Breaking the Rules, or Not

Time and again, I've read that you should know the rules of writing before you break them, and that is some really great advice. Here is a great site for looking into some of those rules. But what is it that you go by to determine whether or not to break these rules, or others?

For me there is only one rock-solid rule I refuse to break. Whatever I write, I strive my hardest to make sure my reader understands what I write. I look at my writing like painting a picture. I want you, my awesome readers, to see the same picture I'm painting with my words. Something I've apparently managed to miss in my latest book (according to the reviews). It seems I was lacking getting across just how the magic works in my world.  

I've always said feedback is invaluable, but helpful feedback can be hard to come by. That is why I comb through my work several times just to make sure what I've written paints the same picture just as clearly as I want.

The last time through is read to me by my computer. My computer might spell out the occasional odd name, or pronounce something that's supposed to be spelled, but these can be easily overlooked. Where it helps the most is finding those small spelling errors my brain refuses to see, or the missing endings my brain always adds because I want them there. It is also a tremendous help in the placing of the illusive comma.

Occasionally, on Facebook, someone will post something showing the tremendous misunderstandings that can arise from the lack of proper punctuation. The latest one was a magazine cover listing some of the articles on the cover. Without a space between those titles the magazine had someone cooking and eating their dog and cat (sorry I don't remember the name - it was about a talk/cooking show). There are many examples, and generally they are certainly worth a chuckle, but it's not something you want in your book. I read one place where one person refused to use any commas - he didn't understand their placement and never got them right. Whatever rocks your boat, but I won't be reading any book he writes, though I might struggle through a blog post or two.

Fortunately, the very nice computerized voice of my computer helps me with comma placement too. The old rule, if you need a spot in your sentence to breathe, put a comma there, but it's more than that. Sentences have a rhythm, and commas help foster that. Even though the comma is a subliminal thing, our brains need that moment to breathe. Without it, the run-on sentence risks confusion, and you never want to confuse your reader.

I've been told I use too many commas, but I've also been told that my reading is very easy and quick. I think, if the reader doesn't have to struggle with their own punctuation and breathing, the writing is smoother. At least that's what I strive for. There's also a possibility that my writing is too simplistic, though both my boys say it's too complicated. Now you know why you have to pick and choose what feedback to take to heart, though whether my stories are too complicated or too simple is something I can't do much about. I try to tell a story that is clean enough for your kids to read, but I want a story adults will enjoy too; I'll leave it up to you to decide if you want their kids to read them.

So how many rules do I break? I have no idea - hopefully not too many. How many rules do you break?

Social Media

By now we all have our view when someone mentions social media. For you writers and authors out there, it's all about building your platform, but if you look at social media as a machine or even a car, you may understand it just a little better.

Lets take a car: Everyone knows that a car needs a little tender loving care on a regular basis. Oil change, new spark-plugs, a seasonal change of tires if you live where the roads get icy, or just checking the pressure from time to time if not. Such things will keep your car purring along for some time. And looks: a little Turtle Wax will keep it gleaming, and inside, there are all manner of products made for cleaning all the different surfaces inside your car. Keeping your car clean inside will make your trips near or far that much more pleasant for you and your passengers.

Why do I go into all that? Because giving your social media as much attention as you would your car is very important in building your platform. To keep your 'engine' running smoothly, your profile needs to be updated regularly, a new, or at least your best picture, preferably of you, is VERY important. Your readers want to see YOU, not your kids or your pets. It might even be worth your time and money to make the trip to the beauty parlor (yes, even for you guys) to get your hair all prettied up. And if you're anything like me with no facial color, see if someone might be able to work on your face too. Take special notice of your blouse or shirt - is the color flattering? In my latest picture I went out and bought a new shirt special for the occasion. Sadly, I chose white, and it wasn't until I had it posted up that I realized how pale it made my face. I'll do better next time. Live and learn, I always say. For me, the color of my shirt has always been an issue. Blue makes my eyes more hazel whereas green makes them lean toward blue, but not far enough for me. Black makes me look old, even when I was a young teenager. I remember once when I was around 16, just for fun I tried on a black suit set. It was one of the best-fitting suits I'd even worn before or since, I believe. However, I took one look in one of those three-sided mirrors and felt I should have been hunched over with a cane in my hand. I looked positively ancient. Now that I'm in my 50s, I don't need any help.

