Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail 4/20/2010
by Kimberly Simmons

“I’ve never had writer’s block. However, I’ve had publisher’s block throughout my career.”  – Dary Matera

Last Week
Six regulars and two guests sat down for an evening of critiquing.

First up, Jack Frieburger read a few pages from Path to Bray’s Head. Anne said there were some endless sentences. Holly wondered if the Greek references would come from a sixteen year old boy. She also suggested more visual details as Sean starts to see his family for who they are.

Terry Hoffman read the second scene from her new novel, The Journal. Holly thought the dialog between brother and sister was really good. Said a lot about their characters. Carol suggested more detail – what kind of scent was left on the sweater? How were the books in the library stacked – neatly, or askew? What color sofa? Gives character to the mother who has died. Jack said to strengthen the dialog a bit – go ahead, let them get nasty. There’s years of resentment and anger, here.

Holly Bonnickson-Jones presented a scene from Coming Up For Air. Anne said the situation between mother and daughter resolved too easily. Jack said there were emotional inconsistencies. Hard to get a clear picture of the daughter’s emotional status – let the daughter blow up – really get it out. Carol said maybe she should get so carried away that the situation actually becomes funny, but Annie said to stick with the red, hot, and ugly.

Anne Allen read a scene from her memoir. Jack mentioned Anne was writing like him – a lot of long sentences! Holly liked the diary entries. Though maybe too much info on the acne. Carol wasn’t sure of the purpose of the youth group scene – how does it tie into the rest of the story? And Jack said there has to be a joke about French kissing and the setting of France . . .

Carol Hornung read the climactic scene from Asperger Sunset. Jack wanted more color, more details from Russ as he becomes aware of his situation, but tighten the focus. Angela’s speeches are too long. Holly enjoyed the way Russ decoded the situation – everything he learned had led up to this moment. Terry said to lose some of the speech tags – the dialog conveys the emotion.

Who’s Up Next
Terry Hoffman – scene 3, The Journal
Holly Bonnickson-Jones, chapter Coming Up For Air
Jack Frieburger – Path to Bray’s Head
Annie Potter – scene/chapter from memoir
Carol Hornung, winding down of Asperger Sunset 

More on how to protect your computer
Last week, I recommended that you download two free anti-virus/anti-spyware programs – Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware. Those two, combined with McAfee, catch about all the nasties that come down your Internet connection.

But not all.

I once also used Panda. Its backshop pros are really good at keeping up with the new threats hackers create. In place of Panda, last week I added Spyware Doctor.

One can use the Doctor free for 30 days. Its first scan picked up 7 threats and 366 infections that had sneaked past McAfee, Spybot, and Ad-Aware . . . and it fixed 100 of them. For a price – for subscribing at $29.95 a year – it would fix the rest. And a couple of the rest included a handful of really nasty Rogue Anti-Spyware and Dialer J programs.

The Rogues pop up messages that say a spyware program has been identified and you should buy this anti-spyware program you never heard of. The creator of the Rogue hopes you will panic and, yes, buy. If you do, he’s got your credit card number.

Dialer J programs permit whoever planted them in your computer to make international phone calls, the calls, of course, billed to you.

I bought the Doctor for a year and those nasties are gone now. Well, I kept a few cookies.
~Jerry Peterson

Born Famous
Write that book, but don’t take anything for granted
Penny C Sansevieri — Publishers Weekly

Unless you’re the offspring of Michael Jackson, the likelihood that you sprang from the womb with a star on the Walk of Fame is unlikely. So why do so many writers behave as though they are already part of the elite groups of authors? The elite being the ones who actually make a living writing. Only about 3% of authors actually make a living on their writing alone.

I have my own theories on why this number is so low. Many of us get into this industry without realizing how tough it is. We think that we write the book and the rest will happen. I once said in a presentation that publishing isn’t the “field of dreams”; just because you wrote it doesn’t mean people will beat a path to your door. You have to tell them, and tell them again, and then tell them some more. You have to love your book so much that even if no doors are opening for you, you still knock. Or, if needed, you climb through a window. You accept every opportunity that comes your way and make the most out of each interview. You say “thank you” for even the smallest opportunity because the savvy author knows that today’s “nobody” could be tomorrow’s “somebody.”

