Writers in the Storm

by Jenny Hansen

Today, I’m delighted to bring you some tips from New York Times Bestselling Author, Susan Mallery. If you haven’t read her Fool’s Gold series, you are missing out!

Click here to download one of her books really quick so you have something wonderful to dive into when you’re done being inspired by her sage advice.

It’s OK, we’ll wait… *whistling*

Groovy. Do you have a nice cup of something you love? Then settle in to dream a little.

I warn you, Susan makes the world of publishing seem very accessible. When she’s done with you, I’ll bet you go leaping toward your current project. I know I did.

All of us met Susan at OCC/RWA’s 30th Birthday Bash last October. Those birthday meetings are always special, but this last year we turned the Big 3-0 and the day was magic.

We had Mary-Theresa Hussey, senior editor at Harlequin and long-time chapter friend, in the morning. Susan, a long-time honorary member of OCC, spoke in the afternoon. She shared the “4 Lessons She Learned From OCC” with us; now I’m going to share them with you. (My comments are in blue.)

1. Never Give Up

The only way to give up your dream of being a published author is to stop writing. The reality is that only one manuscript in a thousand is picked up by the publishing houses and less than 50% of those authors will sell another book.

So what? Getting published isn’t magic. It’s about showing up and doing the work.

No matter what you do, don’t give up. Getting published results directly from your willingness to sit down, do the work, and reach out to help other writing friends along the way.

OCC’s motto is “One hand reaching forward, one hand reaching back, in a continuous chain.” I thought of this during Susan’s talk, especially as I glanced around the room at some of the women who have been her friends for almost 20 years.

2. Visualize Your Goals

You aren’t going to achieve your goal if you don’t know what it is.

Susan recommends that you buy a whiteboard and create what she calls a “vision board.” This is where she does things like taking an existing check and Photoshopping it until it reads the amount of her dream advance. She puts this board in her office where she sees these visual pictures of her goals every day.

Susan stressed that you must be focused on what you want. Set a goal and plot a course and stick to it. It’s very easy to say yes to things that have nothing to do with your goal. You need to resist.

3. Never Stop Learning

She had so many gems here, I’m going to sum them up in a bulleted list. Plus, I’ve divided her advice into two sections because, according to Susan, when it comes to the craft and business of writing, you can never learn too much.

Writing Craft

• Susan recommended that you master as much craft as you can so you don’t disappoint your readers.
• Figure out what you’re good at and what you’re bad at. Focus on your strengths and shore up your weaknesses.
• If you bring your passion and enthusiasm to a project, it will show up on the page.

The Business of Writing

• You MUST know what’s going on in the publishing world so you can make good decisions. She highly recommends subscribing to Publisher’s Lunch so you know what deals are being made.
• Her successful self-published author friends spend an hour and a half for every hour of writing time, handling the business of self-publishing. Consider this before you dive into self-publishing with no preparation.
• Susan doesn’t believe publishing is going anywhere, though the business will have to continue to adapt.
• Her personal stance is that you must first meet your page count. Then you write the next book. After THAT you do social media. (She does admit that she is in the position to hire an assistant to help her manage some of the social media tasks.)

Take it from someone who loves Twitter enough to throw parties there, social media is a wiggly, rambunctious puppy that must be disciplined or he’ll get completely out of control. Here's a great post from August McLaughlin on the subject: The Truth About the Social Media Time Suck.

4. Be A Good Friend

When Susan first started writing, she didn’t have people she could call to talk to about the worries and woes associated with living the writing life. At OCC, she found a published author network that included her in their fold, and she found writing friends.

Susan describes writing friends as:

• People who will hold your hand through all stages of a book.
• Friends who will share their chocolate and  their wine with you.
• Writers who cheer you on and celebrate your success.

She warns that “not every friendship will survive you being published so ‘make a LOT of friends.’”

One last piece of advice

After her keynote speech, Susan answered questions that ranged from her writing day to how she plots. Someone asked her about writer’s block and, just like Nora Roberts, she doesn’t believe in it. Both of them believe you just keep writing and push through it.

