Living at One Minute to Midnight: A How-To Guide for the Whelmed

I haven't posted much of anything about politics, for a whole tiresome list of reasons. But I am foremost a student of humans and human emotions, and I'm seeing a *lot* of my favorite humans getting fried by the bug-zapper that is our news right now. So if you are feeling burnt and crispy, here is something to think about.

Whenever you are involved in something significantly larger than yourself - a club or group, a company, a family, a nation - it is essential to understand your role. If your job with your company is to get and keep clients, then that is what you do. You pay attention to marketing and budgets insofar as they touch your own work, but you don't stay up all night worrying about the 401ks. That's someone else's job.

The problem with the intersection of politics and social media is that nobody is handing you a clearly-defined role. And without that, it's easy to think you are supposed to do everything. Every outrage that comes across your virtual desk is somehow your responsibility. Every worthy call to action has to be acted on, every objectionable comment replied to, every feed fed. And that is too much, y'all. No wonder we are getting overwhelmed and dropping out.

But nobody is going to come over to your desk and dump half your virtual inbox in the trash on your behalf. You are going to have to decide for yourself what is and isn't your responsibility. Right now, I can see two ways of organizing your give-a-damns:

1. Filter by cause. Let's say you are all about minority rights, healthcare, and gun control. Those aren't just issues you have opinions about - they are the three hills you are willing to die on. So you go to the mat for *those causes specifically* - you call, you march, you research, you debate - and let everything else pass you by. Climate change is somebody else's job. Economic issues are somebody else's job. You are fighting in the Pacific theater, and you can not worry about Europe.

2. Filter by role. You know, a medic does not do the job of a sniper. If somebody needs some killing, don't call the medic. Conversely, the medic does not sign on to treat only a certain kind of soldier. They will use their specific skillset on *everyone* they can, to the absolute best of their ability. Maybe that's you. Maybe you have zero stomach for Facebook arguments, but you will gladly call your representatives and give them hell at the town hall meetings. Good! Appoint yourself the legislative muscle of the movement, and leave the diplomacy and debate to someone else. Or maybe you can't blow up phones and streets, but you are a rational, persuasive *boss*. Good! Be an outpost of reason and kindness here on the virtual frontier - help people understand each other, dig up the facts and figures that are getting buried under the hyperpartisan headlines, and add to the ranks of the thoughtful and enlightened. (God knows we need it.)

Regardless, y'all: it is essential, now more than ever, that we tap our individual talents and strengths, and trust our fellow-humans to do likewise. Don't do the things that hurt you. Don't let yourself get so tired and frazzled that you pass on the hurt to other people. This may be a war, but you are not the only soldier - and nothing proves that you have smart, sustainable passion for a cause like a list of ten other things you gave up to pursue it.

Papercrafts and Podcasts and Book News Galore!

I have it! It is engendered! Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
-Iago, Othello

Yes, lovelings, you heard it here first: the last book of Children of the Drought is written, submitted, and green-lit. Now we're just awaiting copy-edits and the Mom seal of approval. Lord willing, Dreams of the Eaten will hit the shelves within the next year-ish.

And here is proof: Vanna Brown showing off the only printed copy!

And oh, I wish I could tell you how good this feels. Like... it's always great to finish a book, but now the story is done. This thing, this epic, ridiculous thing that's been living in my head for the last decade-and-a-half, is finally real. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I'll meet that big yellow bumper head on, because the story isn't in me anymore. It's out of my head and onto the page and safe.

I thought I would be sad about this. I read that JK Rowling cried when she finished the last Harry Potter book. Maybe the catharsis is still in the mail - or maybe I'm just super-efficient and do all my crying while I write :)

Honestly, though, my only real sadness is for everything I neglected while I was working on this. I've left a lot of people in the dirt over the past few months, let a lot of things slide. Part of that's probably inevitable - I have always been a serial monotasker - but I really need to learn to handle the production side of this job without going dark for months at a time.

So today is the day to start putting things right. Here is a short catalogue of some of the wonderful people who have been talking me up and showing me off while I was overcome with the word-sweats.

BAM. Yes. Right there, in your face. My amazing artist-friend Flea made this for me, apropos of sweet FA. Is it not cool? Is it not neat? I tell you what, y'all: my little construction-paper Elim has been hanging up on my wall for a month now (you can even see his shirt in the cat-and-book snap up above!) and I am just wildly in love with him. I've said it before, but it is just a special kind of special whenever your imaginary friends make the journey from your headspace to somebody else's fingers. Now go treat yourself to even more of Flea's amazing papermancy!

Upgrade Your Story - Episode 76, Episode 82, and Episode 92

Okay, so this is a series of podcasts that I've done with Ally Bishop (and by "I've done with" I mean "she has completely inspired, organized, produced, and promoted"). And y'all, she is just so fun. More than that, she's seriously the hardest-working writer I know - not just for herself, but for the entire writing community. The episodes above are a kind of audio workbook for authors who are struggling with self-promotion (me!), with homework and activities assigned by a real promotional pro (her!) Come follow along, and DEFINITELY follow Ally!



The Reading and Writing Podcast - Episode 188

Yeah, that's me - sandwiched somewhere between Dean Koontz and Lee Child. Why? Because Jeff Rutherford is a splendid human being who has built an AMAZING library of podcast interviews with every author of every size and genre under the sun. His archive is huge, and ranges from the biggest of the big airport bestsellers to enterprising nooblets like me. Browse the archives and treat yourself!

William Galaini - Hybrid Vigor in Genre Fiction

Okay, so of course you remember William, my excellent co-blogger and pen-genius friend who wrote that great guest post on marginalized voices in fiction. But now he's let me return the favor at his place (and he even made me my very own quotable graphic, too!) This article is just what it says on the tin: how combining genres can improve the end-product, specifically with SFF and Westerns. It may also feature an extended Toy Story analogy. You are welcome. (Also, if you haven't yet availed yourself of Hephaestion's big gay road trip through steampunk hell, you're gonna want to get on that, like, yesterday.)

