The Things I've Learned from Twitter and Tumblr (once I stopped being too scared to use them)

Image via Wikipedia

Well, it's really only one thing. This is the internet, and there are all kinds of people here. The good news is that because it's only the internet, we can ignore the less savory characters just by not clicking a 'follow' or 'reply' button.

I know that this doesn't hold much weight coming from a stooge such as myself with just over one hundred followers, but I think it's something that everyone has run into on most social networking sites. You're new to the game, so you follow/add back everyone who follows/adds you. Shortly after, you learn that some of them are horrifically annoying, and begin to dread reading the updates you get. You won't unfollow them for fear of losing them as a follower, but you just can't stand going on the networking site anymore because you associate it with negative emotions and these people in general. Pretty soon you just stop entirely, and all of the efforts you spent trying to promote your book/album/other project seem wasted. It's a vicious circle, and it happens every time. I haven't been turned off of Twitter yet, but I certainly know that following annoying people was what turned me off of Tumblr for months.

Sometimes it seems like it just isn't worth it, doesn't it?

I know it's such an incredibly simple thing, but some people just aren't worth having as followers, especially if they'll ditch you the second you unfollow them. In my opinion, such a person misses the point of Twitter and Tumblr entirely, which is to network. Because networking is the main objective, I'm certainly not against following back. I just believe that if someone is so mean or annoying that they make the entire experience displeasing, you can afford to lose them as a follower by unfollowing them first.

I know seasoned Tweeters and Tumblr addicts have already figured this out on their own, but I'm a beginner here. I'm a little slow, I know. I only made my Twitter account a few months ago, and only actually started using it about two weeks ago. I almost quit entirely because of this one incredibly annoying person who, yes, actually managed to irritate me that much without ever even speaking to me. They were just...that sort of person. You know, the kind who thinks they're the only person who matters in the universe. I'm surprised I only encountered one.

Social networking sites are plagued by this sort of beast, a monster that they themselves created. It's hard for someone not to feel like they're the center of the universe when they log onto a virtual universe where they literally are the center. If you were an impressionable teenager who saw something every day that reminded you of how many people were interested in your life, you would probably become fairly self-centered as well.

The best thing for you to do is break off your ties with these people, a sort of blatant statement of how you are at least one person in the world who isn't interested in their lives. It's sort of funny. Preteens go nuts if that happens, and the best part is that you don't even have to acknowledge it.

The main thing to remember is that it's just socializing on the internet. It's only fun if you let it be fun, and the main way to do that is by surrounding yourself with people you're genuinely interested in hearing from. If you change your mind about these people, feel free to unfollow them. One less follower isn't going to hurt you, but not taking advantage of social networking to market your book and network with other writers and publishers will.

Besides, you can always do what a lot of people do and unfollow all the people you don't want once you get up to a number you feel comfortable with. The ones who don't really care about your tweets/posts are the ones who will leave, and you'll be left with your actual following (and quite a few new friends, as well).

I'm sorry if you kinda felt this post was a bit beneath you...most indie authors are very comfortable with Social Networking and have it all figured out wonderfully, which is a big reason why their books do so well. The rest of us are, like me, a bit nervous about actually making a name for ourselves. Hell, why do you think I use a pen name other than the fact that I have a really stupid first name? I'm scared to death of fame, and I'm shy even on the internet. I would probably hide behind an alias even if I had the most beautiful name in the world.

This is sort of why I created this blog. There must be at the very least a million creatives out there who have shunned Social Networking. I know I definitely did before I decided to go indie and heard constantly that you at least have to have an author blog and a Twitter if you're going to be independent. It's been a great learning experience for me, and it's helped me get comfortable with being more sociable. Anyone out there reading who doesn't at least have a Twitter or author blog, I highly recommend it.

Especially if you've avoided it because you feared being surrounded by intimidating/irritating people (especially the more shy among you), which a lot of people worry is the case with social networking. Remember that you can choose who you network with, and you don't have to associate yourself with jerks if you don't want to. Logging on can even be a therapeutic part of your day, and a great way to unwind while taking a break from writing.

Happy socializing! And I promise, it'll get more comfortable as you go along.

**I suppose I should apologize for how often I've been updating lately. I know it has to seriously annoy feed subscribers. I don't mean to pollute your inbox, friends! D:  God, I hope it doesn't sent out another e-mail every time you edit your blog post. That would really suck. If it just did that to you, please let me know? I'm not good with RSS. Or anything computer related for that matter. 

It's Okay to Write on Break. Pick Up That Pen.

Image via WikipediaEveryone who gives writing advice in this crazy little world seems to have one piece of advice in common: Do it at the same time of day every day, and don't try to squeeze it in whenever you can find time in between the rest of the things populating your schedule.

