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It’s okay. You can admit it. Reality TV is a guilty pleasure for a lot of people, and by people, I mean me, of course. But duh, it’s definitely not a go-to for deep insight. Well, not typically.
This week I caught “My Big Fat Fabulous Life.” Starring Whitney, a young, sassy, dance-loving woman, the show focuses on her challenges and triumphs while living with polycystic ovarian syndrome, which has caused Whitney to gain a dramatic amount of weight.
In this episode, after Whitney performed at the National Museum of Dance, she addressed the audience and said, Don’t wait until you have the confidence to do something that scares you. It’s doing the scary thing that gives you confidence. Maybe that seems simplistic or obvious to you, my Pumpkin Praline Muffin, but it’s borderline brilliant as far as I’m concerned. And sure, while Whitney applied her wisdom to dance, but it doesn’t take much of a leap (or grand jete’) to see how it could work for writers.
I’ve long ascribed to the adage “attitude follows action.” But I’m going to adopt a new one a la Whitney–“confidence follows action.”
And now, for the confession portion of this post –writing picture books scares me. They seem so simple. And maybe they are for you. But me? Hardly! So then, my muse (Edna) keeps dealing me these story ideas she knows I can’t resist. (That chick does not know the meaning of mercy.) Well, I’ve got news for Edna. I’m going to channel my inner Whitney and write my way to confidence. So there!
Ready to make a deposit in your confidence bank? Take action this week. G’head and do what makes your right eye twitch and your palms go clammy. You’re going to be amazing, my Butter Pat! I’m confident of it.
The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it. ~ J.M. Barrie
I absolutely love this quote - it gets to the heart of what really matters.
Whether it be in everyday life, health, love, or business, it's all about your attitude.
According to the Washington Times, Hilary Hinton "Zig" Ziglar was "the man of a million motivational maxims."
He motivated "three generations of American business strviers" and had an international speaking career that spanned
One of the hardest parts of writing fiction for me is the getting started part. Every time I sit down to write, it takes a good twenty to thirty minutes to find a groove. Which is frustrating when you’ve only got an hour and a half to write. I’m always looking for strategies to increase my efficiency (btw, have you seen this awesome post on increasing your daily word count?), so I’m happy to welcome Alyssa Archer to talk about methods for settling down and getting busy…
HelloImNik @ Creative Commons
As human beings, we design transitions for ourselves. We might move from sleep to wakefulness with an alarm clock, toothbrush, and a cup of coffee. Our routines propel us from one mode of being to another. And yet we often plop down in front of the computer or notebook and expect to transition instantly from day-to-day life to writing genius. As a result, we might do a lot of throat clearing, writing meaningless or empty paragraphs, and wasting a lot of time in the process.
Consider developing a set of writing rituals that work much like your waking routine to propel you from the state of everyday being to that of creative master. If you sustain the habit of following these rituals, there’s a good chance they’ll catapult you past the half hour of wasted writing time by giving your subconscious additional clues that it’s time to write. The following are some suggestions for you to build your own creative routine. Choose a few that suit you, or design some of your own.
Get ready. Take care of anything that might distract you during your writing. Get a snack, make some tea, go to the bathroom, let the dog out. Don’t do the dishes, but do spend a few moments caring for yourself before you enter your work zone.
Start with intention. Regardless of your specific writing goals for this session (e.g., write a chapter or write for 60 minutes), choose a one word intention for the feeling you’d like to embody at the end of your writing session. Maybe it’s “creative” or “accomplished” or “happy” or “masterful.” Focusing on the emotion unhooks the intention from any paralyzing expectation of a certain accomplishment and yet provides the subconscious with an immediate goal that sends the desired message: it’s time to get to work.
See-ming Lee 李思明 SML @ Creative Commons
Settle down with a snow globe meditation. Imagine yourself as a giant snow globe all shaken up—the emotions, flotsam and jetsam of your daily cares, what’s for dinner, all your chattering thoughts swirling inside. Sit and envision the settling of the snow globe, each of the flakes moving slower and slower until at last they have all fallen, a layer of forgotten cares resting at the bottom of your consciousness, leaving a blank canvas for your creativity.
Do nothing for two minutes. Visit this website at the start of each session for two minutes of peaceful reflection at the beach.
Pick a theme song for you as a writer. Play it at the start of each writing session. Much like that cup of coffee or slug of mouth wash, this Pavlovian approach will wake up the writer in you within a few bars of music. Every time you hear that song, your fingers will itch for the keyboard.
MarViniz @ Creative Commons
Light a candle or ring a bell. Mark the time you start your writing session. Again, ritual is a tool for telling your body and mind to prepare for a certain activity. You don’t want to overdo it, but you want to send clear signals. I am writing now.
Leave the voices behind. Banish the voices of your inner critic, your grandmother, and your 12th grade English teacher; banish your fear of what you’ll have to do if your writing is successful, and banish your fear that it won’t be. Those voices are simply not welcome in the writing zone. Treat your ritual as the threshold that, once crossed, leaves only you and your writing in the room. If these voices crop up despite their lack of invitation (how rude!), simply notice that they’re there and tell them you’ll get back to them later. Do it out loud if it helps. “I know, Granny. I know. This writing isn’t for you, though. It’s for me. I’ll talk to you later.” Added benefit: anyone in the vicinity will now be convinced you are an artist.
Honor your commitment. Write for as long or as far as you said you would. Don’t stop early. Train your mind to follow through.
Close the sacred space. When the timer goes off or you’ve otherwise reached your goal for the session, put your tools away and blow out your candle or ring your bell, acknowledging that your writing time is over. Check in with your intention. How do you feel? How was the writing? Acknowledge your transition and accomplishment for the session. I think an ounce of divinely dark chocolate is in order. You deserve it.
Alyssa Archer is passionate about to building commitment to the craft of writing through community and, along with co-founders Leslie Watts and Jennifer Hritz, she created a year-long, online writing program called Writership to do just that. She has published a paranormal romance novel, Across the Veil
, and is currently at work on a second book. Please visit her online at www.writership.org.
The post Getting Quiet and Letting Go of Expectations appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS.
By:
Darcy Pattison,
on 4/24/2013
Blog:
Darcy Pattison's Revision Notes
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2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists
Keep your students reading all summer! The lists for 2nd, 3rd and 4th, include 10 recommended fiction titles and 10 recommended nonfiction titles. Printed double-sided, these one-page flyers are perfect to hand out to students, teachers, or parents. Great for PTA meetings, have on hand in the library, or to send home with students for the summer. FREE Pdf or infographic jpeg.
See the Summer Lists Now!
You know you should try writing your story in first v. third point of view, but for some reason, you put it off. Why? Because you’ve gotten a first draft of a scene or chapter and you just want to keep going.
It’s exactly the feeling that elementary school children have: “Why do I have to revise?”
Your answer is straightforward: because you are a professional writer. Revising will help you write a book.
You must find the right way to tell this story. I often say that the purpose of a first draft is to find the story, but the purpose of all other drafts is to figure out the best way to TELL that story. Pros experiment, play, explore.
Here are some explorations of character that you can complete in an hour. Just set a time for 5-10 minutes and write something on each of these. If the prompt reveals nothing, drop it. But if it strikes a chord—keep going!
- 1st v. 3rd. Write a scene using first person point of view and then rewrite it using third. If you want to play with present tense, feel free. Play!
- Attitude. Choose a scene and look to see what attitude your main character has. Maybe, s/he comes in arrogant, sad, discouraged, or excited. At the top of your page/file, write the opposite attitude and write the scene again, working to make the character’s opposite attitude work.