Ben Galley - Westerns and Western Fantasy

So I don't know if you guys know this, but there is an alarming surfeit of British people writing Westerns. I met a few of them at FantasyCon this year, and briefly considered telling them to get their posh toffee-smeared mitts off my genre ... and now I'm so glad I didn't! Ben Galley has been just tremendously fun to get to know, and I'm going to have to hold off on plugging him at LEAST until he finishes his fairy-gunslingers trilogy. And while we wait, you can enjoy this wonderful roundtable discussion on fantasy and Westerns and fantasy-Westerns!

Red Sofa Literary - Keeping Your Writing House in Good Financial Order

Because apparently that sounded more professional than "Make Money; Get Bitches". But whether you're a writer who's already started earning or are looking ahead to your eventual first paycheck, here is a handy-dandy guide to building your massive money-vault!

Also, speaking of Red Sofa: did you know that we are doing book giveaways all this month? Truth! Go check out the goodie-catalogue and get yourself something nice - I promise they read well on a couch of any color!


My God, that was a lot. See what I mean? The backlog has been egregious. Thanks y'all for all your patience and cheerleading and support while I've been so far deep in the trenches this year - I can't wait for you to read Dreams of the Eaten, and am so looking forward to catching up on life!

Faking It, vis-à-vis Making It

Sorry, y'all. I've been behind.

It's a funny thing about being behind, though. When you're really in the weeds, you don't have the time or energy to notice other people like they deserve to be noticed. Emails and messages and callbacks and check-ins - all your little thoughtfulnesses choke down to a trickle, and the ones from other people pile up unreturned. It's not a good feeling - but it's not one I'm unfamiliar with either.

I tell you what, though: there's a weird extra dimension to it when you're playing in the pro leagues. When you can't promote other people properly, it feels doubly greasy to go on promoting yourself. So you stop doing any promotion at all... which means that all the people who are out there promoting YOU get utterly shafted, because spotlighting their efforts means spotlighting yourself, and since you just absolutely can't bring yourself to do that, you end up doing nothing and helping nobody.

Look, I never said it wasn't dumb as hell.

Here's the thing, though. The longer I play this game (and granted, it's not been long at all), the more I notice the reputation I'm garnering - and honestly, it's a prize in itself. I love walking into a room and instantly getting hollered on (which, for those of you unfamiliar with redneck prepositions, is totally different from getting hollered at). I love it when somebody I don't even recognize holds an elevator door for me and says "get in here, Tex!" I love, love, love being the kind of person people want to glom onto. More than anything, I love sucking up all that energy and blasting it back out, like the sea receding in the moments before a devastating tidal wave of enthusiasm.

But the thing is, that only works because it's REAL - and because it involves feeding off the realness of other people. I am 100% legit psyched to be there, and it's the easiest thing in the world to reflect that back on other people. Much harder to feel that joy when there's nobody around to draw from, and it's just me alone in a room with a blinking cursor and a to-do list.

I'm still working on that.

And I know that no job is fun all the time, and that sometimes you just have to fake it 'til you make it. But man... as dumb as it feels to write this, I just 100% seriously don't want to end up like one of those plastic talk show hosts - you know, always SUPER PSYCHED about how whoever/whatever is their FAVORITE BEST EVER, even as that weird dead-eyed expression sets in and rumors swirl about a secret drug problem. Enthusiasm is a sacred thing, at least to me. It feels like a special kind of wrong to fake it.

Or better to say, I know I need to do better at this - be more present and consistent, especially online - if I'm serious about getting somewhere. And I am. But there's got to be a way to do it that doesn't involve selling out my one special mutant power. I don't want to get better at pretending to be excited. I want to find new ways to actually get excited, and do a better job of expressing that, especially here in cyber-land.

So I'm going to take this week to do some visible and long-overdue appreciation of the people whose work I am genuinely enjoying. I'm also going to play board games and eat ridiculous things with my family and read books in the bathtub and enjoy the little quiet spaces in between. Enjoy the reprieve, citizens - next week, we're getting back on the wagon!

The WorldCon is Not Enough

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

Well, it's probably a little of both: after a month of couch-surfing, con-crashing, clan-bonding fun in the Pacific Northwest, I'm finally home again. I don't think the cat remembers me, but we'll work on that.

If you look closely, you can see the banana peel on the back of the Prius.
Because we're Thompsons, and this is how we motherfucking roll.

Anyway, so WorldCon.  Look, I don't need to tell you that I had a terrific time. I might as well tell you that I metabolize oxygen. And I don't need to tell you that this year was a hugely political and contentious one for the Hugo Awards (because if you know what I'm talking about, you're already sick of hearing about it, and if you don't, have a Wired article.)

And yes, it is AWESOME that two translated works got the Hugo. Yes, it is GREAT that Helsinki won the bid to host in 2017. And I am absolutely delighted to see women and minorities receive more critical attention for producing truly master-class work. All of these are tremendous achievements, and part of what I hope will be a larger continuing trend.

But I don't think we can act like we just blew up the Death Star.

The thing is, WorldCon itself is still a huge ivory-tower event. It always has been. It has to be. A ~$200 ticket, plus airfare and hotel and meals for the better part of a week practically guarantee that anyone not within driving distance will be dropping at least the better part of a grand on this event.  It's great that you don't need to attend to vote on the awards - but that $40 supporting membership still means that we're only hearing from people who can afford to drop $40 in the ballot box.

With that said, the Gallifreyan contingent may be saving significantly on travel.

As Selina Rosen put it on Facebook (lightly edited by yours truly),

WorldCon is for people with lots of disposable income. It's for the big pros, the big publishers, and the big fans. It's not for people like me. [...] For me, a WorldCon is a huge affirmation that I have failed to make a name for myself in the business, and it has cost me more than I will ever make back. Most of the debt I have left to pay is because of the many WorldCons I attended. 

So I get it that you're all having a good time and that so many of you wish you could be there. I'd rather stay here and stick twigs under my fingernails, thank you very much.

And y'know, she's not wrong. The only reason I got to do this is because I signed with a publisher who could afford to pay me a good advance, and because I have a lifestyle that allows me to stuff that advance in a big sock and spend it all on traveling and self-promotion. I've truly enjoyed getting to be a part of this club, but I'm acutely aware that there are many, many people who are getting caught behind the velvet ropes, and I'm one bad die-roll away from being one of them.

And to be clear: this isn't strictly a WorldCon issue. Movement takes energy, which costs money. Space costs money. Time costs money.

