, I do everything I can to get out of doing the chores that require I operate where I am weak. Yet, remember the rule I began with?

Your weakest key area sets the height at which you can use all your other skills and abilities.

This rule basically says that if I do not figure out a way to mitigate or correct my greatest weakness, that it will always be my single greatest limiting factor.

So What Can We Do?

First, buy a copy of Eat That Frog. LOVE this book and use its principles to get A LOT of work done. See, knowledge is power and once we become aware of our limiting factors, then we can take action. We aren’t at the mercy of our nature.

I know organization will never come natural to me, but it does come naturally to my mother, my sister-in-law, and my husband. When I need a system worked out for me, I have learned that I don’t have to do everything. I can delegate. GASP! I know! Cool, right? This frees me up to focus where I am strongest, which will make me more productive, which will alleviate stress.

Of course, delegating isn’t one of those things I do well, naturally either, so I have to surround myself with friends who will slap me correct me if I fail to delegate properly.

Hi, Piper! Hi, Ingrid! Hi Jenny!

I also make lists every day and no longer try to just “keep it in my head.” I then look at that list and whatever item makes me cringe when I read it (FROGS)? That is what I do first. Remember, 20% of our activity is going to account for 80% of our results.

When I tackle the toughest items first, I actually get more accomplished overall.

How?

When we do the toughest jobs first, we get an endorphin rush from the sense of accomplishment. Also, since our toughest jobs are out of the way, the other “less important” chores go faster since we aren’t dragging our feet dreading the FROGS.

And how does this apply to writing? Well, I know that my prose is strong and I suffer no lack of imagination, BUT I do not naturally plot well. I used to get lost in the details and had a tough time keeping everything straight.  This is why most of the writing books I now buy have to do with various ways to plot.

Instead of reading book after book studying my strengths (dialogue), I started to focus more on my weak areas, because those areas would be my limiting factor if left unaddressed. I also know that my writing will be faster and cleaner and require fewer revisions if I can strengthen this weak area. I also surround myself with fellow writers who are natural plotters because they can add even more strength to my area of weakness.

We Can’t Change What We Won’t Face

What is your weak writing area? Work on that FIRST. Find fellow writers who are strong where you are weak. #MyWANA is a good place to start.

Same in life and business. What is your weakness? Is it organization? Confrontation? Community? We don’t need to remake our personalities, and I do believe we should work to make the most of our strengths, but we must acknowledge and account for our weaknesses. Some weaknesses we can and must conquer if we want to be successful. Fear is a good example.

Maybe the two things I don’t want to do are because I fear rejection. Well, the best way to conquer a fear is to face a fear. Sometimes the only way out is through.

Other weaknesses? Those might be best delegated. I know I will never be highly organized. My brain doesn’t work that way, BUT I can delegate to people who are and, odds are, if they are good at my weakness then I am good at theirs. They help me and I can help them and then we are always working in the areas where we are strongest. TEAM.

Fact is, until we take an inventory, we can’t make a plan. Again, knowledge is power.

So what are some issues you guys struggle with and how do you deal with them? Any books or resources you can recommend? Are you a master at organization and maybe can offer tips? Or, are you like me? A junk drawer junkie? How do you overcome the clutter?

I LOVE hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of April, 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of April I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Staying Safe in the Digital World–Digital Sheep Get Sheared & Slaughtered

Um, I think someone hacked my Facebook account.

We live in a wonderful world, an amazing time with infinite possibilities. Writers have more power than ever before in the whole of human history. Many of us are explorers in a New World, charting unknown territories in a realm with no boundaries. The Digital World has no limits, because its genesis is human imagination and human art, which also has no limits. What the mind can believe, technology can achieve.

Every new territory comes with the splendors never seen, the resources never tapped, the powers never before harnessed. All of this is wonderful, but I wish all art was beautiful. All art is human and all art has intent, but some intent is, well, evil. Some art qualifies as a dark art. Its intent is to steal, to create havoc, to harm.

They are called con artists for good reason.

I don't understand these individuals, and I suppose the nature of evil is for the psychologists and theologians to debate. I can't explain why there are those in this world who will hurt people they've never met or steal with no concern to what devastation they might create. But, these crooks are there, they are a real threat, and I'm here today to help you guard against attacks.

Hey, I may be a Lamb, but I'm no sheep

Not only am I going to offer tools to keep you as safe as possible, but I am also going to give ways we can look out for each other and for those who might not know better. There are digital sheep, digital wolves, but today I want to train you guys to be digital sheepdogs. We aren't passive, but we are protective and we are on guard to protect those around us.

Mom, I'm happy you're on FB, but please stop talking to the "nice man from the bank in Nigeria."

Hackers and Phishers Use Emotion

One common tactic used by hackers and phishers, is they seek to get us upset. If they can scare us or momentarily panic us, we are far more likely to part with sensitive information without thinking.

This past Friday, I received an automated phone call from Sprint. The computer asked for me to press 1 if I was the person with the Sprint account ending in blah blah blah. The computer voice gave a number (supposedly the ending 4 digits on my account number), but how many of us are running around with our account numbers memorized? Most of us aren't and the bad guys are counting on that. They bluff.

So then the computer tells me that some recent changes have been made to my account and that this call was to verify that I was the one who made the changes.

See how they want to get me upset?

They want me to think Oh no! Someone has hacked my account! I need to get to the bottom of this RIGHT NOW!

The next question the computerized voice asked was the red flag. It wanted me to punch in the billing zip code for the credit card my phone bill was registered under so they could verify I was the holder of the account and help me get the problems sorted.

Yeah, uh no.

Companies Will NOT Call YOU and Ask for What They Already Know

If I'd had any doubts this was a hacker before, all doubts evaporated. Any time a company you do business with calls you, they will NEVER ask for sensitive information that they can call up with a few keystrokes. Yes, they will ask for it when we call them because they are verifying we are not phishers.

BUT, if MasterCard or American Express or Sprint or AT&T CALLS YOU, they will already have that information and will never ask for it. If they do, hang up and CALL THEM to make sure who you are talking to.

Alert Those in the Know

This is what I did. I hung up, called Sprint and asked if recent changes had been made. Of course, there hadn't been. So at this point I gave the folks at Sprint the phone number where I received the call and turned the problem over to them. Someone might have already hacked their accounts. They needed to make sure no one had breached their firewalls, and that, if there had been a breach, that it was contained and sealed and the threat eliminated.

I was being a sheepdog. Sheep either get eaten by wolves (hand over account information) or they go back to munching grass (playing Farmville). Digital sheepdogs go alert those in charge that wolves are sniffing the perimeter.

Sprint might have been fine and this was just a random attack. Ah, but if Chinese spies can hack into the major oil companies and defense companies, there is no reason that programming cannot be easily adapted as malware that could have infected Sprint. Sprint (or any company) can't fight the problem until they know there is a problem.

If someone is a suspected bot on Twitter, we should block and report them. If they try to phish our account, we need to report them. If we get odd e-mails that seem like phishing on Facebook, we must report it.

Digital Wolves WILL Wear Digital Sheep Clothing

So thieves will try to upset you. This will get you to react and hand over sensitive information. One of the ways they can get this reaction is by posing as an authority. For instance, I had this pop up on my Facebook:

Now, 99% of the time I am multitasking and have a toddler trying to scale the back of my head like the Matterhorn. Do you see how EASY it would be to catch me off guard and hack my account? Looks official…but look closer.

See how they tried to embarrass and upset me? These creeps know that most of us are good and decent and follow the rules. We were the kids who would have cried if we were threatened with a visit to the Principal. These trolls use what is good an noble about us to attack us. They will use our respect for authority against us if we let them.

