On Celebrating and Braggery

I finally got my act together and joined my local chapter of the RWA (What up, WisRWA Milwaukee Chapter?!)  And to my complete luck, our first meeting featured a talk by the delightful Isabel Sharpe, and she shared a piece of advice that has stuck with me for over a week.  (To be fair, she heard it from someone else, but I am not a notetaker, so this is as close as you're going to get to an honest attribution).

"Always allow people to be happier for you than you are for yourself."

It took me a minute to digest, and I'll be happy to wait if you need to take a moment yourself.  No, really...go ahead.  I'll be here.

Back?  Okay.  So what does it mean?  Well, there are two interpretations.  The first is simple:  be humble.

The second is more complex, but I think more applicable when the average person is suffering from the all-too-human urge to be less-than-humble.  And here it is:

Do not be so happy for yourself that you become a bore.

As writers, we suffer from an overabundance of rejection.  So those moments of approval can be precious. Hell, they can be balm to a ravaged soul depending on how long you've been at this.  How can you not want to celebrate, right?  Don't worry, you should.  You absolutely should.  Got an agent?  Congratulations!  Tell me the story!  I love agent stories!  Sold your manuscript?  Amazing!  Where?  When is it coming out?  I'm doing virtual cartwheels for you!  Won the cover lottery?  Color me jealous and give me the damn link already so I can drool appropriately!

But then, you need to calm yourself a bit.  Don't crow.  Don't tell us about every full manuscript request. Don't have a party for yourself every week on your blog after your book sells.

Let others do it for you.  Because they will.

Now of course, this doesn't mean you should only mention it once and never speak of it again like it's some shameful part of your past.  You need to promote yourself, of course.  But that's a matter of timing, frequency and tone, at least in my humble opinion.

And there are some really delightful writers out there who are pulling off this perfect balance of self-promotion and humility.  In fact, I'll give you a list of some of my favorite examples.  You can check out their blogs and see what I mean:

• Kiersten White - the humblest, most lovable New York Times Bestseller.  Ever.

• Stephanie Perkins - Steph works gobsmacked like nobody else.  She got the love from John Green for God's sake.  And you still want to squeeze her and bask in her glory.

• Hannah Moskowitz - Hannah is the most earth-bound wunderkind you'll ever encounter.  And she rocks her good news with charming swagger.

So if you can't be guided by my misattributed quote above, ask yourself:  What would Kiersten/Stephanie/Hannah do?

Who are some of your on-line humility heroes?

- Liz

The World's Worst Blogger

I've been a querying machine lately.  It seems like all I do is research agents, write letters and save small segments of my books in every imaginable page length, document type and font size.

In the midst of all that querying, I read a lot of agent blogs, submission guidelines, FAQs, Writers' Resources and the like.  A lot of them talk about what kind of on-line presence they like writers to have.  Most of them mention a blog.

Some are kind enough to tell you what they don't like to see in a blog.  Namely:  infrequent posting.

Uh...yeah.

Being the insecure little unpub'd writer that I am, I--of course--interpret this to mean:  "Liz, you don't post enough on your blog, and even if I were interested in offering you representation, one little google search would have me thinking otherwise, because here you are NOT POSTING ON YOUR BLOG."

True.

So, now I wonder--is having a bad blog worse than having no blog?  And if so, what do I do now?

I'll tell you one thing--this place needs a cosmetic overhaul.  I've got blog ennui.  It's ugly here and recent attempts to snapify it up have resulted in making it uglier.  It's like I got an ugly house and covered it in a coat of builder's white.  Blech.

New Year's Resolution perhaps?  Perhaps.

What do you guys think:  Is a bad blog worse than no blog?

- Liz

Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

I've been MIA, AWOL and incommunicado on most fronts for quite some time. The main reason is that I've been finishing a major revision on my project The Sorbet Guy. (There have been a few Teaser Tuesdays featuring these revisions.) I'm mostly done now, just doing a final run-through with notes from my critique partners, but that work is easier and lets me venture out of my Fortress of Solitude.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to share some of the things I did and learned during this rewrite. Maybe there will be something in it for you, maybe not, but consider it's all I've been up to, I feel the need to put it out there.

I'm also about to get back in the query saddle again, and I'll give you all updates on how that goes as well. Fingers crossed for requests galore.

