The opinion of writers groups varies entirely across the board. There are some people, authors and writers, who swear by them as support structures and then there is a much, much larger majority (mostly of successful published authors) who believe writers groups are nothing less than highly destructive. In this post I’m going to explore the reasons why writers groups have got such a bad reputation and also why, in some cases, they have a very good reputation.
My writers group, my aunt, and I, have become something of celebrities in our writing piece of Minnesota. What we have become and done for many years is unprecedented. We have stayed together, kept motivated, welcome new members and all of our members have become published authors. We have also kept our fourteen year old book churning out year after year, publishing Minnesota authors (without a reading fee) and offering $1500 worth of prizes every year. We have no membership dues and rely mostly on benefits to keep us publishing and supporting Minnesota writers year after year. We are a nonprofit and we are proud of what we have accomplished. The Jackpine Writers’ Bloc.
Writers alone in the woods
There are many different types of writers that come and introduce themselves to our group. The one defining quality of almost all of them is that their writing has never been read by anyone outside their families. They have basically never conversed with other writers and are a little terrified. They hold their work against their chest like it’s a light sensitive baby and when they come to our monthly meetings and read it, they go either one way or the other.
Can’t take critisism
Writers who absolutely cannot take criticism and seem to believe that while they’ve been off writing alone in the woods they have become Hemmingways. While we sit through their reading we’re left giving critique and support to deaf ears. We find out soon enough that this writer came for only one thing. To read in front of other writers and have those other writers bow before their brilliance.
I absolutely cannot say this enough. Not only is your writing not great or interesting but the majority of it is downright SHIT. No matter how good it may or not be it can be IMPROVED. Until you’re willing to improve as a writer and hear criticism you are a complete waste of time to other writers. And you’re a complete waste of time to yourself and you will never improve as a writer. But I guess if you think you’re perfect at this point anyway than you don’t need to improve. Do you?
Giving Criticism
I’m one lucky chick to have several long time highly published authors in my group. And many avid readers/writers. They give unique and interesting advice and have helped me in the past. The major problem with most writers’ groups is that they become full of a few very crappy writers, and very closed minded people.
Be Warned.
These people have destroyed many writers to make themselves feel better about their own shitty work. No, this is not how it always is but I think all writers groups have this sad truth within them at least a little bit. Every writers group has people who like and or dislike certain genres of writing and write themselves in a very specific genre. They cannot help but judge your writing against what they like.
The hardest thing to find is someone who can comment objectively on just the technique and form of the writing and not on the subject. This is an extremely rare person and is almost impossible to find. Do I think I am one of these people? As much as I possibly can be.
Whether you like it or not.
Your writing will be shaped by the opinions of the writers group. If you’re willing to take critique you fill find your writing will begin to take on different shapes. Read as much as you can and get as many opinions as possible about your writing. You will be able to glean and apply and grow faster than anyone else alive in your art of writing.
The Bad.
The only problem with a writers group (assuming they are good authors and readers who know how to critique properly and not just be stupid assholes) is that you can take it one step to far. It is possible to start writing to appease the people in your writers group. Never allow this to happen. Find your voice and stick with it. For years I have been the only commercial fantasy fiction writer in my group and they simply haven’t been able to help me much. It’s tough for poets and memoir-ists to make an intelligent critique on fantasy commercial fiction. But they are wonderful people and great writers in their own genre and I’ve taken their criticism as I would from anyone on the street picking up my book and reading it. As most novelists know good readers are damn hard to find but my writers group remains there for me, my encouragement and my support.
I will say it again.
You simply can not read enough, write enough, and get your writing read by enough people. Learn to glean from comments. If twelve out of thirteen people don’t like that line, consider changing it. If only one person doesn’t like it than everyone is entitled to her/his opinion. Know who your readers are and don’t be surprise if the love poet isn’t that fond of your horror novel. Take nothing personally and all of those readers will at least give you one very important thing.
Thick skin.
You know you’re going to need it when you actually want to get published. Become apart of the writers community in your area. Become a part of the writers of this country. Know what you’re trying to get into, don’t be shy. The longer you hide behind those trees the harder it will be to break in to the industry. As long as you’re careful to stay objective, take every opinion worth a grain of salt, becoming a part of a writers community will benefit you.