I got an e-mail from an author who had attended a session I taught on Social Media 101 for Authors, and she said, “I listen to you because you walk the walk, you’re an author yourself, and you do what you tell us to do: grab every chance you can to get your name out there.” Sure, I’m in publicity, and yes, yes, I have the e-mails of Oprah’s producers (even a cellphone number or two, ooooh), but truth is, there are a million steps between you and your proverbial pot of gold, and you have to traverse those steps every day. Success is a journey, not a final destination. I love and appreciate every chance I get to promote my work. I’ll get e-mails from people who say, “I’m sure my blog is too small for you to consider appearing on, but I thought I’d ask you anyway.” You know what? Nothing is too small. And for such a humble pitch, I’ll clear my schedule.
Read the rest of the article at http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/454280-Born_Famous.php

Texting slang invading academic work
by Matt Krupnick, Contra Costa Times

College professors are anything but LOL at their students’ recent writing habits.

Not only are instructors not laughing out loud — shortened to LOL in text messages and online chats — at the technology-oriented shorthand that has seeped into academic papers, many of them also sternly telling students to stop using the new language even in less formal writing.

The shorthand often consists of shortened variations of common words — “u” instead of you, or “ur” for your. Text speak may be appropriate for a quick note to a friend, but professors are increasingly stymied by how casually students are using the terms.

“Despite the fact that I happen to be perfectly capable of reading any incoherent drivel you may send to my (e-mail) inbox directly from your phone keypad, ‘wut up ya I cnt make it 2 clss lol’ is insanely unprofessional,” reads the syllabus of Alejo Enriquez, a Cal State East Bay instructor.

“Therefore, I am imposing a higher standard of grammar, spelling, and use of the enter key upon you and kindly request that all e-mails sent to me resemble any other letter to your teacher, supervisor, grandparents or parole officer.”

Faculty members increasingly have expressed irritation about reading acronyms and abbreviations they often do not understand, said Sally Murphy, a Cal State East Bay professor and director of the university’s general-education program. One e-mail to a professor started with, “Yo, teach,” she said.
Read more of this post at http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_14856449?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com

A tide of affection for prose that nearly went unpublished: Word of mouth helped propel Mass. novelist to Pulitzer

by Geoff Edgers

Globe Staff / April 15, 2010

For three years, Paul Harding’s unpublished novel, “Tinkers,’’ sat in a drawer. The writer, a former Boston rock drummer who grew up in Wenham, had tried selling it, but nobody was interested.

“I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll be a writer who doesn’t publish,’ ’’ Harding, 42, said this week, a day after “Tinkers’’ earned him the Pulitzer Prize for fiction — the first book by a small publisher to do so in nearly three decades.

The author’s unlikely success story is rooted in a series of personal interactions between publishers, booksellers, and reviewers that launched a book the old-fashioned way. There were no media campaigns, Twitter feeds, or 30-city tours. Instead, the success of “Tinkers’’ can be linked to a handful of people who were so moved by the richly lyrical story of an old man facing his final days that they had to tell others about it.

“This wasn’t social media,’’ says Michael Coffey, co-editor of Publishers Weekly and a big booster of “Tinkers.’’ “It was real word of mouth and somebody picking up a lunch check.’’

The journey to success began in 2007, when Harding met a fellow writer who suggested he send the manuscript to Jonathan Rabinowitz, who ran Turtle Point Press. Rabinowitz passed on Harding’s book, though he liked it a lot.

The next year Rabinowitz said he met a colleague, Erika Goldman, for lunch and happened to tell her about “Tinkers.’’ Goldman ran the tiny Bellevue Literary Press, a nonprofit publisher connected to New York University’s School of Medicine. She curled up in bed one night and cracked open the manuscript.

“It was so exquisite that I found myself — and this has never happened — weeping for the beauty of the prose,’’ she said. “Paul is a poet who writes prose, and his ability to evoke nuanced emotions through the images that he creates is remarkable.’’

Goldman called Harding and gave him the good news. She would publish his novel, with an initial run of 3,500 copies. The advance: $1,000.

That’s a tiny fraction of a typical advance, but Harding didn’t complain. He was surviving on unemployment checks and his wife’s salary as a middle school teacher in Georgetown, where the couple now live with their two sons. He drove a battered 1992 Oldsmobile station wagon, a car that had served him well 15 years earlier as drummer of the Boston-based rock band Cold Water Flat.

That May, the galleys arrived, with blurbs from some of the esteemed writers Harding had studied with over the years — Barry Unsworth, Elizabeth McCracken, and Marilynne Robinson. Goldman, a veteran of several major publishers before joining Bellevue, met Publishers Weekly’s Coffey for lunch. She handed him a galley.