So, I thank you all for your patience with me of late, as I have been a terrible blog reader as well. And a Twitter has-been. I hope to get back to it all with a bit of moderation. Writing will stay my number one priority, but I miss the community, so I'll be around. Promise.

- Liz

My First Blog Award!

Yesterday, Jill over at Jill Kemerer, honored me with The Sunshine Award. Thanks Jill! I greedily put it on my blog already, but wanted to give the fabulous Steve Novak a full day to be the top item on my blog before I posted this. Sorry for the delay, Jill, and thanks again.

Rules to Accept the Award:

◦Put the logo on your blog in your post.
◦Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
◦Link the nominees within your post.
◦Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blogs.
◦Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

Nominees:

1. Jessie at JA Souders

2. Kristan at Writing Dreams into Reality

3. Mary at Mary Brebner, YA writer

4. MaryBeth at Keystrokes & Word Counts

5. Cassandra at C.A. Marshall

6. Kelly at Just Write

7. Megan at Megan Rebekah Blogs...and Writes

Yes, I'm aware that 7 is not 12. I know a handful of other bloggers who are more than deserving of all kinds of awards, but most of them would give me a raised eyebrow if I presented them with a flower, so they shall remain admired, but unawarded by me.

- Liz

How to Be Interesting, or Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I Learned from Maureen Johnson

The key to "getting" Twitter for me, was following people who already knew how to use it. And the person I learned the most from the fastest was Young Adult author Maureen Johnson (@maureenjohnson on Twitter). To be fair, there have been others who have taught me a lot (check out my Twitter list of people I'm following for some prime examples), but Ms. Johnson is a Twitter tour de force. So, here it is:

How to be Interesting

1. Tweet often. Not so often that we know your every potty break or bite of sandwich, please, but keep your followers curious about what you might be up to.

2. Don't be a Twitter Pimp. Don't use Twitter purely to promote yourself as an author (or whatever). Tweet about funny experiences, current events, other people's tweets, etc.

3. Share helpful information. Tweetdeck (and other platforms) are great for this, because they auto-shorten URLs. You can tweet about anything useful you stumble across that people with similar interests might like to know.

4. Share entertaining information. You can post photos, youtube videos, links...anything that gave you a good laugh is sure to do the same for someone else.

5. Don't be too vague. When you share information, be sure to include a line in your tweet about what your followers should expect. No one likes a mystery link.

6. Interact. With your followers and people you follow. Maureen Johnson is a pro at this. She takes time (almost) every day to let people ask her four questions. And then she posts the questions with her answers. Sometimes she'll give the Twitterverse a fill-in-the-blank just for funsies, too. Tweet to people you don't know, say thanks for any mentions you get from someone else. Join the party!

7. Use hashtags. You never know who might be following a designated #hashtag and will want to comment on something you've said. Plus, they can be funny. I loves me some funny.

8. Be yourself. It's hard to take off our protective armor and let it all hang out with a bunch of strangers, but in the end, you're an adorable, likeable person. Be you and you'll find people who like that sort of thing.

- Liz

Any other suggestions for Twitter Happiness?

Field Guide to Twitter

I was one of many who didn't "get" Twitter. I signed up for an account ages ago, and I think I Tweeted (posted messages) all of three times before I let the account atrophy. Then, thanks to my friend JA Souders, I had my come-to-Jesus moment with all this social networking stuff and started on the road to having a web-presence of my very own. It started with a website and a Facebook fanpage, but I knew I was going to have to come to terms with Twitter.

My instinct was to say "I don't wanna!" and stamp my feet like a child. And as Nathan Bransford so effectively said, you should only do what works for you as a writer when it comes to using social networking. On the other hand, it's rare for me to think that I might not be able to figure something out (Unless there's a ball involved. I don't do sports involving balls.) (Get your mind out of the gutter.)

I started with the lazy girl method (remember my Excessive Grooviness Disorder?) by linking my Facebook fanpage to my Twitter account so anything I posted on FB would automatically post to Twitter. But, I wasn't getting any followers and I still didn't feel like I "got it." So, what does any geeky writer do in her time of need? Google, my friend, we google. And I read every article, wiki and blog about Twitter I could stand. (Okay, maybe, like five.)

In the end, there’s not teacher like experience, and after some time in the Tweeting trenches, I’ve learned a lot.

