To Find Success, Learn to Embrace the Climb

Image courtesy of Flikr Commons RVWithTito

Funny the memories that come back sometimes, and we have no idea what prompted them. Last night, as I was walking out of the grocery store, a memory flashed in my mind, a moment I hadn’t thought about in easily ten years. I was one of the poor kids at a very wealthy university where most students were in fraternities and sororities and drove luxury cars. In a parking lot filled with BMWs, Mercedes and Land Rovers, my car looked like the egg Mork took to Earth. I drove a Geo Metro, basically a pregnant roller skate. It would rattle like it was going to fly apart if I ever got above 65, so it kept me from speeding .

Morks’ Ride

My Ride. Dismissed as Coincidence.

Anyway, I worked a lot of jobs and one of those jobs was running a paper route. Suckiest job on the planet. Every night I woke a little after midnight to get to the warehouse, roll papers and bag them, then deliver to three large apartment complexes, no matter how bad the weather. Also, apparently only people on the third floor ever ordered the paper. LOTS of climbing stairs.

Gated apartments were all the new rage in the 90s, and it wasn’t uncommon for the security code not to work, and I’d have to climb a fence. One complex was determined to kill me. They ran the sprinklers all year, even when the temperatures were in the 20s…so I could have fun sliding across large sheets of ice with a thirty-pound bag of Sunday papers.

I worked from one in the morning until about six, then would come home and snooze for an hour on a mattress that had been left by the previous owners of the duplex I rented. I didn’t have “per se” a bed. I’d roll out of my mattress and go to class until lunchtime, often in the same sweatpants and ball cap I wore to work. I didn’t really have any friends. Was too tired for them. When you have a paper route, it is seven days a week, 365 days a year, no holidays. The only way to get a day off is to pay another runner to take your route for a day.

Hey, Kristen! Jeff’s here to take you to sell papers!
Image via Flikr Commons Curtis Gregory Perry

As if this wasn’t tough enough, another aspect of the job required we go door-to-door selling subscriptions. We were expected to have so many new subscriptions per month. A van would pick us up and dump us off who knew where, hand us a map, then arrange to pick us up in three hours. For three hours, we were on our own (and this was before cell phones). One time, I recall being so cold that I hid in an apartment laundry room where someone was running a dryer. I’d been out in the cold for hours with no proper coat (and no subscriptions) and I was frustrated, broke, dirty and hiding in a laundry room.

Hiding in a laundry room will humble even the best .

The real fun would come when I’d go to my International Law class to be lectured by a Social Work Girl (who sported a $1,000 Prada handbag and drove a BMW) how I was heartless and, in her words, “didn’t understand the plight of the poor.”

So last night I have no idea why this memory came back. I’d try to forget the whole “desperate enough to hide in a laundry room” thing, yet there it was. Maybe I remembered this because of yesterday’s Embracing the Meantime post. I can tell you that this “meantime” was tough. Every day was a new struggle.

I bemoaned that I wasn’t one of the trust fund babies who didn’t have to check in with their parole officer financial aid lady. I longed to be one of the skinny, rich sorority girls who didn’t live on generic mac and cheese and who could actually afford to buy ALL their text books. I “winged” most of my classes and had no idea how I still managed to get good grades.

Yet, in later years, I found out many of those kids never finished school. They threw up in the showers to stay thin and many struggled with alcohol and drug addictions. A few committed suicide. They had everything, yet, in their eyes, they had nothing. They had no hope.

Hope was all that kept me going, the sheer force of will that told me that, if I endured, if I hung on and didn’t quit, that life would be better. I had to climb the mountain. I wasn’t delivered by helicopter, and I was so much better for that. Many of those kids were delivered to the summit by “daddy” and it was the worst thing for them. All they had was the view, and they lacked the euphoric feeling of accomplishing something on their own. “Having it too easy” destroyed a precious part of their souls.

As writers, many of us wish we had it easier, that we didn’t have to have a day job, or have to take care of kids and parents and clip coupons to survive. We want our first book(s) to be runaway best-sellers that make us rich. Yet, I will challenge you to embrace this time and your struggles. Embrace your climb. Pay attention. Write notes. It will make your writing far richer.

Many of you right now are in a ROUGH meantime. You are in the climb of your life with no ropes and barely keeping your grip. These are the experiences that will one day make you an indomitable artist and help you create great fiction. Yes, we spend most of our time in the valley, but when we seek to achieve something big, there is always the climb. We might relish the few moments of being at the summit, but we will always remember the climb. The climb is what makes us stronger.

And the WANA Way? We are not alone!

Are you struggling? Is life tough? Can you think of how this will make your stories better? Have you been through rough times and used that to fuel your fiction? Tell us about it!

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of March, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of March I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Lies that Can Poison Your Dreams–Don’t Eat the Butt in 2013

Happy New Year! Today we are going to revisit a favorite series of mine that I call Don’t Eat the Butt. Why? Because typing “butt” makes me giggle. Besides, when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions, I guarantee most of you vowed to 1) start your novel 2) finish your novel 3) land an agent 4) self-publish 5) be better about checking in with your parole officer.

Maybe that’s just me .

Kristen, Why Are We Talking About “Butts” and What Does This Have to Do with Writing?

We’re getting there! Geesh! Patience.

I like to think about stuff.

A lot of stuff.

Probably far too much stuff.

Anyway, I wonder about the first person who ate an oyster. Was it a dare? Someone lose a bet? What about mushrooms? There are 100,000 known species of mushrooms, yet only 2,000 are edible. How do we know this? Someone had to eat the bad ‘shrooms then pass that knowledge down for posterity (after he stopped seeing snakes).

Who volunteers for this kind of stuff?

But the most fascinating culinary assassin, in my POV, is the puffer fish. There is only ONE TINY PART of the puffer fish that is not deadly. Oh, and if you don’t know how to cut a puffer fish correctly, you can unwittingly unleash deadly poison into the non-poisonous part.

Marty: Wow, crazy, Dude. This puffer fish kind of tastes like chick–…*grabs throat and falls over foaming from the mouth*

Fred: Note to self. Don’t eat the butt.

This idea of the puffer fish made me start thinking about our careers as artists. There are a lot of common misperceptions that can leak poison into our writing dreams if we aren’t careful. Thus, the DETB (Don’t Eat the Butt) lessons are designed to help you guys spot the toxic beliefs that can KILL a writing career. My assistant Chuy (pictured above) is here to help.

In short, Don’t Eat the Butt, It’s Chuy.

This shall be your mantra.

I will not eat the butt. I will not eat the butt. I will not eat the butt. (Romance authors stop sniggering, please. Thank you.)

No butts about it.

bada bump *snare*

Some of us have been there, done that and got the butt-tasting T-shirt. I am here to hand down what I have learned from being stupid enough to eat the literary puffer butt and survive. Watch, listen and LEARN. The smart writer learns from her mistakes, but the wise writer learns from the mistakes of others.

Yeah, you’ve got all these shiny resolutions. Yay, for you. But I am here to help you turn resolutions into reality so we need to get your thinking straight. Battles begin and end with the mind.

Without further ado…

DETB Lie #1 I’m not a real writer until I have

• a finished manuscript
• landed an agent
• am traditionally published
• am selling enough books to quit my day job
  
• am writing full time
• have spent my retirement funds earning an MFA in Creative Writing

This is crap and don’t eat it. What yahoo decided that we aren’t real writers until we meet some silly outside standard of validation? On what plane of existence does this make ANY professional sense? We are writers the second we decide to take this career decision seriously.

Screw aspiring. Aspiring is for pansies. Takes guts to be a writer..

Think of it this way. As writers we are entrepreneurs (refer to this post). Do entrepreneurs use the term aspiring? I am an aspiring restaurant owner. Oh, I am an aspiring landscaper. I am aspiring housekeeper.

NO.

If I want a house-cleaning business, the second I gather all of my cleaning supplies and a vacuum together in the back of my SUV and print off some business cards, I am a house-cleaning business. Even before my very first client.

In fact, I cannot land my first client until I first call myself a business. Who is going to let me into their house wielding a toilet brush if I approach them with, “Hi, I am an aspiring housekeeper. I’m still learning the best ways to get rid of soap scum, but maybe you can hire me even though I am not, per se a “real” housekeeper?

Again…no.

The title is not something we earn it is who we are. Our title defines our level of commitment. 

Here’s a news flash. There is no license requirement to write books (though it might be a good idea).

Profession by Certification

Doctors, lawyers, accountants, and nurses are professions that require outside certification. This is why they cannot call themselves “Doctor” or “Counselor” or “R.N.” until they take certain exams and pass various levels of professional vetting.