I swore in my last post that the next post I wrote I would be proclaiming a finish of the final going-through and line-editing of Osondrous’ and Constance’s story of Embraced by Darkness. (Wow that was a mouthful.) I did it. I took the day off from everything else in my life (my wonderful boyfriend even made supper for me when I stopped once to eat) and I got through it. I even managed to cut it down to just under 70 thousand words and that had been my crossed fingers hope that I had completely give up on. But going through it again I was able to cut even more and where I had been a little hesitant when I worked through it to start with I was able to be more fierce with this last edit.
Osondrous’ and Constance’s part of the book started at around 93,000 and ended up at just under 69,000. WOOHOO! It was tough and this last push took me eight hours. Jezaline’s story was nowhere near so tedious. The only thing I can come up with as why is just because of word count. I watched the pages slowly trickle by today. Osondrous was sitting at 133 (81/2 by 11 page size) and when I finished with Jezaline she was in the 80s. That’s less than I thought would make such a difference. But I finally got through it and I am so relieved.
New Decisions
As you might already have noticed I am an avid Stephen King fan. He is my number one. Simply put. Judge me as you will I don’t give a rat’s ass. In my opinion he is the best commercial fiction writer in existence. Something Stephen King is very fond of doing with his books is omitting chapters all together.
I am immediately drawn back to conversations with other writers (not novelists) about how important chapters are. And “how chapters should each be there own complete story” Are you kidding? What the hell. The book is the story, it should never pause for any reason besides itself. Chapters are formalities that are forced that the story of the book must pause around. And the minute novelists start altering chapters, to make them stories in their own right, is the minute the real story, the book itself, is lost.
I am dropping the chapter thing and have settled into the notion that I will be granting my book pauses numbers. Each story will have it’s own start and end with it’s numbering. Otherwise the book will have four main parts.
No more chapters. I am boycotting.
It just killed me tonight to not start numbering as I went. It makes so much more sense. Where the book pauses but where it would never been correct to start a new chapter, now I have the next number. Each of my stories (Osondrous, Karalay and Jezaline) will start at 1 and end where they end. I will force nothing. No more chapters.
Moving on to Karalay
I will have a formal post when I really start work on her story but I’m damn near delirious. Karalay is at 71,000 words right now, 20,000 less than where Osondrous started. This will be less of a heart ache than the last push to finish this Osondrous. Though I am both looking forward to her story, I am also apprehensive. I have as many add-ons to Karalay’s story as I did for Jezaline’s and just as much to cut. As always I am doubting my ability to do it right. But I also know that this kind of work moves faster than Osondrous’ story did. I had little to add to Osondrous, her story was just edit work. That is tedious as hell.
Karalay’s story I am hoping will be fun and I will ride a happy wave on my way through it.
A little lofty and dreamy? Sure. But I’ll take anything I can get.
Thoughts on the finishing touches
I’m thinking a lot about how this book is going to get put back together. I’m afraid this is going to be a major, final headache, to finish this monster. I have notes made in my brain where each story needs to end and start the next portion of the other story beside it. I’m terrified. Strictly speaking. Absolutely terrified I’m going to have to read, line for line and even rewrite to get this book to fit again. This is where I can’t let my momentum fail me. The instant I finish Karalay I need to start putting this thing back together while Osondrous and Jezaline are still fresh.
I can’t stress this more
No amount of notes can get you back to knowing every nook and cranny of your book. If you walk away, expect to have to read everything again and forget a lot. Write everything down and don’t walk away until at least some kind of outline, with all of your thoughts, is down on paper. I’m speaking from tragic experience here. I know that I’ve lost a lot.
Short story site
I’m also working on a 7,000 word short story for a site I was forwarded from my writers’ group http://www.one-story.com. Writers’ group can be great things. Wish me luck! I’ll be submitting sometime soon. I sent my story off to my writers’ group for critique (I have not yet considered asking any of them to read my novel I will post soon on what I think, truly, about writers’ groups) and I’m hoping for some good edits.
http://www.one-story.com
In writers groups across the country November has become synonomous with NANOWRIMO. That is (to those of you who don’t know): National Novel Writing Month. From the website you can get this description of what exactly it means to be a part of NANOWRIMO:
>>National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.<<
(From the center news section of my writers’ group’s website you can read the status reports and info of all ten of our members who are trying to complete NANOWRIMO.)
I don’t really get it.
