Elizabeth Spann Craig's Blog, page 221

Becoming a Convert—the Kindle

I really never thought I'd be writing a post like this, but I have to admit that I really like the Kindle.

I was definitely not expecting to like it—for several reasons.

One is that I love being in places where there are books. I grew up surrounded by books in the public library and my house. There was always a book on the table and books making the bookcases groan.

Another reason is that I have enough screen time as it is. If I've had a busy writing week (or promo week, or both), then by the end of the day my head aches and my eyes hurt and I just can't wait to get away from my laptop, the desktop, my smart phone, whatever.

So I wasn't exactly expecting to be a fan of the Kindle when my husband bought one a few weeks ago.

But—it's so sensible.

It takes up hardly any space. The screen isn't backlit like a computer screen, so (as yet) I haven't experienced any eyestrain. I can actually read the Kindle outdoors because there won't be glare on the screen. It can hold all the books I want.

Unfortunately, I think we've reached the point where we can't collect many more books. Books are even stacked on the floor in some rooms…and this is after culling our collection! No, if some come in, then some have to go out….

Unless you have a Kindle. Then you can have a huge library on a single device…and back it up to another.

Usually, if I go out of town, I have to make a big decision as to which books I'm going to bring with me. This involves skimming the first chapter of each book to see which ones I'm more likely to want to read.

If you have a Kindle, you can bring all the books with you.

I'm a clumsy person. Very. Yes, I've already dropped this brand-new device. While I wouldn't recommend dropping the Kindle, it has survived its scary experience.

Do you like to write in the margins of your books? I'm a margin-writer and highlighter, myself. Yes, you can do it in the Kindle.

Like a book, you will still need a booklight if you read the Kindle in your bed in the middle of the night and don't want to wake the person sleeping next to you. That's because it's not backlit. But that's sort of comforting and almost book-like.

I really don't have anything bad to say about it. I'm a fan.

I still go hang out where there are books. I go to the library once or twice a week. I'm frequently in the bookstores…and yes, I'm still buying paper books (after I give away several to make room for the new ones.)

But I think I'm seeing a glimpse of the future. It's a little scary because it's creating a lot of discord in the publishing industry…but I'm definitely a convert.

Have you got an eReader? Are you planning on buying one? How do you like yours?

The Flip Side of Our Character

If you think about it, every trait, even the good ones, can be taken too far or have a flipside to it.

What if our good traits start to work against us and create conflict for us or add tension to a situation?

I'm really Type A about some things. I have to be on time. It's almost an obsession for me…and I'll do just about anything to be on time.

That definitely has a bad side. If I get any hint that a situation will make me late…a traffic jam, a last-minute emergency that crops up…I'm stressed out. Stress isn't good for me and isn't good for people around me, either. :) I'm not nearly as fun to be around when I'm stressed out—and that's a lousy way to start out a lunch date or a night at the movies, or a school event, or whatever I'm on my way to.

An organized person who plans their day may have low tolerance for a sudden change in plans.

Sometimes people who are too nice don't have much of a backbone.

Someone can be industrious but could cross the line into being a workaholic.

Charismatic people can be egotistical.

Intelligent people sometimes need constant stimulation or else they get bored.

And on it goes. :) Have you thought of the flipside of your characters' positive traits and how they might trip them up?

Ethnicity in Writing—by Julia Buckley

Hope you'll all welcome fellow Midnight Ink author Julia Buckley to Mystery Writing is Murder today! Julia's Madeline Mann, which Kirkus called "a bright debut" is now available on Kindle.

My writer's group has gone through many incarnations and has been winnowed down to five dedicated, hard-working women. Once, more than a decade ago, it had more members who had varying levels of commitment to their writing. It was this group that did a reading of my first draft of Madeline Mann, which came out on Kindle a couple of weeks ago.

While the group discussed my book, a young woman pursed her lips over the names of Madeline's brothers, Fritz and Gerhard. "Must they be so ETHNIC?" she asked, sounding almost disgusted.

This shocked me for a variety of reasons. First, because we live in a country that isn't very old; therefore everyone, either immediately or distantly, is from somewhere else. Second, I felt the question revealed more about the woman posing it than it did about my characters, and what it revealed wasn't flattering. Third, I thought that the German ethnicity of the Mann family, informed as it was by my own childhood with European parents, would be one of the things they liked best about the book.

