Communication.

It’s essential to communicate with the venue effectively right from the first contact through the actual event. I try to respond within 24 hours to requests for school visits, weekend retreats, speaking at conferences, or any other speaking requests.

I’m often asked how many times a year I do events. Basically, I try accommodate requests as often as I can. So, if I’m asked, I usually go.

During the Initial communication, I try to find out these things:

What type of event is being planned?
How can my participation add to, complement or enhance the event?
Dates?
Type, length and content of presentation?
Type of audience (grade levels, reading levels, adult, etc.)?
Preferred date and alternate dates?
Compensation rates?

Clear expectations result from clear communication and is the backbone of a great event.

Providing materials for advance preparation.

School author visits are most successful when students are prepared. I provide a free downloadable pdf file of lesson plans for all my books, which helps teachers introduce my books. For adult presentations, it’s often necessary to send bios, descriptions of presentations, and suggested copy to advertise the event when appropriate.

Oliver is available to visit your school.

Another area of preparation is providing order forms, so books can be purchased at the event. I have a pdf file that I modify to fit the needs of the event. For example, I often give discounts to books bought when I speak and I adjust this as needed.

Speaking is great fun. I’ve had whirlwind events! And I’ve met fascinating people in CA, LA (Louisiana, not Los Angeles), WA (Washington state, not D.C.), and many other places around the US.

Being Prepared Myself!

The day before my school visit this week, I checked my bag to make sure everything was there. Well, let me back up. I keep a bag packed with things I’ll likely need at a school event: foldable wire frame to hold a book upright; copy of book inter-leaved with overhead projector sheets for each page (back-up only these days); CD burned with Powerpoints of each of my books (MOST useful); a miniature Oliver K. Woodman, samples of each of my books to show while I talk; a snack bar just in case I get hungry; common medicines I might need in case I get a headache or something. I usually add bottled water the morning when I leave.

OK, I go overboard. But I’ve been places where I got a headache and didn’t have medicine and I don’t like it. I go prepared!

This time, I checked my bag and the Powerpoint CD was missing. I searched, but ultimately had to burn a new CD. Had I not checked, the school visit would have been disastrous.

I also do MapQuest or Google Maps and PRINT IT OUT. I’m direction-challenged and follow these type maps to the letter, so it’s essential when I’m driving to have this.

If I’m flying somewhere, I double check reservations a week ahead. I try to have contact numbers while traveling; a school number isn’t enough, since travel may be after or before hours. I usually like a cell phone number of the person in charge of the event; likewise, I give them my number, so they can contact me for any reason.

If I’m speaking at a conference, I try to have handouts ready a couple weeks early. Which means my presentations are ready ahead of time and I can go over it. Often I read mss from writers attending. I read these carefully, make notes, and often re-read on the plane to an event, as well as referring to them privately in-between sessions. I want to be helpful to the writers and that means I need to be familiar with their work.

Most events go well because I try to communicate early, often and clearly, I try to help the organizers to prepare the audience ahead of the event, and I try to be prepared myself. I love to travel and speak.

Related posts:

1. Prioritize
2. 3 Ways Writers Survive Slow Times
3. Listen

Are you having any of these problems?

• Plot and Character are separate and not interwoven *
• Boring, Flat Characters *
• Characters are too Shallow and Need to be Deeper

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1. Plot Problems?
2. Character and Plot
3. character development

As a writer and blogger, I use several tools daily to check on my published work and my online work.

To Monitor Sales of my Published Books

Salesrankexpress.com
This site will quickly return the Amazon Sales Rank of books. (Of course, you may have many other sales on other websites or offline; this is ONLY Amazon rankings.) You can search by author, title, or even publisher; it’s great to check the best sellers for a small publisher. I check it obsessively, I know, but it’s fun to see the numbers bounce lower when there are several sales in an hour.

