Maron Anrow's Blog, page 3

Another milestone: First review in a book blog

Laika in Lisan has reached another milestone: The book has received it’s first review in a book blog! Jenna of Book Odyssey read and reviewed the book, and you can see her review by clicking here.

Last month I sent a number of emails to book bloggers asking them if they’d be interested in reading and reviewing Laika in Lisan. I didn’t know any of the bloggers, so I expected (and received) many rejections. Jenna of Book Odyssey was gracious enough to give Laika in Lisan a chance, and I’m so glad she did! Her review was thoughtful, and I was thrilled that she enjoyed the book so much.

As far as I know, 13 people have read Laika in Lisan in its published form. (Another nine people read early drafts of it.) One of those 13 is the book’s editor, Marcy Sheiner, but the rest are people I’ve either never met or people whom I recently met via Goodreads when I began contacting strangers with invitations to read the book. (Although it’s been hard to cold-email strangers, it’s also been fun. I’ve met some cool people through Goodreads, all starting with Marcy. She was one of my first beta readers, and she’s also probably one of the coolest people alive. )

Some of those 13 people have really loved the book, and others have found it good but didn’t love it. (As far as I know, no one’s hated it yet, but I’m sure someone will eventually!) It’s well known that reading tastes differ considerably. For example, I’m in a book club with five friends with whom I share many interests, but it’s common for some of us to disagree wildly (i.e., 2-star versus 5-star) about a book. Thirteen readers is a decent sample for me to conclude that there is definitely an audience for Laika in Lisan, but I don’t know who that audience is! Not everyone will love it–that is true of all books–but I haven’t yet discovered what the people who do really enjoy the book have in common. As of yet, no clear similarities have emerged. (Identifying commonalities is also made harder by four of the book’s 5-star ratings coming from complete strangers, so I know nothing about them.)

Basically, I need the help of Netflix’s famous movie recommendation algorithms… (Goodreads does have a recommendation system, but as far as I know, it’s not as sophisticated at Netflix’s and it can’t estimate how much a person will like a single item.)

Love for strangers, and vacation in the southwest

Just minutes ago I opened the Goodreads page for Laika in Lisan and saw that two complete strangers gave the book 5 stars! I’m guessing they’re people who downloaded the book when it was free for two days on Amazon. They didn’t write a review, but their 5-star ratings still warm my heart. I would love to know more about these strangers, but I won’t bug them…

In other news, last night I returned from a 9-day trip to three national parks in the southwest: the north rim of the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Bryce National Park. I traveled with my husband, a friend, and my friend’s husband. We did a lot of hiking, and the scenery was incredible!

On our first full day at the Grand Canyon’s north rim, my husband and I took a trail that goes down into the canyon. We didn’t make it to the bottom, however. That would’ve been 10 miles roundtrip, and we hiked only about 3.5 to 4 miles. The north rim is about 8000 feet above sea level, and the higher altitude really affected my breathing (and thus my stamina). Even though the total elevation change during the hike (approx. 1450 feet) was considerably less than the Dog Mountain hike I recently accomplished in Washington (2800 feet; see my last post), I was having trouble breathing at the Grand Canyon and I needed constant breaks toward the end of the hike up. However, on the last full day of our trip (by which time I had adjusted to the higher altitudes of these parks), I successfully hiked the Observation Point trail (2200 feet, 8 miles roundtrip) in Zion National Park, which made me feel better about myself.

In addition to adjusting to the higher altitude (and, thus, somewhat reduced oxygen), the trip was interesting for the dry air. I grew up in the desert in Southern California, and when I first left California 11 years ago, my body protested humidity with a mad passion. Apparently it took me a decade to get used to humidity, because now I found the dry desert heat challenging! I was constantly thirsty. However, after this brief return to the desert, I feel comfortable saying that I definitely prefer dryness to humidity. When it’s humid, you can never escape the heat; the air is suffocating everywhere. (When I lived in St. Louis, the heat was oppressive even at 10pm!) In the desert, as long as you’re in the shade or the sun has set, the air is actually quite pleasant.

Below are a few photos from the trip.

Grand Canyon (north rim) at sunset, Day 1.

Afternoon of Day 2: The Grand Canyon (north rim), filled with smoke from the fire in Sedona, Arizona.

Day 3: The Grand Canyon, now clear of smoke.

My husband being adventurous at Cascade Falls in Utah. (When I realized what he was doing, it was too late to stop him. So I took a picture instead.)

“Artsy” shots of a tree on the Cascade Falls trail.

