6 Things a Writer Should Not Do - Writer's Reveal

Today it's time for the Writer's Reveal post. This month's topic was sent to me from Melissa of Melissa Writes and the topic is, in her words, " Write a post about what not to do as a writer. Ideally at least 5 points."

A Writer should never....
1. Give up. If you have been writing for a while now and you feel like your not getting anywhere with it, try a different approach or take some new classes to help you hone your skills. Don't just throw in the towel. Very few people actually decide to become writers and then start writing. If you have managed to get that far, then you need to keep at it. There's a reason you decided to write. 

2. Stop improving and learning. Writing skills develop through use. Some people might be born with a natural talent for writing, but most of the writers you see with books that are top-sellers had to learn to write that well. It takes time and practice and, for some, classes and tutorials. You need to get people to critique your manuscripts and you will learn from those critiques so that you don't make the same mistakes with the next first draft you write.

3. Talk about writing more than you actually write. Nothing is going to get written if you don't sit your butt down in that chair and write. Talking about your story is great; it can help you flesh out your ideas when you talk about the story with someone else, but if you spend all of your time on your book discussing it or thinking about it and spend no time actually writing those ideas down, you are not ever going to get your book written.

4. Let Facebook, Twitter and other social media take over your computer time. Again, you have to actually spend time writing your story if you ever want to finish it. Facebook, Twitter and other avenues of social media have this magical way of making time fly by without you ever getting anything done. Don't let the pull of social media keep you from getting your writing done. Set aside time for social media and stick to that time. Also set aside time for writing when all the social media pages are closed down on your computer and your phone is turned off.

5. Isolate yourself. Social media has one thing going for it when it comes to a writer's life. Social media can connect you with other writers, agents and publishers. One thing about the writing world, writers are usually willing to help each other. Instead of seeing one another as competition for the book selling market, writers have been reaching out to one another for years - giving moral support, helping by critiquing each others' books, creating and joining writing challenges and groups, helping spread the word of new book releases, writing reviews, helping one another brainstorm ideas and more. As a writer, you really don't want to miss out on all of the support you can get from other writers.

6. Reply to a review you find on Amazon, Goodreads or elsewhere. Even if you make a positive statement, it can backfire. There was recently a lot of discussion and argument about what authors should and shouldn't do when it comes to reviewing, but the easiest way to stay out of trouble with the public is to not respond to reviews.

You might have noticed that I listed 6 things instead of 5. It could easily have been longer. 

Instead of the above list of things you should not do as a writer, I'd like to state the one thing that you absolutely HAVE to do. Believe in yourself!

 *****

The the other writers in Writer's Reveal are:

• Jodi Gibson
• JC Wolfe
• Melissa Gijsbers Khalinsky
• Josefa
• Rhianna
• Ashley Howard
• Zanni Louise

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What's Stopping You From Achieving Your Dreams As a Writer? #IWSG

This is my fifth monthly Insecure Writer's Support Group post. The IWSG is hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh. The purpose of the IWSG is:

 "to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!"

My husband has recently asked me when I'm going to start submitting my book to agents and publishers. Or when I am going to self-publish it. I think he was just trying to subtly point out to me that at some point, I have to let go of my insecurity enough to start sharing my stories. I don't have a problem with sharing my short stories or my flash fiction pieces. I get nervous about my novels though.

And because of this, I keep putting off the editing and revising of these novels. Then, when people offer to critique, I can truthfully tell them that it's "not ready yet." But at the rate I am going, using procrastination and self-doubt as excuses, I will never get my books published.

I read a lot. And because of this, I have read some really great books, which make me feel like my writing is inadequate (i.e. How will I ever write this well?) and some really awful books. I've also read some books that have potential, but are clearly written by amateurs, people who published too soon, before their books were really ready. When I read these, I wonder if my books are any better. (i.e. What if this is as good my stories get? What if I let others read my stories and they think the same way about my books as I think about these books?)

But if I keep using excuses, if I keep letting laziness (procrastination) and fear keep me from pushing onward with my books, I will NEVER get them published, and getting my books published, having books that people read and love, is my dream. I have fought to achieve a dream before that others thought was impossible (losing 145+ lbs), and I succeeded. so why should I put any less effort and drive and dedication into pursuing this dream?

The answer is I shouldn't. I should be just as dedicated, work just as hard and go after this dream just as much as I went after that other dream. And you should too.

