ANOTHER TRANSITION

 

I think I learned system the company had, except one called Wang. That eluded me. Luckily, not many people were using it.

As I am trying to turn over a new leaf by spending less on unnecessary things, I am writing this on Google.docs.  Friends suggested this when I mentioned I was behind in my monthly payment for Word. I will see how this works.

A long time ago I prided myself on learning new word processing software quickly and being able to teach others how to use it. I remember using WordStar. If you remember that, you are likely as old as me. I think the next was WordPerfect.

I was so proficient with WordPerfect I landed a consultant job teaching staff at a major firm how to use it. This also involved conversion from many other types of software and systems. Everything was on the 5 ½” floppy disks. Again, that dates me.

I tried not to let my computer prowess go to my head. Even when that company hired me as a full-time employee. It was not a dream job, but it was a job that paid me better than any other I ever had.

The problem was that I’d been pretty much self-employed for so long, I was not suited for the office atmosphere. Maybe that is why I’ve stayed away from sitcoms with similar settings. I found nothing comedic about the job.

Okay, to be honest, there was some humor. And as I got to know my fellow clerical staff there was an inner camaraderie. That was where the problem started and ended. I was called into the manager’s office and told I should not mingle as much with fellow employees. It was supposed to increase disharmony among the group. Oh, there was disharmony, but I was not the reason. Trust me, it had started long before. I was the newcomer to the group.

I realized the problem really was that I stopped being a puppet for management and started cutting my strings. I was happier making friends that being an elusive entity who was shied away from by other employees.

 

I remember tears filling my eyes because I knew this was not how I wanted to live. I got up from that meeting, gathered my things and went home for lunch. I did not return again. They called and I told them I would not be back. That was that.

I may have cut off my nose to spite my face, as the cliche goes, but I remained true to me. I lost a job and the new friends I was making. Funny, those friendships were part of the reason I walked out in the first place.

The silver lining was that when I returned home I was faced with a do or die situation. I started to write and write and write some more. It didn’t take long before I was being published in several magazines. I also started working as a “stringer,” with local newspapers. I may not have made as much money as I did in the office, but I wasn’t selling my soul to earn it.

I know I started this saying I was testing my trial of Google.docs. I believe I may be making another transition in life. My hope is that it will be as positive as my transition from full-time office life to full time writing life. I need that now even more than I did back then. Maybe today I walk out on wishing I were writing more to actually writing more. Wish me luck.

WHERE DOES YOUR MIND GO, WHEN YOU LET IT GO?

How often do you let your mind flow? I do it often, and I don’t think I’m that different than most

people. I just like to think I’m being creative, as I follow the water of my mind from river, to tributaries of small creeks and streams. Like the rivers have different names, so different are my thoughts as they branch out into more, totally different thoughts.

I believe it is important for a writer to allow their mind the luxury of random, scattered thoughts now and again. One never knows where they will lead. I have gone from thinking about my grandchildren, to their activities, to my own activities when I was their age. An example might be my oldest granddaughter’s dance, to my love of dancing, with no real skill to match her grace of movement. Or, the way my other granddaughter loves soccer which leads to memories of my sons playing soccer, to my. . . well, once again my lack of grace.

However, I may have said how important it is for a writer to allow their mind to flow, I also know it is equally important for a writer to focus their mind onto one thought. If I did not do this, my thoughts of my granddaughter’s dance would lead to my clumsiness, to injuries, to visits to the ER, to friends visiting in the hospital, to going away with friends, to the local carnival that will be coming to town, to the kind of vendors there are, to how sanitary their booths really are, to an outbreak of the Bubonic Plague

.

Yes, I must try my best to focus at times. While those random thoughts I mentioned above, may seem farfetched, it is a normal occurrence for me, with a wide variety of topics traveling through the recesses of my mind on any given session – yes, session. What else shall I call it?

Instead, my thoughts of my granddaughter could lead to more focused thoughts of my love of trying to dance, to my first dance, to the boy who only danced with me because of a dare, to how I felt, to how youth might feel today when they are teased or bullied, to what schools are doing today to prevent bullying, to mean kids growing up to be evil adults, to police having to deal with evil, to the over-loaded court system, to lawyers who are the ones making out on the deal, to. . . I think you get what I’m saying.

You may think this is just as random a thought sequence as the first, but in reality there is a certain reasoning to these thoughts. If I was going to write a novel based on a defense attorney – a wealthy defense attorney – who is having doubts about their client – evil client, of course – I might just go back in time to find out what makes my character tick.  In this case, she could even be a prosecuting attorney, depending on her memories of those past hurts and pains, leading up to why she became what she is.