A gigantic part of me wonders whether or not they live in the real world. Sure, published authors who already have money coming in from their books tend to have large chunks of time to set aside for writing, but what about the rest of us? What about the college student who's working part time at McDonald's and doing homework for their eight classes when they aren't at work? Is it impossible for them to write their novel if they have to do it during oh, say, eight ten minute sessions that they can manage to come up with if they move a thing or two around in their schedule?

There's the classic, "Your novel should be so important that you'll stay up late and lose sleep over it." argument, but what if you have children or a type of day job where you can't afford to lose that sleep? Or worse yet, what if you've already got items populating your schedule that you're losing sleep over?

I really don't have any advice on this other than that you should try to do it anyway, just as I am. Surely all of these writers were completely broke and constantly doing things to make ends meet before their 'big debut novel' that suddenly made them 'so rich' that they could afford to do nothing but write whenever they wanted.

 I don't see why it's not completely possible for you to write a novel using what little time you can find when you can find it. There are going to be days when you'll literally have all day to write, and you can use those to the fullest extent. This is also why it's good to have a word goal instead of a time goal, which I fully advocate one hundred percent. It's easy to waste time, but words are nothing but pure progress.

Also, remember that no time is ever wasted, even if someone accuses you of wasting your time or theirs. Everything is a learning experience. Love it and benefit from it.

Related articles

• Writing Schedules (kristinastanley.net)

Think of it as going on your own personal MapQuest.

It doesn't have to look like this ^^^

Today's post is about one of my favorite parts of the novel writing process: story world mapping.

If there's one thing that most writers of genres outside of fantasy tend to ignore, it's the importance of drawing up a map of your story world. Sure, it's important to form an image of the layout of your world if you literally have an entirely different world, but it's just as useful to draw a little map of all of the normal, everyday settings that show up in your novel.

You know, like a character's bedroom, or the diner where most of the scenes take place...you get the picture. Mapping can actually be a valuable part of your brainstorming process, even if you're a non-otherworldly writer. Just try it out and see whether or not it influences how you picture the scenes in your head and how vividly you write them.

Now, I'm not saying that you have to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. My mountains are, to this day, nothing but triangles, and my trees look like chicken feet. I'm a writer, definitely not an artist. It doesn't matter if your people are stick figures, or if your dragons look like squiggly lines with crudely drawn feet. It's still a perfectly respectable story world outline either way, and you should be pretty damn proud of it if you ask me.

When I was little I did nothing but draw maps of the places I wanted to write about sometime in the future, sometimes having them set up so that to see the whole thing you had to piece several notebook pages together. My mother thought I was insane, especially because I wrote in mostly first person back then. I actually believe that her reaction to finding my writing notebooks is just the reason I have such an aversion to first person writing: she accused me of being schizophrenic and threatened to commit me.

I would suggest carrying your writing notebooks around like they're a treasure box full of gems that everyone would rip away from  you and steal forever if you were to let a single person catch a glimpse of what's inside. Nobody likes to know you're writing something unless you've been published. Once you have, everyone wants to know, and I hear it gets pretty freaking annoying.

Try drawing a map your main character's bedroom. If nothing else, it'll at least be fun. Then, feel free to go map-crazy, even if they're all just simple aerial views.

I Blame the Devil.

Wow. I must be on drugs that are so strong that they cause me to believe I'm not on drugs at all.

I had to get up at five thirty this morning just to write this because the second I remembered it, it started bugging me to no end. I posted about writing longhand the other day, and in my rush to get that post out I realized that I was stupid enough to say that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote Moby Dick. What. The. Hell.

I was juggling between using Hawthorne and the Scarlet Letter and Melville and Moby Dick for my example. I decide to use Hawthorne, but still clearly had Melville on the brain when I typed out the post. That, and they're both two of my favorite Dark Romantics, the other being Poe, so I often group them together in my head. No amount of proofreading could have prepared me for that screw up. Maybe I'm so incompetent that I actually need people to beta read posts for me.

So to clarify: Nathaniel Hawthorne didn't sit down at his computer to write The Scarlet Letter. He did it longhand I would assume, which is just fine.

On a slightly related note, I can't believe that I didn't discover that I'm a handwriter instead of a typer years ago. I'm actually moving faster in my manuscript than if I would have typed it, and I don't get distracted nearly as easily. If you're having problems, try changing how you're going about it, people!

Ugh. People who have real jobs are on their way to work, and the cars are distracting me as I speak.

Or type.

Thanks for putting up with me!

Thank You!

Invitation

by Shel Silverstien

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some fla-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
come in!