When it comes to being a DOCTOR, we are not a REAL DOCTOR until we have gone to medical school.

Profession of Results

Writers are not the same type of profession. We don’t need a license, an MFA, a finished novel, or an agent to call ourselves writers. We are writers when we decide to write.

Now, we might be bad writers, lazy writers, untalented writers, unpublished writers, pre-published writers but we are still real writers. We are a profession defined by results, not intentions or certifications.

Lose the Literary Training Wheels…NOW

Why Writers Fear the Title

When we decide to use the professional title writer, it is a sign to others that we are no longer hobbyists. Others will expect a certain work ethic to go with our title.

I feel many writers fear using a professional title because we invite a new level of accountability. We fear failure and so we hedge with euphemisms like “aspiring author” so that we can goof off and write when the fancy strikes.

We can never become a professional author if we won’t first claim being a real writer. How we define ourselves affects our choices, how we spend our time, and what we are willing to sacrifice. Those who will not first call themselves WRITER are almost certainly doomed to fail.

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work. ~Stephen King

Writers are professionals who treat their writing as if it is their first, second or even a third job. They have a solid work ethic and they know that they have to ante up and take the consequences for better or for worse. They are mature and no longer playing Literary Barbies with their characters.

The world does not reward perfectionists, it rewards finishers.

So best of luck with 2013, and I will do all I can to help you guys grow and mature and have the dreams of your heart.

Remember! Don’t Eat the Butt…It’s Chuy

For those who need some writer love and support, please join us over at WANATribe, the social network for writers. No ads, no spam, all awesome. We have digital Jell-O shots.

We are not alone!

We also have a wonderful lineup of classes at WANA International. Our digital classroom is state of the art. Learn from home and at your own pace. I HIGHLY recommend Agent Secrets taught by Literary Agent Laurie McLean. She is a FABULOUS teacher and is very savvy with the new options in the Digital Age.

What are your thoughts? Opinions? Fears? What keeps you from claiming the professional title?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of January, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of January I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Why Settle for Your Reader’s Wallet When You Can Get in Her PANTS?

Spam is so yesterday. Today’s savvy writer trusts Panty Prose for the Published Professional…

Okay, any of you who regularly follow my blog know that I am totally out of my mind a bit eccentric. This past weekend I was speaking at the Idaho Book Extravaganza, and I had to excuse myself to the ladies’ room. As I closed the door to the stall, I noticed all the advertising on the back of the bathroom door. This cluttered wall of ads made me think about all the authors spamming non-stop about their books on Facebook and Twitter.

Writers were becoming worse than an Amway rep crossed with a Jehovah’s Witness. I mean, could the author book promotion get any more invasive?

Wait…

Maybe it could.

I’ve blogged so many times about the dangers of automation and how spamming people is counterproductive. I’ve talked until I am blue about how advertising our books has a terrible ROI (return on investment) and how most people don’t pay attention to it. Ah, but then it hit me. The main reason spam doesn’t work is because people ignore it and no longer “see” it, but what would they see?

Panty Prose—Not Advertising, Padvertising (TM)

We all know that roughly 85% of readers are women, and what do women need? Panty liners. YES, but what do they need more than springtime fresh girl parts? More FREE! books. Indie authors shouldn’t spam about their latest book release or free title on KDP select.

Why?

Because it’s rude? No! Because it is obnoxious? Not quite. Because it smacks of desperation? Not at all. The reason authors shouldn’t spam about their books is because spam is for amateurs.

The real writer of the Digital Age doesn’t settle on blasting out non-stop self-promotional tweets. That is SO 2011. The REAL writer of the Digital Age realizes a captive audience is a a buying audience.

Catch readers with their pants down with Panty Prose.

Panty Prose is perfect for the indie author. Most readers are female and even females need something to read in the bathroom. We at Panty Prose (a new imaginary division of WANA International) have teamed up with Always against their will to offer your readers the best deals right in their pants.

Panty Prose not only offers you Padvertising to a guaranteed clientele, but we have all kinds of layouts to suit your Padvertising needs. Technology is your friend with Panty Prose. Put your book where it counts…

Sell like a pro!

At Panty Prose, we even make it affordable for you to place your face in your reader’s pants…

Affordable Packages Available!

As you can see, Panty Prose is inserting your ads into a virgin market begging to be tapped.

Why are all the romance authors giggling?

Anyway, while others might see a protective strip that gets tossed in the bin, we see an unused space to Padvertise your latest novel AND save trees! Instead of throwing away that paper strip, we can print of lines from your book so fans can collect them ALL…

Make Your Readers Your Fan for ALWAYS….

My brilliant WANA International Operations Manager, Chad, was happy to step in and help me launch the Panty Prose Motivational Series:

Panty Prompts for Writers:

Serious Chad, The Choice for Writers

Panty Praise:

Available in “You’re Losing Weight” and “No, Your Butt Doesn’t Look Big at ALL”

Panty Prose is dedicated to keeping women fresh while selling your books. Attending a writing conference? Well, there is a bathroom and everyone knows that even agents have to go potty sometime. Why not help them out? Keep them springtime fresh and give them your query. Elevator pitches are for losers, when you can use the Panty Pitch. The Panty Pitch comes in three fragrances, Sonnet’s Eve, New Office Supplies, and Cinnabon.

Panty Pitch:

Save agents time AND keep them fresh!

Panty Prose for the Published Professional is a smart, savvy way to stand out from all the competition that still is relying on scheduled tweets and auto-DMs. Make an impression that will last for Always.

Yeah, I am a wee bit tired. I’ve been stranded in airports more hours than I can count and my humor gets warped, even for me. But you know I am on to something! WANA is dedicated to giving you the evil genius you need for success. Aside from Panty Prose, what other “free spaces” could we exploit for book advertising? You know, to catch those who missed our 23 tweeted links, 6 auto DMs and five form letters.

I was also thinking we could launch a Panty Politics line so a 4 star general can gain access to panties more discreetly (and save taxpayer dollars!). And Congress? They can campaign where it counts! What other ways can we use the power of Padvertising?

Ok…I’ll stop. By the way, if you want something a bit more serious, I hope you will check out my blog over at Mansfield Magazine. Pleeeeeeeaaaaase. *insert cute face here* Have a Happy Healthy Holiday–Team Up with the Green Hulk. Anyone who comments there gets entered in a separate contest for ten pages of free edit, so your odds of winning is WAY better (and the comments make me look good to my new boss ).

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of November, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

Note: I was supposed to get October’s winner posted this week, but I got stranded AGAIN. This time in Seattle and I had no Internet. So will announce next week. I can’t get to anything right now anyway because I leave for my last trip of the year (New Orleans) on Friday.

At the end of November I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Structure Part 8–Balancing the Scenes that Make Up Your Novel

Balancing scenes? I thought you meant balancing ON the scenes…
Image via L.E.Carmichael WANA Commons

Welcome to Structure Part 8. We have spent the past few weeks studying the fundamentals of what makes up a novel, and today we are going to discuss the actual scenes that make up a novel and how to keep track of them. It is easy to get lost when dealing with a structure as complex as a novel, so I hope to give you a nifty tool to keep everything straight.

As a fiction author, you will often feel like an acrobat spinning plates while standing on your head and juggling fiery chainsaws. There are so many components to keep track of, lest you end up down the Bunny Trail of No Return. Organization is key when it comes to being a successful novelist.

First, let’s talk about scenes.

According to James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure, scenes do four things. Bell calls these the four chords of fiction:

The two major chords are: (1) action and (2) reaction.

The two minor chords are (1) setup and (2) deepening.

Back when I used to content edit, I was known to draw cute little cartoon flies on the page when the story took off down a bunny trail and lost my interest. This became known as my, “Fly on the Wall of ‘Who Cares?’” and was a signal to the writer that this was a section with no real purpose so it needed revision, tightening or to be cut completely. The reader is a fly on the wall when it comes to the world we are creating. Make them the fly on the wall of something interesting at all times.

How do we accomplish this?

All Scenes Need Conflict

Conflict is the fuel that powers the story’s forward momentum. “Scenes” that are merely back-story, reflection (rehash of what the reader already knows) or information dump, slow down the story and make the reader either want to skim ahead or put the book down. Bad juju. We want our readers hooked from the beginning until we finally let them go on the last page. How do we accomplish this? We add lots of conflict.

Scenes, according to Bell, need three components, collectively known as HIP—Hook, Intensity & Prompt.

