Mary Carroll Moore's Blog, page 15

August 25, 2023

Why a Strong Book Cover Matters

My new novel hit #5 on the Amazon bestseller list this week and is a Hot New Release. Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen! Help me stay on the list? Join the fun and preorder today!

Last Friday, my new novel’s book cover was “revealed” by eighteen book bloggers on Instagram. By Wednesday, it was a Hot New Release, #5 on Amazon’s bestseller lists in two categories. Besides taking my astonished dogs for extra-long walks to process this dream come true, I realized cool new facts about the publishing process from this (astonishing-to-me) event.

For one, the importance of your choice of book cover.

Months ago, my talented designer Jeenee Lee sent me four options (shared below, just for fun). Comments on those Instagram posts confirmed why the design we chose worked: I learned how they “saw” my cover, what they got from it about the story, and what attracted them most and why.

So, what is it about book covers that makes them so important?

A book is words. But its cover is its face to the world. It has three jobs.

It must communicate the main message of the book.

It hints at the plot, the characters, the setting. Or it uses a graphic to metaphor that.

It attracts your ideal audience. Not always, but that’s one goal.

As this article in Lit Hub says the cover is “the book’s skin.” And, as this BBC article on best book covers adds, book covers stay with us long after we finish our reading.

So when my book’s words were finally edited, typeset, proofed, revised, and proofed again; when the acknowledgements were written and the book club questions added; when all the legal stuff was in place; that’s when the book cover design process began.

Designer Jeenee Lee was new to me, but she came highly recommended. She would work from the ARC (advance reader copy) of the manuscript. But we focused on the book description to hone in on what the cover needed to communicate:

Framed for the brutal attack on her manager, indie rock legend Red Nelson flees to the only family she doesn't yet know: her estranged sister, Kate Fisher, a Search & Rescue pilot working the remote mountains of upper New York State. When Kate's daughter, Molly, decides to hide Red on their property, concern over Molly's safety forces Kate to face past secrets and present dangers, stage a rescue, and begin to repair the broken but longed-for family she comes from. A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue explores the unexpected gift of found family in times of loss and tragedy, the forging of a new relationship between two related strangers, and the discovery, by three women of different generations, that by saving each other, they save themselves.

One of the struggles: my novel doesn’t fit neatly into a single genre. Literary thrillers are a fairly new cross-genre group. My book crosses thriller aspects (someone is fleeing from a crime and someone dies) with strong female characters (two sisters become “found family” as they reluctantly reunite during the Search & Rescue), as my Kirkus Review says. I loved this complexity; I believed it lent intrigue and charm to the read. I wanted fast pace and women’s relationships, between my book’s covers. As another reviewer (Independent Book Review) said, my book “Deftly balances the tension and danger of a crime thriller with the emotion and compassion of a family saga.”

I was relieved that these outsider “takes” by the trade big boys didn’t shy away from what I was trying for.

Jeenee came up with four sketches. At first, I loved them all, so I knew I needed distance. I asked for votes. Which one most accurately showed both sides of my story, the thriller/plane crash/fire/running from a crime and the estranged sisters finding their “family”?

Here are the four sketches Jeenee sent me:

Cover sketch #1

Cover sketch #2

Cover sketch #3

Cover sketch #4

Which is your favorite? Vote here:

August 17, 2023

Creating a Launch Team: Who Will Be Your Book Doulas?

Soon my new novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press, October 24 release), will be available for pre-orders! More details, cover reveal, and reports on the pre-publication journey in upcoming newsletters.

white and black Together We Create graffiti wall decor

Photo by "My Life Through A Lens" on Unsplash

I first learned about book launch teams from an interview Dan Blank did with bestselling author Jennifer Louden. Jen’s most recent book, Why Bother? was launched with the help of a curated group of friends and supporters. In a launch team, each supporter does a small or large task to help spread the word, like telling three friends or posting a review on amazon.

I began keeping an ear out for new book releases and if the authors were going it alone or creating a team to help. Even considering how and where to find a team can be quite a challenge. And if you, like me, have been “trained” to take care of everything yourself, well, you assume you should.

With Dan’s interview and Jen’s response, I got another viewpoint: it could be a generous act to create community around a book’s advent into the world. To invite others to help share the celebration.

People feel good about celebrating something, about being part of a team that helps someone else. Communities support and witness major milestones for those they love, right? A birth, the new job or art exhibition or concert, a marriage or new relationship—friends help mark these life transitions with celebrations, photos, shares. When help is urgently needed in a serious illness, we get care pages and helping circles. We reach out, bring food, take care of chores. (I was so grateful to the circle of loving support when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer many years ago; my friends even threw me a hat party when I lost my hair to chemo.)

if this is a given—community brings meaning to our lives, makes us live longer, be happier and more fulfilled—why would we want to birth a book alone?