- Setting. Choose a scene and change the setting. If it’s in the kitchen, send your characters on a picnic. If it’s set on a spaceship, move the story to a cruise ship on the Mediterranean.
- Write a Letter. Give your main character a reason to write a letter to someone. It could be written to a family member or to a Congressman. Let your character vent, rant and cry on paper.
- Put something in your character’s hand. Put a physical object in your character’s hand. Perhaps a mother goes into a grown son’s room and picks up his old baseball glove and sits in a rocking chair and oils the glove and remembers something important about her son. Or, a grandmother is in the kitchen and getting ready to cook and pulls out an iron skillet. Write a couple paragraphs or a scene putting the object in the forefront.
- Cubing is a way of exploring a topic by looking at it from different angles. I’ve chosen just four ways, but you can think of others.
- Describe. Using the character’s voice (your choice of POV, tense, etc) describe something important in your story. Repeat with a different POV, tense, etc. if you have time.
- Compare. Using the character’s voice, compare something in your story. Maybe you want to compare what the character thinks about his/her current situation with where s/he was ten days ago. Or compare two characters. Or compare today’s supper with yesterday’s supper. Any type of comparison that makes sense for your story is grist for this mill.
- Associate. When your character thinks of roses, what does s/he think? This prompt asks you to enter your character’s point of view and make some associations. While most of your writing in a scene should be pointed, there are places where you can slow down and give the reader a glimpse of how the character’s mind works. When faced with X, s/he thinks of Y or Z.
- Analyze. What will your character do next? Stop and let him/her analyze what has just happened, thinking about the ramifications of the actions or conversations. If s/he goes this direction, what will it mean for the rest of the story? What is an alternate direction and why should s/he choose that alternate? Analyze, then let the character decide on a plan of attack for the next section of the story.
Take the time to explore your story and your storytelling choices early in your drafting process. It will probably mean fewer drafts—and a stronger story. Great trade-offs for a mere hour of work.
By:
Angela Ackerman,
on 10/11/2012
Blog:
The Bookshelf Muse
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I’ll admit my mind is blown knowing there are over 10, 000 Emotion Thesaurus books out there in the world. Becca and I are thrilled, and so appreciative to all the writers and teachers who took a chance on it. As aspiring novelists, we know just how hard it is to write and the perseverance it takes to create a book. Providing a tool to help other writers with emotion is nothing short of an honor (sappy, I know, but true. Writers rule and we love you guys!)
In that same spirit of wanting to contribute, we thought it might be beneficial to share our focus as we sent The Emotion Thesaurus into the world. We realize this is a non-fiction book, not fiction. Novels are a harder sell--instead of dealing primarily with what a audience NEEDS like NF, it is more about what they WANT, and personal reading tastes are unpredictable. However, much of the strategy we used with the ET can be adapted for fiction, so hopefully novelists will find value here regardless.
A Bit of History...
As many of you know, The Emotion Thesaurus started on the blog as a 'set' of lists focusing on how to show a character’s feelings. Becca and I struggled with emotion, and when we could not find a good resource to help us, we created one. As it grew in popularity, readers asked us to turn it into an enhanced book version.
We chose self publishing for a few reasons, the most important being TIME. It can take years for a book to find a publisher and then be available to purchase, and writers and teachers needed it NOW. We also discovered someone pirating our content for profit, so waiting any longer to create the book would be foolhardy. We launched The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Expression on May 14th, 2012.
What We Had Going For Us
PLATFORM. Becca and I have worked since 2008 to build a place within the Writing Community, providing resources through this blog and forging genuine relationships with our audience. Our attitude has always been to contribute and do what we can to add value. It was our hope that our readers would be willing to help raise awareness for The Emotion Thesaurus book.
NICHE. Our book tackled a topic that writers struggle with, yet few resources were available to help. As writers, we knew exactly what type of tool was needed to help with emotion and body language.
What Stood Against Us
LACK OF CREDIBILITY. Becca and I were not authors (yet), nor accredited editors, and certainly not psychologists or experts on emotion. We had a platform, but no ‘book world’ clout. How could we possibly compete with the biggies in the Writing Resource field, names like Donald Maass, James Scott Bell, James N. Frey, The Plot Whisperer, or the dozens of other incredible, best-selling authors/experts?
SELF PUBLISHING. While the stigma is lessening, we all know bias remains. In some ways, creating a how-to writing resource and then choosing self publishing over traditional acted as a strike against us, meaning we would have to really prove ourselves with readers.
CONFIDENCE. This business is often a murky pool of feeling not worthy, not good enough. Without a book deal in place for our fiction to give us credibility or a degree/subject-specific education to hold up, we felt naked. Putting ourselves out there and donning the hat of authority that comes with writing any sort of how-to guide was terrifying.
The Scale Tipper
PASSION, BELIEF & TEAMWORK. As writers, we knew people needed this book. Heck, we needed it! We decided to create the best brainstorming tool we could and put all our effort into making it discoverable to those who might benefit from it. Working as a team allowed us to play off each others' strengths and aided in decision-making.
READYING FOR LAUNCH
- Set up a business
- Paid for a professional edit
- Hired a cover designer
- Outsourced formatting to a HTML goddess because the book is full of links and redirects
- Test-marketed it with a select group of writers & used feedback to strengthen
MISTAKE: choosing a launch date and under-estimating the time it would take for setting up the business (two authors in different countries is a pain), uploading, formatting challenges, fixing last minute typos (again, our formatter Heather is worth her weight in gold!) This created lots of down-to-the-wire stress. Test marketing the book (while super valuable) also meant enabling changes late in the game.
First Hurdle: Launching A Book Without Feeling Like A Timeshare Salesman
For two writers who hate promoting, this was a massive challenge. Look at me! I have a book! Buy it! <---our personal nightmare. We needed a way to let people know about the ET but not be eye-bulging, book-waving maniacs about it. After many facetimes, we realized that to do this in a way that felt right, we needed to return to our AUTHOR BRAND: writers helping & supporting other writers.
“Random Acts of Kindness for Writers” became our secret plan: instead of making our release date about us, we would do something to celebrate & thank writers. This was risky in the sense that to do it authentically, we had to steer attention AWAY from our book’s release. However, we felt the reward was twofold--traffic to our site, and it allowed us a way to pour our flag-waving passion into celebrating people who really deserve recognition and yet rarely get it. This event aligned perfectly with our pay-it-forward beliefs, driving us to do all we could to make it a success.
For brevity's sake, I won’t get into the nuts and bolts of how we set up the RAOK Blitz (but if enough people wish it, I can expand on this in a future post). Suffice to say it drew thousands of visitors and hundreds of writers participated, becoming a huge ‘feel good’ week for everyone that showcased the generous spirits of our Writing Community. :)
Marketing Boost: Becca and I gave away a free PDF called ‘Emotion Amplifiers’ as our RAOK gift to writers. This PDF booklet is a companion to The Emotion Thesaurus and has a similar layout. Our hope was that if a writer found it helpful, they might check the ET as well. (It’s still in our sidebar if you want a copy and helps with describing conditions like pain, exhaustion, stress, inebriation, etc.)
Second Hurdle: Reviews
A self-published book that is also non-fiction? Rough. Many professional reviewers will not take on SP books, and those that do usually only read fiction. So, instead of seeking out review sites, we put out a call out to Bookshelf Muse readers and asked if any of them were interested in reviewing the book. After all, the ET is BY writers FOR writers. Who better to review it? :)
We could not accommodate all the requests that came in, so we chose some reviewers strategically for their audience reach, and others through a random draw.