Obviously you’re probably wondering what somebody like me would think of something like NANOWRIMO. I think it’s absolutely wonderful for the people that participate. And for the writers that finish. I think it’s a great confidence booster and I think it’s a way to find ideas and reach beyond yourself/farther into you’re own imagination than you normally would. NANOWRIMO is a cool motivational tool.
However, I do not think it is real novel writing. Am I being a snively little brat? You’re damn right. The very idea that someone would call what they’re accomplishing in four weeks the exact same name of what I’ve been working on for ten years is damned offensive. I want to throw a fit and I can’t help it. I smile stonily, coldly, politely and I have never said a bad word about NANOWRIMO. But I can’t help but feel as though my work (and the years of extensive work made by thousands of novelists across the world) is belittled every year in November.
My writing averages out to 2 thousand words an hour. I could write 50,000 words in 25 hours. Where in the hell did they pull 50,000 out of? Most publishing companies won’t accept a 50,000 word “novel” because it’s too short. I think it should be doubled. 100,000 word book would actually give people something to work with at the end. Something they can edit and cut from. Something they can shape. Right now, ending on 50,000 words just means if they want a full length book then they’re going to have to keep adding even after they “finished” NANOWRIMO.
“But that’s not what NANOWRIMO is about Tarah!” Okay, I’ll bite. I am fully aware this is a motivational tool to help bring out the stories in the people attempting it. It is also a confidence booster for those that manage to finish. It is not about having a book ready to publish after one month it’s about having the confidence to try to have a book ready SOMEDAY. Because, it has been proven, most writers never start because they’re intimidated by the idea of a novel. NANOWRIMO changes all of that. Okay, but I still think that if National Novel Writing Month is not about finishing a full length novel in a month than they’ve got some serious false advertising going on!
Yeah, and I still don’t get it
Yup, I don’t. I just don’t. I’ve literally had mentors and friends of mine suggest I do NANOWRIMO to help “put away” my internal editor and learn “to just write”. Hmm. I’ve never told them that I’ve cut and added 50,000 words in less than a week on average for years working on my monster. But I don’t say these things because most writers seem to think that 50,000 is a big number. I don’t. And writers like me who would say something of how many words I work with generally are thought of as show-offs and liars and are usually not liked. So, no, I haven’t said anything outloud.
If I actually devoted myself to 50,000 words what I would end up with is a book just as far from finished as my rewrite is right now. I would do it in less than week and I would have another big chunk of writing that needs days and days of my utmost editting attention. The only thing I will accept from the NANOWRIMO idea is to work on my book like my life depends on it. Like I have an eight week deadline that will send me straight to hell if I don’t have a finished Embraced by Darkness. This has helped me keep working, keep focused and stay determined no matter what. Despite the doubt and the hesitation and my own cautiousness. Getting stuck somewhere in the book where I may be, unmoving, not progressing, for several weeks, is not an option. And it has been with this attitude that I started this blog. I have found this new attitude extremely helpful in keeping me focused, one-minded, attacking my book.
As of right now I have spent four days without looking at Embraced by Darkness. It is the longest I have spent away from it in six weeks. I have deleted over 30,000 words from the book (roughly averaging to every thousand words that I end up deleting have been added and deleted about three times throughout the process. So when I say 30,000 I actually mean I have been fiddling around with 90,000 words). Does all of that sound like an astronomical amount? I’ve never professed these number to any person, especially my writers’ group. I’m afraid they’ll think I’m showing off or they simply won’t believe me. But this is my blog and I am determined to be as honest and as tedious with my “book-keeping” as possible. Regardless if anyone ever reads this. This blog is about me.
I have finished going through, adding, deleting and re-writing two thirds of the book and finished line-editing one third of the book. Thinking of it like this I literally feel my heart sore. Two thirds done… How bout that? I have been trying to get back to my book the past two days because I finished Osondrous’ story and need to go back through it and line-edit it and I’ve had some trouble getting motivated. But now I see, what am I waiting for? I’m almost done!
As I have been trying to go back to my book I have felt Embraced by Darkness coming back to me. It always does. Not matter how long it’s been or how much of a break my mind and spirit needed from writing. My books have always come back to sit at my subconscious and touch in to my everyday thoughts and actions. And when this happens, I start to get excited and I start to reach for it. When we meet is when I am at my most productive and my next post I am determined will say “I finished line-editing Osondrous and I have begun Karalay’s story. The last story of Embraced by Darkness.”