I have also had a pop up appear when I went to get on Tweet Deck. The pop up from "Tweet Deck Security" was there to inform me me that my account had been suspended for suspicious spamming activity, but that they were sure it was all a misunderstanding. If I just typed in my password, they would make sure everything was sorted and my account would be unlocked.

I closed the window, logged out and logged back in. My account was fine. This was an attack.

If They Can't Bait You with Bosses, They'll Bait You with Buddies

Another common ploy is to come disguised as our "friends."

The friend phisher will send a DM (direct message) about rumors about you or a nasty review or wild pictures and a link. The hacker is disguised as a fellow member of the herd. Baaaahhhhhh. Someone is saying baaaaaad things about you.

"I'm your friend so I am discreetly telling you so you can go tell them what for."

No, they are a hacker, and, if you hit that link, your computer is toast. Malware will be all over you like fleas on sheep.

If you get a DM like this, be a sheepdog. Look out for your peeps. Tell them you are getting strange messages and alert them to change their passwords (Something more than seven digits with a number is a good choice). DM them back, but even if you can't? No one will mind a, "Hey, I tried to DM you but I can't. You might want to change your password. Getting weird DMs from you."

This Also Applies to E-Mail

If you get an e-mail from a friend and there is only a link, DO NOT CLICK. If they write a message that seems out of character, DO NOT CLICK. REPLY ALL and alert everyone on the e-mail that this is likely a phisher and tell the sender to change her password immediately. Put in the subject line Re: THIS IS A PHISHER!!! DO NOT CLICK THE LINK!!!

Either the sender will come back and verify he really did send just a link; it was for a dancing squirrel and he hit "send" before he typed a message OR he can change his password and keep hackers from getting in any deeper.

If a friend e-mails for help because she is stranded (and you are unsure if this is really the person), feel free to e-mail back and tell the friend to call you. Since you are friends, then she should have your number.

DO NOT Forward on Cutesy E-Mails

Ever get those messages with a picture of an angel and you have to send to 25 friends in the next ten minutes if you want a miracle…but if you don't forward the message the note promises that you will be hit with some form of bad luck? DO NOT PASS THESE ON. Hackers use these types of messages to get a hold of addresses.

How else could that cousin in Uganda who wants to will you a million dollars find you?

If you do get some really cute story in your e-mail and you REALLY want to pass it on, just copy and paste into a new e-mail. Hackers already don't work for a living, why make their life on Easy Street easy?

Play Games at Your own Risk

There are all kinds of games on Facebook. We can join causes or keep up with high school peeps, but often it requires granting permission to an application to have access to our information. Not all of this is nefarious, since if I am an application that wants to connect alumni, I need that information.

But these applications are gateways for hackers and phishers, too. I don't play games like Farmville for that reason (frankly, it's also because I don't have time). But any of those games are a risk, so be alert and don't just grant access to anyone. I rarely join ANYTHING that wants access to my account information, even if it will make life easier.

We have to do the cost-benefit analysis. Sure we can have fun, or an ease of access….but we can also grant fun and ease of access to thieves.

Don't Use Tweet Validation Services and DO NOT FOLLOW People Who do

I don't like any service that directs people to an outside page. Anything that directs us off Twitter is vulnerable and can be hijacked. We could be redirected to a copycat site that is there to capture information.

We don't need validation services. It is not THAT hard to unfollow bots. If someone follows us then they spam us, it takes two clicks to report and block them.

If I follow someone and I get A DM that I need to click a link to prove I'm a real person? I move on. That is a good way to get hacked. And, since I don't like people making me vulnerable to attack, I just make it my policy to not open any of YOU to attack.

It's being a good TweepDog.

So to sum up:

1. Never give information to any unconfirmed source.

2. If a message upsets you, calm down before giving any information. Thieves want us reactive. Remain CALM AND PROACTIVE.

3. Never click on any outside link. Ignore validation services. There are plenty of people who won't make you jump through hoops and open you up to viruses who will befriend you.

4. USB drives are classic tools for getting malware through a firewall. If you don't trust where a drive came from, don't insert it into your computer.

5. Always report any attempts to gain access to your information or accounts.

6. Keep an eye out for friends, family and members of your network. Alert them if it seems their account has been compromised.

7. Do NOT use any outside validation services. This opens those in your network to hackers.

Social media is, above all else, SOCIAL. It is far easier to relax and have a good time if we aren't having our bank accounts emptied. Remember, they call those people con artists for a reason. They will be cunning, clever and quick…but we can be educated and work together.

Please post this blog to your networks, send it to friends and family so they know how to stay safer. The more educated we all are, the safer we are. Together we are stronger.

Have you ever been hacked or phished? What did you do? How did it make you feel? I know I don't know everything, so what are some tips YOU guys would recommend? I know there are some computer geniuses in my following. Help us out. What are some more ways we can stay safe? How can we better look out for one another?

I LOVE hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of April, 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of April I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer's Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Daring to Be an Original–Voice Part 3

Jack Black in Nacho Libre

A few weeks ago, I started a series on voice. Part One introduced voice, why it is important and even what might be standing in the way of us developing a unique and powerful writing voice. Part Two offered three tangible ways to improve our writing voice. Today we are going backtrack a little due to some feedback I had in the comments. I can give you guys tips about training writing voice until pigs fly, but those tips will be more helpful if you really understand voice and what it is.

Rocket science, right?

What is "Voice?"

All agents want one and all writers want to know what the heck it is. If it was easy to define, then we wouldn't have countless articles, books and classes to demystify "voice." Today, I will put in my two cents and see if it can help the light bulb go off.

Voice is, in its essence, that uniqueness that we as artists bring to the story. Remember, humans relied on an oral tradition for tens of thousands of years. We are a story people and "voice," in my opinion, is a holdover from that oral tradition.

Ah, but the original storytellers were not only the precursors of the modern writer, they were also the precursor to the modern ACTOR. I can imagine the one dude in the cave who used the most dramatic gestures and movements and the best inflection at just the right time AS he told the story probably had the best audiences.

Writers are Also Composers/Directors

TIMING, is a HUGE part of being a good storyteller, thus it is naturally a large component of "voice." Writers must have a natural sense of when things should be tense, versus the times we need to let the audience have a breather. Writing a novel is very akin to writing a symphony. If everything is crescendo, then nothing is. If every page is mind-numbing tension, then nothing is. Conversely, if our writing is just a character thinking, then thinking some more, then thinking some more, then that is not a story, it's a diary. It's the elevator music of story.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

As writers, we are also directors. We need to take charge of the setting, the lighting, the mood and then tell the characters what to do (give stage direction). Our words are what give the pauses between the push. We must choose the right words at the right time to always control the pace, the push and pull of conflict. We not only must make sure the plot arc is progressing accordingly, but the characters must arc as well. All of this must be balanced until the grand finale, the Big Boss Battle that every chapter has let up to. How we balance all of this is known as "voice."

Writers Have a Lot in Common with Actors

Just like actors have to get in the head of a character they must portray on stage or in film, we, too, must learn to "get in the head" of our characters…ALL of them. An actor must play a singular part, but we must, to a degree, play ALL of the parts. It isn't enough to be in the head of our protagonist. If we cannot also learn to empathize with the antagonist and even the supportive characters, our writing will be flat and will lack dimension.