MISTAKE: We should have arranged for reviews much sooner. Due to not leaving ourselves enough time to get the book ready to go, we were unable to get a decent version out to reviewers until close to launch or after.
LUCK! Many people, after buying and using the ET, were so happy with it they wrote reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.
MORE LUCK! These reviews swayed even MORE people to take a chance on the book, and they in turn became avid word-of-mouth spreaders, telling writing friends and critique partners all about The Emotion Thesaurus. This led to better sales, top 20 ranking in several (paid) writing categories for print & kindle, a strong Amazon Best Sellers Rank, and placement on the Top Rated, Best Selling & Most Wished For lists (writing).
Marketing Tactics - Swag
We chose to invest in a postcard-sized bookmark that doubles as a Revision Tool. Many bookmarks lie forgotten in a drawer, or they end up being recycled. We wanted ours to stay right beside the computer during revisions, so we printed a ‘Crutch Word List’ on one side--words we commonly overuse and need to weed out. Our hope was that by making our swag useful, writers would hang onto it!
Spreading the word about a book can be difficult, so we put out a call (again utilizing our blog readers) and asked if people would be willing to take our bookmarks and hand them out to critique groups, or give them out at conferences and workshops. This allowed us to reach out beyond our own circle and hopefully reach new readers.
MISTAKE (?) This was a bit pricey considering the postage involved (some were sent worldwide), and took time to get addresses and mail out. We had no way to track the effectiveness. And while I have heard from people who said they saw them at conferences or were given one by another writer, we are not sure if the ‘mail out’ idea brought a significant return. But, the postcards are super handy to have at events where Becca and I are presenting, and we can pass them out afterward to keep the ET in people’s minds. So overall, this swag was worth it!
Marketing Tactics - Discoverability
The bulk of our marketing energy went into discoverability. Because we have such an amazingly supportive audience at The Bookshelf Muse, we chose a 'grassroots' approach rather than solicit big bloggers/sites for exposure. In our initial blog post asking for assistance from readers, we utilized a sign up form so the people who wanted to help us could, and in a manner that most appealed to them. The results of this was amazing--so many people offered to help get the word out!
One of our biggest needs was bloggers willing to host us for a visit. We were overwhelmed with gratitude to see how many people were willing to do this (have I mentioned how great you all are?) and we actually had to change how our form was worded to include offering book excerpts and reblogging previous TBM posts to accommodate the response. We ended up with over 115 hosts all told.
Attempting so many guest posts caused panic attacks, obsessive chocolate binging, feelings of inadequacy *coughs* was daunting. But Becca organized everything (SHE IS AMAZING!) and put us on an aggressive schedule that would allow us to finish them all within a 4 month window. We created a master list of topics, most centered directly on content that would tie into Emotion & Body Language, so that each post was a planned, quality post. The best thank you to those who offered to help us was to write content that would bring them strong traffic, not just exposure for us.
GUEST POST TIP: We did our best to thank personally every person who hosted and helped. We also shared all links on our social networks to bring new people to their blogs. We truly appreciated their time and energy, and their desire to see us succeed.
MISTAKE #1: biting off more than we could chew. This was an enormous amount of guest posts (with more requests coming in as a result of this visibility) and so it meant we were both unable to write anything but blog content for a good 4 months. We managed to get them done and we have no regrets because of the great exposure, but it also meant other things slipped. There were a few blogging relationships and opportunities we were unable to stay on top of because we were so busy posting elsewhere. We also had a tough time commenting on blogs and getting email written. With such a strict timeline to adhere to, I worried about messing up and forgetting something vital, letting a host down.
MISTAKE #2: not thinking enough about how to keep up with our own blog AND everyone else’s. Luckily as we met new people at different blogs, we found folks who wanted to guest post for us. We were able to give them exposure in return and bring some good content to the blog (LUCK!) So while we made a mistake about over committing, it worked out.
MORE LUCK! These ‘seed’ guest posts led to some writing communities and bigger organizations contacting us. This resulted in book reviews and giveaways that were included in newsletters and offered exposure with bigger audiences. The Discoverability Tour worked!
Marketing Tactics: Giveaways
We utilized giveaways to generate interest in our book and bring attention to some of the blogs we visited. We purposefully did not host book giveaways during the month of May to encourage people to buy, not wait to win. We had a few giveaways in June and then more in July, August and September. Some were bigger exposure opportunities like being featured in a banner at the Writer’s Knowledge Base and as a prize at Ink Pageant (thanks guys--you rock!) We tried to go where our readers would be, and took advantage of opportunities that allowed us to reach beyond the Kidlit & YA writer’s network we know best in order to create inroads with Christian and other Adult genres who might not know us or The Bookshelf Muse.
Marketing Tactics: Distribution Channels
Becca and I talked about going KDP Select but neither of us could see the benefit to doing so right out the gate. In our minds, we wanted to ask a fair price for the books and have it available across as many channels as possible to reach readers where they are, not where we ‘chose’ to be. We distributed widely and included a PDF option for those who did not have ereaders or who felt more comfortable with PDF format. For those who like numbers, here’s the breakdown to 10,000 which we hit in September:
| SW | iTunes | CS-Amazon.com (PRINT) | B&N | Kindle (Amazon.com) | Kindle (Amazon Euro) | Kobo | PDF | Total |
|
May | 17 | 10 | 243 | 62 | 412 | 25 |
| 102 | 871 |
|
June | 13 | 19 | 503 | 66 | 905 | 50 |
| 89 | 1645 |
|
July | 13 | 22 | 887 | 78 | 1334 | 77 |
| 76 | 2487 |
|
August | 13 | 33 | 893 | 56 | 1297 | 103 |
| 60 | 2455 |
|
September | 10 | 32 | 1036 | 53 | 1282 | 151 | 21* | 47 | 2632 |
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Total: | 66 | 116 | 3562 | 315 | 5230 | 406 | 21 | 374 | 10090 |
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*Prior to September, Kobo sales were bundled with Smashwords. Once Kobo created their own distribution, we uploaded direct. Sony sales are under the Smashwords umbrella.
You will notice that Print is quite strong. We believe this is partly because many writers like 'craft' books in paperback. We also have had feedback that some original digital buyers were so pleased with the ET, they later decided to invest in a print version, too.
Pricing: We chose the 4.99 price point for digital, and 14.99 for print. We have not changed the price nor offered the book for free. In the future we may change our pricing, but for now it works well with Extended Distribution, which we sell enough through to make it important to keep.
MISTAKE: not enabling Extended Distribution right from the start. Originally we didn’t think it would do us much good, until we realized without it, we could not get onto Amazon.ca. Seeing as I live in Canada, it is important that the people I meet at events or at my workshops have a way to get the book. Not doing this before May meant a six week lag of fielding emails from Canadians unable to buy the book.
Marketing Tactics: Paid Advertizing
We opted to not invest in any paid advertising. I think this was the right decision for us, but do see us choosing a few select ads in the future.
Where We Got Extra Lucky
- Winning Top 20 Best Blogs For Writers with Write To Done a few months before The Emotion Thesaurus released. This raised our profile significantly, and at a critical time.
- Once sales started climbing, Amazon would send out mailers to people who purchased writing related books, and sometimes The Emotion Thesaurus was listed as a ‘Those that purchased X might also like’ pick.
