10 Minute Writer

Over on Twitter, there is a delicious meme called #MondayBlogs that was created by my friend Rachel of @badredheadmedia. Her purpose was to get a lot of people together to meet each other, discover new voices and build community. It doesn’t hurt that you get more traffic to your blog, gain a few followers and generate a sale or two.

I’ve been participating in #MondayBlogs off and on for a few weeks and every time I do, two things happen. One: I’m thrilled with the results I get. I’ve met a lot of fascinating people. I gain followers and I have fun. And two: I’m baffled that so few participants give this their best. 

#MondayBlogs offers anyone the perfect chance to make a good impression. The hashtag puts us all at equal footing. It doesn’t matter if you have 60 followers, 6000 followers or 60K followers. This is your big chance  to dazzle the world. I find it strange that generally speaking, that so many participants don’t work harder at making themselves awesome.

#MondayBlogs has been very, very good to me. I’ve made a list of things I do to make it work. Like any endeavor, you get out of it what you put into it. Perhaps these suggestions can help you spit and polish next Monday’s tweet and make it shine. Perhaps if you do these things, you’ll get more retweets, more favorites, more followers and more readers.

DON’T

Be Overly Dependent On This One Thing: #MondayBlogs is NOT the only thing that I do to meet people on Twitter. It shouldn’t be the only thing you do either. Some weeks, I’m on fire! Some weeks I’m not. Because I haven’t put all my social media eggs in one basket, it doesn’t matter if I skip a week.

Compare Yourself To Others: In every area of life, this is a bad idea. But here, if all you do is count how many retweets you didn’t get, then you’re missing the point. You also need to realize that because it is a #hashtag, it puts us all at equal footing. In fact, if one of Rachel at @badredheadmedia’s 76,000 followers sees her tweet about #MondayBlogs, and then follows the hashtag out of curiosity, it benefits all of us. If all you care about are the numbers on Twitter, then you will always feel like a loser. Somebody will beat you. Every. Single. Time.

Complain: This is the number one way to insure that I DON’T RT you. “Poor me! Nobody noticed me today!” You want to come to the cocktail party and stand in the corner? Fine. But don’t go home whining about how no one talked to you when all you did was feel sorry for yourself.

Forget To RT: Confession: I forget to RT. But in my defense, I do RT those who I think have left a good first impression, written an interesting headline and had a good attitude. I want to do this more. Please, please, give me lots of reason too!

Have High Expectations: You will probably not see tons of new followers as a result of #MondayBlogs. You will probably not get RT’d as much as you’d like to. And don’t even think about sales. Instead of looking for immediate results, look instead at the conversations you started, the blogs that you visited and the new faces in your feed. This is why we do this. We’re in this together. 

Take Yourself So Seriously: Overly serious people are often prickly and self-absorbed. Light-hearted, jolly people (jolly is an adjective that is NOT used enough, IMHO) are attractive and interesting. Everything about this experience will improve for you if you look at it as fun not work. 

DO: 

Plan ahead!  Spend time on your blog post and make it sing. Don’t slap it together on Sunday night. Then use a scheduling system like Hootsuite to get it all in place. Mondays come around every week. (This article was written on May 3 and scheduled for May 13.) This takes effort and foresight, but it is well worth the trouble.

Consider Your Content: Your blog post should do at least one of the following: Enlighten, Inform, Entertain, Move a reader emotionally, Demonstrate, Educate or Inspire. If your blog post isn’t doing any of those things, then you need to throw out that idea and start again. Stick to one main thesis. Try not to go over 1500 words. Add a graphic or a photo. Use lists. Be clear. Crack jokes.

View This As A Networking Opportunity And Your Blog Is Your Clothing Choice: Pretend for a minute that #MondayBlogs isn’t something we can do while wearing our pajamas. Pretend instead that it’s a big fancy cocktail party in a ballroom. We’ve all been invited to network and have fun. Would you  show up in sweatpants and a hoodie? I wouldn’t. I’d be in my LBD, trying not to fall over in my heels. (Rachel, you wanna hold me up?) Take the  time to clean up nice. We’d all love to meet you. If you’re sloppy and disorganized, then you’re telling the rest of us that you don’t care. If you don’t, we won’t either.

Write An Interesting Headline:  I wrote last week about how specific, emotional headlines get attention. This is your handshake. This is your business card. You’ve probably heard this: you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so put some time on your headline.

Be Yourself, But Stay Professional:  I’m all for freedom of speech and being true to ourselves. But I think that if you are participating in #MondayBlogs to sell something, establish yourself as a writer, influence others and change the world, you should cut back on the f-bombs. Profanity does not enhance professionalism. At times it’s funny. At times it’s the only thing to say. But no one ever says, “I just wish she’d cuss more, then I’d like her.” I was going to suggest that only say on Twitter what you would say at work, but then my husband works in advertising. Nevermind. 

