Once Again

Sorry I skipped yesterday, but it was a full working day for me. I sent out some queries for Whose Hearts are Mountains yesterday, and I will send some out today. And again.

It’s not the first time I’ve sent queries out. I’ve never received a good response on queries, but I keep improving and I keep sending queries out.

I believe in my work. Maybe I believed in it too much when I sent the first queries, before I discovered dev editors and harsh re-edits. Maybe I believed in my queries too much before I learned to write queries (and I hope I’m doing them right now).

I hope this time around is the time I get an agent.

Valentine’s Day — a whole lotta love (Personal)

Yesterday, I taught my personal adjustment students about love. No, not the deeper, profound experience of love. But I taught them that Valentine’s Day celebrates only one type of the seven types of love that the ancient Greeks celebrated.

So, those types of love:

Agape – love of humanity.
Storge – love of family
Philia — love of friends
Pragma – love which endures.
Philautia – self love
Ludus – flirtatious/playful love
Eros – romantic and erotic love.

Valentine’s Day only seems to celebrate eros, and it does so in a big, splashy, commercialized way.

I want people to reclaim the other types of love for Valentine’s Day and go out and celebrate them. Galentine’s Day is a good start, for those female friends who want to celebrate each other. But we should be celebrating our families, our friends, our flirtations, the world. Wouldn’t the world be better for that?

If you liked this blog post, please drop me a note at lleachie@gmail.com or @lleachsteffens on Twitter.

Every Good Thing Has Its Cost

This morning I read a note in Facebook from an author who spoke of the time-consuming process of promoting her book. She spoke of the responsibilities of social media, the realities of watching her ranking on Amazon.com, the need for self-promotion.

Reading it, I realized that getting published will have its price. Starting with the process to publication — galley proofs, advanced review copies, building one’s social media platform (which I have been doing as evidenced by this blog post). Then, when the book is published, some or most of the responsibility of promotion falls to the reader through social media, book tours, and sales at conferences.

Am I ready for that? I think so. I have known that being published, especially if I get published by a house with some presence, will be life-changing, and that some of that life change will be work. I’m willing to make that sacrifice.

So You Want to Write a Blog Part 2 (Personal Development)

So, I have a blog now. Do I just write?
Not exactly. You have to think about what you write. It needs to fit your theme and audience — if you’re writing to writers about writing, writing about politics will probably feel “off”. You can be an essayist in your blog and write about whatever crosses your mind, but it may be harder to convey a theme in your blog. On the other hand, John Scalzi, a science fiction writer with a multi-book contract, writes about everything from writing to politics. His blog, fittingly, is called Whatever. If you’re as big as John Scalzi, you can write whatever.

How do I know what to write?
If you have a theme and an audience, you’re doing them no favor by just free-writing. This is your personal/professional presence on the Internet. If you’re a writer, it’s a chance to market yourself. You can compose directly on the screen, but compose. cut and paste to make the document flow. Proofread. Read it aloud to yourself like any other document you want to write to impress people.

The blog should not be too long, in order to cater to today’s readers. I’m divided on how excerpts of novels and short stories should be presented in blogs, but I think that short excerpts are the best.

The 29th Annual Edition Guide to Literary Agents 2020 (Brewer, 2019) suggests that one should have a list of topics for six months or a year. This works great if one writes weekly; I write daily (which is insane, but so be it). I do have a list of weekly topics, but intersperse those with more personal observations about being a writer.

Other suggested tricks
The 29th Annual Edition Guide to Literary Agents 2020 (Brewer, 2019) has a chapter that presents several other reader- and SEO-friendly suggestions for blogs:

Short paragraphs and headings, as you see here. This works well for informational blogs; not so much for narrative.
An SEO tag in the title. I have a few that I use for my blogs, although I sometimes forget these because they’re new to me.

There are probably more tricks, but I haven’t learned them yet. I am still working on getting readership for this blog, but it may increase after I get published (I hope).

Reference:

Brewer, R.L., 2019. The 29th Annual Edition Guide to Literary Agents 2020. Writers’ Digest Books.

So You Want to Write a Blog Part 1 (Personal Development)

Writing a blog is an admirable pursuit. It’s also a lot of fun. But randomly throwing blog posts into the ether is not rewarding, and the thrill will be gone soon.

