New Year
New Beginnings

Rose's Colored Glasses

January 2007 Newsletter

Announcements
Muses and Peanut Butter
Market Yourself
Start Fresh Not Over
Resolutions that Work
Power of the Written Word

Roses At Work

Announcements!

Muses and Peanut Butter
by Betty Hanawa

The holidays are over. The visitors are now in their own homes or you've finally gotten back to the sanctuary of your office. The desk has been cleared off. The fingers are limbered up. You place your hands on the keyboard, ready to finish (or start) the manuscript to give life to the Voices in your head.

But no one's talking

The writing brain is still on vacation. Worse yet, the lazy worm inside you keys up Spider solitaire. "Just one game," it whispers seductively. "Just while we wait for inspiration." "Email! Let's check email." "Ebay! What's new on ebay?" "Research! I need to Google what kind of mushrooms grow in New Jersey."

In the meantime, the muse is lounging back in her chair, contemplating the last chocolate chip cookie in the jar, maybe with some ice cream. She, frankly, doesn't give a damn if you write or not.

"But I can't think of anything to write," you wail. "Everything I write sounds trite and stupid. I don't know how long I can keep up this fakery of being a writer."

So... write something trite and stupid.

Have the hero and heroine discuss a peanut butter sandwich. Discuss the merits of white bread over wheat, toast over right out of the plastic bag, chunky or smooth? Do they add a banana to it or jelly or honey? Add texture to the scene with the spill of light from the kitchen window or the glare of fluorescent over head lighting.

Are you bored yet?

Sooner or later your characters will be. They'll move back into the story or - here's the fun part - their discussion will give you insight into exactly why you stalled on that particular scene that has you stalled. Before you realize what is happening the muse has shown up, nudged you away, and taken over.

Blocked, stalled, convinced there's no point in writing? Just start writing. It's a lot more satisfying than looking up from your computer at the end of the evening and realizing you spent the entire day playing Solitaire.

Market yourself

by Roni Adams

One of the toughest things for a writer to do is learn the art of self-promotion. Basically talking about yourself is hard for anyone, but for writers who trend to be solitary creatures who are most happy left alone with their keyboards, its even tougher.

Unfortunately, books don't sell themselves and you need to learn how to sell your work. This means getting out there and networking, meeting the people who can help your career even before you really have a career of writing. Yes, you need to learn to market yourself before you are a published writer. Here's a list of some of the first things you should do as a writer who is serious about a career in writing:

Either Published or Pre-published

* Build a website. One very inexpensive source is www.1and1.com. User friendly, cheaper than cheap, yet professional looking. It's the bare bones of what a pre-published writer needs to get her information out there. Once your website is up and running, ask your fellow writer friends for their website links and put them on your site, and ask them to do the same.

* Join the local chapter of RWA, a writers group or an online writers group, whaever works, but get involved with other writers. Writers are notorious for helping each other with promotions. You need to make those friendships and contacts early in your career.

* Get to know your local Barnes and Noble or other bookstore Customer Relations Managers. Make it a point to introduce yourself as a local writer. If they host workshops, get involved. You will be surprised at how important this relationship might be down the road.

* Business cards. You have to have business cards. A very inexpensive source that I've used is www.vistaprint.com, only a few bucks for a couple hundred cards. Put your contact info on there and your writing affiliations. When you attend conferences or meet other writers hand them out. I have even been known to drop some around hotels where conferences were being held. You never know who will pick them up and take a peek at your website.

* Don't just enter contests, volunteer to work as a judge or a contest coordinator. Again, more connections, great way to get to know writers across the country.

* If you have a certain skill or trade that's unique, offer to do a workshop for the local writers chapter, or even something not related to writing. Again, its all about getting your name recognized and out there.

Published

* Maintain and continue to build a database of contacts, both snail mail addresses and email.

* Update your website with your sale news and upcoming book release dates

* Send out a mass email to everyone you know far and wide announcing your sale and the book release date.

* Send a press release to your local newspaper. You never know if they will pick it up or not. The smaller community papers tend to be very interested when someone locally gets a publishing contract.

* Check in with those local bookstore reps you met earlier and see if they do book signings or a local authors' night.

* Book signings aren't always the best way to get your book sold, but they are good for getting your name out and they are instrumental in teaching you how to talk to strangers about yourself. Book signings are not the best place to get exposure but they are a good place to practice being in front of strangers.

* Offer to do a workshop on romance writing for the adult education classes or the local writers group.

* Donate a copy of your book to each of the libraries in your town. I also accidentally leave copies of my book at coffee shops or other places where strangers might pick it up and give it a read.

* When attending conferences or workshops leave promotional materials like pens, bookmarks. If your book allows for something gimmicky, its better to buy something unique then the same things everyone else has. Don't spend a lot of money on giveaways.

* If you get hives thinking about talking to strangers, you need to find a class on public speaking or something like that and take it.

Finally, never pass up a chance to market yourself or your work, no matter how bizarre it might seem. I once ended up as a guest of honor in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania at the annual Groundhog Festival after writing a short story on Groundhog's Day for True Romance magazine. I became the reporter for my local radio station and broadcast live from Punxsutawney the morning of February 2 when Phil emerged to make his weather prognostication. Bizarre? You bet, but everyone connected me to my story and knew that I was a published writer and what I had written. You just never know where a marketing opportunity will come from and you need to seize every chance thrown your way.

Roni Adams is published with The Wild Rose Press. www.thewildrosepress.com

Start Fresh, Not Over
by Shayla Kersten

The New Year is about beginning again, renewing your outlook on life and starting fresh. However, the one place you don't want to start over is your computer files.