Do What You Can: In a perfect world, I would RT everybody who participates. In a perfect world, everybody would RT me. But sometimes I can’t. I have to make lunch for my 5 kids. I have to work on my novel. I might not see your tweet (which was probably awesome, life-changing, and make me want to hug a kitten). I don’t want to feel guilty for not doing enough. I don’t want you to either. Like everything else in life, walk in grace here. It’s a meme. It’s not like lives are at stake or anything. If you feel like it is too much or others aren’t doing enough, then this may not be for you.

Have Fun: Let’s get back to that cocktail party image. It’s a party!  Our point is to enjoy ourselves and meet others. The fruit of this may be a long time coming. So what? Use #MondayBlogs as a place to start conversations and build relationships. And unlike a cocktail party, you don’t have to worry about getting drunk.

This is a highly competitive medium! Readers will not just come to you! You need to do something that stands out, demonstrates your professionalism and entices a reader to stay.

So, what do you think? Do you have any suggestions? What have you learned from #MondayBlogs?

To follow or not to follow?

photo from Morguefile

I read a LOT of Twitter bios. I read them to find not just followers, but to find people with which I may have something in common. I want to start conversations, joke around, discuss a variety of topics and possibly impress them enough that they click on my favorite link and fork over some dough.  I’m picky. I’m looking for soul sisters and readers and crazy homeschooling mothers of five. I’m looking for people who like to laugh, writers, smart people, and I’m a sucker for ladies from the UK. I generally get this information from the bio. But sadly, the bios don’t give enough information.

If I read 50-100 bios a day, then at some point, all the words kind of jumble up in my head and my tongue starts to hang out and my kids wonder what is wrong. I say, “Hashtag Team Follow Back!” and they just laugh and play more video games. Okay, I’m exaggerating. But the truth is that after the twentieth or the fiftieth or the two hundredth bio of the day, I do not care if you are a paper cut survivor or if you are the one responsible for all the cats on the internet.

What I do care about, especially from folks who say they are writers, is something unique. Nouns. A distinct voice. Something memorable that makes me think, “HEY! THEY SOUND SO COOL!” (You know, if you ARE the one responsible for the cats on the Internet, I’d follow you, come to think of it.)

Your Twitter bio is like a business card. If you are a writer or have aspirations to become rich/famous/reclusive/controversial then it is CRITICAL that those first few words that you put in that bio pack a punch. MAKE ME WANT TO READ EVERY WORD YOU WRITE!

So, let’s play TWITTER BIO MAKEOVER!

All of these suggestions are just my own personal preferences. I don’t have a whole lotta data to back this up. (And I did try, I really, really did. ) I suspect, though, that if you start stylin’ on your bio, things could go better for you in Twitterland. (Is stylin’ still a word?)

Get a photo and drop the egg. I’ve been on Twitter for over three years and I have yet to see an egg that impresses me. This could mean I’m dealing with a robot, someone who really isn’t interactive or someone who is lazy. This is social media. If you aren’t willing for us to look you in the eye, so to speak, then you don’t belong here.

Rethink all your awards. I fully understand why you would want to describe yourself as an award-winning or best-selling author. I fully understand that you are proud of your accomplishments, but in Twitter land it means nothing. Unless it’s the Pulitzer. It is your personality, not your accomplishments that make you interesting. Would you go up to someone at a party and say, “Hey, I’m Mabel, I won the Obnoxious Author Award.” No. You’d smile, offer your hand and hopefully engage in conversation. Then you and I discover we have something in common. We become besties. I buy your book and tell the world how awesome it is. (This also goes for mentioning your agent and your publisher. It tells us nothing about you.)

Take out the cute or thought-provoking quote. All this tells us about you is that you have access to a search engine. This is especially a no-no if you are a writer. DUH! You are trying to sell your original words. The LAST things we want from you are words from someone else. If the words mean that much to you, get a tattoo.

Don’t tell us that your kids are amazing. What? You have kids that you love?? I have never met anyone who felt that way before!!! (eye roll)  There is so much wrong with this. First of all, most of us have kids that we think are the greatest in the world. And I have five, so see, I can beat most of you in numbers alone. But then, that word amazing. I read a LOT of twitter bios and I don’t understand why that is the word proud mamas use constantly. So now, the word is meaningless. The sentiment is meaningless. I’d rather you described yourself as a mother or a parent, so I know you get it when I crack jokes about body fluids, but use your precious space in your bios to tell me about you!

Don’t tell us that you love coffee. Okay, so how does this differentiate you from every other coffee lover in the world? It doesn’t. It’s like saying you like water. Or oxygen. Surely you have more personal substance than your favorite beverage choice.

If it needs to be abbreviated, then it may not be needed. “Soc.med. expert. Member ABCDE. RN, CPA, Dir of Abbrev. Serv. Lives in NYC.” Maybe this is just me, but this makes my brain hurt. I want to know about you without feeling like I’m deciphering a code. The language of Twitter is a fast one and if you have a lot of abbreviations, it actually does the opposite of what you want it to do — it slows your reader down. Your Twitter bio is NOT your resume or CV. It’s a chance for us to meet a person. Please put in nice, happy nouns or clear adjectives that paint a picture that stays clear of alphabet soup.