When the result of your years of creative effort is finally released into the world, it’s time to rock the house! A launch party to do your book proud! And, I’ve discovered, a launch team to help you get the word out.

I love a good party so I started there. Last week, I asked a friend to help me organize a launch party at Open Book, home of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis where I’ve taught since 2000. A team of 12 was created to help me make it a real celebration and a success—I have two friends performing live jazz, another author setting up a thought-provoking conversation onstage, helpers contributing great food and cool aviation decorations (my book being about women pilots).

I’d helped with their books over the years; it was always a pleasure. I still had a hard time imagining they would do the same for me. Not because of them, of course. It’s my own reticence to ask for help. Every time I think of my family, friends, or readers who like my work, asking for their support, I also think: Who has time to add anything right now?

I was surprised and amazed at the offers of support for the party. So I wondered, could I also create a launch team like Jen had? Nothing on that scale, but some circle of community so my book would have birthing doulas?

But how does a writer organize such a community? How many people are needed? How do you not overwhelm them with requests? How do you make it fun for everybody?

a sign that says help wanted on a glass door

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Everyone knows that writers need support, in the process of writing and also (even more so) when the writing is released to the world. But we writers hesitate to ask. Maybe in our minds are the posts we see, day after day, about someone’s accomplishments. Or the sales pitches we get all the time to buy or support or fund. We all want to help but we run out of resources to even help ourselves.

Because of this, most writers are shy to ask anyone to the party of their book birthing, except that close publication circle. But what if there was some fun and excitement and joy in it for more people? What if there was a larger group who already appreciate what you talk about on the page, who get a lot from reading your writing, and who will gladly recommend your book to others—if only you ask?

Gigi Griffis released her YA novel, The Wicked Unseen, earlier this year, and she created a launch team to help. My writing buddy, Ginger Eager, received Gigi’s weekly launch team emails. Each contained a tiny but helpful task request: post a review on Goodreads, ask for the book at the local library, tell one friend. I loved the way Gigi made this fun, offering prizes and points for small helpful actions.

Most people, when asked, appreciate the chance to be generous to someone they admire. Plus, who can say no to prizes!

This week, I interviewed Gigi about specifics: how and why she did this, what she learned, what she’d recommend to other writers.

But first, a little about her: She is the author of the Netflix tie-in novel The Empress and creepy YA horror The Wicked Unseen (2023)—which she was launching with the launch team described below—and We Are The Beasts (2024), among other things. She’s says she’s a sucker for little-known histories, “unlikable” female characters, and all things Europe. After almost ten years of semi-nomadic life, she now lives in Portugal with an opinionated Yorkie-mix named Luna and a fancy blender that cost more than her couch. Her work has been translated into 17+ languages, and she has been featured in WestJet Magazine, Netflix Tudum, The New York Times, Noble Blood, and more.

You created a launch team or street team for your launch of The Wicked Unseen this year. Tell us about why you decided to do this. Have you done this for other books? What are the pros and cons?

Gigi: Yes! I decided to do it because of the very cool successes Elisa Bonnin had with her debut street team. She was kind enough to do a presentation with a small group of 2023 debut authors and I loved her ideas (so credit to Elisa first and foremost).

Now, Elisa’s debut was fantasy, and my YA debut is horror, so I wasn’t sure if the street team concept would go as well, but I figured there’s really no downside to trying. Before doing it, I figured the pros—if it went well—involved some good buzz before the book came out. The only real con was the time commitment. With marketing, the question is always “Where can I put my limited time for the greatest impact?” And it’s hard to know what the impact of your street team will be until you try it.

Describe the first steps you took to get this started. Did you ask a large group or just a few close friends/family? How did you choose people? What kind of response did you get?

Gigi: I actually decided to do two tiers of “street team” support.

The first (based on Elisa’s concept) was a small Slack group that I thought of as my core street team. I recruited for that on social media and via my existing blog and email list. People could apply to join via a Google Form and I reached out with invites after about a week of recruiting.

The concept for that core group was that I would provide a list of challenges (everything from reviewing the book on Goodreads to posting about it on TikTok to tagging me in opportunities on Twitter) and each challenge would earn people points. As points accumulated, street team members would level up and each level came with different prizes (like advance audio copies of the book, access to ARCs of other anticipated books—thanks to some writer friends—and entries in a larger prize drawing for book bundles and such at the end of the street team period).

In the end, I had about 10 people in that core street team. (I would have been happy to take more, but I’m still pretty small potatoes online, so I’m just happy we got to 10 in the end.)

For the second tier of my street team, I decided to offer a low-commitment option. Where the core team was given tons of challenges they could choose from and tons of prizes up for grabs, this email group was for those who wanted to help but didn’t think they’d have a ton of time or energy in the lead-up to my launch.