Hook—interests the reader from the get-go. This is why it is generally a bad idea to start scenes with setting. Waxing rhapsodic about the fall color is a tough way to hook a reader. If you do start a scene with setting, then make it do double-duty. Setting can set up the inner mood of a character before we even meet him. Setting should always be more than a weather report. Try harder.

Intensity—raises the stakes. Introduce a problem. Scenes that suddenly shift into reverse and dump back-story KILL your intensity. Cut scenes at meals unless there is a fight. If your characters are in a car, they better be in an argument or a car chase. Also cut any scenes that the sole purpose is to give information. Have a scene that’s sole purpose is two characters talking about a third? CUT! CUT! CUT!

We are writing novels, not screenplays for Days of Our Lives.

Prompt—leave the scene with work left undone and questions left unanswered. If your character is relaxed enough to happily go to bed at the end of a scene, that is a subconscious cue to your reader that it is okay to mark the page and close the book.  There should always be something unsettling that makes the reader want to know more.

Going back to the chords of the writing. Every scene should involve one of your key characters in pursuit of an interesting goal that is related to the overall conflict of the story. Each of these scenes are stepping stones that take your character closer to the final showdown. Most of the time, it will feel like two steps forward and one step back.

Your POV character (protagonist) sets out to do X but then Y gets in the way. Your character then will have some kind of a reaction to the setback.

So we have the major chords I mentioned earlier:

ACTION–> REACTION to the obstacle

Now when we add in the minor chords, it might look something like this:

Setup–>ACTION–>obstacle–>REACTION to the obstacle–>deepening

Setup and deepening need to be short and sweet. Why? Because they don’t drive the story, conflict does. We as readers will need a certain amount of setup to get oriented in what is happening, but then drive forward and get to the good stuff. Deepening is the same. We want to know how this conflict has changed the course of events, but don’t get carried away or you risk losing your reader.

Every scene should have conflict and a great way to test this is to do a Conflict Lock. Bob Mayer teaches this tactic in his workshops and if you get a chance to take one of his classes, you will be amazed how your writing will improve.

The conflict lock is a basic diagram of what the conflicting goals in the scene look like. Here is one from one of my earlier fiction pieces. My protagonist’s roommate has just been taken by bad guys, and protag and the love interest are clearly in conflict:

Jane wants to pursue the trail of the kidnappers deeper into Mexico.

Tank wants to return to Texas and call the FBI.

Even though these two characters are allies, it is clear they want different things. Jane wants to plunge ahead and take her chances pursuing the bad guys who have her friend. The love interest doesn’t want Jane hurt or killed. He wants to take the safer route and let the pros handle the kidnapping. Both have reasonable goals, but only one of them, by the end of the scene, will get his/her way. One path takes Jane closer to finding her roommate. The other ends the adventure.

So how do you keep track of all these elements? The note card is a writer’s best friend. We will discuss different methods of plotting in the future, but I recommend doing note cards ahead of time and then again after the fact. I stole a very cool tactic from screenwriter Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.

On each note card, I write the location, then a one-sentence header about what the scene is about. Then there is a neat little symbol for conflict (><) I use to show who is in conflict in this particular scene. Then I do a micro conflict lock. Who wants what? I also use an emotional symbol to note change +/-.

Characters should be changing emotionally. If your protag enters on a high note, crush it. Enters on a low? Give some hope. If a character is constantly okey dokey, that’s boring. Conversely, if a character is always in the dumps, it will wear out your reader and stall the plot. I also note any facts I might need to keep up with. Has my main character suffered an injury? Lost her weapon? Gained a bazooka and a pet hamster?

Let’s look at an example from the movies. Romancing the Stone.

So the card might look something like this:

Jungles of South America (Location)

>< Joan (protag) and Jack (love interest/antagonist)

Joan wants a guide to get her to Cartejena, Columbia to trade the treasure map for her sister.

Jack wants to recapture the exotic birds he lost when the bus crashed into the back of his truck.

-/+ Joan finally convinces Jack to take her to Cartejena. (Note she started on a low. She was lost, in a crash and far away from Cartejena. She ends on a high note. Jack agrees to guide her to her destination)

Joan and Jack decide to go to Cartejena (decision), but then bad guys arrive and start shooting at them (prompt).

Yes, Blake Snyder’s system is designed to keep up with all the scenes a movie, but it can do wonders for novelists, too. When I finish my first draft, I go back and make set of cards. Using this system makes it painfully clear what scenes are in need of a total overhaul. If I can’t say in one sentence what the scene is about, then I know my goal is weak, nonexistent or unclear. Too many people in conflict? Conflict might be muddy. Go back and clarify. If there isn’t any emotional change, then that’s a big red flag that nothing is happening–it’s a “Fly on the Wall of ‘Who Cares?’”

If I find a scene that’s sole purpose is information dump, what do I do? I have three choices. 1) Cut the scene totally. 2) Fold it into another scene that has existing conflict. 3) Add conflict. Note cards also make it easy to spot bunny trails—goals that have nothing to do with the A or B plot.

This tactic can help make a large work manageable. If you are starting out and outlining? Make note cards for each scene and who you foresee being in conflict. If you already have your novel written, but you want to tighten the writing or diagnose a problem you just can’t see? Make note cards.

Keeping organized with note cards is an excellent way to spot problems and even make big changes without unraveling the rest of the plot. There are, of course, other methods, but this is the one I have liked the best. Note cards are cheap, portable and easy to color code. For instance, each POV character can have a designated color. Using these cards makes it much easier to juggle all the different elements of great novels—characters, conflict, inner arc, plot, details.

Have any questions? Are there other methods that have worked for you? Please share so we all can learn. What is the biggest challenge you face when it comes to plotting?

I love hearing from you! (Contest details below)

Quick Announcement. CLASS IS TOMORROW!: Have trouble putting down and enforcing boundaries with yourself? With family? Always putting everyone else ahead of yourself? I am teaching a new class called Good Fences–The Writer’s Guide to Setting Boundaries and it is only $15 so I hope you will take advantage. This class is perfect for those who want to do Nanowrimo. I’ll help you learn the Art of the Loving NO.

***Class fee does not apply to meth-addicted howler monkey with a sidearm to guard your office door.

Anyway, again, I LOVE HEARING FROM YOU!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of October, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of October I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Structure Part 2–Plot Problems–Falcor the Luck Dragon & the Purple Tornado

The Neverending Story circa 1984

Okay, since I get to drive to San Antonio today, I figured we’d just plow ahead and take on Lesson Two in my structure series. I strongly recommend checking out Monday’s lesson if you haven’t yet. Each of these blogs will build upon the previous lesson. By the end of this series, I hope you to give you guys all the tools you need to be “structure experts.”

Yes, even the pantsers.

If you are planning to do the National Novel Writing Month Challenge (50,000 words in the month of November) then these lessons will help you tremendously. If you are going to put in that much effort, wouldn’t it be great to have something worthwhile at the end of the month?

Structure is one of those topics that I feel gets overlooked far too much. There are a lot of workshops designed to teach aspiring writers how to finish a novel in four weeks or three or two or whatever. And that is great…if a writer possesses a solid understanding of structure. If not? At the end of 4 weeks, you could very likely have a 60K word mess that no editor can fix.

Finishing a novel is one of the best experiences in the world, but wanna know the worst? Pouring your heart and soul into a novel, finishing it, and then finding out it is not publishable or even salvageable. I make a lot of jokes about my first novel being used in Guantanamo Bay to break terrorists.

I’ll tell you where the bomb is just not another chapter of that booook!

Some of you might be in the midst of having to face some hard truths about your “baby.” If you have been shopping that same book for months or years, and an agent has yet to be interested, likely structure is the problem. If you went ahead and self-published, but sales are lackluster? Again, problem might be structure. Many of you might have a computer full of unfinished novels. Yes, again, structure is likely the problem.

Good news is that most structure problems can be fixed, although many times that requires leveling everything to the foundation and using the raw materials to begin anew…the correct way and killing a lot of little darlings along the way.

Monday I broke the bad news. Novels have rules. Sorry. They do. I didn’t make this stuff up. When we don’t follow the rules, bad things happen. Just ask Dr. Frankenstein.

Authors who break the rules do so with a fundamental understanding of rules and reader expectations. Remember the pizza analogy? We can get creative with pizza so long as we do so with an appreciation for consumer expectations. A fried quail leg on filo dough with raspberry glaze is not recognizable as a pizza. We can call it pizza until we are blue and a consumer will just think we’re a nut.

