Writers in the Storm

We interrupt the normally scheduled blog for important news!

The WITS Annual 'Write Up a Storm' is this Wednesday! Join us from 4 am - 10 pm PST for hourly writing sprints, inspiration, and the knowledge that you're not writing alone! Come hang with fellow writers and write up a storm!

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On to today's blog:

I just stepped down off ‘Mistress Duty’ here at WITS (we all take turns), and one of the last things I do is go through the WITS mailbox to clean it out for the next person. I wanted to rant, but instead, thought I’d use the stats to illustrate how to target your market, rather than spamming the Universe.

Of 124 emails:

3 were relevant

70 -  were just plain spam (wow, if I wanted nude pics or to date a married woman, I now know where to go)

7 -  wanted to advertise with us - we do NOT take advertisements; anything you see on WITS is because we’ve used it, and we believe in it.

39 -  were people wanting us to pimp/read/review their book. Really? Have you READ our blog? We don’t do any of that!

5 - were companies wanting us to buy their writing-related product. Um. We’re not a person.

 

Which means that, in spite of the maturity and professionalism of many indie authors, some people need help.

Don’t:

• Don’t use a shotgun (or frag grenade). Take the time to check out the sites where you’re asking for reviews. You may think that it doesn't hurt to just hit 'include all', but it does. Those authors/books are going to stick in my mind, and I’ll make a point of NOT buying/reading/recommending them. Because they’re unprofessional, which means they haven't taken time to learn, so their books will probably be dreck. Now maybe those were sent by marketing firms that authors hired. But it's still your job, as the person who's name is on the cover, to know what's going on. I know it’s time consuming to research, but is your goal to sell books and build buzz in a positive, or negative way?
• Once you DO find review sites, follow their rules: you’re paying nothing (you’re NOT paying for reviews, right?), so they’re doing you a favor. If you're asking for a favor, you’re polite, right? I’ve run into many review sites that won’t take self-pubbed books. A believe the reason is all the newbie, read-my-book clumsiness.
• We're all excited for everyone to read our book. But sending DM’s, IM’s, and messages to all your followers will not only irritate them. At best, it'll lose you followers. At worst, it'll get you banned from Social Media sites. Your marketing should lead readers to your water – not waterboard them.
• Gaming the system. Paying for reviews or trying the latest scheme to game the Amazon lists won't work. And even if they did, is that how you define your success?

How to find your readers:

Writer Unboxed just did a great blog on this (you can read it HERE). What author writes books like yours? Follow their followers. Let those readers get to know you. Let THEM find YOU. I know, it takes time, effort and patience, none of which authors have to spare. Do it anyway. Do you agree to go out with the smarmy, stalker dude? Your readers won’t, either.

Target your readers. Keywords, ‘also bought’, and Metadata help. Educate yourself on how to do this. Follow indie marketing blogs, even if you’re not indie – there’s a wealth of tips that will help. The best one I’ve found so far is Digital Book World.

Don't sell milk until you have a cow. You want to build anticipation for your release. Cover reveals are great for this. But if you're doing giveaways, and tons of posts months before your book comes out, you're not only wasting your time and money, you're wearing out potential readers before they can do what you want them to - buy your book!

Beware. As in any new frontier, there are carpetbaggers, trying to make money off the uneducated.

• Don’t pay for reviews.
• Be careful with ‘free’. If you’re prolific, and have a series, making the first one perma-free can help. Hook your reader on your voice, and they’ll buy the rest. But be careful not to drink the Koolaid – I’ve seen authors squeeing on Social Media as their free book rises on the ‘free bestseller list’ (oxymoron alert). First, the reader took your book for free. That doesn’t mean they’ll read it, or like it, or leave you a review. And you did get in this gig to make money, right?
• Shelf-life. Even the best of ideas for marketing only work for a short time. Once everyone starts doing it, there’s no advantage. But that doesn’t mean you should jump in blindly, either.
• Keep your common sense engaged. Like your mom said, If it sounds too good to be true, it is. And spam is as spam does.

Be proud of your work. Put in the time. Be patient. You know I'm the quote queen, so I'll leave you with one:

 

WITS readers, I've only touched the surface of this subject. What tips can you give us? Have any  blogs or sites to help us?

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A bit about Laura's latest release - Days Made of Glass:

Harlie Cooper raised her sister, Angel, even before their mother died. When their guardian is killed in a fire, rather than be separated by Social Services, they run. Life in off the grid in L.A. isn’t easy, but worse, there’s something wrong with Angel.

Harlie walks in to find their apartment scattered with shattered and glass and Angel, a bloody rag doll in a corner. The doctor orders institutionalization in a state facility. Harlie’s not leaving her sister in that human warehouse. But something better takes money. Lots of it.

When a rep from the Pro Bull Riding Circuit suggests she train as a bullfighter, rescuing downed cowboys from their rampaging charges, she can’t let the fact that she’d be the first woman to attempt this stop her. Angel is depending on her.

It’s not just the danger and taking on a man’s career that challenges Harlie. She must learn to trust—her partner and herself, and learn to let go of what’s not hers to save.

