13 Things in Publishing You Can't Guarantee

I'm going to keep this one short and simple today, to match my brain.

13 Things You Can't Guarantee in Publishing, No Matter Your Approach

1) Success.
2) Unless, of course, you're trying to fail.
3) Because you can succeed at failing pretty easily.
4) Even if you're preternaturally gifted, good looking and talented.
5) The way to do this would be quitting.
6) Voila! You failed! Instant success.
7) But then, what if you're trying to QUIT something, like releasing books before they're ready, or getting in flame wars with other authors, or posting your blog entries a day behind schedule?
8) Then quitting really WOULD be succeeding.
9) God, my head hurts.
10) But that could be the success talking.
11) After all, I successfully completed and posted my blog post on the day it was scheduled.
12) Just barely.
13) In certain time zones.

Voila! Success!

Jody W.
So much cyberspace, so little time!
www.jodywallace.com  / www.meankitty.com

13 Things I'm Not Blogging About Today

I am not blogging about....

1) What I had for dinner. No, seriously, I won't tell you. I'm not talking about dinner-type food today, although mine was quite delicious. But that's all the information you get.

2) My cat. She blogged Monday and I may post something on her behalf tomorrow, but not today. Nope.

3) The publishing industry.

4) What in the heck my husband is doing in the kitchen when he's supposed to be making popcorn so we can watch a movie now that the kids are finally asleep. We've already had the dinner I'm not going to talk about, and now it's OUR time together, so what the HECK is he doing instead?

5) My schedule for tomorrow. Which may or may not include a post about Meankitty. I cannot confirm or deny it, because I'm not blogging about it today. It may have to include watching a certain movie alone, though.

6) My work in progress, which may or may not be about a fake apocalypse. Just...not going there. That slippery slope leads straight into a blarrrrr about the publishing industry, and since I already decided not to blog about the publishing industry, my WIP is offlimits too.

7) All the laundry that piled up during vacation last week. I could have been doing some of it today, but instead of laundry, I was working on that thing I can't mention, then the other thing, and I can't do laundry now because I'm supposed to watch a movie with SOMEBODY who has DISAPPEARED into the kitchen, and what the heck is going on in there? What is that mysterious ticking noise?

8) This is the mysterious ticking noise, btw:



9) I'm not going to blog about The Mysterious Ticking Noise, I'm going to just let it speak for itself.

****WHERE was I? Right. I am not going to blog about...

10) Politics.

11) The RWA Conference preparations and how excited I am about going. Because I'm not going. I thought I might stay home and spend time with SOMEBODY who has this sudden need to disappear into the kitchen and not make popcorn. What's in there, an alternate dimension? A comic book he's never seen before? Boatloads of laundry?

12) The movie I'm not watching, because of that disappearing SOMEBODY. I mean, is this some kind of trick? A disappearing trick? Is he studying to be a magician, and this is his homework? Or is he a spy, like Perry the Platypus, and he's jumped through the front door of the dryer to disappear into his secret spy hideout before going on a mission that apparently does not include popcorn for me?

13) The excellent news that... Oh, the popcorn's ready. Gotta go.

Jody W.
www.jodywallace.com  * www.meankitty.com

The Five Worst Blog Posts Ever

It's that time of the month again. No, not THAT time of the month, time for me to post here at BtV, my chance to shine and come up with some witty and poignant bit of prose meant to inform or entertain.

That's a lot of pressure. I mean, it's only once a month, and yet some months I get the notice that my day is approaching and I tense up. What am I going to write about? My mouth goes dry - what if no one reads what I wrote, or they HATE it? What if I can't be spontaneous and funny and we lose readers and I get kicked out of the blog? (okay, I don't think they would, but you never know.) I've been working on guest blog posts and interviews for a Special Something I'm doing in May, and I tried to be sometimes serious and sometimes humorous, and here's what I've concluded: it's hard to be interesting.

I mean, with all the bloggers and authors and tweeters out there, I'm just another voice in the wilderness. I know some people have huge audiences for their blogs, cranking out daily articles that aren't too long (because now we know that people want sound bites, not manifestos) and that grab their readers and make them want to come back. It's hard to do day after day. I used to try and blog every day, but it got to be monotonous. Not much happens to me on a daily basis. So I gave up the every day thing and only post on my personal blog when I have something to say, usually related to my writing, or only really important things in my life that I want to share. I tweet and post to Facebook, so if you're really REALLY interested in the minutiae of my daily life, there you are.

But, in honor of those who feel the compulsion to blog every day, even if they have nothing interesting to say, I give you the Five Worst Blog Posts Ever (titles only).

5. Catwatch, Day 65: Hairballs Ahoy!
4. What I Ate For Breakfast  (unless you're talking about chocolate-covered bugs or something, no one cares. And if you ARE talking about chocolate-covered bugs, um, well, I don't need to read about it, do I?)
3.  How to Make Hospital Corners or: My Life in Dustbunnies
2.  Three Things I Found While Cleaning out My Purse
And the number one WORST blog post ever....

1. My Colonoscopy (A Video Blog)


Have a great week!

Twitter Vs Blogging: 13 Comparisons

Since I started Tweeting over 2 years ago, I have found that I'm less and less inclined to blog. I don't know if this represents and essential laziness on my part or an adjustment to the wiles of the Internet or some combination of both. Certainly Twitter isn't really designed to allow deeper thoughts or leisurely discussions or anything beyond the edges of my ideas. While this might be good for worldbuilding (See the Turkey City Lexicon for the reference), is it equally good for critical thinking, career building, networking, promotion, joke telling (of jokes that are longer than knock knock jokes), essay sharing and so on and so forth?