New writers lack confidence and skill, so often what will happen is they parrot a popular author. They become a bad copy instead of an awesome original. But, the bigger mistake I see is voice often comes with preparation, and new writers often fail to prepare. New writers fail to understand the characters before they start writing. They get a flash of a scene in their head and then start typing. This is like an actor not taking any time to study the part before he begins reciting lines.

Not that this way is wrong, but it can make the difference between a Saturday Night Live skit performance versus a performance that brings home an Oscar.

I've read many a new writer whose characters all sounded like the same person. They hadn't taken time to understand the characters–all of them–and really think about GCM (Goal, Conflict, Motivation). Thus, either all the characters sounded alike and the dialogue sounded like a bad third-grade play, or the protagonist was the only character with depth (because he was based off the writer) and all the other characters are talking heads or bad knock-offs off the protagonist.

Voice Can Affect Our Career

First of all, voice can affect our career because if we don't have a solid voice, we won't connect with readers. Agents love a strong writing voice because they love finding works readers will love. We can have the best plot ever written, but if all the characters are talking heads, it doesn't matter. We can have the most interesting characters, but if we cannot put them in an interesting and compelling story, we still have a problem (though, granted, an easier one to fix than the former).

But voice can affect more than whether we get an agent. Voice can affect how well we write. Do we have the right genre for our natural voice? This is why we should never write for the market. We shouldn't write romance because it's a hot market. We should just ignore trends and write the best story for us to write.

How Does Genre Affect Voice?

Let's extend this idea of actors being related to writers. Let's say I have a role to cast. I want a male actor to play a cowboy. I have three different actors. I have Clint Eastwood, Jack Black, and Robert Deniro. Same story, different actors. Can you see how the choice of actor–the choice of the voice–becomes essential to how the story will play out? If I cast the wrong actor for the story I as a director want to tell, I can have a disaster, even though ALL THREE ACTORS are highly skilled and talented.

If I want a Old School Western? Clint Eastwood. But if I want a comedy? Clint might not be the right actor, unless Clint wants to branch out and do some intensive study in the area of comedy. With a lot of work and training, Clint could pull it off. But does he really want to? Does the director want to mess with it when it is simply easier to cast Jack Black?

This is why we must really understand our voice and develop it accordingly. I LOVE thrillers, but I'm naturally a humor author. I find that I might love reading thrillers, but I've had a tough time writing them. I get far too sidetracked with comedy that isn't appropriate. Thrillers are not a natural fit with my writing voice.

I made a mistake of believing that because I loved to read thrillers, that I should then write them. Yeah…um, no.

It took writing three thrillers that I was less than thrilled about (bada bump *snare*) to see what my true writing voice really was. My NF has been a success because I am true to my voice, whereas my fiction was good, it's won contests, but it never felt…right. It didn't have that connection that my NF did.

Why? I was writing outside of my voice. I was Jack Black trying to play the lead in Deadwood.

Yet, it is only because I wrote a lot that I figured this out. I experimented and I also gained CONFIDENCE to admit where I really needed to be writing. I was less prone to listen to what other people thought and decided to take my path.

This is why writing and writing A LOT will reveal our true voice. We get time to try the genres we like and if they are a fit? Perfect! If not? We'll see it sooner.

Voice and Empathy

I feel a HUGE part of voice is the ability to truly develop the ability to empathize. The more we study the human condition, the easier we can get in the head of a character. This is why reading fiction is so vital. By reading good fiction, we are essentially studying people through stories. This is why I can spot writers who don't read.

Writers who read a lot of fiction are better writers. Ah, but want to get even BETTER?

Broaden the Palette

Read NF, particularly psychology and sociology books. The more we study people, the easier it is to empathize and it will also ring as authentic. Read body language books. Read history. Read as much as you can. Then get out of your comfort zone and live life. Take risks. I jumped out of an airplane, but, in retrospect, I could have probably taken a pottery class and been fine. LIVE, then bring that to your craft. Get out among people. Listen to them. Study them. Take part in the human condition.

If our voice is our art, then how many colors, shades, textures and tools do you want to bring to the table? Sure, we are free to finger-paint with three primary colors, but it will limit our art.

So, do you guys feel that you finally understand what voice is? Do you have questions? What are your thoughts? Your suggestions? Do you think people are born with their natural voice? Or do you feel life experience shapes voice? If we don't have a voice can we develop one? Do you believe there are "tone deaf" writers who will never improve no matter how much teaching?

Share! I love hearing from you!

I LOVE hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of April, 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of April I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Two Week Ago Winner of 5 Page Critique is JBW0123.

Last Week's Winner of 5 Page Critique is J.L. Mbewe.

Ladies, please send your 1250 word Word document to author kristen dot lamb at g mail dot com. My web site is under construction so it has been a real mess catching up with all the contest entries. This e-mail should work fine.

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer's Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Writing Conferences–Beware of Crossing Deer

Photo credit: John Lund

Happy Good Friday! I hope everyone has a restful holiday. We are entering the conference season, and there are a lot of large conferences coming up soon. So, today I'd like to relay my disaster experience with my first conference and then offer the powerful lessons I learned.

Remember, I made all the dumb mistakes so you don't have to.

I have to say that I have attended quite a few conferences, and the DFW Writer's Workshop folk have been one of the best (It was also my first, so it will always hold a dear spot in my heart). This year the keynote speaker is New York Times Best-Selling Author James Rollins. The DFWWWW Conference has a history of selling out early, so seriously, buy your slot NOW.  You'll thank me later. DFW offers an amazing variety of classes, taught by some of the best talent in the industry.

I mean, I am teaching there, right?

Ouch. I got a cramp patting myself on the back.

It is so interesting looking back now at my first conference. A lot has changed. I am a multi-published, best-selling NF author represented by one of the top agencies in the world, S.G.G. Literary, as opposed to a hopeful wanna-be fiction writer. I am a speaker, not an attendee.

It still feels very surreal, and I still keep thinking one day the gig will be up and they'll realize I was on the list by accident. But, hey *shrugs* we'll party until they figure it out, right? .

Anyway, looking back at my first conference is sort of like being out of college and looking back at that time of trial and testing and thinking…I am so much smarter now. Or, thank God I am not still THAT stupid. In my case, it's a close tie which.

My first conference was back in February of 2008. I was an overachiever and got Swine Flu a year before it swept the world. For most of February, I had 103 fever and wanted to die…then burn my own ashes (again) because I was pretty sure I was so sick that even my cremated remains would have body ache. I nearly didn't make it to the conference (which was DFW).

I was so sure that 2008 would the year I got an agent. All I needed was an agent and then my life would be on Easy Street. My biggest concern was what to do if the agents started fighting over me. How would I choose which one to go with? Would it make future cocktail parties in NY awkward?

Yes…I was a wee delusional, and sadly, I cannot blame it on my fever.

And, to make it worse, I should have known better, but I didn't. I had been on the editing side and had many, many acknowledgements in published books from grateful authors who professed publicly that they would not have been published without my help. I'd run a well-established critique group for 3 years and had even been teaching some social media. I felt pretty confident that I knew my stuff.

I find it funny how I had been in "the publishing industry" for so long, yet was still pretty clueless. I think I was like the computer programmer who believed he could kick butt in software sales. I knew so much, but in my pride and relative isolation, was unable to see how much more I had yet to learn.

Conferences are vital for showing us how much we really don't know (but then they give us the tools to remedy that, too).

So, anyway, that Friday night, the agent-author social went really well. I was charming and fun in my own mind, and managed to make it through the entire night without tucking my dress in my pantyhose. I think that was the last thing to go right for the next 24 hours.

