Which Me Shall It Be?

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. True - but which words? In the case of my sepia flower, the thousand words distills down to exactly two: Cathryn Louis. As my profile avatar, it is on just about every site I've joined. Because I've been involved in social media and portions of the online writing community for just about three years, it has become my brand.

On the other hand, common wisdom insists that readers are more comfortable when there's a picture of the author. Even so, I can't recall ever choosing - or laying aside - a book (print or electronic) because of the author's picture.

For me, including a picture is not a problem. Currently, there are several on my Facebook page from which I will choose. But what about my flower? Cathryn Louis, the author, is easily recognizable because of it. I truly believe that doing away with it is a mistake.

After much thrashing of my brain cells, I finally figured out that I don't have to choose. I'll keep the sepia flower as my profile avatar, and use my picture on my website and novels. Win-win! Love it when that happens.

Mashed Up Trippin'

Chaos is here. Wait...that's not true. I may as well own it. Whiplash or not, I MADE the chaos.

My life is - and always will be - a mashup. I'm into more than just a single theme, or even variations on that theme. But it's my choice whether it will be an artful mashup or have the appearance of someone's abandoned storage locker. I choose artful - dancing on the edge of steampunk with a touch of retro boho, always evolving toward whatever catches my eye. As you can see, I have to be vigilant to keep it from getting out of hand. Every step along the way to wherever it is I'm going, I have to think, "Simplify."

Am I a techie? Yes - first and foremost. Am I a writer? Heavens yes - I'm a word bender and proud of it. So what is the change?

Acknowledging both sides of myself and enabling them to develop synergy. In doing so, I have to be honest about what works and what doesn't. An opportunity has come along for 'techie me' that I embrace and will nurture. I've forced growth for 'author me' and I can now admit that for me, it's about the story - always the story, only the story.

The change may only be noticeable to me, but it's the difference between frenzied busy-ness and purposeful enlightenment. Finally, I'm loving the trip I'm on.

Whiplash

Something new has appeared, exploding my carefully managed elements of change into chaos. Did I go looking for it? Did it fall in my lap? It doesn't matter. However it got here, I have welcomed it. Now I have to tame the chaos it created; regain control of my journey down the yellow brick road - whether or not it's the same road on which I started out.


Priorities have shifted in favor of the new. All of my other endeavors are just as important as they ever were, it's just that this one is even more so. As long as I treat it as such, I have to believe that everything else will fall into place. I was already working to a new paradigm, and now, without warning, it has shifted - a WTF moment that has not yet ended, but keeps morphing into a different form. *whiplash*


Even so, the 'something new' is a blessing - and it hasn't bothered with a disguise.  I'm reminded of the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for..."


Well, it appears that I may have gotten 'it'.

Yellow and Curtains to Welching

Follow the yellow brick road! Hopefully, I'll fare better than the travelers who took the original one to Oz. As long as I avoid the poppy fields, it's a win. The only question is whether there will be an audience beyond the curtain.

Publishing statistics indicate that the most likely scenario is to pull back the curtain and find an empty auditorium. Audiences for fiction prefer to peek through the doors and sample the performance before taking a seat. With the thousands of available performances, the likelihood of any one attracting a packed house is small indeed - but it is possible. And I've committed.

Maybe I should be committed, but that's beside the point. What I mean is that I've committed myself to the road that I'm on and I'm honor-bound to see it through. Of course I can always change my mind, but then I'd be a welcher. Not a good habit to get into.

All I have to do is stay on plan. I've already stopped allowing every shiny object to distract me, but what I didn't expect was having to give up good stuff. There are loads of easily available, helpful and informative sources from which I know I can learn. Now, I have to limit myself to only those that take me further down the road I've chosen. The others will have to wait. Sigh...

Hatin' the Shades

Lately, I've been awful at keeping promises to myself. That's the problem with making them before I've given thought to a situation. This time, the promise I've broken is that I would stay out of the Fifty Shades of Grey debate. But - here I am talking about it.

The 'net - especially the blogosphere - is rife with discussions of its content and style. All opinions, even those that are fiercely held, are subjective - and mine has been rendered irrelevant. Why is that? AUDIENCE
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There are already thousands who have voted with their pocketbooks, contributing to the success of the Fifty Shades series. So many people have bought the books that the numbers attracted Hollywood and traditional publishing.

It would be crazy to pretend that I don't want the same - an audience that loves my work just as much as E. L. James' readers love Fifty Shades. But how do I attract them?

Since I'm in the midst of creating a marketing plan, I study every success, whether the author is traditionally-, independently- or self-published. I dissect their story in an effort to understand how they achieved it.

Do I think Ms. James' path to success will work for me? Probably not. But just as reading the works of others helps me improve the craft of writing, studying the success of others helps me make choices that are more likely to result in my own success.