- A price war between B & N and Amazon. For the last week of September, the two duked it out, lowering the book’s price daily until the discount put it under 10 bucks. Average sales nearly doubled for print (although sales dipped that week for Kindle).
A Few Extraneous Mistakes
- Not soliciting endorsements. We didn’t do this in advance of publishing the ET because we were worried about being turned down, worried about getting the cold shoulder because we were newcomers and new authors. Now more than ever we are seeing an acceptance of SP, and of Traditional authors making the leap. Endorsements probably would have helped us greatly and so moving forward we’ll be seeking them out.
- Not believing in ourselves enough at the start. I think we wasted a lot of energy on doubt because we hadn’t published before (except in magazines) and we were afraid that while we felt The Emotion Thesaurus added value, others would not. The response to The Emotion Thesaurus has been nothing short of phenomenal and knowing that Illinois State University is using it in their Creative Writing curriculum makes us incredibly proud. A self published book going to University...who would have thought?
Thoughts to Leave You With
Looking back, I believe we did two things right that led to everything else:
First, we created a book that readers are very happy with, and it fulfills a need in a way that they are excited to share it with people they know. (We are so, so, SO grateful to this word-of-mouth. Thank you all for doing this!)
Second, we live our brand: writers who help and support other writers. This is who we are! We love writers and have forged genuine relationships with our readers. When we needed help to spread the word, people responded, and more than that, became our advocates. There are not enough thank yous in the world for me to say what this means to us.
If I can encourage writers planning to publish to do one thing beyond the above, it’s to be authentic in whatever you do. When you build your platform, start in advance and think very hard about what your brand will be. Be yourself, be likable, do what feels right and resonates with who you are. Understand your audience, their likes and dislikes, and search them out. Use keywords to find blogs, forum discussions and hashtags that will help you discover people who might be interested in a book like yours. Interact, be genuine and think about how you can add value, not how you can market to them. Focus on giving, not getting. Trust that the rest will come. :)
Do you have any questions about what we did or why? Becca and I are happy to answer if we are able. And again, the biggest, squishiest, bacon-filled thank you for all your support of us and the ET. Your word-of-mouth has allowed writers and teachers everywhere to discover this book!
Hi Everyone! I am super-pleased to welcome author
Peter Salomon to the blog. Peter's new YA book,
HENRY FRANKS just released through
Flux and I can't wait to snag a copy. The blurb is at the end--read it and you'll see why! However, just to tease you a little, here's a snippet:
Four thousand, three hundred and seventeen stitches, his father had told him once.
All the King's horses and all the King's men had put Henry Franks back together again.
Now here's Peter & his thoughts on After The First Draft.
~ ~ * ~ ~
Congratulations, you've finished the first draft of your novel! I'm serious, this is something that calls for a minor celebration. There are untold numbers of people who have thought "I should write a book" and never started, or started and never finished. You've finished! This is great.
Now the hard part starts.Yes, I'm sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news but, all things considered, writing that first draft will probably turn out to have been easier, simpler and FAR quicker than revising/editing the thing.
But, and this is important: just as there were times while you were writing that first draft where you might have wanted to give up, thinking 'this'll never be over' or 'this is taking forever' there will be those same moments as you edit...and, guess what? Just as you did finish that first draft, you will finish the second draft as well.
Of course, there will most likely be a lot more rounds of revision before your novel is ready to query agents about. And, even then, after signing with an agent? More edits. After the novel sells? Yes, that's right: more edits.
So, there are two ways to look at that finished document, after typing "The End" for the first time on that first draft: 1) It's perfect as is, I hate editing, let's query now and 2) EVERYTHING else...because #1 is a TERRIBLE idea.
There are a number of wonderful books out there to help you edit (my personal favorite is 'Self-Editing For Fiction Writers' by Renni Brown and Dave King so the actual nuts-and-bolts of editing and revising can be found elsewhere.
Instead I'd like to talk about 'Attitude.' Yes,
attitude.
I know editing is hard, revising seems insurmountable, the book's done, it's hard to work up the same passion once 'The End' has been typed, that passion that drove you to the page, kept you thinking of the characters even when you weren't writing, had you having conversations between your characters in your head as you drove or showered or slept. That's the power of writing, it's so much a part of why we do what we do and it's wonderful.
That passion kept you writing even when you wanted to give up, even when the end of that first draft seemed so very far away.
And now you're done, you celebrated finishing the first draft. You told everyone you'd finished your novel. You posted it on Facebook. You Tweeted it.
Now the celebration is over and you have two things left to do. They are NOT query and sell the novel. I know, that's the goal and it's within reach now that you've finished that first draft. But not quite yet. Not now.
1) Let it sit. Untouched. Unread. A lot of people will tell you to let it sit for a certain number of weeks. Even a month. More. Let it sit. Ignore it. This is great advice. Has no relation to the reality of the pull that manuscript will have on you, calling to you: "Read Me!" So, my advice isn't so much a time frame as it is another 'attitude.' Let it sit just a little longer than is comfortable. As in, if a week after you finished you feel up to that read-through, that first round of edits, then give it just another day or two and get to it. Just let it sit long enough so that the passion starts coming back for those characters, that plot.
2) Revise and revise again, so many times that you honestly can't answer people when they ask 'which draft are you on?' And it's not a matter of 'each draft' being a complete revision or edit. Sometimes you go though the manuscript looking to fix one particular thing every time it pops up (see The Emotion Thesaurus for an example: you might be simply fixing how many times your main character shrugs on one read-through).
And 3) most importantly of all: love that revision process. Know that anyone who takes the time to give you constructive criticism has only one goal in mind: helping YOU make YOUR manuscript better. They are trying to help, always. And helping is good. Revising is good. No matter how long it takes, no matter how many times you want to give up, throw in the towel, raise the white flag. One day, you'll look back after finishing a final read-through and remember that first draft and you'll realize how much work it really did need, how much work you did, how much better the final version is.
And it will all be worth it the first time you post to Facebook that you sold your book. And Tweet the cover art. And open the box with the ARCs from your publisher. Hold the finished book in your hands.
That is the goal. Loving revision will help you get there. Because you will have to revise and edit no matter what attitude you go into the process with, so you might as well learn to love it. It will make it easier, it will make your agent and editor love working with you (always a good thing). And it will teach you so very much, so that when you sit down to start writing your next book you won't make the same errors (oh, there will always be new errors to make but still) the next time will be just that little bit easier. And you'll love the process just that little bit more.
And that calls for another celebration!
~ ~ * ~ ~
One year ago, a terrible accident robbed Henry Franks of his mother and his memories. The past sixteen years have vanished. All he has now are scars and a distant father—the only one who can tell Henry who he is.
If he can trust his father.
Could his nightmares—a sweet little girl calling him Daddy, murderous urges, dead bodies—help him remember?
While a serial killer stalks their small Georgia town, Henry unearths the bitter truth behind his mother’s death—and the terrifying secrets of his own dark past.
Sometimes, the only thing worse than forgetting is remembering.
(I promised you a killer blurb, didn't I?) Like Peter, I think attitude is what gives writers the fortitude to see a book through from first draft tot he shelf. Adopting a learner's spirit will help you embrace the revision process. It becomes a wonderful thing to see a book evolve from humble beginnings to a final. polished and world-ready tale.