Ethnicity, in fact, is simply one of many things that makes fiction either authentic or not so. Because I had a German mother and a Hungarian father, I felt that I could create a fun and authentic picture of what Madeline's German-American family would be like. Had I chosen to write a character who was French, or Mexican, or Russian, I could certainly have tried to make her life authentic by researching and talking to people who came from those particular cultures, but I wouldn't be able to write with the same authority that my own background gave me.

I'm not sure what would make a reader shy away from "ethnic" fiction, and in fact Madeline's German family is really mostly similar to the stereotypical American family. What seemed to offend the reader the most, then, were the characters' names. She seemed to think they were somehow an exaggeration because they were so different from names she was used to.

One of the joys of fiction, to me, is that we can enter worlds where things are different and names are different and behaviors are different–and then we learn things from all of those differences. Gerhard and Fritz were names I heard on a daily basis, because not only did my mother have family members with very German names, but she had many German-American friends whose children had names just like these.

Ironically, my parents married in the late 1950s and their cultural world suggested that the best way to raise "American" children was to speak only English in the house. Since neither of my parents could claim English as a native tongue, they felt obliged to make us feel comfortable in our environment. They spoke only English at home, and they gave us distinctly non-European names: William, Christopher, Claudia, Linda, Julia. This, despite the fact that my mother's friends and relatives had beautiful German names like Loli and Lizabeth and Nanne and MariTereze, and her brothers had the lovely names of Ferdi and Hermann-Josef.

In Madeline Mann, I was able to pay tribute to my mother's German ethnicity while writing a very American murder mystery.

A day or two after the book appeared on Kindle, I got an e-mail from my uncle, Hermann-Josef (nicknamed Ebbo) in Germany. I have not seen Ebbo in person since I was one week old; he came to America to be with my mother during her final pregnancy, and he was there when I was born. He held me in his lap and they took photos to commemorate the occasion, but that is the only physical bond between us.

In his older years, though, Onkel Ebbo has discovered e-mail and the Internet, and his world will never be the same. He sends me e-mails all the time, either in German (which I can only partly translate) or in an English that he has translated online, and which is ultimately garbled. But the gist of his e-mail was "Congratulations on your book! I love the German names Fritz and Gerhard!"

And that was a wonderful antidote to my earlier experience, in which my wonderful German-American brothers were viewed with such disdain.

When Robert Fate was kind enough to read my book and blurb it, the brothers were what he loved best: He wrote "I love Buckley's flawless style; her small town American settings are perfect, and her characters are so real it wouldn't surprise me to discover one of the brothers rummaging in my refrigerator."

Vindication! And a reminder that ethnicity is as integral to a story as is plot or setting.

Julia Buckley, the proud daughter of a German mother and a Hungarian father, lives in the Chicago area. Her first mystery, THE DARK BACKWARD, was published in 2006. Visit her website at juliabuckley.com or her blog, Mysterious Musings. She also posts at Inkspot and Poe's Deadly Daughters.

Buckley is a member of Sisters in Crime, MWA and RWA. She recently earned her Master of Arts in Literature, and is at work on a young adult suspense novel and on a new mystery series. Kirkus Reviews called Madeline Mann "a bright debut," and The Library Journal called Buckley "a writer to watch."

Twitterific

Here are writing links that I've posted to Twitter for the past week.

If you're looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand corner of the blog (on the black header right above my blog name…next to the Blogger symbol…the small search window is next to the magnifying glass) and the roundup with your subject will come up. To narrow your search down on the page, do a CTRL+F, type your subject, and hit enter.

Be sure to come by tomorrow when Julia Buckley will be guest posting on "Ethnicity in Writing."

Best articles this week for writers (11-12 edition): http://dld.bz/6s6Q @4kidlit

Writing Killer Content in 140 Characters or Less: http://dld.bz/6maN

A useful foreshadowing device for crime fiction writers: http://dld.bz/6s57 @mkinberg

On Submission Etiquette and Offers: http://dld.bz/6mau

Smart Querying for Unagented Writers: http://dld.bz/6mah @Georgia_McBride

How to write a review: http://dld.bz/6kZN

Taking our readers into account as we write: http://dld.bz/6qU4

Should You Use A Pen Name or Pseudonym? http://dld.bz/6kZE

Question Mark Placement in Dialogue: http://dld.bz/6kZA

Best book marketing tweets of the week: http://dld.bz/6kZe

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Going Bananas! http://bit.ly/9iFDL0 @CleoCoyle

