Tag Archives: writing

Pardon me…excuse me…oops. Did I step on your toe?

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There is a huge part of writing that no writer enjoys, although without the result of it, we might as well leave everything on our desktop and not worry about sending our words out into the world.

Selling.

Let’s face it. Most writers are not born salesmen. We don’t know how to hawk our wares effectively, and when we try, we’re fairly awkward about it. We don’t want to bug you, but darn it, if we can’t get you to read what we wrote, what’s the point?

Which brings me to my current situation. I’ve written and published five books now. I’ve sent two more out to a publisher to be considered and I’m planning to publish a sequel to one of my self-published books, Ducks in a Row, in the next few months. If all goes well, by next year, I’ll have eight books out there.

So, how do I get you to read them without feeling like a nuisance when I ask? Every time I tweet or blog or post on Facebook about my books, I feel like one of those idiots who shoves her way to the front of a crowd without regard for the feelings (or toes) of those already there.

I don’t have the answers yet. I’m working with a very talented lady who is really trying to help me navigate the Internet and blogosphere with a little more grace, but I still feel awkward about the whole thing. It certainly helps to know I’m not alone out there pleading for attention. Many of my writer friends are right there with me.

And what really helps me is the knowledge that what I’m selling is not necessarily on the same level as Ginsu knives. Like most writers, I’m not in it to make a quick buck. I’m in it to try to keep all my hard work from going to waste. You see, my payoff doesn’t come from selling a book. It comes from you reading it.

In with both feet and hoping self-publishing isn’t one of the deadly sins.

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I recently published this picture on Twitter and Facebook:

Ducks book_large

I captioned it “A preview of things to come”. And yes, that’s my name on the front of an actual physical book. It’s just a proof copy for me to find all my errors (and there are a few), but when I give CreateSpace the word, it becomes real. It’ll really be for sale. You can order it from Amazon and it will arrive in a box. Huh.

Back in the days when self-publishing was called “vanity” publishing, it was, perhaps, the deadly sin of writing. I’ve dipped my toes into the swirling whirlpool of self-publishing by creating Kindle e-books from two of my manuscripts that I couldn’t find homes for elsewhere, but I never considered print-on-demand before. Recently, however, I was encouraged to jump in with both feet and see where the whirlpool takes me, and I decided to do it. I figured, hey, if nothing else, I’ll see my name on the front of my book (I think I see where the “vanity” comes in).

Yesterday the proof arrived. Proof of my vanity? Maybe. But it’s kind of neat to hold that book in my hands and know it’s something I made. From beginning to end, I created it. I took the picture that’s on the front cover. I edited it (and it takes courage to admit that, because it’s going to have some mistake). I built this book like my kids build spaceships with Legos. It’s not quite finished yet. I still have to make certain I don’t need to reformat anything else, and then I jump in, feet first, and find out what it’s really like being a self-published author.

“What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?”

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In the course of Googling something else the other night, I ran across an article on a blog that intrigued me. The blogger devoted his entire time to tearing down a very successful author, whose name I shall not mention. In a nutshell, the blogger said she loved this particular author UNTIL she started following him on social media where said author made a number of missteps. Her main complaint, however, was that he never offered anything to the aspiring writers who clustered about him waiting for a morsel of genius to fall on them.

Instead, the author in question would fill his Twitter feed with his daily word counts, bits from his new books, or his favorite quotes from his old books. Why doesn’t the author just be himself? the blogger asked.

(Ahem. Possibly because he might not be his actual self. Lord knows, if I ever get to the point he’s at, I’m going to hire someone to handle social media for me. It’s part of the job of being a writer, but if you can afford to pay someone else to do it for you so you can keep doing what you really enjoy doing—writing—well, who can blame you…much?)

But I digress. This article got me thinking. Have I ever gotten any actually useful advice from a successful published author? I’ve seen several speak. Some tell stories about how they became successful. Sometimes you can glean some bit of something useful out of that, but for the most part, you’re left wondering, Why couldn’t that happen to me? Every now and then, though, somebody says something that sticks with you, that really helps.

Unfortunately, I honestly can’t remember who said the most useful writing tip I ever got from a published writer. I think it was a man, and I believe it was while I was in college. Other than that, I’m at a loss. At any rate, what he said was, “Tell you readers your secrets.”