Hashtags Make You Sound Needy. #IMHO This also makes my brain hurt. Hashtags are for the conversation, not your identity. If your purpose is to be found by others who share that hashtag, try doing the finding yourself. Twitter helps those who help themselves. Although, I just read that college graduates are using hashtags to find jobs. Hmmm, let’s go with this: #usewithcaution.

Balance Out Your Causes With Other Stuff. ”I like chipmunks, chipmunk rights and anybody who doesn’t agree with me is a loser!” We all have causes we love. If this is ALL you have to say to me on your first meeting, it’s a big, big turn off, and I’m all for chipmunk rights. Tone it down a little, add more to who you, balance out your passion with something personable. Please, look less like a crazy person. Unless of course, your only purpose on Twitter is to serve that cause. If you are a writer of other things besides this cause, then lighten up and widen your net.

Tell us what you write, but leave out the titles. Fantasy Author is much easier to swallow that “author of THE PENZERA CHRONICLES BOOKS 1-54″  Want to know why this is better? It’s because if you tell me the name of your book, then I won’t have a question to ask you. You’ve just robbed me of a conversation starter. Twitter is not a sales medium; it’s a people medium. And just think of those extra characters you’ve saved for other information.

You’re Special. Now Keep It To Yourself. As much as I love a powerful adjective in a Twitter bio, what I don’t love are the ones that make assumptions on one’s specialness. Let your followers tell you that you’re hilarious, obnoxious, weird, cute, unpredictable, brilliant or whatever. Sigh, I will happily admit that I want to be known as funny. But I also admit that if I tell people that I am funny, then my funny quotient drops. So in my bio, I have “comedian wannabe”. The pressure’s off, see. If you think I’m funny, then YAY. But because I didn’t directly point to my general hilariousness in the beginning, there’s freedom here for my followers to say, “Yup, wannabe’s right. She shouldn’t be quittin’ the day job.” And you know what? When I do get the “You are so hysterical, I’m buying your book!” tweet, (which happens!) then it’s all the sweeter.

Take out the jibberish. If you’ll always say no, you’ll never say yes! I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS. If your purpose is to attract people with your words, dazzle us with your brilliance, make us want to part with our hard-earned money so that we can read more of your dazzling, brilliant words, then leave out the incoherent nonsense in your bio! I do what I want to do and that’s all I do. I could seriously paste in a TON of examples here. If you are a real writer, please don’t do this, save it for the college girls who think this makes them profound. And there is a fine, fine line between being clever and being weird. If you are celebrity or a CEO or have over 50K followers, you can get away with weird a lot more than the average person.

Omit smiley faces, emoticons and other graphics. This isn’t necessary, it takes up space and unless you’re under twenty one years old, it makes you look silly.

So what to do then? List nouns. You are a complex, beautiful person. You have a myriad of interests and skills. You ARE. If you want to add the perfect adjective to those nouns, do it. Be real. Be yourself. Please notice I did not put the noun runner in my bio. Former running coward is much more accurate and keeps me from feeling guilty when I decide to walk. Or drive.

If you have an awesome bio, I WILL FOLLOW YOU! And there’s a bonus here: the nouns double as Keywords! More people will find you too!

Katharine Grubb @10MinuteWriter is a Mommy, homeschooler, indie author, baker, comedian wanna be & former running coward who writes in very small increments. If you follow her today, she WILL follow you back! #honest

I participate in a meme on Twitter called #MondayBlogs. The idea is brilliant. On Mondays, anybody who wants to can post a link to their blog and those who follow that hashtag can find new blogs to read and new writers to enjoy. In theory, those who participate read each others’ blogs, RT and favorite the heck out of them so that the whole world can discover this new talent. I have found dozens of new readers this way and I love doing this. (Unfortunately, I’m not very good at RT-ing back. Monday is LAUNDRY day for this family of 7, I’ve got a LOT to do!!)

I would LOVE to RT and favorite everyone who participates in #MondayBlogs, but honestly, often the headlines or tweets that contain the link are so lifeless and dull that I’m not the least bit interested in them.   I wonder if with a few changes in the tweets, all of us could see good results. I’ve listed a few things I’ve noticed (and things I try to implement) —and I’ve written some over-the-top silly blog title headlines to get the point across.

It’s all in the headline. Consider your #MondayBlogs Tweet as a headline of the original post. The more concise and clear, the better. “My Thoughts on Dyeing” is terrible. Be specific. “Why I Dread Coloring My Hair This Summer” is much clearer and much more interesting. Don’t know where to start? Start with “Who” “What” “Why” or “How” and fill in the rest!

Follow headline rules, like Capitalize Each Important First Letter.  This makes your tweet look more grown-up and polished. Tweets like “five ways to get your cat to sing” are wimpy and indifferent and I certainly wouldn’t be interested. But “Five Ways To Get Your Cat To Sing” at least looks like you’re trying.