What is it that you are letting keep you from your dream? Is it worth it?



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NaNowriMo 2012: Week 4 Update & The Joy of Getting Comments

National Novel Writing Month has just completed its 4th week. Today is the 28th and we now only have two day left until we are supposed to be done with our 50,000 words.

For me, 50,000 words is not a complete novel. It's more of a novella. I have never completed a full-length novel, despite having successfully completed NaNoWriMo three times previously. This year, I decided I was going to write a full novel in the month of November, rather than just 50,000 words. I write over 75,000 last year, so I knew it was possible.

My goal was to write a minimum of 85,000 words. I've already done that, so I revised my goal to reach 90,000 words. Then I decided that I might even try for 95,000 words. I've still got two days of writing to go and only a little under 10,000 words left to get there, so it's possible. And I like stretching myself by setting these personal goals that push the boundaries of what I can do each time.

I don't just want to reach 95,000 words; I want to have a completed first draft to my novel. Every previous year, whether I wrote 52,000 words or 75,000 words, I stopped at the end of NaNoWriMo and never picked up the story to continue with it afterward. This year, my goal is to get to a first draft and then I am giving myself three months to finish the first round of edits on it.

Once I've gone through the first round of edits on it, I will start having writing friends do some critiquing for me. And then I will go from there. This story is going to make it to publication eventually, just not until I know it is ready.

As a blogger, comments on the writing I do on my blog mean a lot to me. It's rewarding to know that people are reading what I write and if it helps them or interests them or gives them something to say, it is extra rewarding. I don't know if anyone is reading what I write unless they comment.

As a writer, when I share bits of my creative writing, it is even more important to get comments. I suffer from a common writer-disease called self-doubt. It is more prominent when it comes to my fiction writing. When someone reads some small story or snippet of writing I have shared and tells me they enjoyed it, it literally gives me a happiness boost.

I started out, in the beginning of this year's NaNoWriMo, just posting my daily word count and total word count, at the end of each day's writing, on Facebook. A little ways through the month, I decided that it was a rather boring way to let people know about what I was doing, so I started sharing snippets from each day's writing along with my post about my day's word count.

Today, one of the people on my Facebook friends list, (someone I have known since she was a child who played with my own kids) gave me this comment when I wrote about my goal to finish the novel.

"Do It Becky I LOVE reading your snippet of the day...you got me hooked and I've only been reading little bits!!"

She has never before commented on one of my word count posts, so I had no idea she was even reading them. And her comment has really brightened my day and given me a slight confidence boost for the story I am writing. It's also made me wonder how many others are reading my daily snippets without commenting.

So please, if you enjoy someone's writing, let them know!


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NaNoWriMo 2012 - Week 3 Update & Excuses

Week three is over now and we should all be getting much further along in our stories. How is it going? Are you learning more about your characters and how they would react in the different situations you throw them into? (Please, let me know in the comments below.)

I hit the 50,000 word mark on the 15th, and, for me, that was just a little over half-way through my novel. My goal is to complete the first draft of my novel by November 30th. My novel should be somewhere between 85,000 and 95,000 words long when it's complete.

But there's a problem. My writing is slowing down. I'm not bored with my story. I still love the story and the characters, and I'm still excited about where the story is going. But I am bored of writing the story.

In order to fit writing time into my day, I have started writing in a notebook while I am on the two buses I take to get my children to their schools and again on those two buses on my way home. This "school run" happens twice a day. Add in some time walking between schools and walking to and from the bus stops and these trips take me two hours each time. So I spend two hours in the morning taking my kids to school and then going home again, and then I spend another two hours picking them up from school and going home again. If you take out the walking times, I spend about 3 hours a day on buses. And now I spend that time writing.

Not only am I starting to get pain in my hand because it's starting to cramp up from all the writing I am doing, but I miss chatting with the people I have gotten to know on the bus journeys. Add to that the fact that typing up, in the evening, everything I write in notebooks during the day, and my evening becomes mind-numbingly boring.

So I am finding myself making excuses to not write as much. I've already reached the 50,000 NaNoWriMo goal, so it has become one excuse I use, despite the fact that I know it's not enough to complete my book. "I'm tired" is frequent excuse I use, which, though true, is not a good enough reason to write less. The other excuse I use is that I don't have time. I've decided to only allow myself that excuse for the typing part of my writing and not the notebook writing and only if I don't then spend any time watching television or on Facebook, etc. It's only a valid excuse if I really am busy doing doing other necessary things all day.