To be fair, the wildfire smoke and eerie Kryptonian sun were complimentary.

So at the end of the day, any event that requires in-person travel is going to exclude a whole lot of people. Thus it has ever been. If we have a reason to feel better about this now than in decades past, it's because the Internet is helping us broaden the conversation to include the people who can't be physically present - and that is a great thing.

But speaking as someone who got to watch the Hugos at WorldCon and simultaneously follow the online feeds, it feels to me like what we have is two different conversations - maybe even two different communities.

From everything I saw, the mood at the event was overwhelmingly joyous. The people in my posse were ECSTATIC that Laura Mixon won. We were DELIGHTED for Wes Chu, and Wendy Wagner, and Julie Dillon - because for most of us, those people are our colleagues and friends.

By contrast, most of what I saw online was about who lost. The Puppies lost. Bigotry lost. Slate voting and awards-gaming and the Evil Empire lost. The virtual conversation seems to be much more about promoting ideas than individuals - and if we are talking about an individual, it's usually to rip them apart.

And of course, this is hardly an objective analysis. Everything I see and hear only amounts to a single anecdotal data point.  But I worry that the convention-going subset of our community is diverging significantly from the rest. It bothers me that the online medium seems to reward hyperbole, stifle nuance, and feed anger. And I hate that the forum where we get to see each other face-to-face, where we're naturally prompted to treat each other as real human beings, is also the smallest and least accessible.

I talk a lot about 'getting on the wagon', but a con lets you
and Team Novelocity literally GET ON THE WAGON.
This is fantastic! I want this for everyone!

I don't know how to fix that. I do know that I want to keep supporting causes like Con or Bust!, that work to bring fans to conventions, and throw more weight behind traveling circuses like WorldCon, WesterCon, and NASFiC, that serve to bring conventions to the fans. And I want to work on my digital game, because I know I'm missing out on a ton of cool people that I won't get to meet in meatspace.

I also know that it's my bedtime in at least two time zones, so I'll close here. All navel-gazing aside: thanks for a grand time, world-conveners. Until our next great conjunction...!


Be excellent to each other.

Three Tips For Using Social Media to Achieve Your Dreams and Destroy Your Enemies

Y'know, being sociable is tough stuff when you're a writer, not least because we hear so many mixed messages. For example,

• Keep a presence on Twitter, Facebook, etc. – but don't spam, and don't expect them to sell books.
• Be real and honest – but don't be negative, political, or confrontational.
• Build your platform (you're nothing without your platform!) – but really you should focus on writing the next book.

And needless to say, some of us are more peppy and amiable than others.  As my legendary literary lifemate "Evil" Dan Bensen says,

"I feel like the girl in Glee who's crying in the corner. 'I just want to tell everyone how stupid they are. Why do they hate me?'"

But until you can execute your cunning master-plan to crush the New World Order under your jack-booted heel, you probably will have to get along and play nice... for now.  So here are a few best practices we've come up with between us.

This is what we call "phase two."

1. Measure Your Efforts

You know, back when I was doing Biggest-Loser boot camp, they used to harass us about showing up for monthly fitness tests.  The refrain was, "If you don't measure what you're doing, you are watering a telephone pole and hoping it will grow."

Easy to do for sit-ups and mile times!  But for writing, it's one of the most simple-yet-incredibly-difficult things about the whole endeavor.  You wrote five blog posts this month – but are they any good?  You have 2,000 Twitter followers – but what does that actually get you?  Your website got 300 hits today – but were any of them from actual humans?

So maybe we have to look beyond the easy pre-packaged measurements we're given by online accounts, and look for hidden metrics.  When you tweet about some new thing on your website, how much of a traffic bump do you get?  How many people reply or retweet?  Is it more at certain times of day, or when you include an image? 

Of course, not all measuring is good measuring. You could count every crossed T and dotted I in your manuscript without it having a lick of relevance .  Which is why it's so important to...

2.  Know What You're After

As in, what do you expect to get out of what you're doing?

For example, reading out loud for 15 minutes each week, to a group of ten different randomly-sorted people each time, is not a great way for me to get holistic feedback on my novel-length work.  But I still get immense value out of reading at the DFW Writers Workshop, because I meet SO many great writers there, a few of which become my dedicated critique partners and close friends.

And, as Dan says about doing likewise on online forums,

"There's some real utility out of the stuff people have critiqued. And it has stirred my idea-pot pretty reliably (one big conversation=one interesting new idea). I also think (hope) I'm priming the pump and getting some good karma for when I really need help. But managing Tumblr/Twitter/et al is time-consuming and it generates ZERO visits to my webpage. I guess I just need to come to terms with that and accept that I'm doing research and making contacts, not managing fans."

Or to put it another way: you can't know the value of your efforts without measuring them in some way, and you can't know how to measure them until you know specifically what you're trying to achieve.

3. Double-Dip Shamelessly

Look, you're a busy budding supervillain. You don't have time to putz around.  And you already know that great writing is all about 'and'.  That scene needs to further the plot AND explain backstory.  The dialogue needs to convey information AND reveal character.  The description should give the reader a sense of place AND say something about the person describing it.

It's the same thing for your online presence.  The Facebook discussion you sunk an hour into - could you screencap or paraphrase it for Tumblr?  The pictures you took for your novel research - could some of them go on Pinterest or Instagram?  The epic email exchange you had with your evil counterpart - would that make a good double-blog post?

Well, this half of it sure was fun!  Head over to Dan's The Kingdoms of Evil to complete your journey to the Dark Side enlightenment!


Just because I hate everybody doesn't mean they have to hate me too.

Retweeting is Not Enough

Well, this really hasn't been a banner week for race relations in America.

Marissa Alexander took a plea bargain to avoid a potential 60-year prison sentence for firing a warning shot when her estranged husband assaulted her.  Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler thought it would be funny to make watermelon jokes when presenting Jacqueline Woodson with the National Book Award.  Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old boy, was killed by police who mistook his toy gun for the real thing.  And then, of course, a St. Louis County grand jury made the statistically exceptional decision not to indict Darren Wilson for the shooting of Mike Brown.  EDIT: And manslaughter charges have just been dropped for the officer who killed 7-year-old Aiyana Jones during a botched police raid. 