Then what?
That’s too scary to contemplate. Once I’ve finished Embraced by Darkness and my years and years of work is as done as it can be. Than we all know what comes next. If I have the balls and the funds to send my monster out I am guaranteed a mountain of rejection letters and wasted money that I don’t have to throw away.
Doubt.
But I am going to finish Embraced by Darkness anyway and when it’s done I’m going to go to my next book; The Death of Eliana. And then my next book and then my next. They all sit at my subconscious and touch in to my everyday thoughts and actions. I will work on a book the rest of my life, I know this now. Whether I am ever a published novelist. This is what I’m going to be doing.
Well, I got through it. Not with the ambition and excitement and startling hope I had at the end of Jezaline. But I’m satisfied. Osondrous and Constace’s stories ended smoothly enough to make me happy. That was something I was really worried about. If you read my last post you know that I was really apprehensive with just ten pages left that I felt like I had rushed some of it. But I re-worked it. Added a little and I think it smoothed out pretty well.
Osondrous’ story is the guts of my book. She was truly my start and it was her actions that started the chain reaction that affected the entire story and all of my other characters. So I am more apprehensive and a lot more concerned about getting this just right. I don’t know if I did that. But I know I did the best I could. But I am filled with doubt that maybe my best is just not good enough.
I’ve connected Jezaline’s story now more than ever with Osondrous and Constance’s part of the book. I hope that this will make my book easier to understand. I did get the un-worked book read by friends and the biggest complaint was just confusion. Like, “What the hell is going on?” and I’m crossing my fingers that these more obvious connections that I’ve added now will clear everything up.
When I finished Jezaline’s portion of the book I was raring to go and read through it and line edited it right away. I’m exhausted with Osondrous’ portion and I don’t know if I will do it. Though I feel I should. I feel obligated. I’m going to think about it.
Osondrous started at around 92,000 words and at this moment it is at 74,816. I was hoping to cut at least twenty thousand but I don’t know if there is more that I can cut. When I go through it again, I am certainly going to try to cut more.
This is the last words of Osondrous’ portion. I hope you appreciate it and like it. I ended her as softly as I could.
EXCERPT FROM EMBRACED BY DARKNESS: OSONDROUS’ STORY
Copyright Tarah L. Wolff All Rights Reserved.
She hugged herself against the breeze, acknowledged no one. She got to her chamber and collapsed down before the fire. She held her shaking hands, stared at the little note again. Karalay’s sure and true hand writing. Had Karalay known what lay before her when she wrote it? Did Karalay know she would become queen with so little consideration?
“Forgive me.” Osondrous whispered, “Karalay, forgive me.”
Osondrous held the note to her chest, closed her eyes. She swore she would make it up to Karalay. To everyone. She threw the parchment into the fire and watched it burn. Shook her head, got herself up to her knees. She drew Mlore from her hip, laid the sword down in its place before the fire. Bowed to it.
Osondrous laid down on the stone floor, felt her aching muscles give to the feeling. She stretched her arms above her head, took off her shirt, her vest. Her clothes down to the wraps around her breasts, her many bandages. Wanted to rip them off, let her body be free to breathe. Her foot ached horrifically, removing her boots was agony. She laid, stared into the fire. Disappointed she could not feel the stone on every bare part of her. Disappointed she could not feel health. Disappointed she could not feel confidence. Scared that Karalay would return, knowing how she had failed.
Eikian stepped into the chamber. Curled his hooves beneath him before the fire, laid his sword down beside Mlore.
She rose to her knees beside him, hands on her thighs.
“I doomed Karalay the day I became queen. I doomed Diggamara.” Eikian stared at their touching swords.
“I gave Grim his chance to take the last crystal.” Osondrous never looked at him.
“Why did you let Tarick go?” Eikian did not look at her.
“He gave up his life to be with her, his gift, to die and go to her. And he did not die. Against all odds, he did not die. He asked me to let him go so he could try and save her.”
The fire burned quietly. Osondrous stared into it, her eyes filled.
“When you find someone who loves you, there is no greater gift and nothing more worth giving up everything for.”
Eikian kept his eyes down.
She looked at him. “Eikian?”