First, for those who do not know, I have a zillion food allergies. I might even be allergic to myself. I would live in a giant bubble, but I can't get cable. So keep this in mind.

Hey, can somebody order me gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, preservative free pizza? Please? Anyone?

The Friday social goes well, but that night I get no sleep. None. I was too excited. I was going to be an agented author by this time the next night. My future was so bright, I was fairly sure it had caused permanent retinal damage.

The next morning I peeled myself out of bed and drove to Grapevine, TX, which was about an hour away. I looked stunning in my new suit, but I was so fried that I forget to grab the food I'd packed the night before. I arrived at the conference half-starving already and it wasn't even 8:00 a.m. That entire morning, I barely paid attention to any of the craft classes because 1) I was exhausted 2) I was starving and 3) I had my agent pitch right after lunch…which I could smell and it was making me half-mad.

I dodged out of a class early to talk to the caterer and asked if he had anything that was gluten and dairy free. He said "Yes." The angels started singing. YES! I could get something to eat. I grabbed my meal and began wolfing it down prison-style, knife at the ready to stab any of the kitchen staff who might decide to take my plate before I had eaten the garnish and the Sweet & Low packets (fiber).

I finished eating before the other writers were even let out of class. I was feeling great. The writers filed in. I started socializing to take my mind of the pitch that I knew would catapult me to fame and fortune.

Candy Havens stepped up to do her keynote and…

My heart rate suddenly kicked up to 150 beats a minute, and felt like I was having a heart attack. I felt dizzy and my fingers and feet went totally numb, along with part of my face. I struggled to stay conscious as I watched Candy's speech. I couldn't get up and interrupt her, but I was terrified that I was going to pass out right there. My peripheral vision was soon gone. Black. And I could tell I was inches from blacking out. Clearly I got into something I was allergic to. I chugged every glass of water at the table trying to dilute whatever foul element I ingested.

I hung on Candy's every word…waiting for the last one. The second people start clapping I dove out of the banquet hall and stumbled to the bathroom. I was in bad shape. A couple of the speakers happened to be in there and apparently it was clear to them that something was definitely wrong with me. They wanted to take me to a hospital.

NO! I had come too far. I could do this.

I still had an hour until my pitch session…the 15 minutes that would change my life forever…although I did grant permission to call an ambulance if I passed out.

During that hour, I drank another gallon of water and the symptoms, blessedly, started to subside. About a half hour after I staggered into the restroom, another woman stumbled into the bathroom with a screaming migraine. Apparently the caterer forgot to mention the liberal amounts of MSG (monosodium glutamate) in the broth used to cook the rice. We were both in pretty bad shape.

Thus, I missed another craft class trying to be at least coherent for the agent pitch. I got into the room and my beautiful suit is all rumpled and my hair is flat on one side (from leaning on a chair trying not to die).  I am also pretty certain I only had makeup on one eye.

I sit down and begin to talk, but have no idea what point I am trying to make…and now I have to pee. Like BAD. Like 12 seconds after I sit down I am now aware of the 6 gallons of water I drank. So now I am wiggling and trying to think, but all I can picture are waterfalls and sprinkler systems and babbling brooks and speaking of babbling, what the hell was my book about anyway?

It was a disaster.

 Actual photo of Kristen Lamb at first agent pitch session.

But, an hour after the pitch session, I felt better and I finally got to do what conferences are all about. I made loads of friends and connections, and took some great classes to improve my skills. I learned so much at that conference and met some of the most AMAZING people who are my friends even to this day. Candy Havens is still one of my all-time favorite people, and it is really cool to now be one of her peers instead of this strange neophyte-stalker.

Okay, I am still strange and slightly a stalker but she now doesn't jump when she spots me in her shrubs.

Anyway, I look back and wonder if I would have just lightened up and gone for the conference for the right reasons, would I have had my near-death experience? I was so keyed up that I made one dumb decision after another, which was probably fueled by stress and sleep deprivation.

I gave myself Deer in the Headlight Syndrome. You know what happens the deer caught in the headlights? They get creamed, flattened, squished.

Hopefully, I made my point. RELAX! ENJOY your conference experience. Making the decision to attend a conference separates the wanna-bes from the professionals. Conferences are the best, and they are the greatest investment you will ever make in your writing career, but NOT because of that 15 minute pitch session.

The pitch session is not a career make-or-break situation. Seriously, agents (I have heard whispers of rumors coming from the caves) are HUMAN. More importantly they are humans with the sole job of finding writers to represent. They are not the enemy. Also, the only person with the power to make or break our career is….US. Agents do not hold that power. If we write excellent stuff, agents will want to represent it. Period.

Line of writers waiting outside agent pitch-sessions.

Also, we can talk to agents outside the pitch session. I don't recommend sliding your query letter under the bathroom stall, and try not to ambush them outside the Ladies Room door, but here is a little understood secret. Agents go to conferences to network and to…. Are you ready for this? FIND CLIENTS.

We can talk to them. In fact, agents expect writers will talk to them. To think otherwise is like thinking it would be rude to offer a designer a fabric swatch at a trade show. Agents go to writing confernces to meet writers and, hopefully, out of aaaallllll the hopefuls, find someone with content that they believe they can sell.

We are in control of our careers, which means that yes, agents are important, but connections and classes trump agents any day of the week. The more connections we have, the more doors of opportunity will come our way. The more we listen to others and learn from them, the faster we grow and mature into the type of writer an agent is dying to represent.

In the end, after all of my suffering, did I get an agent? No. I got a form letter with the wrong name on it. But, it was probably one of the most valuable experiences of my career, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Top 5 Tips to Maximize Your Writing Conference

1. Go to all the craft classes you can.

Trust me, no matter how good we think we are, we aren't even close to how great we COULD be. Go to more than just agent panels and "How to Land an Agent" classes. Take this opportunity to grow into a better you. Grab hold of that opportunity to learn from those doing what you want to do. Ask questions. Take lots of notes. Team up with friends and take all the classes and then share notes. Often there are tricks and techniques shared that we can't get out of a book.

2. Network

Also, at conferences, we get to network with authors who are where we want to one day be. We can make hostages mentors out of them. I stalked Candy Havens…okay, I still stalk her. But she is an AMAZING human being and five minutes listening to her will make you feel like you can take over the world. She is the only person I know who can simultaneously kick my @$$ and make me grateful for it. I have a conference to thank for knowing her. Candy challenged me to come up to a higher level and she STILL does. This is worth more than what you will pay for the conference. TRUST ME.

3. Talk to all the agents.

Not necessarily to pitch your book, but just to be nice. You might see them at another conference and they will recognize you. Now you are forming a relationship. This also helps you see they are really blood-sucking werewolves human.

You can talk to agents other than the one assigned in your pitch. The pitch session just guarantees us a particular agent's undivided attention. It doesn't mean that the other agents will take out a restraining order on you if you say "hi" and ask to give your elevator pitch.

4. Have FUN!

Conferences aren't cheap. Squeeze every bit if fun out of every little moment. Get your money's worth.

5. Go out of your way to form memories.

This is like high school or college. We can either have a blast in our "learning years" and take lots of pictures and have lots of fun…or we can rush through it and fail to enjoy our "writing youth" because we are to busy wanting to be "writing grown-ups." We only get to be Baby Writers once. Enjoy the moments of magic before this becomes a job. Enjoy the youth because you will soon have to let it go.

So what are some of your conference experiences? Good or bad? Some of my closest friends are people I met at conferences. Do you have any advice? Tips? Pointers? Want to recommend a conference? Want me to come speak at a conference in your area? Put it in the comments. I love hearing from you.