A big thank you to Peter for hanging out with us, and showing what sustained him through the process. If you would like to find out more about
HENRY FRANKS, you can visit Peter's
website and
read the first scene of the book and if you like,
add the book to your Goodreads list. Find out more about Peter at his
blog, follow him on
Twitter &
Facebook!Musers, your turn! Did you find you needed to shift your attitude to push through the revision process? What helped you persevere?
by Deren Hansen
I once heard
Julie Wright say,
"Don't beat yourself up. The publishing industry will do it for you."
Which, of course, reminded me of
Bob Dylan's, "Everybody Must Get Stoned," and my own comments about the
great chain of rejection that is the publishing industry.
But I think there's more to this than a lets-feel-good-about-ourselves moment.
To begin with, there's clearly a difference between self-criticism and beating oneself up. Where the latter is about grief spirals and pity parties, the former involves a realistic assessment of where you are and constructive plans to improve.
There will, naturally, be people who hate your work and loath you, often for reasons entirely beyond your control. But the number of unambiguous foes, who would gladly beat you up if given the chance, is dwarfed by the vast majority of people who inadvertently beat you up because they need an excuse to not pay attention to you.
You can understand this behavior in terms of the query problem. An agent who gets thousands of queries a year when they might realistically be able to take on one or two new clients doesn't open each query hoping it will be the one. They're looking for the quickest way to determine if it's something they can safely ignore. It's nothing personal. It's simply the most rational way to deal with an avalanche of material.
So beyond the simple psychology of a positive attitude, if you don't believe in yourself, who will? If you're not your own best advocate, who's going to do it for you?
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By: LuAnn Schindler,
on 3/9/2011
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When I took my first fiction writing course in college, the professor compared our weekly writing assignments to a contest. On Mondays, we received a word count and a theme. During class time, each of us roadmapped a perfect plot, played with character development, created a distinct mood.
On Friday, we handed our (usually) handwritten stories to the person on our left for their consumption (or condemnation, depending on the student). Occasionally, we'd read aloud to the rest of the class. By the following Monday, professor would select a winning story of the week and share it with us.
I never won. But, this method of instruction - hours filled with nothing but writing and honing the craft - provided one of the greatest lessons about the writing contests: competition develops writing skills.
Why should YOU enter a writing contest? I'll share four lessons I learned:
- Guidelines offer focus. Writing within parameters forces you to focus on your message. Word baggage is eliminated and the piece forms a tightly-written story. A theme provides focus, but it does not limit your imagination. Creativity in plot and word choice are limitless! Even genre-specific contests let you stretch your writing prowess by crafting a new world or twisting history.
- Attitude is everything. Did I stop writing when I didn't win in class? Heck, no. I never gave up. Instead, the competition and my lack of "prized success" pushed me to develop my craft by tuning in to what wasn't working in my stories. I never viewed those works as failures. They just weren't what the instructor was looking for. A positive attitude makes a difference, and I was positive to continue trying!
- Contests give writers permission to write. If you're set on entering a contest, you've given yourself permission to schedule time to write. Sometimes outside forces control the amount of time we dedicate to our craft, but knowing you have a deadline and plan to enter your best work gives you the say-so to make time to write.
- Writing increases confidence. I've entered several poetry contests and I've experienced some success. It's a confidence boost! Even when I didn't win the grand prize, I made fantastic discoveries: what judges are looking for, what writing styles do or don't work, how other writers approach the challenge. These lessons also boost belief in my work.
Entering a writing contest may be a big step for a writer, but it's an action that will enhance your writing.
by LuAnn Schindler. Read more of LuAnn's work at her website. Graphic design by LuAnn Schindler
Last week an editor at a custom publication made a crazy request: She wanted a revise of an article — by the next day. It wasn’t her fault; the pub’s client stalled on reading over the article, and then decided they needed the revise right before the publication was being laid out for printing.
My mind spun as I tried to figure out how I’d juggle my other commitments to accommodate this request. I groused to my husband about clients who sit on copy for two weeks and then need changes in a day. I called a friend and did some more kvetching. Then I sent an e-mail to my editor with three words:
“I’m on it.”
I then worked my ass off to make the requested changes. At the end of it all, my editor looked like a hero to her client. Even better, she doubled my fee without my asking.
Another editor e-mailed to let me know that a product my source picked for a product review piece –which I turned in over two weeks ago — was no longer in production. Could I get another recommendation and write up a description today?
I complained to my poor husband (he hears a lot of it), then sent my editor a three-word e-mail:
“I’m on it.”
Then I had a back-and forth via e-mail with the source until we found a product that was a good replacement for the original one. My editor, who was rushing to meet a deadline of her own, was grateful. A week later, I had another assignment from her, and I noticed that my payrate was slightly higher.
When an editor makes a request, you have three choices:
1. You can decide that it’s unreasonable and that you can’t (or won’t) do it, and let the editor know.
2. You can decide that you can do it, but because of the rush/extra work outside the scope of the original assignment/etc., you’ll need a bump up in your payrate.
3. You can tell your editor that you can help her — and tell her with a smile.
All three of these options are valid and you’ll use all of them in your freelance career. But if you know you’re going to do it, even if you really don’t want to, it doesn’t make sense to complain to the editor, use passive-aggressive language in your e-mail, stall, or otherwise make yourself into a PITA. Grouse to your significant other, call a friend to bitch, punch some pillows to get the frustration out of your system, and then tell your editor you’re on it and apply butt to chair to get it done.
I’m not talking about major work here, like rewriting an article with five additional sources and 800 additional words. You should certainly say no to any attempts to take advantage of you. I’m talking about requests that are inconvenient because they disrupt your schedule, that may seem a bit unfair because they’re so last-minute, but that in reality don’t take a ton of extra work. When I get requests like these, I often get a little upset because I have to get back into the assignment mindset when I finished the copy weeks ago and have moved on to new things. But I suck it up and get it done. Maybe that’s why I get assignment after assignment from a core group of great clients.
I guess it’s all about attitude.
When an editor comes to you with a last-minute request, decide which of the three options will work for you, And if it’s #3, tell the editor, “I’m on it!” [lf]
Attitude is Everything by Vanessa Nix AnthonyMy son reminds me most everyday that attitude is everything. Through his actions (his ability to recover from a bad fall with just a quick snuggle) and through his reactions to my temperament. I find that on days that I am stressed out, pushing to meet deadline, he cries out more for my attention. The more I try to quickly placate and send him on his way, the less contented he is. But the days when I successfully remain present in the moment and flexible to what the day brings the smoother things run.
Today, I sat down to work at 7am and though I took a break for lunch, I pretty much worked straight through the day. Juno had his daddy to keep him company. But at 3pm today, when I got up from my chair to use the bathroom, my nearly two-year-old son waved goodbye to my computer, clapped his hands and gave me an excited grin of anticipation. I knew that was it. Mama had to take a break and spend some time with her baby.
I sat down on the floor and he ran over grinning. He wrapped his arms around my neck and gave me a big hug and a kiss. He was grateful for my attention -- that I had heard him. We spent a good amount of time playing, putting puzzles together- giggling and chatting, just sharing time together. I got a much needed break, a good stretch on the floor and some really great time with my son. He got to know that he’s a priority and that I will stop down and take a break to be with him.
I did a lot today: research, queries, blog entries- even this piece. I also got to share in some fun and in some home-cooked meals around our kitchen table.
Were there still things looming on my to-do list at the end of the day? Sure. Would I have liked to do more research, gotten my desk drawers organized or the baby book up-to-date? Yes. A hike would have been nice, too or working on my knitting or a myriad of other things. But there are only so many hours in each day.