As tempted as you might be, don’t say “New Blog Post”.  Duh. We know. Just leave us a link. We can figure it out.

Put as much thought into the headline as you did into the post itself. Use vibrant verbs. Keep it Short. Pretend for a minute that it isn’t a blog post, but a magazine article and these first few words are on the cover of Cosmo. (It would be best, though to keep it rated G, unlike Cosmo). “Tips To Make Your Blog Title More RT Worthy” is a little long, but it’s clear. I could have also gone with “Your Blog Title Sucks. So Fix It!” But I’m trying to be helpful. And nice.

Use numbers. I asked someone a few weeks ago what their biggest pet peeve on Twitter was and they answered that seeing this: “Eight Ways To Use Your Crock Pot for Cleaning” and “Top Ten Toothbrushes for Dogs”  – the numbers in the title seemed to be too much. A pet peeve? Really? Folks, this is good headline writing. If you can quantify the contents of your blog post into a list and then use that list in the title, you’ve got something interesting.

Exaggerate a little. “Folding Chair Options That Will Change Your Life Forever” Well of course, it won’t exactly change my life, but the exaggeration might compel me to at least click the link and see what the fuss is about. I love the fact that Twitter is so casual, you can get away with a little exaggeration and hyperbole and it may make you all the more charming.

Be Funny. Now not everyone can do this well. But if you can use humor in your headlines or tweets do it! Humor is powerful. If you can get a smirk or a chuckle or a LOL out of someone, you’ve won half the battle. If you can be funny consistently, then you are building a reputation for wit and comedy that can bring readers to you.

Sell You, Not Your Book. As tempting as it is to say, “My Romantic Comedy for Ninjas is $.99 today” for #MondayBlogs. Please don’t do it. I personally find this off-putting. We all have books to sell. Instead, tell me something about you, something you’re struggling with, something that demonstrates how much we have common. Then, after I get to know you, and discover how awesome you are, I’ll be happy to buy your book and maybe even interview you here about it!

Study other headlines. Spend twenty minutes and read all the headlines in your magazines and newspapers. See if you can make your blog titles just as pithy and pointed as those writers did. There is a REASON why headlines are designed the way that they are and professional writers are trained to capture readers’ attention. Learn from them. If you call yourself a pro, then act like it!

Consider the blog post itself. If your having trouble writing a headline for your 1500 words on your writing angst, then there may be a reason. Keep your blog posts simple and to the point, then you’ll see that the titles are much easier to write.

And do a little research on your own! Here is a fascinating article on Forbes about headline writing. And another list of very practical suggestions from author Jeff Goins.

And a whole honkin’ bunch of articles from Copyblogger. Really, after all this information, there’s no reason why your headlines need to suck.

So what do you think? Am I off the mark here? Do you think I’m expecting too much? Do you have any suggestions to add?

There has never been a better time in history to be a writer. But the downside to that is that we are competing against each other for readers. We must be willing to  be our very best with every tweet, every status update, every blog post. Don’t get lazy with things like this. Put your best foot, uh, I mean tweet forward and see what happens.

Perhaps it is because I am a natural at writing the one-liner, perhaps it is because I’m a self-absorbed enough to think that the whole world needs to hear every little thought that flits through my brain, or perhaps it’s because wearing a t-shirt that states my pithy sayings wouldn’t be very efficient, but I love Twitter!

I love the fact that I can have random conversations with unexpected people. I love the fact that it is so easy to find other moms like me with a streak of the snark. I love the fact that it’s through Twitter that I’ve made some great relationships. I love the fact that I can promote my book(s) so easily. Twitter is a very good fit for me, my time constraints, my personality and my impulsive nature. This is how I use it.

It’s all about the FOLLOW Twitter is one part of my social media strategy to conquer the world, establish my platform as a writer. I spend time daily looking for potential readers. My ideal reader is a woman, between the ages of 25 and 60, who may lean toward the conservative, who has a sense of humor and is a mother, although I welcome a lot of people who don’t fall into any of those categories. I deliberately follow 50-100 people daily who generally (very generally) meet this criteria. I’m a sucker for women who have five kids, live in Massachusetts, Oklahoma or the UK, have humorous bios, homeschoolers and caffeine drinkers don’t take themselves too seriously.

HOOTSUITE all the way!  Hootsuite is a web-based platform for organizing my tweets. I find this especially useful for setting up tweets about blog posts, reminding my followers about my book(s), hashtagging, and gently persuading people to like my Facebook page. Hootsuite also has stats available so that I can see which links were the most active and who is interested the most in me. As of now, I only take advantage of their free services, but I may sign up for more in the future.

I keep things positive. Generally. I think it is perfectly fine to vent on Twitter, providing that the vent is a rare occasion, that it doesn’t mention anyone specific and that there is a hint of humor in it. I don’t like to discuss politics, religion or other controversial issues and truthfully, I avoid following people who get so wrapped up in their positions that they become ugly. I’m quite sure that there is a place for opinionated passions on Twitter, but not in my feed. I’d rather cast a broad net, have friends across the political, economic and theological spectrum and have fun.

