Writing

Blog posts about writing — the craft, my efforts, quotes, tools, reviews, resources, and more

5 Ways Your Business of Writing Will Change

by Cindy Rae

Your business of writing will change. To help you as a writer, here are 5 tips centered around the fact change happens.

1. The Unknown Becomes Known

  • You don’t know what you know until you know it– except…
  • You discover what you like
  • You discover what you don’t like
  • You discover you have more talent for one kind of writing over another
  • You understand the industry better
  • You learn more about the business of writing
  • Through experience and feedback you learn better of not only how to “level up” your writing but also of its quality

2. Your Circumstances Change

  • You have more time to write
  • You have less time to write
  • You go through a trial that informs and shapes what you want to write
  • You go through a trial that changes your physical or mental abilities
  • You have one or more of life’s major stressors going on

3. Connections Change

  • You learn how to engage with others in your field
  • You learn how to find your readers
  • You get to know one of your writing heroes
  • You get in touch with others in the same writing boat, online or in-person
  • You connect with others who train you to be a better writer — critique groups, podcasts, conference speakers, etc.

4. Market Changes

  • The market changes for what you are writing, like cross-pollination
  • You discover market demand for something else you’d like to write
  • Demand surges for a particular format (audiobooks)
  • Demand surges overseas for your market
  • You learn in what market segments demand is growing for your writing
  • You learn to that “marketing” isn’t a dirty word, the difference between publicity and marketing, and how much marketing depends on engaging with others

5. The Industry Shifts

  • Major publishing houses condense further (or expand, but not likely)
  • Independent bookstores rise in popularity
  • Amazon totally changes their ebook strategy, and you flourish (or perish, depending)
  • Different distribution channels appear or disappear in the industry for your supported formats (a channel allowing easy access to ebooks in libraries, for instance)
  • Technology impacts drive production changes, or publication changes, or popular formats, or revenue models

Platform Re-Org Upcoming

by Cindy Rae

A platform re-organization for this site will happen soon.

I’ve felt for some time this blog is not focused enough, covering too wide a variety of topics. In revising my business plan for 2020, I’ve figured out my audience for my platform, including the blog:

Venn diagram of writer's platform audience to use in platform re-org of the blog

Since I’m unpublished, this, in turn, can be simplified to focus on an audience more specific to my work-in-progess, Salvage:

  • SF Readers
  • SF Writers
  • Industry Pros

I’m considering readers as potential buyers, writers as peers, and industry professionals for the business side, although all three are potential buyers. And, all three are groups filled with people I’d like to get to know better.

It’s not all about the buying.

Engaging with other readers to share enthusiasm, growing with other writers, and learning from industry professionals are all elements crucial to my author aspirations. I want to give something to my tribes out there, not just take to make money.

I’m hoping once the platform re-org for this site happens, I can spend more time finishing the draft of Salvage, Episode 1, but personal circumstances may dictate a much slower progress on both writing fronts than I want.

Time will tell, and life is filled with uncertainty.

Marketing is Making Connections

Writers: Marketing Means Connections

by Cindy Rae

Writers, stop thinking about marketing and start thinking about connections.

Many of us do find marketing intimidating (Credit: Karen Arnold, Pixabay)

Intimidating and Overwhelming

The insecure, the nerdy, the introverted, the unproven writers among us (pardon me while I raise my hand for each of those) can find the concept of marketing to be intimidating and overwhelming, a mountainous thunderstorm of unknown looming in the distance, casting its ominous shadow over the our road we want to travel.

We hear “build a platform” to “market” your books. But maybe we need to rewire.

Rewire your brain, replacing "marketing" with "connections". (Credit: OpenClipArt-Vectors at Pixabay)

Marketing to Connections: Rewire and Rethink

Let’s rewire our brains. Every time you hear “marketing,” replace it with “connecting”. Or connections. Or connect. Or engagement. Or meeting new people. Or relationship. Or… you get my drift. Whatever word or phrase that helps you, that makes sense to you.

Connections: Be Intentional

Blindly following advice on your marketing platform may not be the best choice (Credit: Gerd Altmann, Pixabay)

And, let’s be intentional. You don’t have to blindly create a blog or post daily ramblings on Twitter or have a Facebook page or a presence on Goodreads or… whatever the next piece of platform advice tells you. It’s not about blogging weekly or tweeting daily. It’s not about joining every possible writing-related group online or journeying far to make a conference. It’s not about joining the “best” critique group or becoming a super-fan of the rock stars of our industry.

Marketing: Meaningful and Individual

Your platform is as individual and unique as you are. (Credit: Gerd Atlmann, Pixabay)

It’s about doing whatever makes sense for you to connect with others who have something in common with you, with your interests, or with who you want to become. That’s your platform.

Your writing is meaningful and unique to you. Your marketing — excuse me — connections — will be as unique.

And that set of connections? It should be meaningful, as well.

Conclusion

Your time is precious. You want to spend the bulk of your available time writing, not blindly building a platform with pieces grabbed randomly on some pundit’s recommendation.

