This week in the writer’s loft:
Word Count: Hmmmmm . I’m working on the second draft of the second book in my series. I need to add about 15,000 words. I can do this. Can’t I? Being new, I feel like a five year old in the kitchen baking a cake. If I add too much of any one ingredient it aint going to work. I hope that it never becomes easy though, because playing with the words is so much fun.
SoMe: My Twitter followers and Goodreads friends are growing, but I’m not saying much on either, yet. Not to mention Facebook which continues to have a whammy on me. I’m waiting to find my cyber voice:)
Deviants: Are you interested in deviants? Diane Kratz wrote a great post on the eleven personality disorders, on her site about criminal profiling…
Friends: As a writer I have become even more aware of how important my friends are to me, because it may appear to be a solitary endeavor, but for me it involves a lot of people coaching, supporting and cheering me on. Sooo I went looking for good quotes about friends, and chose five interesting ones (not in any order):
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
– Anais Nin
“Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.”
– Elbert Hubard
“I get by with a little help from my friends.”
– John Lennon
“Friends are the most important ingredient in this recipe of life.”
– (sent by Dior Yamasaki)
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”
-Goethe
Love this post JoAnn! What do you mean you don’t have a cyber voice? I admire/love your voice. Still trying to muster up my confidence you to write in my own voice, instead of just facts, ma’am! My favorite friend quote is: “True friends are like diamond precious and rare. False friends are like autumn leaves found everywhere.” Author unknown…
My Facebook page isn’t doing well. I don’t know how to promote it any differently. Any suggestions?
Diane
aaaah…like I said my friends are the best. Thank you for your kind words.
I’m beginning to think we’re all struggling with Facebook. There’s lots of chatter on the loops about it. People are setting up special pages. It would be nice if someone did a workshop on it.
Happy writing
Jo-Ann
I agree. Facebook isn’t working out!
Diane
But it’s painful to watch, because I know that there are kazillions of people connected to Facebook, a potential network of readers unimagined in former years, and yet they seem beyond my reach. I’m waiting for a cyber-epiphany.
I noticed your last blog post is getting lots of comments. Awesome.
Happy writing.
Jo-Ann
I hardly touch my FB page. It looks very bare and lonely 🙂
Emma
Thank you. I’m not alone.
JO-Ann
Hey, Jo-Ann, late tuning in. I’ve been wrting yesterday and today. Lovely after a long break. I’m certainly not an expert on FB–I mean I swore I’d never do it, but of course, I’m on. Don’t post often on my own–usually post to someone else. Kristen Lamb presented at our NTRWA wrting conference the end of March about social media. Her book. WE ARE NOT ALONE is helpful. (Interesting what Emma said.) If you ever get a chance to hear Kristen in person, you’d pick up lots of tips. The main thing I think she says is develop the relationiships with folks before you want to sell something. Then when you have it–you toss off a quick mention your book is coming out and all the people who have a connection with you are more inclined to buy your book, than if you started first with: Hey, I’ve got a great book you should buy! And over and over and over. That really puts people off. I don’t have separate pages–don’t quite get that. Well, heck. I don’t quite get lots about the SM stuff. Kristen said blogging is very important, and you should have your own blog with your brand on it and don’t have multiple ways of identifying yourself. Find one and use it in all of your “places.” LOL see, I don’t even have the terminolgy down. I compromise with posting on other’s blogs. I’d rather do a share blog, from a standpoint of best use of time. Anyway, I love your blog, Jo-Ann. Hope this helps.Diane, you seem so with it on KOD, I’m surprised you’re struggling with FB and besides, you’re young. 🙂 Good luck to us all in this insane world of SM (I haven’t said no to Twitter, but really 147 characters! As you can tell, that will never do for me. LOL
Hi Marsha
Thanks for coming by. I love reading your comments and I’m glad you’re not short winded because you always have lots of interesting things to say.
My plan is to muddle through the digital revolution as best I can, but on my shoulder sits a wretched doubter who kind of looks like a leprechaun with a calculator. “Tsk tsk tsk 4 nanoseconds wasted thinking about twitter tweets, 20 minutes on blog. You’re an FB mute. What good is that? And about your WIP! You gotta deepen the #%*POVs.” I hope to get into some good workshops on SM at the Nationals.
A writer’s work is never done, but at the risk of sounding poetic, it is fun.
Happy writing
Jo-Ann
We’ll all make it through. We really don’t have any choice if we want to be writers in this era of SM. 🙂 I’m sure you’ll find some good things at National, too. We really aren’t alone in our struggle.