I ask questions. Sometimes they’re lame, like what are you making for dinner tonight? Sometimes they’re poignant, although I can’t remember the last time I asked one of those. The point is that Twitter is the best place to start conversations. Recently I asked the dinner question, found out that the reason one of my new readers was having something special was because it was her birthday, then I sent her a short story to celebrate. I loved doing this. I loved talking to her.

I hang out with a few selected social media experts and apply their wisdom when it fits. Just because someone calls themselves a social media expert, doesn’t make it so. But there are a few, like @badredheadmedia who has left a good impression on me. I read her blog, follow her closely, play her hashtag games and ask her questions. I’ve learned a lot from her.

I selectively use hashtags. Personally, I think hashtags are just another way to write a punchline and it’s not at all beneath me to use them as such. #doyouseewhatIdidthere But when I’m doing something specific, say, tweeting about writing, I use #amwriting. I also participate in #MondayBlogs, I promote my book with #romance and #indie and I have intentionally used them on Facebook just to drive people crazy. Perhaps I will use them more deliberately as I try different promotional ideas. But for now, this is what I do.

I tweet a LOT. I have the Twitter app on my phone and I find that this is the best way for me to spew my pithy nonsense. According to my stats, I’ve tweeted nearly 17,000 times in the last three years. That’s 17 times a day. That’s slightly more than once every waking hour. This volume is the key to my modest success. This wouldn’t work at all if I wasn’t willing to tweet.

I try not to get overwhelmed. Twitter, often, feels like drinking from a fire hose. To keep from feeling like I’m out of control on it, I’ve made lists with Hootsuite, scaled back my scheduled tweets when other things in my life are upside down and let go of my 50-100 followers a day when it just isn’t a good day.

So, this is how I use Twitter. Everyone who uses it does so for different reasons and has tailored it to fit them perfectly. I don’t think that it’s a necessity for every writer, but I do think that all writers need to find out what they are good at in the broad range of social media options and work hard in those options to build relationships. I’m at a place in my writing now that I can communicate thru social media with many of my readers individually and I love this. Twitter is a great way to do this and I’m going to continue to do this as long as I can.

So, do you use Twitter? How do you use it? What do you love about it? #whatsyourfavoritehashtag?

This is the unbelievably true account of how I got my agent, Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, who was my first choice of agents in the publishing industry. It’s one of those luck favors the prepared stories, one of those freak of nature stories that can’t be duplicated and will not exactly inspire hope into the un-agented masses. I got my agent without writing a query letter, without pitching and without attending a conference. I didn’t resort to mind control, threatening letters or voodoo. I didn’t sent a box of candy. It just happened. 

To this day, I’m not exactly sure how everything worked together so well, but it did. Some of the details here may seem superfluous; I add them so that you can see the big picture.

On Friday, March 15, 2013, I received an email from a MAJOR PUBLISHER asking me if I would be interested in writing a non-fiction book for them about the general contents of this blog. (I won’t go into specifics until the deal is officially signed. You’ll just have to wait. Sorry.) After reading the email three times to make sure that it wasn’t spam, after checking out the comparative titles in this publisher’s cadre, after seeing on the publisher’s website that this employee was real, I responded back, “I am interested. Please tell me more.” What I didn’t do, which I have to admit took mammoth self-restraint, was say, “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??? YESYESYESYESYES! I’LL DO IT FOR FREE!” You will be relieved to know that I was professional, poised and kept my fan-tods celebrations to the confines of my house.

Then, about five o’clock that night, I realized that since this was a MAJOR PUBLISHER, I should probably have an agent. So I sent out three emails to my top three agent choices, asking them this: Major publisher contacted me today about a book deal. Do I need an agent? Of the three, one didn’t respond at all. One emailed me back that night and asked me another question, but then never got back to me. But the last one, Chip MacGregor asked me even more questions about the situation and my goals. Over the next two weeks, Chip and I exchanged a few more emails and even had phone conversations. Then, he contacted the publisher and started negotiations. Over the next two weeks after that, the deal was finalized. I HAD A BOOK DEAL! And then MacGregor Literary sent me their Author/ Agency Agreement which I happily signed. This was official on April 12, 2013.

All of this happened ridiculously fast.

It looks like lightning struck. It kind of feels that way too. But the truth is this whirlwind was the big break that happened after years of hard work, two complete novels, self-publishing adventures, lots and lots of unpaid writing work, five years of writing this blog, misunderstood critiques, hundreds of thousands of deleted words written and over 16,000 tweets. It also bears mentioning that on my blog (just to the right, over there, the photo of the guy holding flowers) I displayed Falling For Your Madness, my debut novel. This novel had been, on March 12, selected as a quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. As a quarterfinalist, FFYM was in the top 50 out of 10,000 entries. I had made a big fuss over this on my blog and perhaps that is what got the attention of the publisher. I also had a link to FFYM and the publisher told me that she was reading it. (SWOON! <3) I can’t imagine that she would have approached me if she couldn’t have sampled my skillz. I didn’t make the semi-finals, but that’s okay.

