Writer Feedback (Need some!!)

                             

No - this post is not about cooking. (Although I may do a couple of those along the way. You never know.)

Remember those "what if" games you played when you were kids? You know, the ones where your friend asked: "If you were any animal, what would you be?" And you said: "A wombat - of course!" (Or a blue-footed booby. Or meerkat. Or whatever animal had caught your fancy.)

Well...if I were an appliance, I would most likely be a toaster. I tend to go with my gut response to a lot of things, which can sometimes be an amazingly bad thing, or astonishingly good thing, depending on the situation.At other times, I'm a crockpot. I stew on things a while, mull over all the finer variances, and then give a final verdict (or final product) after an extended length of time.

Lately I've been doing the crockpot routine, so to speak. The idea in question? I've been "mulling over" an idea for a regularly posted "series" on my blog. The inspiration came from the time I've spent on Twitter, poring over the rather insightful, and often very specific, tweets from the agents and editors I follow. As I came across different nuggets, I'd think: "Ooo! Need to remember that one" - and tucked it away in a Word file to peruse later. The document got longer...and longer....and longer.

Moreover, a pattern soon began to emerge. Yes, most of the tweets had to do with (a) queries,  (b) dos/don'ts of writing and (c) overall publishing industry. That's no surprise; if you're a wanna-be author, you're gleaning little nuggets for yourself. But a far more intricate pattern emerged within the pattern, that I did not see until my Word document had grown to four or five pages. I broke my "nuggets" into smaller and smaller categories, with more specific titles. I found myself wondering how I was going to properly assimilate all this wonderful information - not just the pithy sayings themselves, but the inferred logic of what they really mean, when you get down to it. Then I wondered if perhaps others might want to read and ponder the same things. 

So - I'd like to do a series of "agent tweets" posts beginning in January, about once a week or so. My problem? These are all such great statements and insights from those who scrutinize our queries, and then our manuscripts, that the statements have a very wide, yet nearly circular pattern to how they're connected.

In short: I'm not sure where to start. Which topic? At which end of the elephant? (Or wombat?)

This is where I need your help. Below I have listed the various categories into which I've divided the tweets. I would like to know what YOU would consider (a) worth your time clicking back over to read and (b) which topic you'd like to see first.

Please take a look at the list below, and tell me which ones really stand out to you. And if you think any of these are pointless, even intuitively obvious - please tell me! I don't want to spend my time on some topic you've heard discussed ad nauseum.

At the same time, I think some of these topics will never (or ought to never) grow old....

Categories of agent/editor tweets I've compiled:

Time It Right
Hard (Yet Encouraging) Truths
Blunt Honesty
In Season/Out of Season
Beta Readers
Mind Your Attitude!
Ready? No, really....are you??
General Requests and Advice
Writing Do's and Don'ts
Queries: TMI or NMI (Too Much Information or Need More Information)
Query Uh-Ohs: Logistics
Query Uh-Ohs: Content
Query Uh-Ohs: Format
Using Social Networks
BAD Ideas
Kindles
Be Honest
This Screams "Bad Writing"
Know Your Limits

NOTE: I have no intention of pointing out which agent or editor made which comment, for several reasons. Besides, what I've gleaned is only a cross-section of tweets, but they are all regularly recurring themes that I'm seeing on Twitter over....and over....and over.

I figure we who intend to submit our work ought to sit up and pay attention.

What do you think? Anything grab your attention? 

All of it? None of it?

Thank you for your feedback! 

Everything will help me make this blog a more 

user-friendly place.

Melty Brains

No, this is not a zombie post. Although I feel like a zombie right now.

A good kind of zombie (if there is such a thing).

   

This has been a big month for me. First I had the honor of winning the "first line" contest at the WriMosFTW! website, and THEN - on Saturday night - I won NaNoWriMo four days ahead of schedule, with a grand total of 51,044 words.

I am SO very pleased...and exhausted. Hence the melty brains reference.

Of course, my NaNo draft is nowhere near finished, let alone in a condition for anyone else to look at. I employed several messy techniques to allow me to stifle my inner editor and push through, so I could get the greatest amount of narrative down during the time allotted to me. Those messy techniques included (but were not limited to):

     * Highlighting "fluff" passages to delete (or heavily edit) later in olive green

     * Highlighting substance that ought to stay, but needs serious reworking, in violent yellow

     * Line breaks between scenes that I wanted to write, but whose transitions just eluded me

All of this will probably be expanded into later blog posts of some sort, but for the moment it's sufficient to say that I am thrilled to be across the 50K finish line, and deeply thankful for all the wonderful writers who encouraged me and entered word wars wtih me, and so helped me win my NaNoWriMo certificate.