That poem is one of my absolute favorites, and the one that really made me decide I wanted to be a writer. Yes, I have been dreaming of this since kindergarten. I may have made up a bunch of fake jobs because I was afraid of telling anyone that I really wanted to write, but this has always been it. For some reason that I'll never understand, a parent would rather hear that their daughter dreamed of stripping for a living than becoming a writer. This is a fact. Test it out. I'm posting this today because I believe I am finally - yes, finally! - able to begin drafting my novel. I'm going to go about this fast, which is how I  work best, and then work out every single one of the kinks in the rewrite. By then I'll need some beta readers, but I've seriously got to stop putting the cart before the horse. My goal is 500-1,000 words a day, and so far I think I've clocked in at 406. It's still not enough for me, but I have to be realistic. There's no way anyone can sit down and have half of it done one night and the other half the next, which would fly just fine with me. Plus, it's a good thing to isolate yourself and  your story. No worrying about not getting it done or how your mother probably cries herself to sleep at night because  you're not going to medical school right now, no sir. Sit that story right down in a chair across from you and say, "Okay, shoot. I'm listening." Then write down what is says with your little pen, there. God, I'm crazy. I'd like to conclude this post by thanking each and every one of my readers from the bottom of my heart. This blog wouldn't amount to a pile of dog crap if it weren't for you, and I say that as elegantly as possible. So many writers get caught up in their work and their own words that they forget what they would be if it weren't for the people reading---which is nothing. To this day I am a blogger only because you are reading this post, and I want to thank you so much. Not a lot of blogs manage to make it even this far, and it's all because of you that mine has. So what do you say? Help the blog go a little further? I'm in if you are! :D

Handwriting Novels - Is It "Okay" to Still Do It?

Image by Bright Meadow via Flickr

Of course it is, but not everyone rolls that way. I can almost hear the massive sigh of relief, as I'm sure most of you who work much better with writing on a computer are tired of longhand writers telling you that you're doing it wrong simply because it isn't their way. I've said it once and I'll say it again: Everyone has a different way. Anyone who thinks that there is only one way to write can kindly STFU.

Not to say that there aren't people out there who will throw a tantrum over how they think a computer is the only way to write, too, as if Nathaniel Hawthorne just sat down at his desk and fired up his good 'ol HP Pavilion to write The Scarlet Letter. Like I said in my Unlucky Things about the Internet post, there are insane fanatics and haters for nearly everything. I also remember saying that there really aren't any formulas for writing a good story. It's okay if you haven't let that sink in yet, because I'm certain I'll say it again many, many times.

I'm posting about this because the other day I had a shocking and slightly frustrating revelation: my work comes out much better when it's all handwritten than when I type it up on the computer. The only problem is that it's incredibly slow, and my thoughts move incredibly fast. In hindsight, this just may be why my work hadn't read very well when word processed, but hindsight is, after all, 20/20. I'm happy that I can stop worrying about my terrible, terrible prose now and start to focus on actually getting the story onto the page.

I implore everyone out there who hasn't already to try out both. Heck, I'd suggest even taking a whack at using a typewriter if you can get your hands on one. Write the same scene using a different method every time, and then read back over them to see which one just...you know, sounds and feels better.

The worst that could happen is your finding out that a much slower method, like handwriting, is your best bet.

But what if you discover just that? Perish the thought! Right?

Well, not exactly. It happens more often than you think. You'd be surprised how many writers out there nowadays still actually handwrite the first drafts of their novels, even in an age when computers are, let's face it, much faster (but not necessarily more creative). So what if you discover that this tried and true method is best for you? How do you cope with the hand cramps? The agonizingly slow speed at which the page is filling up?

Well, that's all up to you.

I've thought all of this through since I decided to handwrite my first draft. Today I went out between classes and picked up an enormous notebook, the largest one that I could find at Wal Mart. Yes, Wal Mart. No, it isn't one of these, but I'm perfectly happy with my spiral bound ghetto setup. Besides, the one I bought has eight more pages, so there.

Sometimes going out and buying something new is just what I need to motivate me to do something. I'm just impractical like that, and if you are too, go for it.

I know the thought of writing an entire draft in longhand sounds agonizing, but it really isn't as bad as it seems. I've tried handwriting for the past few days, and actually come to hate typing it up on the computer. Seriously, this blog post has been killing me. I suggest getting a pen that glides very well over the paper and only keep it neat enough for you to read, that way you can get it down as fast as a first draft is normally written. It's just the first draft, after all. Who else but you needs to see it until it's the second draft, anyway? Once you've transferred it to the computer, fixing the little mistakes you see here and there, it may as well be considered ready for a beta reader or two.

And as for the hand cramps that you're bound to get, believe it or not, water may be just what you need. Staying hydrated is given as a fix for nearly everything, though, so I also advocate taking breaks to stretch. Your fingers. I guess...flex them or something.

I know my chances of findindg another teen writer who uses pen and paper are slim to nil, but I've always been forced to deal with my abnormalities in strides. Why should this specific abnormality be any different?