Ten of the best zoos in literature: http://dld.bz/6fKB

When—and How—to Compress URLs: http://dld.bz/6fK8

The Unauthorized Biographer's Challenge (Daily Beast): http://dld.bz/6fKs

How to Use Google Reader to Keep Up with Your Favorite Blogs: http://dld.bz/6fJQ

The 3 stages of speed writing: http://dld.bz/6fJG

No More Drinking the Publishing Cool-Aid: http://dld.bz/6mcF @KristenLambTX

Blog tour effectiveness: http://dld.bz/6fEC

Nominate Your Favorite Writing Blog: http://dld.bz/6fEu

Tips to keep your blog from getting hacked: http://dld.bz/6fEj

Don't label your characters: http://dld.bz/5ZcT

Stop Worrying About Subgenre: http://dld.bz/5ZcH

Dust off your drafts and submit them: http://dld.bz/5Zc5

How to write yourself out of a dead end: http://dld.bz/5Zcp

Deepening Your Novel with Imagery, Symbolism & Figurative Language: http://dld.bz/5Zcf

All Writing is Good for Writing: http://dld.bz/5ZbB

4 Tips on What NOT to Say (or Pitch or Do) to Get Your Book Reviewed: http://dld.bz/5Zb8

What one writer wants to tell new writers: http://dld.bz/5Zbc

10 Important But Overlooked Tips for Writing Conferences: http://dld.bz/6dWa @MasonCanyon

Learning from Rejection: The Ongoing Monologue: http://dld.bz/5PTg

Tips on writing great novel hooks from Writer's Digest: http://dld.bz/5PQV

When is close TOO close? http://dld.bz/5PSS @bluemaven

Excuse Editor Troubleshooting Guide for Successful Writing: http://dld.bz/5PRN

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: You CAN Beet Chocolate Cake (just don't underestimate Flour Power!) http://bit.ly/bp0GrP @CleoCoyle

6 Golden Rules of NaNoWriMo: http://dld.bz/5PNS

Toward a Steampunk Without Steam: http://dld.bz/5PNw

The Small Press Book Contract, Pt 2: http://dld.bz/5PNj

Dealing With the Self-Doubt Monster: http://dld.bz/5PMT @jodyhedlund

Impressive collection of "Best Books of 2010" lists (B&N, Library Journal, PW, etc): http://dld.bz/6aqD @largeheartedboy

Dictate your novel draft: http://dld.bz/5PMP

14 Ways to Make Your Facebook Page Fun and Lively: http://dld.bz/5PMF

Acquiring An Agent After Self-Publishing: http://dld.bz/5PMt

Plotting with Scenes: http://dld.bz/5PMk

7 Ways to Use Writing Prompts With Your Current Project: http://dld.bz/5PMb

5 Good Practices to Use with Writing Clients (for freelancers): http://dld.bz/5PKX

Three Lessons from Nano: http://dld.bz/5PKz

Five Writing Tips From Reading J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter": http://dld.bz/5MJR

"Niceness" only goes so far in the publishing industry: http://dld.bz/5MHW

The Making of a Novel: The Lessons of a Bad Book (Huff Post): http://dld.bz/5MHy

Why realistic teenage dialogue isn't necessarily a good thing: http://dld.bz/5MHm

Wake Up! 7 Simple Ways to Energize Your Writing Powers: http://dld.bz/5MGX

Word count--incl. links to find the target count for your genre, beefing up your count, or slimming it down: http://dld.bz/5V8E

The art of the gesture: http://dld.bz/5MGF

The Importance of the Uglies: http://dld.bz/5MGA

How to Get Past the NaNoWriMo Danger Point and Finish Your Novel (Huff Post): http://dld.bz/5MG3

6 Useful Steps To Tackle Procrastination: http://dld.bz/5MGx

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Sweeeeeeeet Potatoes http://bit.ly/9yiFK5 @CleoCoyle

Digital to Represent 20 to 28% of Publishing's Profits, says Forum d'Avignon/Bain & Co. Report: http://dld.bz/5MGh

Writers who love their characters too much: http://dld.bz/5MGb

Moving from gaming to novels: http://dld.bz/5MFQ

Under Pressure: Dealing With Deadlines: http://dld.bz/5MF9

Book cover design--a book designer explains the process (video): http://dld.bz/5RSd @thecreativepenn

