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Author Archives: Eowyn


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How Does a Writer Balance Social Media and Writing?

Facebook.  Tweets.  Status updates.  Micro-blogging.

Everyone who’s anyone is all over social media these days.  To hear pundits tell it, social media is the best thing since sliced bread.  And if you’re an author or an inspiring author, “don’t leave home without it.”

Fine.  Now take a closer look.  “Social media” may be media, but is it really “social”?

Really?

“Social” means community.  Relationships.  Connecting, sharing, collecting, mutuality.  Give and take, as opposed to isolation “flying solo.”  Some of that does exist on the more popular social media channels.  You may even share links, retweet and reciprocate.  And you should.  But using social media to “build relationships”?  Really?  I’ve had occasion to rethink this lately.
What kind of “relationship” can you build with a status update?  Do you really get to know a person, what makes them tick, keeps them up late at night, or their favorite dessert in a 140-character tweet?  Oh, and one other thing.  Social media lends itself to full-blown narcissism like ugly on an ape.  Don’t go there.

Choose

Now, there’s nothing wrong with using social media to “get your message out” or “connect.”  But let’s realize it for what it is: a mile wide and a quarter inch deep.  A springboard, not the whole pool.   Let’s not confuse status updates with a genuine conversation.  Choose face-to-face over online whenever we can.

If you’re burying yourself in “social media” rather than having dinner with the fam, playing catch with the kids, or talking to gramps on the phone, you’re giving yourself and your relationships short-shrift.  If checking your email has turned into an addiction, see that for the red light it is.  If you’re more intent on blog stats than connecting with real flesh-and-blood humans, figure out what’s real and realign your priorities.

That old country/western tune got it right.  If you’re looking for real relationships with real people via a keyboard and an electronic box made for one, you’re “looking for love in all the wrong places.”

Go the extra mile

IMHO, writers need to go the extra mile in cultivating “social.”  Writing is a solitary endeavor.  It’s easy to “roll back the sidewalks,” close the door, burrow into your writing world and then fool yourself into thinking you’re “connecting” in any substantive manner through social media alone.

If you’re tweeting and blogging and Facebook-ing, great.  Just don’t stop there.  Get out and meet some new people.  Acquire a new hobby outside your own four walls.  Join a book discussion group.  Invite a neighbor to dinner.  Pick up the phone and connect with that friend you’ve “been meaning to call.”  You’ll not only gain some friends, but you’ll probably harvest a bumper crop of fresh story ideas and inspiration, too!

Don’t wait.  Do it today.

How do you balance “social” with “media”?

***

Grab a free copy of my micro ebook, Skipping the Tiramisu: Becoming The Writer You Were Born to Be when you subscribe to my monthly-ish newsletter, Wreal 8.

To thank you for reading and being awesome, both are FREE!


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Uncanny, Isn’t It?

Uncanny, isn’t it?  Try though I might to set aside an hour a day to write, the “interruptions” flood in like Hurricane Hugo.  The doorbell.  Phone.  Dog.  Kids. Laundry.  Raspberry white chocolate cheesecake.

The computer where I do most of my brilliant blogging is in the bedroom.  This works pretty well for that coveted “quiet spot” – until sibling rivalry in the living room breaks into a three-alarmer.  Or the dog wants to go out.  Or dinner is burning.  Or a sink full of dirty dishes awaits.

I’ve learned to stuff my pockets with 3 x 5-inch spiral bound notebooks.  They’re small, lightweight and portable.  They also don’t require an outlet or Wi-Fi, so I can readily jot down any inspiration that may strike on the hiking trail, in a canoe, at the beach or on a mountain top.  I scribble down my impressions and try to decipher the hieroglyphics at the keyboard later.  Sometimes it even works.

Here’s my question.  Are you deliberate about setting time aside in your day to write?  This may include journaling, jotting down notes or ideas for future development, outlining a short story or your next great work of fiction, or rewrites on a current writing project.

Do you discipline yourself to practice writing on a regular basis?  If so, how, when and where?  What obstacles or interruptions have you overcome?  Share it with us in the comments section.