He faced her. She rose to her knees, slipped against his hard body. Him on his belly and her on her knees they were at eye level. She pressed her face against the skin beneath his ear, in his hot neck. Her tongue slipped along his collar bone, she kissed him with her mouth open.
She said, “I will be given no greater gift than you.”
He shushed her with his mouth, with his enormous strength. And she embraced, for the first time, her life truly without Telenay. Her life without the field that was who she had thought she was. In his arms, in that moment, she was a failed queen. A failure as she had never been a failure.
But Eikian held her, kissed her, moved his fingers down her body like she was not a failure but as though she were perfect. Pretty. Beautiful. A woman as she had never been a woman. He touched her as only a warlord could. Without fear or reservation. With respect but not reverence. As equals.
And she met him entirely for the first time. Laying away all of her reservations that had always stopped her. He unwrapped her breasts and cupped her taught skin. Wrapped his lips around her pink nipples.
“Be mine entirely.” His hot breath sent a scatter of bumps down her pricked skin.
“Yes.” She said.
In the darkness the fire cast their silhouettes as a single shadow. An embrace of pure darkness. Death bringer meeting death bringer. They gave in to the inevitably of their lives together.
Well, I did get through it. If you read my last post I had come to a bit of a halt when I reached Constance in the midst of Osondrous’ story. I got so comfortable working on one at a time. That was why I split my book up in the beginning. Each story of my three main characters were standing on their own.
I got spoiled.
I finished Jezaline’s story adding things I had never considered before. It all came together in a way that it never could have without my full focused attention. I can’t believe I never did this before.
Every time I tried attacking this novel before it was one page at a time. Start to end. Moving back and forth between the characters as I went. And I have found out that I am not super woman. Some writers could absolutely do that: go back and forth without forgetting anything, without losing the acceleration and the attitude of the previous character.
I am not capable of that.
I know this now. I work much better with one focused task. Last week it was Jezaline, start to finish and I am elated to say that her story now has a richness that it never did before. Her childhood, her history her entire life became an element when before she was so one dimensional. She has a real ending now. Not just for the story but for her emotionally too.
Telling the emotional story.
I am becoming more and more aware as I go of the two separate stories that make up every book I have ever read. The emotional story and the physical story. I think I have mentioned this before in recent posts. But I’m going to spend some time now to elaborate on what it means to me, as a writer, right now.
I have struggled consistently with what I call my “A.D.D” I am the worst kind of reader, I am bored, I am skipping and scanning because I can’t stand needless diddling. Until a writer can prove to me that that shit they just wrote about the history of that tree matters to the story at all, I am not going to read it no matter how great that description might be.
I am obviously commercial fiction through and through. That I have never denied. It’s no wonder that my favourite book this year was written by Stephen King (It) and the book I’m reading (for the second time) right now (Lisey’s Story) was also written by Stephen King.
I don’t just read Stephen King because he appeals to my reader but also because he equally appeals to my writer. I am absolutely in awe at his genius. I have never read a writer who took “omit needless words” to such an exceptional level. If I could worship him as a God, I would, but I don’t think he’d give me the time of day and I wouldn’t blame him.
In the past, because of the reader in me, I was very very bad at just writing the physical story and letting the emotion story be nonexistent. My worst habit as a writer was that, in the very early beginning, I took “Do not tell. Show.” to the literal level.
Don’t do that.
“Don’t tell. Show.” does not mean to omit your narrator. What “Don’t tell. Show.” means is to give reason for the emotions of your characters. For the telling of the emotional/past story behind the physical story. You must link your physical to your emotional. Instead of just having her sad one day and a telling description of her past give her a link that makes her sad that reminds her of her past by planting something important in the physical. Why is she outside? Why don’t you link that. Don’t have her outside just wandering around for no apparent reason cause she likes trees for no apparent reason. Maybe she’s outside because she was driven there by her haunted past. Maybe trees have always been a place she can run because she climbed in the oaks behind the barn at the farm she grew up on. Think about it. Omit needless everything.
It isn’t just about sentence structure, about “the road to hell is paved in adverbs” this goes all the way down to the very bones of your story. If Stephen King can’t find an important reason for that very cloud to be in the book, it’s just not there. If that beautiful day has no relevance, than it shouldn’t be there.
And you say “But I do shit all of the time that has no apparent meaning!!” Yeah, and how long would you want to read about your life?
