Tag: writing

Where Do I Go From Here?

Marketing myself

One of the things that has been happening to me this summer is that I’ve mostly been marketing, but that’s part of the whole writing process. Today I will be revising my cover letters after getting some expert help from a published author (thank you, Sofia Aves!) and checking for more subscribers to my newsletter list. And then maybe outlining the rest of the Kel and Brother Coyote series. And — what am I being called to do?

I haven’t written for a while

I haven’t written on my creative works for a while because I’m discovering the marketing side of things, but I’m itching to get back to the writing part. The selling part still seems to be so far away, but I am contemplating putting “Gaia’s Hands”, a fantasy romance, on Amazon to try to get more people reading my works.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

But I do need to write. I need to get totally fascinated to write, and I haven’t had a break to do that. I need to fix this.

Taking Myself Seriously

I think that through this process where I’m taking an active role in promoting my works, I am finally taking myself seriously. I don’t need external sales (how many are enough?) to start marketing. I don’t need external validation to start making something of my sales. Deep breath — this is growth for me, and evidence that I am a serious writer no matter how much I dislike flogging myself.

For the curious

My social media are at the following:

Social Media Platform

Why do I need a platform?

I’m a writer. I want to sell my work (even if it’s just one book right now). Even if I get traditionally published, I’m going to need to promote my books, because traditional publishers can provide good book placements but limited advertising. Social networking over social media might even have an advantage over traditional marketing.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Toward this end, I am building social platforms. I started with facebook and Instagram, which I was already using for personal use. And, of course, this blog, which used to reside on Blogger but moved in. (And if you’re interested, all the back material has been transported here.) Very recently, I have had Tik Tok recommended to me, and I have a tiny bit of a presence there. Twitter — there is a #writingcommunity on Twitter, and they are loyal to each other. I have almost 5000 followers there. And I follow a romance writing group on Discord, which is where my freshest information comes from..

Facebook, with its groups, has been the most useful of the social networking sites, largely because of writing groups like Romance Writers Support Group, followed by Discord. As far as selling books go, not so good because having social media doesn’t sell books.

Having social media means making social connections. Making social connections sells books.

My next steps

I’m currently working on my next steps, which concern writing and sending a newsletter. This requires having a page where they can sign up for the newsletter and get a free “reader magnet” (a story; it’s the enticement) and a website that will take care of automated sending of the newsletter. This requires two websites I’m learning: MailerLite (the app that automates the newsletter sending) and Bookfunnel (which entices people to getting your newsletter by offering the reader magnet.

So I’ve had a huge amount to learn in a couple days. Today I will be working with promotions for my newsletter. Wow. Two days ago I didn’t intend to have a newsletter. Five days ago, I didn’t have TikTok.

Speaking of newsletters

You’re probably not a romance or fantasy reader, but if you are or just want to connect, join my newsletter list HERE.

This Morning

Gloomy morning

I type this as I look out the window right by my writing area, a corner of the living room. The sky is pretty dark and teases rain. The rain, however, shifts to the south of us, barely sprinkling us.

I want a gullywasher, the sort of rain that, if you’re caught in it, you just give up and stand in it, getting drenched to your skin. The sort that sheets as it hits the pavement, that drums on the roof.

Photo by Chevanon Photography on Pexels.com

I think I’ve written about this before. I am obsessed with rain.

Coffee and love

The coffee has arrived. My husband makes it every morning, because his love language is acts of service. I thank him because my love language is verbal affirmation. Then I spank his butt because another of his love languages is physical affection.

Is coffee itself a love language?

With miles to go

My latest project is laying out the pieces to publish a newsletter. The reason for this is that I’m working on developing a more robust marketing platform for my books. The reason is twofold: it provides reassurance to an agent who’s considering my work, and it provides me a platform for what I self-publish (currently just the Kringle Chronicles books). It was — and continues to be — much work on sometimes buggy platforms.

The whole concept of marketing has taken on a life on its own; I now see a third reason to do it — to connect. I think that online contacts are real connection, although the character is more like seeing people in the café and saying hi than being intimately connected to someone. Social media is more like light flirting, although platonic.

What about you?

What are you doing today? Let me know in the comments.

Soooo Tired

It’s the end of the school year

There’s so much I want to accomplish, but — all I want to do is sleep. I thought I would get away with not having the end-of-year crash, but I’m back to wanting to crawl back into bed with a feeling of murkiness.