Same with a novel. Readers have expectations. Deviate too far and we will have produced a commodity so far off the standard consumer expectations that the product will not sell…which is why agents won’t rep it. Our novel can be brilliant, but not sell. Agents are interested more in making money than breaking literary rules. Rumor has it that agents do have to make a living.

I can tell if a writer understands structure in ten pages. So can an agent. We are diagnosticians and when we spot certain novel “diseases” we know there is a big internal problem. We’ll discuss two major symptoms of a flawed plot today, but first we are going to pan the camera back this time. Last time, we zoomed in and looked at the most fundamental building blocks of a novel. Today, we are going to get an aerial shot—the Three Act Structure.

Aristotelian structure has worked for a couple thousand years for very good reasons. To paraphrase James Scott Bell in Plot & Structure (cuz he says it the best, but do yourself a favor and get his book, STAT!):

There is something fundamentally sound about the three act structure, and it is very much in harmony with how we live our lives. Three is a pattern. Childhood is short and introduces us to life (Act I). Most of our living comes in the middle span of years (Act II), and then we are old and we die and that sums up our existence (Act III). We wake in the morning (Act I) then have the day living life (Act II) and then night ties things up (Act III). When we are confronted with a problem we react (Act I) then spend the greatest amount of time searching for insight and looking for an answer (Act II) and then finally the solution (Act III).

Three act structure has endured thousands of years because it works. Beginning, middle and end. We can ignore the three act structure, but we do so at our own risk that our work will fail to connect with readers.

Beginnings present the story world, establish tone, compel the reader to come on the adventure, and introduce the opposition.

Middles deepen the character relationships, keep the reader emotionally invested in the characters, and sets up the events that will lead to the final showdown at the end.

Ends tie up the main plot and any other story threads and provide a sense of meaning.

(If you don’t yet own Jim’s book, buy it today. It is a must-have for every writer’s library.)

Ideally, our story’s tension will steadily rise from the beginning to end, getting more intense like a roller coaster. Think of the best roller coasters. They start off with a huge hill (Inciting Incident that introduces the ride) then a small dip to catch your breath, and then we are committed. If the biggest hill is at the beginning of the ride, the rest of the ride is a total letdown.

A well-designed roller coaster gives escalating thrills—bigger and bigger hills and loops—with fewer troughs to catch our breath and all leading up to the Big Boss loop, then the glide home to the other side of where we began. We all want to get to the Big Boss loop, but we do so with a mix of terror, dread and glee. Same with a good story.

Great roller coasters are designed. So are great novels. Everything is done with purpose.

Two major problems will occur when we fail to follow this design. In almost four years of running countless plots through my workshop, I have given them names—Falcor the Luck Dragon and The Purple Tornado.

Meet the Luck Dragon

Remember the movie The Neverending Story? Beautiful movie and amazing special effects…but (in my opinion) a HORRIBLE story. I loved the movie, too. I have a soul. But I feel this movie is remembered and loved more for great effects and puppets, not the storytelling.

The beginning starts with The Nothing eating away a world we haven’t been in long enough to care and gobbling up critters the viewing audience hasn’t even been introduced to. Total melodrama. And the solution? A boy hero who the viewer doesn’t know from a hole in the ground and who, truthfully, isn’t nearly as likable as his horse that sinks into the Bog of Despair. Yes, I cried.

So High Council instructs unlikable boy hero to go and talk to the Northern Oracle. Northern Oracle is a giant turtle that is suffering depression and is apparently off his meds. Northern Oracle tells boy hero the answer to their problems rest with the Southern Oracle…but it is ten thousand miles away.

Boy trudges off depressed and defeated and music rises to cue the audience that we are supposed to care. Unlikable boy hero falls into the swamp…oh but Falcor the Luck Dragon swoops down from the sky and flies him ten thousand miles to the Southern Oracle. How lucky for the boy hero. Better yet. How convenient for the screenwriters that Falcor was there to bail them out of a massive plot problem.

No, your protagonist cannot find a journal or letters or some contrived coincidence to bail her out of a corner and get her back on track. That is what I call a Luck Dragon. Don’t think you can sneak a Falcor by an agent or editor either. There is no camouflaging this guy. Have you seen the movie? He’s HUGE, and he will stand out like, like…like a Luck Dragon bailing you out of a plot problem. But take heart. Looking at structure ahead of time will make all actions logical and Falcor the Luck Dragon can stay up in the clouds where he belongs.

Watch out for that Purple Tornado!

Next plot problem? The Purple Tornado. What is a purple tornado? So glad you asked. I once worked with a writer who had a YA fantasy. By page 30 there was this MASSIVE supernatural event with a purple tornado. This writer clung to the purple tornado scene until I thought I was going to break his knuckles prying it away from him.

Why was I prying the purple tornado from his hands? Because he couldn’t top the purple tornado!!! He had his Big Boss Battle, his grand finale, his giant loop too close to the beginning. The rest of the book would have either been a letdown or totally contrived.

Plan where that loop will be situated and put it in the spot that will evoke the greatest emotional reaction…at the end.

I see too many new writers trying to “hook” the reader with some grand event like a building exploding. Well, okay, but what are you going to do for the grand finale, blow up a city? The planet? It’s too much too soon and before anyone even cares.

Structure.

I hope you guys get a lot out of this series. I know it took me years to learn some of this stuff and part of the reason I sat down and wrote this series was to help shorten the learning curve. I would imagine most of you reading this would like to be successfully published while you are still young enough to enjoy it. Join me on Monday for more on structure and plotting.

What are some problems you guys have faced in plotting? What are the biggest struggles? Do you have any suggestions for books on the subject or methods you use that you could share? Have you been guilty of a Falcor or a Purple Tornado? Share your thoughts.

I LOVE hearing from you guys!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of September, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of September I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

10 Things No One Told Me About the Publishing Process

Clay Morgan, Author of “Undead”

Happy Friday, and do I have a treat for you guys–CLAY MORGAN, author of Undead–Revived, Resuscitated, Reborn. Some of you might think me inviting Clay to guest post is merely a shameless ploy to garner more zombie Klout…

Okay, busted.

Kidding! Though I do dig zombie Klout.

I met Clay on Twitter ages ago and have been blessed to watch him grow from hopeful noob to professional author. In true WANA style, Clay is here paying it forward which is awesome because it frees up time for me to keep reading his new book (which ROCKS, btw). Give him a warm WANA welcome!

***

I’ve been reading about how to get published for years, even before I wrote a bad novel that will likely never see the light of day. Like most of you, I’ve spent years trying to hop on that bucking beast known as publishing success. Studies have included:

• Reading traditional mags like Writer’s Digest.
• Following industry leaders from literary agencies as well as publishing houses.
• Spending considerable time trying to figure out how the brave new digital world is changing everything.
• Trying to determine whether self-publishing is a) terrible b) awesome c) inevitable d) it depends or e) *leaps to my death with Kindle in hand because I just can’t take it anymore*
• Absorbing wisdom from standouts like my gracious host here Kristen.

After all of that, I’m now attempting to gather my thoughts from a unique position—a spot not everyone gets to be in and one where I’ll never be again. I’ve sold my first book through traditional publishing but it hasn’t quite released yet.

In other words, as I write this I am a published author yet not a successful or failed published author. I’m saddled up on top of this bronco, hat in hand, waiting to see if I’ll hold onto the reigns or get dumped on my keyster when that gate swings open.

I’m just a guy in the midst of this process and still asking a lot of questions, but here are 10 lessons I’ve learned from the traditional publishing process.

1. The author-agent relationship is critical.

I went to a conference last year with one particular person in mind as my ideal agent. She liked what I pitched and I thought I found my match. But then I bumped into another agent and we had instant chemistry. I signed with the latter and that other agent has already changed careers.

A thousand articles have been written by pros more experienced than me about what makes a good agent, but I can attest to how important the right one has been for me.

2. Finding the right publisher is critical.

We all know that rejection is a part of this business. It also really sucks. The challenge is to not equate your personal value to the responses your work receives. As my proposal went out and came back from editor after editorial board, I felt that angry horse kicking.

Not landing an agent is frustrating; watching your work get turned down by house after house gets downright terrifying. In the end a really terrific publisher named Abingdon made an offer, and I’m having a wonderful experience with them.

3. Know thy team.

The old maxim to “know thyself” still holds, but a close second in publishing is to know thy team. I was told that it might be helpful to meet with the people responsible for designing, marketing, publicizing, selling, and producing my book, so I flew to Nashville to meet with the team. You gotta figure there’s a pecking order everywhere, and I’d rather be a smiling face instead of just an ISBN number. We have a great working relationship and it all started there.