That startled me. My secrets. He was talking about writing fiction. Novels. Not true stuff. Why would I tell my secrets? Real stuff. But I’ve found over the years that he was right. If you mix a little bit of reality into your fiction, it makes it live and breathe in a way that purely made up stuff could never do. And the great thing is, you don’t have to tell your reader what bits are true. You just write from the heart, mix in things that are true with things that you wish could be true or you fear ever coming true and what results is so much more than fiction.

Here’s a bit of writing advice from me, a published, if not yet successful, author. Don’t expect too much from your heroes. No matter how successful they are, they’re caught up in a balancing act, just like the rest of us. They may not have to make ends meet financially (well, the top 1% don’t, anyway), but they are trying to balance marketing and social media and family with what they really probably still want to do—writing. So don’t expect too much, but listen when you’re lucky enough to hear one speak. They might just give you that tidbit you’ve been waiting for.

Writing about Writing: My Year in Review

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Today I looked at my bookshelves. You see, I have a new book to put on them. My brother-in-law gave me one of the best books ever written about writing. Stephen King’s On Writing. I’ve read excerpts but never the whole thing, and I’ve never owned my own copy, so I was thrilled to get it. Let me share one of my favorite excerpts from the book with you:

“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair—the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. … Come to it any way but lightly.” — Stephen King, On Writing

I LOVE that quote. It hits the heart of my writing experience every time I read it. When I sit down at my computer, I assess my own ambitions for my writing. Maybe I have an idea I can’t wait to tap into my computer. Maybe I’m ready to get lost in that other world. Maybe I’m ready to try, anyway. Or maybe I just want to update my blog or maybe I’m…not. King goes on to say:

“…it’s writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close the book and do something else.”

On the days when I know I can’t take my writing seriously, I do find other things to do. If I know all I’m going to be doing is surfing the net or (worse) posting inane comments on Facebook all day, I go do something else useful. I’ve taken up cataloging my kids’ school library during these “off hours”, and I’ve found that I am far better off when I return to the writing I’m never very far away from.

So much for King. What really caught my attention when I looked at my bookshelves was another book about writing by Eudora Welty, also titled On Writing. I admit, I’ve never read this book. I bought it way back as a sentimental investment. I met Ms. Welty once, way back at some young authors’ conference or other. She was very old, and I’d never read anything she’d ever written, but she was what I knew I wanted to be: a published, respected writer. I was curious. Did she see writing as seriously as King does? I flipped through the pages and eventually came across this quote, which, to me, seems to indicate she does:

“We have the writer’s own vision of everything in the world when we place his novel in the center. Then so much is clear: how he sees life and death, how much he thinks people matter to each other and to themselves, how much he would like you to know what he finds beautiful or strange or awful or absurd, what he can do without, how well he has learned to see, hear, touch, smell—all as his sentences go by and in their time and sequence mount up. It grows clear how he imposes order and structure on his fictional world; and it is terribly clear, in the end, whether, when he calls for understanding, he gets any.” –Eudora Welty, On Writing

The last line of that rather lengthy quote gave me chills. Don’t we all want understanding at the end of the book? As I scanned the pages of Welty’s book on writing, I noticed she explores the relationship between reader and writer in a much clearer manner than I’ve ever seen before. In her many years of writing, Ms. Welty obviously established a very good understanding with her readers.

Over the course of the past year, I’ve grown a lot as a writer. I’ve discovered that just because I write books I want to write doesn’t mean that everybody will want to read them. I’ve discovered that even when they get published and read, my books won’t always establish that connection with the reader that I strive for. And yet, if I’m going to ask my readers to take me seriously as a writer, I have to, as King advises, never come to it lightly. I have to approach writing as a business. It’s a business you have to stick with, you have to work at, and the you must, at all costs, constantly strive to get better at it if you hope to connect with your readers.

This year, I’ve written a few blog posts I was sort of proud of about writing. Nothing compared to King or Welty, but I haven’t had their careers yet. Most of these are either about my impressions of what writing is like on this side of success or were responses to articles I’d read about writing or publishing. In case you missed my brilliance the first time around, I thought I’d include links to my top 10 favorite blog posts of 2012:

1. “Embrace your velvet-cloaked vampire: Go ahead and publish that book”

2. “How to make your setting into a character…and why you should”

3. “Self-published and proud of it: Stop squelching the new voices”

4. “Confessions of a Contemporary Romance Author”

5. “Music that isn’t mine or why there’s a gay woman in Where the Heart Lies: About Lulu”

6. “How a chronic beginner finishes writing a novel”

7. “Slacking Off: Writing is Hard Work!”