For this second tier, anyone could join. No Google Form required. All they had to do was join my book news email list (which I promoted in a blog post about my street teams and which already had a little over 100 people on it).

Every week (on Wednesdays), I sent an email titled “your Wicked weekly request” with one small ask. Typically, these were things that would take less than a minute to complete (like retweeting an important tweet or clicking “vote” on a Goodreads list).

How did you choose what tasks to ask them to help with? Can you share a list of requests and how they went—did you find some were easier for your team than others?

Gigi: The core team was given a multi-page Word doc with a long list of challenges, each with a point value attached to it. They were also all given access to eARCs of the book (so that they could easily review). Challenges included high-value tasks like leaving a review for the book (50 points per review platform before launch; 30 points post-launch) and small easy tasks (5 points to re-tweet my posts about the book).

Requesting the book from your local library got you 40 points. Creating fan art got you 40 points. Pitching the book to a book club was 25. Etc.

For the core team, I found that it was less about the difficulty of a task and more about how motivated the person was. About half the group was super engaged, with one person even getting into the highest tier of the prize packages (which I set at over 1000 points). The engaged folks did a mix of things, including reviewing, library requests, Goodreads list voting, and even creating mood boards on social media for the book.

For the Wicked weekly requests group, the asks were much smaller, and it was harder to track how many people were engaging (since not all my email list folks are mutuals with me on social media and not all the asks – like recommending Wicked to a friend - are trackable). But I will say that when I asked people to vote for The Wicked Unseen on a Goodreads list in my very first weekly request, it shot immediately to the top of that list.

When did you begin asking (how many weeks/months before launch) and how often did you send the requests?

Gigi: The Wicked weekly request was (perhaps obviously) weekly. I announced both groups on April 17 and started the actual asks about six/seven weeks from launch. The weekly request emails stopped when the book launched (a decision I made in order to not fatigue the lower-commitment group).

The core group also started about six weeks from launch and that group will stay active until about six weeks after launch, which is when the prize drawing will happen and all the prizes will go out. We’re still in that window, and that group is still actively accumulating points, though I have noticed a dip in engagement post-launch. Since that group is in Slack, I don’t have a specific schedule for my asks – I just pop in when I have something for people to RT or if I want to remind them to leave reviews, etc.

What was your overall experience with doing this? Do you have a sense of whether it impacted sales or invitations to speak, etc.?

Gigi: With the Wicked weekly requests, there were several times I saw some impact—like rising to the top of that Goodreads list and seeing people posting on social media on request—but many of my asks weren’t trackable things (e.g. recommend The Wicked Unseen to one friend who you think would enjoy it or watch this TikTok video of me listening to a snippet of my audiobook for the first time).

With the core team, I think it did help to get those early reviews, social media shares, etc., but overall I don’t think I would do that kind of street team again. The effort from me appears to outweigh the benefits, especially with such a small group.

I’ve now acquired a few ardent readers who will be out there promoting me beyond the street team close date, so the ripple effect could still prove me wrong about the impact of the team. And since some of the prizes for levelling up include ARCs of my future books, I hope this also turns into more early reviews for my 2024 and 2025 YAs.

For this book, being involved in my marketing meant two things: 1) making sure I did things that I *know* work— like PR placement (like this and this) and Goodreads giveaways. 2) doing a lot of experimenting! Would a street team be a good approach? Should I run a social media contest? (Watch for that in the fall.) What about TikTok filters? Storygram tours?

The most effective marketing approaches typically involve tried-and-true staples but also testing out new ideas, trying things even when you aren’t sure what their impact will be.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Of course, not everyone feels ready to gather their team—you may just be starting or still wondering if your book will ever see readers. But I encourage you to start to imagine your support community. Here’s the first step that I learned about, a really fun one that can be stretched over the entire week. Plus a party planning imagination exercise to top it off.

Start a list of possible supporters for your street team. Who do you know who might be willing to help you, even a little? People like to help others, it makes them feel good about themselves, and who wouldn’t want to help an author who creates an amazing book? Write down all the names you can think of. Go through your address book and maybe your email folders. Collect a few names each day this week and let yourself stretch this exercise into the next month. It’s REALLY never too early to do this. (This Reedys video or Kasia Manolas’s post explains it even further.)

Plan your launch party. Where do you most want it to be? Who do you want to help you, to be in conversation with you, to interview you about your writing process? What kind of music and food and special effects (balloons? cookies decorated like your book cover?) would really do it for you? Spend time imagining this—write notes, browse online for how to do it well (check out this link from Emily Freeman with some great ideas and photos or this from The Writing Cooperative). Some authors-to-be make collages or Pinterest boards to inspire them as they dream the event. Have fun and bring joy into it!