I tell myself again and again. I will not waste my readers’ time on insignificant shit. No matter how well it’s described.
Ten pages to go.
And that is it. Only ten more pages to go of 142. I have now cut Osondrous’ and Constance’s part of the book down from 92,567 words to 73,881. I am happy but a little apprehensive. I am disappointed in the place I am working on right now. It seems I rushed their ending a bit. I did not keep up their rhythm like I thought I had through the end. In fact I really reverted. I skipped whole days and recalled important events in scanty dialogue. I don’t really want to but I’m afraid I may have to add a bit more to their story though I was really hoping to hit a full twenty thousand words cut.
But I did break through the problems I was having. I did manage to find the heart of Constance. And even Osondrous seems to have taken on more layers. I have made her with more flaws now. They are both more realistic, I think. I still have to add though and I am apprehensive about it. I fear my doubt it showing again.
There will always be hard days. I went through the worst when I got through the re-write of my monster last time. But writing is work. Writing is practice. Writing is a talent. Writing is a desire. Writing is a process. All of those things mean to me tonight is that sometimes not all of them show up. No matter how late or early, how much time I’ve spent away from the beast; sometimes I’m lacking process. Practice. Work. Desire. Or, most importantly, I feel tonight like I am lacking talent. Doubt. But it isn’t actually doubt tonight. It’s plain and simple fact. I am working on my Osondrous piece of the story. And it is hard. Writing through Osondrous was the easy one. Not what I expected but now it does all make sense.
Osondrous was flowing from me. This is my warlord. This is my character who is more like me than any of the others. I can identify with Osondrous and in a thousand ways I have been writing her story my entire life. It was when Constance came into play when I find myself slipping.
When I had written so much for Osondrous, gone through so many words one night I was so tired. And I wanted to share with you the last sentence I wrote, then pressed save and finally quit. And when I opened the document the next day this was it:
As Osondrous entered it was filled with all many of peoples.
lol. Sometimes we do have to laugh at ourselves. Our own ridiculous persistence. That was only three days ago. Osondrous is now tucked into her bed and I am diving into Constance. I have come to a halt. I can force words. I’ve been an author a long time. I am experienced enough now I know how to write so regardless. No matter what. I can write. But I did not expect this of Constance.
Constance is an innocent in my book. Bad things happen to her. She is naive, beautiful and sickeningly young. And she is very happy. She has a suitor and it is with him that I am adding more to her story. Aerick is her man. Her man whose trying so hard for her. This is young love though Aerick is nothing like Constance. He is a soldier, a good solider, and there is nothing naive about him.
But that doesn’t matter. This is Constance’s story.
I am having a hard time slipping into her. I understand her needs and her wants. I know her past. But I don’t feel her. Her words are difficult. Her descriptions are like pulling teeth. I find myself awkward and at a loss.
This is obviously not what I wanted in this last effort into my monster. I fear my words are not flowing no matter what. If I’m not inspired, if I don’t know this character, I’m fucking positive, I won’t be able to give her clearly to a reader.
The truth is that Constance is shallow. She has no experience. No depth. She has so little history it’s sad. I can’t tell you how many times I refrain from typing, “she giggled” for the umpteenth time. I don’t want people to hear me tell them she’s giggling I want them to be giggling too. I want my readers to want to be squirming with glee because we were all there once. Weren’t we?
And I think this is where my child hood is showing. No, I can’t ever remember being like her. Bad days. Things I won’t talk about here. But I think we’ve all faced the fact that no matter how our writing should not be a part of us. It is us. Aunts call. Mom’s need us. Boyfriends urge us to come back to bed. Every moment of my life alters my writing. I have trouble writing Constance because I was never a Constance. In fact I’m afraid my descriptions of Constance will come off as mockery. And Constance deserves better.
So, here’s to having a bad writing day. Even though it was beautiful here. We got a fantastic thing done in our lives that makes everything shine. Regardless. This is a bad writing day.
I hope tomorrow, after I’ve worked on it in my sleep. After I work on it while I tape and bed the drywall upstairs and while I make dinner and we get groceries at the little store down the street. I will have found a heart for her. Where I can write unflinchingly and without judgment. Where I can honestly say not only do I understand her but that I also may have been her once, at least in my wildest dreams.