Taking a glimpse into our own minds can open our eyes to the mind of a character. We don’t always think about things that actually happened to us, but often we do. Other times our random thoughts may stem from a TV show or movie we recently viewed. In either case, by allowing our minds to wander, we may be able to use subjects in a different way than what we viewed, with different characters, thus not plagiarizing our fellow writers.

By allowing our mind the freedom to flow, we can lasso the parts we like and use them in our plots. We can develop new characters based on some real and some fictional personality traits from people we know or those we imagined. Only we know the truth of how these characters developed from inception to the printed page.

When we were children, we were likely told not to daydream. However, we are in control of our own life now, and I say, if you want to be creative, let your mind flow where it leads. If you want to be a writer, do the same, then take what theme those thoughts may have provided and let those thoughts flow into a story.

Marketing or Promoting?

What is the difference between marketing and promoting? I actually found it difficult to distinguish between the two. That was until I starting marketing and/or promoting my novels to a larger extent.

In any case, I did a search to answer the above question and thought I'd share the results from Wikipedia. They are always correct, right?

          Promotion is one of the market mix elements or features, and a term used frequently in   

          marketing. The marketing mix includes the four P's: price, product, promotion, and place.^[1] 

         Promotion refers to raising customer awareness of a product or brand, generating sales, and 

         creating brand loyalty.

Okay, so I am mostly promoting my work, but I am still marketing. And this work isn't easy. Since I have started to take the promotion of my novels to a new level, I have found the time I spend far surpasses the time it takes me to write a novel. If you include proof-reading and editing my literary works, I probably spend twice the time promoting and marketing.

I am also learning a lot as I go. I think it is time for me to share some of what I'm learning. However, I do not want anyone to jump the conclusion that I have been successful at what I've been doing. It's been more a learning experience of what I probably won't do again.

First, once word gets out that you are trying to promote your work you will have many people interested in offering their services. If you are like me, you will determine what you can do for yourself.  I paid for six months with one promoter and did not sell one novel. Maybe because it wasn't a new work, but I don't think that made a big difference.

I realized this promoter was as much trying to promote me as she was my work. This is very important, especially if you are pretty much an unknown, like I am. You need to get your name out there and hope people remember it. In a good way! So don't get arrested or anything.  Making the evening news for something bad won't help your book sales. Besides, I've heard you can't keep the profits from anything you write while in prison. So, why go to all the trouble?

You can establish a name by making sure you are seen. You can do a lot on Social Networks like Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter, plus a large number of other sites. However, don't make my mistake of starting out using it as a professional network, while being social with my friends. It would have been far better for me to have started with a separate page for my work and kept the social page, social.

Today, you will find I have a Facebook page and a Facebook promotional page. I spend less time on other social sites, so I currently keep most of my posts to strictly business.

While talking about Social Networks, my next bit of advice still relates to those people offering you their services. Be very careful how much you spend in the name of growing your network. There are hundreds and hundreds of groups that are dedicated to writing, writers, and readers. Paying for a list of those groups definitely cuts down on the time you will spend finding them, but many of these lists are carelessly compiled and not up to date.

I have found that once I started joining groups I found more similar groups coming up in the sidebar. I may not have joined all of them, but I have all I can handle for now. Once you join you will need to learn what the groups permit and what they don't. Some urge self-promotion. Others down right forbid it.

One thing to remember about these writers groups is that most of the members have the same goal as you. So if you think they are going to run right out and by your latest novel, think again. They will run out and buy it about as fast as you run out to buy there's.

I think I've given you more than enough to get started promoting your work. In my next article I will discuss some other ways to promote your work. And trust me, these are just as time-consuming. But a lot more fun!

You will find Pam Garlick novels here.

Hey you Chefs and Cooks Out There!

I know this is a writing blog. But the prize in this is my pre-launch copy of my latest novel, "A Father's Love." So here goes:

My challenge is to have you create a delicious recipe a product form the link to Tanka Bar below. Because the prize is my novel, which takes place on a Lakota Rez in SD, I have decided this type of challenge will be a great way to celebrate the Lakota traditional foods. And, some less traditional, since I'm certain that will be the case with your recipes.

I can monitor who actually buys the product required so don't anyone think someone will just make up an untested recipe.

I need to have all your recipes by June 10 so I have time to prepare them and have them judged by my novel's launch party in late June.  The winning recipes will be served at the party.

I will also compile any recipes received into a cookbook that will be given to each contestant free. It will also be available for download on Amazon for those interested.

You can enter as many times as you want, but with different recipes.  So click the link, buy your product and get cooking!

FB Message me your recipes or links to your recipe.  To each recipe please attached your name, address, link or e-mail and add the fact that this is your original recipe. Signed of course. Without the information I will have to pass on the recipe.

Click Here to Order Tanka Product for Recipe

To RSVP that you are taking the challenge click here.

Have Fun Cooking!  Just Remember to Get Them to Me By June 10.