I could look at all that I did NOT accomplish today and be miserable. I could have been more rigid and said, "Mama needs to work right now, honey." I would have gotten more done but I wouldn't be any more satisfied with my day or my life.
My hubby and I have a kind of ritual we do. We didn't plan it or sit down and come up this—it happened quite naturally and continues on today. Before we drift off to sleep, one of us will say, "I had good day with you, hon," and the other will answer back. Soon we are listing the things that made the day so good. It falls from our lips, effortlessly. Usually, these things seem simple or plain to the untrained ear: "kept the house picked up," "got such and such a project done," "lunch or dinner was great," "the walk was nice," or "Juno did the funniest thing."
Nothing special, some would say, but I to me it's the most special. Happiness doesn't live, in the highest of highs. It's not winning a million dollars (though that would be nice) or driving a fancy car or having some inordinate amount of power. True happiness lives in the little moments—how you spot them and what you make of them. In this, each day holds the key to bliss and these little moments, strung together, bring true joy.
If you ask me if I am satisfied today or most days, I will tell you unreservedly, yes.
It was one of the best.
* * *
Vanessa Nix Anthony is a freelance writer who contributes to a variety of magazines, newspapers and online media outlets nationwide. She also writes a resource blog for Portland area writers called
By: Lia Keyes,
on 6/10/2010
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One of the most magical storytelling tools in the novelist’s arsenal is that of point of view, or POV for short. Your choice of point of view will determine the quality of the connection your reader feels, not only to your character, but to the point you’re discussing within your story.
Who do you want the [...]
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By:
Shari Lyle-Soffe ,
on 1/25/2010
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How many times did I say that to my kids? More times than I can count. I hope I can offer some suggestions and tips that will make it easier for parents and kids to get the bedroom clean with minimal friction.Parents: Make your child's room an atmosphere they will want to keep clean. Sometimes we decorate our kid's rooms as we would want them. Be sure the decor is pleasing to the child, not just to you. Ask them what they would like, and let them make color choices, ( within reason. Our son wanted to paint his room black. I put my foot down on that one.) Allow your children to browse through magazines and look for rooms or features they would like to have. "A place for everything and everything in it's place" is a valuable reminder of how to keep order. I sometimes come across items when I am cleaning house that just don't seem to have "a place". You can waste a lot of time trying to figure out what to do with that item. Adding it to a designated place where it doesn't belong can throw your order out of whack and can become a slippery slope to chaos.Children need colorful baskets and bins that are designated for specific items. They may need labels to remind them what goes where. Make it easy for children to keep things in order. Put things at your child's level so they don't have to throw things up high where they can't reach. They need convenient hooks for handing up jackets, caps, mittens, backpacks and they should be within their reach. Rooms need to be set up with designated areas for specific purposes. If your child plays in his/her room you will need to arrange for areas for art, puzzles and games, clothes, school work and supplies, collections, etc. Children need different things at different ages. Keep that in mind when planning the room. Make sure furniture is the right size for the age of the child. Give them adequate light for working on homework or puzzles, etc. Organization is more important than cutesy themes, although they can sometimes go together, but keep in mind that you want the kids to learn to clean up after themselves so make it fun and easy for them. Make sure the space or container is large enough and the right shape to hold the things that are supposed to go in it. A round basket is not a good holder for rectangular coloring books. Re-evaluate the plan periodically. Remember children grow, needs and interes
By:
Darcy Pattison,
on 4/22/2009
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Yesterday, I started brainstorming on revisions for a picture book. I got some editorial feedback in February when I saw the editor in NYC. But it’s been hard to approach this revision because when we talked, I disagreed with much of what the editor said.
Cooling Off Period Helps Me See Editor’s Wisdom
So, I put it aside for a while and when I went back with a more objective look, I could at least understand the editor’s position. That’s a good starting place. So, I opened the file, made a minor change and then saved it with a new title, “MssForThisEditor.” This way, I keep the original story intact and label this version as revised just to address one editor’s concerns.
Then, I attempted to throw away all my preconceived notions of what this story was and where it could and should go. I started jotting ideas, objections, words, imagery, rants against the suggested changes, rants against the rants, and generally preparing myself mentally to revise. I allowed a couple hours for this, then moved to a different task.
This morning, My Subconscious told me that it had been working on the problem overnight and had some ideas. Well. That was a surprise.
Good. My Conscious still likes the original better, but I’ll let ol’ Sub work a while today and see what happens.
Post from: Revision Notes
Revise Your Novel!
Copyright 2009. Darcy Pattison. All Rights Reserved.
Related posts:
- Revision Attitude: Cut Short That Pity Party
- 3 NaNoWriMo Tips to Make Revision Easier
- Stay Focused on Revision
By:
Darcy Pattison,
on 4/9/2009
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Commitment v. Revision
Your total commitment to the current draft of your novel is in direct conflict with the need to maintain an attitude of revision
Teaching Freshmen to Have an Attitude of Revision
When I taught Freshman Composition at a local college, I started on the first day by pairing students up with a partner and asking them to tell a story, a personal narrative. The story had to be something in which they were actively doing something, and it took place over only a 30-minute time period. And, since it was college, I forbade several topics: no boyfriend/girlfriend stories; no stories of senior trips where you attended the “Party of the Century”; and no car wrecks. I gave them one-and-a-half minutes each to tell their story.
Easy. They loved getting to chat with a fellow classmate, especially since as freshmen on the campus they still felt like strangers. They expected me to then ask them to write their story.
But even before a word is committed to the page, I wanted my students to consider revision. I asked them to tell the story again, a different way. Start at a different place, end at a different place, start at a different time, include details you forgot the first time, omit details that didn’t really matter, slow down and really remember what you did step-by-step, etc. This time, each story had to fill two minutes.
Were the stories better? Yes.
At the risk of my students thinking I was totally crazy, they had to tell their own story a third time, expanding even more to fill a full three minutes.
Then, they got to write their own story. Even at the early stage of prewriting – rehearsing a story orally to write later – writers need to remember that nothing is set in stone yet. Everything is open for change, until you are much farther along in the writing process.
A Novelist’s Attitude of Revision
Crude StoryCrafting. The first draft of a story is you mostly decide/find out one thing: what is the story I want to tell? Later drafts may or may not refine the story, but they will certainly address this concern: what is the best way to tell this story? For me, even as I write a draft, I’m always asking if this is the best way, the most dramatic way, the most emotionally involving way to tell my story. I realize that first drafts help me nail down characters, plots, settings and more. The next drafts may need drastic changes to some element here or there, but I hope the overall story shape emerges in the first draft.
Logical, Logistical Details. Second drafts need to fill in holes in the story. The narrative and emotional arcs need to build, events need to challenge the main character, characters need to reveal their inner lives. But you can’t leave major logical problems: readers must never be given any reason to doubt your storytelling. Logistically, you must make sure the transitions are appropriate and move the story smoothly from one scene to the next.
Focus on Storytelling Skills. For the later drafts, the storytelling skills come to the forefront, as you polish the language, pacing, and voice. This is one of the most fun stages of drafts, because I love to play with the language, trying out different words, different combinations of sounds, varying sentence length. It’s here that I like to challenge myself to use a really long sentence, maybe 200 words. And to use sentence fragments correctly and effectively. Fun!
A Novelist’s Passionate Commitment to the Current Draft
Commit to the Current Draft. So, while I write that first draft, I’m aware of what’s coming. But I also have to make an emotional commitment to this draft. Otherwise, my characters aren’t convincing, I won’t take the time to fully explore a setting because, “It might get cut in the next draft.” If I make the mistake of thinking this is a Kleenex Draft, then I’ll have to do many more drafts later.