To fulfill my dream of attracting an audience, I have lots of studying - and writing -  to do...and as we say in N'Awlins, "Ain't got no time for hatin'."

Dead Ostriches in the Bayou

Back when IBM ruled the southern tip of San Jose, California, there was a tiny deli that had one of the best sandwiches in the universe. The sandwich was called the Avocado Undecided, and was composed of two thick slices of white bread, hand-made sun-dried tomato mayonaise, bay shrimp and a whole sliced avocado. It was served open-faced, in a little plasti-wicker basket.

Why 'Undecided'? It was hard to choose whether to eat it with a fork or as a sandwich. Nice problem to have. I'm thinking about it now because I have a similar - but not as delicious - problem: my decision basket is over-stuffed.

It's my own fault - I've been procrastinating. Avoiding decisions that I should have made long ago. Now they overflow the basket, daring me to keep ignoring them. I'm the one who committed myself to this path. It doesn't matter that I now find it shifting under my feet. I ought to feel right at home - it's like navigating a bayou.

I don't know whether making each decision will send me forward, backward, or into the quickmud. But it's clear that I can no longer pretend to be an ostrich. (Ostriches in the bayou? Seriously? They'd be dead in seconds.)

The only way onward is to let go of doubt - and act. So here I go... Ummm... Making... a... decision... Really - I am. Starting now...

 

To Market, To Market - I Need a Great Plan!

Funny that sometimes one has to slide down the rabbit hole in order to see the light. Or in my case, jump off a cliff and grow wings on the way down. So much more hair-raising that way. I love that quote! It's so 'me'. And so far, I've still got all nine of my lives left.

The plan I need? Of course - a marketing plan. Though it's been mentioned in articles I've read and in webinars I've attended, the truth of it didn't sink in until I wanted to publish badly enough. Yep, I had to stand up in AA (Authors Anonymous) and admit the truth "I am an author and I want people to read - and love - my book." Deep breath. Then I realized what I had just said. I want people to buy my book. In this maddeningly tight economy. I want lots of people to part with their money, every dollar of which is dear, to buy Sparks.

Then I went to the flip-side and asked myself, "What would I do if my choices were to sell Sparks or starve?" Imagination kicked in. I became the heroine in my own tale and the answer was clear. If the risk is all mine and the funding is all mine, then I need a detailed starve-or-deliver-the-goods marketing plan - like the ones I do all the time for software projects on which I consult. Duh...

And get this - it matters not a whit whether I will be traditionally-, independently- or self-published. I still need a marketing plan. Yes, the big publishing houses and independent presses have established distribution and marketing channels. So what's the deal? If I want access to those channels, I have to be able to tell prospective agents and/or publishers what Sparks is about and who will want to read it. No, I don't mean genre and what groups of readers on the reading sites - though that is a good start. I've got to know exactly what my story is (contemporary fiction with a side of suspense) and exactly who is going to read it (the woman in 12B who's eating cold takeout while studying for her LSAT - well, lots of women like her and men who love women like her).

The ability to identify and connect with the right readers is crucial if one is self-publishing because there is nobody else to share the preparation and marketing costs. Even for the traditional or indie route it's best to have a detailed marketing plan - especially for debut authors. Keep the day job, peeps. Reserve the advance for marketing.

Bait N' Switch

The distant crashing of ocean waves accents crickets chirping in the lawn, and the occasional croak of a nearby frog; tonight's version of nature's orchestra. We lounge in the over-sized reading chaise; he, with his iPad, me, busy with the keyboard on my new Duo.

Encircling me with his arm, he looks over my shoulder. "You're over-thinking it."

I sigh. "I know, but I can't let it go."

"Maybe you need a diversion."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, a couple of things." Placing his iPad on the chair-side table, he kisses my ear, my cheek.

I put my laptop aside. I can always over-think it tomorrow...

Beautifully idyllic, and entirely fabricated. :-D

But it's far more interesting than what really happened: I simply decided to stop berating myself, and instead, be heartened by the spirit of encouragement.

Fuzzing Lurkers

They're lurking. The miniscule clumps, strands, and bits of primeval origin that were essential in the inception and growth of the story, but now hamper its ability to flourish. The story has outgrown them, but still they cling, abetted by the author who is complicit in their continued existence. I don't know that this is the general experience, but it is certainly mine.

Recognizing such minutiae is difficult. You only know that it's been fully eradicated when, as some experts say, 'a reader's eyes fly across the page'. I've come to understand that for me, a visual reader, it's when there are 'no images over which my brain can trip'. When I'm watching the story as I read, and then the picture goes intermittent and grainy, it's because I've hit a passage that I can't smoothly visualize. It took me a long time to realize the cause of the fuzzy scenes. I earlier had thought it was because I had a natural aversion to smoothly reading my own work, much as some visual performance artists have an aversion to watching theirs. Growth in the art of writing has destroyed that delusion.