The statement below was my most favorite, in a long list of wonderful nuggets for the day. I believe she actually credited this remark to Nora Roberts while explaining her views on writer’s block:

If your toilet is stopped up and you call a plumber, you don’t want to hear that he’s not in the mood. By golly, if your plumber comes to work, he’s there to work.

While it’s true that writing is potentially more creative than plumbing, there’s a lot to be said for just showing up.

So, Tip #5 is: Show up to the page and do the work.

Susan will tell you that she’s taken a modicum of talent and a whole lot of drive (and focus) to get to where she is today. I’m here to tell you she’s loaded with a whole lot more than “a modicum” of talent. She was modest and witty and wise – a “writer’s writer” who was a pleasure to meet.

What are your “bestselling tips” for a writer inching down the path toward success? These can be from a person you met, a book you read or a speech you heard. Regardless of the source, we'd love to hear about it!

Jenny

About Jenny Hansen

Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after her toddler Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing.

When she’s not at her blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at jhansenwrites and here at Writers In The Storm. Every Saturday, she writes the Risky Baby Business posts at More Cowbell, a series that focuses on babies, new parents and high-risk pregnancy.

by Fae Rowen

When I was a child, a trip to my grandmother’s meant the opportunity to play with the dangling things on her lamp. On a sunny day, I could swing the prisms and watch little rainbows bounce around the walls.

(Yes, I was easily entertained.)

Now, I have a collection of crystals and rocks that I’ve acquired over the past decade to use in conjunction with energy healing. (Sound bite: record needle scratches across album. Say energy what?)

Let’s start with a little science lesson. Every cell in your body vibrates. Different cells vibrate at different rates. When they stop vibrating, you’re dead.

Your mental state can speed up the natural vibration or slow it. Everybody knows stress is not good for you; here’s one reason why. When your cell vibration is not optimal for long periods of time, your artery walls harden, your digestions goes whonky, and your mood and reasoning tank, just to mention three common problems.

Skeptical? I sure was. Did you know that the old mechanical, wind-up watch got retired because a tiny vibrating quartz crystal does the job now? There are a lot of physics classes about vibrational energy. But I became a believer from experience.

Here’s a picture of a cancer cell surrounded by vibrating iron oxide molecules. Researchers hope to develop a strategy to change the vibration of the cancer cell as a cure.

The book I’m writing now is set on a planet that is filled with crystals in all shapes, sizes and colors–and uses. You better believe they use the crystals medicinally.

Let’s talk crystals:

Do you need special training or skills to use crystals?

No special training is necessary. However, once a month, (more often if the crystal is doing some heavy-duty work for you) it’s important to “cleanse” your crystals. No soap and water–or time–required. Just set the crystal on a sunny windowsill all day.

Here are some of my crystals and their common uses by energy practitioners.

All crystals have many degrees of functions, so I’m just going to list a few. They are in no particular order other than where they are resting today on my windowsill.

Citrine: healing, particularly depression, and abundance

Fluorite: healthy bones and organs; good for helping with physical balance

Green Tourmaline: all ailments of the hearts, physical and emotional; speeds energy flow, clears blockages, and restores equilibrium; strengthens immune system, works well with the thymus gland

Black Tourmaline: realign pulled and strained bone and muscle tissue; increases confidence, security and a sense of belonging

Red Jasper: gently energizing for those with chronic fatigue

Kunzite: removes negativity and unwanted thoughts; can aid the cardiovascular system and thyroid problems and self-esteem

Kyanite: brings calm, tranquility; meditation can be easier with this stone

Labradorite: ideas and intuitive ideas are easier to access; one of the best stones for aura protection

Smoky Quartz: effective grounding stone; dissolves negative states of mind

Amethyst: aids healing process anywhere within the body; one of the best stones for healing physical ailments

Moldavite: development of subtle senses, intuition, and beauty of creation (Note: if it’s not green (see below), it’s not moldavite, don’t be “taken in” by another tektite.) Some people are very sensitive to this stone.

Hematite: supports the circulatory system, blood, and temperature regulation; can help with the detoxification process

Azurite: draws out old memories and stresses to be released in healing; stimulates communication skills, creativity and flow

Rose Quartz: powerful healing stone in all aggressive conditions; heals personal issues at the root of emotional and mental tensions;

Sodalite: stabilizes emotions and thought processes; enhances lymphatic and immune systems

That’s FIFTEEN crystals you’re invited to explore.