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Shout Out!

Marianne C. Bohr, The Twenty: One Woman’s Trek Across Corsica on the GR20 Trail (She Writes Press, June release)

Linda Dittmar, Tracing Homelands: Israel, Palestine, and the Claims of Belonging. (Interlink Press, July release)

Nigar Alam, Under the Tamarind Tree (Putnam/PRH, August release)

Cindy Angell Keeling, Dream City Dreaming (Petite Parasol Press, August release)

Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)

Maren Cooper, Behind the Lies (She Writes Press, November release)

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Published on August 17, 2023 05:27

August 11, 2023

Freeing Yourself from Your Own Legacy as a Writer

Coming very soon: The BIG Reveal. My new novel will be available for preorders next week, and I’m excited to share the cover with you very soon—and why a great cover matters (it turned out to be quite a journey to choose mine, from four options). Stay tuned!

“Congratulations!” the email read “The Kirkus review of your forthcoming novel has been selected for our August 1 print issue, which is sent to 15,000 subscribers.”

I suspected this was good news but I called a friend, more savvy than me about trade reviews. I relied on her Midwestern straight-shooting to keep my reaction reasonable. “Big deal,” she confirmed. “Kirkus may be the biggest daddy of trade reviewers, and there’s your book on page 181 of this month’s issue, Ann Patchett smiling from the cover.”

Ann Patchett is one of my literary heroes. So I did what I usually do when I can’t figure out how to feel about something, good or bad. I took my two puppies out in the kayak.

Skimming along the lake near our home was not the usual bliss. My two small dogs in their life jackets must have picked up on my agitation, so the hour was all about keeping them from jumping out of the boat and avoiding the bald eagle soaring overhead. When we were all exhausted from not having fun, we docked and piled back in the car, me still figuring out why such a moment of good news had stunned me so much. Why I felt a bit numb, unable to react with the celebration that my friend expected.

It’s been a dozen years since my last book, and trade reviews weren’t something I sought back then. I guess I was also scared—of bad news, not good. I’ve gotten more education in pre-publication tasks since then, more courage to seek comments from Kirkus, Booklist, Booklife/Publisher’s Weekly, the big boys of the publishing reviews. These are important for sales to bookstores, libraries, readers, other reviewers. And online browsers often read reviews before deciding—I know I do.

But it does take the ability to hear negative reactions. (And it takes advance planning: reviewers like Library Journal ask for ARCs (advance reader copies) at least six months ahead.) Unlike blurbs from authors you admire, kindly offering you a sentence or two to entice a reader, trade reviews carry the real possibility of a big thumbs down.

I am a relative newcomer to fiction. Far from the stratosphere where writers like Ann Patchett live. My legacy as a writer has always been in the genre of food journalism, as I’ve mentioned before in this newsletter: I authored or contributed to ten published cookbooks—one an award-winner; penned dozens of magazine articles; and wrote a syndicated cooking column for over a decade. Food writing fed me both professionally and personally (all that recipe testing—and eating!).

But now I stood in a new place. Voluntarily so. Quite unsure if there’d be a universal welcome.

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Even now, when my second novel is publishing, I still feel only a tentative belonging in this new genre. Even though I worked hard to gain the credentials to belong: my first novel accepted by a small press, nominated for two awards; I have an MFA in one pocket, an agent in the other. Authors I’ve asked have been kind enough to blurb for me. They seem to love the story.

Do we all feel like someone will yank back the curtain at any time, declare the writer behind it an impostor? Or is it just me?

When I got home from the lake, I waited until after dinner to open the email from Kirkus again. I reread the congratulations. I clicked through and found page 181 and tried to absorb each word in the half-page review. The snippet that stood out:

“Moore’s engaging offering not only gets across the ruggedness of the Adirondacks setting . . . but also presents a touching tale of siblings [who] forge a believable path forward. An exciting work of survival fiction with strong female characters.”

Not long after, another review came in from Booklife (Publisher’s Weekly): “Moore finds suspense in the chase, in vividly described search-and-rescue scenes, and in surprising family relations. The story is fast-paced, and Moore deftly explores and develops relationship dynamics, both familial and romantic, and what someone is willing to do and forgive for the people they care about. The ending will leave suspense readers—and lovers of complex sister relationships—feeling satisfied.”

They nailed the complexity—two genres in one.

“In this compelling contemporary novel set in the Adirondack Mountains, the act of search and rescue is both a response to an emergency and a metaphor for the repair of a fractured family. Readers who respond to characters longing for connection and building families with those who love, support, and respect them, blood ties or not, need search no further.”

That was from Booklist / Blueink Reviews.

Finally, it sunk in. I forwarded them to friends, feeling (at last!) delight in these impartial judgements of the worth of my story.