So what excuses have you come up with during NaNoWriMo for not spending enough time writing? Are they legitimate? I'd love to hear them.


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NaNoWriMo 2012!

Today is the beginning of National Novel Writing Month 2012.


Here is what the NaNoWriMo site has to say about their purpose:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000-word (approximately 175-page) novel by 11:59:59 PM on November 30.


Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.


As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.


In 2011, we had 256,618 participants and 36,843 of them crossed the 50K finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

I have participated in NaNoWriMo for three previous years: 2009, 2010 and 2011. I've succeeded at it every year, usually going well over 50,000 words. Last year, I managed over 75,000 words, having reached the first 50,000 words in two weeks. (I wrote a blog post about how to write 50,000 words in 14 days.) I have not yet published a novel, but I have managed to create several short stories from my NaNoWriMo novels which I have been able to enter into competitions (with a only a few alterations to them) and I have even won some of those competitions.


Today, the first day of this year's NaNoWriMo, did not start out well. I have been sick for a couple of days now. Every muscle in my body has been aching and every movement I make hurts. I have a raging headache and a fever. I woke up today to find that my cats had made a huge mess of the litterbox, so my first act of the day was to clean out the very messy cat litterbox. Then my dog, apparently also ill today, had diarrhea all over the hallway floor which I had to clean up and then disinfect the floor. Then one of my sons wrote on my bedroom wall and that had to be cleaned up. Then my 6 year old started complaining that he felt cold. I checked his temperature and he was running a fever.


So basically, today sucked. However, despite all of this, I managed to spend some time this evening writing and I wrote 2,009 words of a new novel. Although I had been determined to plan ahead and outline my novel beforehand this year, I didn't actually decide on which story idea to use for NaNoWriMo until I sat down to write this evening. Now I am so excited about the story that I can't wait to get back to it!


And that, in essence, is what draws me back to NaNoWriMo every year, what keeps me writing my novels: The excitement of writing a new story, of being pulled into a new world that I get to create and meeting new characters who always seem to dictate to me where their story is going to take us.


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GUTGAA Blogfest September 2012 Meet & Greet #GUTGAA

I joined the Gearing Up To Get An Agent Blogfest September 2012 and today is the day designated as our blog meet and greet.


My mini bio:

I am a Californian living in the UK with my English husband and I am a mother of seven beautiful children: five girls and two boys. I used to be morbidly obese, but I got my health under control and lost over 145 pounds. After achieving that weight loss, something that many people told me would be impossible, I finally started to believe in myself and decided to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a published author. I have had articles published in magazines and I have had some short stories published in anthologies. I am currently working on getting three children's picture books published and one children's chapter book published while simultaneously trying to finish several novels and one non-fiction book. I own several blogs, my main one aside from this one is my health and fitness one Skinny Dreaming. I also run the Chapter Book Challenge that runs in March of every year.

Questions for the Meet and Greet

Where do you write?

I write while on the bus taking my kids to and from school and I write while sitting on my couch at home using my laptop.

Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see?

The first thing I see is a magazine titled, "Writing for Kids and YA" by Writer's Digest.

 

Favorite time to write?

I prefer to write in the evenings after my children have gone to bed, especially when it is early enough that I am not yet sleepy.

 

Drink of choice while writing?

Coffee or diet soda. I really like to have Good Earth's Sweet & Spicy Tea or Diet Mug Root Beer as my two favorite drinks, but they are not easy to get here in the UK and when I can find them, they are expensive.

 

When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?

Because I write in my living room, my husband or one of my teenagers usually have the television on while I write, but I would prefer it to be off. I don't mind music playing if the mood of the music fits with what i am writing at the time, but generally I prefer the quiet.

 

What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?

I am actually working on more than one manuscript right now, but two of them were inspired by dreams. Some of the other manuscripts were inspired by my children (and not just the children's stories).

What's your most valuable writing tip?

Can I give more than one? I think that, to be a writer, you have to believe in yourself. If you don't believe you have the ability to achieve your writing goals, then it becomes all too easy to give up. You also have to be willing to take on criticism without letting it stop you from writing. You have to be willing to learn and grow and take every step back as a learning experience to help your work improve.