I LOVE hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of April, 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of April I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Due to the tornadoes, I am behind. Will announce last week and this week's winners on Monday. Thank you for your patience.

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer's Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Twitter & Twisters–A Life-Saving Combination

For more about the tornadoes, there are more slides and videos over at CBS news.

This past weekend I taught social media at the Texas Two-Step Conference. One of my classes was about Twitter. Many people see no use for tweeting, especially the mundane information of everyday life. It is my job to teach people why Twitter is so essential and help them understand the power Twitter gives us all access to.

I gained a profound lesson about Twitter yesterday during the massive tornado outbreak that ripped through North Texas. Twitter and twisters? Huh?

I'll explain in a moment…

I am from Texas and have lived here virtually all of my life, and I have to say that spring here is one of the most nerve-wracking times of year. We've been through our share of horrific storms. Say 5-5-95 to anyone from the Fort Worth area and their eyes widen. They instantly get the reference.

Then there was the outbreak of April 26, 1994 with 25 tornadoes including an F-4 that nearly erased the town of Lancaster. The twister stripped homes clean to the foundation and dropped debris halfway to Austin *shudders*. Then there was the outbreak of December 29, 2006 that served up 22 tornadoes, including an F-2 in Rio Vista.

I've been very fortunate to have never been in the heart of any of these outbreaks. Not that these storms weren't still terrifying. Just because you aren't in a tornado, doesn't mean you aren't getting 100 mile an hour squall lines that are uprooting trees all around you. Also, as a native, I have friends and family spread across the DFW Metroplex, so it is mind-numbing trying to contact everyone to make sure they take cover or, later, that they are still alive and accounted for.

Ah, but yesterday was different. I'd taught at a conference all weekend and was off my normal schedule. I couldn't shake the fatigue, so my business partner, Ingrid, and I loaded The Spawn (my 2 year old) into the car to go to the gym. While at the gym we saw the weather report and it didn't look good, so we high-tailed it out of there so we could run home before the storms hit. We still weren't too concerned, because *shrugs* we are Texans and we are used to these violent spring storms.

So we get home, and Ingrid had one more errand she needed to run. She told me to check the weather but I got sidetracked with the toddler or something shiny, can't recall. Anyway,  she was about to walk out the door when I said, "Wait! I totally forgot to check the weather. Let me look at that before you leave." I go to the Weather Channel's web site and what I see makes me stop dead cold.

TORNADO ALERT

Not a TORNADO WATCH or a TORNADO WARNING … no, a TORNADO ALERT, which means take cover or kiss your @$$ good-bye. Alerts mean a twister has been spotted and it is headed straight for you.

We scramble to get the storm supplies and take cover in the bathroom, and after a few minutes it seems we are in the clear. We creep out of the bathroom–shared with a hungry toddler, two cats and a dog–and look at the news. Is it past us?

The power goes out.

I can no longer tell what is going on. According to my friends on Twitter, it had just passed over us. Out the back window it seems we are clear, that the storm missed us. I venture a quick peek out the front door to see if I can get a visual on the storm. We are clearly NOT in danger, but I see this horrible wall cloud.

Anyone venture to point out the tornado?

This photo was actually taken earlier and from a different storm, but the wall cloud and that funnel dipping down is exactly what I saw. I would have been happy to provide an actual photo of THAT particular wall cloud, but I was too concerned with…um, not dying. Anyway, as you can see, there is a funnel dipping down, only, unlike the photo above, this lowering actually created a tornado that tore through Kennedale and then Arlington (right near the gym we'd just left) destroying or damaging 130 homes.

The video below is exactly what I saw form. This is footage of the actual Kennedale tornado.

What was so terrifying about yesterday was that all the tornadoes were all hitting almost at once. The meteorologists couldn't keep up because the storms were spread across so many counties.Thus, while they were focusing on the Dallas tornado, those of us in or near the Arlington area couldn't tell what was going on. Never seen anything like this.

What does all this have to do with social media? Huh? Social media. Well, it is Wednesday and normally social media is our topic. Twitter actually helped us take cover. The meteorologists couldn't keep up, but countless tweeps across the Metroplex could.

There were moments that we didn't have power and people were tweeting the warnings so I knew to get back in the bathroom. When we had power, I took up the self-appointed duty of Amateur Meteorologist and started tweeting every warning as it came, telling people to take cover.

Why was this important?

Well, the tornadoes hit during the workday and many people were not at home. A lot of workplaces don't have televisions or weather radios. If the place of employment doesn't have a lot of windows, people might not know there is a problem. BUT many people do have a phone that chirps when they get a tweet. One lady in Mesquite tweeted to me that she didn't know that there was a tornado until I tweeted that one was on the ground headed straight for them. They had a chance to take cover.

The tweets also helped people warn friends and family or watch to make sure if they were in the clear. It was very rewarding to see how many people got on Twitter and worked together to share the news and make sure people they'd never even met could get to safety.

Social media is social, and storms have a way of making us feel powerless against the onslaught of Mother Nature. Yet, with Twitter, we could warn people we knew and even those we didn't (unlike Facebook). By using hash tags like #DFW #tornado, we were instantly connected to people we'd never met, but who we could warn to get to safety (For those who don't know, a # is a search filter, so anyone following #DFW, #tornado #warning would likely see all the tweets warning people to get to safety).

We could look for tweeps we knew were in the area and comfort one another. Twitter helped tremendously when the power went out, because we could still rely on our phones' Twitter application and gain up-to-the-second information from our friends who were being vigilant enough to keep tweeting real-time information.

Twitter kept us safer.

If we rely on the TV, we can't be in the bathroom, but my family could take cover and stay safe while we watched Twitter on my phone for the best real-time information. We could also tweet back to those warning us what we were hearing or seeing and if we were okay.

So thank you to all the tweeps out there who took time to look out for us. Some of you have never met me, and you might not ever know me, but know that we are so grateful that you took time to care for strangers. No one was killed, thank God, but there are countless people who've lost everything. I am off to bring some supplies to the @RedCrossDFW. Follow them and see how you might be able to serve those hurting right now. But thank you, thank you thank you for serving us yesterday. Who knows if your tweets are why no one died? Maybe you saved a life.

So were you helped by Twitter in the DFW storms? Did you tweet to help others? Have you ever used Twitter in a similar fashion? What are your thoughts? Stories? Impressions?

I LOVE hearing from you!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of April, 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of April I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

I will announce the winners next week. A little behind after the storms.

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer's Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Creating the Perfect Time Management Soufflé

One of the greatest parts of my job is that I am so blessed to be surrounded by people more talented than I am…so I can learn. Who Dares Wins Publishing makes this easy, and that is why I love having my fellow WDW authors as guest bloggers. You guys might remember Natalie Markey. Well, she's back! And she is going to teach us a critical skill for success in any field, but especially in the writing/publishing field. TIME MANAGEMENT! Oy vay! How I struggle with this…which is why I seek out experts. Her bio is at the bottom of the page, and so are links to buy her book.

Today, I am going to share Natalie with you guys. Take it away!

***

Everyone is trying to be many people at once. I have the writer me, the wife, me, the mommy me, the housekeeper me, and well you get the idea. But how can you take everything that you are and cook it all up to create the perfect time management solution mold for you?

No one said life was easy—it's hard. So are soufflés! I love to cook and still mastering a soufflé is very much a work in progress! We are all chefs struggling to find the right ingredients for life. How can you master that perfect soufflé?

It is possible to have it all and keep that scary to-do list at bay. How you may ask? Below is how I do it on most days while caring for an active toddler, a demanding dog and two bunnies.