In the next post in this series, let’s talk more about being intentional. Let’s consider some of the factors in choosing connections.

Distractions of Today

by Cindy Rae

Focus is a Writer’s Superpower

One of hardest battles I fight as a writer is the battle for focus. So many things pull at my attention, but I am my own worst enemy.

Distractions of the last hour:

  • This blog: Writing this of course! And I should plan future posts. Maybe one one business planning for writers? Or 5-act structures. What will I write on Salvage? Oh, I should be writing.
  • The window: Oooh, look! Spring! Where is my neighbor going? Their grass is so green. Cool! Is that a chickadee calling? I haven’t seen those in awhile…
  • The environment. It’s 39 outside! Turn on the heater. I need music — where’s Spotify? But Pandora and I are old friends…
  • Family: Has my son eaten breakfast yet? Oh, drat, he didn’t finish that chore yesterday. I should write him a chore list…
  • Household: I should get a load of laundry going. Wait — the cat’s making for my unmade bed. No!!! No cat hair on the pillow!!
  • Self-care: I should at least do my morning stretches, face, etc.
  • Facebook: Oh, no! I’ve fallen into the black hole that is Facebook! What time is it?

The Three-Act Structure Visualized

by Cindy Rae

Whether the three-act story structure is new to a you, or a favorite, take a visual tour.

May these different images and links of the different ways to think about the three-act structure spark your creative juices.

This post is part of a series on visualizing your novel.

Rise and Fall Over Time

Steven’s Balagan

Balagan’s 3 Act Structure

A deeper dive into the three act, balancing the protagonist’s journey with story tension

Euan Mitchell

The Three-Act Story Model: A Frameowrk Not A Formula

A detailed look at the three-act, with information on character

Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2020 Cindy Rae Johnson
the wolf is always at the door

Uncertainty, Trust, and Steadiness: March Status

by Cindy Rae

Trust, steadiness, and uncertainty have been hallmarks of my life in the past month. But, then, uncertainty is always part of life.

The wolf is always just outside the door.

During uncertainty, steady on
Water photo created by creativeart – www.freepik.com

Sometimes we conveniently forget in our comfortable American lives that calamity can strike at any moment. Whether a pandemic or cancer, an economic depression or a terrible car accident, bad things happen.

Good things happen, too.

Whether good or bad, I’m resting on the rock of my faith, my faith in the salvation of Jesus Christ. How about you?

During uncertainty, steadiness and trust at home in winter

God’s got this.

With my circumstances, I’ve always had quite a few responsibilities and issues that pull me away from writing. God has resolved two of the rocks and hard places in my life, for which I’m immeasurably grateful.

With a husband who works from home, with me home writing, homeschooling, and preparing to go back to work full-time remotely, our COVID impacts so far have not been extensive. But, surprisingly, for this introvert, I’m getting cabin fever.

Writing status?

I’m actually making progress — on the novel, on writing-as-a-business, and my writing ability. I still have a long way to go on honing my writing skills, but I can recognize that I’ve “leveled up” in my writing.

I’m drafting Salvage‘s final scenes. As I write the scenes I’ve planned, more aspects of the story come to light, and more is added to my when-I-revise list.

In this section our protagonist is (mostly) out of the action, so my secondary protagonist, Emmett, is full-front in the story. It’s through him the secondary plot thread of ship dangers is revealed. As his character will not be in the next two books of the series, and his part in book #1 isn’t predominant, I need to keep him a little more shallow than Kaylah.

It’s tricky enough to handle two protagonists, but I needed both. And there are good resources out there, like this one from Jerry Jenkins about Left Behind.

Uncertainty to Certainty

I’m not branching out to writing blogs or copywriting, although I toyed with the idea for awhile. I’m focusing on my novel and on refreshing my software skills to land that full-time remote job.

Visualize Your Novel: Story and Plot Diagrams

by Cindy Rae
Three Act Story Structure diagram from Reedsy.com
From Reedsy.com

If you are visually-oriented and producing a novel, take a look at different ways to chart your story — with plot diagrams and more. Story charts and plot diagrams can get the creativity train moving, so take a tour of the multiple-act framework, the wheel, and more.

Other posts in this series will cover other ways to visualize your story.

Visuals in the Round

Wikipedia

The Hero’s Journey, aka the Monomyth

” In narratology and comparative mythology, the monomyth, or the hero’s journey, is the common template of a broad category of tales and lore that involves a hero who goes on an adventure, and in a decisive crisis wins a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed.[1] “

Kelsey Ruger, Slideshare.net

Inspire Story Wheel

Inspired Storytelling: Engaging People & Moving Them To Action

Derek Murphy, Creative Indie

The Plot Dot

“It’s kind of a plotting journal, with lots of blank pages, so you can sketch out each of your scenes in a tried-and-tested plot outline that focuses on the major, unskippable scenes that should be included in most fiction. “

Rage Against the Page

A Round View of the 4-Act Story Diamond