Blogging Audience

Feedburner. Now a Google subsidiary, Feedburner (feedburner.google.com) tells me how many people are following my blog, Fiction Notes, by RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or by the Email option for subscribing to my posts. (See the bottom of this post to sign up to get Fiction Notes daily in your email!)

Statcounter.com This site provides you with a java script code to put on your website and counts visitors to each page tagged. In Word Press, the blogging platform I use, it’s simple to add this code to template pages, which means I do it once and don’t worry about it again. Except to check how many countries have read my blog posts! (About 200+)

Google Analytics. Another Google offering (log into your google account for more info), the analytics program offers even more in-depth stats about website traffic. I want to know if you’re reading! Neither Analytics or Statcounter collect personal information, they just monitor the number of times certain pages are pulled up. Talk about vanity: you can get lost in things like, 35 people from India read my blog this month; or, my readership is up 3.74325234% for readers from Australia. Vanity, it may be, but I still look at it about once a week. Woman, thy name is vanity. (Don’t you love the picture of the vanity pedicure?)

To follow other blogs

Google Reader. Yes, another Google widget; again, log onto your google account for more info. This one keeps track of the blogs I want to read and has the new posts available on one page whenever I’ve got time to browse. I’m following ALL your blogs, I’m sure! To find out if I am, you could look at your own Feedburner stats – I’m there. And loving everything you post, even if I don’t always leave comments.

That only skims the surface: I also use dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, bartleby.com (Bartlett’s quotations), and many other online tools. What are your favorites?

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2. Quoted at the Conference
3. Random Week

I know what method of working has made the first 2/3 of my mss better. I’m just getting tired.

Don’t get Lazy Now! I’m on the last third. I know that I must rewrite a major scene for a subplot/secondary character climax. But much of these later chapter are in good shape. By now in the story, so much is set, the stakes are established, character arcs and plot arcs are underway, the scenes are focused and full of tension. My inclination is to avoid the work!

But I think it’s still essential to question everything! Runners know you can’t stop until you’ve actually crossed the Finish Line.

Questions I’m still asking myself:
Is this scene essential to the story line?
Is there a better way to present this scene?
Is there a better way to set it up?
Can I raise the stakes?
Is the dialogue snappy enough?
Could the reader possible be confused at any point?
Are the emotions still building?
Are the characters’ actions exciting?
Can I improve the language at any point?
Are descriptions static or full of emotions?
Can I connect scenes in any way?

Of course, each scene presents new challenges, so these are only a few of the concerns at this point. The main problem is to not rush this last section, to slow down and take each scene very seriously, as if this scene might prevent the entire book from working well. It’s very, very hard. I want to be finished! But I’m trying to keep to the working method that worked and trying to keep myself focused and working.

Related posts:

1. Omit Scenes
2. Goal disaster in Novel Revision
3. Compress Novel

Anyone Trying to be Funny *

If you want the Hero’s Journey, but need to be Funny. *

Anyone with a Great Idea, but No Plot *

Fantasy writers *

Weak plotters *

Beginning Writers *

Writers whose Novels Lack Focus *

Anyone who Needs to see the Big Picture *

Anyone who Needs a Structured Approach *

Long Novels with a Slow Pace *

Anyone who Wants a Fast Pace *

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1. Character Problems?
2. Plot: Characters v. Patterns
3. 4 More Plot Variations

Other highlights of the online book browsing trends are reported, too.
Who spends more time browsing for books on line: men or women?
Most popular genre browsed?
Average time spent browsing?
Where do younger readers browse?

No related posts.

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1. Marketing Links

There is a classic pamphlet in Christian literature called, “The Tyranny of the Urgent.” It discusses how urgent, deadline-driven tasks divert Christians from their devotion to God.

On a smaller scale, I see the same thing happening in my writing. Deadlines rob me of my writing time.
I’m speaking at such-and-such a conference, so I must finish my powerpoint presentation. I must complete the handouts.
I’m doing a school visit next week, so I have to stop and make sure everything is in order for book sales.
I’m writing a magazine article and the editor wants revisions by noon tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my novel languishes.