Confession Writing - A Sympathetic Main Character

 Anyone who has taken a course in creative writing, probably has heard this before, but to get published you must have a main character who is sympathetic.  By this, I mean one people can empathize with.  No, they do not have to have gone through the same situation your main character is going through, but they must empathize with them.  After all, would you really want to read about someone you cared nothing about?

This does not necessarily mean the person is above reproach.  Just that they are struggling, as any human struggles, with any one or more difficulties in their life.  You can make even a mass murderer sympathetic if you work at it.  You just need to give them a sympathetic past and enough redeeming qualities to make a reader care about them. – Now, I don’t recommend you try making your main character too vile, and still try to redeem them.  If you want to make someone that evil, you might want to pit them against your main character.

Which brings me to secondary characters.  I’ve been told not to have so many characters that draw away from the main character.  This can happen if you allow the secondary characters to play too big a role in the story.  Think of it as a movie.  You may have one main character, a person or two who are close to them, and the rest are pretty much extras.  They are just filling in some empty space.  Oh you can make them cute and lovable, or you can make them sneaky and conniving, but you can’t make them the lead character. 

But you can give them their own story.  I’ve done that on more than one occasion when I’ve liked working with a character.  I later gave them their own plot and their own life to live within that plot.

By now you may be thinking, with me writing about all this making them this, and giving them that, it is sounding more and more like writing fiction.  Aren’t confession and personal experience stories supposed to be true?

The answer is yes.  There is supposed to be some truth to these stories.  That truth can be complete, like telling something that really happened in your life.  Or, it can be bits and pieces of the truth.  The fact is, while the basis of the story is true, you are using a good deal of literary license when writing these stories.

However, whether it is a story about you, someone you know, or a stranger in the next booth you overheard talking while you were at lunch; it is up to you the writer to tell that story in a way that will be interesting to the reader.  And one of the most valuable things you will do to keep your reader reading, is to win them over in the first few paragraphs with a sympathetic main character.

And while I’m on the subject of winning over your reader; I must add that if your goal is to see your work published, you need to remember the editor is the first reader you need to win over.  So, take time to look at the publication before you submit your story.  Read several stories in several issues just to get a feel for the type of stories the editor likes.

If you find yourself saying I have a story just like that, don’t sent it.  At least not yet.  Most editors do not want carbon copy stories.  Nothing will lose readers faster than having them say, “Haven’t I just read this story last month?”  I doesn’t even have to be the same story, just too much like it.

What I am saying is, learn what the editors like from what is already being published, then write something just as good, but different.  And get a copy of the publication writer’s guidelines to help you remember what they like to publish, and more important, what they don’t want.

I wish you the best with your writing.  I don’t know what story you have running through your mind, but I wish you the best at developing a main character your readers will truly care about.

If you would like to learn more about some of the longest running women's confessions and their guidelines, look here.

You can purchase magazines here. True Story,  True Confessions, Single Edition

My novels are available here.

Confession Writing - Writing in the First Person

            Since confession writing is usually a story told about one’s self, it is usually written in the first person.  I have, on a very few occasions, seen stories published in third person; but it is not the norm.

Until 30 years ago when I started writing confession stories, I pretty much had been writing everything in the third person.  I wouldn’t say it was hard switching to first; what was hard was switching back and forth, since I still write most other fiction in third person.

Still, there is something very personal and satisfying about writing in the first person.  It frees me to share my innermost feelings.  Or, the innermost feelings of the person I am writing about.  Yes, this can be done with third person to an extent, but not in the same way.

Of course, while I may love being able to share those innermost feelings of the main character, the luxury of this is only extended to the person telling the story.  In other words, you can’t read minds, so you cannot write about what other characters are thinking.

Okay, I did read a novel by a very famous writer who tried to do this.  I think their may be a name for it, but I personally had been taught you cannot get inside another person’s head, and found I was uncomfortable reading that novel. 

Now, if you are wondering how you can disclose things others are thinking, well, you can’t.  You have to give them life and have them express themselves.  They must tell what they are thinking, or at least show some of what is going on inside their heads by their actions.

Also, another thing I like about writing in first person is that it’s like talking to someone.  Perhaps it is because I enjoy talking to people, I enjoy writing in the first person.

Writing confession stories can be fun.  However, just like any writing, it takes practice.  I suggest any of you who have not written in the first person, take something you have already written, and for practice rewrite it from only one person’s point of view.  Tell only what they observe, or know, or have been told. Everything else has to be uncovered by the main character in conversation or observation.

I wish you much luck writing confession and personal experience stories.  I will be offering more tips from time to time; plus market news as I find out about it.

Of course, you can feel free to also add some of your own tips.

If interested in learning more about me, or finding any of my novels, you can do it here.