He started reading it at work, went home for dinner, and kept reading until midnight. “It’s not something I normally do,’’ he said. “But it was just so beautifully written. I don’t often see prose like that. I saw him as a sort of heir to Updike.’’

The book would receive a starred review in Publishers Weekly and, after Coffey advocated for it, “Tinkers’’ would be recognized as one of the year’s best books in Publishers Weekly.

At the same time, Lise Solomon, who lives just outside San Francisco and serves as a sales representative for a group of small presses, sat on her couch devouring her advance copy of “Tinkers.’’

“I sat and lingered over it,’’ she said of the 191-page book. “I read and reread it, because the writing is so luscious and I didn’t want to read it in an hour.’’

Solomon, who spends much of her time driving between independent book stores to pitch them on which books they should stock, came up with a plan for “Tinkers.’’

“I was going to make it a Bay Area bestseller,’’ she said.

She brought it to a Marin County store called Book Passage and received what she called a “nice opening order’’: five books. Sheryl Cotleur, the buying director at Book Passage, passed the book to John Freeman, who featured “Tinkers’’ as one of the best books of the year on National Public Radio, and a buyer at Random House, who passed it on to an editor. Harding was signed by Random House for his next two books.

The 500-book run created after Cotleur’s request was met by a larger, 750-book hardcover order by Powell’s in Oregon, the largest independent bookseller in the world.

Then, Solomon talked with Bellevue about getting Harding to go out west to do a small tour for “Tinkers.’’ He did in January. On Feb. 8, the book cracked the number 10 position of the Bay Area best-seller list.

Back east, it also gathered steam. The New Yorker raved about it, as did the Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe.

At the same time, Harding was back in Massachusetts. Commuting from his home in Georgetown, he had been teaching English at Harvard as a nontenured faculty member for years, but the university cut back his classes. He went on unemployment and drove all over, whether to bookstores or people’s living rooms.

“People would get together, and they’d cook food, and they’d read the book, and I’d sit amongst them and do the Q&A,’’ he said from the University of Iowa, where he’s currently teaching at the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop. “The book seemed to have legs. Usually, the life of a book is almost like the opening weekend for a movie. But this just kept chugging along.’’ There are now 15,000 copies of “Tinkers’’ in print, but it is going back to press now that the Pulitzer has been awarded. (“Tinkers’’ was number 10 yesterday on Amazon.com’s list of bestsellers.)

Last fall, an administrator from the Pulitzer office called Goldman and requested Bellevue submit “Tinkers.’’ Recognizing the company’s nonprofit status, the Pulitzer folks waived the $50 submission fee.

But the last book from a small publisher to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction was John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces,’’ published by Louisiana State University Press in 1981 — recent winners include such best-selling authors as Cormac McCarthy, Michael Chabon, and Richard Russo — so Harding didn’t think he had a chance. And when he did win, no one called to tell him. He discovered it when he logged onto the Pulitzer site to see who had won.

“I just keep thinking of Keith Richards, wearing that ‘Who the [expletive] is Mick Jagger’ T-shirt,’’ Harding says. “That’s the story line. What the hell? Where did this come from? This weird end run from noble obscurity to a Pulitzer.’’

5 tips for promoting your book with social media

by Jesse Stanchak on February 17, 2010

In the age of the Kindle and the iPhone, text is more ubiquitous than ever, but that doesn’t mean users are lining up to pay for content. Readers often need a push, in the form of a strong personal brand, to get them to open their wallets.

Social networks can provide an ideal platform for budding authors looking to bring their brand to the masses. A recent Social Media Week panel brought together a best-selling author, a literary blogger and a pair of publicists to discuss how social networks are changing the way authors promote their work — and how writers of all stripes can use social tools to get ahead.