So really what I should be saying is, this has been a god-awful week for black people in America.

I should mention that my Twitter feed blows up pretty reliably for every social shitstorm: Wendy Davis' filibuster, the Israel-Gaza conflict, #YesAllWomen, GamerGate, and so on.  And thanks to the magic of the retweet function, it's an eye-opening education every time: I get to hear from the most amazing, eclectic assortment of people - folks I never heard of or would have known to follow - because their voices have been signal-boosted around the world.

I don't tend to say anything myself.  Partly because I find social media tediously stressful whenever I use it as anything besides a newspaper.  Partly because Author Training School teaches you to play nice and get along, because the Internet is forever and the world is watching.  And partly because I'm either worried about appropriating victimhood within a group I belong to (for example, what right do I have to shout about sexual harassment when I've never been sexually harassed?), or else - as this week, when it's about a group I *don't* belong to - anxious not to speak out of turn.

We feel that a lot, don't we?  Whenever we are members of the dominant/majority group, there is always that urge not to be seen as insensitive, bigoted, or tone-deaf.  Maybe you don't want to be attacked for saying the wrong thing.  Maybe you don't feel qualified to render an opinion.  Maybe you are worried about speaking over the voices of the people who are most affected by the issue at hand.  Regardless, in this age of "like", "share", and "retweet", it is easier than ever before to let a one-click "yeah, what s/he said" do the talking for you.


But the National Book Award foul-up last week let me hear a really interesting case against that.  Here, let me re-blog-tweet it for you (and then advertise this post on Facebook for a veritable turducken of media incest):

(Please note that I have curated this page above - for the unabridged version, I recommend following @djolder himself.)

It's a hell of a proposition, isn't it?  Maybe it's just surprising to me because I've steeped for such a long time in the 'Hippocratic' school of social activism: don't tone-police, don't concern-troll, don't speak for, over, or above marginalized voices, and definitely, definitely don't make your feelings their problem.  "First, do no harm" sounds good until it turns into doing nothing, which is actually harmful.

But at the same time, this conversation up here was also a big relief to read, because it says so explicitly what maybe I should have realized a long time ago.

That EVERYbody struggles with this stuff, first of all.

That getting it wrong is as inevitable as it is survivable, secondly.

And most importantly, like... you know, doing the right thing is not like making a box of mac 'n cheese.  There is no such thing as a clear, unvarying, universal set of instructions to follow.  Doing the right thing is uncomfortable, messy, and different every time, because the issue at hand is different every time.  In fact, the only place where consistency seems to congregate is in the act of doing the *wrong* thing - that is, in saying little and doing nothing.  Maybe consistency itself is at the root of the problem, via those pattern-hungry urges we have to make everything fit into a reliable narrative - to treat everything we experience according to the same set of four-legs-good/two-legs-bad mental protocols.

So from here on out, I aim to do a better job of speaking up.  And here is my first exhortation: resist the pattern-spiders, people.  Fight them as hard as you can.

Love the NRA?  Ask yourself where their open-carry fervor went when Tamir Rice and John Crawford were shot for even appearing to exercise their 2nd-amendment rights.

Think this Ferguson mess would be better if we'd voted in more Democrats?  Gotta deal with the fact that the prosecutor on the Darren Wilson case (not to mention the state governor and the president) is a Democrat.

Big on men's rights?  Can't sit this one out: the overwhelming number of black boys and men who are incarcerated or killed by police, *especially* for appearing 'threatening', makes the problem of gender profiling incredibly clear.

Feminist at heart?  Definitely can't sit this one out: not only does a movement advocating equality for everyone need to stand up when it's men's turn on the institutional chopping block, but it also has to acknowledge that those deaths and convictions above are still being perpetuated by white feminine finger-pointing.

I'll stop here, because snark is unbecoming, and you wonderful people have almost-certainly done more than I have (which is again, shamefully close to nothing.)  But you get my point: we are biologically programmed to look for patterns, build a worldview around them, and then sort out everything we encounter in a way that fits that vision.  Making changes to that framework - demolishing bits we've realized were wrong, making new additions, remodelling the existing parts to fit together in a different way - is uncomfortable, messy, and different every time.

...you know, kind of like doing the right thing.

Anyway, I'm going to do a long-overdue right thing, chip in for Ferguson, and get me one of Daniel José Older's books.  Good luck in your own striving for rightness, y'all: it's a hell of a challenge, but one we can't afford to sit out on.


"The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul, a peculiar sense of doubt and bewilderment."

Auntie M's Guide to Greaseless Self-Promotion

"You know what's great about writing?  The marketing.  I tell you what: nothing makes me want to leap out of bed like the prospect of spending hours and hours flogging my book and talking to a whirling virtual maelstrom of indifferent strangers about how amazing I am."

Said nobody, ever.

Obviously, this whole book-pimping thing has been my personal ground zero for awhile now.  And you wanna know something?  I'm actually having a pretty good time.

Yes, I do worry about whether my friends and family aren't rolling their eyes and thinking "man, will she EVER shut up."

Yes, I have dropped a significant number of balls through technical incompetence, disorganization, and social burn-out.

But if you are trying to figure out how to promote your own work without acquiring that sort of filthy, greasy, need-to-brush-your-teeth feeling that you get when you have to leave off crafting beautiful, deathless prose and take up carnival barking to get people to look at it ...I got some ideas.

1. Don't make it all about you.  Make it about them.

My Auntie M is amazing at this.  (I'm staying with her for a few days just now - you may remember me waxing blissful about her place at this time last year.)  She's kind of like everybody's professional mom: when you come over, she is ALWAYS thinking about what you might like to do, or eat, what would be fun for you, who you might want to visit with and how to arrange that.  She is simply phenomenal.

And I think that's a good way to look at your own work, too.  It's so easy to feel gross when you're  looking out for #1 and trying to boost your own bottom line.  But if you believe in your own work, and think about the people who will enjoy it, then it gets easier to make your efforts about YOU helping THEM.  Sometimes that will involve you connecting them with your work.  Sometimes that will involve discussions about other people's work, or the big ideas and issues in your genre.  Rarely should it be a one-sided monologue.  But if you keep your focus on the other person, rather than yourself and your product, it is so much easier to leave feeling like you did something good for somebody - and leave them feeling like you are simply phenomenal.

