Please help out a wonderful young writer and friend. She needs to sell 100 copies of her ebooks by July 1. They are available on Amazon for 99 cents each. Just a sip of a tall skinny vanilla latte costs more than that.
-
Here’s an interesting take on “writing what you know.” In the June 11, 2013 issue of The New York Times, author Sarah Jio writes about how one night of abject terror helps her to write about fear. For the first time, in this essay, she writes about that night and goes on to explain how the memory of the terror she felt helps her write about fear that occurs in other contexts.
During most of my writing life, I’ve been given the same advice–“Write what you know”–albeit with a twist now and then–“Write what you want to know.” Jio’s essay now gives me another way to think about writing. I was starting to wonder why the theme of loneliness runs through so much of my writing. It’s an existential loneliness born out of people growing apart or never really being together in the first place. It’s a loneliness that comes from never feeling you belong, no matter your DNA, no matter the size of your family, no matter how many friends you have on Facebook. It’s a loneliness I’ve sensed in other people, sensed to the point where I would want to weep for them. It’s a loneliness that I’ve felt as a child and again as an adult. It’s acute, it’s chronic, it may never fully leave me and it can at times be terrifying.
Like Jio, I only revisit those painful feelings when I’m trying to write about them; otherwise, I don’t want to remember. That is the catharsis of writing: even though I may not want to remember, when I get in touch with those awful feelings and let them flow from my heart, through my fingers, to the keyboard, there is a sense of relief and even gratitude that I can do something with those feelings of loneliness and fear. Writing helps me to make sense of them, to understand how loneliness can drive someone to do things he or she would not otherwise do. Ultimately, writing from those feelings helps me to understand the people (characters) that live in my head. Once I let them go (and out onto the page), I feel lighter in my heart and stronger in my mind.
And, how about you, Dear Writer? Are there events in your life that you turn to over and over again to inform your writing? Do you, as Jio advises, “write what frightens you, haunts you, even”?
-
An eloquent tribute to our friends in the ether.
They live close to our heart
Though we have never met
Friends from the ether
Connected by words
Read off the screenSomehow we found each other
And decided to hang out
Creating bonds of virtual light
That dot the social landscape
Of the world of cyberspaceWe share our pains and joys
Console the grieving and the sick
As if the distance is not there
Celebrate victories and milestones
With the sincerity of friendshipA family of the unseen
Is what many have become
Joined in words upon the screen
Which is enough
To forge friendships strong and pure…
View original post 173 more words
-
Read the next installment of Claude, the three-legged pug (and have some tissues nearby).
-
-
What is success? Number of sales, size of royalties, the mere act of writing?
So, I’ve gotten into a few ‘debates’ with people on this side of the computer. This ‘debate’ is about what constitutes success for a self-published author. Back in the day, you were successful when you got a contract and got your first royalty check. That doesn’t seem to be the case any more.
I remember reading that 500 eBooks being sold is the sign of a moderate success. I still don’t know if this is true. This is only the sales level. It doesn’t mention anything about royalties. Supposedly, there is a difference between 500 eBooks at .99 cents and 500 eBooks at $2.99. The later is a sign of more success than the former.
What am I getting at here? Every person is going to look at an indie author’s progress differently. Some will look at amount of sales, others at amount of reviews, others at royalties, and any…
View original post 40 more words
-
Whoo-hoo! Kevin Brennan is giving away a SIGNED copy of his novel Parts Unknown. To participate in the contest, all you have to do is leave a comment on his blog post so … go for it :)
I’m giving away a copy of Parts Unknown this week. It’s a hardback, and I’ll inscribe it to the winner too.
Folks, this is a $10 value (see sidebar), and if you don’t win you can always cough up a tenner and get one for yourself!
Taking a page from the Accidental Cootchie Mama’s manual, (yes, I won the Mystery Hole T-shirt!), I’m going to pick a name randomly from the commenters to this post. I want at least 10 names in the pool, so I’ll keep this going till I reach that target. If I don’t hit 10 in a reasonable time, I’ll open it up to Twitter people who are scrounging for giveaways, and nobody wants that to happen. So tell your friends to come over and comment, or reblog this, or shout it from the hilltops.
Be the first in your neighborhood to read this fine…
View original post 146 more words
-
Recently (okay, yesterday) I became a member of the Rome Construction Crew, and I am pretty excited about it. The crew are a wonderful group of people who I have been “following” (not stalking, following) since I rebooted my blog. From reading their posts on their goals, I could ascertain that nobody was putting the thumbscrews to anyone, no dissing or taunting if a crew member fell behind (well, ok, some good-natured ribbing now and then). Even though they have a lofty name to their crew (Rome Construction!), they are a warm and fuzzy group. Just what I need right now.
I gave serious thought to membership, to the point of making Green Embers wait a week, thinking he had missed my submission when in fact I hadn’t followed up when I said I would. Yes, off to a great start I was. I have a tendency to “over-do.” I usually have several projects of various types going on at the same time (including at my day-job). It was worse when I was on Zoloft. Now that I’m medication-free, I experience the appropriate sense of panic every time I commit myself to yet another obligation. But I still overcommit. Yet this, the RCC, feels very different.
In fact, my whole blogging experience feels very different. I don’t feel pressured by anyone, except myself. I know I’m not keeping up with reading and commenting like I had at the beginning, but no one is scolding me. I’m struggling with trying to write original posts, both for my blog and for The Community Storyboard and the Stuff It Tuesday collaborations with Writings of a Mrs, but nobody is giving me any grief over it. Nobody except me. So, in thinking about the goals I want to set for myself as a member of the RCC, I think the first one should be:
(1) Get off my own back. I am my own worst enemy. It’s been a lifetime pursuit to thwart my every chance at success and happiness. Rather than pat myself on the back for what I do accomplish, I admonish myself for what I don’t accomplish. This has to stop and it has to stop now. I think I can make that happen if I follow through on the next goals.
(2) Set up a schedule of posting that gives me time to write, but doesn’t make followers think I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. I want to start slow, let’s say with one original post for my blog and one original post for The Community Storyboard and one for Stuff It Tuesdays a week. That actually may be too much, but I am building some draft posts and I have plenty of writing around. I just need to:
(3) Get organized. Start taking time to go through my extant writing and sort out what may be appropriate for The Community Storyboard, for example. Organize my reading as well because I’m committed to provide reviews of books/stories from fellow bloggers (and those reviews would be original posts on my blog … two birds with one stone, except that I like birds and hate that little homily). Also, I plan to participate in the July Camp NaNoWriMo, write another 50,000 words for a third novel. And our kitchen is going to be redone in July, so getting organized would be nice. Not to mention how it would help with:
(4) Write the third novel in my series, The Widow’s Club (working title). You will be hearing a lot more about the three novels over the next several weeks (or into infinity) since once I start writing in July, there will be little to nothing of me left over for much else.
So these are my goals for the foreseeable future. I do have other goals, like ensuring that I go to yoga classes at least twice a week, that sort of thing. But for RCC, I want to focus on writing. That’s why I’m here. It’s what I do. (Well, I also knit but right now writing trumps knitting.)
So now I’ve put this all in writing and am about to send it into the blogosphere (I can hear the NSA starting to yawn). And since it’s past my bedtime, I’ll wish you all a good night.
Marie at 1 Write Way 