My thoughts on the craft and profession of writing
Life happens.
Clichéd but true.
We’re in the middle of some major transitions here in our household.
So, there have been and will be a dearth of posts here on this blog. I anticipate in a few months the dust will settle on several of these transitions, and you’ll be able to read some longer posts here once again.
Check back in often, and feel free to contact me by email or Facebook or whatever. I’d be glad to hear from you.
Your business of writing will change. To help you as a writer, here are 5 tips centered around the fact change happens.
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:
Since I’m unpublished, this, in turn, can be simplified to focus on an audience more specific to my work-in-progess, Salvage:
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.
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.
Writers, stop thinking about marketing and start thinking about connections.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
So, a review of February:
Thankfully, I experienced productive writing time in February. I’m drafting part 4 of episode 1 of Salvage — nearing the end! I’ve also “leveled up” in writing craft, gaining a better sense of story development.
In personal news, I’m ramping up to return to software development full-time over at Code Onward. I’m hoping circumstances will allow me to pursue both creative pursuits — writing and development — in full force.
The cold winter is easing; the tulips and daffodils and surprise lilies are poking up green shoots. Can’t wait until the first blooms!
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My current business plan section on operating online definitely needs an overhaul.
I have, however, collected quite a few best practices and quite a few thoughts on content, newsletters, websites and more.
Up this week is my current schedule for content:
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So, you’re taking this writing thing seriously. You want to develop it into a business and a career.
What are the pieces to operating a writing business? How are you going to do so?
Here are the sections in my operations plan:
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In the plan’s novel production process, I created a visual for the steps from draft to book ready.
Hope this helps you.
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For my products, I have separate file, a MS Word document at the moment, that tracks works in progress and works on hold.
The production process will cover the entire lifetime of a work. Right now, it covers up through digital publication.
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