The agent-client relationship: http://dld.bz/5AzP

Amazon Increases Kindle Royalties to Publishers (NY Times): http://dld.bz/5MEG

Writers, it's not about the toys: http://dld.bz/5ME3

Polishing up a manuscript draft: http://dld.bz/5MEb

The 3 elements of a novel hook: http://dld.bz/5MCF

20 Essential Works of Noir Fiction: http://dld.bz/5PYU @janetrudolph

7 things your characters do too much of: http://dld.bz/5MBP

Before you write: http://dld.bz/5PPQ @elspethwrites

Creative blocks and how to overcome them: http://dld.bz/5MBA

Now You Have No Excuse Not to Write: http://dld.bz/5MB5

To Prologue or not to prologue: http://dld.bz/5MBq

10 Resources and Tips for Writers - setting: http://dld.bz/5GxC

An agent on publishing contracts: http://dld.bz/5A3T

Judging the quality of your writing: http://dld.bz/5A3P

So You Want to Be a Book Editor? http://dld.bz/5A3N

Manuscript formatting: http://dld.bz/5A3v

Social networking should work for you: http://dld.bz/5A3p

5 Keys to Building Networks Over Time: http://dld.bz/5A3n

The curse of being a writer: http://dld.bz/5A35

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Sunday Chicken--on Wednesday http://bit.ly/9wxUOX @CleoCoyle

Berlinica is Born: How a German Journalist Became a US Publisher: http://dld.bz/5A3d

Resources for writers--an exhaustive list: http://dld.bz/5A2D

External and internal conflict: http://dld.bz/5A2g

Checking for Plot Holes: Does Your Story Add Up? http://dld.bz/5GvS

When an agent requests your manuscript: http://dld.bz/5A2b

10 writing pests: http://dld.bz/5EGN @elspethwrites

Let Their Reputation Precede Them: Introducing Characters For Maximum Impact: http://dld.bz/5Azh

4 Post-Its to Stick Up Over Your Writing Desk: http://dld.bz/5AyN @victoriamixon

7 rules for utilizing writing time: http://dld.bz/5FhY

Knowing when to cut or fix a crap scene, and how to do it: http://dld.bz/5Ayz @jammer0501

Mystery Writer's Guide to Forensic Science - Poisons V: http://dld.bz/5ERx @clarissadraper

Bolstering your word count: http://dld.bz/54YY

Showing character through reaction: http://dld.bz/5Auq

Flashbacks and backstory:http://dld.bz/56Cb

5 tips for writing scenes: http://dld.bz/56B2

Building a strong story foundation: http://dld.bz/56Ba

Staying True To Your Character's Voice: http://dld.bz/56AP

When writers break their agreement with their readers: http://dld.bz/56Ar

Using Facebook to market your book: http://dld.bz/5693

Word placement and micro-construction of sentences: http://dld.bz/569v

Lit agents in and around Ireland: http://dld.bz/569m

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: A Writer's Breakfast: Pumpkin Muffin Tops from Cleo Coyle http://bit.ly/9hY1eP @CleoCoyle

Agent Scott Eagan On: Author Branding and Career Planning: http://dld.bz/54YN

Subtext in dialogue: http://dld.bz/54Y6

Micro-Inequality: Why Review Equality Matters: http://dld.bz/54XN

Questions to ask as you write your novel: http://dld.bz/54XD

How to write fights, games, races and chases – in three easy stages: http://dld.bz/54WW @dirtywhitecandy

Lighting our scenes--keeping it real: http://dld.bz/564N @authorterryo

Pacing, dialogue, and research: http://dld.bz/54WE

The writer's comment filtration system: http://bit.ly/a0Bpju @EverettMaroon

What Makes Romance Awesome: http://dld.bz/54WA

Authors weigh in on what makes a good blog tour: http://dld.bz/56xN @spunkonastick

The 3 act plot structure: http://dld.bz/54Ww

Writing: Mistakes Are Future Tips: http://dld.bz/54VH

How To Handle Subjective & Contradictory Feedback: http://dld.bz/54V8

Deciding which story to write: http://dld.bz/54Zs

Bolstering your word count: http://dld.bz/54YY

Secondary Characters: http://dld.bz/5xeJ

Magic Systems as Characters: http://dld.bz/5xeG

Useful websites for writers: http://dld.bz/5xeh

The great backstory debate: http://dld.bz/5xb5

Best Tweets for Writers (week ending 11/5/10): http://dld.bz/5xbq

Writing time jumps: http://dld.bz/5xbn

Is NaNo Really What Writers Need? http://dld.bz/5wZC

Nathan Bransford's Decision, Self-Published Kindle books, and You: http://dld.bz/5wZ5

Are you dating your fiction? http://dld.bz/5wZt

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Pecan Lace Sandwich Cookies with Orange Buttercream http://bit.ly/caofQg @CleoCoyle

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Welcome, Kate Carlisle! http://bit.ly/cc8GTy @CleoCoyle

ElizabethSCraig is having another busy weekend--please check back Monday morning for more writing tweets. Happy weekend!