I now present to you my…

FIELD GUIDE TO TWITTER

Tweet - a message posted to Twitter, also the act of posting a message to Twitter (i.e. "I'm tweeting this!") Limited to 140 characters. You can include links to websites, pictures, youtube...whatever strikes your fancy.

Retweet - when someone else has something funny or interesting to say, you can Retweet their message to all of your followers.

@messages - are messages directed to, or mentioning another Twitter user. The reason for doing it is so the other person gets the message directly on their feed (highlighted in one of a million ways depending on the platform you're using). You can send an @message to anyone, even someone who you're not following, or who doesn't follow you.

direct messages - on the other hand, can only be sent between people who follow each other. They don't appear on the main feed of Twitter, and no one else can see them.

Following – a form of socially acceptable stalking. You can follow anyone you like and they can’t really stop you. This doesn’t mean you should be obnoxious and send direct messages all the time and think it means you’re now “friends,” but it’s a great way to stand on the fringes of an interest group and gain information by osmosis.

Tweetchat.com - is a site that allows you to enter a #hashtag of your choice and follow a constantly updating scroll of everyone who is using that #hashtag. So, if you're looking for people who share your interest in something, this might be a good place to troll (like fishing, not like the creatures that live under bridges). It's also used to conduct scheduled chatroom-like discussions among groups with shared interests. Like, every Wednesday at 9pm EST, entering #YAlitchat will bring you a tidal wave of writers all tweeting about the same pre-decided topic related to Young Adult literature, writing and publication.

Tweetdeck - a little program that can sit on your desktop. It's very customizable, so you can view your account in columns. You can set up different groups for each column, or designate one for direct messages and @messages to you. You can also send Tweets from here. It's got bit.ly built into it, so any website you want to share will automatically get clipped into a short URL that eats up less of your 140 characters.

Twitteriffic - is just one of the many iPod or iPhone apps that acts as a Twitter client. The major downfall of this one is the inability to retweet from the app.

#hashtags - are small phrases placed in your message to help identify your topic. Examples would be during the Oscars, you will find lots of people putting #oscars in their messages which means other people can search the hashtag and find out who's saying what.

I don't know who started the trend, although it certainly could be Maureen Johnson, but hashtags are also used as funny asides in your own messages. You just never know when one of the #hashtags you create will be picked up by others. For example, if I wanted to tweet about this blog post, I could say:

“I just wrote a FIELD GUIDE TO TWITTER on my blog #thisneedsthememusic”

Some #hashtags I find useful - #amwriting, #pubtip, #YAlitchat, #askagent

In my next blog, I'm going to talk about what makes someone a good Twitter user. In other words, what the heck do I tweet about?

Did I miss anything? Feel free to leave suggestions or questions in the comments section. I can always put out a second edition. You know how I love to “listen” to myself “talk.”

- Liz

Putting Myself Out There

This week, I created a Fan Page for myself at Facebook, and started a Twitter account. It’s a strange feeling to be promoting myself like this. I’ve gotten used to have a small following at my display site, but these are my first steps outside of the protective bubble of that site. So far, I have sixteen fans, and I sincerely hope to grow that number this week.

As a writer, I have struggled to share my work with people out of--what? Fear I guess. Fear that people won’t like it, that they’ll think I’m foolish for wanting to be a writer, or wanting to be published. But, the reality is, writing for myself just isn’t that fun. If my writing never finds another audience, I won’t stop--I can’t, I love it too much. But let’s face it, every writer dreams of seeing their name in print.

In the information age, part of the skills set of a writer is to have an on-line presence. And, I’m very serious about doing this on a professional level, so here I am. It’s been a liberating and a terrifying experience to have people find out what I’ve been doing with all my free time, but the response has been overwhelmingly positive. It just goes to show that the boogeyman is rarely anything more than a pair of pants draped over the back of your chair, or a trick of light. My worries about the opinions of my family and friends have turned out to be illusion.

I’ve been thinking I should use this blog to do something more than spill the contents of my brain on the web. My friend Jessie uses hers to talk about the process of writing. So, starting next week, I’m going to work on sharing a bit of my process with you. Hopefully, it will be interesting at least and helpful at best. If anyone out there is a writer, or would like to be, I hope you’ll be able to find something thought-provoking or useful as we delve into this area together.

Stay tuned.