Trade reviews, to me, prove more than anything that a writer can move beyond her legacy. To the reviewer at Kirkus, I wasn’t a food writer trying to write a novel. I was a novelist. I could fulfill my long-held dream AND have the approval of impartial readers.

But for years, I didn’t try. Compelling voices told me to stay where I was, even as I grew more and more stuck.

brown brick wall under blue sky during daytime

Photo by Maria Bobrova on Unsplash

What is it about our legacy, our history, that shapes our expectations with any kind of creative expression?

What history do we unconsciously carry within ourselves that creates limits to our future writing dreams—tells us what we can and cannot do? What kinds of historic messages have we absorbed from schooling, parents, friends, work colleagues? How does this legacy help or hinder us—without our even knowing?

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I know many writers who would’ve given away their favorite pen for my journalism career.

But you know how life can be: when we get stuck, sometimes the universe helps us out. Presents a challenge out of nowhere. Something that shakes up our comfort and forces us to re-vision our life.

My shake-up came when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, at the high point of my food-writing career. I had just contracted for two new books for hire at a very nice fee. I was forty-five.

I’d been through cancer before—thyroid. The treatment for thyroid cancer at the time (I was mid-thirties) was brutal: radioactive iodine. But nothing compared to the chemo of choice for breast cancer treatment.

I remember calling my editor, renegotiating time on the book contracts, hating to do so. But I was scared—the cancer was serious. I didn’t know then but it would take me clean out of my life for six full months, diluting everything for another six as I healed, leaving me for years with a low-level terror. From this, came the biggest question that I’d faced in years: what if I die and I don’t get to do what I always wanted as a writer?

Funny, isn’t it. Many people wouldn’t think about writing at a time like this. Survival is on the line. But I did. I wanted to survive, yes, but I wanted much more than that. I wanted some key dreams to come true. I’d messed around too long, accepted the legacy I had created for myself in my twenties—the food world, writing about it. I still loved to cook—and eat!—but I was fascinated by the unreal now, not the real. I wanted to learn how to write fiction.

It took me five years from diagnosis to application to grad school for my MFA. Then two years facing the facts: fiction was an entirely new language. Different rules, different everything. Yes, I was a seasoned writer, but I had to start all over again to become a novelist.

silhouette of 2 women sitting on ground during sunset

Photo by Benjamin Wedemeyer on Unsplash

Like many writers, I explore unfathomable questions in my writing. At least, I try. I’m fascinated with why people risk. With how we are formed by where we come from and how we shake that off or transmute it. With how women, in particular, are heroes in their lives and how we save others and end up saving ourselves. So, of course, when I began drafting scenes for this novel oh-so-many years ago, without even knowing it, I was writing about legacy.

My two female narrators are step-sisters; they are the product of a marriage and an affair. They carry the legacy of their pilot father and his effect on their mothers (the unhappy married wife and the lover in the wings). Eventually, as the story progresses, they find ways to move beyond this legacy with each other’s help. That help is unexpected, and at first unwanted.

A lot of times we carry good legacies along with the bad. The father gifted both daughters with the one thing he loved most: flying. They are both competent pilots. He also gave them the knowledge that they could bust past traditional roles for woman.

The downside of the legacy is a metaphor that trade reviewer mentioned: “search and rescue is both a response to an emergency and a metaphor for the repair of a fractured family.” All three characters take to the sky when life gets too up close and personal. A legacy from their father, a legacy of abandoning first, perhaps? But that brings its own sinkhole: By flying away whenever things got tough, a person hints that somehow the other isn’t enough. Not enough value in the relationship to warrant sticking around.

I knew, like it had been for me, such a legacy takes a sharp jolt to jar loose. So part of my novel work was going into each of these women’s characters and finding the thing that would potentially break them. How would it force them to free themselves from their individual legacy?

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I like to believe we can free ourselves from these kinds of creative limits—and life limits—without such a shock. I think about a story that Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, once shared.

At age eighteen, he was in a car accident. He hit another vehicle and broke the driver’s spine. Years later, this awful experience still haunted him. He decided to try to find the woman whose car he hit and apologize.

Turned out, the information at the scene of the accident was miscommunicated to his young self—the other driver had actually hit him. She was fine, too—no broken spine.

Sivers wrote about what he learned from this, and it has stayed with me.

“We think of the past like it’s a physical fact,” he said, '“like it’s real. But the past is what we call our memory and stories about it. Imperfect memories, and stories built on one interpretation of incomplete information. That’s ‘the past.’ History is not true. You can change history. The actual factual events are such a small part of the story. Everything else is interpretation. It’s never too late to change a story.”