Or at least, that's how I'm telling myself I suckered two dozen people into showing for a
9PM Saturday night reading - and 'phenomenal' doesn't begin to describe them.

2. Figure out where and how you shine.  Then be there.

Auntie M's secret mutant power (aside from awesome mom-ness) is people.  She wants to hear about your job, your hobbies, your spouse and kids and friends and relations.  She wants to know your whole life, and help you with the parts you might be struggling with.  But she also knows that the really important stuff can be hard to talk about in a group  So she has a real knack for putting herself in situations where she can have some one-on-one time with you: in the car, at a restaurant, going for a walk around the lake or through the park or to the corner store.  Those are the places where she can use her empathy-powers to the max, and give you her whole attention.

And you know, I know a lot of writers who are frustrated by all the work they're expected to do these days: social media and advertising and blog tours and the whole nine yards.  After this past month, believe me - I totally, TOTALLY feel that.  But the up side is that there are now so MANY ways to connect with people that you can focus on the ones that work for you.  Full confession, y'all: I am never going to be a Twitter superstar.  My brain-waves just don't oscillate that way.  But I am a *bad-ass* public speaker, a pretty good blogger, and I think I'm shaping up to be a fairly entertaining podcastee.  So I'll hold down the fort on Twitter, but most of my effort is going into blog posts (here and elsewhere) and getting my fabulous self in front of as many live humans and active microphones as possible.  And I'm enjoying it!

3. When you can't do it for yourself... do it for your posse.


Okay, so I'm traditionally published.  That means I have an agent, an editor, and a publisher, all of whom have a financial stake in this book's success.  But I also have people like Auntie M in my life, who have a huge emotional investment in this thing.  She's been cheering me on for years, raving to all her friends and coworkers and book-club buddies about her niece's great new novel, buying a whole box of copies for me to sign before she gives them out - I mean, really going the whole nine yards to help me make this thing a winner.

This is not only a map of my first week's sales, but also a remarkably accurate
picture of my social network's geographical distribution.

And I know not everybody has an Auntie M (cuz she really is one in a million, so statistically it just doesn't work.)  But I also think it's pretty rare for any of us - trad-pub or indie or whatever - to get to the finish line without somebody backing us.  Probably a whole slew of somebodies.  And although it's taken me a dickens of a long time to realize it, these backers really aren't just doing it to be nice, or to turn a profit, or because they feel obligated.  They're doing it because they are really, actually excited and proud and happy to see this big, long, slow-as-snail-snot project finally come to fruition.  So even when it's hard to feel like YOU deserve to be up on stage, it's really, really easy to feel like THEY deserve to see a return on their investment, and use those feelings of gratitude and indebtedness to push you forward.

So that's what I know about self-promotion so far.  Think about your readers.  Think about your strong suits.  Think about all the people who have helped you get this far.  Then get your ass out there and sparkle.


Now you go feed those hogs before they worry themselves into anemia!

One Reason Why Your Blog Doesn't Actually Suck

Hey guys - thanks so much for all the comment love on my last post!  I'm a little worried about the enthusiasm and sincerity of some of the responses, though, so just to clarify:

The reason I posted that with so much tongue-in-cheek hyperbole is because I don't actually agree with that advice - or better to say, I don't agree with treating that advice as Absolute Commandments.  Yes, blogging is a medium, and it's good to know how to shape your ideas to make them maximally attractive in said medium.  But how you ever noticed how often people try to sell us "magic formulas" to fix whatever problem we're having?

"On page 3, introduce the Mentor, who will prompt the Refusal of the Call to Action."

"Step 2: make eye contact with the girl and approach her - don't let her make the first move."  

"Then, after dinner, eat ten grapes and drink another 8 oz glass of water."

This stuff pops up over and over again, because our brains find it so damned attractive.  "Don't worry; it's really not complicated," the sirens sing.  "You only need to do these six simple things, exactly and to the letter, and all will be well."

And even though we intellectually know that if it really were that easy, everyone else would have already done it, our ego makes us believe that we are special snowflakes in a sea of weak-minded schmucks - that WE have this special secret advice now, this wonderful magic feather, and all we have to do is jump off the balcony and fly.

The siren song is a hell of a lot more attractive than the reality.  Nobody wants to listen to the frumpy old mermaid who says things like, "Actually, it's really goddamn hard," and "Successful people can't really help you, because they don't know anything but what worked for them personally," and "If anybody actually had this shit universally figured out, they wouldn't still be shilling for people to buy their advice."

So if you really do want to think about what makes for a kick-ass blog, here is an exercise you can do.  First, peruse these posts here, and read whichever one(s) catch your eye.

Amazon, Hachette, and Giant Stompy Corporations.

All the Love in the World is Useless.  [TW: cancer, death.]

Writing Strong Women, Part I: How it All Goes Wrong

Games of Yesteryear: Final Fantasy III, or How Four Onion Kids Fostered an Obsession

Silent Technical Privilege

But but but - WHY Does Magic Have to Make Sense?

Then compare that to some of YOUR favorite posts (ones you've read, or ones you've written.)

Some of the ones I posted are from huge mega-successful blogs and authors, while others are small.  Some are funny, some are ranty, some are thoughtful, and one is heartbreakingly sad.  Each of them breaks some or all of the 'rules' I posted last week.  But I will bet you a dollar that they all have at least one thing in common with your favorites: in each case, the author was writing about something that mattered to them, and did a really good job of putting their passion on the virtual page. 

And that, reader o' mine, is why I strongly suspect that your blog doesn't suck.  Even if you haven't gotten part 2 down yet - even if you're not sure how best to present your passion in this particular medium - if you are writing about something you care about, you are already halfway to greatness.

That is what I think, and that is what I am saying here.


5.  Pry claws from back legs out of your arm. Go get the cat, pick up half-dissolved pill from floor and drop it into garbage can.

My Favorite Hives of Scum and Villainy

Well, look, people.  I'll be the first to admit it: even as wild as this past year has been, I'm still very much fresh off the moisture farm.  But life's gotten kind of crazy, and I've been palling around with this weird old man lately, and let me tell you - if you guys want to know where rogue literarians go to slam back Gamorrean hooch and dazzle you with their books, minds, and the occasional margarita recipe, I now officially have the hookup.  If you want to know where the cool writers hang, look no further.

