Review: Rayne Hall's Twitter for Writers

(Affiliate links)

Submitted for your consideration: Twitter for Writers, by Rayne Hall.

I remember back when I first heard about Twitter...my response was something along the lines of 'Psh, nobody wants to hear about my life. Oh look, I just had a tuna-fish sandwich!'. I just couldn't imagine what I'd have to say in 140 characters that anyone would care to hear, and that cave-era perspective stayed with me for far too long.


Then, everywhere I turned, people were telling me that as I writer, I really should be active on Twitter. I still didn't really understand why, but started to tweet more. One afternoon I tweeted about a flash fiction piece I published, and put the hashtag #flashfiction on the tweet--and within a few hours, several flash fiction publications had followed me. That was an epiphany moment for me--hashtags aren't just fun things you add to a tweet, they have a useful purpose. And when used intelligently, twitter can help you connect with people who share your interests, people you probably would't know exist otherwise.


All well and good, but I still didn't really know what I was doing. Thankfully, I found two things that have helped me almost overnight--a writer friend who gave me a ton of tips (sorry, she's not for sale), and a book I found: Twitter for Writers, by Rayne Hall. 


Where did I find it? Why, on Twitter, of course. I was playing around with hashtags, just seeing what I could find, and I saw a tweet about it. At that time it was on sale for 99 cents, so I figured I couldn't go wrong.


The book has 36 short chapters that take you through creating your account to more advanced topics like lists, managing your account, apps, multiple accounts, and staying safe. Within each of these chapters, she gives information for beginners, a 'what not to do' section, advanced strategies, and a section on mistakes she's made and how you can learn from them. If you're a beginner, you can stick to the easy strategies, and come back to the rest when you're ready.


You may be thinking "Really? Come on, how complicated can this be?". I hear you, because that's what I thought, too. But you see, I didn't know how much I didn't know. For example, it never occurred to me that people scan feeds looking for certain avatars, so if you're the sort of person (like me) who likes to change your avatar picture often, you're just confusing your followers. Change your cover picture as often as you like, but keep that avatar picture consistent.


I also never liked Twitter because my feed was a huge mess--I could never figure out how people managed to sort through all those tweets! That's because nobody who knows better actually uses their feed as-is; they always use some method of filtering to get at what they want. Either via lists, hashtags, apps, or other methods, they pull out what they need at any given moment and ignore the rest. Huge epiphany--and now I'm able to interact with the people I want to interact with.


Admittedly, I was completely twitter challenged--I didn't even know you could create lists, or turn off people's retweets. I didn't realize there were whole events that used hashtags, and that you could use filters to make them easy to participate in. I didn't know you could attach pictures. And I certainly had no clue how to get followers that would actually be interested in what I had to say, and that I could build professional relationships with.


Twitter for Writers walked me through all of this, and tons more. Hall's writing is clear, accessible, easy to follow. I love that she's willing to admit the mistakes she made so you don't make the same ones. And for me, this book was worth the price just for the useful hashtags she shares.


Most of all, I appreciated Hall's emphasis on building genuine relationships. This doesn't mean having long, in-depth conversations with every one of your followers everyday--but it means you share genuine interests and will find one another's tweets potentially interesting. Reaching out to other authors, to readers, to other professionals in the industry not just to say 'look at me!', but to engage, share information, learn from one another. This is the approach that will build you a successful and useful network, and she stresses that throughout.


I was lucky enough to stumble on this when it was on sale for $0.99. The non-sale price is $9.99; I think it's worth every penny of that, and would have been delighted with it at full price. [PS: I just checked, and it's on sale again for $0.99! Strike while the iron's hot!!]


If you're a writer and you're baffled by Twitter or are looking to use it more efficiently, this book is for you. It has something to offer all but the most savvy users, and probably even a tip or two for them! In a time when social media is growing in importance everyday, Twitter for Writers is a wonderful addition to your writer's tool-kit.


Happy writing,
M.

Need a writers' support system? There's a social media community for that!

I may have mentioned that I'm the sort of person who can write in my little cave without emerging to see the sun for days on end. This is true for many writers, I think. We can be solitary creatures, and writing tends to be a solitary activity.