Back to your profile: Make sure the bio is up to date and interesting. Check it out often, just to make sure the information is relevant. Mostly, I copy and paste my bio from one site to another, but be careful doing that. What might be relevant in one place, may not be in another place. Most media sites have some sort of personal information to fill in. This is information your readers will look for in order to find out more about you. This too is important to keep up to date, and really important - make sure all your links work. Treat these like your spark-plugs. If they don't go anywhere, your reader will quickly lose interest and move on somewhere else. Be wary of contact information though. I have my email posted around everywhere - I want my readers to find it easy to contact me, but to the best of my knowledge, my phone number is nowhere. My phone sucks and I don't check messages very often. It is my means to call out. If you want to talk to me, I'm on Facebook a lot and chat works there just fine. My satellite connection makes most other forms of connection impossible or at best teeth-gritting.

Advertising: I just counted - I have 22 links I post around almost every day. I promote my editor because I think she's awesome. I promote an agent even though she is not mine because her blog is chocked full of the most awesome information on the publishing industry I've found so far. The rest is devoted to my books and where they can be found. Three of those links go to online bookstores where you too might be able to list your books. It's worth taking a look and getting your own book listed. The more places where your books can be found, the better. Another pair are the Freedo widget where a reader can read a sample of my books. It looks like a real book, plus I have control of how much a reader can read. I could allow a reader to read the whole book if I wanted to - something I will do with my blog novel as soon as it becomes officially published. All I'm waiting for is the perfect cover to show up. The rest of the links are where to find me - my fan page on Facebook, my website on Weebly, and my writing blog (here).

The order of my posts is important to me. Where all my first book can be found - where all my latest book can be found - where both books can be found - the latest news of what is happening to me and future books take you to different tabs on my website - and lately I'm pushing The Fortunes of Magic so there's a grouping of links where that can be found. > IMPORTANT < If you click on someone's name on Twitter you will see their latest three posts, so with that in mind, my last three posts for any given day are my FB page, my writing blog, and my website. From any of those three posts, one can easily find my other places.

Also, patience is a virtue. No platform is going to explode over night. There are groups on Facebook and on LinkedIn where members post their fan page for other members to like, and they all do. I stop by these sites once in a while in an effort to garner some new fans, but mostly I make myself as visible as I can and let fans find me. Those likes from those kinds of groups are kinda like a sugar rush. Suddenly dozens of people drop by, hit 'like', and move on. Yeah, they will now see your posts in their stream, but any real interaction drops off as fast as your link drops down the page. I want the honest interaction and friendship - it means more to me. As far as returning the favor, I do. I check out every liker's profile, if I can find your page (see profile update (your 'about' tab) - if your page isn't there, I can't find it anywhere else unless it's by accident), I'll like it if it interests me. I don't want to clutter up my stream with a bunch of stuff I have no interest in, and I expect no different from my fans. I want my fans to be real fans and friends, not empty likes. One time, I checked out a page from a recent liker from one of those groups. I don't remember what it was, but it was probably something techy - it's all Greek to me. Anyway, I left him a message thanking him for liking my page, but letting him know I wasn't going to return the favor, I just wasn't interested. He got all upset and asked me why I bothered to participate in the group if I wasn't going to like his page. He probably also unliked my page, which was fine with me. Like I said, I want fans who are interested in me, not empty likes. They simply have no meaning.

Another way you can get more notice on FB is to browse around AS your fan page. You'll see all the other pages you've liked if you've added them as your page's favorites. You can do this by going to the page and clicking on the little gear in the upper right-hand corner. As your page, you can't see your normal stream nor can you interact with normal profiles, but you can share posts and pictures from them - you'll have to go find them to do that though. You can, however, interact with all those pages you've listed over there. So remember, when you like a page, if it's relevant to your fan page (or not) add it over there too.

Facebook isn't the only place where I promote myself. Daily, I post on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. Recently, I've posted my links on Authors.com, Agent Query Connect and CulturalBook.com. I figure I'll do those maybe once a month or so, or as things change. We'll see. I haven't decided whether I'll post them on Goodreads or not. I'm not as active there as I once was.

So polish your car and tune up your engine, and get out there and promote yourself. You would be surprised how many of my friends ask me for help regarding promotions. Sure, I'll help anyway I can, but there's only so much I can do, and frankly I'm a bit selfish. I work very hard promoting myself; I'll help you, but if you're not working on promoting yourself, your request for help is leaching from me pure and simple, besides my platform may not be what you need.