Okay, this first one almost made me reconsider the post title, because it is not a hive at all - much less a villainous one.  Rather, it's a brand-new startup, and one that I'm excruciatingly excited about - because The Author Visits is a true one-of-a-kind gem.  No, it's not the first place on the Internet where authors can go to guest-blog about their latest work - but it's gotta be the first one where the host (the dauntless Veena Kashyap!) gives each author a review and an interview - and treats readers to a whole week of celebratory book-tacular activities, including a giveaway every Friday.  Trad-published?  Self-published?  It don't matter none, son!  From thrillers to poetry to paranormal contemporary urban portal vampire YA (or whatever the kids are calling it these days!), Veena and TAV are game to host and entertain every kind of book and book-lover out there - and I am REALLY looking forward to seeing who-all walks through her newly-open door.  Pro tip: make sure that includes you!

"Tex," I hear you ask, "why is that dinosaur clutching a book?"

Why, because Novelocity is a website for voracious readers, of course - and there is no reader more voracious than the fearsome novelociraptor!  More than that, it's a nest of professional and neo-pro sci-fi and fantasy authors, who run a collective "topic of the week" blog on every writing subject imaginable.  (I say "who", but really it's the indefatigable Beth Cato of Clockwork Dagger fame who herds all us cats.  And I say "us" because I'm one of the eleven writers there, albeit the spottiest and least-reliable of the bunch.  Working on that!)

What I really like about Novelocity, though (apart from the mascot), is that it's more than just book stuff - and more than just OUR book stuff.  Whether getting revved about upcoming SFF releases, waxing nerdy about Ferengi and Flight of the Navigator, or diagramming office setups with screaming Lego figures, it's always a good time over there - and we are always game for a chat!

 

 "...the what."

Well, the Holy Taco Church is a literary-gastronomical ministry, with fifteen ordained authors carrying out the work of the church under its spiritual father Kevin Hearne, formally known as the Tacopope, and -

"...the WHAT."

All right, think of it like this: in addition to being notorious iconoclasts, most spec-fic authors are also chair-based life-forms.  This is known.  And although we subsist mostly on Cheetos and Mountain Dew during our larval stages, post-pupal SFF writers very often acquire a hobbit-like appreciation for the finer things in life: good food, good drink, good books, and friends to help enjoy all of the aforementioned.  These particular friends have just started a new website for trading recipes and book recommendations - so if that sounds like a good combination to you, anoint yourself with with the Holy Guacamole and head on down!

(Plus, come on - they have Wendig.  Who doesn't love Wendig?  Yeah, exactly: productive, well-adjusted members of society and gormless flinching beardophobes.  NOT HERE, BUDDY.)

You know what - this was really fun to write, and long overdue.  Maybe I should do one for local DFW stuff too.  We'll call it "Plano Shot First."  Stay tuned!

Sorry about the mess.

Artificial Barriers to Entry, Part I: Twitter, the SAT, and Peanuts

It's become something of a spring tradition.  Every year, a few weeks before DFWcon, I watch my Facebook feed fill with writers testing out pitches and business cards, and my Twitter followers list blossom with egg icons - aspiring writers acquiescing to the Social Media Mandate.  I love it.

But I know a lot of people don't.  And I admit that sometimes I'm one of them.  Being around real live earth-persons makes me feel like a million bucks - it's the biggest thrill, honestly - but email and Twitter and Facebook and blogging easily reduce me to tears.  I know I'm not alone in that.  "Why do we have to do this social media garbage?" cries that reliable wailing and gnashing of teeth.  "This has NOTHING to do with the quality of my writing, but agents keep saying they won't even consider me if I don't do it!"

This is an almost perfect echo of what I hear in my day job (well, night job), doing test prep classes for high school students.  "Why do I have to take the SAT?" the little darlings keen in frustration.  "This has NOTHING to do with how much I know, but colleges won't even consider me if I don't do it!"

And you know, I think these two mournful choruses really share the same origin.  A hundred years ago, the SAT and ACT didn't exist, and social media was in its dots-and-dashes infancy.  (Though Face-book was not unknown.)  You got your book out to the world the good old-fashioned way: by sending your manuscript to a publisher.  And as for getting into college - well, what could be easier than sitting your Greek and Latin exams, producing your certificate of good moral character, and waiting for your acceptance letter?

Sounds like a simpler, friendlier time, doesn't it?

Well, here is a question: did you ever see Charlie Brown's All-Stars?  It's a Peanuts special from the '60s, and the short story is this: Charlie Brown has the chance to get his baseball team real uniforms, and entry into a real league, and (naturally) jumps at the chance - until he's told that the league doesn't allow girls or dogs.  If he wants his team to go pro, he's going to have to ditch some of his teammates.

Who don't always appreciate his managerial style.

And it seems to me that the academic and publishing worlds of old were much the same way: it is easy to miss them today, because it's easy to forget that they were very exclusive realms.  And part of the reason why writers and students today are having to jump so many extra hurdles is because there are so very many MORE of us now than there used to be - because now girls and dogs and gays and minorities and blue-collar people and pink-collar people and no-collar people have entered the good ol' boys' ring, stiffening the competition for what are still a limited number of top-choice seats.

And when there are 50,000 people applying for 1,000 places, you do have some extra work to do in whittling them down.  It's not enough anymore to just toss out the ones with rotten grades or lousy spelling.  That still leaves 20,000 solid competitors.  So you have to start looking at other things.  Throw out everyone who doesn't do extracurriculars.  Then put in a standardized test, and axe everyone who fails it.  What does that leave, 5,000?  Okay, new rule: we want to see volunteer work.  Tell them to start clothing the hungry and feeding the naked and neutering shelter-puppies on the weekends, or they're out.  And if too many students start making it through all those hoops, I promise you that they will invent a new one, or make the existing ones even smaller.

Which isn't to say that the hoops are all completely arbitrary.  For example, a successful writer is going to have to be able to sell themselves and their book - so it's reasonable to see whether and how they've made a start on that. 