Give. In her book, The Writing Life, Annie Dillard has said, “Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.”
Commit to the draft you are currently writing, but realize that this draft is the beginning of an exciting process. It should actually give you some relief: you don’t have to be perfect on this first draft. Just passionate.
Post from: Revision Notes
Revise Your Novel!
Copyright 2009. Darcy Pattison. All Rights Reserved.
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By:
Jenny Turner,
on 2/21/2009
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Okay, let's talk about selling books. Hey, readers, don't click away, this is about you too. I want to make a few points and then ask a few questions.
I am a firm believer in authors selling their own books. I think it builds great name recognition and good relations between fan and author. I think that readers are more open to making purchases when they feel secure about it. Several things factor into this. Appearance and Attitude (those of the author) being the two most important, in my mind.
The picture here is Young Adult author Jacquelyn Sylvan (Surviving Serendipity, 2008, Echelon Press) at the Free Library Book Festival in Philadelphia, PA. Jackie spent the day wearing her Surviving Serendipity T-shirt and hat while passing out bookmarks and flyers to anyone who didn't run away. And since Jackie has a brilliant smile and is one of the most approachable people I know, she spent a lot of time talking to people--no one ran away.
This leads me to the questions below.
READERS:
If you are a reader and go into a store and see an author sitting behind a table reading a book, or scribbling notes, or staring off into space, what do you do?
1. Walk up and introduce yourself.
2. Walk up and wait for them to notice.
3. Walk away and go off to find something interesting.
If you go into a store and see an author smiling, greeting people, and passing out bookmarks, what do you do?
1. Smile back, take a bookmark, and let the author give you their pitch.
2. Smile and say no thanks.
3. Walk as far away as you can so they won't talk to you.
AUTHORS:
If you are preparing for an event, you would wear the following:
1. A nice casual outfit, neatly pressed and fresh with hair combed.
2. Jeans and a T-shirt.
3. Whatever you had on that day when you left the house.
If you are an author and you are at an event how do you handle the following? You are set up at the front of the store and your books are all stacked. You go in and do what?
1. Greet the manager, introduce yourself to each staff member and hand them some bookmarks, then go back to wander around your table greeting customers.
2. You wave at the staff, head straight for your chair, sit down, and wait for the customers to come to you.
3. Go to your table, sit down, and get out your notebook to plot your next book.
BOOKSELLERS:
An author approaches you about an event, what makes you decide for or against an event?
This is an open questions, because we really want to know.
To all you BOOKSELLERS, I would like to make a few points in our defense (publishers and authors). These are some of the obstacles we have run against in trying to set up events, along with my hardsell counterpoints.
1. You are an unknown author, no one will come.
Counterpoint: We are unknown because of the lack of opportunities to meet the public and promote our work effectively in a relaxed and conducive environment (bookstore/library.)
2. Too much risk involved with new authors and buying their books.
Counterpoint: Generally speaking, most books are returnable (though we hate it) and at Echelon (I can't speak for any others) we do a great deal of pre-promotion to ensure that people know about the event and will attend. While there are no guarantees, we will do whatever we can to drive traffic to your store, and if they do not buy our books, we may in fact sell other items in your inventory.
3. No one comes to book signings anymore.
Counterpoint: This is because they are just that. Book signings, we want to offer events, with conversation and interaction and maybe even some fun. An Echelon author is not allowed to, nor do they want to, sit behind a table and wait for customers to come up. Echelon authors do events to meet readers and sell books.
I would ask BOOKSELLERS at this point to take a moment and answer the poll in the sidebar to let us know what we can do to bring back the fun for readers and authors and book events.
I love to know what people think on this subject.
The wonderful thing about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things.Who has a better attitude than Tigger? There isn't anything he can't do, or even won't do. He is a determined and loyal friend to all.Imagine if Tigger were a writer. How far do you think he would go to market and promote his books? I can just see Tigger bouncing from bookstore to bookstore.
Consider his enthusiasm for everything he does. He's always smiling, he's always friendly and he's always happy.
Readers are very sensitive to the words we offer, and that includes in person. If you are at an event or developing advertising and marketing make certain that your enthusiasm shines through. You have to consider that while you put a tremendous amount of work into your books, the readers also put a lot into earning the money they will spend on your books. You are responsible for giving them the very best reason to spend their money on you.
So no matter where you are who you are talking to about your books, put your best foot forward and bounce your way to success.
And if you're looking for a great read to get you bouncing through the day, check out
Operation: Stiletto at Amazon.com
©Karen L. Syed
I have it. In spades. Like this guy~
(A guy with attitude from some long ago art project.)
Today I received an email touting a career seminar in my area that would address the issue of
problem employees. Namely, ones with attitude. And I had to laugh, because as my own boss, I
deal with all of these issues in myself as my own employee. You know what I'm talking about. The two sides of yourself that have to work together when you're self-employed.
They ask~
Do you have employees who:
*don't meet deadlines?
doesn't happen often, or at all really, but its always there, threatening*make excuses?
hmmm...does being tired or really needing to watch Project Runway count?*refuse to learn new skills?
you mean like CS2 InDesign or Dreamweaver?*drain your time and energy?
like with all the useless "why do I bother" soliloquies?*have a bad attitude?
like grousing about how this doesn't pay enough or I don't have enough time...*are chronically tardy?
I can sleep another hour because heck, I'm self employed!*get derailed by personal problems?
you mean like life in general?I thought it was funny, but it also made me do a reality check about some of these issues. In order to be successful illustrators/designers/artists/art licensors/business people we have to have
discipline and a
good attitude going for us. We have to be good bosses as well as good employees. We have to manage ourselves well. And its not easy at times. I know I tend to let things slide a bit (like updating that mailing list or sending out samples or letting the excuse that my cats didn't want to get up in the morning be the reason I stayed in bed too long). And I can get pretty grumpy. OK,
really grumpy.
On the other end of the spectrum, you can't do everything in one day, and can't beat yourself up for not being superhuman. You can't update your portfolio, send out samples, redo your website, make all those phone calls, weed the yard, do all the laundry, cook home made meals and shampoo the carpets all
today.
(Unless you have staff, then they can pick up some of those chores, but even so, you'll have to have a meeting with them about how you want the yard done, the amount of starch to put in the linens, the week's menus and which carpets should be done when so you don't have a house full of wet carpets since guests are coming, etc.)And even if you have assistants for your work you have to go through the same thing with them.
So I guess the trick is to keep things balanced, and try to have a good attitude to go with it.
I'm going to try to be a better employee for my own business and keep my attitude properly adjusted. But also not beat myself up when absolutely everything doesn't get done all at once.
And eat more vegetables.
And stop watching the news altogether.
That's our goal. After months (years) of complaining about everything under the sun, my husband and I are trying to give up the habit. We saw a story on CBS Sunday Morning about "A Complaint Free World" and decided that this was our last hope. In case you're not familiar with the concept:
Our words are powerful indicators of our thoughts, and our thoughts create our lives. When we complain, we draw to us negative things because we put out negative energy. Therefore, one of the most important things we do is to learn not to complain.
And, in order to remind ourselves not to complain (for a small, tax-deductible fee), we were sent purple bracelets to wear. Apparently, you're supposed to put it on one wrist or the other. If (when) you find yourself complaining about ANYTHING, you must remove the bracelet and put it on the opposite wrist. The objective is to wear it on one wrist exclusively for 21 straight days.