There are many other ways to get yourself seen. YouTube has become popular, as have Pinterest, and I'm sure there are many more. Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Don't be afraid to check them out and take advantage of them if they fit your needs. I don't do YouTube because I can't do videos, and from what all I've heard about Pinterest, it's all about pictures anyway.

Get out there. Do the work. If you don't, who will? And above all, don't be afraid to ask questions. I may not know all the answers, but just maybe I know someone who does. 

The Chaos of Change

The difference between my summers and my winters is enormous. The greatest cause of this chaos is my need to go to work. Most of you work a 9 to 5 job, 5 or 6 days a week, year round, so the struggle for time for you is constant. Finding time to write falls into a fairly stable slot of the day or week. For me, shifting from the summer crunch of seemingly no time to the far more lax schedule of winter can present it's own chaos.

The things I need to catch up on, or take more time with, seem to abound not only in my online work, but also in my real life. I still have supplies to put away, so boxes clutter my little cabin making navigation perilous. Today, it was raining, so I spent most of my afternoon catching up on burning trash. A whole summer's worth of trash for just the two of us isn't really all that much but it refused to burn hot until the very last, so it took longer than I had planned. Tomorrow I plan to organize the woodshed and make room for the lawn mower and the weed-eater, and likely some other summertime tools. That task will generate more trash so, wind permitting, I'll be burning again. That's a sample of the things I need to do before snow comes and gets things lost.

Online, I need to take more time with Twitter and actually read, and maybe reTweet, some of the posts. Same with Facebook where I moderate two groups, a blogging group, and a writing group and am a member of over a dozen more, both for blogging and for writing or reading. It's rather rude to merely drop a link and move on, something I've been more or less forced to do all summer long. Then there's the other forums I am a member of, and that's not even mentioning the books I'm supposed to read and review.

Oh and lets not forget my own writing. At the moment I'm giving The Making of a Mage-King a final polish before sending it off to my editor. My publisher has expressed an interest in some of my other works so at this point it is a toss-up whether I'll continue to polish another selection or I will pick up my work in progress, Druid Derrick, of which there are several samples already posted earlier on this blog. I do know that later this winter, I'll be going through the edits Whiskey Creek Press' editor will have for me. That is always an exciting thing to do; I so look forward to learning from an editor. I've never spoken with him/her, so I look forward to this with some trepidation as well. And lets not forget about book 2 of my Mage-King series. I'll be getting that one back from my editor too at some point this winter. Having 2 books going at the same time is a bit much to handle, but I can do it. Depending on how things go with Whiskey Creek Press, I may submit another book to them. I haven't decided yet. At this point, I feel a little like a cog in a wheel, but if they do good... We'll see.

Catching up is going to take a while, hopefully not all winter long. Then again, is there such a thing as 'catching up'? Sometimes I wonder. Are you ever 'caught up'?

Author Platform

Becoming known, or seen. Why is it so important? Why is it the advice that everyone shares? The reason is really quite simple; every person you take the time to get to know just might buy one or more of your books.

But just how do you go about developing said platform? For me, it wasn't easy. I've never been one to toot my own horn. I'd much rather stand aside and watch what everyone else does. If the turn-out is good for them, I'll try that. If not, I won't go there. It worked for me for most of my life. But now that I am a published author with a handicap of not living even in a town, I had to get used to 'tooting my own horn' everywhere I could.

When I first published, I didn't have any internet, and I had no idea what a platform was, or that there even was such a thing. All I had was an email address and I scarcely knew how to work that. I didn't know any other writers and so had no advice to go by. I wasn't entirely clueless about the business end of selling my book, though. I was fully aware that I would have trouble getting in touch with people and talking to them about buying my book. That is the biggest reason why I paid for the largest advertising package AuthorHouse had to offer. I mean, I was supposed to have my very own 'valet' - it sounded pretty good to me.

Imagine how disappointed I was when all my valet did for me was send out something like 300 emails. To her credit, when I complained about obviously seeing no results, she did it again, but I knew better than to bother asking again. I really hate it when people shove their 'whatever' in my face, looking expectantly at me, waiting for me to shell out however many dollars for their creation. I wasn't about to do the same. I've always believed in the Golden Rule, though I don't consider myself religious. My valet was helpful in another way. She advised me to get a Facebook account and a Twitter account.

Since then, I've explored other sites like Goodreads, Authors dot com, Agent Query Connect and LinkedIn. All of these were, and are, very helpful. Through Agent Query Connect, I learned of an ongoing contest, You Write On, where I learned a lot about the mechanics of writing. Competition is stiff but the feedback is invaluable and I was so hungry for such. The only person who read my book before it was published was my mother and her comment was "It's very nice but I wouldn't buy it." My mother liked romance and my book is no romance novel.