"So, Tex," you may now resentfully sigh, "you're saying that the New World Order is good and right and just, and Twitter is the price we pay for diversity and freedom."

Not at ALL, my hypothetical friend - not at all, and I will tell you why.  But let me pause here for the moment, and resume on Wednesday.

In the meantime, here is a question: for those of you with skin in either game (publishing or college admissions), what do you reckon we could do to level the playing field?  How can we more fairly assess the applicants - or should we quit squabbling over who gets a piece and focus instead on enlarging the pie?

 
So they have one man on first, but if they think they can beat us, they'd better try. 
 ...
I hate it when they try.

Listing to Port

You know, I feel really bad that I haven't updated here more often.  I'm so full of thoughts - oh, happy reader, if only you could taste a delectable full-bodied slice of my gray matter today! - and yet having so dang much trouble with follow-through.

Actually, a better way to say it is this: I feel like half of my brain is burning out from overuse, and the other half is rotting.  I knew it was getting bad when I found myself suddenly, desperately excited at the prospect of teaching GMAT math.  Or hell, ANY math.  My 10th-grade tutoring student whipped out her geometry homework this week, and it was like someone had offered me - dare I say that deadly four-letter C-word? - cake.

Meanwhile, the right side of my brain is busy failing at two blogs, four social media accounts, six email addresses, a line-editing project, and writing the first draft of one whopping big manuscript that really, positively needs to be done by Christmas.

To be clear: these are all TERRIFIC problems to have, and I'm grateful for every one of them.  It's just that collectively, they do end up with me sitting at my computer, begging myself to do something - anything! - but mostly staring at the dried sneeze-speckles on the screen in vacant fascination.

Dramatic re-enactment, starring my nephew, Pete.

Actually, I think this is a small part of the reason why I am so dang excited for WorldCon this week.  Hanging out with people in real-time is such a joy, you know?  Yes, it wears you out in its own peculiar way, but what a relief to only have four seconds to draft your response, instead of letting that blinking cursor leer at you for hours, or a whole entire weekend, while you attempt to compose the reply which will stand forever as a testament to your craft and thoughtfulness, or embarrassing lack thereof.

Dear Grandma,

Thank you so much for the Precious Moments figurine.  I'll think of you every time I see this adorable club-footed cherub, and remember to make my monthly donation to the Tow-Headed Caucasian Children's Fund.  Can't wait to see you at Kitschmas!

And no, it's not like every tweet and post and 3AM drunken gmail missive has to be some Ozymandian monument for the ages - but every one of them is explicitly meant to be noticed by somebody (especially when you are now in the business of being noticed by as many people as possible!), so why wouldn't you want them to look their best?  Especially once people have seen what your best really looks like.  From then on, they'll know in a heartbeat if you show up with anything less.

My God, is this what it's like to feel incapable of leaving the house without makeup?  Shall I never again browse the aisles of the Internet in my social sweatpants?

Well, perhaps not today.

And so I continue overclocking my frontal lobe, wallowing in problems that I am absolutely delighted to have, cultivating perfectionism at the expense of promptness, and wishing like the dickens that I weren't always, constantly, CONTINUALLY keeping at least one person waiting on me for something or other.

Sorry about that, y'all.  C'est la belle vie.  But if anyone needs any help with solving simultaneous equations or calculating probability, I am prepared to render aid with positively blistering vigor.  In the meantime, bring on WorldCon!

Psst.  Your participles are showing, dear.

Share-Bears II: Secrets of the Ooze

This entry started with two awesome folks who submitted their favorite blog entries after I'd already posted the others.

But then I left it alone in the lab overnight, and it started to mutate. The green bubbly goo overflowed the Erlenmeyer flask. Strange vapors curled their gaseous tendrils up into the air vents. And then there was no containing it.

Here they stand, terrible in their glory.

Jon Gibbs, author of "Fur-Face" and the forthcoming "Barnum's Revenge."  His entry is perfectly hilarious in its own right: Paperback Writer: Great song, but what if it was a real query letter?

But aspiring authors of the blogosphere, take note: THIS guy, you need to follow.  I don't care what you're writing.  This gent is a sterling example of how to blog: he is ALWAYS sharing links, running contests, hosting fun giveaways, interviewing up-and-coming new writers, and doing everything else under the sun to make this long and solitary road a little less so for all of us.  His mutant power is generosity, his emblem is an oversized smiley, and he is the kind of superhero you don't need a radioactive spider-bite to emulate.  Get on it!



Pamela Skjolsvik, aka The Death Writer.  Her post isn't what you'd think (in the words of one commenter, it is "comely and honest and blew me away"): D is for Daughter

Have you ever worked in a prison?  Quietly barfed in your seat during a Broadway play?  Interviewed an executed man's grieving mother?  Let's be real: trying to write for any kind of publication is the ego equivalent of a self-inflicted chemical burn.  But writing personal non-fiction, writing just what you've really done and said and experienced, and putting THAT out to be pooh-poohed, has to be like putting in your contacts during a sandstorm.  I'm not sure which part gives me more respect for Pam: that she's braved the world and done all those amazing things, or that she has the courage to write about them (and herself by proxy) and collect rejection not just for a story she made up, but for pieces of her own life.  All I know is, she makes real look GOOD.

Oh, and the better news is: she is accepting guest writers for her blog!  If you have experienced loss/grief or work in a closely associated profession, check out her blog and drop her a line - she has built a terrific audience, and is not stingy about sharing it.


Lastly, there is one person for whom I have no link, because she has no blog. In fact, she didn't request inclusion here at all.  But I'm going to shout her out anyway, because she has done so much to spit-shine my soul - quietly, selflessly, and mostly without knowing me from Adam - and for absolutely no return.

To be clear: I'm no butthead.  I got the memo about sharing, taking turns, and playing nice back in my juice-box days.  But I was amazed at how a single out-of-the-blue note from this lady *completely* made my week.  It was a walloping big reminder about how much power we have to affect other people - and I mean serious, major-league, lecture-from-Uncle-Ben POWER - and how easily one can drop a fifty-megaton sunshine-bomb on somebody, and with no more than a few minutes' time investment.  I need to do that to more people, more often.  In the meantime: thank you, Yorkist, for so thoughtfully irradiating me.