I also knew what to do. I knew from my own years of research and reading blogs by other agents, that you don’t say yes, you say, I’m interested. I knew who I wanted to represent me. MacGregor Literary has a stellar reputation, they have an impressive client list and I have absolutely no hesitation in teaming with them for my future. Emailing Chip with my original question was a no-brainer. I’m proud to have my name on their author list. I wouldn’t have been able to say this if I had not spent hours researching all agents, educating myself on the publishing process and  examining closely who would be a good fit and who wouldn’t.

As for the future? Now I have a non-fiction book that will be released in the spring of 2015. I have plans to release The Truth About The Sky  this fall and I’m working on You Too Can Run From Snails, which may get a name change before its release. And because I’m now working with MacGregor Literary, they will give me insight into what the next steps for all my books should be.

Honestly? After self-publishing Falling For Your Madness I was having so much fun with the promotion of it, that I decided that I wouldn’t pursue an agent until I needed one. Why stress out over query letters when I can satisfy my readers now? I’m still taken aback by the fact that I do have one, and I’m excited too! I feel like I have a new credibility, a new sense of professionalism and a new legitimacy that comes with publishing professionals’ attention.

That’s my story. If you are a writer, I hope that it doesn’t discourage you. Rather, I’d hope that it inspires you to keep going. You never really know what tomorrow will bring. And if you aren’t a writer, I hope this little self-indulgent account gives you insight into the ever changing world of writing and publishing.

So bring on the tomatoes!

As much as I’d like to think that my irregular blog posts is the very fuel that keeps the internet alive, it is not. As much as I’d like to think that if I am not blogging regularly about my story writing expertise about kittens that all of the world wibe wed will screech to a halt. I know it won’t.

That being said, I must take a blogging break — at least a week, perhaps more. My personal life is in an exciting transition and I am not completely free to divulge the specifics of it to the world. I will, however, be tweeting. Follow me, and perhaps get a clue as to what the Dickens is going on with me here: @10MinuteWriter

See you when the dust settles!

This edition of 7 Quick Takes is all about my budding start as a writer. I must warn you, the seven compositions that I will be sharing with you are gripping, emotionally charging, and brilliant beyond words. You might want to get some tea.

1. Kind Kittens, written my first grade year.  I was going to type it all out for you, but I’ll just give you the best lines and the hinge on which the entire story is based: When they got there, the kittens saw a hippo drop his sacks. So the kittens picked them up. The hippo thanked them. The kittens ran to their Mother. 

The cat that modeled for this drawing had a freakishly long neck.

2. Pizza Recipe  This is my first attempt at non-fiction.  I could have stood a bit more research.  Pizza. Make some crust. Sprinkle hamburger. Sprinkle some cheese. Put circles of pepperoni on it. Put it in the oven. The degrees is 175. Take it out at 6:30.  Hello Food Network? Yes, I’d like to negotiate a deal!

3. The Anthology: My first grade teacher was big on writing stories. If I remember correctly, I was the only person in the class that didn’t groan at this assignment. The titles of these stories include: Picking Oranges, The Two Tea Sets, Jesus Is Born, Firemonster, If Everything Was Purple, George Washington and How The Zebra Got His Stripes. I drew the three girls on the front cover like that because I distinctly remember only having two crayons, one purple and one black. I made matching boys on the back cover, because, naturally, when you’re a first grader, you believe that’s where the boys should go.

4. A Walk In The Woods: My future love of hiking and abstract drawing of trees are demonstrated in this little story: I went to a woods and I saw animals. One animal was a rabbit. Another animal was a deer. Another one was a prairie dog. I saw birds and bugs. Watch out Bill Bryson! 

5. How To Wash A Dog  I am not really an animal person as I mentioned in this post, and I certainly was an inexperienced dog washer when I was a third grader, but this is a more impressive non-fiction piece that I wrote either in 1976. Today I am going to wash Sandy. She loves to take baths. I found her playing outside in the mud. I scolded her for getting so dirty. I know she didn’t understand me anyway. I put her in the tub so I didn’t have to find her anymore. I got the shampoo and a towel and a comb and a brush. Then I filled the tub with water and got her all wet. There was a lot of bubbles in the tub. In fact there were millions of bubbles! Pretty soon the whole bathroom was filled with bubbles! I finally decided I should let some water out. So the bubbles went down and I lifted Sandy out and I thought she was a bunch of bubbles at first but I knew better. I dried her off and brushed real good and I thought she was a beauty of a puppy.

6. But then, of course, I grew up. I spent a significant part of my 7th grade year writing a story about a crime fighting kidney bean. But that was before I was introduced to the soul salve that is bad teen age poetry. Get your tissues ready and turn up the Air Supply!  Everything is all right, really/ My friend is still here, holding my hand/ No matter what I do, or how I feel / I can come to him and cry. He understands / Everything, Everything is all right now/ Because my friend will never leave.  Whoever I was writing about must have been very special, because now after over 25 years, I have no idea who I was talking about.