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Pomegranate Goodness! http://bit.ly/aT4nGg @CleoCoyle

How to Improve Your Blogging Quickly and Drastically: http://dld.bz/4MU3

Formatting sample pages of a manuscript in a query email: http://dld.bz/4MUt

The crux of character: http://dld.bz/4MUd

Managing Writers in the Workplace: A Guide for Employers: http://dld.bz/4MTP

How textbook publishing got so scary: http://dld.bz/4MTy

Are Blog Comments the new Mundane Commute? http://dld.bz/4MS7

The Making of a Novel: Developing Character Through Dialogue (Huff Post): http://dld.bz/4Hj9

The Argh Moment: vanity publishing = mainstream contract? http://dld.bz/4Hju

NaNo: It's okay to fail: http://dld.bz/4Hjq

The Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Main Characters: http://bit.ly/9z0BmI

The joys of the plot twist: http://dld.bz/4HhT

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Writers: http://dld.bz/4HhN

Writing With a Daily Word Goal: http://dld.bz/4Hdv

The role of a Rights Manager at a literary agency: http://dld.bz/4HbM

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Mushroom Risotto! http://bit.ly/domujA @CleoCoyle

Writing with heart: http://dld.bz/4HeJ

An unofficial guide to NaNo: http://dld.bz/4HbR

Why Sex and Violence May Be Good For Young Adult Books (WSJ): http://dld.bz/4Hfg

Personalizing queries: http://dld.bz/4He4

ISBNs and E-books: The Ongoing Dilemma: http://dld.bz/4Hef

Getting a lot of critique is great--if the advice is all in sync: http://dld.bz/4Hd2

Why revisions matter (or, giving editors a reason to say yes): http://dld.bz/4Hdr

Get others to make your writing mistakes for you: http://dld.bz/4HcR

The 10 Horrors of Blogging: http://dld.bz/4HcS

Writing humor: http://dld.bz/4HcK

Publishing in the land of Larsson: http://dld.bz/4HbY

The action/adventure genre: http://dld.bz/4HcD

A caveat about starting your book with action: http://dld.bz/4TRb @authorterryo

Facebook Blocking Friend Requests: http://dld.bz/4Hcp

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Avery's Easy Cheddar Soup http://bit.ly/93DwJf @CleoCoyle

The wrong end of the telescope: http://dld.bz/4HaY

Online Tools for NaNoWriMo: http://dld.bz/4Ewe

The Pitch and Why We Should Care: http://dld.bz/4Ev3

Taking Readers into Account

Every night at bedtime, I make up a story for my daughter.

She loves them.  But she's a very picky listener.  She prefers stories centered around her favorite cat, Shadow.  With the magic of storytelling, Shadow can speak English and have exciting adventures.

In real life, Shadow is a fluffy, fat, beautiful tomcat.  He's also really mischievous. It fits his personality to have him do mischievous things in the bedtime stories.

But if my daughter can tell that my story is veering off into an area where Shadow is getting into some sort of scrape and heading into trouble, she revolts.

"No! Don't make Shadow do it, Mama! Change it! Change the story!"

Yes, she would rather hear a watered-down, happy-sappy story about Shadow having a picnic with her on the top of a breezy hill in the sunshine rather than hear an exciting tale of adventure with Shadow possibly getting in over his furry head.

She just can't bear to hear anything bad—even something made up—about her favorite pet.

It reminds me of the problems JK Rowling faced when she was writing her last Harry Potter book.  I read an interview with her where she expressed her discomfort at the fact that parents would email her begging that Harry's life be spared so their children wouldn't be devastated.

Then there was the case of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  He eventually got so tired of writing Sherlock that he killed him off during a fight with his archenemy Moriarty at a waterfall.  Readers were so outraged that he had to bring Sherlock back from the dead.

I don't really have much of an answer for this. Obviously writers want creative freedom to write the story the way they want to. This has, I think, to be balanced with the commercial element of writing for our readers. 

I think if we are planning to do away with a main character, then some foreshadowing would be a good idea.  Anything that's really abrupt and out of the blue and doesn't fit with the tone of the story and our readers might feel cheated. 

Yes, I can have Shadow the cat get into a major jam and have to spend his imaginary afternoon in time out for his mischief.  (I would never dream of having the kitty get into any harm in a story.) But if I've lost my listener because she's plugging up her ears, then I'm basically telling a bedtime story to myself.

How much are you taking your readers into account as you write your book or your sequels? 