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Writing: Blogging Momentum

This is my post for Day 28 of the Author Blog Challenge. (This is the final day of the challenge.)




What are you going to do to keep the blogging momentum going? What plans do you have to continue your connection with other Author Blog Challenge participants?


I am making plans to keep my blog momentum going, mainly, by continuing to post. I won't be posting every day, as I was doing for this challenge, but I intend to be posting once or twice a week, every week. Posting every day has eaten into my novel-writing time, so I don't want to be posting every day, but once or twice a week should be manageable.


Before doing the challenge, I was neglecting my blog and letting weeks go by without posting. That won't be happening any more. There are two blogs in my writing life that I intend to continue keeping updated and current, and those are this blog and my Skinny Dreaming blog. (I have over 20 blogs but not all of them are kept current.) The reason I want these two blogs to be kept current is that they are both about important aspects of my life: my writing and my fitness/healthy lifestyle. (My children are also super-important to me, and I have to admit that I have neglected my family blog for way too long.)

I have been building a list of topics for future blog posts to keep me posting more regularly. Having prompts has helped keep me posting, so I decided to create a bunch of "prompts" for myself to keep me full of ideas for posts for this blog.


I have joined a critique group with others from the Author Blog Challenge, and have connected with several members of the challenge on Facebook and Twitter as well. I'm really glad to have made these new friends who share my love of writing, and I hope we all can help one another.

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Writing: Book Subjects

This is my post for Day 26 of the Author Blog Challenge.




What is/will be the subject of your next book?

I am still writing several books, so I will list them, giving you a brief insight into the stories/themes of the ones I am working on the most right now. (The rest will just be listed.) The titles are all just working titles at the moment. I must admit that my synopsis of these stories will not be very good right now. I am writing this late at night and not putting as much thought into them as I should. I will try and come back at a later date and spend more time getting these written in a more attractive way.


Follow the Moon - This one is a werewolf story. The main character finds herself waking up, injured, in an alley with no recollection of what happened. She is rescued by a stranger who has a good idea of what happened to her. But can she trust this man who claims to be a werewolf? And can she accept her new existence while trying to find out what happened to her on the night that changed everything?

Walking With the Dead - This is about a girl who starts seeing ghosts. The ghosts she sees are malevolent and creepy, but there is a reason; there is a sickness plaguing the ghost realm, and it is up to Janie to find a cure before it crosses into her own realm. While she tries to find a cure, the ghosts try to make her a permanent part of their realm.


The Thinning of the Veil - This is a story about the veil between dimensions growing thinner. One girl can see the creatures that come through the dimension and fight them. Together with her vision-seeing friend and twin friends with gifts of their own, she has to fight to save her world before anything else gets through and before anyone else finds themselves crossing into the wrong dimension.


The Magic Necklace - This is a children's chapter book. A young girl finds a necklace in her attic and starts hearing the thoughts of others. But is that the extent of her powers? And why is the man she overhears plotting a burglary following her?


Skinny Dreaming - This is my non-fiction book about healthy living. It's a diet and fitness guide that is also full of inspiration and even some healthy recipes.


Come Dance With Us - This started off as a flash fiction story, but I enjoyed the story so much that I have continued the story and intend for it to be a full length novel. A young woman finds herself dancing with the fairies, caught in their spell for three nights. But when she gets home, she finds out that the fairies are not so eaily left behind.

Just listing the rest:

Dream Walker -

Extraordinary Magic -

Creating Magic -

Enchanting Rose -

Story Magic -

Fire Starter -

Lady of Shadows -


Ordinary Magic -


Keisha & the Flight of Dragons -

Cat's Eye -

The Guardian -

McKay's Might -



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Serve

This is my post for Day 15 of the 15 Habits of Great Writers challenge.

"The challenge

Ready to be generous and serve your audience? Here are a few ideas (pick one):

1. Do a giveaway of a product or service. Find authors or organizations wanting to partner with people like you, and ask them for donations. Do this to build trust with your readers, and make sure whatever you give away clearly adds value to their lives.
2. Conduct a survey. Find out what readers (or perfect strangers) want, what they struggle with, and create something for them. This can be a blog series or an eBook or a whatever. Just make sure there’s a need for it before you make it.
3. Write something important and give it away. Publish an eBook to Amazon and distribute it through the KDP Select Program. Or offer it in exchange for people subscribing to your blog.
4. Answer all correspondence. Respond to every single email, phone call, tweet, etc. until you can’t possibly keep up. This is how tribes are formed — through accessibility."