Facebook is still my center of operations, my corner of the world. Coming to a logical decision, my profile page is me (of course), and since I have quite a few books waiting to be published, my fan page needed to be more about my writing than about any particular book. Though it was something I had considered, I just didn't know what to do with a single book fan page, and then what would I do with a dozen of them somewhere down the road? Every friend I make, I take a moment to welcome them to my corner of the world. The same with every new fan, though it is only recently that Facebook has made easy to see who had recently liked my page.

Another thing a writer can do is start a blog. Blogging can be really quite fun but you have to plunge in with both feet. Before I started, I had no idea what I would do with a blog. I didn't consider myself an article writer so I had put it off. When I was having trouble commenting on several blogs I read, I decided creating one might help. It didn't but there it was - I had a blog. Now what? Well, as you can see, this blog has evolved into a place where I talk about what I've learned along my writing career. Now, sadly/funnily, I have four blogs. The Fortunes of Magic, my blog novel is now complete and that book will be published as soon as possible. Anna of Alaska came about by popular demand and is true stories about my life here in the wilderness of Alaska. And then there is Anna's Philosophy where I have taken to expounding on my various philosophies, whatever they may be at the time.

Another important link in your platform is a webpage. I use weebly.com. It's free and really rather nice, and certainly very easy to manipulate. Someday I'll upgrade to my own domain name, but that can wait until I'm no longer a starving artist.

As many of you have likely heard me comment from time to time, I do my advertising every day on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. I am now a moderator of two different groups on Facebook as well.

My platform seems to be growing all the time. Is yours? What do you do to expand your platform?

What is Social Media to you?

Social Media – just what is it? According to my dictionary, ‘social’ is considered an attribute. It is ‘of or relating to rank and status in society.’ It is also ‘relating to or designed for activities in which people meet each other for pleasure.’ ‘Media’ is actually the plural form of ‘medium’ – I didn’t know that – it’s increasingly more familiar usage is in reference to television, radio, newspapers and the internet – generally regarded collectively. So, taken together, social media could be people getting together via the internet either for pleasure or to attain rank and status.

Now that we have analyzed the definition of ‘social media’, what exactly does it mean? I’m on Facebook and as of today I have 789 friends. Granted a goodly number of them are friends because I play a couple games and having Facebook friends make some aspects easier. Regardless of why they are friends I always welcome new friends into my corner of the world. It is my hope that they will take a look at my profile, and then maybe they will dig a little deeper and take a look at my fan page.

Now, I do things every day in an effort to keep some aspect of my writing visible (hopefully I’m not spamming everybody’s wall – if I am, no one has told me so), but that’s not all I do. I try very hard to be sociable. I scroll down my main wall in an effort to keep up with everyone. I am also a member of several blogging groups and I browse through them too, all at least once a day and sometimes twice.

I am also on Twitter. I confess, though I go to Twitter every day, it’s only to advertise, though I do keep track of any mentions and answer any messages, if I get any. If any of my tweets get re-tweeted, I make sure to say thanks. I mean, good manners, especially on line, are very important. I spend a little more time there during the winter. There’s #FollowFriday and #WriterWednesday, and I really should participate. It’s part of being social.

I also have three blogs, this one, my blog novel, and one about my personal life, where I hungrily await any comments.

I also belong to a few other writing groups. Throughout all of this, it is my greatest hope to make real friends, or at least as real as the internet will allow. I like to think I live by the Golden Rule. I do to, and for, others as I would like to be done to, or for, me. Oh sure, I'd like to 'improve my rank and status' in our society, but I see that as a byproduct of making friends.

I love to write, and I’ve combed the internet in an effort to become a better writer. I know the struggle to get a story onto the ‘paper’ on your computer. I’m more than willing to share what I’ve learned, or my interpretation of it all. I’ll happily direct you to a source upon asking, but I’ve a list here to the right, and on my website, I happily give credit to whoever for whatever tip I’ve listed.

Something I like to say all the time is ‘There’s no such thing as a dumb question.’ Never be afraid to ask me anything. I’ll tell you what I know and I’ll also tell you if I don’t know, then I’ll try to find the answer. After all, if you don’t ask questions, how are you going to learn?

This is how I define and use ‘social media’. What do you do?