A rattlesnake we encountered on the Emerald Pools trail in Zion National Park. (The hand belongs to a stranger who pointed out the snake to us.)

Emerald Pools trail in Zion National Park.

Main scenic canyon of Zion National Park.

A cool canyon on the hike up to Scouts Lookout (Zion National Park).

At Scouts Lookout (1070 ft elevation gain) in Zion National Park.

The view from Scouts Lookout (Zion National Park).

The next nine photos are all from Bryce Canyon

(look closely; the small orange object in the middle is my husband)

Neat rocks in the sandy hillside at Kolob Canyons (Zion National Park)

The view from Canyon Overlook (Zion National Park)

One of many fun chipmunks we saw on the trip. This one is at Observation Point (Zion National Park).

At Observation Point (Zion National Park)

We also hiked part of The Narrows at Zion National Park. “Hiked” is probably the wrong word, however. At The Narrows, we put on water shoes and walked up the Virgin River, taking breaks at occasional sandbars. The river is inside a deep rocky canyon. It was awesome! That was probably my favorite part of the trip. Unfortunately, we don’t have any photos (we didn’t bring the camera for fear of dropping it in the water).

A mixed bag of productivity, plus totally unrelated travel photos

Today has been both productive and unproductive, depending on how you look at it.

Productive:

After a few rounds of proofing, the paperback version of Laika in Lisan is finished! It’s currently available on Amazon and CreateSpace.
Today was the first day I made the Kindle version of Laika in Lisan free on Amazon (I enrolled the book in their KDP Select program, which gives me 5 days to give it away for free as a promotional strategy). At this moment, 41 people have downloaded the book for free. I’ve read that many authors will get thousands of people downloading their books on “free days,” but I don’t consider my small number a failure. In fact, I’m thrilled! If just one of those 41 people read the book and rate/review it, I’ll consider it a win. I started with 0 reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, so every review is a meaningful one. (Last week the book got another 5-star review from a complete stranger on Amazon. Whoo!)
I spent the entire afternoon finding and contacting people (e.g., book bloggers) who might have an interest in reading and reviewing Laika in Lisan. It’s only been a few hours, but I have one taker so far and that’s enough to make me happy. I know the book has to reach a “critical mass” of reviews and ratings before it’s worth the time (and money?) to begin marketing it more heavily.

Unproductive:

I originally meant to spend the day working on a manuscript that received a “revise and resubmit” decision last week. (The editor didn’t request any new data, so I feel fairly confident the manuscript will be accepted for publication after making the requested revisions.) This is the type of work I need to do for my real job—you know, the one that gives me a steady paycheck, health insurance, and retirement contributions—so I really should be prioritizing this over promoting Laika in Lisan… Oh well. The manuscript revision will get done, just not today.
I had also planned to go the gym today… Hmm… Yeah. That’s probably not going to happen.

It’s amazing how much of my day is spent in front of a computer. Work (i.e., real job) = using the computer to write, analyze data, send emails… Fun work (i.e., fiction writing and promoting my book) = using the computer to write, edit writing, contact potential readers…

Fortunately, I just spent a few days hiking around the Columbia River Gorge that forms the border between Oregon and Washington. It’s my favorite place to visit. It was wonderful being outside all the time, the weather was pretty awesome, and the scenery was perfect. Three days of hiking was a very nice break from constant computer work.

On the first full day of the trip, I completed the most intense hike of my life to date: Dog Mountain (2800 feet elevation gain, approximately 7 miles roundtrip). Five days later, my legs still hurt! But it was totally worth it. A few photos from the trip are below.

Dog Mountain (as we approached the summit, we were hiking in clouds! It was… wet.)













(The last photo was taken from the summit. The tiny mountain peak behind me is Wind Mountain, which we climbed last year. That was a challenging hike back then, so it was a big deal to hike the much taller Dog Mountain this year!)

The bottom of Mount St. Helens is visible (the rest is behind clouds) between my husband and me.

On the Lewis River trail

Mount Hood, as seen from Hood River Mountain

Mount Adams, as seen from Hood River Mountain

Elowah Falls

I can’t wait to return to the Columbia River Gorge in August! Next time we’re also driving south to visit Crater Lake for the first time (gorgeous lake + volcano = LOVE LOVE LOVE).

Important milestone: First Amazon review!

This is incredibly self-indulgent, but I’m too excited not to share: Laika in Lisan received its first review on Amazon! And it’s not even from someone I know! (Click here to read the review.)

It’s so incredibly rewarding to get positive feedback about the book from a complete stranger. I’m psyched!

