Rae Types – A Journey of a Thousand Miles Starts With a Single Step, But Where Are the Rest Stops?

The Easy Part:

Step 1: A few years ago, Annie and I wrote a little mystery book, Idle Hands, strictly for the fun of writing a story in a genre we love to read. We had no intention of ever letting our forty page book see the light of day. Completely underground it was. Writing Idle Hands gave us no end of pleasure and when we finished it we felt, well, hungry for more.

Step 2: After brainstorming a few ideas for a story, we set out to write a “real” book. They say to write what you know and since we never were big city girls it was obvious our murder in Final Sale had to take place in rural Iowa. Not to digress but a few weeks ago I read a blog somewhat critical of cozies, John Deere tractors and Iowa. Well, wait a minute.  I’m here to tell you, there’s a lot of interesting shit that happens in those corn fields.

Step 3: Along the way on our journey Annie and I balanced a seesaw of viewpoints from the relatives and friends with whom we shared our plan. We heard everything from “What, you think you’re a writer?” to “We always thought you should do this.” We listened to their opinions, soaked up the constructive criticism, then compromised by ignoring the negative and embracing the positive.

Step 4: To self-publish or not, that was the question all right and one we had to ask ourselves after we wrote ‘fini’. Our research pointed us in the direction of self-publication. We would have more control, it would be quicker, and it was a challenge. While Annie and I have never been very competitive with each other we are always up for a quick, controlling challenge. Could we do it? Other writers did it. Could we be successful? We couldn’t be sure but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Go ahead and throw the stone, it just might skip along. We wrote up a plan and tossed the rock.

The Hard Part:

Step 5: Social media, social media, social media. There’s a hiccup in everything and for us it’s been Facebook and Twitter. Especially Twitter. For me it isn’t so much the How as the Why. Or rather the What, as in What Is The Point of Tweeting? I suppose being confused is an age-related thing. We used to tweet in school but back then it was called ‘passing notes’ and it got you in a lot of trouble if you were caught by the teacher who then made you stand up in front of the class and read your note out loud so everyone knew what you had written only moments ago, just like Facebook except embarrassing.

I finally started to tweet, then learned that I wasn’t doing it right. The light bulb didn’t go on until I ran across the article “How to Get Noticed on Twitter—15 Tips for Writers” on Carol Tice’s website Making a Living Writing. Thank you, Carol, for flipping the switch.

So Annie and I have our website, our blog, I’m on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. Where else could we possibly be? Oh, yes, LinkedIn, Pinterest, MySpace, GooglePlus. The journey just got longer.