So I’m letting him call me to bed tonight. I’m allowing myself to be dragged away because I am accomplishing nothing here right now. Tomorrow will be better. It has to be. I have to believe that I am a good writer. I am an accomplished writer. Damn it, I can write Constance, and tomorrow I will.
I was in a conversation with a writer once and she casually asked how much a general website would cost. And I gave her the run down, setup fees, domain registration costs and design costs. I told her our bare fee would always be $135 per year to keep a website up, running and the domain registered.
She sniffed and said, “Oh, then could you guarantee that I would sell $135 a year worth of books?” I was taken back. I almost expected this woman to demand that I would put up that $135 a year if she didn’t sell that worth of books.
I said, “Do you ever sell that much in a year?”
The rest of the conversation is irrelevant but it got me thinking more and more on why a writer needs a website. And what a writer should expect from a website. Being a website designer and full fledged supporter of all people having their own website these are questions I have come upon before.
Why a writer needs a website:
Lets start with the obvious.
You need a website because someday your going to send your manuscript to a publisher on the hope that they might be interested. You know most of them wont be but that one special editor that thinks they could have a place for your book is absolutely going to do one thing. The editor is going to google your name. Have you ever googled your name? How about job interviews: You know that right now more people who hire anyone google their name first to see what’s on the internet about them. Google your name right now. What comes up? I can tell you that what you’re going to find is nothing that you can control.
Good or bad, what google finds is nothing you can change. However, you can guarantee one thing by having your own website. It will probably be first on the list and your own website is the only information you can put on the internet that you can control.
What about professionalism?
A stunning, well designed, updated website is impressive. When I see a nice website that is devoted to an author. I think: This person is trying to create a fantastic impression. This author wants to be taken seriously and is getting on his/her own bandwagon from the very beginning.
Maybe it’s not for you though.
Websites are not cheap and there is always the chance that your site will offer you very little. There is a place for folks who just will not benefit from a website. Their writing will never go main stream, they’ll never have a job interview or be worried that an editor would ever google their name. There is a large percentage of writers who just write to write and have no interest whatsoever in getting better at their writing or ever becoming a big name author who lives off of their writing. A website might just not be for these people. I’m not one of those people.
Blogs are cool.
They really are. Many authors on the internet right now are setting themselves up for success by writing blogs. These people already have fans before their books are even published. If you have a name for yourself, through a website or by other means, you are guaranteed to have more luck getting published. And when your book is published you’re guaranteed to have more sales.
I’ve never talked anyone into a website.ever.
It is a financial decision and, though my prices are not this high, most of the time a website will set you back over $1,000. This is your decision and yours alone. But think about your future. Think about what you want out of your website. If you can’t think of anything that’s probably a good sign that you don’t need one.
No one can guarantee website hits.
And no one can. Like I said to that woman, “Do you sell $135 worth of books ever in a year?” You remain your only cheerleader. No matter what you are the one that will guarantee a successful blog or website. And you don’t need to even be interesting. A website needs to be updated and kept at it.
Google my name Tarah Wolff.
What is the first website that shows up for me? It’s this one, of course. There is always the chance that you won’t have as unique a name as I do. At the moment there is no other on the internet to compete with me. So this is easy, I went to the top because I was the only one. I’m literally only competing with my other websites (which you’ll also see in the google list – because I’m a website designer I’m affiliated with a lot of website).
The beauty of blogs for authors.
The best advice I’ve ever heard for writers is two things and they are read everything that you can find and write as many words as you possibly can (and I don’t mean thousands but hundreds of thousands and most of them will be shit). You can never become a good writer without reading and you can never become a good writer without writing. I have only just finally given in and started this blog. It’s been damn good for me. It’s given me a place to write down my thoughts but mostly to practice and focus my thoughts. And isn’t this what writers are supposed to do well? To focus our thoughts and project them clearly to other people? A blog is a very good practice.
You can start a blog for free.
You don’t have to hire a web designer to start a free blog on the internet and have your own little website. It won’t include your own personal domain (such as http://www.yourname.com) without cost but if you go to wordpress.com you can start your website and your blog in minutes. And there are hundreds of free website templates to choose from. If you are a writer I urge you to try this. See how it goes, encourage your friends to get online and support your writing. If it goes well you’re going to want to consider expanding into a real website someday. And if that day comes go to directnic.com and see if the domain you want is available. For $15 a year you can grab the domain you want (if its available) and then you can at least hold it in safe keeping.