7. Parking The Car But then there was the not-so-sappy side. For a school assignment, I re-wrote Tennyson’s masterpiece Crossing The Bar to have it apply to a teenager in the ’80s.  I like it, but I still should probably apologize to Lord Alfred.

Porchlight and evening stars

And Mother calls for me

And may there be roaring of the cars

For twelve is when I flee.

But such a spirit does not want to sleep.

Too happy of laughs and fun,

When the night is through, friends quickly creep

Turn again home.

Midnight, the evening bell!

And the night has been a lark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell, 

When we embark.

For though from our night of fun and games,

Theat started movies at eight,

I hope not to see my Mother face to face

When I have come in late. 

That’s it for 7 Quick Takes. Maybe I’ll share my college writing, my youth radio show nonsense and my comedy sketches from the ’90s soon. I love that I still have all this stuff because it doesn’t matter where my career goes or how many books I sell. This will always keep me humble. Really, really humble.

Worldwide talent search. Extremely tough competition. High profile sponsorship. Is it American Idol or the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award?

It’s both!

Click on the image to go to my entry’s page!

Every year, Amazon.com hosts this talent search for the best unknown novel out there. During the first step, you submit your excerpt, download your manuscript and wait. It’s free. The catch is that only 10,000 writers can enter. ONLY 10,000. I think that’s a lot less than American Idol, but I could be wrong. Then, unknown judges, (sadly no Steven Tyler) goes through the entries and picks the next group to go through. That phase, I think, is like getting the golden ticket to go to Hollywood (or is it Las Vegas?)

I was STRONGLY encouraged to enter this year by my critique partner. It was fast and easy. I made it to the first two rounds. Now I’m in the quarterfinals! Less that 5% of that original 10,000 have made it this far. By making it to the 3rd round, that means I’ve not only gotten my golden ticket, but I’m in the top 20 (or whatever they’re calling it this year). Unlike American Idol, no one will call me “pitchy” or say something nonsensical that’s supposed to sound profound. (Randy Jackson would LOVE me, I know he would!)

What the judges DID say was this:

Amazon.com Review

Amazon.com Review

Also, unlike AI, ABNA’s final decision is based on judges, not fans. But LIKE AI — first prize is SWEET! A $50K publishing contract and career boosts. (Runners up don’t do too badly either!) On AI, the singers get their fans to call in and vote. I can’t do that. But what I CAN do is ask you, my sweet, awesome readers, to go to my ABNA sample page and leave a few sentences as a review. This will increase my exposure, get more people aware of Falling For Your Madness and of course makes this happy author even more happy.

But more importantly than that, this victory comes after years and years of doubts. This comes after years and years of plugging away at this. This comes after decades of battling inner demons and wrestling with fears and carving out ten minutes here and there. It comes after getting upsetting reviews from other judges from other contests. This is a very sweet place to be.

I find out whether I make it to the semi-finals on April 16. I already feel like a winner. I don’t need to go any further to feel very satisfied with the success of my book.

Oh. My. Word. This has been one whirlwind of a week. And I’m not even a Cardinal sequestered in the Vatican! For 7 Quick Takes, I’ve chose 7 adjectives that describe what happened to me since last Friday.

1. Unexpected! On Tuesday, my twitter friend, @Tjadedwriter said, “Congratulations!” And I said, “Wha???”  She had been watching the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award announcements and saw that I had moved to the next level — the quarterfinals!  My book, Falling For Your Madness, has been entered into this huge contest. This is kind of like American Idol for novelists and by moving to the quarter-finals, it’s like I’m in the top 20 and I have to start worrying about being pitchy and how to comprehend Randy Jackson’s comments.

2. Exhilarated! It wasn’t until Wednesday that the full understanding of this hit me. It was Wednesday, see, that the judges for the ABNA contest, left their comments about the FFYM excerpt that they read. They said this: Overall, this is one of the strongest excerpts I’ve read. Even though it remains to be seen if the rest of the novel maintains the freshness, wit and quirkiness of the excerpt, this is definitely a winner, and I’d love to read the whole thing.  And then the other judge said this: One wonders if this is time travel paranormal romance or one dream a man decides to take control of himself and make happen. Either way it is brilliantly written with a cast of witty characters. Would have loved to kept reading…  ABNA is not my first contest. My first contest’s comments, back in 2011, were so discouraging that I was left in tears. So not only did I float over the praise of FFYM, but I also felt vindicated. I have this and these words mean so much to me. I don’t have to win to feel like a winner.