Your characters can be involved with crystals, even if they know nothing about them.

How??

Your hero can carry a stone in his pocket that relates to something in his character arc. (And he doesn’t need to know about the properties of the stone as long as your readers do). You can have a bigger influence of crystals and their effects if you’re writing a paranormal and your characters know how to use crystals.

It doesn’t take classes or years of study to develop a rudimentary understanding of crystals. The Complete Illustrated Guide to Crystal Healing by Simon Lilly or Crystal Decoder by Sue Lilly ( a little more woo-woo) are both easy to understand and use.

Have you had interesting experiences with rocks or crystals? Do you have a stone that you carry with you? Do you have questions about crystals?

by Tiffany Lawson Inman

I know, I know. I usually get on here the last Friday of the month and stretch all of your neurons in 6 directions at once. (you are very welcome!)  Today’s post is a little different.

I’ve got my brain buzzing with wrapping up Madness to Method , revving up for 77 Secrets to Writing YA Fiction that Sells, editing a paranormal, and going to this weekends’ ACFW retreat.

What does that mean?

Tiff’s busy brain is getting a little punchy.  It also means I’m unlocking a few creative doors that only open when I’ve reached this point of sleep deprivation.

Yeah!

Today, I’ll be using America’s Next Top Model as a tool to teach you about writing great fiction.  Let’s make it impossible for the Pulitzer committee to pass us by next year. Sound good to you?

Without further ado...

1.  Modeling is More Than Mastering the Beauty Shot.

Make sure your writing has more depth than just good bone structure and make-up.  You want readers to think about these characters and your story long after they read the first page.

2. Flexibility in Your Posing.

Expand your body language repertoire – fresh writing is so much more than shaking heads and raising eyebrows and crossing arms and hands on hips.  Give us something we’ve never read before.  It can be done.  Tyra Banks coined the word Smize as being the smile with your eyes.  What kind of body language or facial emotion will you write that is totally unique to your characters?

3. “Ugly-pretty” Shot.

There is something to these stories we are drawn to. Are you showing and using your character’s flaws to your advantage?  How are you presenting them to the reader? Does it make us want to look closer or turn away?

4.  Play the Awkwardness and You Will Book More Jobs.

Unless the genre begs for over sexed or over quippy, pun, and cliché filled language, work to write natural dialogue and prose.  You don’t want your readers giggling about how cutesy your characters speak to each other.  How the flowery quality of your writing takes away from the story. It might sound awkward and raw at first.

That’s ok.

We don’t want our novels sounding like Gossip Girl or a Bruce Willis movie.  It’s NOT reality and it definitely won’t land your writing in the Pulitzer pile.

5.  MAKEOVERS!

At some point you are going to look at your character and want to give them a makeover. It happens, and it’s ok.  Do it!

Just make sure you have a reason, more than just wanting a different hair color for the-fun-of-it.  Don’t under think these details. 

A girl who wears pigtails has a much different personality than one that has a Mohawk.  And a man that gets hi-lights might not go to the same bar as the one that only trims his mustache when it hits his bottom lip.  This goes for clothing choices as well.

6.  Know Your Fashion Designers:

Nothing makes Tyra Banks more angry than a model that doesn’t know the fashion industry.

When we are writing characters and stories with extensive backgrounds in fields unfamiliar to us in our daily lives, make sure you know your research! Get to know that world inside and out. Names of people in the field, technology being used and how to use it, terminology used between coworkers and with outsiders, etc.  Nothing pulls a reader out more than an incorrect detail.

7.  Relax but keep the tension.

Tyra gives this note a lot. Usually when she says it, the models eyes glaze over.

What does she mean?

Don’t try so hard to be perfect.  Don’t fall under the spell of contest-itus or deadline-itus and write a stiff, fast novel.   This is art. Have confidence that you know what you are doing and let go.

8.  Look at Your Angles and Find Your Light.

Don’t just go with what is easy. Don’t just go with what you wrote in your first draft.

Would your story benefit from a different POV in a few chapters or the whole novel?  When you are in a particular POV, are you showing too much all at once?  Do you need to back off until page 108 for that part of the plot? Do you need to attack the plot from a closer or further focus to best guide the reader?