1. Day of Cleaning- Before you can really take on your life's goals (all of them) you need to have a clean space to accomplish them in. This is the hardest part for some. It helps me greatly to just assign a big clean day once a month. This way nothing gets too out of hand. Now I will still put stuff away and do some cleaning each week normally as I wrap things up for a day. However, a good clean should get a full day for the main reason, as it will have your entire focus. By assigning a day you won't be feeling pressured to get back to your WIP or write next week's blog posts. You won't feel bad putting those things off because they weren't scheduled for that day. By having a clean work space you can find things easier, move around with ease and make the most of all your time.

2. Reasonable To Do List- I'm a fan of lists. Many people are but keep your list reasonable. You know realistically how much you can do. Don't exceed that expectation. If you create an impossible to accomplish to do list then you will only be depressed when it doesn't get done. I try to put at least 2 extra items more than what I think I can get done. This way if I make more time I can always strive for the whole list but if these items need to moved to the following day then it won't be a big deal.

3. A Well Thought Out List of Goals- Always keep your goals in mind. What do you really want? Don't get so bogged down with social media and other projects that you lose sight of your big picture.

4. Priority List- It's good to have a to do list but if there is no order to that list it could be more troublesome than helpful. In all aspect of life you need to do some things before other things. Wednesday's is our trash day. If I waited until I met my daily word count before taking the trash out then I could miss trash day. It is just as important to prioritize with your writing as it is to prioritize with other areas of your life.

5. Spiral- For daily notes. Keep track of where you stopped when you must run into that meeting or when the baby wakes up from naptime. This will save time when you can return to writing. The days of trying to find where you left off are over! I use my daily notebook as a place to keep any ideas or distractive thoughts that pop into my head as well.

The other day I had a great idea for a scene later in my WIP. Instead of jumping to that scene or forgetting the idea I wrote it all down and then quickly returned to the original scene I was working on. It is important to stick to your goals and stay on track. Ideas are great but don't let them take over your work!

6. Extra Pens- Or anything that you may need but frequently lose. I am always losing pens so rather chasing them around the house and wasting time, I always keep extras by my side so I can avoid a search. Think about what supplies you need to get your work accomplished and keep them close at hand to avoid getting up and trying to find them.

7. A Few Dabs of Non-Writerly Passions- Discover you non-writerly passions and use them to help ease your writing stress. Not only can doing the things you love ease stress but it can also save you some time. If you are stressing over a scene sometimes walking away from it is the best way to handle the problem.

What do you love other than writing? I love cooking, reading, and caring for my pets. For this example I'm going to talk about cooking. I love cooking (I bet you figured from my references.) at my house I cooks all the meals except for the times my husband has time to grill with his work schedule. Dinner must get made at some point so that's what I do when I get stuck on a scene or I need a break from writing. I can relax, make dinner and return to my writing with fresh eyes. This really saves time!

You can rise to greatness, just as your soufflé can rise to yumminess. Just like you know what foods you like, know what routine works best for you. If you don't know then I advise keeping a journal and tracking what time of day you do various tasks. Are you effective at doing that task at that time of day? Until you have the answers don't be afraid to experiment. You don't always have to follow the recipe! Figure out what your time management tastes are make it work for you.

And you can think you've found the best way to manage time and then still hit snags. Remember I said in the intro to this post, "I do it on MOST days." Life happens. My dad was diagnosed with heart failure on December 27. That was not in my plan. Spending time at the hospital during his surgery was not a neat bullet point on my to do list. Things did not get done. While being out of town for a month and half and not being able to write too much I fell horribly behind in my non-fiction and it took me a while to return to my groove.

Life happens. Sometimes the soufflé burns. Always refer to your priority list and remember what needs to happen first if you can only do one thing.

How did you find the best time management "recipe" for you?

***

Thanks Natalie! So what are your biggest time management issues, questions, problems? Everyone who shows Natalie some comment love today gets double entries for my critique prize.

I LOVE hearing from you!

And 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of March I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer's Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Natalie C. Markey is a veteran freelance journalist of ten years. She is the author of 'Caring for Your Special Needs Dog.'  In addition to multiple freelance contracts, she continues to write non-fiction as well as young adult and middle grade fiction. Markey speaks professionally about dogs from an owner's perspective as well as teaching on writing issues like how to have it all as a writer and a mother and time management for the busy writer.  A native Texan, Markey currently lives in an Arkansas forest with her supportive husband, daughter, dog and two rabbits.  Follow her at www.NatalieCMarkey.com @NatalieCMarkey Pen to Publish blog

Understanding Author Platform Part 2–All the World Wide Web's a Stage

Last week, in Understanding Author Platform–Part One we talked about how platform has changed in the digital age, why tools of yester-year won't work and how an outdated approach can do little to eventually drive book sales (and also leave a writer too worn out to create). We also talked about why some experts may make us break out in hives when they try to give us tools to build our author platform. If sales or marketing isn't our art, then the tools can feel awkward and clumsy and can do more harm than good.

Yes, I am giving you guys permission to hate sales, marketing and PR, but I am not offering permission to avoid building a platform. I have been saying for years that all authors—traditional and nontraditional—needed to have a strong platform.

A strong social media platform takes a lot of pressure off authors, leaving them less stressed out and more able to do their art. A solid platform can assure sales of new books and even revive old titles.

In short, a platform is vital for anyone who wants a writing career. 

My two year-old-who commandeered my new iPad 3 is your future reader. Every teen with an iPhone and every college kid with a laptop is a future reader. In a world where bookstores are fading to the pages of history, if you aren't on social media?

How else will they know you?

Redefining Platform for the Writer-Artist

I feel that, if I'm asking you guys to commit time, talent and energy to build a platform, it is only fair you should understand what I'm asking you to build and why. We need to pan the camera back. We also need to forget all those mind-numbing lectures about metrics and web sites and demographics and target audience, etc. etc.

Ack!

To change our approach and make social media our art we need to slip on some WANA rose-colored glasses and really see the opportunity we've been given. Social media isn't a free way to advertise and spam people about our book non-stop.

It is our stage.

Meet the Author-Performer

Think of it this way. Technology has finally made it fiscally possible for us to do what other artists have been doing for generations. Platform is getting our art and ourselves out there and getting known. What people then think of us and our art, the emotional response they get from our name and our art eventually becomes our brand. 

The problem for writers has been that printing was extremely expensive. Until the Internet and e-books, NY had almost total control over printing and distribution. There was no other way for fiction authors to create a platform…unless they had a ton of cash.

Writers all want to write one book, hit the Beginner's Luck Jackpot and become world famous for being brilliant. Hey, I'll admit I wanted that, too. Yet, that almost NEVER happens, even in the traditional sense.

This is like us learning to play guitar, writing some songs, recording a CD on our Mac and hoping a smooth-talking agent drives by our house as we are practicing in our garage, hears our siren's song and lands us a million-dollar recording deal.

Yeah. Keep dreaming.

No, what do musicians do? Many start playing in church or at the state fair or the local nursing home for FREE. They then get older and better at their craft and their art and play at restaurants, dives, the VFW…for FREE! If they get good enough, they might be able to sell downloads or CDs for $5 a piece. If they keep working hard and getting their art seen by more and more people and people LIKE it they then get bigger breaks.

They get to open, for FREE for a bigger band. If they do enough work and put in enough time and get themselves out there as they are improving their art in ways that create a market for their sound, they are then rewarded with record deals and people are then willing to pay money for their music.