8. “Vanishing Literature or Just Disappearing Ink?”

9. “Playing with emotions: What do you want to feel when you read?”

10. “Immersing Myself in the Culture of My Creations”

NaNoWriMo: What’s Going On? (exclusive excerpt from my NaNo novel)

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No, I’m not confused. I’m updating. Finally. I feel like I’ve been in a daze most of this month, and I guess I have sort of been in a writing fever. Consumed. I’d like to credit National Novel Writing Month with this, but I’ve participated in this annual event often enough to know, if the story hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have written itself like this. NaNoWriMo probably did help me keep going, but this story was just kind of there. The characters weren’t hard to bring to life because by the time November 1 rolled around, I already knew them well enough to write about them.

I’ve already said the story is about magic. I’ve spent most of my life looking for magic, even finding it every now and then in everyday life, trying to capture it and cage it on the page in black and white. It doesn’t work, usually. I’m not sure I managed it this time. Maybe you can tell me:

She could feel the dry desert breeze on her skin, a welcome relief after the canned air she’d been breathing all day. This far up, the air smelled fresh, free from the musty mix of sweaty bodies and sewage that often pervaded the street level of Vegas. If she kept her eyes closed, she could almost imagine what it had been like hundreds of years before when the cowboys rode through the desert…

She was wasting time. If she were going to do it, she should go ahead. She bit her lip, felt his hands on her hips, the warmth of his body behind her. As if he understood her inner battle, he leaned forward, his lips almost touching her ear, making her dizzy with desire at a time when she desperately didn’t want to be dizzy. At first she barely understood his words, but when they penetrated, she found her courage. “Sometimes you have to do something that frightens you just to be sure you’re still alive.”

Her eyes fluttered open, and she waited for the vertigo and fear to crash down on her. But with him at her back, she found she could look out at what was undeniably an amazing view. Somehow beautiful in its blatant excess, the Strip spread out below her in a medley of lights, looking like crystal and jeweled glass. She could see the people strolling along the street, slower and more peaceful at this late hour and at this great distance than she knew they would if she were among them. Light of every color bloomed and blossomed and split through the night. The light breeze brushed her hair back from her face, almost as gentle as his touch. For the first time, she could understand why Vegas had become known as the flower of the desert. “It’s amazing.”

He stood close enough so she could feel him nod. “From up here it is.” He moved to her side, and she immediately wished he hadn’t. She liked the solid feel of him behind her. He contemplated the view for a moment. “Do you know what I see down there?”

She shook her head. “What?”

“A lot of people looking for something. I’ve always believed it’s magic. Do you know what I think magic is?” He turned, searching her eyes.

Again she shook her head. A gust of wind whipped her hair across her face and he reached up to brush it back, his palm warm against her cheek. “Magic is the absence of doubt.”

So far, my magic novel is 48,000+ words. I anticipate finishing it today. It’s the first time I’ve ever finished a NaNo novel before Thanksgiving. It’s still untitled, although I have a few ideas. But if you want to help, feel free to leave a comment below with your suggestion.

And while I’m bragging, I got two reviews yesterday for Where the Heart Lies! One was from my gracious blog tour host Stitch Read Cook. Here’s an excerpt:

“Michelle has a way with words, she draws you into the small town life of these characters and keeps you hooked until the last page.” — Stitch Read Cook

The second was unexpected, however, and I found it by chance on Bookaddiction. Check this out:

“Where The Heart Lies by Michelle Garren Flye is a lovely story about guilt, redemption, and the power of love. …a well-written romantic novel with an unusual amount of depth.” –Bookaddiction

How cool is that? Makes me think my quest for magic might be progressing after all!

Self-published and proud of it: Stop squelching the new voices.

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There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt. — Audre Lorde

I’m really trying not to get angry now. If you want to know why, go read this article: Are Self-Pubbed Authors Killing the Publishing Industry? I actually read the article yesterday and let it sit for a day so I could be sure after cooling off that I didn’t see her point, but after reading it again this morning, I realized I’m still hot. So here I go on my soapbox.