Okay, just reading this today, I reaize that I am going to need more time to complete this part of the challenge. 

1. First of all, I need time to find someone willing to partner with me to do a donation. However, like other challenges posed within this Great Writers challenge, I have already done this by getting authors to guest post on my Chapter Book Challenge blog during the challenge and one of them gave away a free critique. I also ran a flash fiction story writing competition where the prize was a book on writing flash fiction (donated by me).

2. I will also need time to get people to fill in a survey and to fulfill the need that they wish me to fill. I have no idea what kind of questions to ask for the survey or even what need I am capable of fulfilling for others. If anyone has any ideas, I am open to suggestions!


3. This makes it sound like it is so easy to write something worth publishing as an eBook! I would love to do this and have considered it many times, but I keep failing on what, exactly, to write. Writing of any kind takes time, and I haven't even finished the books I am already working on, so I am not sure how quickly I can just whip something else out to share with others.  But I will try.

4. I do answer correspondence. I do respond to every single email, tweet (to me) and question asked on Facebook. I constantly run out of time for these things, but I do my best to keep up with it all. I try to be as accessible as possible.

As I reflect on these, I see that I am already doing some of them and working on doing others of them.  I will try and update on how I do as I get through them.




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Writing: Treating Your Book As a Business

This is my post for day 24 of the Author Blog Challenge.



photo copyright Slimming World/PAUL BULLER
If your goal is to sell books, you must view your book as a business. In what ways do you treat your book as a business? Where could you improve? What resources could you leverage to improve your book business?


The main way that I treat my book(s) as a business is by spending a certain amount of hours dedicated to my writing every day. Well, I intend for it to be hours, but really it ends up being one hour if I'm lucky. I spend enough time for it to be equivalent to a part-time business. Ideally, I would be able to sit down each morning at 9:00am and spend that time focusing on my book(s) until lunch time and then again after lunch time, so that I would be spending a proper work day writing and marketing my book(s).


What really happens is that I get up in the morning and get my kids ready for school. I then spend two hours of my morning taking my kids to school and getting home again. Is that when I sit down to write? No. That's when I spend the 90 minutes on my elliptical crosstrainer that my body requires to maintain the weight I am at, and then spend another 20 minutes showering. Is that when I sit down to write? No, that's when I start a load of laundry and wipe down the kitchen table from the mess the children left while having breakfast that morning. I make myself lunch and a coffee. Then I sit and get about 30 minutes of writing done and answer a few e-mails before I have to get ready to spend the next 2 hours picking my children up from school and getting home again. Then I am busy making dinner, serving dinner, eating dinner and getting the kids ready for bed.  Once the children go to bed, if things are going my way, I can sit down to write for an hour or two. (It's getting to the point where my husband is starting to feel as though we have no time together.)



photo copyright Worldwide Media

I have found a sort-of compromise by carrying a small notebook with me on the bus each morning and afternoon during the school runs and getting some writing done during the bus trips. Typing up what I have already written takes less time than typing while thinking up what to write, so typing it up later actually saves me some time. And I even get a brief bit of editing done while I type my handwritten stories into the computer.

I do spend some of my writing time on social media. This is a necessary part of "treating my book as a business", because if no one on-line knows who I am, my book is starting out at a deficit when it comes to getting people to find out about it.  I have many friends who will plug my book when it is completed, and I have plenty of Facebook friends and Twitter followers to help me get the word out about it when the time comes.


The resource that I have to leverage and that I am finding the hardest time with is time. I am having to make time that I wouldn't otherwise have by prioritizing my writing. The other resources I have are my many on-line friends who are amazing and giving and always willing to help one another. The other resources I have in regards to my health and fitness non-fiction book are that I have a following on my Skinny Dreaming blog and it's Facebook page, I have the experience of losing over 145 lbs, I have been featured for my weight loss in several magazines and national newspapers and I have been on TV twice to discuss aspects of my weight loss.

I just wish I had written my book before all of the media exposure, so I could have plugged my book at the time!


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Writing: The Hollywood Version of My Book

This is my post for Day 23 of the Author Blog Challenge.