Below are the main cohorts who helped me cross that finish line. I've listed their Twitter names so you can find them there. Where possible, I've included links to their blogs. This is my online writing community, and they are all AWESOME.

@emholbert4                           @JamieOehring                         @JennyAdams
@ashviper                                @LillieMcFerrin                      @Redhed_Stepkid
@Love_Kenzie_                       @9inchsnails                            @placesense
@annaavenhoward                 @surlymuse                              @write_me_happy
@jbirchwriter                          @beccajcampbell                      @BettisiTheThird
@wrimosftw                            @LynMidnight                          @jennifergracen
@Jon_Stoffel                          @JasonRunnels                         @raineerose
@writenowcoach                     @MarkLanden                           @saraleggz
@AdrienneDorais                   @SpartaGus                               @zencherry
@lindseyEarcher                     @courtcan                                  @ColleenWrites2
@BerryKitsune                       @WordyWags                            @notashamed87

Thanks to everyone who helped spur me across the NaNoWriMo finish line! 

I hope all of you were equally successful in your writing projects, 

and I hope to see all your hard-won tales in print very soon!

Social Tangles

When I started this blog over a month ago, I knew what my general goal was: to build a "platform." Never mind the fact that building a platform for a fiction writer who isn't published yet is a bit nebulous, or that marketing yourself while trying to complete/polish/query said manuscript is more than a bit daunting.

OK. Not merely daunting. Terrifyingly daunting.

Part of the headache that newbies like me face is the whole social networking tangle. I've read a lot of articles that encourage would-be authors to connect into every possible social network - Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and goodness knows who else. (I admit, I don't know them all.)  Others recommend you pick two of the "Big Three" - Twitter, Facebook and Google+ - and really work those.

If that's the case, then I'm afraid I"m the new caveman on the block. When I decided to ratchet up my publishing aspirations, my first decision was to shut down my Facebook entirely, and deliberately avoid Google+. I decided that I only had time for ONE social network, and Twitter was the tool that best fit my networking needs.

In the weeks since making that decision, I feel that I've been proven right. With multiple jobs, multiple manuscripts on tap, plus needing to maintain some semblance of a normal (read: non-computer related) social life, Twitter more than fills up my social networking niche, and then some. Honestly, I did not have any idea at the outset of how intricate Twitter would be. For something that supposedly is as simple as managing status lines, I had no clue it could be so complex, and push my networking capabilities into such remarkable quadrants. Already I have made some amazing connections with published authors, agents, editors, and people like me who are navigating the murky waters of determined would-be authors.

But it takes time and energy to keep the social networking wheel turning - even if you're only working with one. Since late September, my internet time has revolved around a careful triangle of blogging, email and Twitter. Already it has become a dance. When to Tweet and put myself out there. When to be quiet and just scan, read, think about what I'm seeing. The whole hashtag dance, which is in some ways is its own coded language, but a great networking tool if you know how to tap into it. It's a whole other world.

And then, yesterday, I was introduced to Klout.

Klout adds a whole other dynamic to the social networking thingy. So far as I understand it, it's an online "pulse check" that measures your social networking influence. It's a nifty little gizmo, but yet another item that could rapidly swallow more time. One more thing to obsess over. More internet time that truly, honestly, ought to be spent on my writing.

Of course, Klout wants me to "add in" Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and every other social network it assumes I'm participating in (which I'm not). If I did do all of those things - heaven help me. I'd be obsessively checking it twenty times a day. Yet another reminder of how glad I am that I picked one and am sticking with it.

Where does this take me? I'm not really sure. I have a hunch that this is a topic I'll be blogging on again in the future, as it is a journey that is still unfolding for me. It's a double edged sword:
     *  time consuming, but it gets your name out there;
     *  promotes your work, but smacks at times of selling yourself out;
     *  gets public response to new ideas, but worrisome in regards to copyright and idea protection;

.....and so on. Kinda makes a person wonder if you started eating the whale from the right end.

This is where I'm hoping I get some feedback from blog readers....where do you 

stand on the social networking thing? How much is too much? What's your ulterior motive 

for social networking? Pitfalls? Benefits? I am ALL ears.

Let me know what you think!!!!