4. Some compromise is necessary.

If you want full control over your work then you should probably trot your trusty steed down the self-publishing trail. I knew before a deal was even offered that I would have to change my title. And since I write nonfiction the manuscript wasn’t completed yet. The scary thing about that is the potential for the entire direction of your book to change. Of course, input from smart people can be great as well, and I’ve been fortunate to work with smart people.

5. An accelerated timetable is both a blessing and curse.

I’m learning that publishing is the ultimate “hurry up and wait” industry. Nothing happens for weeks and then you may suddenly have two hours to come up with any number of critical items such as catalog copy ideas or alternate subtitle suggestions or whatever.

One experienced editor who’s worked with a big house told me that my timetable was about the fastest he’d ever seen. We went from signing a contract on an unfinished manuscript to having the book out in less than nine months. The process will often take twice that long, sometimes even more. But we made it and now the blessing is that I don’t have to wait another year for the release date.

6. Finishing is HARD.

Finishing this book was the hardest professional thing I’ve ever done. I’ve read On Writing by Stephen King a couple times and used to think it was strange how he said he was sick of his manuscripts by the time they actually came out. After working and reworking my book, I kind of get that now. I finally just read my own book start to finish for the first time.

7. Plan as if you will have to do everything on your own.

We always hear that the days of sitting back while the publisher does everything for us are gone. So I figured I would have to do everything myself. Turns out I’ve had wonderful support in many ways, but my efforts only encourage the team to work hard because they know I won’t waste their effort.

8. Networking still matters.

Connect with people like crazy and pursue any creative opportunity you can come up with. I try to combine my passions and abilities with areas where I have something to offer someone. Then figure out a way to approach that individual, organization, event, or whatever. Every little bit matters. I’m not likely to get a foreword by Stephen King but I can connect with 100 other professional creatives in a positive way.

9. Creating new stuff gets much tougher when promoting your past work.

As I write this in early September I’m thinking about the 50 pages of a new manuscript I told my agent she would have by the end of August. I’ve written four of those pages. Yes, I have a day job like most everyone else but the reason I’m not getting new books written is because I’m trying to do every last possible thing I can to make my first book a success. From what I see around the web, many writers struggle with promotion and publicity at the expense of writing new stuff.

10. You gotta enjoy the little things (big things too).

The farther along I’ve gotten in this process, the less I’ve celebrated milestones. I always thought that the most magical thing ever about getting published would be the day when those first books with my name on them would arrive on my doorstep. I imagined I would hold a copy into the sunlight and weep as Queen music played in my mind or something.

What happened instead though was that I smiled and then felt like I was going to throw up. Because this just got real. No turning back now; this book would be seen by people. What if I fail? That’s the problem with big dreams, the stakes are so dang hi! Success is never free of risk.

In the meantime, what if I spend so much time doing the next thing and the next that I never enjoy this ride? As Columbus had to learn in Zombieland, you gotta enjoy the little things.

So like I say I’m holding onto my hat. My feet are firmly locked in the stirrups now that some great people have boosted me into this saddle of opportunity. The ride isn’t easy but should be exhilarating. Yeehaw.

~*~*~

Clay Morgan is a writer, teacher, and speaker from Pittsburgh, PA who blogs about pop culture, history, and the meaning of life at ClayWrites.com. He is the author of Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, and Reborn about zombies, God, and what it means to be truly alive. Connect with him on Twitter.

I LOVE hearing from you guys! And since we have a guest today, every comment counts DOUBLE in the contest.

To prove it and show my love, for the month of September, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of September I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Social Clear-Cutting–Can Our Social Media Behaviors Destroy Our Social Environment?

We must be stewards of our environment. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia EPA)

So many writers rush onto social media with tunnel-vision. All they can see is 99 new ways to blitz others about their books, and it makes me kind of sad because there are a lot of benefits to being on social media that have little to do with marketing or sales. When we look out at our fellow human beings and can only see them with dollar signs on their faces, we shortchange them, but worse, we shortchange ourselves.

In a sense it makes me think of a documentary I watched the other night about the redwood forest. Did you know that those leviathan trees, the tallest living thing on earth, used to make up much of North America during the days of the dinosaurs? Even into the 1800s, the redwood forests were still quite large…and then came the lumber industry.

Businessmen soon realized that one felled redwood could make 200 picnic tables. All the lumber industry saw was dollar signs, and they clear-cut the trees until they’d virtually destroyed the redwood forests. The current forest is a mere fraction of its original size and has never recovered. Likely, it never will.

Social Clear-Cutting

I have spoken at length about the dangers of tools and automation when it comes to social media, but today I am going to probe deeper and explain why using machines to connect for us is just a bad plan. Sure, we gain some short-term advantages—more time to write instead of tweeting—but, over the long term, we destroy the very platform we are working to build. We clear-cut the community, planting no seeds of relationships.

The Law of the Fax Machine

Metcalf’s Law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users to the system (via Wikipedia).

Metcalf’s Law is, by some laypersons, referred to as the Law of the Fax Machine. In the beginning, when there was only one fax machine, how valuable was it? Not very. Why? No one to fax. Yet, as more and more companies bought fax machines, the value of the fax machine drastically increased because there were more people capable of receiving a fax.

This is true of any telecommunications tool from the telegraph to the telephone to the cell phone. What good was a calling plan when no one we knew could afford a cell phone?

Thus, the number of connected users drastically increases the value of any telecommunications tool. Same with the Internet. The more people hop onto the Information Highway, the more content they contribute, the more valuable the Internet becomes. This applies to search engines and….you ready for this?

Social networks.

Balance is Key

This is one of the reasons that my Law of Three—1/3 Information, 1/3 Reciprocation, and 1/3 Conversation—specifically includes conversation. Why? Notice how Metcalf’s Law states that the value of any telecommunications network is proportional to the square of connected users.

When marketers start abusing various forms of telecommunications, what happens is that people withdraw to go hang out where people are. Humans are wired to be social, not just to part with cash to buy more stuff.

The Days When the Telephone Ruled

Many of us remember the days of the telephone. I recall being so excited when we got an extra long phone cord, because then I could drag the 30 pound phone into my room and talk all afternoon and evening with my friends. I was the Master of Three-Way Calling and many teenagers like me tied up the phone so much, that this forced the invention of Call Waiting.

But then something happened. Telemarketers.

Invasion of the Marketers

As more and more marketers started calling our home phones, this prompted more and more inventions to avoid these marketers. Answering machines and Caller ID are two that come to mind. We started avoiding our home phone. More marketers called and we started gravitating to using cell phones even more to escape the non-stop barrage.

People who knew us understood that, if they wanted to actually talk to us, it was just better to call our cell phone. Pretty soon, it got to the point (for many of us) that we knew if the house phone rang, it was someone trying to sell us something. Eventually, using our home number was a worthless way to connect with us.

Why?

Because to avoid being sold to non-stop, we had set of a layer of filters (barriers) to weed out the telemarketers. Our friends and family knew they’d have to hop the answering machine and Caller ID barriers, and that the quickest and best way to reach us was the cell phone.

As more people gravitated to using cell phone networks, cell phone network providers were able to offer more and more bells and whistles for cheaper and cheaper. Thus, the amount of connected users of cell phone networks has increased exponentially in the past 5-10 years, and, as this has happened, the value of the telephone has steadily decreased in value.

Why?

There are fewer and fewer connected users. The telemarketer, in my opinion, killed the home telephone.

Newsletters–Not as Powerful as the Good Old Days

Spammers have made marketing using e-mail less and less effective. This is one of the reasons I am unsure how much value there is to be had in giant mailing lists. As spam filters get better and better, most newsletters are more likely to end up in the spam file, and, unless the fan is eager to get our content and goes looking for it (which won’t happen unless we engage), then the newsletter will effectively die a slow lonely death in the cold of cyberspace.

Click-through rates are dreadful (how many people actually open a newsletter) simply because modern humans no longer only have a handful of e-mails to manage. We have hundreds. This clutter renders most messages (including newsletters) invisible.

I am not saying that newsletters and large mailing lists are worthless. I am only saying they are less effective. Sort of like a four-year degree is still valuable, but it is no longer a guarantee to a high-paying job. This isn’t 1983. Any marketing approach that fails to account for changing social dynamics is a plan that will fail.

We can’t rely on tools that worked famously…ten years ago. We have a different, more sophisticated audience with different thresholds and expectations, and we either appreciate this or we waste a lot of valuable time and effort. We must appreciate that spammers have clear-cut the e-mail environment, and now the harvest isn’t what it used to be.