So I thought I might do a quick comparison between Twitting and Blogging for the Writer, and I invite you all to add your thoughts in the comments, since this is a blog and not Twitter and you can do that instead of having to hang around Twitter all the time checking your @ replies to see if anybody said anything.

1) Both of them have dumb names. Twitter. Blogs. They're just dorky words. They can't help themselves, I guess.

2) Blogging takes more thought but not necessarily more time, because some people (not naming names!) are on Twitter constantly.

3) I have a lot more Twitter followers than Blog readers, but does anyone really pay attention? I'd say the Blog readers are more likely to, but Twitter...not so much.
4) Blogs create a repository of your cleverness with fewer injokes, retweets, comments about your dinner (ie painful mundanity that is reviled by some), and half-viewed discussions that people who check out your archives aren't going to "get".

5) Twitter is easier to do from mobile devices or when you're in a hurry. Multitaskiness!

6) You can illustrate blogs without requiring your audience to link over to another website, because we've all heard things about how you shouldn't follow links in Twitter (if you haven't heard things, now you have!).

7) Blogs are all about YEW, while Twitter is all about who just said the funniest thing and got it retweeted. And that is rarely YEW.

8) Both blogging and Twitter can be frustrating if you're yakking away and nobody's listening. BUT you're more likely to get the thrill of "being noticed" on Twitter or get the chance to chat with people you admire than the chances of them dropping by your blog about, I dunno, Twitter vs Blogging.
9) Twitter helps you exercise your brevity muscles. What are brevity muscles? Well, when your evil editor tells you to cut 20K from your novel, you will use these muscles a lot.
10) Blogging exercises your writing muscles in a way that ensures your brevity muscle doesn't become the only working muscle in your arsenal. But then again, so does WRITING :).
11) Your mom probably likes your blog more than Twitter, unless she's on Facebook, but we're not here to talk about Facebook.
12) When you happen to be in need of a wee bit of social interaction, which those of us who spend most of our time alone with our computers can be, Twitter provides it much better than blogging.
13) The problem is, if you do both wholeheartedly, that's half again as much time away from your writing. This isn't really a comparison so much as a complaint. BOO. Why isn't there more time in the world?

So what are your thoughts? Which one do you like better and why?

Jody W.
http://www.jodywallace.com/ * http://www.meankitty.com/

Networks and the antisocial writer

Okay, so maybe I'm not really "antisocial", but I'm not an outgoing person, either. That, in part, is why I write. I can say all those things I want to say but would never dare. I just let my characters do the talking.

Then along comes the aspect of writing that I find the toughest of all -- self-promotion. I'm not comfortable saying "Read my books, they're fantastic", but that's basically what you have to do. You have to convince all those readers out there that your story is the one they cannot do without.

Social networks have become both the saving grace and bane of many writers' careers. The thing that attracts us first: they're free. Free is always good. And they manage to reach a huge and varied audience. Learning to use social networks to our advantage...well, that's a whole other ballgame.

I'm not the best at the social network thing. Yes, I have my spot at MySpace and my own Facebook page. I also have a page at Manic Readers; tried out Bebo for a time; and have two twitter profiles -- long story. Then there's this blog, my own blog, Shades of Suspense, and the Samhain Author Blog. Overkill? Likely. But when you hear about the latest great thing, you hop on board the train.

My problem with all this is: What do I say? What on earth is so wonderful about my life that people would want to read about it on a daily or even weekly basis? Then there's the big dilemma of where the hell do I get the time to do it all???? I have five children, 9-18. I home-school them all ... except the oldest son (age 14) who is jumping ship to try his wings in high school. I also have a home to take care of -- I do clean occasionally; a husband that needs a bit of attention (men!); and, oh yeah, there's the writing thing I really should spend some time on.

It can get a bit overwhelming. What's a girl to do?

Well, I think I've somewhat figured it out. You have do what's best for you. Personally, I feel more comfortable at Facebook than I do at MySpace, so the former is where I'm more likely to log in every day. However, do note that if you're my friend and send me a hundred applications, I'll likely ignore most of them. It's not personal. It's time management. Besides, I have no secret desire to join the Mob. Really, I don't.

As far as blogging goes, I'll stick with what I have. I will admit, I'm still trying to find that blog-voice. So many come by it naturally, but not me. I don't feel completely comfortable sharing cute family trivia and day-to-day antics -- we have them, believe me. But there are too many eyes out there. Too many people I don't know from Adam, and these are my kids. I've also found I'm not the best at sharing writing advice. So I think I need to be somewhere in the middle...and it's a middle I'm still searching for.

Then just when I think I have this social network thing somewhat under control, along comes another invite to another network someone in my circle has discovered. Here that sound? It's me...banging my head on the keyboard.

Btw, do read my books. They're great! (GGG)

~~Meg Allison

Indulge your senses...
http://www.megallisonauthor.com

Lazy git

You know how everything always happens at once? Events never happen at evenly spaced intervals. Oh no. It's usually a bunch of vitally important things that you HAVE to be at, all overlapping by an hour, on the same day, across town from each other.

Welcome to my Friday.

I'm not actually here. I'm in Indianapolis. Or at least on my way there. I'm also blogging here at Beyond the Veil AND at the Samhain Blog.

So in the spirit of saying "I can't take it anymore!" this is nothing more than a blog post telling you to go to the Samhain blog to read the real post, which should, God willing, go live at 3pm EST. Given the way my luck is running, I'll come home to find that techno-wizardry has bitten me on the ass. Again.

I will be so glad once Christmas is officially over.

Attention, all paranormal authors!

If you have a new release and are planning a virtual book tour, we have guest blog slots available every other Tuesday.

Interested? Contact the Admin at carolanivey @ yahoo.com.