To eliminate the sentences, phrases, and words that are organic to the story, yet now cause it to be unfocused, I've armed myself with a solution of plot, story advancement and voice; and then used it to delicately, but purposefully, buff out the interference.

Being 'done' has been a process of discovery, at each stage of which I truly believed that I was. On the one hand, the road I have traveled has accelerated my growth as a novelist. I am developing the art of self-editing, which is of great benefit to editors with whom I may work in the future. On the other hand, it is confusing and frustrating for those in the publishing business with whom I have interacted in the present. Maybe we'll have a chance to talk again now that I'm truly done.

Of course you are asking how do I know that this 'done' is the real deal. A reader long before I was a writer, I enjoy reading my favorite stories over and again. Now, I can do the same with my own, without stubbing my brain on an unfocused scene.

Hook, Lines and Sink... Er... Synopsis

Had a heck of a time with the post for this week. I wanted to share progress on my projects, but my brain held visions of artifacts. So I bowed to the pull of the universe, which after all, is far more powerful than all of us
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So what's on my mind? Months. Specifically, the months it took to compose the publishing artifacts for my novel: the short synopsis, hook, and log line. Each time I thought I'd finished them, I found that I hadn't. I'd thought so in October. A few weeks later, I revisited them and oh no...how could I have thought that they were any good? Carving out time before Christmas, when I really wanted to work on the new novel, I attacked the artifacts again. Surely, I'd edited them into perfection this time. Strike two. A few days into 2012, I revisited them again.

Yes I know. I've just said, "I visited them again, again." But it's true. Each time I reviewed them, it was with the experience of having previously reviewed and edited them. In my brain, such experiences accumulate, and over time, coalesce into a foot that promptly kicks me in the pants. This kick inspired me to play the story visually through my head as though it was a movie. WTH? Immediately, the most exciting moments jumped out at me, and I quickly wrote them down.

I'd had a head-bashing time of it while editing the (nearly) 120K version of the story down to the size it is now. Thinking about distilling it down to no more than two pages from the perspective of 'author' made doing so practically impossible for me.  Visualizing the story as though remembering a movie I had seen, revealed to me that I should use the synopsis to show the high points of the characters' journey, with the twists and turns that make the story an exciting ride. Fueled by that epiphany, I wrote with intent and purpose, fusing the plot points into a clear, concise, and shorter! synopsis; not a single wasted word.

To my surprise, the 'hook' easily fell into place. An adaptation of a paragraph that I had previously - and erroneously - thought of as the log 'line', and the first paragraph of the synopsis; the hook shows the beginning of the main character's journey and hints at the disasters to follow. The true log line took a little more work, as it had to be a single sentence. Toying with the high points from the synopsis, I saw that I could play on the incendiary meaning of 'Sparks' to create descriptive phrases for each of them. As I did so, a tag line fell into my thoughts. I'm keeping it - for now.

For the first time, I have a set of artifacts that I believe in; that truly represent the story. How good they are will only be revealed by time and results (or the lack thereof). But at least what I have is the foundation for what is to come. I finished them last Saturday, just in time to welcome in the year of the Fire Dragon. Happy Lunar New Year!

Same Key, Wrong Song

Last November, I went to great lengths to correctly label my style of writing. Satisfied, I changed all of my online profiles to proudly proclaim what I thought it to be. I had studied the authors in my library, and then the public library. I searched and researched, finally coming to the conclusion that - yes! - I am a romantic suspense author. Except that...I'm not.
Over the years, shopping at various bookstores, I saw that Mary Stewart's books, popularly touted as the exemplars of romantic suspense, were in the literary section. Other favorite authors whose works I considered to be romantic suspense were also in that section, and the novels of several more were in romance, thriller or suspense. It was confusing that there wasn't a separate section for romantic suspense, but I didn't give it as much thought as I should have, supposing that books in that genre were classified according to the depth of character exploration or the type of the predominant plot. Duh... That should have rung a bell, but unfortunately, my belfry was empty.
As I've started down the road toward publishing Sparks, a reoccurring theme emerged, urging me to investigate further (polite speak for 'I kept banging my head on an immovable brick wall'). So on a bookstore visit two weeks ago, I ventured to ask - and with a brief explanation, was shown to the romance section. I had known that romantic suspense is classified as a sub-genre of romance, but until that uh-oh moment, I hadn't realized the extent to which that identification has evolved.
Those looking for romantic suspense as it exists today expect a different story than the ones that I write. The suspense story in Sparks is far too dominant; and though the love story has it's passionate moments, it isn't meant to stand alone, but is purposefully woven through the suspense as a secondary strand.
No matter what key I believe I'm singing in, it's the market's song that matters.  And according to that song, Sparks may be many things; but it isn't romantic suspense.