If a Hollywood agent were to come knocking on your door with an offer to turn your book into a movie and told you that you could call all the shots, who would you have direct and star in it? Write the first paragraph of Roger Ebert’s review of your film.

I'm not sure I can do this challenge properly. First of all, it has been too many years since I have heard Roger Ebert review a film, so I have no idea what he would say if he liked a film. Maybe that's because I live in the UK now and have for the past 11 years.

The only person I would want directing a film based on of my books would be Joss Whedon. I'm a massive fan of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. I enjoyed the Angel series. And I have recently discovered the Firefly series and found that I adore the show (and liked the film Serenity too). One of the newest films out right now that my husband and I went to see was The Avengers and we LOVED it. It had so much humor mixed in with the more serious moments of the film, all combined with adventure and action, so that we had more fun watching it than any movie we have seen in a very long time.  Another reason I would want Joss Whedon to direct it would be the fact that my books, both the YA and the adult, are based in the paranormal genre.


I don't know who I would have star in my film, but I don't think I would want it to be the big name actors and actresses that everyone knows, even if well-known names create a bigger draw. I would want them to be actors and actresses who were amazing at portraying the emotions of their characters. But I would want some new faces. I'd want my story to give someone new and talented their chance to shine.

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Writing: Book Signings

This is my post for Day 22 of the Author Blog Challenge.

Describe your first book signing – real or imagined.

For me, this book signing will have to be imagined. I have to have a completed book before I get a book signing set up. What kind of book signing it would be would depend on which of my books it was focused on. I have novels that are aimed at adult women, YA and books aimed at children of various ages. I also have a non-fiction book being worked on. So which one would it be?

A part of me thinks that doing a book signing for one of my children's picture books, because of the props, would be more fun, especially because I love children. Children, unlike most adults, can usually be counted on to come up with something to say that will make me laugh, said in a way that only children could say it. Adults tend to be way more circumspect about their conversation.


Ideally, whether a book signing for children or adults, there would be a lot of interest in it and a nice crowd of people (although I somehow doubt that is likely for most book signings). While I'm talking about a dream book signing, I guess I would also need a Hollywoood movie producer to arrive in the store to implore me to let them buy the rights to make a movie of my book. *wink*


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Writing: Advice for Writers

This is my post for Day 21 of the Author Blog Challenge.




What is the single best piece of advice you’ve ever received about the publishing process and/or would advice would you offer to a first-time author?


I'm not really sure how to answer this one. I suppose the best piece of advice would be from all of the authors out there who have repeated the phrase, "Don't give up." I've heard many published authors say that their writing was rejected many times before finding a publisher who loved it. And other authors have mentioned not being able to find a traditional publisher who would take their story on but later becoming quite successful at self-publishing, despite the lack of interest from traditional publishers.


If I was going to give advice to a first time author, here are the three things I would say:

1. Believe in yourself and in your writing. Even when you are struggling to find the words, even when no one else seems to appreciate what you are writing, believe in yourself. You can write the story you have in your head if you are willing to work at it and willing to believe in yourself.

2. Learn everything you can about the craft of writing and be patient with yourself while you learn. No one creates a masterpiece without some missteps. No one finds perfection without first practicing their art. Read everything you can get your hands on within your genre. Write daily, even if you need a break from your story and end up writing something completely different for an evening. Go to writers' conferences. Talk to other authors. Read about the craft of writing and practice what you are learning.

3. Be willing to work for your dream. Writing, editing, marketing our books, it can all be a lot of hard work. But dreaming about writing a book isn't going to get your book written. Thinking about your story isn't going to get it typed for you. Talking to others about your novel isn't going to get the novel finished. Sure, you can come up with fresh ideas by dreaming, thinking and talking about your story. But if you want to have something publishable, you are going to have to sit your butt in a chair and start writing your story.

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Writing: Social Media

This is my post for Day 20 of the Author Blog Challenge.




How are you using social media to promote your book? What aspect of social media would you like to learn more about? What are your next steps?

None of my books are at the publishing stage yet. While I am writing them, I am using social media and learning everything I can about promotion. I started out with social media promoting my on-line stores many years ago, and so I believe I have a step up from an author who is just starting out with it right now.

