Writers in the Storm

By Sierra Godfrey

Remember back in the day when you made a mixtape for a good friend, a long car ride, or a guy you liked? It was our way of personally selecting songs with meaning that told one larger story. Now it’s all digital when we make playlists. That means we can share our playlists with many more people and we have so many more options for creating playlists.

For authors, playlists are a fantastic tool to offer an “extra” to readers on their blog or website. Extras are one way to engage the reader and hopefully keep them coming back to visit.

Writers like to listen to music. Sometimes we refer to it heavily in our stories. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could offer readers a whole list of the songs we were listening to while we wrote? They’re like a mini-album of our novels and it’s uniquely yours to offer. Or, maybe there are songs your character sang or was inspired by or quoted. You can offer readers a special holiday playlist, a book-by-book playlist, or even a character playlist. The possibilities are endless.

Okay, so now you know playlists are fun to offer—so let’s get to how you offer them. You might be worrying that you need to know coding, and you’re right this minute starting to sweat. Nope, it’s much easier than that. I’m here to give you a few things to think about and a few solutions, which I’ve gleaned from trial and error.

A word of warning…

Before we get started, I want to make the important point that music should not play automatically on your website or blog. When my company designs websites for authors (http://www.wordpressbusinesswebsites.com/author-website-design/), authors will sometimes ask for auto-play and we educate them on why it's a major design sin.

Auto-start music is a huge turn off to visitors, and even if you think your website won’t be the same if people don’t hear it as well as see it, please don’t. I promise you that no one wants to hear your music without permission. Some people have their speakers turned way loud, are in a public place, or at work. Or they will hate what you play. Please trust me on this.

Step 1: Choose a Service

So let’s get to it. There are a few different ways to implement a playlist, and there are pros and cons with each. I’m going to cover some of the more obvious (and easy) ways of getting music on your site.

1. Upload the music yourself

This is a relatively easy thing to do, but I don’t recommend it and I’m not even going to describe how to do it. The reason? You’d be providing free files of music and you legally don’t want to go there. Uploading your own files would work if you’re a musician and the music is yours – but that sort of defeats the point of a playlist. So let’s cross this one off and look at legal ways.

2. Stream from You Tube or Vimeo

You Tube is great – you can create a playlist and it’s fast, and you can easily embed them on your page or blog by using their embed code. Personally, I prefer it because it’s easy. Vimeo also offers this. But be warned-- if the owner of the song removes the video from You Tube, then it goes from your playlist, too. Check it periodically.

3. Set up a Spotify list

Spotify isn’t, I’ll admit, the easiest thing to work with when selecting a playlist. But the actual playlist on a website is nice looking and friendly to users. And Spotify pays royalties to the musicians and in this fast world of ripping stuff, that’s admirable. Check out how author Roni Loren does it here.

4. Use Playlist.com

Playlist.com is “commercial –free radio.” Like You Tube, it’s not perfect. It has its share of broken links. But it’s free and easy. You can get it here.

Step 2: Embed the Playlist

With all of the above methods, you’ll need to embed the playlist into your HTML. Don’t run screaming. This isn’t real coding. This is just copy and paste. Are you still with me?

Depending on how your blog or website is set up, you’ll need to access the code view –except for Blogger blogs. (For Blogger, see below.) For Wordpress, click over to the Text view and paste in the code from your playlist provider.

• For You Tube, use the “Share” button below a playlist and copy the embed code. It’s explained step by step here.

• Vimeo embed instructions are here.
• Spotify playlist embedding instructions are here.
• Playlist.com embed instructions are here.

Note: If you have a Blogger blog, you can add a Playlist.com list via a widget. Go to Design, then Edit Layout, and then click Add a Gadget anywhere in your blog layout. Type "playlist" in the search field. You will need your Playlist.com number in order to connect it.

Step 3: Play away!

Remember, make sure that any service you use doesn’t play the songs automatically on the page and that you enjoy the process of making a playlist with the service. Good luck and have fun putting together songs!

(And if you want to see how the You Tube playlist looks embedded, check my master writing playlist out here.)

So what do you think? Do you use playlists when you write?
Do you want to share?

About Sierra:

Sierra writes fiction that features strong heroines who grow from the challenges they face and always get the guy in the end. A graphic designer by day, she lives in the swampy yet arid wastelands of the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. She has zero will power when it comes to chocolate. In fact, she is the inventor of mix-less trail mix -- just leave the chocolate chips.

You can find more of her sass at www.sierragodfrey.com.

