Writers in the Storm

Kathryn Craft

Turning Whine Into Gold

Imagine looking in the mirror one morning and finding that you had shrunk to half of your height. Whoa. That would be jarring.

Frankly, all sudden change is jarring. This is why so many readers turn to story—to examine the way extreme pressures usher a fictional protagonist to the brink of change and then kick her right into its chasm. That protagonist is the avatar for us as readers, and we want to know what she does next—from the comfort of our armchairs, of course, because we’d much rather learn from her pain than endure more of our own.

But of course witnessing pain isn’t the entire point, is it. What truly inspires readers is witnessing that final climactic fight. It takes an entire book to set it up. By this point in the story we know why our protagonist’s struggle matters so much—to her, her family, her community, perhaps her world. We sat with her through each torturous decision as she struggled to achieve her desire. We stood by, helpless, as she suffered what seemed to be the opposite of success, and now understand full well the stakes should she not achieve the goal that unexpected change has pressed her into pursuing.

We are about to find out what our protagonist is truly made of. Who is she, and how will her story be important?

Now for the Real Story

Now imagine that you are a young person waking up in the United States of America the morning after the 2016 election. You look in the mirror glad to see you are still the same height, even though your country has gone mad due to an unforeseen plot twist. Your friends are fighting each other and some of them may suffer the loss of the rights you grew up thinking were inalienable. What stories will we writers leave behind for these young people?

No matter who you voted for, new pressures have been brought to bear on America’s belief systems—pressures that, ready or not, are rocking this country to the point of extreme change. We authors must ask ourselves anew:

Who am I now, and how will I function within my society?

Really? You might ask. I’m just writing stories. It’s entertainment.

If that’s the way you think, I urge you to think again.

As a writer, your response to change has been shaping you your whole life. Pick your era: Martin Luther King’s assassination. The Challenger disaster. The events of 9/11/2001. The death of someone you loved. A devastating diagnosis. If any of these events rocked your world, you no doubt went through a time of existential questioning that may have felt a lot like depression but was in effect your struggle to redefine who you were and how you would function within your world, post-personal apocalypse.

This is how we use our experiences to grow. Like it or not, the election has given us another opportunity to evolve. So writers, dust off those existential questions, because it’s time to revisit them.

I’m not suggesting we all need to go out and write political novels. I’m saying we can’t write inside a bubble. When the world changes, its literature must change. Whether you think it was for worse or for better, a tsunami of change has hit our country, and it will seep right into what readers hope to take away from your women’s fiction and your romance and your fantasy. If you want your story to matter, ignore this at your peril. Our stories carry forward the key to our emotional survival as both individuals and a nation, and readers will be looking for the inherent power of such stories now more than ever.

Writers have a special ability to allow our readers to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Whose shoes will you choose, and why? Your answer will affect you on every single level, from the stories you pursue to whether they will sell to how you will conduct yourself on the public platform your writing bestows.

I, for one, am re-evaluating my women’s fiction-in-progress. It no longer feels important enough. How can I sink the stakes for this family’s survival deeper into the community? How can I make the story feel more relevant? More necessary? You can bet that the agents and publishers who will ultimately decide our work’s salability will be asking these things. If you need ideas about how to start, check out Kate Moretti’s recent WITS post on that topic.

Politics aside (seriously—the endless ugliness of the campaign was bad enough, let’s not pull each other down any further!), I ask you as fellow humans and writers: do you give much thought as to how writing fiction can make a difference? Are you rethinking aspects of your current WIP, given your new awareness of our country’s deep divide?

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About Kathryn

Kathryn Craft is the award-winning author of two novels from Sourcebooks: The Art of Falling, and The Far End of Happy. Her chapter “A Drop of Imitation: Learn from the Masters” will appear in the forthcoming guide from Writers Digest Books, Author in Progress, available now for pre-order.

Her work as a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, specializing in storytelling structure and writing craft, follows a nineteen-year career as a dance critic. Long a leader in the southeastern Pennsylvania writing scene, she leads workshops and speaks often about writing.

Twitter: @kcraftwriter
FB: KathrynCraftAuthor

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Okay, button up, because as they say in the vernacular of Texas, I'm fixin' to gush all over you.

One of the big surprises when I published was how many pirate sites there are out there, posting my work. My sweat. My property! I swear, the only Google alerts I get anymore are when Pirate sites post my books. Makes my blood boil, I tell you. 

Most publishers will allow you to report infringement sites to them, and they send out copyright infringement notices. At least they claim they do. I'm not questioning their veracity, but let's face it, they're focused on publishing the next book. And since their marketing ended about a week after they released my book, how much money are they going to put into backlist infringement? Call me a cynic, but I'll bet this gets under my skin a LOT more than it does theirs. 

Many authors just give up. They tell themselves that the people who download illegal works aren't people who would ever pay money for their books anyway. They wish those people a parting gift of nasty computer viruses, and move on.

I'm more stubborn (and more pissed). I want to feel the power of blasting those damned posts to the briny deep. 