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Aw, phooey

Aw, phooey.

The envelope arrived in the mail with the self-addressed label I’d affixed some weeks prior.  Inside was a nice tri-folded typed note that read:

“Thank your for submitting your book proposal to ____ _____ (unnamed publisher).  We have reviewed the materials and have decided that the book is not quite right for our current publishing program.”

What does “not quite right” mean?  Is it within a millimeter of being “right,” or a mile and a half?  And if a publishing program isn’t “current,” what is it?  An antique?  In the future?

It’s okay

Alright.  So I’m in a bit of a blue funk.  Know what?  I’ve decided blue funks are okay.  For a time.

If you’ve poured heart and soul into a manuscript and slaved long weeks over just the “right” turn of a phrase, agonized over pacing and rhythm, polished dialogue and plot to a bright sheen only to have “The Editors’ reject your magnum opus, there’s a word for the experience: disappointment.  Aka: Aw, phooey.

And that’s okay.  It’s okay to admit that something hurts when it does.

What’s not okay is to let it take you out for the count.  To get so discouraged that you give up.

The territory

The truth?  If you’ve been writing for more than ten minutes or so, you know that rejection letters come with the territory.  Don’t take them personally. And don’t let them stop you from doing what you were born to do: write!

Now, if “the editors” have specified how or why your latest sparkling masterpiece isn’t “quite right” for their “current publishing program,” listen up and learn.  Avoid making the same mistakes twice.

More often than not, however, such letters offer little or no useful advice in the how or why departments.  When that happens, you might:

– Submit elsewhere

– Rewrite and re-submit

– Rework a current manuscript for a different publisher

– Pare down a manuscript into an article or an article series and sell it to a magazine

– Set aside the rejected mss. and start something new

– Treat yourself to another slice of raspberry white chocolate cheesecake with double hot fudge

– Pack your bags and head to Tibet.

A win-win

Before you dive into that last one, try offering your writing skills to a non-profit.  Volunteer to write for and/or edit their newsletter and other publications.  This can be a great opportunity to network.  It may even turn into a paying gig.  If it doesn’t, you’re still building relationships, polishing your skills and helping someone.  It’s a chance to turn an “aw, phooey” into a win-win.

Have you received a rejection letter?  How did you turn it into a “win-win”?


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Just Do It

If you’re a blogger, you’re bound to hit The Wall sooner or later.  If you’re reading this, you know what I mean: the “blank screen” bloggers hit when they’re fresh out of ideas.

It’s not unusual.  Skim the blogosphere for any length of time and you’re bound to snag posts like, 20 topic suggestions for writing blog posts, or 10 ideas for awesome blog posts.  A lot of people spill considerable ink telling other people how to come up with fresh ink.

Keeping up a blog is hard work.  Let’s face it: sometimes the well runs dry.

So rather than regale you with more brilliant ideas or suggestions for writing winning blog posts, let me offer a suggestion you don’t hear much:

Take a break.

Take a Vacation

That’s right.  Take a blogging vacation.  Let your readers know that while you appreciate their loyalty, you need some time to recharge the ‘ole creative batteries.  You might let them know how long you plan to be away and when you plan to return.  Then disconnect.  Really.

Instead of blogging, go for a walk.  Play with your kids.  Eat a banana split.  Take up line-dancing, a watercolor class, or wood carving.  Find a new author.  Make a new friend.  Change the oil in your car.  Quit stressing about your next blog post or series.  There’s something therapeutic and bracing about shifting gears, trying something novel, exploring new territory.  Whatever it takes to replenish the well.

Productive ‘Down Time’

I know, I know.  This may seem counter-intuitive for some, especially you Type-A personalities.  Trust me on this.  You’d be surprised at how productive “down time” can be, or how a chance of pace, fresh perspective, or renewed energy pays off in the long run.  I’ve found then when a “rested” mind is a more creative mind.  Some of my best ideas and creative bursts have come after I’ve turned off the computer and gone “on vacation.”

