Elizabeth Spann Craig's Blog, page 238

Rearranging Things

Yesterday I was cooking and opened a cabinet for a Corningware dish.

It wasn't there.

After a lot of looking, I found it in a completely different location of the kitchen in a cabinet I rarely use.

Did I have a mild stroke before putting it away? Was I under the influence of allergy medication?

Oh. No, my husband had unloaded the dishwasher for me. I reminded myself that that was nice of him. Although he doesn't seem to know where anything goes.

Then I looked at the location he'd...

Marketing Lessons from Passionate Artists

This past weekend I ran into a couple of different artists selling their work.

The first time I was at (of all places) Walmart. There was a man in the parking lot, approaching different people with: "Hi there! Do you like hip-hop? You do? I've got something for you to listen to that I think you're going to love."

Yes, he was hawking his CDs in the parking lot of Walmart. I actually stopped what I was doing and watched him for a few minutes because he was so good at selling his work a...

Twitter for Writers

My friend Jan asked me yesterday to elaborate a little more on Twitter—mostly how to make connections to share her blog posts with a wider audience of readers.

So let's say you're on Twitter. You have a handful of followers and you are interested in promoting your blog posts or maybe a book.

First of all, you need more followers. How do you do that?

I think the best way is to steadily increase the number of people that you're following. And you're probably going to want to target...

Twitterific

Here are writing links that I've posted to Twitter for the past 7 days. 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 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.

Pacing emotion: http://dld.bz/eqx9 13 minutes ago

When Writer's Block Gets Cozy with You: http://dld.bz/ep9e about 1 hour ago

Defining sell-through...

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW? By Lois Winston

"Where do you get your story ideas?"

"Are any of your characters based on yourself or people you know?"

The above are the two most frequently asked questions I hear from readers. The third most frequently asked question is, "How do you research your sex scenes?" This question is never asked by someone who has read my books, always asked by a male, and usually is asked each year at my husband's company Christmas party after considerable imbibing on the part of the buffoon asking the...

Good and Bad Things About Synopses

Yes, I have finished the synopsis I was asked to write and am now working on my three sample chapters for the possible new series.

Well, "finished" is maybe too strong of a word…considering the synopsis is 21 pages long and needs to be 8. (I'd thought they wanted a short synopsis, but they need a longer one. Not, however, 21 pages long.)

I think it would take me longer to write a short synopsis. I'd obsess over what was going into it too much. Just like Twain said, "I didn't have time...

Virtual Pockets

When I was a younger mom, I ruined several loads of laundry by forgetting to check my pockets before tossing my stuff in the washing machine.

Now I've gotten used to the drill of checking those pockets out.

There's always stuff in them because when I vacuum I pick up marbles, Barbie shoes, crayons, Nerf bullets, and small metal objects off the floor and shove them in my pockets so I can continue vacuuming and won't totally destroy the appliance (which has also happened before.)

At...

Forcing Ourselves to Work

Yesterday I couldn't seem to get anything done. My focus was completely shot.

And…naturally…I'm under a deadline. A couple of them, actually.

I'd start working on my synopsis and the phone would ring. I'd start working again and the dishwasher would stop running. I'd try again and the dryer buzzer would go off.

Then I realized I needed to send an email before I forgot. Suddenly, a bunch of messages popped up for me on Twitter. And another email popped up. And…

I decided to run away from ...

One Very Important Part of Being a Writer

Mystery writer and blogger Jean Henry Mead ran an interview Saturday with thriller writer Chris Grabenstein.

The entire interview was interesting (this is a guy who used to write for the Muppet Show…and I loved that show as a kid. And he's written copy with James Patterson, back in the day.) but the snippet I'm pulling out below is something I thought was most interesting:

Keep writing every day. And--this was the hardest advice I was ever given--decide whether you want to be a...

Keith Richards and Character Transformation

Did you read the recent story about Keith Richards?

It wasn't anything scandalous this time. No inappropriate behavior.

It was the fact that he'd always had a secret longing to be a librarian (see this Times UK article. )

The article reveals a whole other facet to Keith Richards that I hadn't realized existed. Actually, I found this article much more surprising than his hospitalization in 2006 when he fell from a coconut tree in Fiji.

He has thousands of books in his homes in...