That's all well and good, until we need some support. Someone to hold us accountable for our stated goals. Someone to pat our shoulder when we get that story rejected--for the twentieth time. Someone to remind us that the best way out of any snafu we encounter as a writer is to keep writing. Someone to show us a video of babies dancing to bring the good feels back when all we can think about is how our writing is complete crap.

Our non-writing friends are great, but they often don't  understand what it is we do (or why the heck we do it), and not all of us are blessed with a bevy of writing friends. That's when it's nice to have a virtual writing community to support us.


As I've been working to learn more about social media for the purposes of my 'platform', I've discovered fun new ways to surround myself with others who are as obsessed with writing as I am. There are tons and tons, within genres, across genres, for different purposes. Here are a few of my current favorites:




1) #WriteClub: I'm not sure who originated the hashtag, but every Friday, the lovely people at @FriNightWrites on twitter put on a series of writing sprints under that hashtag. This technically only happens for a few hours in a given time-zone, but different people oversee the sprints in different time zones from all around the world, so the hashtag ends up being active all through the day. When the admin calls time, everyone reports how many words they were able to write during the sprint, and there's even one dedicated admin who has been tracking those numbers since the inception of the project, and reports how many cumulative words have been written. @TheSprintShack also runs sprints under this hashtag throughout the week, and people use it to connect through the week as well. This is a great way to get yourself motivated and get some words on that page!

2) #WritingChallenge: This is a group of writers who encourage each other to write 500 words per day for a month. There is at least one Facebook group associated with it, and you can always use the general hashtag (#WritingChallenge), but the actual hashtag changes each month (e.g., #MarWritingChallenge). Even if you're not a twitter person, you can check out the Facebook group for support that way.

3) Pinterest writing boards: This one is probably obvious but I have to mention it because I love visiting boards where people store writing advice and inspirational quotes. And the great thing about boards like this is there will inevitably be a quote that says something along the lines of 'Shouldn't you be writing right now? Go write!' Sort of like a built-in timer that reminds me I've spent enough time on Pinterest for now.








4) #AmWriting/#AmRevising: Search these hashtags for an instant community of folks who are pouring their blood, sweat and tears into their current work in progress (#WIP, btw). You'll find encouragement, solidarity, great quotes, and witty banter.








5) #PitchMadness, Pitchapalooza, #PitchWars: Each of these is an event that gives you an opportunity to have your work seen by an agent. Pitch Madness happens in February; writers submit a 35-word pitch for their novel, and agents fight over the best ones for a chance to read more from the author. Pitchapalooza is going on right now, and it's a NaNoWriMo-based event that can help you get some important feedback on your pitch. Pitch Wars happens in August, and mentors fight over which authors they get to mentor, to help you put together the best set of materials you can produce. In each case, a writing community springs up around the event to help one another produce the best work they can.





This is just the surface of the cool stuff you can find to help keep you writing out there on social media--there are thousands. Start following those hashtags and see where they lead you. Follow a few of the accounts, and twitter will suggest more--one is bound to suit your needs. And you can take advantage of it all from your couch, in your jammies.

You'll see me hanging out in these communities as @mishka824 on Twitter, Mishka824m on Pinterest (where I have my own writing board, of course!), and Michelle Chouinard on Google+.

Do you have any favorites virtual writing communties or secrets? Please share them with me!

Happy writing,
M.

Review: Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

(Affiliate links)

Recently a friend of mine who has read my family-saga novel recommended that I read Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline; she felt it was a similar type of story, and that I'd enjoy it. She was right (good call, Rachel!), and I just couldn't resist writing a review on it.

Summary

Orphan Train is the story of Molly, a teen-aged girl living in a hostile foster home, and Vivian, a ninety-plus year-old woman who has an attic filled to the brim with eighty years of life history. When the book opens, Molly has recently stolen a beaten-up copy of Jane Eyre from the library, and has been sentenced to community service as a result; her goth style and sour attitude make it very unlikely that she'll be able to find a suitable place to work those hours in her small Maine town. She resigns herself to being thrown out of her foster home, and placed into a juvenile detention facility. 

Her boyfriend, however, has other plans, and asks his mother to pull some strings in order to get her an interview with Vivian, who needs someone to help clean out said attic. Molly is skeptical about getting the job--she's learned that life very rarely goes her way--and she doesn't really want it anyway. Spending fifty hours with a woman who's older than the hills does not sound like a fun way to spend her evenings and weekends.