I still remember years ago, I went to an unveiling of the stealth bomber out at Alliance Airport here in DFW. This was a private event before an air show. A sound caught my attention. One of the bands was warming up before they opened the show to the public. It was an all-female country band and they used a banjo, which I thought gave them such a fantastically unique sound. I chatted with them for a while and told them that I just knew they would make it.

That band was the Dixie Chicks.

The same band that was playing for free or close to free at an air show was the exact same band that went on to tour the world, win Grammys and make millions. But they didn't get that in the beginning just because they were talented and unique. They had to convince others that they were worth the investment.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is this. The digital age has changed the learning curve/career path for the writer-artist. Before we wrote and wrote and wrote, and, after enough drafts and submissions we either gave up or we wrote what the gatekeepers were willing to try and sell. Most writers, even after a book deal, failed to ever make a living writing.

That path is still available (for now), and, if that is the way for you, I won't stop you. I will, however, say that career longevity doesn't look so hot if you don't have a platform (those people who dig your sound). Yes, writers have a sound–it is called writing voice. 

Yet, now that amateurs can get out and sell books for 99 cents, people in publishing are aghast at the swarm of talentless hacks that will inundate the world with bad books.

Why?

These authors are the "free or darn close to free band" we get to listen to at the local bake sale or BBQ pit. If audiences like them, we buy their $5 CD or drop money in a hat. If we don't? We don't make eye contact, and the band doesn't get a second invite. Positive word of mouth will not spread for lousy bands, no matter how great their "marketing" is. Same with bad books.

So, when new writer runs out and slaps up a 99 cent book or a $2.99 book or give books away for free, it is part of building a platform. If the writer uploads a horrible book that gets pummeled with digital tomatoes, he either cries and gives up or he tries again to write a better, more crowd-pleasing book. He performs again and again and he gets feedback a heck of a lot faster so he can tune his art accordingly.

Thus, writers who don't go the traditional route can build a platform with minimal social media and writing a lot of inexpensive books (playing for almost free at the State Fair)…or we can make social media an extension of our art and rely more on blogging. Since social media relies on a lot of WORDS, we should totally ROCK at this! Or we can do both—write lots of books and do social media. Isn't technology AWESOME?

Define Social Media as Part of Your Art

Social media is like us being the band that goes to all the parties and all the mixers so people at least get to know us, like us as artists and grow to be loyal fans. Blogging isn't a chore, it is a demo tape of our artist voice. It is a free performance at a local mall. And, since writing is our art, if we will approach it as such, our attitude toward it will improve because we will be approaching with a totally different intent. 

If our intent is to share our passion, to affect people, instead of a chore to be endured and a way to part people from their money, the experience will be more enjoyable for all concerned. Eventually, once people come to love and trust the artist they will be more willing to part with more money to buy the art.

Please Stop "Targeting" Readers—It Makes Them Nervous

That group of people who dig your sound–writing voice–will likely be a certain demographic. This is why it is critical for writers to stop blogging about writing all the time. It limits the audience. This is why I train writers to blog in a totally different way that uses the same voice as their fiction. For more about why blogging about writing is bad, I highly recommend my post Sacred Cow Tipping–Why Writers Blogging about Writing is Bad.

Writers often freeze on words like "target audience" when it is really far simpler than we try to make it. Blogging (the way I teach it, at least) will naturally connect you to your demographic organically, and just like fans are loyal to their bands, readers are loyal to their favorite authors.

They can be loyal to you, too .

Does this make you feel better about social media and blogging? What are your thoughts or feelings about my definition of author platform? Feel ready to get your laptop case and go on the digital road? Remember, you don't have to do it all alone. Make sure you check out the #MyWANA crew. They love being Roadies. They think it makes them more mysterious.

I LOVE hearing from you!

And 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of March I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer's Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

No Mash-Up of Awesomeness this Week. I am preparing to teach all weekend at the Texas Two Step Conference held by the NTRWA. So for any writers in the DFW area (or who want to drive to the DFW area), come hang out with me! The conference is only $150 and there is going to be a lot of talented people there, including the amazing Candy Havens and Roni Loren. Check out this link for details!

Three Ways to Spark Literary Magic–Voice Part 2

Last week, we started talking about voice. Voice is the essence of our writing, and having a strong, original voice can be the ticket to literary legend. I believe most of us are born with a storytelling voice. All humans are storytellers, and, in fact, humans passed on information, history, and stories orally for thousands of years and "voice" is actually a holdover from this oral tradition.

Humans are a story people.

Narrative structure is hard-wired into the architecture of our brains. This is how even a three-year-old can nail us when we skip part of the bedtime story. Unless one has suffered some brain trauma or debilitating psychiatric trauma, all humans are storytellers. Just like, unless one has lost a limb or suffered a major injury, all humans can dance. Now, all of us aren't necessarily good storytellers (or dancers). Natural talent can make some of stand out from the crowd.

But is talent enough?

To quote Stephen King, Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

There are no shortcuts to publishing success. Yes there are strange literary savants who write one book and it's perfect, but they are the odd outlier, not the norm. Go tell your family this so they stop hassling you.

We'll wait.

So success in writing, like all other arts, comes with a lot of hard work, even if you happen to be graced with natural talent/voice. Yet, all new writers (I did it, too) believe that we can write one book and be the next J.K. Rowling or Stephen King. I am here to offer some tough love. Just because we hold a basic command of our native tongue in no way prepares us for professional publication. Sort of like a high school Home Ec class doesn't prepare us to take over as head chef at Claridge's. I know your friends and family might think college Literature 101 is enough to rocket you to the NYT best-seller list, but they are wrong. Learn to ignore them.

Every art requires training. Just because I run out to an art store and buy supplies doesn't make me an artist. All art forms have basics that are drilled in over and over and over. I spent seven years in ballet, and all dancers begin with the basics–learn the five foot positions. If I decided to "skip all the boring stuff" and ran out and bought toe shoes on day one and just took off dancing Swan Lake, not only would it look more like Wounded Chicken instead of Swan Lake, but I could also expect a lot of pain and lasting deformities.

Same with writing.

Now all of us, I do feel have a natural writing voice. Then friends and family step in and make snarky remarks and this dings our confidence. Then, on top of that, the world is full of scared, boring people too chicken to follow their own dreams, and will always find time to criticize ours. Learn to tune them out or they can affect your natural voice and keep it from growing stronger.

Aside from ditching or cleverly avoiding family toxic people, the single greatest way to develop voice is to learn our craft.

#1 Know the Rules

There is a difference in being courageous and being reckless. Our job as writers is to learn the difference. How can we know the difference? We must study.

I recently went to an art exhibit here in DFW at the Kimball Art Museum. The museum is showing one of the largest collections of Impressionist paintings, and yes, I am the person who reads every one of the little placards along the way.  What I found interesting was that all of the masters like Monet, Degas, and Renoir spent extensive time studying the great painters of their day and even those masters who'd come before. Yes, they broke with all the traditions to become successful in their own rights. But…

They knew the rules so they could break the rules.

I can tell in less than five pages if a writer reads and if he or she has taken time to study their craft. People who know the rules and them break them are called artists. People who don't know the rules and don't seek to learn them are called amateurs.

#2 Understanding our Craft Creates Confidence

During the days of the emerging Impressionists, it was popular to paint noble subjects. Artists would stage elaborate sets in studios where they could control the light and arrange or rearrange the scene if they needed to. Painters like Monet, opted rather to "happen upon subjects" and they preferred the common and unexceptional to the lofty subjects of "popular artists of the day."