Well, now you can. And while it's in Beta phase testing, you can do it FOR FREE.

I am a huge fan of Blasty 

I don't even remember where I heard of Blasy first, but I've been with them almost from the beginning, probably over two years ago. They've been in Beta all this time, because the more Beta testers join, the more feedback they receive. The more feedback they receive, the faster they'll build an outstanding tool against piracy. I've seen it improve in finding more content over the months.

How does it work? You go to a personal invitation link, HERE, and request Beta access. May take a day or two, but then you're in.

After filling out your profile, you add your books. Your dashboard will look something like this:

 

Then you tell it what to look for. You'll want to consider this carefully: look for too much, and you'll get a zillion items, much of which is legitimate. The search terms I decided on were:

• pdf
• free
• download
• torrent

Blasty will then go to work, scanning the internet for your books with those search terms. Here's what mine looked like this morning:

All you do is check to be sure it's not a legitimate posting, then hit the orange 'Blast' on the right. Blasty will send a copyright infringement notice, and you'll be informed when it's completed. BOOM. Done.

I've refined my terms, so most of my results are piracy. But for some reason, it always wants to pick up a review site (legit), that reviewed my books. All I do is add that URL to my 'Whitelist', and Blasty ignores it in the future.  

You can also, if you have time, search Google by book, for infringement yourself. Just go to your dashboard, choose that book,  and click on the 'check Google now' button on the right. You can scan for anything that your search words didn't pick up. This also helps you refine your search words.

I don't know what could be easier. And I get the satisfaction of making those little pirates walk the plank. Argh! 

Have I convinced you to try Blasty? Do you have a good pirate story for us?

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About Laura:

Laura Drake is a city girl who never grew out of her tomboy ways, or a serious cowboy crush. She writes both Women's Fiction and Romance.

She sold her Sweet on a Cowboy series, romances set in the world of professional bull riding, to Grand Central.  The Sweet Spot won the 2014 Romance Writers of America^®   RITA^® award in the Best First Book category.

Her 'biker-chick' novel, Her Road Home, sold to Harlequin's Superomance line and expanded to three more stories set in the same small town.

Laura has realized a lifelong dream of becoming a Texan and is currently working on her accent. She gave up the corporate CFO gig to write full time. She's a wife, grandmother, and motorcycle chick in the remaining waking hours.

Twitter  Facebook

 

Aimie Runyan

Whether we’re ready for it or not, tomorrow marks the beginning of the 2016 holiday season. Between the end of November and early January there are dozens of celebrations, both religious and secular, and chances are a few of them apply to you. While the world at large is planning menus and wrapping gifts, we writers are worrying about how to get our word counts in on top of all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. For some of us, the holidays simply mean a couple of extra work gatherings and an extra day or two of family time. Others of us are orchestrating elaborate gatherings or are travelling great distances to be reunited with loved ones. Writing during this time isn’t impossible, and I’ve compiled a few helpful hints for you:

1. Take your time management skills to 11. Plan ahead and do the holiday tasks that can be done early so you’re not in a stress-induced panic later. Stress is not the muse’s friend, nor does it enhance your holiday fun. Bust out your Google Calendar or Franklin planner and put in *everything*. It will make your available scraps of time more apparent so you can use them to your advantage. You have 20 minutes? Use it. Case in point? I wrote the first draft of this very post in the King Sooper’s parking lot. I took my 4-year-old with me to do the Thanksgiving meal shopping and she fell asleep in the car. Rather than rouse her, I busted out my trusty notebook so she could get some rest. Also? Carry a notebook. Always.
2. Prioritize Holiday Activities. You can’t do every holiday tradition and function justice every year. Pick and choose what is important to you and your family so you can really enjoy what you’re doing. Lose your Pinterest guilt. If you don’t make the Christmas-Card-worthy gingerbread house from scratch every year, you are not Scrooge. The minute you begin to loathe going to another party or making another craft is the moment you’ve overscheduled.
3. Prioritizing Writing Activities. This is not the ideal time to begin a new project or to schedule a million events, so decide what’s important. It’s not always possible to avoid conflicts, however. You may have a book to launch over the holidays or edits due (I’ve been in both situations) and you have to do your best to get as much done in advance on your projects as possible. Creating launch memes early and having packing lists for book signings are all little things we can do to reduce stress when we can’t minimize our writing life in December.
4. Keep writing goals realistic. This is key, in my mind. You may not be able to keep up your usual pace, so think about what you can feasibly accomplish. 200 words a day instead of 2,000 for the two weeks your kids are off school? Fantastic. Those are 2,800 words you didn’t have before and you “touched the ball” each day, which is key in staving off writers’ block once you return to your projects in the new year.
5. Remember, family (biological and otherwise) should come first. For many of us, we wouldn’t be able to be successful in this crazy business without the love and support of our friends and family. If they want our time during the holiday season, we should do our best to honor it. Plus? You never know what stories might be waiting for you around the dinner table.

Wishing you love and peace in 2017,

               ~Aimie

Any other, 'write through the Holiday' tips for us, WITS readers?