Of course, she gets the job. And of course, as she helps Vivian sort through the attic, she and Vivian find they have more in common than either expected.  

Vivian is also an 'orphan' of the same type that Molly is: after a tragic fire killed the rest of Vivian's family, her mother isn't able to care for her any longer and she becomes a ward of the state. She was sent out of New York on a train with a passel of other orphans to the midwest; when they arrived, the children were given to whoever wanted them for whatever reason, with few or no questions asked. 

The bulk of the book tells Vivian's story, while Molly's situation peeps in and out; I won't give any spoilers, but will say that there are surprises waiting for them both as their journeys intertwine. 

Why I liked it

Kline does an excellent job of creating complex characters. Molly is the type of teenager that most people cross the street to steer clear of, but Kline makes her likeable, and eventually, loveable. Vivian also could have become a dark, nasty character, but Kline walks a masterful line that avoids making her just cold and damaged or pathetic and saccharine, and gets the reader rooting for her. And while both characters are victimized, she doesn't make the characters victims; this is not an easy job to pull off. 

Her story-telling is fast-paced, but still takes time to be beautiful. Her descriptions evoke emotion and a sense of place with deceptive ease, and without disrupting the pace of the story. This is a page-turner; I stayed up until 5:00 am finishing it because I couldn't put it down. And yes, I did cry--but not where I expected to cry.

I would have more of Molly's story, but I think that's just because I didn't want the book to end; in truth, her character arc is well-written, and satisfying. I also had an issue with one element of the ending (won't say more because I don't want to spoil), but that's completely selfish on my part, and had to do with my empathy for the characters rather than what was the best choice for the book! 

Will you like it?

If you like books that have a historical element to them ('orphan trains' really did exist, and children such as these really were distributed like pamphlets in the 1920s), or stories that focus on how a character develops over a lifetime, you'll enjoy this book. If you are drawn to intergenerational fiction or books about unlikely friendships, you'll also find this an enjoyable read. I'm happy to highly recommend it. 

Happy reading!

M.

Do five things every day to move your writing forward

Today I thought I'd share with you one of the best pieces of writing advice I've ever read, and why I think it works. I found it about a year ago in one of Lawrence Block's books about writing; there are several, all useful, but this one snippet has been the most helpful thing I've found in them: Do five things every day to move your writing forward.

Five is alive! (Source)

What five things? Well, that's up to you. But do five things, every day, no matter how big or small.


One of those things should be writing, of course. We all know we should write every day. Another of those things should probably also be reading: how lucky are we that we're in a profession that forces us to read prolifically! Twist my arm, why don'tcha?


But the others are more flexible. Make a new connection on twitter. Read an article about writing on your favorite blog. Spend half an hour researching agents. Look for relevant pins to add to your character board on Pinterest. Have lunch with a fellow writer, to get those creative juices flowing. And so on, and so on.

Wow. Those are some awesome snacks.

They should be different things, of course. Don't write five pages of your book and declare yourself done. Don't friend five new people on twitter and go have a snack. Each of these count as one thing.


The things you do will differ depending on where you are currently--if you already have an agent, researching agents doesn't make sense. If you've just had a book published, several of these things will probably involve book promotion. Just make sure to do five, every day.

Why is this so important?

Speaking for myself, I'm the sort of person who would happily crawl into a little cozy writing cave for six months and have no contact with the human race. My significant other would throw me scraps of food and come in for a cuddle now and then, but that would be it and I'd be happy as dust on a tchotchke.

 I heard you were dead...(Source)

And when I came out of my cave, I'd have lost half of my social media contacts because everyone would have thought I'd gone all Snake Plissken. I'd have missed a ton of new books and interesting articles, which I'd be too overwhelmed to catch up on after the fact. And any interesting prompts or discussions that might have made my writing better would never have crossed my path.

I've heard of tiny living, but this is ridiculous...

I would have also lost valuable time trying to get my other projects out into the world. It takes time to get things submitted, find an agent, get a book/article/story published; we all know this. You don't just finish a piece, say 'Woohoo!', and flick the 'publish now' switch. While you're sending out those letters and working through the rejections to get to the acceptances, you should be writing your next book/article/story. These things take far too much time to do in a fully linear, non-overlapping way. At least if you want to be successful and have enough money to pay the rent.