The classic book, Art and Fear, details it this way:
“One well known painter, after several months of careful record keeping, reached the discouraging conclusion that even at best he could free up only six or seven days a month for actually painting, while the remaining twenty-one days, inevitably went to gallery business, studio clean-up, UPS runs and the like. Moral: There’s one hell of a lot more to art than just making it. In many cases, the art you make today will reach its audience tomorrow only because of a vast societal network geared to the arts education, funding, criticism, publication, exhibition and performance.” pp66-67

If all we did was write, we could write all the time. But if we want publication, then it comes with a host of urgent deadlines. Our job is to carve out the time to write in spite of this.

Don’t let the Urgent be a Tyrant that makes you forget the Important.

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3 Line Editing Strategies

When I line edit, I’m trying to balance three things:

1. Smooth, easy to read. First, I want the text to be smooth and easy to read. I try to read aloud or at least move my lips, so I can see/hear places where sounds collide, words are difficult to get out, or where I stumble for any reason whatsoever. Then, I either rewrite, or at least flag it for attention later.
   
   Often, these are places where my fingers were typing so fast that I left out a word that’s needs to smooth it out. Or places where I did some major editing and it just hasn’t had enough passes through it to be smooth yet.
2. Cut unnecessary words. I’m also watching for awkward repetitions, unnecessary prepositional phrases, unnecessary adjectives or adverbs, “nothing” words – those words which add no new information, such as good, happy, wonderful, etc., and places where I can leave out speech tags and the reader won’t wonder who is speaking. Sometimes, I realize a whole paragraph could be left out because I said the same thing in the last chapter. For repetitions like that, it’s essential to get the long view to do this editing, to read large chunks at a time.
3. Fine-tune the voice. Finally, I’m fine-tuning the voice, and really, this can override the other two concerns. Would this character really say THIS? And say it in THIS WAY? I’m writing in first person, so it’s particularly hard. I know that I would say something a certain way, but would this character say that? It’s hard because I think I have a tin ear, not good at catching these slip-ups. I have to focus hard and when my attention wanders, I have to go back and repeat it for that section.

   Overall, I’m liking the voice of this story and I think it’s working well. It’s just the small things, the word choices that matter here.

   I saw the sun was getting low.
   I realized it was getting late.
   When Sam turned on a lamp, it jerked me away from the game. I glanced at my watch. We were late.

   Any of these would work in my story. It’s not just a matter of Show-Don’t-Tell here, but how would this character, in the first person, perceive and record what is happening. Would he notice the sun out the window? Would he just get a general feeling of being late in the afternoon? Would he be oblivious until someone turned on a light? It’s the voice and character that matter.

Related posts:

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• Oliver News. Since The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman has come out in paperback this year, it has been featured in many recommended book lists. For example, Hicklebees Independent Bookstore in San Jose, CA starts its review this way, “We can’t think of any book in which people smile as often and as widely as they do in The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman. . . ” For more updates on Oliver, see his website.
• Shrunken Manuscript Sighted. Elleen Booream reveals all in this photo of her novel in Shrunken Manuscript format. She says,
  “As I recall, dialogue was pink. Notice the decided pink tinge to the manuscript.”
• SCBWI Updates Website. Alice Pope summarizes changes to the New-and-Improved SCBWI website.
• Great blog. Well, I was going to link to some of Roz Morris’ posts on her Dirty White Candy blog. But really, I liked all of them. It’s my new favorite blog!
• Turning Negative into Positive. Rejection letters are a blessing? Yes!
• Solving Your Writing Problems One at at Time. Who Needs That Book? Get a sneak peek at the new Fiction Notes Store! We’ve added a section to Fiction Notes, a bookstore with annotations for each book, focusing on what book can help solve a particular problem that writer’s encounter.

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