It happens every year. I survive till the end of semester, and then crash. I’m trying not to let the crash win this year, but I slept all afternoon yesterday after accomplishing my one task (my first Tik Tok; to be found here.)

Choosing to be slightly productive

It occurs to me that I am standing between two extremes here — being productive all day or sleeping all day. That’s a failing of mine — black and white thinking. So maybe I need to make a temporary goal: productive in the mornings, sleepy after lunch. I’m hoping it will work, because I’m tired right now, having awakened an hour and a half ago.

Photo by Klaus Nielsen on Pexels.com

Maybe today it’s just setting goals time, and more specific than “work on something for three hours a day.” I found how effective that was yesterday, where other than the Tik Tok I accomplished … nothing. Ok, I guess I plantsed the outline for the last three Kel and Brother Coyote installments. I didn’t write.

That all or nothing thinking

I did it again. In that last paragraph, I started accelerating my goals, hinting that TikTok and editing the video, and outlining the rest of a novella were not enough. That’s the sort of thing that will get me into all-or-nothing thinking. Not where I want to be,

How do I change that? With a more specific goal, such as:

  • I will make and edit a Tik Tok for three mornings this week.
  • I will write two sections of a Kel and Brother Coyote story per week, in the mornings
  • I will explore ideas for short stories two afternoons a week (preferably over coffee)
  • I will take 5 minutes per hour for social media. in the mornings

I hope this works! If it doesn’t, I’ll adjust it.

The Beginning of Summer

Or so I hope

Today the grades go in at 10 AM, but my grades are in already. It’s officially summer. Even though the high today is only 62. It’s not like I want weather in the 90s, but 70s at least. Jumping in a swimming pool without turning into a block of ice weather.

After what was the hardest school year of my life (other than the one where I ended up in the hospital I guess) I’m free. Interns are really schedulable.

What I wish for this summer:

  • A spa weekend at the Elms (scheduled for the end of the month)
  • Lots of productive writing
  • Afternoon naps (as needed)
  • Someone lending me a camper so I can do a writing retreat at Mozingo Lake (wishful thinking!)
  • Getting back into walking, a little at a time
  • Figuring out how to promote my writing.
Photo by neil kelly on Pexels.com

A wish to a goal

What I have to do now is turn my wishes to goals. I think the best thing to do is make them into goals, looking at whether I have the resources to fulfill them (goodbye camper; I don’t have the social capital to get that for free) I think I need to have some long-term goals to wrap the daily goals in. But right now I don’t feel much like that, because it’s my break and I really need to take that nap now.

Lazy Sunday

I can’t reach escape velocity

My mind is simultaneously antsy and lazy — I should be DOING something! I have an exam to grade! I could be creating advertising materials for my book! I should be — my brain can’t focus. I feel like laying in my bed all day watching House episodes on my phone.

The tired part — end of the school year

I understand the tired part — I just got off a full semester without any Spring Break, after a year of severely restricted activity due to COVID. I made it without more than one or two sick or mental health days all year (due to the ability to teach over Zoom). With finals all that are left, I find myself slumping my shoulders and relaxing.

The antsy part — in need of flow

It occurs to me that the antsy part is the craving for flow. Flow is a psychological concept that refers to the state of being completely captivated in an activity that uses your abilities at an optimal level. Writing is a flow activity for me, as is editing. Designing (with my limited abilities) is another. Most of my flow activities happen at a computer and fit in with my writing, which is probably why I write.

No challenge is optimal when I’m just coming off a brain-numbing school year. I’ve been challenged out. I’m still dealing with three exams to grade this week and unhappy students.

Antsy part 2 — in search of accomplishment

Another part of my always needing to do something is the feeling of satisfaction I get from accomplishment. I delight in making things happen. I love finishing a chapter, a novel, a cover letter. I get motivated by the finished product as well as the process (the flow). Again, my mind is having none of that.

How to take care of myself

This is a time where perhaps doing nothing (or next to nothing) would be the best thing to do. It’s hard for me to do, because I’m always trying to wrap myself in flow activities and completing projects when I’m not working. Although I’m addicted to flow and accomplishment, maybe I could use something more relaxing but inspiring like daydreaming or meditating. Or maybe I should just read reruns of House and see if I can diagnose those disorders.

Imagination Living Beside Reality

When I was a child …

When I was a child, I was an imaginative sort, and my imagination lived beside reality. I knew the tree wasn’t sentient when I spoke to it, but at the same time I had an attachment to it as if we had a relationship. The tree wasn’t and was sentient. I was and wasn’t a human.