Laura here - Speaking of going the distance, I just wanted to let you know that  I'm teaching a course, Submissions that Sell,  the in February at Margie Lawson's Writers Academy. Need a query? Need to organize submissions? Covers everything except Synopsis. You can check it out Here.

Now, on to the incredible Kathryn Craft!

A 'Turning Whine into Gold' post from Kathryn Craft

When you set out to write a novel, no one wants to believe it might take a decade or more to hone your skills. You’ll learn faster, you say. Go for it! Reckless innocence is the steppingstone that allows us to launch any grand endeavor. To begin we need only the excitement to try, and the vague sense that “I can do this.”

Yet clinging to innocence will not serve you for long. Along the way, you’ll hear daunting odds about reaching the top. “Agents reject 98 percent of the projects they see, you know, and even when they take on a client, they can’t always sell their work.” “You got a book deal? Ha! Don’t get too excited. Deals get canceled all the time.”

Even if you can hold onto our optimism, cinders on the steep learning curve will scrape you as you fall. Not everyone will like your “voice.” My novel’s protagonist, Penelope Sparrow, must deal with an even more personal attack: despite her obvious talent, not every dance company director has use for a dancer of her height and shape. What do you do with that?

One scene of my novel features a conversation between Penny and the baker on whose car and doughnuts she landed. When Penny says that her body has always been the wrong type for dance, he asks who the standard of success might be in music. She supposes it was Pavarotti. The baker adds, “Yet Rod Stewart has done well for himself.” I love this reminder, from someone not embroiled in the competitive perfectionism within the dance world, that there is room for all types of self-expression. The notion comforts me as a writer. Not everyone needs to love my books—I just need to find a way to get them to the people who will.

When the innocence that sent you skipping merrily down the path to publication gets crushed—and it will get crushed—you’ll reach a make-or-break point: will you keep striving, or hang it up?

If you think that to go the distance you must simply locate that missing perseverance gene, think again. Soldiering on will not be enough. Those bound to succeed will replace the void left by innocence with something more powerful: yearning.

The source of yearning is a mystery, and as individual as a thumbprint. But it is profoundly human, and easily recognized by the soul. Yearning is I want this so bad I can taste it. It’s I’ve come too far, I can’t give up. It’s hunger. It’s success, calling your name.

If you are in your time of yearning, I feel for you—I know how agonizing it can be. Fear feeds at its edges in a way that only more yearning can keep at bay. It’s wonderfully, beautifully hellish.

Yet it is the artist’s way. Embrace it. That tug on your heart and constant challenge to your resolve will make your mountaintop experience all the sweeter. Thank the Great Creator for it, because the arts could not exist otherwise; without its pull the work is just too hard. We create because we yearn for something that does not yet exist.

And this is what will happen, in that moment you’ve been awaiting, that moment conjured by the desire of your heart and the sweat of your brow and the thickening of your skin: release. Release of your novel, yes, but also the release of the yearning, replaced for this moment by that golden charge that comes from adrenaline, relief, long-term effort, and giddy, overwhelming elation.

You are where you’ve longed to be.

You’ll want to suspend the moment so you can fully appreciate the way everything has come together, just so, in its own time, as if this is the way it was always supposed to unfold. And you will revel in the fact that you have honored your truest nature and climbed to the top of your personal mountain.

On this peak where Penelope Sparrow and I now stand as one, at this pinpoint in time, there is no room for fear. Life will get real again tomorrow, when, alone once again, I’ll yearn for a new goal—but right now there is only the foundation of effort beneath us, a universe of possibility above us, and our hearts pounding as one.

Yearning brought us here. Yearning made Penelope Sparrow rise from her hospital bed after a fourteen-story fall immobilized her, and yearning made me write her story. What do you yearn to do? Penelope and I urge you to begin it, and reap its rewards.

 

The Art of Falling is now in stores! Join Kathryn and her guests for a Virtual Facebook Launch featuring these women’s fiction authors and their new projects: special guest Lisa Verge Higgins, Random Acts of Kindness (ARC); Sharon Short, My One Square Inch of Alaska; Barbara Claypole White, The In Between Hour; Ellen Marie Wiseman, The Things She Left Behind; Therese Walsh, Moon Sisters (ARC); Dale Kushner, The Conditions of Love; Kristin Bair O'Keefe, The Art of Floating (ARC); and Natalia Sylvester, Chasing the Sun (ARC). Giveaways of these books and The Art of Falling all day long—please join us at the event page!