A story of family and friendship, trust and truth.

 

 

James Preston

Tips for doing Bad Things to Your Characters.

As I write this I am watching an old episode of CSI. Ray Langston, (Laurence Fishburn) is testifying in the trial of a psychotic who stabbed him. It is an excruciating series of scenes, definitely not for the faint of heart.

As a child when my mother took me to the movies I would watch out for bad things happening to characters I liked. I used to whisper, "Is the music bad, mommy?" (Side note: I do not remember this but she told the story frequently.)

As writers, we need to be brave, for we must first create characters we like, and then send them into situations where the music is very bad indeed, and watch as they struggle, as they grapple with issues that are life- or love- threatening and as they succeed or fail because that stress is what makes a story work. It is the engine that drives the writing bulldozer that Steven King talks about.

But I am a softie. With few exceptions, I like the characters I write about — they are my friends — and I don’t like to see them hurt. (Side note number two: I used to be reluctant to talk about this aspect of my writing, the fact that for me the characters are real. Then I read the essay by Thomas Harris at the beginning of Red Dragon in which he describes how he did a lot of the writing in an old farmhouse miles from a town. And he thought Hannibal Lecter might very well be watching him. Can you imagine?)

So, given that if I were in high school I’d take Pollyanna to the prom instead of one of the Heathers, how do I put my characters through very difficult situations? It ain't easy. In my most recent novella, Buzzkill, my heroine is kidnapped and handcuffed to a chair with a black cloth bag over her head. One of her captors fondles her breast. This is the first scene of this sort that I have ever written. It was not part of the early drafts of the novella. It made me uncomfortable to write, and it's uncomfortable to talk about now. But I did it. Here’s how I handled it, which leads to

Tip Number One:  Write the Horror Separately

I actually came up with that scene during the second draft, and it bothered me. So I wrote it “sidestream,” not as part of the manuscript. The scene where she’s handcuffed and molested as well as the resolution at the end where the creepy guy gets his (heh heh) existed first as separate documents. This allowed me to do two things. First, I could look at those events separately and decide if I wanted this dark piece as a part of my story’s mosaic. Second, if I decided that I didn't want it, there was no cutting involved; the scenes were not part of the manuscript; there were no transitions to undo. (Raise your hands if you have a hard time cutting. I do.)

Tip Number Two:  Make the Horror Mean Something

Let horrific events force your characters to grow. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Did Nietzsche know what he was talking about? Maybe. Let’s get back to Ray Langston on CSI. The writers put him through hell. Did he grow and learn? It would be a spoiler for me to answer that, but I will say he should have. In The Count of Monte Cristo, Dantes goes through hell, lives for revenge, and at the end he actually learns and grows as a person.

Tip Number Three:  Make Sure the Bad Things are an Organic Part of the Story

Always remember your readers are smart and they watch for plot devices. When the music gets bad, they know. For example, one reviewer talking about the first cycle of Spider Man movies, complained, "Peter Parker and his girlfriend break up just so they can get back together.” A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, when Han Solo took the money and ran, it worked, sort of. Today, it would not. Do not include bad stuff just to make it seem real.” In my case, when my heroine was trapped in that warehouse I set it aside and talked to the bad guy. It became clear that he would, indeed, molest her. (Yeah, I talked to him and this is the one audience where I can say that and you, gentle reader, will nod and not call for the men in white coats.)

Tip Number Four:  Include Bad Things Even When You Don’t Want To

And now that I have said all that, remember that conflict is what drives a story. This tip is simple: you gotta have it. Just as your hero or heroine must succeed by their own efforts they must have something to succeed against.

While I’m talking about bad things happening, let me moderate this discussion a bit with a word on happy endings. As I’ve said, like ‘em. But I also think they are important for another reason. Bad things do happen to people. Rizzo in Grease feels like a defective typewriter when she misses a period, and isn’t that a great line? Marty McFly in Back to the Future cannot overcome his fear of sending out his band’s audition tape and isn’t that something all writers can relate to? Bad things reflect reality — and so do solutions and happy endings.

In high school I was forced to read a novel that mercifully I have forgotten most of. Hero and heroine fall in love but have a terrible, terrible time because of a misunderstanding. She figures it out. Ta Da! So she writes it all down in a letter and slips it under his door. Ta Da again!

It slides under the carpet in his room; he never sees the letter and their lives are ruined. Oh, well.

Is life like that? Sure, things like that happen all the time. There is a large part of reality as we experience it that is random. But that does not give us a reason for scribbling, “They all were miserable for the rest of their lives. The End.” Part of what we do is provide structure to our world, to layer meaning over the chaos.

Of course this doesn't mean that Hamlet isn’t a great story and you should only watch reruns of Happy Days. But Hamlet’s problems are driven by reasons, mistakes.

So where does that leave us? How do you handle making bad things happen to good people in your stories?

—        Try writing it outside of the main narrative, as a separate document. See if it works.

—        Make the horror mean something. My wife and I were reading one evening when suddenly she threw her book across the room. “In the last chapter there was a nuclear war and they all died.”

—        Make sure the horror is an organic part of the story. Much as I love Game of Thrones, they do throw in an extra beheading once in a while.