• Make connections before you need them. You can’t start a Twitter account the day your book launches and expect to be an instant success, said Natalie Lin, online publicist at John Wiley & Sons. You need to start developing your audience long before you have something to market to them, she said.  New writers have the most to gain from social networks, said literary blogger Levi Asher, since a social presence can help an up-and-coming author prove to a publisher that their work has an audience. Asher cited author Tao Lin as a rising talent who is gaining a cult following through his use of social networks.
• Join conversations that aren’t about you. You can’t build meaningful connections with fans by just talking about yourself all the time, Lin said. If you want to make authentic relationships, trying joining in conversations about other topics that interest you, she suggested. Lin also suggested using your social presence to reach out to bloggers and other influencers that you respect. Asher agreed, noting that when an author approaches him about reviewing their book, he’s more likely to consider the request when the author can send him a personal note and demonstrate a little familiarity with his work.
• Use social media to feed your work. Your Twitter account isn’t just a promotional vehicle, said A.J. Jacobs, author of “The Year of Living Biblically” and other memoirs. Your social-networking experiences can actually help you develop ideas. Jacobs recently tweeted about his wife waking up in a bad mood after she had a dream about him flirting with another woman. Jacobs told the panel that after he sent this message, several of his followers responded that they’d had similar experiences with their spouses. What seemed like a freak occurrence at first might actually be a common problem that Jacobs could explore in an article.
• Use your social presence to support other promotions. Asher said he doesn’t see social media as a platform for driving direct sales so much as for building buzz and promoting events. The publishing business is changing, and part of that transformation may mean that Web events and nonbook merchandise may become a larger part of an author’s income, he noted. Publicist Meryl L. Moss said having a strong social presence can make it easier for an author to score a guest appearance on a TV or radio program. Moss pointed out that when new authors have a strong YouTube video under their belt, it can go a long way toward allaying a television producer’s fears that they won’t be able to hold up their end of an interview. Several panelists pointed out that many of the bulwarks of traditional publishing — media appearances, live events and even books themselves — are in a state of flux or even decline. Having a healthy personal brand online may a vital part of surviving and adapting in this new publishing environment, they said.
• Stick with it. Shifting from the private process of writing a book to the public process of promoting it can be a jarring experience for a writer, said Asher. Many writers become frustrated when they don’t develop an online following right away, he noted — or worse yet, when the people they connect with first aren’t fans, but harsh critics. Developing a real following takes time, and even then, your fans may still be critical of your work. Jacobs said he routinely received notes from fans alerting him to factual errors in his books. Authors need to be willing to open themselves up to critics and trust that their fans will take care of them in the long haul, Lin noted. “You need real stamina to make it work,” she said.

OddCon Report
~Kimberly Simmons

I am a veteran of nerdy conventions and all the afflictions thereof; lack of sleep, constant hunger, always being lost/late for panels, and positively curl-your-toes-geeky about costumes, guests, artwork and media. My convention days began in 2003 with PortCon in Portland, Maine with anime & games being the main subjects of nerdiness. Several years later I have attended two of the biggest anime conventions on the East Coast; Otakon 06 (Baltimore, MD) and Anime Boston (Boston, MA) for a few consecutive years.

Usually my plan of attack for all these conventions is the same; AMV (anime music video) contest, Artists’ Alley & Dealer’s Room, some panel, and then the Masquerade (skits, dances and AMV contest winners). For OddCon, things were a little bit different. This time it was all about the panels.

OddCon is a science fiction and fantasy-themed convention. Very few people cosplayed (costumed played = dress up) although I was immediately dragged into the LARPing (live action role-playing) room soon after getting my registration badge. (Wizards, demons and foam swords…mm, fun.) 

I attended several panels over the weekend, including a “How to Submit Your Writing” panel run by a group of editors and an author. They talked about proper submission etiquette, pet peeves and answered my question about the proper use of pen names. I also attended “Paranormal Romance” (where we bashed the Twilight series for resembling a stalker-ish Harlequin Romance and promoting negative personal relationship skills), “Military Tactics In Sci-Fi” (2-D problems with space battles, circuit breaker explosions, and why didn’t they explain things in Avatar?), and I caught the tail-end of “Redefining Sci-Fi”. (High Fantasy is a group adventure with worldly consequences while Sword & Sorcery is a personal adventure with more regional consequences.)

It was a very fun weekend. Did anybody else attend?

A Side Note: Why is Les Miserables so easy to listen to when I’m writing?

As Long As We’re Talking About Conventions
WisCon will being coming to Madison May 27^th-31^st! WisCon is the world’s leading feminist science fiction convention. It will be held at the Concourse Hotel.

WisCon’s Focus (in their own words)
This is the world’s leading feminist science fiction convention. WisCon encourages discussion and debate of ideas relating to feminism, gender, race and class. WisCon welcomes writers, editors and artists whose work explores these themes as well as their many fans. We have panel discussions, academic presentations, and readings as well as many other uncategorizable events. WisCon is primarily a book-oriented convention… with an irrepressible sense of humor.

More information can be found here http://www.wiscon.info/

I, Kim, will be unable to attend. If anyone else plans on going could they please write a small report about what the convention was like and whether or not it was any fun and send it to me?

The Last Word
“About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.”  – Josh Billings (via Michael A. Simpson)