Kathryn Craft is a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com. Her debut novel, The Art of Falling, will be released through Sourcebooks 0n January 28. Her second novel, While the Leaves Stood Still, is due from Sourcebooks in Spring 2015. Long a leader in the southeastern Pennsylvania literary scene, she loves anything that brings writers together—conferences, workshops, retreats, and blogs like Writers in the Storm. She also blogs at The Blood-Red Pencil and at her personal blogs, The Fine Art of Visiting and Healing Through Writing. Connect with Kathryn on Facebook and Twitter.

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjfrig/9560558346/">Mike F.</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin<

by Cate Russell-Cole

As writers, we are creatures of habit. We have our favorite words, preferred plot structure, must-refer-back-to writing books and generally, we have “our genre!”

I love to see writers wearing their genre with pride and not writing in line with the latest fad, but I have this itch to challenge them to try something new. I want to ask, why does that area mean so much to you? Look at what you can gain by trying something completely different. You just don’t know what unexpected treasures you may discover!”

There are all kinds of benefits to writing in more than one genre. For a start, you don’t pigeonhole yourself, become stale or get as bored. The other great gain, is you do learn that you can achieve more than you thought.

I came across an infographic on Pinterest which is an excellent illustration of what additional writing skills you can acquire by breaking out of your box.

Paraphrased and shortened it read like this:

• The historical genre teaches you about atmosphere, weaving in details and avoiding anachronisms.
• Science fiction gives you a hand getting to grips with back story, particularly in regards to pacing how you present it.
• If your protagonists are lacking in color, read or write horror to gain an insight into evil, motivation and work on the suspension of disbelief.
• Thrillers are another outstanding example of learning pacing! When it comes to plot formation in regards to escalation, tension and cliffhangers, it is a great place to start exploring.
• To understand character emotion, go for romance.

I would add, if you want to understand characterization, plot and behavior traits in-depth, look at the real-world examples around you via memoir / life story writing.

It takes a surge of courage and commitment to step outside your comfort zone and get your boots muddy on new soil, but as I said above, the rewards are there. You may discover an approach that makes you feel more confident as a writer, sells better or is more satisfying for you to craft.

In experimenting with another story form, you can set yourself free of the confines you may have imposed around yourself for security. Are you trying to be like your favorite authors, rather than being yourself? Experiment and see.

If you find taking on say, science fiction or horror when you are a romance writer way too much, start with memoir first. You can’t go wrong. You are the expert on you. Use your life and the people you have interacted with to craft a new form of story and inspire you when you’re blocked.

Although each genre below is different, the goal is most often the same: Evoke a strong emotion in your reader.

For an example, here are the opening lines of several stories:

"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
~ Literary: Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson

"I was standing at the entrance to the London Inn, looking towards the inner harbor. It was growing dark, a warm velvety darkness tumbling from a cloudless sky..."
~ Thriller: Lallaloosa, Rags Daniels

"1801 – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.”
~ Romance: Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

"At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin."
~ Womens Fiction: The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd

"Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you’re dead."
~ Y/A Horror: A Certain Slant of Light, Laura Whitcomb

Below are the first lines of some popular memoirs:

"As a boy, I never knew where my mother was from–where she was born, who her parents were."
~ The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, James McBride

"We went there for everything we needed. [We went there when thirsty, of course, and when hungry, and when dead tired.  We went there when happy, to celebrate, and when sad, to sulk.]"
~ The Tender Bar, J. R. Moehringer

“The year I turned forty-three was the year I realized I should have never taken my Mennonite genes for granted.”
~ Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, Rhoda Janzen

From these examples, you can see there are very few differences between the manner in which the genres are written. The asset you gain by writing in more than one genre is the extra strength you can bring into your favoured story form.

Last of all, if you need a helping hand to get started with memoir, the CommuniCATE Resources for Writers blog posts every week on life story writing, to help you write about what you know.

Please visit: https://cateartios.wordpress.com
Or click here http://cateartios.wordpress.com/category/the-memoir-project/
to access to archive of memoir posts.

Are you attached to your genre, or do you experiment among many? What other skills do you want to gain that you think you'd learn from another genre? Do you have a favorite first line example you'd like to share?

About Cate:

Cate Russell-Cole, is an experienced creativity teacher and author. She has been published in many local and Internet e-zines, magazines and newspapers; and has researched, written and taught her own courses since 1990. Her most successful course to date is “Write Your Life Story.” She is also Founder of the “Write Your Life Story Memoir Project” online.

You can find out about Cate's books and other activities on her web site at  http://www.virtual-desk.com.au/artios.html

“Write Your Life Story” Memoir Project Links:

Blog: https://cateartios.wordpress.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Write-Your-Life-Story/173393852705651
Google Plus: http://plus.google.com/communities/112990534902148227158
Twitter: http://twitter.com/cateartios