How long should your blogging vacation last?  That’s up to you.  Running on fumes isn’t doing you or your readers any favors.  You’ll both be better off when you can hit the blogosphere fresh.  When you start feeling like blogging is fun again, you’re on the right track.

So turn off the computer and take Nike’s advice: Just do it.


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How Do You Know?

How do you know if you’re a writer?   Do you know when someone says, “Hey! I saw your byline in Barnes & Noble the other day! Good work!”?  Or when you say to yourself, “I’m a writer.  I am. I am. I am”?  Do you know when you land that first publishing contract or take part in your very own book signing?

I think a writer is someone who writes because he or she can’t not write.

I majored in Communication/Print Media.  Worked in public relations and marketing.  Wrote press releases, news articles and feature stories by the boatload.  Ditto short stories, novellas, historical fiction and devotionals.  Even dabbled in a little poetry here and there when no one was lookin’.  Some of my work has “seen the light.”  Some not.

Much More

Know what?  It doesn’t matter. Because writing is more than a profession.  Much more.  It’s a calling.  Something you were born to do. That’s not to say that writing will always come easily, effortlessly, like falling off a chair.  Writing is work.  But for real writers, there’s nothing more satisfying than… writing.

Something to Say

If you’re a writer, you have something to say.  A part of yourself to give.  A story to clawing at your guts, bellowing to be let out and dribbled onto paper or keyboard.  Trying to bottle up a story in a writer is like trying to cork a Tyrannosaurus Rex into a pint-sized milk carton.

Let it out. Say it. Give it.  Share it.

Keep at It

Whether or not you land a publishing contract doesn’t really matter.  You’ll get better with practice and persistence.  If you’re a real writer, you won’t quit.  Even in the face of rejection letters.  (Don’t let that curmudgeonly editor discourage you.  Learn from his criticism and improve.)

If you’re a real writer, you can’t not write.  It’s who you are.  With or without an audience.  Whether people are listening or not. Writing is something you were born to do, a craft under constant revision.  It’s something you need…  Like fish need water.  Birds need air.

What matters is that you start.  Today.  Be prepared to learn, grow, explore and rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.  You can do it!


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Skipping the Tiramisu

How many times have you heard, What are you writing? … Working on? …  Have in the pipeline?

How many times are you asked, “Why?”  As in, Why are you a writer?  Why do you write?  Why do you invest so much time, energy and passion into word-smithing and story-spinning?

“Why?” isn’t a trivial question.  In fact, Why? may be a lot more important than what, where, how, or even who.

Possible response to “Why?” that I’ve heard:

  • To make money
  • I want to get my message out
  • To become famous
  • Because I have a story to tell

Notice a common thread?  These are all “me-isms.”  In other words, it’s all about me.

Part of what makes great writing great is that it moves us beyond ourselves.  Expands our horizons.  Draws new paradigms. Explores an old topic from a new angle.  Moves us to tears.  Sends us into gales of laughter.  Breaks the mold.  Challenges, educates, dares, inspires.  You know you’ve come across truly great writing when you happily skip a luscious plate of tiramisu to finish the next chapter.

Yes, I know we all find ourselves fascinating.  But if our writing consists solely and wholly of me-isms without connecting to something bigger – family, faith, nature, tiramisu – then we’re just cranking out a commercial.

We can do better.  Dig digger.  Fly higher.  Stretch.  Explore.  Grow. The tiramisu will wait.

Which of your favorite authors writes “bigger than yourself”?


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Review of ‘Angela’s Ashes’

Angela’s Ashes

By Frank McCourt

Touchstone (Simon & Schuster), 1996

“Not for the faint-hearted” is perhaps over-used, but in the case of Frank McCourt’s memoir of his growing up years, Angela’s Ashes, it is apt.  (“Angela” is his mother’s name.)

The son of an alcoholic Irish man, McCourt paints a gritty picture without a brush of self-pity.  The prose is genuine and so gritty you can almost hear McCourt’s brogue singing through each page as he recounts life in a tumbledown shack on “the lane” in Ireland that floods and freezes in winter and swarms with fleas and stink in the summer.