Thank you, first reviewer! You’ll probably never read this, but here is my response to your last sentence: Yes, Book 2 is in the works.

A personal history of blogging and varieties of writing

My first novel, Laika in Lisan, was self-published on Amazon a few days ago. I’ve read that authors should keep a blog to help promote themselves and their work, so here I am.

Back before “blogging” was a household term, I kept a public diary (which I eventually made private) at DiaryLand. I just skimmed the History of Blogging entry on Wikipedia, and it amuses me to see DiaryLand as one of the first “hosted blog tools.” I joined DiaryLand in June 2000 and kept my account for about four years, although I opened a LiveJournal account in December 2002 and quickly began using that more often. Originally, my blogging was intimate and personal; it was all about venting, expression, and self-discovery. As more and more of my friends joined the blogging communities, my posts became less personal. Instead, I used my posts to communicate and share my life with friends. In fact, for many years LiveJournal was the primary medium through which I communicated with my “online friends.” (I’ve been friends with those people for nearly 15 years and many of us have met multiple times. Those relationships are actually my longest-standing active friendships right now.)

Around 2003-2004, I went from posting in LJ nearly every day to posting once every few months. I used LJ to check in with friends, and eventually I only posted when I had something important to share (e.g., a job interview). However, around this time I also kept a completely private LiveJournal that I wrote in constantly (sometimes multiple times a day). I continued to write in my private journal regularly until around 2006. What changed? One word: Steve. Previously, keeping a private journal was how I processed and dealt with life events. When I met Steve, talking with him satisfied this need.

Blogging is so common now, but it seems quite different from the DiaryLands and LiveJournals of the early 2000s. Those tools lent themselves easily to introspection and self-reflection. (Perhaps it was inherent in the titles: “diary” and “journal” have very different connotations than “blog.”) They were also a great way to build relationships with friends through self-disclosure. In contrast, blogging today—or at least my impression of it—is primarily a professional practice. Blogs seem to be mostly used for self-promotion (I don’t mean this in a bad way; it’s a tool for building one’s public identity, which is essential for many careers) or as a professional activity in and of itself.

So, what about this blog? It will certainly be used for professional self-promotion. There will be no intimate self-disclosures here. (Or wait! Is that a lie? I suppose my history of blogging is a fairly personal disclosure.)

At this point, I want to reflect on varieties of writing. Professional blog writing is new and difficult for me because it is so unlike the other forms of writing I’m constantly engaged in. (Plus, this feels superfluous… There are so many blogs out there. Who really wants to hear what I have to say? My opinion and activities aren’t particularly exciting.)

Email: This is my most frequent form of writing. The number of emails I send varies from day to day, with weekdays being the busiest. The emails range in length from 2-3 sentences to many paragraphs, from casual notes to professional discourse. Email writing is fairly easy, although when I was younger (specifically: about 12-14 years ago) I would agonize over the content of my emails. When I began a career where email writing was the primary means of communication, I had no choice but to get over it. Now I shoot off my emails within seconds of finishing them (I proofread the more important ones, of course).

Academic writing: This is my second most frequent form of writing. I am very proud of my academic writing. It’s a skill I’ve honed over many years, and it gives me tremendous pleasure when a reviewer compliments the writing in a manuscript I’ve submitted for publication. (Sadly, my writing is often better than the data I’m writing about.) The downside to this well-honed skill is that it has become how I write. Two of the 10 people who beta-read Laika in Lisan told me that my writing was fairly formal. For example, I almost never used contractions. This realization was quite a shock. The skills and habits that made my academic writing so good—precise vocabulary (words that rarely appear in regular conversation), succinct sentences, formal transitions, and scientific detachment—were not conducive to easy-to-read fiction writing. Once my attention had been drawn to this, I made an effort to change (and my editor, Marcy Sheiner, helped a great deal). However, as you can probably tell from reading this, my automatic habit is still stiff, formal writing.

Fiction writing: This is probably obvious, but wow—this is so different from academic writing! Writing the first draft of Laika in Lisan was all about working out the details of the story itself. All of my attention went to creating the dialogue and determining characters’ actions, leaving little attention for agonizing over correct word choice and sentence structure. The latter usually didn’t occur until  I was editing my own writing.

This post is way too long, so let’s stop there and call it a day.

Publication update #1

Laika in Lisan is nearly ready to be published! I wrapped up the major revisions a few months ago and since then the book has gone through many rounds of editing. All that’s left is a few final edits and the book cover. (The illustration commissioned for the cover is the last “big thing” yet to be completed.)

I’m eager for everything to be finished. I’m ready to share the book and to start writing the next!