As writers, our computer is our life's blood

When I hear someone say her computer crashed and she lost everything, the geek in me asks why she didn't back up.

I'm more paranoid than most so I don't rely on just an external drive. Although there are some really good deals out there on external storage, price can be a little daunting. At Christmas, I found a 320 GB Iomega backup drive for $160 at Dell. Most people don't need that much space. The one I bought was for the 17 year old niece who loves digital photography and playing with graphics.

Iomega is one of my preferred brands. I used their tape drive backups twelve years ago, so I've grown up with them. My external drive is only 100 GB but it's more than enough for my needs. Iomega's software makes backing up a snap. However, most external drives come with software.

Any good backup is done on a regular basis. I prefer daily and my software makes it easy, painless and completely in the background. I leave my computer on at night and at 4AM, the system takes over.

One of the first things to do is decide what you need to backup. I don't backup software such as Word and Excel. I make sure all of my discs are together in a safe place. If my system dies, I can reinstall software. Yes, it's a pain and time consuming but one of the reasons a computer crashes is the software is corrupted. You are better off reinstalling from scratch.

I make sure everything I save is in the My Documents folder so that's the number one target for my backup.

The second thing I back up is my Microsoft Outlook .PST file. This file contains all of the emails, contacts, calendar appointments, etc. With Outlook Express, the file has an .DBX extension. If you don't use Microsoft, check with your software's website to determine what file contains your data.

Next on the list is My Favorites. All the research I've done on the internet is saved in My Favorites in nice little folders. To try to recreate the ones I use frequently would be a hair pulling experience.
The above mentioned folders have something in common. All of them are located in the "Documents & Settings" folder under your user name. Example: C:/Documents and Settings/Shayla. By backing up this one folder, I've saved my 'identity' on my computer and all of my important documents.

The first time you backup, depending on the size of your user folder, could take awhile. Leave your computer running overnight and let the software do the work. For subsequent backups, make sure you check the option to backup only changed files. The process will only take a few minutes.
If you don't have external space available, a few simple tricks can keep you from losing some of your valuable information. Email your working manuscripts daily to an online email account like Yahoo or Gmail. I have one account set up just for backups. Keep your .PST or .DBX file backed up to a CD with you're my Favorite folder.

Flash drives work for temporary storage but a word of warning. With the constant change of data on it, a flash drive will corrupt over time so don't depend on one as your only means of storage.

So make your New Year's resolution one that will help keep your sanity in place. Backup your computer regularly!

You've set your goals. You know where you want and need to be in 2007. The big question is how do you get there?

Baby steps

Taking on too much makes the writing seem impossible. When something feels impossible to accomplish you're less likely to try. Break up those resolutions.

You say you want to write your new book this year. Great! Instead of looking at the big picture filled with three hundred or more daunting blank pages, narrow it down. Look at the task chapter by chapter or page by page. If that doesn't work, try focusing on one paragraph at a time. The smaller the goal the easier it is to accomplish. Until one day all the paragraphs add up to pages, pages to chapters and chapters to an entire book.

If your goal isn't so much about starting and finishing a book but reawaking the muse, then simple steps work here as well.

Set a goal to write one plot a night/week. It doesn't have to be perfect or even good. Just let the ideas flow onto the screen or paper. Don't worry about having internal/external conflict or even Big Black Moments (BBM). You can make it as simple as Jane meets Joe in the john and spills coffee all over his new suit. You take it from there and see how easy it is. The questions and ideas flow from one simple sentence.

Try it!

Jane was hiding from her ex- in the men's bathroom at her favorite bookstore. Joe is the new owner of the bookstore and follows Jane because he thinks she is a shoplifter.

or

Joe brought the coffee into the bathroom to dump it out when he ran into Jane and the coffee spilled all over his new suit. Jane lost her contacts when she sneezed and accidentally walked into the wrong bathroom. She realized her mistake and rushed to get out when she barreled into Joe and his coffee.

Granted these aren't the best plots in the world but they are a start and that's the most important thing--getting started and working your way through the small goals until, before you know it, the big goal is achieved.

Also another immature but effective way to get your muse in gear is to listen to others' achievements in 2006. Everyone's muse has a nice streak of green in her. You read what others in your writing group have done and you want to be able to say the same, but you can't.

Give the little green heifer a pinch in the butt

Acknowledge that hard work, persistence and more hard work have landed your friends where they are. Then make up your mind to baby step your way to your own success by making those small goals and achieving them.

One step at a time

So get started on the baby steps and start toddling your way into a productive and creative 2007.

On the way home after the Reno RWA conference in 2005, I had a three-hour layover in the Denver airport. I wandered into a gift shop and a carved wooden box caught my eye. The attached label described it as a Native American dream box and instructed the owner to write down a wish or dream on a slip of paper, place it in the box and put the box near the owner's bed. I did that-my wish read, contract a book. Within months, that occurred. I wrote a new wish, contract with New York publisher. Two months later, that opportunity came true.

Coincidence?

I'm not sure. Early in 2006, I set goals as part of a Roses workshop-some personal and some writing-related. Instead of posting that list where I could see it everyday, I set it aside and it got buried on my desk. Late in the year, in a fit of cleaning, the list came to the top of the pile. I was amazed how many of those goals had been met. Unfortunately, I hadn't managed to lose as much weight and keep it off. My successes were the goals related to my writing list.

For the majority of the year, I wouldn't have been able to find that list without massive searching but that didn't seem to matter. I believe the simple act of writing them down, either in a Word document or with pen and paper, sets your brain on a positive track. Some layer of that gray matter becomes receptive to looking forward. Writing efforts become focused onto projects that fit those goals.

Even if you show the list to no one, a part of you is always aware of striving toward your goals. Try it-you've got nothing to lose.