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

You can take classes and read craft books on writing your legacy. Everyone from Andrew Weil, M.D., to Psychology Today counsel how valuable it is to preserve memories and wisdom from all the years you’ve been alive. There’s a real healing component in penning your past, seeing it from the distance of the page.

But what if you reversed that, just as an experiment this week? What if you tried to write a future beyond your legacy?

First, complete this sentence 5-10 times. Try not to overthink it—you’re attempting to get past mental barriers and into the deeper truths of your legacy.

“Because of __________________________, I am a writer who ____________________.”

I try to let whatever comes, come. In other words, no editing allowed. If the words surprise you, excellent. That means it bypassed the more polished, conscious part of yourself.

Sometimes, a dream or longing will emerge after three or four tries. You’ll start to see what may lie beyond your current limits, the legacy you’re living now.

If you want, try part two of this exercise, called a presumé.

In writing classes, I loved to teach the “presumé,” or future resumé. It comes from a wonderful little book, Get It All Done and Still Be Human, by Robbie Fanning and Tony Fanning. A different take on time management, I read about it years ago and still love revisiting it. Mostly for this presumé exercise.

Start by writing a future date on a blank page in your journal, writer’s notebook, or new document on your laptop or tablet. You can practice with short amounts of time or go for a year ahead. I often try three months, which for me is a reasonable amount of space to dream and accomplish, and not too far that I forget about it. In my weeklong writing retreats we’d use the date the retreat ended.

This is a kind of visualization exercise where you imagine yourself on that date, looking back. So you write in the present tense, as if this passage of time has already happened.

“I am looking back on the past week/three months/year . . . and so much has changed. I am now __________________.”

Write as if you have moved into that dream or longing, even a little bit.

It’s helpful to put a note in your calendar or set a reminder to revisit this presumé when the time has passed—say, three months from now. I usually put mine away (but in a place I can find it) and let things work. Then when the reminder comes up, I revisit. Often, it’s quite surprising what has changed about my writing life.

Feel free to share thoughts, ideas, comments, and places you might want to go with this exercise or the topic of legacies, in the Comments section below (scroll down). Thank you for contributing to our little community!

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

(If you are a former student and will publish soon (pre-orders of your book are available now), or have in the past two months, email mary[at]marycarrollmoore[dot]com to be included in a future Shout Out! I’ll keep your listing here for two months.)

Marianne C. Bohr, The Twenty: One Woman’s Trek Across Corsica on the GR20 Trail (She Writes Press, June release)

Linda Dittmar, Tracing Homelands: Israel, Palestine, and the Claims of Belonging. (Interlink Press, July release)

Nigar Alam, Under the Tamarind Tree (Putnam/PRH, August release)

Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)

I’m the author of 13 books in 3 genres, an artist, and a lover of freedom and creativity. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), will be published in October 2023 (preorders available in early August). For twelve years, I worked as a full-time food journalist, most notably through my weekly column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.

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Published on August 11, 2023 03:01

August 4, 2023

Creating Safe Boundaries When You're Creating

purple Freedom lighted freestanding letters on brown surface

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"It's my story, I lived it, and I can tell it however I like," one student told me. “No one can tell me what not to say.” I knew this writer as a forthright activist, never shying from truth telling and confrontation. Yet I wasn’t surprised when she stopped writing her book, let it dwindle off one summer never to return to it. She emailed me, confused. “I was so hot on this story. But now I can’t bear to even approach it.”

I’ve seen this so many times. The inner gatekeeper, panicky about the boundaries we are crossing from agreed-upon safety into danger, has shut the gate fast. Like a parent who disciplines a child, the gatekeeper is powerful in our psyches. If we abuse what it thinks is the right to freedom as a creative person, if we don’t keep boundaries clear and sane, it steps in.

Why? Because we’re now feeding the part of ourselves that eats fear for breakfast.

It’s the part that, deep down, worries about being cast out. Our freedom to express has taken us into an area of possible judgment from others. We’ve opened our private lives to the public.

Sometimes I wonder why we have this gatekeeper—why, even if it’s unconscious, it controls our writing lives so effectively. (A thorough exploration of the gatekeeper can be found in Judith Hendin’s excellent book, The Self behind the Symptom.) I rebel against it constantly; writing what matters most, matters to me.

But I also notice what happens inside—to my health, my sleep, my joy—when I mess with it. And I notice this boundary-crossing effect in many of my students.

One wanted to write a novel loosely based on his family, but fear of their criticism always stopped him. No amount of hiding details behind the fictional wall soothed this concern. His older brother, in particular, haunted him whenever he sat down at his laptop. Like living with ghosts. The gatekeeper kept him from completing this memoir.

Another, writing a self-help book, felt equally frozen by imagined future criticism from university colleagues. "In academia," she told me, "self-help is laughed at."