Over the next couple days, I want to explore the things you need to do to start a rewarding blog.

First, find a reason/theme/audience. These options have similar aims: to focus your writing. This gives your writing a particular “brand” for people to follow. For this blog, my theme is writing, and my audience is writers and potential readers. (This latter purpose will step up when I get published). Despite this theme and audience, however, I estimate 50% of my readers right now are not writers, but may be potential readers.

Commit to writing. Continuity is one reason that people come back to a blog. Many writers commit to weekly blogging; that’s a reasonable amount. For some reason, I write daily. I’m not sure this is a good thing, but one of my reasons for writing this blog (other than what’s given above) is to warm up and sharpen my writing skills.

Find a platform. Commonly used platforms are Blogger (where this blog is), WordPress, Tumblr, and Wix. Each has advantages and disadvantages; some have access to more options in the paid version. I have used Blogger and Wix; I use Blogger because of its simplicity and because, when I tried to migrate to Wix, my readers didn’t migrate with me even though Wix has a superior visual interface. But which one you choose is up to personal preference.

I will explore further blog-writing ideas and tips in the next installment and would welcome your ideas and tips in the comments or by email: lleachie@gmail.com

The Luck Factor

I need more luck. Of the good variety.

It occurs to me that my writing may not be enough to get published. There are people who get published because they know someone, or because of some random set of events that get them to the right place at the right time with the right person.

I don’t know anyone in the industry, so I’m praying for just that sort of luck.

I know every good thing is a two-edged sword — the lottery bestows money, and with it, tension. A publishing contract would invite paperwork and other life changes into my life. But the status quo isn’t necessarily the best place to live either.

So I am wishing and praying for the kind of luck, the serendipity that changes my life in a positive way.

Equipment failure

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The Death of a Story

I lost 1500 words of a promising short story yesterday.

After a thorough search of my computer, it seems to have never been saved. I blame this on trying to catch my computer when it fell yesterday; my fingers must have accidentally hit the wrong keys.

I am in mourning. I know the exact plot points thus far; I even have them in outline form. I know the personalities of the main characters. I know the settings. But I don’t seem to get the right words in place to set the mood.

The story is space opera, so it’s supposed to be jaunty and humorous. But when I tried to rewrite it yesterday it just came off as sad.

There’s a part of me, a very superstitious and pessimistic part of me that thinks that I lost the story because it wasn’t any good. As this is also the part of me that thinks I’ll never get published, I’m working hard to ignore it.

Please hold me and my story in your thoughts today.

Free-Writing

I’m staring at the screen, wondering what to write today.

I have a blog to write. I feel totally uninspired despite two cups of coffee and a LED light block shining at my face. (I just made the mistake of looking at it, and a phalanx of dots is fouling my vision.

I have a short story to write. I promised myself five stories this year, and I’ve only written one so far. I have the idea fleshed out in my head. I just have to write.

So I’m writing about not writing. The irony is not lost on me. It’s something I learned over the years — if you can’t write about something important, write about something trivial and see what happens. It’s called free-writing, and I use it a lot.

Sometimes, to snap an idea out of my head, I write differently than I normally do. I use notebook paper instead of the computer. I write with a fountain pen (mine is pink with pink ink) instead of a ballpoint. Sometimes I write on black paper with bright metallic gel pens.

Free-writing opens my mind to the rhythm of words. Almost like the trance writing of mediums, it opens my mind to ideas. And, worse comes to worst, it’s a great way to practice my handwriting.

So I’m here to recommend a different type of writing for writer’s block — nonproductive writing that’s secretly productive.

More of the Winter Blues

I’m deep in the middle of the winter blues. I’m not severely depressed like I could be; I just don’t feel like doing anything. The most exciting part of my week has been extensive dental work and I want to go back to sleep. Today’s my busy day at work, so doing nothing is not happening.

I need to do some of my positive activities — gratitude journaling (I keep forgetting), sitting in front of my bright light (it’s next to my computer chair in the living room, so that’s easy), going out to do work.

What I really want to do is sleep some more. Not happening.

So now it’s time for the next best thing — coffee.