Things I Should Probably Say About Twitter

I think I've put off posting about Twitter, except for my weekly tweet roundup.

For a while, I've gotten some hints from tweeters that I should have a sort of Twitter Manifesto. :) But I'm not much of a manifesto writer.

I get a lot of the same questions from folks on Twitter, though—through @ replies and DMs, so I figure I should probably run a post on them. For anyone who's on Twitter, I'm at @elizabethscraig.

I'll post this in a Q & A format and cover the questions I usually get:

How did you start tweeting links and why?

I was reading a lot of writing links and it seemed like it would be helpful to pass on ones that I thought were especially good. That snowballed until I had followers that were very interested in a variety of writing-related tweets. These were writers in different stages of their writing career—some just starting out, some veterans. So I started searching for good, solid posts—even if they were on topics that didn't directly apply to what I'm writing.

It's a platform for me, too, and provides a very indirect way of marketing and getting my name out there—and being indirect is really the only way I feel comfortable with promo.

How do you find the links?

I don't get them from my Twitter feed—I actually subscribe directly to the writing blogs' RSS feed and read them in my Google Reader.

How many blogs do you subscribe to and how do you browse them?

According to my Google Reader, I subscribe to 1,482 blogs. Ack. I have my Google Reader set on "list" view and I scan through them quickly—usually looking for writing craft-related posts.

How long does it take you to find posts, read them, and tweet them in a day?

It usually takes a little over an hour each day.

Are you on Twitter all day?

Actually, no—I usually just check in with Twitter a few times a day. If I have more free time, I check in more frequently.

How do you schedule tweets?

I use an application called "Social Oomph" to schedule my tweets. The idea is to spread them out through the day so that they're (hopefully) not overwhelming and are reaching people in other time zones.

Why aren't you following me back?

I follow everyone back, although sometimes I get a little behind with updating my list. If I'm not following you, then I think you're a spammer or else you've just started following me. If you're not a spammer, just send me a DM on Twitter and let me know. :)

What's the best way to contact you?

I check my DMs on Twitter at least once a day, but you can also email me at elizabethspanncraig(at)gmail(dot)com.

I have a great writing blog—how can I bring my blog to your attention?

I'm always looking for new writing blogs to add to my Google Reader. Just send me a DM or an email with your link and I'll subscribe to the RSS feed.

How do you pick which posts to run?

I'm usually looking for craft-related, industry-related, social media, or promo-related posts. I love posts that are easily skimmed, have great content, and can be helpful to a lot of writers.

Can you tweet my book review?

I don't usually tweet reviews, sorry.

Can you tweet something out to your followers?

It depends on what it is—I'm trying to stick to writing-related, tip-related tweeting. I figure the more I send spammy stuff, then I'm watering down my tweet stream.

(From PR firms, who do like to contact me): What is your marketing strategy behind these tweets? Does it seem to be working?

There wasn't a whole lot of marketing thought that went into this, which is why I'm probably getting so many DMs from PR people! I'm focusing on the tweeting mainly as a service to other writers, but I am gaining a nice platform in the process. It seemed to work out really well with pre-orders for my last book.

Do you read your tweet stream?

Honestly, I find my tweet stream totally overwhelming. If I try to read or follow all those incoming tweets then it makes me feel like I have ADHD. :) I follow over 6100 and I can blink and find 20 updates.

What if I wrote a great blog post and you didn't notice it—can I bring it to your attention?

Sure—feel free to DM me with it. I can't promise to run it, but I promise to take a look…and I'll make sure I subscribe to your feed.

If I wrote a great post a few days ago and tweeted you about it and it hasn't run, will it ever run?

Sometimes I schedule tweets way out—sometimes a week or more…so it might still run.

Do you @ all of the blog post authors whose links you tweet?

I used to, and I'd really like to be able to. Some of them I do know by heart, if they frequently have good material. Some of them I'll @ because it's someone I know I've never tweeted. But usually I just don't have enough time to look up the Twitter handle on each blog to @ the authors. If your "Follow Me on Twitter" is very visible to the top of your blog page, then you're a lot more likely to be @ed.

Do you ever chat on Twitter?

I don't ever @ anyone in conversation…but I do have DM conversations with people. I'm just trying to keep my Twitter profile page completely link-related so make it an easier resource for folks to access.

What types of posts are most likely to be tweeted by you? Which are most popular and most likely to be retweeted by others?

Craft posts and clever humorous posts are the top favorites of my followers. List posts are appreciated, too. Anything that's helpful about social media, or organizing our writing life helps, too.