His story begins in America, but soon high-tails it back to Ireland, where he details a professional unemployed father, grim family members, the loss of a baby sister, two twin boys, “the hunger” as well as the “Angel on the Seventh Step.”      It’s all there – the almost unbelievable poverty, hunger, filth, disease, despair, religious superstition.

In spite of a childhood chockfull of incredible hardship, deprivation, cruelty and misery, there’s something transcendent and luminescent about McCourt’s story.  Even with typhoid fever, “the shame,” and his father’s habit of “drinking his wages on the pint,”  McCourt refuses to sink into a slough of despond or bitterness.  Plucky Frank (short for Francis, “after the saint”) pulls himself up by own bootstraps and does so in an engaging, almost lyrical manner that’ll have you cheering – and perhaps shedding a tear or two – by the end of this remarkable, heart-breakingly heroic Pulitzer Prize Winner.


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Guest Post: A Devotional Plea

This guest post is by Barbara Bassett:

One day, as I studied the scripture known as the Ten Commandments, I was so stunned with its harsh rigidity that I had to reread it, again-and-again-and-again, looking for the caring and protective Father I thought I knew. Where was He?

         Then as I reread—aloud—this moral code for Israel and for all who would become His, the words I heard lost their firm harshness as I realized how deeply He too suffers from our rejection of His protective guidance as well.

 

                        A DEVOTIONAL PLEA FROM OUR FATHER

If we honor other gods before Our Father,

We commit spiritual adultery and we knowingly violate Him.

If we make an idol of anyone else’s likeness and we worship it,

We cheapen His glory and sabotage our allegiance due to Him alone.

If we use His holy Name in vile utterances,

We flaunt our ignorant scorn of its splendid power.

If we commit murder,

We challenge His wisdom as our supreme Creator and Judge of all life.

If we commit adultery,

We violate His Holy Spirit, residing in the temples of our bodies.

If we steal,

We encroach upon His stewardship over the fate of all humans.

If we bear false witness against our neighbor,

We damage a defenseless member of His earthly family.

If we covet anything belonging to a neighbor,

We reject His promise to give to us the desires of our hearts.

In surrendering to His loving leadership, we find that:

As we choose to honor our parents, though they may fail us,

We still respect His right of stewardship over our lives.

As we remember and keep holy the Sabbath,

We accept His invitation to be in harmonious fellowships with Him.

As we confess our sins to be truly against Him,

He is faithful to forgive and to forget them.

As we repent,

He joyfully celebrates with all of heaven.

As we love Him and keep His commandments,

He warmly draws us unto Himself.

As we humbly choose to be His bondservants,

Our Father strengthens us to take up the Cross of His Son.

~~~

Barbara Bassett lives in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, where her long and storied life includes being part of both a Vineyard fellowship and a writers group. A loving mother and grandmother, at 93-years-young she confidently claims, “After more than eight decades of receiving My Father’s loving words of wisdom, I find his guidance to be new every day.”


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Whaddya Think?

So, how do you like my new header?  I was looking for something spiffy, sauve and sparkling that communicated my passion for the written word.  Whaddya think?

A quick heads up on some upcoming posts:

– Anyone Have a Spare Tylenol?

– A review of No Ordinary Day by Deborah Ellis

– How do You Know? (if you’re a real writer)

– ‘Just Do It’ (what to do when you hit a blogging wall)

–  So I Decided to Give Up.

Lots more. Thanks for joining me, and stay tuned!


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WREAL 8!

It’s here!  The hiccups have (finally) been taken care of and the “hitches” in the get-along have been smoothed out.  The inaugural issue of Wreal 8 newsletter, “Where writers & readers relate,” has just flown the coop!

Designed to be a dialogue rather than a lecture, Wreal 8 invites readers to send in links to their writing-related blogs, story, winning writing contest entry, or favorite new book.  Also features an author interview, writer-friendly Tips & Tidbits, Resources & Recommends, and links to How to Write a Book When You’re Really, Really Busy and 10 Ways To Get More Facebook Fans This Week.

Wreal 8: Where Writers & Readers Relate!  Sign up here.