I would have also lost valuable time building my platform, something that's becoming increasingly important for aspiring writers. Blog readers and Twitter followers don't develop over night, and they don't take kindly to being neglected for long. At least the ones that involve actual people that you actually want to connect with. Just like a plant, you can't water them only once every six months and expect them to grow.

(Source)

And maybe most important of all, while I was in that cave writing, the part of my brain that thinks about all this stuff gently in the background while I work would have had no input. Yep, it's true, the brain works on problems and processes information even when we're not thinking about it. Things we've read, seen, and done recently 'prime'  concepts and knowledge in our minds, keeping it all activated and ready for use when it's needed. So when we do a variety of tasks over time, we keep our minds efficiently processing whatever particular task we're focusing on at the moment.


So try it out. Sometimes I'm not as good as other times at remembering to do all five--sometimes I only do a few, and sometimes I crap out altogether. So I've created a simple spreadsheet to jot down which things I did each day--this lets me know if I'm slacking off too much for too long, and reminds me to revisit things that I haven't touched for a while. You know how it is--'Gee, it seems like only a week since I compiled that list of prospective agents, but it's been a month! I better follow up on that.'


Thank you, Lawrence Block, for the amazing advice. So far, it has served me well, and I have every confidence it will continue to do so. Now where's my next installment of Matthew Scudder??


Happy writing,
M.

Using Pinterest for character development and marketing

I recently made a discovery that I had to share: Pinterest is a great tool for character development.

A while back, someone in a group I'm in asked if anyone had made a Pinterest board for their books. The thought intrigued me, but I didn't run with it. Then, a few days ago, a friend mentioned she had created a Pinterest board for a character in one of her books.

But I heard her wrong, and thought she said she'd made a whole page for the character. A whole page? Like there is an actual person, who has their own actual page with their own actual boards? The idea banged around my head setting off a bunch of fireworks, and I was off and running.

See, there's a lot of advice out there about building your characters, so they aren't two dimensional. Exercises you do when you put your character in certain situations to see how they would react. Questionnaires and lists. All wonderful, and I love using them. But none of those techniques give me a legitimate reason to look through pretty pictures.

I instantly ran to Pinterest and created a page for the main character of Accidental Divination, the book I started during NaNoWriMo. I've just finished the first draft, and hope to write a sequel, so thought it would be cool to create a space where I could 'become' the main character, Semarra Rae. I spent several magical hours creating boards for her, and finding pins for those boards.

For almost any aspect of a character you can imagine, you can make a board. Of course the obvious visual things, like a 'muscle car' board or an antique jewelry board, but not just these. A home repair board for a character that flips houses. A board for tech articles for your software engineer. Even a board for gambling tips and favorite casinos for your gambling addict. No matter how strange or obscure, you can make a board for it.

In fact, if you realize you can't think of many boards for your character, that's probably a warning sign that you haven't given him/her enough dimension. Give them a few hobbies, or a few odd quirks. Maybe they love Tasmanian Devils (I know I do--don't judge). Challenge yourself to come up with a half a dozen, at least.

As you make decisions about which things you want to put on your character's board and why, you'll find yourself making decisions about them that deepen your insight into who they are, and this will show up in your writing.

But it gets even cooler.

Remember when LOST came out, and had a whole bunch of fake web pages based on the show? Pages for the Dharma Initiative, and the founders of that initiative, pages for the fake websites, etc.? Even though the fans knew these pages weren't real, they spent hours surfing them, looking for insights and clues.

You can do the same sort of thing with your character, if you create a whole page and not just a board. If you build it the way a real person would, it will give the impression the real person exists, because it's a full page with multiple boards determined by their personality. And with that, you've created a web presence for your character, and you can use this to build interest for your book:

• Before your book comes out, use the page as a teaser. What sort of character is this? What sort of person likes these things? 

• When the book comes out, use the page to highlight interesting aspects of your character and plot. Pin items/lists/places/events that feature in your book. Tweet them as hints to your audience. Play guessing games about how they're relevant. 

• In between books in a series, use them to keep your reader's interest alive. Reveal things about the character that you didn't in your book, bonus aspects of who they are. Give hints to the next plot. All of this will help keep your audience engaged. 