Is there a way to make my blog posts more likely to be tweeted by you or by others?

Definitely. I'd recommend a post title that is clear as to the post content, an RSS feed button, and a visible Twitter button on the top half of the blog main page. I'd also recommend a non-rambling post, top-notch, concise content, and something that's easy-t0-scan (bullet points and bold type helps.)

Some days your links seem better than others? How do you do quality control?

Sometimes, despite the large number of blogs I subscribe to, there's a lack of content out there…right now I'm blaming NaNo. :) Holidays play into that, too. And...sometimes I'm busy and I have less time to hunt through my Reader.

Do you do #FF and #WW? Why not?

I used to, but with the number of followers and FFs and WWs I get now, I'm just not able to return the favor without sending out an entire page of spam. I really appreciate the ones I get from followers, though!

Is there a place where I can locate this links or search them?

I'm posting all my tweets from the past week each Sunday here on my blog. I'm going to have a page with all my Twitterifics on one page, which I think will make searching the content easier. I'm hoping to get started on that soon. :)

And now...a disclaimer (I know--so corporate-sounding...)

Occasionally I'll tweet links that I think show an interesting point of view on, or controversial approach to, writing or the publishing industry. This doesn't necessarily mean that I agree or disagree with the post's author--just that I think the discussion is interesting and believe that others would, too. Please don't assume my opinion of a subject based on my tweets.

That being said, if I think a post's writing advice is completely wrongheaded, I'm not tweeting it.

Thanks everyone! Hope this helps.

Word Count

I'll admit that as I'm writing, I keep half an eye on my word count.

It used to mess me up to do that. But now, I think it's like checking my speedometer when driving a car—it just helps keep me in line so I don't get into trouble later.

If you're way over or way under the target word count for your genre, it's going to mean some work later on. You don't want to feel like you're adding fluff to a book to get up to the target count and you don't want to feel like you're slashing important scenes, either. Sometimes it's easier just to watch it as you go along.

When I'm done with a first draft, it's usually a short 68,000 words. I write pretty sparely now—it used to be that I'd babble on and on when I was writing and wasn't sure what direction I was going to take the plot next. Now I just stop writing when I get to that point and do some quick brainstorming. Otherwise, I have filler to remove later.

My target is 75,000 words and my manuscript goes right up to that after I add setting, character description, and the small subplots that I love including.

If you're a newer writer, though, it might be better to just write the book you want to write and worry about the word count during revisions. I know that worked better for me while I was getting my feet wet.

I know some writers worry that word count limits creative freedom. But we can write whatever we want and make the book as long we want it….it just might not sell. If our goal is to sell our finished manuscript, at some point word count is going to have to be considered. Unfortunately, even if your book is excellent, it's going to be hard to have it read by an agent or editor if it's too long.

Here are some useful links to consider if you're at the point that you need to take a look at your word count:

Word Count for Novels and Children's Books: The Definitive Post

Think twice before querying your 291,000 word book

A Few Words on Word Counts: How to Beef Up or Slim Down (especially for freelance writers, but some tips that will help novelists, too)

An agent on word counts (and here, where she defends her position)

Writing Nowadays–Word Count Violations and You

Bolstering Your Word Count

How To Get Ahead When You Are Behind On Your Word Count

Do you watch your word count as you write, or is it something you worry about later in the process?

Polishing Up a Draft

Before I emailed the Memphis 3 manuscript to my agent on Monday, I followed a checklist of problems to look for and things to do before submitting the document.

I tried to read the first five chapters as if I were a brand-new reader for the series. Would it all make sense to someone reading about these characters for the first time?

I made sure I'd sketched out the characters and setting—and not just kept it all in my head and thought I'd written it out.

Readers let me know (they're good about that :) ) that they wanted more chapter breaks. I put in breaks around every ten pages.

I looked for my favorite words that I overuse.

I looked for wishy-washy words that undermine my writing: "I think," "maybe," "I guess," "a little," "some," "seem."

I looked for filler words.

I looked for repetition in the story and repetition in dialogue.

I looked for anything murky that sounded confusing.

I made sure the characters seemed consistent from start to finish (unless I wanted them to change—and I made sure I had good motivation for a change.)

I looked for continuity errors and other boo-boos.

I sketched out a timeline as I read the draft and made sure the story was linear and made sense with the timeline.

What kinds of things do you look for when you revise? And…if you write different genres, do you look for different things?

Showing

Part of my busy weekend last weekend involved travel. :)

I visited San Diego with my college roommate—just to go somewhere that was scenic and relaxing, that we hadn't visited before.