So, good people of the Internet, let me turn it over to you: who rocks YOUR world?

--Did you see that?
--That's the way to do it - that's old school.

Warm, But Not Fuzzy

I have a confession to make.

I live in constant, pulsating terror that somebody, somewhere Might Not Like Me.  I avoid confrontation like the hantavirus and My Little Pony fandom.

But even with my pathological drive towards Niceness At All Costs, I'm not sure I agree with this article here.  The thrust of it, sure: it's chiefly about self-published authors getting ragged on by those on the legacy track, and I absolutely agree that going to war over which end of the egg to break makes us all look like a bunch of slap-fighting Lilliputians.  But this part here:

Writers should be sticking together, not bashing each other.

And this part here:

The bottom line is we are all writers. We all dreamed the same dream. We all labor over words, agonizing when the writing is not going well and rejoicing when the words are flowing. I used to love and respect trade-published writers. I still do. In fact, I love all writers. No matter how they are published.

--give me pause, because I don't have anywhere near Ms. Shireman's vast platonic love for writerdom.   Not by half.  Why should I?  I mean, there's a reason why, if I told somebody I was self-published, their first thought would not be, "boy, I bet that's a stellar, top-notch professional piece of work you got there!"  There's a reason why, if I turned in an 800-page manuscript, the agent or editor's first thought would not be, "by Jove, this surely is a lean and stunningly taut epic odyssey - it must be mine!"

These people were not born prejudiced.  They got that way because other writers before me went and peed in the pool.  Not always deliberately, not always as serial offenders, but nevertheless, the failure of their quality-control sphincters costs us all.  In the fantasy section, for example, many readers have sworn off starting a series before it's complete, because so many series have met protracted, unsatisfying, or simply nonexistent ends.  Their reluctance is both understandable and a sure-fire way to strangle the market - because if readers aren't willing to spend money on a newly-released Book One, publishers sure as hell aren't going to lose more money putting out a Book Two, and where does that leave me with my thirteen-volume LegendSword of the Elf-Castle Prophecy saga?

So, okay.  Nobody is pretending that terrible books and terrible writers don't exist.  Thanks to the magic of the Internet, readers can brand such works with the Single Star of Infamy.  Meanwhile, the advice for writers is to comport oneself as an adult at the Thanksgiving table: don't ask about Uncle Jimmy's parole hearing or point when Grandma puts her sleeve in the gravy, but stick to safe subjects and keep things positive.

So, given that classy, successful people generally don't get that way by crowing "I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I", does criticism have any place in a writer's public persona?  Do we decry harmful trends but keep careful not to name names?  Can we criticize a book while scrupulously avoiding any dig at the author?  Is it ever acceptable to slam books like this, or do we just talk over their noise by loudly praising better ones?

I dunno - what do you think?

There's a dark side to the paradise of the pool.  A yellow evil that lurks in the warm spots created by the pee-terrorist known only as... The Urinator.

Authors on Twitter, or, The Problem With Selling Jesus

Let's be honest: evangelism is a rough gig.

And as trying as it must be to brave the tide of rude indifference as you hand out New Testaments outside the ShopKo, or to tell yourself that leaving Chick tracts in bathrooms is a legitimate and fruitful use of your time, the worst has to be the door-to-door business.

You show up, pressed and professional and with a holy gleam in your eye that would put a Fuller Brush salesman to shame.  You knock, and steel your smile as you venture the first words that will - God willing! - snatch this lost lamb in the Winnie-the-Pooh nightgown from Satan's slavering jaws... and she slams the door in your face.  Repeat dozens of times a day, every day, and it's a wonder you don't throw your bike in front of an oncoming bus and run off to join the Pepsi Generation.

Let's meditate for a minute on the real problem here.

When you knock at my door, you're making two sizable assumptions: first, that I have not already found Jesus, and second, that I am receptive to receiving Him.  (There's a third issue with the door-to-door model, namely that your ringing of the bell compelled me to stop fornicating or beating my children long enough to answer the door, which puts me in a coarse mood before the Word even enters into it.  But we'll leave that one aside.)

Is this you?  It probably shouldn't be.

If I've already got the Holy Spirit within me, then you've wasted your time.

If I'm a hellbound heathen and happy with it, then you've likewise wasted your time.

In fact, your approach works reliably only if I have A) not heard of or never seriously considered your faith, B) found myself unhappily lacking in the spiritual department, and C) cultivated a lifestyle and identity not radically incompatible with your beliefs.  That's a pretty hard trifecta to hit.

So what I am saying, aspiring authors of the Twitterverse, is that if you follow me, and I click and find that most of your tweets are hawking your book, there's really no incentive for me to follow you back.

First of all, if I don't read your genre, I'm not going to read your book no matter how good it is.  And secondly, let's say I DO buy your book, and read it, and give it eleventeen stars on Amazon and Goodreads and tell all my friends and blog about how Three Hundred and Eighty-Five Shades of Beige opened my eyes to the tyranny of accent walls.  What do I get for all that?  If the answer is "pretty much just more tweets about your book," then there's no reason for me to keep following you.  I have used you up.  You have nothing to offer but more annoying ads for Cheetos, when my fingers are already orange with the chem-o-cheez proof of my fealty.

So whether you're selling the Great Armenian Novel or a ticket out of perdition - please, y'all, think about your business model.  Leave my doorbell for the cops, and focus on selling yourself.  Make me think "man, s/he's so cool and rad and deep and interesting - this kind stranger surely possesses some unearthly wisdom.  It must be mine!"  That right there is the difference between "eh, nothing for me here" and "okay, Aunt Matilda, you know that grammarian Regency romance isn't my thing, but this author I know has a book out - it's called Pride and Parentheses, and you simply MUST read it."

By the way, I'm absolutely not an expert on how to do Twitter the "right" way.  That would be Kate Cornell, the blackest belt in social media that *I* know, and Ben M. Wallace - and if you're feeling adrift, I highly recommend his Giving the Bird: The Indie Author's Guide To Twitter.  (I know it says indie, but he'll let you read it even if you're not self-publishing.  He's cool like that.) 

And then we got the people who knock on your door at 6:30 in the morning on Sunday going, "Have you found Jesus?"  You just wanna come to the door nude and go, "No, help me look for him!  Come on!"