Seriously? KILLING the industry? You want to know what’s killing the industry? Look a little deeper. Look at the agents who don’t want to take a chance on cross-genre works and new names. And the editors who won’t even look at a new author unless they’re represented by an agent. The publishing industry has become so intertwined, it’s almost impossible to get anything published the traditional route unless you’re grandfathered in.

Of course, there are exceptions. Everybody knows J.K. Rowling’s slush pile acceptance story. But that was more than fifteen years ago. More recently, of course, there was the Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (what’s with the British authors with initials thing?) breakthrough, but let’s please remember that that started out as fanfiction, and was originally published online. So I’m not certain you can claim Ms. James went the traditional route at all.

I have self-published a book. I’m considering self-publishing more. And the reason I’m doing it is because I’m a writer, and I have every intention of continuing to write and be published, whether I have to do it myself or not. And to promote my books, I will do web tours and give away Kindles and Nooks, even if “Traditionally published authors aren’t stooping to these tactics.” Traditionally published authors don’t have to. Their publishers take care of publicity for them.

I have said before and will say again that the way for new authors to get their words out there is to go through small e-publishers. With that route, you get the benefit of a professional editor (believe me, it helps). However, I also know there are books that even indie publishers aren’t going to consider. And for those, Smashwords and Kindle Direct Publishing will continue to be desirable routes for writers. And if we want to sell our words for 99 cents, then traditional publishers need to suck it up and stop complaining. Buyer beware. If you pay 99 cents for a book, you might not enjoy it. It probably hasn’t been professionally edited. It may have typos and formatting errors.

On the other hand, it might be brilliant. It might be a new voice with something to say that you might enjoy hearing. At any rate, it cost less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks, so what do you have to lose?

If you’d like to try my 99 cent self-published 5-star on Amazon book, here’s a link: Weeds and Flowers. And my self-designed cover, which I am very proud of:

Playing with Emotions: What do you want to feel when you read?

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I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Since I gave up writing horror, actually. Surprisingly, however, the story that got me thinking about it again was a horror story. I finally got around to reading my friend John Peters’s story “Summer’s End” the other day. It’s not that I didn’t want to read it. In fact, I downloaded it weeks ago. It’s quite simply that I don’t have time to read anymore. Between my kids and my volunteer work and my own writing and just day-to-day life, reading has come in last on my to-do list for quite a while.

(BTW, my trip to Las Vegas the other day may have changed that. For four glorious days, I had, for a change, enough time. I wrote, I read, I slept, I had leisurely lunches with my husband and I shopped (a little). What luxury!)

It was on the way to Las Vegas, in fact, that I picked up “Summer’s End”. I expected it to be good. JP2 (his nickname from our old Horror Library group) is an excellent writer. I knew I’d be drawn in and find it difficult to put down. What I didn’t expect was how the story played on my emotions. Disgust, horror, and, finally, righteous indignation. I felt them all while reading this tale. And it got me thinking.

We writers play with emotions in our stories, but what we’re really playing with are our reader’s emotions. If we get good, we can make you cry, laugh, feel sick to your stomach (JP managed that one pretty well!) or get angry. But why do readers seek this stimulus? And what are they looking for in it? I can’t honestly answer this question although as a reader, I know I’ve sought all of the above, and as a writer, I’ve explored all of it (except maybe making you sick to your stomach—well, maybe…). In fact, the reason I stopped writing horror was because I wanted to make my readers feel better about the world around them.

What I realized after reading “Summer’s End” was that maybe that’s the point of horror, too. Maybe after you read a good horror story that’s really made you sick to your stomach, you stop and look around you and realize this world is so much better than that one…feels pretty good, huh?

I encourage everyone to read a good horror story before Halloween. Maybe you should start with JP2’s “Summer’s End”…

Ahh…Print. Finally!

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Had to share the good news…I’m finally available in print! Yay! Foreign Affairs, the anthology with my short story “Agapi Mou”, is now available in print, so if you’re one of those who loves to hold a book in your hands…well, you can finally hold one with MY name on the front cover in your hands. Here’s what the cover looks like:

To celebrate being in print, I’m going to give away a signed copy of Foreign Affairs to the commenter between now and October 31 who gives me the most creative and convincing reason why my books should ALL be in print.

In other news, be sure to tune in early tomorrow for my TWO guest spots on My Reading Addiction and Once Upon a Time. Find out what I’ve been up to when I haven’t been updating my blog.