I've already learned about having an on-line presence, using Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Triberr and various other social media outlets. I learned about SEO (search engine optimization), and I learned many of the tricks of the trade with blogging back when I started my first blog, Skinny Dreaming. (Many have suggested I switch my blog platform to a Wordpress one rather than using Blogger, but I'm content with Blogger for now.)

I own several of my own domains. The only thing I have yet to do is build my own website (or have it built for me). Because buying hosting and paying someone to help me build my website is something that costs quite a bit of money, having my own website is something I have left for last.


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Writing: Growing Your Platform

This is my post for Day 19 of the Author Blog Challenge.



What are the three most important things you are doing to grow your platform?

I have been blogging for years now, and it does help grow my platform. However, when I first started out, my blogs weren't getting very many views. I just wasn't getting enough people to read my blogs. That's when I found Twitter, and eventually, through my Twitter contacts, I found Facebook.

Blogging, Facebook, Twitter and other social media are great ways to grow your platform. But there are a few things that are even more important.

1. Interact with your readers. If someone comments on your blog, respond to them, even if it's just to say "Thank you." Don't ignore your "friends" on your Facebook profile or your "likers" on your Facebook page. Interact with them, ask them questions and care about what's going on with them.

2. Care about your readers and offer them quality content. If you talk down to your readers, they will lose respect for you, and if you don't offer them quality content to read, they will not bother to continue reading what you write. You have to care about them for real, not just see your readers as a potential revenue source. The people who connect with you through social media are not stupid and they can tell if you don't care about them.

3. Be honest with your readers. Be polite and respectful at all times, but within those parameters, you need to be honest with your readers. Your readers can be uncannily intuitive, so don't underestimate them by hiding yourself. They need to be able to sense your voice in your writing, and that isn't going to happen unless you are honest with them and with yourself.



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Writing: Your Book's Blurb

This is my post for Day 18 of the Author Blog Challenge.





Who did/could you ask to write a blurb for your book? Why that person/people? How did/will you go about reaching them?

I haven't put that much thought into who I could or will ask to write a blurb for my books. I have some friends who are published authors who I could ask. I would only ask them if they were published within the same genre as my book.


It would be a dream come true to get a well-known author to write a blurb for my book. I have some well-known authors as "friends" on Facebook and as "followers" on Twitter, but some are not as interactive as others.


Ideally, I would love to get to go to some writing conferences in the future and meet some of these authors in person. Right now, my budget just can't afford a trip and conference. Also, my children are still too young for me to leave them. (My husband can handle them, but he'd have to take time off from work.)

It is important to find the right person/people for the blurb. It has to be someone within the same genre in order for them to have a better chance of being recognized by your readers. Also, if they write in the same genre, they will have a better grasp of what is expected from your book.

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Writing: Targeting Your Market

This is my post for Day 17 of the Author Blog Challenge. (I have been following each day's prompts, but the past two or three prompts started to get mixed up. I would read one day's prompt only to see it being referred to as a different day's prompt in the next e-mail, so I'm a little confused on what days I am supposed to use which prompts. I have just been doing each one in order and hoping that it is on the correct day.)




Describe the market for your book – to the tiniest detail (e.g., childless divorced women past age 50 who want to remarry). Why that demographic? How do you connect with them to market to them?


For my fiction novels, I am targeting the Young Adult market. Several of them are written for the older age group within that audience, older teens and 20-somethings. They are aimed at girls; all of my main characters are girls. Of course, as many have noticed with recent YA books, these books often appeal to married women with children and 30-something single women and others. The Young Adult market is becoming wide open and appealing to a much wider variety of audiences. My first 5 children were all girls, so I spent decades raising all girls before I gave birth to my boys. I think this is a big reason why writing for female markets has always come so easily to me.


Some of my fiction novels are marketed to younger teens, and that is the very specific audience they are aimed at. They will hopefully appeal to 12 to 16 year olds. This is different from the children's chapter books that I am writing. Those books are aimed at 8 to 12 year olds. My children's chapter books are aimed towards girls, so far, in that all of my main characters are female.  My children who are of the age to read these books are girls and that is why female characters have come so easily to me.


I have also written some children's picture books. Some of them are aimed at very young children, from 2 to 4 years old and some of them are aimed at slightly older children, from 4 to 6 years old. I am still working on honing my craft when it comes to writing picture books. There is a lot more to the genre than one might notice at first glance. The ideas for the picture books came to me through inspiration from my children. As a mother of 7, I have been given loads of inspiration from my children over the years. I used to read my children stories at bedtime (when they were young) and still do. Sometimes, I would make up a story to tell them instead of reading them a book. They loved these "made-up stories" best of all and frequently asked me for them instead.