But I needed to finish my manuscript and send it to my agent yesterday—so I used every minute of that five hour flight to and from San Diego to Charlotte, to work. I inserted place description, character description, chapter breaks, and a full subplot. I've a feeling, actually, that I might have driven the folks beside me nutty with my typing.

But after ten total hours of flying, I had a manuscript that was ready to turn in.

Both flights were totally packed with people—not a seat was free. And the flight to California from North Carolina was stressful at times.

When we were waiting at the gate in Charlotte to board the plane, there was a toddler of about 13-14 months who was absolutely pitching a fit.

I think every one of the passengers was praying that we wouldn't be seated next to that baby, or near him, for the five hour flight.

Fortunately, I wasn't. But that child had quite a set of lungs on him. His wailing---no, really, it was screaming—lasted for the entire fifteen minutes before boarding the plane and a full hour after we got on. He certainly had stamina.

What was interesting to me was the reaction of the other passengers on the plane. And what that reaction seemed to say about them.

There were some people who just looked stoically miserable.

There were some passengers who turned to look angrily back—at the parents.

There was a woman who looked concerned about the baby.

There were a couple who somehow managed to go to sleep, making me wonder why they were exhausted enough to doze during that racket.

I saw one young woman in her early twenties who put down her Cosmo magazine, looked back toward the baby with great irritation and rolled her eyes at me when she saw me looking at her.

I saw several people plug their ears with earbuds and listen to their iPods and not think twice about it.

I heard one elderly lady behind me tell the person next to her, "The poor thing. He doesn't understand what's going on."

I heard one person say, angrily, that the parents shouldn't fly a child that age for that length of time.

For me? I just worked right through it for the hour. Anyone could correctly draw the conclusion that I had kids of my own, a lot of work to do, and was immune to the noise.

The nice thing about showing character through reaction is that we can actually let the reader draw their own conclusions—even incorrect ones. That gives us room to write surprises into our stories. We can lead the reader to believe one thing about a character and make a surprising revelation about them later.

There were a few people on the plane who I figured weren't parents—just solely based on their angry reaction. But my impression could easily have been wrong.

They might just be really impatient people who would be just as upset if their own babies were screaming like that.

They might have just been unusually tired or flying to a stressful situation—like a family member in the hospital. Maybe a situation like that one wouldn't ordinarily have fazed them, but did this one time.

Do you use character reactions to a situation to show something about them? Do you ever purposefully give a misleading impression of a character? How else do you give readers clues to a character's personality?

Deciding Which Story to Write

A few times lately, I've heard writers who've gotten a great idea for a story—or a fully-formed character—at an inconvenient time. Usually right when they're in the middle of another book.

The phenomenon actually has a name: Shiny New Idea Syndrome (SNIS).

The question that comes up, of course, is whether you should continue writing the book you were working on—or whether you should start writing the new idea you've had…the one you're excited about.

I've had this happen a couple of times in the last year—I've gotten ideas for new series or gotten ideas for things that wouldn't fit in well with the current series I'm writing.

Because I'm under contract for the books I'm writing (and have already been paid for them), then I didn't have a choice about which to write. I just spoke into a voice recorder all the ideas I had connected to the new idea and then saved it for later and continued working on the current manuscript.

But it seems to me that there are some questions to ask yourself if you've gotten a case of SNIS:

What's your goal—right now—with writing? Publishing? Writing for your own enjoyment?

If you're writing to please yourself, decide which story you think you'll take the most pleasure in writing—is it a turbulent story that will actually be cathartic? Something light and humorous?

If you're writing for publication, which story is more marketable?

Which story is fuller-formed and better-realized?

Which requires more research (and do you have the time to do it?)

Has this happened just because you've reached a difficult spot in your current manuscript? Could you jot down your idea and just brainstorm ways to work through the rough part? And remind yourself that it's fine to write a horrible or disorganized first draft?

Could you put your current manuscript down for a couple of weeks and work on the new manuscript? You may find that the new manuscript isn't all that exciting or that you return to the old one with fresh eyes and can easily polish off the first draft on it.

If you're in the middle of revisions for the old manuscript, you could work on both books at once (I frequently have to do this.) That way you're doing something creative (penning a first draft) while doing something a little more mechanical (editing/revising.)

I think the danger in putting down an unfinished manuscript is that we won't return to it. Or that we're setting a precedent with ourselves that it's okay to leave a manuscript unfinished.

Have you ever been struck by Shiny New Idea Syndrome? How did you handle it?