Connect or DIE

One of the reasons that it is dangerous to automate on social media is that it is too easy to get lazy and rely on automation. Now, if this wasn’t a common human tendency, then we wouldn’t have a problem, but it is part of human nature to slack off. We all do it.

Yet, when we start automating our messages and not engaging with others, we need to remember that other people will be doing this too. The more automation invades a social site, the less effective that site becomes. Why?

Metcalf’s Law.

No Connection, No Value

Value is related to the amount of connected users. Less people connect because either 1) they have automated everything so they have time for more “important” things or 2) they are avoiding Twitter, Goodreads, etc. because they are tired of all the spam and just want to talk to another human being, because it is called a social network not a shopping network.

Ads have crippled or killed many social platforms, and, if we want to reap advantages of these large pools of fellow humans, then it is our job to contribute instead of take. Yes, we can post links to our blog or posts that interest us, but the Law of Three is designed to keep this in balance.

When we don’t take time to talk to people, they move on, and if no one is present to see our link, follow it and part with money, then our Twitter account is as useless as those e-mails about my inheritance in Ghana from relatives I didn’t even know I had.

Social media, in ways, is a delicate ecosystem. Harvest its fruits, but remember to plant more seeds. Clear-cutting is only profitable short term. We should want Facebook and Twitter and all our current social networks to thrive. If they continue to thrive, this saves us from having to rebuild on a new social network.

We should want our current networks to grow and to be there long-term. We have better things to do–like write more books—than start from Ground Zero on a NEW social site because no one logs on to Twitter anymore because of the non-stop spam.

And trust me, link after link after link, automated or not gets spammy. We are on Twitter to chat with people too, and when that goes away? Then Twitter and Facebook and Goodreads all join the ranks of the home telephone, and the only people who hang out there are the spammers, marketers and bots. Don’t believe me? Go check out MySpace to see the devastation of social clear-cutting.

Welcome to MySpace
(Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

What are your thoughts? Opinions? Concerns? What social sites have you started avoiding? What would you like to see change? Do you miss MySpace? I do. I was really saddened that the ads ruined it. Which platform is next? What platforms do you now avoid that you used to enjoy?

I LOVE hearing from you guys!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of September, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of September I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck! I will announce August’s winner on Friday.

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

Maturity–The Difference Between the Amateur and the Professional

Not down yet.

Happy Friday and WHEEEEE!!!! Finally, a holiday weekend! I don’t remember the last time I needed rest this badly, and just so you know, no blog on Monday.

I’m honored to serve the writing community, and one thing I know for certain, is that being a successful author is not for the faint of heart, no matter which path we take. There are a lot of people who are more in love with the “idea” of success than the hard work that goes into making success happen.

As the WANA Mama, I feel much of my calling has been to teach you guys how to grow from baby writers to mature professionals. Those of you who have children know that it is no great trick to get them to eat dessert, but kids cannot grow up strong and healthy living on ice cream and candy. They need the spinach, broccoli and fish, too.

Same with writers.

I can be very inspiring, and get all of you stirred into a big happy dance of fun. Wheeee! We’re all going to be best-selling writers! Wheeeee! Feelings are great, but they aren’t enough. Feelings will fail you, especially if you try to do anything remarkable. To be successful we need to grow up. We need to mature, and just so you know, this process never stops.

This year, I have been taking on a new leg of my own adventure. I launched WANA International and a new social network for writers and creative professionals, WANATribe. I would love to say this has been one big fun party, but it hasn’t. I’ve had to grow up, and I am still learning and maturing. It is brutal, especially for me, to have to do math, figure out technical stuff, and even fire people. I’ve had to learn to be a boss as well as a leader and the process feels something like this:

AAAAAGHHHHHH, NOOOOOOOO!!!! WHY MEEEEE?????? IT’S NOT FAAAAIIIIIRRRRR! WHY CAN’T PEOPLE JUST DO WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO DO?????? WHAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! IT’S TOO HAAAAAARDDDDD!!!!

See, even I am not always dignified. In fact, sometimes I am downright pathetic. Hey, they are not called “growing fluffy kitten touches.” The are called “growing PAINS.”

Accounting is tough and legal is a headache, but it is all a process. We cannot have the rainbow without the rain. Everyone wants to be there for the party, but how many people really want to be part of the set-up or the clean-up?

I’m not where I hoped to be, but I am still here, and too many people underestimate what a big deal that simply staying in the game really is. To have any kind of success in life, we must grow up, and this applies to anything we want to do in life that is beyond mediocre.

Writing is no different, and, in the new paradigm, maturity is probably more vital than ever before. Writers are in charge of roles they’ve never had to worry about (oh, but let’s remember there was a 93% failure rate to go with “only having to write books”). Most people will never reach success simply because they fail to ever grow up.

So, to help you guys out, today we are going to discuss some marks of maturity.

Mature People Stick to the Dream

Immature people always have a new calling. They don’t stick to anything, so they are never around long enough to enjoy any of the harvest. They flit from calling to calling, idea to idea, book to book, and they don’t finish what they start. Dreams take time to yield harvest. We can’t toss in some seeds and quit a few days, weeks or months later because the seeds “didn’t work out.” It is shocking to me how many people quit in less than a year.

Mature People Understand there Are No Bad Jobs

Sticking with the farming analogy, some crops are planted merely to prepare the soil for the real crop. Years ago, I moved into a house that had no gardens, and I like to garden. Well, Texas soil, for the most part, is good for growing Johnson grass and weeds. It’s sandy and rocky and has clay instead of nutrients.

What did I do?

I removed all the rocks and took a hoe and worked in top soil and fertilizer and planted plants and flowers.

And they died.

So I planted some more.

And they died too.

Then I planted even more.

And those caught on fire then fell over and sank into the swamp died too.

Each time a “crop” failed, I hacked up the crispy plant bodies into the soil and added more top soil and fertilizer, then I would plant something different. By the second year and numerous rounds of plants, something changed. The plants and flowers started to thrive. Everything I planted looked AMAZING, even varieties that had previously died.

Yet, let’s look at what happened.

Every failed “crop” added something that was missing in the soil. But what if I’d given up on the first round of dead zinnias? What if I’d started a new garden in a different area? What if I had just decided that gardening wasn’t my real calling and I needed to play the ukelele instead? I would have never enjoyed the lush beautiful gardens.

One of my Don Juan roses. Took OVER A YEAR to bloom!

Most of us start out as poor, rocky soil. We need to be “prepared.”

I remember when I left my sales job, I wanted to be a writer so badly. I wanted my first novel to take New York by storm and launch me to wild fame and success. Hey, at least I’m honest. I figured I’d have agents fighting over me, but instead I got a couple dozen form-letter rejections in the mail.

Yet, something strange happened. I didn’t get an agent, but out of nowhere I was offered a job as a technical writer. I would be the person who wrote instructions for software. *shivers*

In terms of writing jobs, let me tell you that this was the bottom of the barrel for me and my personality type. I rarely ever read instructions and now I was going to write them? And computer stuff? Were they crazy? I took the job even though I knew it wasn’t my end dream. I knew that this job was there to each me something. It was there to test my character, my discipline, and prepare me for the real dream.

I wanted to be a novelist, but I ended up teaching social media to writers. I look back at the tech job and realize it was preparing me for a destiny I didn’t even know I had. I understood technical stuff so well that I could make a frightening world not only accessible, but fun for people like me who were terrified of technology.

Your day job is there for a reason. What is it teaching you?

Yes, right now you might be working for another person’s dream, but what tools is this job giving you? Is it teaching you how to use certain computer programs? Is it teaching you accounting? Are you learning to meet deadlines? Work with difficult people? Are you learning to prioritize? Are you learning to meet self-imposed deadlines?

Let me be blunt. When we turn pro at anything, we have to be willing to work no matter what, no matter how we feel and when there is no boss standing over our shoulder. We also have to understand (as NYTBSA Bob Mayer states) that writing is the entertainment business.

How many artists make millions only to end up penniless because they didn’t understand the business side of their business? How many actors, musicians, and writers taste the dream, yet it all crashes down because they missed the lessons that would have matured them into responsible efficient business owners who would have spotted a thief or an embezzler?

Mature People Do the Hard Stuff

We will have lots of friends and cheerleaders in the beginning, when everything is shiny and new. But when it gets hard? Prepare to do this alone. To be successful, we need to be willing to do the work even when it is hard.

Yes, blogging can be hard. I’ve had only a small handful of days off in three months. On Wednesday, it took me almost FIVE hours to write my blog, but I showed up. Might not have been the best blog, but I was there, and attendance counts in the Game of Success.