A third wasn't at all concerned about the background she shared in her memoir (addiction and severe childhood trauma). She didn’t have anyone left in her family to judge her. But she was a very private person, abhorring the idea that she’d attract unwanted curiosity. Unable to continue with the true story, she tried fictionalizing, but it didn’t create safe enough boundaries about the underlying information.

I personally have two gatekeepers, or one that works a double shift: fear of criticism and fear of exposure and resulting intrusion. When I began publishing in the 1980s, it was easier to draw a circle around my private life. The internet erases much of that safety today. Private thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and facts are instantly exposed to public scrutiny.

I remember a story I wrote years ago about my grandmother's death. She was a wonderful woman, strong and true, and very faith-rich until she was mugged outside her apartment. She believed God had deserted her in that moment, and it started her decline. She died not long after, a ghost of her former self.

As a young woman, this change in my beloved grandmother shocked and haunted me for years. I wanted badly to write about it, about what happens when we lose faith in ourselves or our lives. The story ended up in my second memoir.

i wasn't prepared for the reaction from some family readers, after the book was published. Not entirely approving, that I'd shared this intimate detail about our matriarch. And not entirely agreeing with my version of what happened.

This is not an uncommon experience for memoirists. I asked friends whose stories I included to read and approve of my version but I hadn't asked my family. Too afraid of their censor, perhaps. Or just too stubborn to agree to changes, not unlike my student above. But soon after, I switched away from memoir into fiction. Family breaches healed, and I felt safer.

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My new novel changed the game again. It is coming out in October, inspired by my mother, a World War II pilot, to be released not long after her birthday (she’d be over 100 this year). I wanted to not only write a compelling story about women pilots, out of admiration for those who bust through this traditional male work wall. I wanted to honor my mom in my own small way.

I always wanted to know more about the risks she took as a woman pilot—she got her commercial pilot’s license in her twenties then joined the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots; out of 20,000 applicants, around 1000 were selected—but after the war she moved on to raising kids and supporting our family, not talking much about those years of flying. After her death, I learned she flew small planes and four-engine bombers, sometimes the same day. She ferried aircraft to locations in the U.S. and Canada for two years, then she came home, put away her flying days, and got to work as a typical 1950s housewife.

One of the aspects of risk that comes up for me is: Am I being true to her legacy, writing this book? My novel is clearly fiction, not subject to scrutiny of fact or family history. But I want to portray the two women pilots as pushing boundaries in every aspect of their lives, as I know my mom did before she settled down.

Like my students mentioned above, I am driven to write, to understand the female qualities of strength and survival. How it is possible to fly bombers at age twenty-two?

And how did she live through my older sister’s tragic death? Losing a child way before her time. We weren't a family who talked about the tragedies, so I only have a scattering of conversational memories. I notice that when I sit to write about these topics—even right now, as I compose this newsletter—my stomach twists a little, my head leans forward, my neck tightens. Sure, I have the freedom, even the right to write about these pivotal experiences in my mother’s—and my—life. I'm also learning those body sensations that tell my I’ve crossed a line of comfort. The inner gatekeeper is on high alert because of perceived risk.

It's very individual, where we each locate the intersection of freedom and comfort about how much to expose.

I got a lot of comfort and wisdom from one of Jami Attenberg’s Craft Talk newsletters. She writes "Boundaries must exist, and this is for everyone’s benefit. A good thing to think about in your writing: what you’re willing to tell and what you need to keep close for yourself. How much of yourself do you need to put out there?"

"Even if we write fiction," she adds, "the most beautiful literary subterfuge, we can tap into certain personal wells and it can feel (to us, at least) like those boundaries become translucent."

Many of us writers launch a deeply felt project with the specter of criticism and exposure hovering close. At least, I've seen this with my classes and private clients over the past two decades. We write about anything when we're freewriting, but when aiming towards publication, those inner gates shut fast. Any creative flow strangles. (There are exceptions, like the writer above who felt anything was game on the page, damn the consequences).

The goal is a middle ground, I've found. Through time, I test out my own comfort zone. I’ll take steps towards risk, renegotiate my contract with the inner gatekeeper. But the bigger the exposure—say, with a novel which has gotten excellent reviews and looks like it will be well received (dare I hope!)—all bets are off, once again. I relished the freedom of writing, editing, and finishing. Now I face the responsibility of exposure and what others will do with my gift.

It’s out of my control, it always is. Maybe that's why I take my sweet time with my books. I write and revise endlessly, trying to find that boundary that allows my free expression and also my safety--or at least a measure of it, call it sanity perhaps, that allows me to keep writing and keep believing in myself.

Good questions to ponder. Attenberg says it so well: "How do we travel the line between pushing ourselves to be vulnerable, honest, interesting and still make ourselves feel safe? How do we take risks as artists and still protect ourselves? How do we stay steady even as we explore and exploit the wildness of our minds?"