Now, please tell me how this is possible in a world of never-ending war and astronomical gas prices?!
(Oh. Hang on a minute while I switch wrists)
...Politics being thrown at you 24/7??
(Sorry. Gotta change)
And, HAVE YOU BOUGHT A GALLON OF MILK LATELY??
(Excuse me, again)
Not to mention the fact that there are three houses in foreclosure in our neighborhood and several more with rusty, faded For Sale signs.
(Uh-oh. Wonder how strong these bracelets are? Hope they can handle lots of stretching)
Well, you get the idea. Here's the link to the website, if you dare. Bwwahahahah...
A Complaint Free World
P.S. We also bought bracelets for our kids and friends!
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 9/26/2007
Blog:
PaperTigers
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The Pacific Rim Down Under is home to a vibrant community of children’s book enthusiasts, authors and illustrators. Unpacking first at the PaperTigers website, here’s a list of reading lists, with links of course, on Oz. Then peruse this annotated list of non-fiction books and book series about Oz for children, with links to other lists of Australia-related picture books, animal books, and fantasy books. The Children’s Book Council of Australia has links to award-winning children’s books by and about Australians. The University of Canberra’s Lu Rees archives of children’s literature has great resources as well. The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators of Australia links to members’ sites.
Now that we’ve done the flyover, we’ll be zooming in periodically for close-up snapshots of Oz for Kids; stay tuned.
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You are two amazing ladies.
Awesome and congrats on reaching 10K! The next milestone will be 100k within the coming year! I know it! :)
Congrats!! I was part of RAOK and it was just awesome. I loved the attention to detail you gave with your posts. It was fool proof. Made it easier to post. I also loved getting personalized thank yous. You guys rock!
AWESOME!! I'm so happy for you! And what an epic post of sharing-awesome this is. Off to share it... :)
this is amazing! congratulations to both of you, and thanks so much for sharing :D
Aw you guys, thanks!!
Seriously, none of this would have happened without our amazing supporters. Becca and I are so blessed to know so many great folks! We hope that future books in this series become just as helpful to writers as The Emotion Thesaurus!
Angela
Whew. What a wild ride this has been! But so incredibly rewarding. We really were so clueless when we started; that's one of the reasons we wanted to share this post, to get a little more information out there about the process, so maybe it's not so intimidating for someone else.
Thanks, everyone, for your support and encouragement!
10,000 copies! That's absolutely incredible--congratulations! You ladies deserve all the success you've had and more. Best of luck in the coming months!
Congratulations! You both deserve this success, and don't worry, we understand how swamped you've been. *hugs*
I love what you said about being authentic. That's a huge part of my beliefs too. Love you both!
I love the book. I even recommended it to my local writers group, and I know several of those writers purchased it. And like you said, some of them preferred the print version and didn't have any problems paying an extra $10 for it. Keep up the good work!
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Absolutely Awesome!! Loved RAOK and have linked to your website over the last few years on my weekly round up blog for writers here in NZ, highlighting ET and RAOK. I will be sharing this post as well...the journey is a good one to tell because all the way through it your integrity to the project and to each other and the huge impact on writers just shines through! I am proud to own a copy of ET! You deserve every success!
Probably the best post on this moving and difficult target that I have seen. Damn I nearly bought the book- I have never been any good at expressing emotions anyway!
As Arnie said- I'll be back!
You guys amaze me. What a great post! Thank you so much for sharing it with us. :D
Best wishes for your continued success!
Wow. This is extensive. This walk through will definitely help a few people.
(By the way, I was concerned about the profit you two were getting from the books, but after doing the math and calculating the loyalties, you two will probably be set. Yet again, we writers shouldn't be worrying about money too much.)
I only have one word for this post: Wow!
I knew about a lot of this, but you two still amaze me with all the work you put into the release of what is positively the best craft book available. :D
Thank you for sharing your experience through the whole process and what worked and what didn't. You two are truly amazing. All those guest posts! Oh my! You must have been living on adrenalin for those 4 months. I just can't fathom doing that. You two must have super powers! My little blog launch yesterday wiped me out. I'm spent, but the support was so uplifting. Thank you for the shout out, Angela.
I love a success story, and yours is a wonderful one. All that hard worked paid off. I love how you thought outside the box and how it worked for you, how word of your awesome book spread and led to another and then another opportunity for you. You covered to much in this post, and I can't respond to it all, except to say thank you for sharing this with us. Cheers to many more sales milestones and other books to come!
Thank you for sharing your journey! It helps to see what it takes to have patience, dedication and hard work and marketing:-). Congratulations!
Thanks so much for this great post. Awesome, awesome information in here. You guys are amazing :) I'm SO happy for you that the Emotion Thesaurus has done so well. Great job :)
Excellent post, Angela! And a huge thanks to you and Becca for being so generous with your time and information to help the rest of us budding indie authors.
All these tips are extremely useful, but the most important factor for your success is that you and Becca worked long and hard to produce a quality product filled with valuable info for fiction writers! And laid out in a very accessible way. It's an excellent resource that I recommend to all my fiction-writer clients! And I use it myself to offer suggestions for when they're stuck for character reactions to circumstances.
Kudos to you both!
Thanks for sharing this. I use my Emotion Thesaurus everyday I write. No lie! It has truly made me a better writer. Just as this blog has. Thanks you two! From the bottom of my heart.
Wow, what a detailed, valuable, thoughtful post. Congrats on reaching 10,000 in sales!
You're both so gracious to share your experiences with us. Congrat's on sales and also
as important is that you both put out a QUALITY product-
I refer to ET frequently (In hindsight I should have bought a print version, bought the K). Thanks.
Ahh, you guys!! This comment stream is stuffed with so many nice words I feel like it is Christmas. Again, you guys are the reason why we keep up this blog and write our books. Thank you for all you do, and for being so generous and fabulous. Each day we see how writers pull together to support and help each other out, and it is great. We are happy to contribute however we can. :)
Happy writing, everyone and have a fantastic weekend. :)
Angela
The RAOK campaign was fantastic! I hope you'll do it again soon. It shows how much the writing community really does give back. You all are the benchmark for writers helping writers. Best of luck to you and may it be another 10k in sales.
Thanks for all the kind words and good vibes :). It's a pleasure walking this road with all of you.
WOW! I got chills. It went to a university? Of course it did!!! And 10k copies already?
Of course!!
You two are the most awesoemest people I've come to get to know and it thrills me to see so much success. Very well deserved.
We appreciate you!
Woohoo on the 10k!!!! :) So awesome. Thrilled to see you ladies do so well - you deserve it! :)
I was awed every time you guys did a post on an emotion, let alone compiling an entire book and launching it. You've contributed so much, been so kind to others, that it doesn't suprise me you've hit 10k already. I expect those numbers to keep right on growing.
Congratulations and thank you.
I do hope you're partying!
Great post, and congrats!
Glad things worked out for you!!
Wow, congrats on such a crazy high number!! And thank you for such an honest (and helpful) post! You two deserve all the blessing that comes your way.
So proud of you guys! I bought a Kindle edition, and then, yes, did invest in a print copy as well - it's a great resource. Love your success story.
Thank you for sharing. Congratulations on your success and for providing the resources you do.
Thanks again so much for all the love and unwavering support--you guys are the best! :)
So exciting! I'm just thrilled for you guys. You've worked incredibly hard. This is such a great overview as well. Thank you for sharing.
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LOVE this. It's my ultimate goal. 10K per month online. Great stuff. Thanks.