I wasn’t always that person. I was the person who would have felt the first push-back and decided that maybe I didn’t have the right dream. I would have given up and found a new shiny.

If you go pro, I will tell you that I can almost guarantee that you will have to fire people. It could be an agent who doesn’t return e-mails, a web person who is taking too long, a cover designer who failed to deliver what you wanted. It is an uncomfortable spot to be in, but it is part of growing up. Grownups do the hard stuff.

Mature People Do the Boring Stuff

This is in line with the last point. Being a writer is not always a glittery unicorn hug. Some of it can be downright tedious. Revisions are a pain. Revisions will make you question your own existence. Revisions separate the amateurs from the professionals. There is a lot of boring stuff that goes with being a professional anything, including being a professional author.

Mature People Honor Their Commitments

One thing I have learned over the course of my career is that “Talk is cheap.” Many people will promise the moon and the second it gets tough or boring, they will find excuses to dump the mess off on someone else so they can start something “funner”. Hey, I used to be one of those people, but until I learned that this behavior was bad, I had very little victory to show for my life. I had to grow up and start taking my commitments seriously if I hoped to be successful.

This is one of the reasons that the uber successful are called The 5%. All of us want to believe we are a 5%er, but are we? Our actions, choices and decisions testify to where we sit on the bell curve. It takes no great character to start new projects, to pursue new callings, and to leave the mess for others to clean up. The Spawn does all of these things at least 20 times by breakfast.

The Spawn’s “Work History”

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t sit on some high seat of successful piety. I am still learning all of these lessons every day. Even I struggle with temptation. I fight the siren’s song of a new idea, calling, destiny. I struggle not to throw up my hands and walk away. It would be so easy just to give up, and I’ll be blunt, there are days I wonder what the hell I am doing.

But they pass.

And I show up, day after day, step after step, even when it sucks. Our trials can defeat us or define us. The choice is ours. Success is a journey, and we will never find a time we won’t face opposition. In fact, if we aren’t facing opposition, then we aren’t doing anything remarkable.

There Will Be Blood

The picture at the top of this blog serves as testimony. I’d had the worst week and it just kept going downhill. I’d had some people flake out, fail to deliver, and then quit at the worst possible time. I stepped off the plane in LA exhausted, ill-prepared, overwhelmed, and discouraged.

As I was leaving from doing my keynote speech for the RWA WF pre-conference, I realized I didn’t have my phone. I leaned into Jenny Hansen’s trunk to see if my cell phone was in my bag, and the trunk lid crashed down into my head slicing an inch and a half gash in my head. Blood went everywhere, and I narrowly escaped a trip to the ER.

But, I iced my head, Jenny helped me clean the wound (because she is an amazing person and a phenomenal friend), and I got up the next day and got back at it even when I could have called in sick, and let me tell you there was a time I would have. No one would have blamed me for staying in bed. My head hurt and throbbed the entire next day (I had a mild concussion), but nevertheless I found my work shoes and my smile.

***And, yes, I know I shouldn’t have had a glass of wine after getting bashed in the head, but it was all I had for the pain and I was fine. It also made the picture funnier, because it was all I could do not to break down and give up.

Anyway, I don’t tell you this story to brag. I tell you this story to show you that maturity is a process. I wasn’t always the person who would have gone back to work with a busted head. I was a whiny wimp who quit the second stuff became difficult. To this day I have my wimpy moments. Just ask Jenny Hansen, Piper Bayard, Rachel Heller and Jay Donovan (TechSurgeons), some of my dearest and closest WANA peeps who have had to talk me off the ledge more times than I like admitting to.

Some days we are the windshield, but most times, we’re the bug. But those interested in real success keep going back again, and again and again and our WANA pals are here to support us in those dark times.

We are not alone!

Enjoy your holiday weekend and stay safe. Rest, relax and recharge. Prepare for battle, because it all starts again come Tuesday. I can’t promise this journey will be easy, but I can promise it will be worth it and I will be here day after day .

What are your thoughts? What would you add? Where do you struggle? What is your biggest area of weakness?

I LOVE hearing from you guys!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of August, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of August I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

WANA Commons–Beautiful Blog Images without the Worry

The Money Shot by Lisa Hall-Wilson

First of all, I want you guys to know that I MISSED YOU! July was a whirlwind month for sure and reminded me of the days when I used to be on the road for sales. Wandering out of bed in the night to go to the bathroom, yet suddenly realizing you’re in a coat closet. Fun stuff!

We will talk about LA another day, because I have a GIFT for you guys. I KNOW! Another one? Hey, y’all are like my kids, and I’m a terrible mother because I dig spoiling every last one of you. Here, have some cake.

Thank you lovely August McLaughlin for the image.

Most of you guys know I am all about writers blogging. Blogging plays to our strengths. Blogs are far less volatile than other types of social media. Twitter might be gone in a couple years, and Facebook could implode, but blogs will likely remain. This makes them one of our most POWERFUL tools for branding. Blogs afford us an opportunity to share our art, to permit people to fall in love with our writing voice. Blogs give us a chance to create those “thousand fans” even before we are finished with our first book.

***Kevin Kelly estimated that all an artist needed to make a really good living was to cultivate a thousand true fans.***

Blogs with pictures look better, rank higher with search engines and improve our overall SEO. Of course the problem with using pictures these days is, unless we take the photograph ourselves, we can be in danger of violating copyright. Many of you have already heard what happened to poor Roni Loren and how she was sued for using a picture on her blog.

We live in a very different world and the very nature of copyright is changing. I am not here to debate this or discuss it. I will say that you guys are free to use anything you find on this blog. If you have a sick day and can’t blog, reblog one of my blogs. As long as you aren’t claiming you wrote my content, share, share, share like the wind!

I believe in giving and giving generously. I know that YouTube (which is free) has been largely responsible for most of my music purchases. I hear a song. I dig it. I download it. And yes there are pirates and people who refuse to pay for anything, but we call those people thieves. We can never lose a sale with those people because thieves weren’t going to pay money for our stuff anyway. But again, let’s remain focused.

WANA is an acronym for We Are Not Alone. I live my life by this motto. I believe fundamentally in service above self. Does it get me hurt sometimes? YES! Sometimes I get hurt, brutally hurt. But you know what? The pain I endure for a jerk who can’t recognize a blessing is worth it a million-fold for the lives I am fortunate enough to change.

So here is the thing. Through adversity we find strength. Whenever I see a problem, I know the WANAs can come together and turn a tragedy into a triumph. When I heard Roni’s story, I was so hurt for her. Roni is absolutely one of the kindest, sweetest people I know and there isn’t a malicious bone in her body. I wanted something good to come from her pain.

I also know that we author-bloggers are already short on time and hunting around to check copyright or go through the legal motions of gaining a letter of permission is just too much work. Many of us have day jobs and families and then writing books and blogs and social media and on and on and on and we are already to the point of breaking.

So I came up with a solution. I know you guys are more than writers. You are creative people and creative people often can’t help being creative. How could we solve the photo/copyright dilemma AND have yet another opportunity to promote each other and serve each other. The answer? WANA Commons.

Photo courtesy of RAS Jacobson

WANA Commons already has 117 members as of this blog, and we have collectively uploaded over 1,400 images. If you check out this group, you will see what I mean about creative people having more than one outlet. So many of the pictures are just breathtaking, and the best part is they are a gift. The WANAs have come together to share their images and you guys are free to use any of the images in WANA Commons. All we ask is you give attribution.

That’s it!

Beautiful image from Shannon Esposito. TALENT!

I hope more of you will join and contribute your images. I have several photographer friends who will be uploading images. We live in a world where people throw away the phone book and ignore advertising. Consumers go to who they know. Bloggers, particularly popular bloggers are the new taste-makers. In a world with the power of the four arrows (fast-forwarding through commercials) product placement is going to be one of the best ways to get business.

Authors all need head shots and we need images for promotion stuff and book covers, and we are going to go to photographers we know so I encourage the photographers out there to contribute. Not your best images. We know you need to make a living, and we want to help get your work out there. WANAs aren’t just writers. WANAs believe that we can work together to solve the toughest issues of life. Discoverability is a nightmare for ALL of us, so let’s work together. Transmedia helps ALL of us.

Seeing free images didn’t stop me from paying almost a thousand dollars for author shots. In fact, free images closed the sale for me. I knew this photographer’s work and I liked it and that’s why I sought her out.