9.  Not all photographers are the same.

What does their lens see?  Characters will focus on different parts of an issue or event.  Make sure you are giving everyone a specific lens to go along with their vision and voice. Relish in the variety of character reactions.  This will give us depth and connection to all of your characters.

10.  Elimination Day.

What are your characters grateful for when they are faced with death?  Do their personalities change towards the end of life or toward the end of a relationship? Did their lives show any warning signs for such behavior?  Or are you trying to make them something that they are not?

11.  Too Much Drama in the Top Model House!

Don’t let melodrama take over your character’s reactions or the pacing of your story!  Remember there are specific moments to draw out the dramatic and other moments to move forward with the story.

Not every paper-cut deserves a full Motivation Reaction Unit unless your character suffers the paper-cut on the fiancés living will that names his ex-wife the main beneficiary if he dies and it’s just been drawn up 3 days prior to your character’s finding it.

That deserves drama!

12.  Who Said Winning a Top Model Challenge Was Easy?

What kind of challenges have you set up for your characters? Are they designed for them to succeed or struggle?

I’ve read mediocre books where characters are set up for loss after loss after loss.  The reader watches them struggle for a second and then the story does a quick flip and the character succeeds without so much as a skinned knee.  Then we see another obstacle.  Same thing happens.  If it continues the level of dramatic danger is zero and the reader stops rooting for the character.  Don’t let this happen!

However, don’t make the challenges or obstacles SO SO SO over the top that it’s obvious you are setting them up do nothing but fail.

**for a giggle  -  check out this clip of the Top Model walking-in-a-human-sized-plastic-hamster-bubble across-water-challenge.   The picture to the right shows a model standing up…she doesn’t stay that way!

 13.  You Are Only As Good As Your Last Photo.

A novel lives a little longer than a magazine cover.  But not by much.  So keep learning.  Keep writing. Keep connected to your readers. And keep improving.

I’m not just talking about those of you with small contracts or almost contracts.  I’m talking to you big bestsellers too.  In fact, you, maybe even more so.  I’ve had some disappointments in my recent NYT bestseller reads lately.  Not going to name names, just shaking a finger at you in general. You are making buttloads of money on your big fancy hardcovers and kindle downlowds – write BETTER! *puppy-dog-eyes*

Bonus.  Her Runway Walk Is Fierce!

According to the Urban Dictionary , Fierce is a term that gay men used in the late 1990s and early 2000s to describe absolutely everything that was of "exceptional quality.”  Tyra uses the word a lot.  Like, a lot a lot.

Ask yourself: Is every sentence, paragraph, character, shown emotion, conflict, action scene, and climax worthy of the word, fierce?

Thank you all for tuning in for another Last Friday post here on WITS.  I always enjoy my time with this group of talented writers.  I promise that next month's installment will be much more academic and will require you to bring a 2 cups of coffee, pen, and paper!

Comment below and tell me what other lessons we can learn from America’s Next Top Model. I didn’t hit them all - I still have a full file! This was just the Starter Guide. *wink wink*

If you comment, your name will be in the hat to win a free spot in one of Tiffany’s online courses offered through Lawson Writer’s Academy.

Courses taught by Tiffany Lawson Inman:

• April: From MADNESS to Method: Out-of-your-chair acting techniques to invigorate your writing and make your characters Oscar worthy!   
• May:  77 Secrets To Writing YA Fiction That Sells!
• TBA:  Triple Threat Behind Staging A Sceneto be offered again in late-summer.  
• Fall/Winter: Fighting in Fiction and Directing Dialogue. These courses will be taught at least twice a year. You won’t miss out!

Want to learn from me in person?  I will be presenting a workshop at Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference this year. Registration is open!

Tiffany Lawson Inman (NakedEditor) claimed a higher education at Columbia College Chicago. Here, she learned to use body and mind together for action scenes, character emotion, and dramatic story development. She teaches for Lawson Writer’s Academy and presents hands-on-action workshops. As a freelance editor, she provides story analysis and editing services.

You can find Tiffany at her website or on Twitter @NakedEditor. Tiffany blogs here at Writers In The Storm the last Friday of each month!