—        And despite all this, remember that bad things are what makes the story work. They must be in there. Hey, nobody said what we do is easy.

Finally, remember that you’re in charge. The music may be scary, but you can either fix it, or provide meaning to the pain. You can also take your revenge on bad characters, just as I do with my kidnapper. And it's fun!

Now for the quiz.

Does anybody know the letter-under-the carpet novel? I cannot remember.

How do you handle hurting your characters? I’m sure many of you have struggled with this and found solutions. Please share!

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Mark your calendars for Wednesday, April 6, our first anniversary celebration of Write Up A Storm. Get ready for a day of writing and word counts! Details on Monday.

 

Jaye Wells

When I started writing, I was a stay-at-home mom in need of a hobby. During naptimes and after bed time, I’d run to my laptop and get carried away. It was my escape hatch. Something that was just for me that also provided a creative outlet. But then something miraculous happened--I got published.

For several years, I threw myself into becoming a Real Author. I wrote and wrote and wrote. My vacations were usually spent at conventions.  All of my friends were writers. In my free time, I read to keep up with the market. My dream had come true, but there was this nagging sense that I was missing something.

I burned out in 2014. My new series wasn’t “meeting expectations.” I’d gone back to school to get my MFA in writing popular fiction so I could get more teaching gigs. I wrote a novel and two novellas in four months. I was bitter and exhausted. That’s when I realized I needed to take a step back and figure out what was missing.

As it turned out, I had to face the hard truth that I’d become a workaholic. Every facet of my life revolved around books. I love books. I love writing. I love reading. I love book people. But there’s more to life than all that. In order to figure out what was missing, I had to go back to the beginning and see where I went wrong.

Turns out, I started out right. I found a hobby that was rewarding and fun. It was when I became a pro that I got off track. See, what I figured out is that everyone needs a hobby. We each need something that doesn’t have ego or income tied to it. When my hobby became my job, I lost that safe space where I could create without fear.

The path to get myself back on track involved some experimentation. I had to figure out some activities I could do without stressing. I also had to figure out who I was beyond just being an Author because I’d gotten into the trap of adopting that identity. Also, since writing a book is such a marathon, I needed things I could do that weren’t a huge time commitment--I needed the payoff of completing a project more often.

Now, in addition to writing and grad school (which is almost done), I make time in my week for play. I go on Artist Dates as prescribed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way. I cook all the time, and have recently begun what I call my “Bread Odyssey” to learn how to bake. I planted an herb garden in containers on my patio, and use them in my experimental dishes. I also recommitted myself to a yoga practice and try to meditate often. None of these activities have stakes attached to them. If I burn dinner, we can just order a pizza. If I can’t do a pose in yoga, it’s not a failure. If my mind wanders during meditation, I don’t have to worry how the bills will get paid.

In a recent yoga class, my teacher talked about the difference between having fun and enjoying yourself. Fun, she said, was an activity you do to escape your routines. However, enjoyment is the act of finding happiness in your routines and responsibilities. Therefore, another element of a good hobby is that it becomes a part of your daily or weekly habits, instead of something you use to run away from your writing (or life). This is why drinking, drugs, gambling and social media are so dangerous. They can provide fun via instant gratification, but long-run they don’t bring us joy. Better then to focus on habits and hobbies that help us be more plugged in to our lives--ones that allow us to enjoy ourselves.

The best part is that the more I allow my inner artist to play with other hobbies, the better my writing becomes. Before, I’d berate myself if I took even an evening off to watch TV. Now, I think about my stories while I chop onions or dig in the dirt, but I also allow my mind to take a mini-vacation from my imaginary worlds. I feel more present, more balanced, and calmer. But the best part is I love writing again. Funny how that worked out.

Now, I’m not saying that writing will ever be a stress-free job. I’m also not saying that you should just shirk your deadlines in pursuit of the perfect hobby. But I do think it is vital for anyone whose hobby became their career to find a replacement emotional escape hatch. Otherwise, you risk becoming so invested in the outcomes of the thing that used to bring you joy that you can end up resenting that thing--in this case writing. If you want to protect your love of writing, you need to make sure you’re not relying on it for everything--to be your hobby, your outlet, your income, your source of pride, the source of all of your friendships and activities, etc. It can’t be all those things at once. Nothing can.

So, if lately, the thing you love hasn’t been bringing you any joy, consider taking yourself on an Artist Date to the craft store. Or take a cooking class. Or maybe just get out an take a walk. Be a part of the world again, and remember that writing is something you do--not the totality of who you are. The writing life you save might be your own.

 

What is your favorite non-writing hobby?

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About Jaye:

Jaye Wells is a former magazine editor whose now writes bestselling and award-winning  supernatural novels. This summer, she will earn her MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, and is a sought-after speaker on the craft of writing. When she's not writing or teaching, she loves to travel to exotic locales, experiment in her kitchen like a mad scientist, and try things that scare her so she can write about them in her books. To learn more about Jaye and her books check out www.jayewells.com

 

 

Top photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41636846@N00/20747955690">Exit From Fear</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)</a>