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A final note about writer’s block, which is oh-so-connected to this topic of safety and danger. Sometimes, we feel pushed to share beyond our comfort zone. Class feedback asks for more about a topic you’re dancing around. An editor or agent does the same. You comply, but the writing flow reduces to a trickle. Suddenly, you just don’t feel like writing at all. Some gatekeeper inside has slammed the door because you’ve put yourself in danger, in its mind.

We writers are very attuned to this, and I’ve witnessed many cases of writer’s block from line crossing, in myself and others. It’s a learning process, for sure—we don’t always know where that line is. Or maybe we’re brave or defiant or rebellious at the core, and we think lines are meant to be crossed. Who dares to tell us where our freedom begins and ends! Nobody.

But we stop writing. Stop creating. Dry up a bit more each day we’re away from it. The critical inner voice gets louder.

This week’s exercise is a gentle soother for that voice. It allows you to revisit your personal boundaries and see if they are still useful, need shoring up, need relinquishing.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Make a list of topics, memories, ideas, thoughts, concepts you’re comfortable sharing with an unknown reader. Make a second list of those you’re uneasy about sharing with that reader. And a third of those things you’d never share. (No one will see these lists but you, so you can dive deep and be brutally honest with yourself.)

Pick one from each list and free write for 10-15 minutes about your feelings of danger or safety with each one.

Have you crossed the line Attenberg talks about, even inadvertently, and your writing has narrowed or even shut down because of the danger you feel?

What’s one step you might take towards more personal freedom with your writing and your creativity, while still staying safe and sane? Would talking with someone, maybe even someone who lives in the story, across the line, help at all?

Would writing a letter to your inner gatekeeper, asking to renegotiate the contract about pubic and private?

Would focusing on a different topic or kind of writing or creating (a poem, song lyrics, a sketch or design) give you a break from fear’s intensity and allow the distance you need to really decide?

In the Comments below, share one step you might take to soothe the inner gatekeeper, allowing you to move forward in your writing this week.

Shout Out!

A hearty shout out to these writing friends and former students who are publishing their books! I encourage you to pre-order a copy to show your support of fellow writers and our writing community.

Linda Dittmar, Tracing Homelands: Israel, Palestine, and the Claims of Belonging. (Interlink Press, July release)

Nigar Alam, Under the Tamarind Tree (Putnam/PRH, August release)

Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, Dear Jacob: A Mother's Journey of Hope (Minnesota Historical Society Press, October release)

I’m the author of 13 books in 3 genres. My second novel, A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue (Riverbed Press), will be published in October 2023 (preorders available in early August). For twelve years, I wrote a weekly food column for the Los Angeles Times syndicate before moving to fiction. My writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “People’s Choice” in 2011 and my first novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for PEN/Faulkner and Lambda Literary awards in 2009. I’ve written Your Weekly Writing Exercise every Friday since 2008.

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Published on August 04, 2023 03:00

July 28, 2023

Building Your Best Community as a Writer

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In a class, the instructor asked us to define “our communities.” That word, community, is one thrown around frequently in writerly circles, but this class exercise made me think more deeply about what it means. How community appears in my writing life. Where I might unconsciously take it for granted.

Community implies…

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Published on July 28, 2023 03:01

July 21, 2023

Delight and Danger of Creative Chaos

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I like order. I like to create. The two don’t easily comingle. At least for me.

My writing and art life are messy when I’m producing good work. I’m into it. I forget everything else. I let parts of my regular life fall off the cliff—at least temporarily. I neglect family and friends, the garden becomes unnavigable due…

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Published on July 21, 2023 03:01

July 14, 2023

Who Am I Actually Writing This For?

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Everyone who gets serious about writing is taught about the ideal reader. Some instructor quotes Stephen King’s passage in On Writing about his wife, Tabitha, how he writes his scary stories with her in mind. “Someone — I can’t remember who, for the life of me — once wrote that all novels are really letters aimed at one…

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Published on July 14, 2023 03:01

July 7, 2023

The Angst of Finding a Great Book Title

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A good writing friend says she can’t begin a story without a title. Even if that title changes, it forms a focus for what she’ll write. I’m the opposite. Titles are a struggle for me—I am part pantser (learning what I am writing about only as I write more of it) so the meaning of my work is not often apparent when I beg…

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Published on July 07, 2023 03:01

June 30, 2023

Writing What Matters Most to You

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Do you live your writing—whatever you choose to write about is what you believe? Do your values show up on the page? If you rage about injustice, does the topic travel into your story?

I’ve been wondering about this. About our human need to express ourselves creatively, to have the freedom to talk about what matters most to us. …

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Published on June 30, 2023 03:02

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