So how do you do create a separate page for your character?

1) Create a new e-mail address to use for this purpose. 
You will need a separate e-mail address for every Pinterest page you create. But, that's not as annoying as it first seems. Gmail, for example, lets you create multiple e-mail addresses, and you can forward the mail from each one to your 'real' e-mail address, so you don't have to deal with multiple accounts. So, if your character's name is 'Sherlock Holmes', grab something like sherlockholmes@gmail, and set it to forward any mail to your main Gmail account.

2) Set up the Pinterest account associated with your new e-mail address. 
Name the page after your character in some way, preferably something that a search engine will pick up on. Here's the one I created for my character; I used her first and middle name:

Now you'll want to start adding pins...and here's where it gets a little bit tricky to have more than one Pinterest page. Let's say you're on your personal Pinterest page, and you see something that would be perfect for Sherlock's page. You don't want to have to log out and log back in as Sherlock, find the pin again, and pin it. So there are two ways you can get around this.


3A) Create a board on your personal Pinterest page for pins you want to later pin to Sherlock's board. Then have Sherlock follow this board (or all of your boards). That way, you only have to log on as Sherlock once in a while, and grab the pins you've been storing up. This is my favorite solution. I have a board on my personal page named after the book itself, for this purpose and to publicize the book if I want to do so directly from my own page.

3B) From Sherlock's page, invite your personal page to add pins to his boards.
This way, Sherlock's boards show up under your personal list of boards, and you can pin directly to them without having to switch accounts. To set this up, log into Sherlock's page. Go to the board you want to share; either open it, or click on 'edit':

Then, invite your personal page to add pins; enter the e-mail address associated with your personal board, and click 'invite':

You'll get a notification on your personal e-mail board to pin to Sherlock's boards; once you accept that, you're golden.

The reason I don't like this method as much is that when you pin to Sherlock's boards, it will say that the pin was added by your main page, not by Sherlock. If you're going for the illusion that the page is actually maintained by your character, this will interfere with the effect.



There you have it! I hope something here has been helpful; I'll report back as I learn more.

As I've been pinning things for Semarra, I've been whittling away at her character, and have been inspired on her behalf. Quite a few of the pins have started to spark potential plot points, and have helped me flesh out existing scenes. And it's been tons of fun.

And here's a parting question for you: which book character's Pinterest page would you like to be able to visit, if it existed?


Happy Monday!
M.

My 2014 NaNoWriMo experience

Hello!

(Source)

I took time off this November to focus on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month); about a year ago I had an idea for a book about an enchanted tarot deck. The idea had been knocking around my brain for a while, so after I sent out my first novel to beta readers in September, I figured, "Hey, why not? NaNoWriMo is the perfect time to see what I can make of that idea." So I went for it.

I spent most of October getting excited about the new book, and worked hard to restrain myself from plotting any of it out--while I'm a firm believer in seat-of-the-pantsing (the NaNoWriMo term for people who like to let the muse take them where it might without any pre-plotting), my self-doubt tends to creep in. What if the muse doesn't come this time, and I end up repeatedly writing "this is stupid, I am lame" to fill up my blank screen? But I held firm, and had faith in the process, and banished my self-doubter to the same realm where I lock up my self-editor during NaNoWriMo.


Armed with the bare bones of my idea, I started writing literally at 12:01 am on Nov. 1st after removing my Halloween make-up. I wrote a chunk, and then woke up the next morning and wrote another chunk. The words flew out with a will of their own; my fingers channeled some force beyond my understanding. Oh happy day! Huzzah! The writing muse is here!! Right?

(Source)

Until Day 4. I woke that morning to the 'realization' that everything I'd written was complete crap, and I was fooling myself to think I could ever be a writer. Nobody, I was convinced, had ever written such drivel since mankind had scratched out the first words onto the walls of caves.


But I held firm. I reminded myself that every writer has moments where they feel this way, and reminded myself that first drafts are never good. I told myself to just keep writing.


I decided to check out some of the virtual write-ins on the  NaNoWriMo YouTube channel to keep myself motivated; they archive their past write-ins and you can watch them anytime you need that push. So helpful! It's just as good as watching them live--they give you prompts and timed writing sprints, and even if you don't do the prompts (I didn't) it's an awesome way to get yourself focused and writing. And, there is silliness and joking to keep you in a good state of mind. I highly recommend checking them out anytime you feel you just can't get your writing mojo flowing.