Anyway, I hope you guys will come and join WANA Commons. No we aren’t Ansel Adams, but there are some really stunning photographs on there. To those who have contributed, you are beautiful wonderful awesome souls and you remind me each and every day why I LOVE my job. Thank you for sharing.

Just go to Flikr and sign up for an account if you don’t already have one. Also, please make sure to tag your images with what the image IS. This will help us sort through the images faster. Make sure to put YOUR NAME and WANA Commons on all of the images you tag. This will help us AND will help your SEO. Thank you ahead of time for being so awesome.

Also check out Shannon Esposito, August McLaughlin, Renee Jacobson and Lisa Hall-Wilson and maybe thank them for the beautiful images in today’s post. These ladies are WANA personified!

What are your thoughts? What other forms of art do you like to do? What are your favorite things to take pictures of? What kind of pictures do you need? Maybe we can all be on the lookout, our iPhones at the ready to help a WANA peep in need.

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of August, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

***Changing the contest.

It is a lot of work to pick the winners each week. Not that you guys aren’t totally worth it, but with the launch of WANA International and WANATribe I need to streamline. So I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners will now have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of August I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck! Also, I will announce July’s winner probably on Friday. I need time to tally everything and I am not even fully unpacked yet.

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

The Five Mistakes Killing Self-Published Authors

The Spawn’s First Novel, “akjehsubfuirewagh6r5″ now available on Kindle.

Happy Monday! Okay, last week, upon my return from Thrillerfest, we explored what I felt were the 5 top mistakes that are killing traditional publishing. Then, on Friday, we talked about how self-publishing can help writers as a whole, even traditional writers. It is a wonderful time to be a writer, but I want to make myself crystal clear.

This business is hard work. There are no shortcuts.

I Don’t Take Sides

I feel that traditional publishing has a lot to offer the industry. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t spend so much time and effort challenging them to innovate to remain competitive. Self-publishing is not a panacea, and, since I spent last week focusing on the traditional end of the industry, today we are going to talk about the top five mistakes I feel are killing self-publishing authors.

Mistake #1 Publishing Before We Are Ready

The problem with the ease of self-publishing is that it is, well, too easy. When we are new, frankly, most of us are too dumb to know what we don’t know. Just because we made As in English, does not automatically qualify us to write a work spanning 60-100,000 words. I cannot count how many writers I have met who refuse to read fiction, refuse to read craft books, and who only go to pitch agents when they attend conferences at the expense of attending the craft sessions.

Additionally, too many new writers I meet do not properly understand the antagonist. They don’t grasp three-act structure, and most don’t have any idea what I mean when I mention POV, Jungian archetypes, or the phrase, “scene and sequel.”

I see a lot of new writers who believe their story is the exception, that the rules make for “formulaic” writing. No, rules are there for a reason, and, if the writing is too formulaic, it has more to do with execution than the rules.

Three-act structure has been around since Aristotle, and there is a lot of evidence in neuroscience that suggests that three-act structure is actually hard-wired into the human brain. Thus, when we deviate too far from three-act structure, it confuses and frustrates readers. Stories have clear beginnings, middles and ends. Without a clear story objective, it is impossible to generate dramatic tension, and what is left over is drama’s inbred cousin, melodrama. Yet, many writers start off writing a book without properly understanding the basic skeleton of story.

Writing fiction is therapeutic, but it isn’t therapy. Yes, characters should struggle with inner demons, but that does not a plot make. Struggling with weakness, inner demons, insecurity, addictions are all character arc, not plot arc. There should be a core story problem that we can articulate in ONE sentence. The plot arc should serve to drive the character arc. If the character does not grow and change she will fail, but it is the core story problem that drives this change. Without the problem, there is no crucible.

Yes, we are artists, but we need to understand the fundamentals. I played clarinet for years, and yes it was an art. But this didn’t excuse me from having to learn to read music, the finger positions and proper embouchure (the way to position the mouth to play).

The better we are at the basics, the better we know the rules, the more we become true artists.

I’ve received contest winners whose first pages were filled with newbie errors. Yet, when I sent them my critique filled with pages of corrections, I would then receive a reply telling me that the book had already been self-published.

OUCH.

Sometimes there are reasons we are being rejected and we need to take a hard look and be honest. Self-publishing is suffering a stigma from too many writers publishing before they are ready. If you really want to self-publish, I am here to support you and cheer you all the way, but remember, we have to write better than the traditional authors.

Mistake #2 Jumping in Before Understanding the Business Side to the Business

I see a lot of writers rushing into self-publishing without properly preparing to be a small business, yet that is exactly what we are. When we self-publish, we take on new roles and we need to understand them. We need to be willing to fork out money for proper editing, cover design and formatting.

One of the benefits to traditional publishing is they take on all the risk and do the editing, proofing, etc. When we go it alone, we need to prepare for some expenses and do our research. We can be told a million times to not judge a book by its cover, yet that is exactly what readers do. Additionally, we may need to look into becoming an LLC. We need to set up proper accounting procedures and withhold the correct amount of taxes, unemployment, state taxes and on and on.

This is part of the reason I created WANA International. Writers need business instruction. In the fall we will be bringing on more and more business classes for writers.

Mistake #3 Believing that, “If We Write it They Will Come”

There are a lot of writers who mistakenly believe that self-publishing is an easier and faster way to fame and success. Yeah, um no. And those magic beans are really just beans. Sorry.

Self-publishing is A LOT of work, especially if we are starting out this way. I know Bob Mayer and Joe Konrath lecture writers to do less social media and more writing. To an extent I agree, but here is the thing. These guys were branded traditional authors who could slap New York Times Best-Selling in front of their names when they decided to go it alone. If you can’t slap New York Times Best-Selling in front of your name, prepare for a ton of work.

Not only do we need to write good books, but we need to write prolifically. We also need to work our tails off on social media. If you study the successes of the Amanda Hockings and the H.P. Mallorys, they worked like dogs. They wrote a lot of books and also created momentum with social media and newsletters.

When we self-publish, we need a much larger platform because we don’t have New York in our corner. This is one of the reasons self-publishing isn’t for everyone. We need to look at how badly we want the dream, and then ask how many hours are we willing to work? What are we willing to sacrifice?

Mistake #4 Misusing FREE!

There are a lot of problems with giving books away for FREE! We shouldn’t be giving away our work unless it serves some kind of a strategic advantage. There are ways to effectively harness they power of FREE! but too few writers understand how to do this and they just end up giving away their art for no tangible gain. This goes with my above point of us needing to understand the business side of our business. When we do choose to give away stuff for FREE! it needs to serve longer-term business goals.

Mistake #5 Shopping One Book to DEATH

When Joe Konrath and Bob Mayer chastise writers to get off social media and get back to writing more books, they are giving fantastic advice. One of the BIGGEST problems I see with self-published writers is that they publish one book and then they focus every bit of energy on selling THAT book.

They fill up #MyWANA and all the writing hashtags with link spam promoting their books. They keep futzing with the cover, the web site, the promotions. They do blog tours until they drop, and they do everything except what is going to help that book sell a ton of copies…write more books.

Here’s the thing. Self-publishing, in many ways, just allows us to accelerate the career path of the author. Even in traditional publishing, it usually takes about three books to gain traction. In traditional publishing, this takes three years because we are dealing with a publisher’s schedule.

In self-publishing, we can make our own schedule, but it still takes THREE BOOKS MINIMUM. I know there are exceptions, but most self-published successes hit at about book three. The ability to offer multiple titles is a huge part of why John Locke became successful.

This is why it is critical to keep writing. Not only will writing more books make you a better writer, but once people discover they love your writing, they have a number of titles to purchase. Being able to offer multiple titles is how we make money at self-publishing. It also helps us maximize the whole FREE! tactic. Even I am putting my nose to the grindstone to come out with more books in the next six months. I don’t tell you guys to do anything that, I myself, am unwilling to do.

Remember Why We Do This

Self-publishing is a wonderful alternative. Just because we self-publish doesn’t mean we cannot publish other ways, too. I feel the author of the future will actually be a hybrid author, and I do believe that the ability to self-publish is challenging all of us to come up higher. We are striving to be better writers, to be better entrepreneurs, to get better at organization and time-management and to write more books and better books. If we can learn from these mistakes and grow, then the future is ours for the taking.

A little humor…

My own story…

What have been some of your challenges with self-publishing? In what areas is it forcing you to grow? Have you had to outsource? What sacrifices have you made? Tell us your story!

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of July, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

***Changing the contest.

It is a lot of work to pick the winners each week. Not that you guys aren’t totally worth it, but with the launch of WANA International and WANATribe I need to streamline. So I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners will now have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of July I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.