I didn’t put away childish things

As I grew older, I discovered creative writing and received lots of encouragement from my English teachers. I mostly wrote poetry back then, prosy poems that tried to communicate emotions, and to this day I’m not enamored of my poetry.

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But I wrote stories. My stories tended to involve imagination living beside reality — Santa Claus as a young toymaker in a small town (see my romance novel for how that worked out),an anthropologist who discovers a collective of otherworldly beings (which has been written and now needs a home), an unstable woman who meets the ghost of the boy she killed in a car wreck — or did she?

What I developed in college and later was the concept of world-building. I had to show people that there was a reason why the trees were talking telepathically, why the titans struggled with their too-human longings and why the humans struggled with their sudden preternatural gifts. The basis of my writing is the tension between the hidden and ordinary worlds, the stories hidden in plain sight.

My world today

My world is one where I keep my foot planted in both worlds. No matter what genre I start in, two things will show up: 1) that other world hidden in plain sight; 2) relationships between people who are coping with that “other” world, whether they be from the hidden or ordinary worlds.

I would love to share this world with you

Please let me know in the comments if you would like to know more about my writing!

Looking for Inspiration in the Hiatus

As time expands, inspiration goes down.

It’s practically end of semester at Northwest Missouri State. We’re in the middle of Prep Week (often called “dead week” by the number of faculty who are overwhelmed by the end of the semester) and I have nothing coming in until Friday to grade. I’m in t-shirt and sweats mode, only because I have a student appointment over Zoom today; otherwise it would probably be PJs. In other words, I have three more days of Nothing. To. Do. But. Write.

Photo by Tobias Bju00f8rkli on Pexels.com

I have a massive amount of time to write. Am I writing? No. I’m looking for more work to do. I’m halfway to the end of the Internet. I’ve fallen in love with three Internet cats and could dissect the modus operandi of successful cat influencers (photos plus merchandise plus charity). The inspiration to write is nil.

On the other hand, when I’m grading midterms, I suddenly explode with inspiration. If I have deadlines to meet, I feel like writing a novel. NaNoWriMo, the international writing event in November, is perfectly nestled between surviving midterms and prepping for finals. I write the beginnings of novels during that time.

But now? I’m staring at the screen drooling on myself.

Making a plan for summer

My whole summer is wide-open. Although I have interns to supervise, I can work around them pretty readily, and will probably do most of my meetings on Zoom. But the thing that takes up most of my summertime, the online class, isn’t happening. I need to write this summer to keep me sane.

I can make some plans to increase my inspiration:

  • Write this blog daily as warm-up
  • Spend allocated times at the Cafe for discipline and change of scenery
  • Work on outlines for short stories
  • Sketch brainstorming notes on paper with fountain pen (this slows thoughts down)
  • Find a muse (hopefully he’s a-muse-ing too)
  • Only surf the Internet for 5 minutes an hour
  • Find a writing sprint timer

Some of these are writing rituals, meant to separate writing from the mundane world. I’m all about ritual and its ability to make space for important things.

A question for you

If anyone out there has some ideas for getting inspiration (especially some fantasy-based prompts) please tell me in the comments!

The Day of Writing Prompts

First, drink too much coffee.

My husband and I went to the local game cafe (Board Game Cafe in Maryville MO) for the sole purpose of brainstorming some writing prompts for me for the summer. And, I guess, drinking coffee, whereas we drank too much. Three cups of coffee later (plus the two we had in the morning) and we had not only come up with some prompts but we were overcaffeinated enough that I could hear angels singing in my dental work.

Second, come up with some writing prompts.

We discovered that it’s hard writing prompts for someone else. My husband’s prompts are awesome, witty, catchy, and science fiction. I’ll play with them, but I’m a romantic, atmospheric, emotional fantasy writer. So I need to figure out how I will write “Writer who has to keep writing or reality stops”. I don’t know if I can write these. I can’t feel them. Does that make sense?

But I’m having trouble writing my own. I’m very character-based, and that’s hard to convey in a short story prompt. I have written some pretty good standalone stories (although I haven’t found the right place to send most of them because they’re fantasy) but most of my writing has been within my universe. So, reader magnets instead of submittable short stories.

I promised myself I would write some short stories for submitting for publication rather than novels (I have too many) or more reader magnets (I have enough to fill a chapbook). So I will work on these prompts and come up with some on my own.

Please help me!

Here’s where I need your help. If you can come up with any writing prompts (especially in the fantasy/science fiction vein) I’d love to hear them!