The Impressionists painted scenes of ordinary life–a woman drawing water in a river, the steamships unloading timber, a factory churning black smoke into a summer sky. These artists made the mundane magical, but the only way they could do this was to know the rules so they could break them.

If our writing voice comes from confidence, then confidence can only come from knowing the rules. Sure I could hand any of you a clarinet and maybe one person in a hundred thousand could pick up that clarinet and be an instant prodigy. Most of us, however, need to spend time learning to read music and doing scales. When we are so accustomed to the "rules" that we know them in our sleep? When our fingers naturally move to position on the instrument? When we have studied the great musicians and know them so well we can instantly take off on a creative riff?

This is when magic sparks to life. This is true with a clarinet, a sketch pad and yes, a computer keyboard.

#3 Practice Indeed Makes Perfect

Writers don't do scales or sketches or work on the barre, but we do write. We write good, bad, brilliant and boring. We write and write and write and write until we know the keyboard by heart. We work hard and it is through this sweat equity that we earn our right to be called an artist. We are all writers the second we put words to screen/paper. We have to train and suffer to become artists.

Each of the great Impressionist painters painted thousands of paintings and made thousands of sketches even though only a handful ever made it into the galleries. Renoir didn't paint one painting and expect to make a fortune. Knowing the rules comes with practice. Practice creates confidence, and confidence creates artists.

Sorry, no shortcuts. Yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't confess this bummed me out just a little, too. So we just keep writing, keep reading and keep connecting with the masters of our art and trust that one day the magic will ignite.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any books you like about voice? My favorite is Les Edgerton's Finding Your Voice. What are your thoughts? Struggles? Experiences?

I love hearing from you!

I LOVE hearing from you!

And 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of March I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Winner #1 from two weeks ago is Pauline Baird Jones. Winner from last week is Anne Stanley. Ladies, please see your 1250 word Word document to me at author kristen dot lamb at g mail dot com. I am still working on a new web site so we've had all kinds of issues with my other e-mail. Thanks for your patience.

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer's Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

What I Love About Being a "Hybrid" Author

Click on the cover to buy your own copy of The Maiden Warrior today!

Happy Friday! I have a real treat for you guys today. Who Dares Wins Publishing has a new member, Mary Reed McCall, and she is here to talk about an important topic–life as a "hybrid" author." The future of traditional publishing is still uncertain. I think they will survive just fine, though they will have to make a lot of changes to remain competitive.

Yet the fact remains, it is a wonderful time to be a writer. There are so many opportunities. What I feel is particularly fantastic is we really don't have to choose any one path. In fact, we can take them all if we have the time and energy…ergo the term, "hybrid author." Not all works are well-suited for the traditional path. These days writers have a lot of options that can cater to the individual author and her works and that is what Mary is going to talk to you guys about today.

So, Mary, take it away!

On being a "hybrid" and how I got here:

"Hybrid" author is a term I never envisioned for myself. During the years I spent pounding away at the keyboard into the wee hours every night, trying to balance my writing goals with the needs of a growing family and a teaching career, I focused instead on reaching for the fiction writer's brass ring: Representation by a quality literary agency and a multi-book contract from a major New York publisher.

To be fair, there weren't many other viable paths to publication in the latter half of the 1990s. E-publishing was still in its infancy for most genre fiction, when after six years of writing I secured agency representation in New York, followed by a two-book contract with HarperCollins/Avon.

That first contract turned into several more, totaling seven published books over the next six years. And then, though another contract was in the offing, I walked away, for reasons that would take another blog to explain. The short version involves time crunches and being a midlist author in a niche genre with steady but not rising sales.

So I went on a publishing (not writing) hiatus for a few years, until I learned that one of my seven books had gone out of print. Three more titles followed. Then, thanks to my astute literary agents, I was able to get the rights for all four of those books reverted back to me.

I was still proud of those books and stood behind their quality. Being out of print used to mean a book was "dead", but I knew that was no longer the case, if only I could muster the courage to pursue other options now open to me. It took me almost a year to do it, but finally in the summer of 2011, I took a deep breath and delved into the world of self-publishing.

Beginning in November 2011, I began to re-release those four titles as indie e-books, fully revised and dressed in gorgeous new covers, with the help of the fabulous Jen Talty and Bob Mayer of Who Dares Wins Publishing. My remaining three books remain in HarperCollins' control, and I still have an option clause to fulfill from my final contract with them. So, with one foot in the self-publishing world and one in the traditional publishing world, I now am considered a hybrid author…and I couldn't be more surprised to have landed here. Or excited and revitalized.

So, let's break it down a little, keeping in mind that these are my perspectives only. As Bob and Jen have stated in the past, there are many roads to Oz, and what floats my boat may sink your ship. This is my take on what's so good about each of the worlds I inhabit as a hybrid.

Things I (still) love about my involvement with traditional publishing:

-       The ability to hold one of my print books in my hands; though I enjoy my e-reader, I'm still an old-fashioned bookworm at heart.

-       Being associated with a well-known publisher like HarperCollins. Let's face it; many people recognize that name, even outside of the fiction-writing world. It's nice to know my books have been published by a house of that quality.

-       The camaraderie and friendships I've developed online and in person with other authors from within the house and the traditional publishing world.

-       My editor, who was always amazing, professional, and talented. Should I have an opportunity to work with her again, I would be delighted.

-       My literary agents, who have remained supportive through thick and thin and who are gifted and exceptional in their own right. As I've always said, I had a "dream team" editor/agent combo.

Things I (have come to) love about my involvement with indie publishing:

-       The ability to give new life to my out of print books and get them back in the hands of readers through e-publishing.

-       Control over when my book is released; there is no waiting to fit into a publishing schedule. When the book is polished and ready, it can go up and be saleable that week.

-       No worries about "marketability" except in terms of what I'm willing to risk in my own sales. If I've written a book set in Peter the Great's Russia (I did), I don't have to worry about it being rejected for publication (it was) because it's not considered a marketable setting.

-       The potential to edit and correct contents any time after publication. There is no time limit on modifications in self-publishing, as it requires an update to a file, rather than reprinting.

-       The freedom to be part of the cover-making process for my stories. I've repackaged all four of my rights-reverted books with the phenomenally talented Jen Talty, in a collaborative process that has been thrilling to say the least. I'm very detail-oriented, and Jen is willing to spend however much time is necessary, going back and forth with me until we find exactly the right image and feel for my story. She created a fun, short video documenting just one of the many steps she took in crafting the cover for my latest re-release, THE MAIDEN WARRIOR, which you can see below. Be sure to have the volume on, because the music enhances the experience!

Some final thoughts to wrap things up:

Embracing change is difficult for many people, and I am no exception. In fact, it can be daunting and unsettling, but I try to remind myself that change is part of growth; it might make me uncomfortable in the short term, but that doesn't have to be negative. My approach determines what will come of it.

I believe one of the keys to navigating the seas of change rests in remaining as flexible as possible while having a vision for the future. Straddling the traditional and indie publishing worlds seems to be accomplishing that for me at this point.

Onward and upward!

Thanks, Mary for taking time to talk to us today. I hope you guys enjoyed her post and please feel free to ask questions in the comments section. Any comments left for Mary today will get double entries in my contest, so show some WANA love! And I hope you will grab your own copy of The Maiden Warrior today!

I LOVE hearing from you!

And 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 every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of March I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

Note: They still haven't fixed my web site issue. I will announce last week's and this week's winner later on Monday even if I have to go open another e-mail account. I am having problems with my web site and e-mail and my web people are working to remedy the problem. Thanks for your patience.

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer's Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It's Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.