3. Perplexing!  So, now that I’m an ABNA Quarterfinalist, I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do. I asked my readers (and anybody who stumbles upon this blog) to go to my ABNA entry, read the excerpt, and leave a comment. This doesn’t effect the final outcome, I don’t think, but it does help with my exposure. And who doesn’t like reading nice reviews? NOT ME! I have eight reviews so far and I could always use another. If I win, folks, I get a $50,000 contract! If I am a runner up, I get a $15,000 contract! I find out what’s next on April 16.

4. Celebrating! You would think that this was enough good news in one family for the week, but apparently, it wasn’t! Also on Wednesday my husband also had a huge, huge opportunity professionally and it could mean a major breakthrough for his career — one that has been long needed. If this works out (and I can’t be any more vague than that) our lives will change forever. I’m up for it and so are the kids.

5. Worthless! All of this news has given us the fan-tods!!  What are fan-tods, you ask? It’s our new favorite word to describe hysteria, uncontrolled emotions, and excitement. We found this little gem in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that I am reading aloud to the children. Of course we had to stop right in the middle of reading on Tuesday and look it up. Apparently there are variations of the fan-tods: you can have flaming fan-tods or swiveling fan-tods and believe me, with the good news that’s come our way this week, we have both!

Twain, at his desk, battling the fan-tods.

6. I’ve been working for the last two weeks on a very special short story that I can’t wait to share with my readers! Just how did David Bowles get his rules, anyway? Stay tuned!

7. AND IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!

Time Thingy Number One: My youngest child, 7-year-old Veronica is obsessed with specific times. She has created a list of what she calls “Its” and they are patterns that she sees on the digital clocks on the stove and microwave. They are, in this order: 8:08 AM, 10:01 AM (don’t know why 9:09 AM is skipped, but it is) 11:11 AM, 12:21 AM (she loudly insists that as long as there is visible sunshine outside — that it is DAYTIME, that it is AM. There is no point in trying to convince her otherwise) 12:34 AM, 1:11 PM (PM now because in her mind, it’s now it’s after lunch) 2:22 PM, 3:33 PM, 4:44 PM, 5:55 PM and 6:54 PM. Her goal is to see these occur every day, which means that often she runs screaming into to kitchen in joy that she saw it or screaming in despair that she missed it. She does have timers set on an old iPhone, but other than drive her parents crazy with it, it hasn’t really helped her catch the “its” in time. Her definition of a perfect day is to see all of them. In her mind, if she misses the first one, there’s no point trying for the rest. She is, as you can imagine, a girl of great passion.

Time Thingy Number Two: My older daughters, Ariel (age 14) and Miranda (age 13) are obsessed with Doctor Who. They have watched all the episodes on Netflix repeatedly and consider themselves experts on all things Timey-Wimey. As a result of their obsession, they have told their younger siblings all the stories (the younger kids are a little too young, IMHO for the Doctor) and now we have Tardis references and Dalek salt and pepper shakers and long discussions on how swoon worthy David Tennant is. As you can imagine, these girls are girls of great passion. I am telling you this because it leads to . . .

Time Thingy Number Three: Because of Veronica’s obsession with time, she is convinced that she would make a great companion for The Doctor and she has created a costume to wear around the house just in case he should show up.

Time Thingy Number Four: We are Protestant, so specific current events about the recent resignation of the Pope are not as significant to us as it may be to others. We do, (or at least I do) find it interesting however. Our homeschool history program this year has been about the Middle Ages so we’ve had many discussions about church history and the role the Catholic Church has played in the shape of Western culture. The process of the election of a new pope was part of an impromptu conversation between me and my five children last Friday. As I came away from this discussion all smug, thinking that I’ve hit yet another instructional home run, a daughter of mine, (one of great passions, you must understand) suggested to me that “what if there hadn’t been dozens and dozens of popes throughout history? What if if there was really only ONE and he kept REGENERATING?” (Cue the mom facepalm.) This is a Doctor Who reference. I apologize, profusely, to all my Catholic friends.

Time Thingy Number Five: My oldest son, Corbin, who is 11, isn’t all that impressed with Doctor Who. He appreciates the stories his sisters tell, but he really thinks that if you’re going to mess around with time travel and physics, you’re going to need more than a sonic screwdriver. And real scientists aren’t that flighty. He may have a point. Corbin wants to be a physicist or a mechanical engineer. He too, is a man of great passions

Time Thingy Number Six:  Back when all I did was write and blog, this 10 Minute Writer plan was perfect. I set my timer, go write like a mad woman until it beeped, get up and do housework for 10 minutes and lather, rinse, repeat. But NOW. Now things are a little more complicated. I have a book to sell, I have Tweets to Tweet, I have marketing ideas to follow up on, I have accounting because I have royalty checks, I have to sign books for my mother-in-law to give away to her friends! I’m doing more and more things for an actual writing career, which means I have less and less time to write. What I need, and I’m not just saying this because David Tennant is swoon-worthy, is a Time Lord to help me out!

Time Thingy Number Seven: Time Lords do exist! Who else would have thought of Daylight Savings Time? (Curse you Doctor! I want my hour back!)

That’s all for 7 Quick Takes This Week! Catch me next week and we’ll do it again!