I do have an idea for a children's chapter book for boys, but as I am working on so many other writing projects at the moment, I have set this idea to the side for now and will re-visit it later, when more of my other projects are complete. The idea came from my 5 year old son. He asked me to create a superhero to write about. In a few years, he will be reading chapter books, so I came up with a superhero to write a story about for a chapter book.


My non-fiction books is aimed at anyone who wants to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle. There is no specific age group, as I know from experience that there are people from all walks of life who need to change their eating and exercise habits.


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Writing: The Challenges

This is my post for Day 13 of the Author Blog Challenge.




What has been the most challenging part of your book process: writing, building the book, printing, distributing, marketing, etc.? What do you wish you’d known before you began?

My books are not at the printing and distributing stages yet, so I cannot accurately discuss how difficult or easy those stages might be. However, I can discuss other aspects of the book process.


Writing the book is not the most difficult part. I can say this even though I have not finished any of my books yet, because I love the writing part of the process. I enjoy creating something from nothing. I enjoy letting my imagination run free and creating people, creatures and entire worlds that have never before existed yet come to life as I write them.


"Building the book" is a process I associate more with non-fiction books. With my nonfiction book, I feel more like I am buiulding it and putting it together than imagining it into being. And I am finding it very difficult. But maybe, in the context of the question for the writing prompt above, building the book has more to do with having it bound and creating the Kindle and epub versions of it. I admit that I have not yet created a Kindle file and don't know anything about the process yet.


This post is a bit rambling, but I am not finding any of the processes mentioned in the question difficult, not really. I think the hardest thing about writing a book is believing in yourself enough to know that you can do it.


P.S. Yes, I already know that the above picture has nothing to do with this post topic, but it's cute, isn't it?

 
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Writing: Book Covers

This is my post for Day 12 of the Author Blog Challenge.

Describe your process for choosing and designing your book cover. Who created your cover? How did you find him/her? What do you love about your cover? What might you do differently next time?

This doesn't really apply to me as I don't have a cover for any of my books yet. Just for fun though, I took a photo from one of my husband's Fairy Magic photo manipulations and gave it the title of one of my short stories. (No, I do not intend to create my own book covers, but my books aren't finished yet, so it doesn't hurt for me to play.)

I do not know yet who I will have creating my book cover and, to be honest, I haven't even started looking for someone yet. My main goal right now is to get my books finished, edited and ready. Organizing a book cover for each of them will come later.

(P.S. The fairy above is one of my daughters, Angelica.)


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Writing: Critique Groups

This is my post for Day 10 of the Author Blog Challenge.



NaNoWriMo 2011 group meet-up

Have you participated in a critique groups? If so, how did it work out for you? If not, why have you avoided them to this point?

It is only recently that I started seeking out critique groups. I've participated in NaNoWriMo for three years now and been a municiple liaison for my region for the last two of those years. In November of 2011, our meet-ups progressed into forming a critique group called Swindon Free Writers which meets up the first Saturday of every month. It has actually been very helpful for me in showing me where my weaknesses are in my writing and where my strengths are.

I also joined the 12 x 12 in 2012 picture book writing challenge this year, and through the Facebook group, joined a critique group of about 6 people. It has helped me immensely as it showed me just how little I knew about writing picture books and has really helped me to step up my game when it comes to writing picture books. I have learned so much through the challenge and the critique group.

Also, in the Chapter Book Challenge, a lot of us got together in the Facebook group and started sending our stories to one another for critique, ideas and general support. I'm happy to say that one of our members has signed her book series up with an agent now, and, having read her story, I know it is good and I have every belief that we will be seeing her book available to buy on the shelves very soon!

I do believe that, with all of the writing that I am trying to get done, I sometimes take too long to get to the critiques I owe the members of my critique groups. It takes time to give a decent critique of someone's writing. And you need to know enough on the genre they are writing in to be of any help with your critique.

You also need a thick skin. Some of the critiques you get back from people will not be what you want to hear. Most of the time though, I find that my critique partners tell me the things I expect to hear, things that I am already aware I need to work on in the story, so they help me to confirm my own writer-instincts.

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