I was so impressed with the write-ins that I decided to sit in on a live one, on 'double-up day'; this is a day where they encourage you to double your daily word count for the day, and your donation, if you are able. They had several virtual write-ins that day, and I sat in on as many as I could. It spurred me on to not only double my word count that day, but to triple it.


And with that, I was off and running. I finished my 50,000 words in 17 days, and had the rest of the month to get the novel up to my personal target of 60,000.


By November 30th, I had a mostly finished novel; I finally finished the draft completely yesterday, coming in at 68,900 words. Along the way I changed from third person to first person, wrote several scenes with characters and backstory that I had to completely revamp, changed names and job descriptions of characters so many times I thought I'd go crazy, and ended up with a fully-formed plot and a draft that I am mostly very proud of. I know it's going to need a lot of revision when it comes out of hibernation, but I have an excellent foundation to build from. And that can only be a good thing.


So here's what I re-learned about it all:

1) Self-doubt doesn't stop after the first novel. My brain likes to feed me fear, but now I know how to overcome it. Just put my head down and write anyway.


2) Persistence is everything. Keep writing. Think what you just wrote is crap? Worry about it later, when you have a clear head. Don't delete and start over, and don't quit. Just keep writing.


3) The muse WILL come. If you write, your  neurons will fire and your neural networks will begin churning out stuff, and ideas will come. If you have an idea and a plot to start with, great! But if you don't, that's okay. The act of writing itself gets you thinking, and your mind will kick in.


4) You should bust tushie to get ahead of your word count/goal, because you never know what's going to happen next week that will throw you off. Easier said than done, I know. But true nonetheless. Thank goodness I got as far as I did early on and by November 30, before my jury duty kicked in and derailed my 'I'll get it up to 65,000 words in December' goal!


So there you have it--and I hope your NaNoWriMo experience was just as amazing. :)


Keep writing, my friends!!

This is Halloween

Tonight--Halloween night--is one of the most beautiful nights of the year.

I'm not talking about the weather which, even here in California, is a gamble. I'm not talking about the decorations, although some would certainly argue for a type of beauty in a good spooky haunt.

(Source)

I'm talking about the social contract that says, on this one night of the year, children may knock on strangers' doors and expect to be given a warm welcome and a piece of candy. This will happen in countless streets in countless neighborhoods in all fifty states, and in many other countries beyond. It's a true miracle of human spirit and community togetherness otherwise unmatched throughout the year.


We adults stock up on candy, not knowing who will come, or even how many will come. Some even spend time and money to decorate our houses with fun lights or spooky scenes, to help give children we've never met a special evening filled with fun and harmless scares. It's not just parents who do this, it's all sorts of us: single, married, with children, without. Young and old. Wealthy and poor.

(Source)

And when that doorbell rings, it doesn't matter who's on the other side. They don't  have to practice the same religion we do. They don't have to be the same race. They don't have to belong to the same political party, or think the way we think. We will open our door and give a piece of candy to any child who asks for it.


Next Halloween, take a moment to look down your street. Watch the lights as the children dash back and forth across the street, run from house to house, squeal at scary decorations and yell 'trick or treat!'. Walk down to the corner and look down the next street; notice the same thing happening there. And on the next. And on the one past that, too.


Tonight, the streets, the neighborhoods, they belong to the children. Not the drug dealers, and not the criminals. Watchful parents and neighbors come together to create a playground for the children to experience and enjoy. Filled with magic and fun and candy.


I can't decide if it's ironic or fitting that the night we set aside to pay tribute to the things that scare us the most--death, phobias, insects, vampires, ghosts, the dark, things that go bump in the night--is also the night we come together to celebrate and support innocence.  Maybe this makes sense, to prioritize the young when remembering that our time on this earth is finite, and that the cycle of life is inevitable. I don't know.

(Source)

But what I do know is this. Millions of children will fall asleep tonight with their heads filled with fun memories and dreams of their candy loot. And millions of adults got their hearts tickled by adorable costumes, and had a reason to smile the night away.


And that, my friend, is a beautiful, beautiful thing. May we carry a bit of that Halloween spirit with us throughout the rest of the year.