You’re So Vain, I Bet You Think This Post is About You*

A little more than ten years ago I lost my job.  It was a massive layoff, and being new to the company, I was an easy choice for the axe.  It was rather devastating, since I had just entered a field I thought was pretty secure.  Anyway, I moped around for about two weeks and finally decided I needed to get a job.  I didn’t figure there’d be any openings in my field since about a third of company had been sacked and was out there looking, so I opened up the paper to see what else there was.

I answered one of those obscure “make up to $1000 a week” blah blah blah ads.  Turns out it was a company training people to sell Kirby vacuum cleaners. 

Yes, I was a vacuum cleaner salesman.  Sort of.

The Kirby Vacuum Cleaner is an amazing machine.  You could vacuum your carpet with the top of the line brand available in stores then have it professionally steam cleaned, and the Kirby will still find dirt.  If I remember correctly (and don’t quote me) it runs about $1400, and tightwad that I am, I still don’t think that’s overpriced.  In fact, I could talk to you all day about how awesome this machine is.  I could even demonstrate its wonders for you.  But could I sell it to you?

Hell no.

I can’t sell.  Period.  I’ve never been able to.  You could have something in your hand on the way to the cash register to pay for it, and I could say, “Hey, you should buy that.”  You’d probably put it back.  That’s how bad I am.  Naturally, my personal Willie Loman Experience died a still birth as I realized this simple truth.  Fortunately, two weeks later I found a real job.  A good one, too.

I won’t even tell you about my one week telemarketing career.

Anyway, that’s one of the reasons, at least one of the initial reasons, I started this blog and why a lot of writers have blogs: to sell themselves.  “Build a platform,” they say.  But a platform isn’t just about being seen; it’s about convincing people you have something to offer.  Another thing you hear a lot, a caveat, is don’t be vain.  Don’t let your ego run amok.  Be humble.

I’ve never been a “Hey, look how awesome I am,” or “Let me tell you about the time I did something amazing.”  I’m just not wired that way.  For people who spend time with me or who read my blog, that’s wholly a good thing.  An out of control ego is not something anyone wants to be around.  On the other hand, in our line of work, a little ego is a good thing, even a necessary thing.  Would I be blogging if I didn’t think I had anything to say?  I’m good at it, if I can say that.  I’m no master, but I think it’s worth the five minutes or so to stop by and check it out.

Selling is hard, though, and that’s what we are: salespeople.  Please buy my book, please review my book/interview me, please finish beta reading my MS before you disappear off the face of the earth.  We have to have egos; we just need to learn how to use them for good, not evil.  An acting teacher of mine said you have to keep your ego in your pocket and only pull it out when you need to, then put it back.  I think my ego pocket has a hole in it, or else my ego got ruined in the wash.  On the flip side, some people don’t have pockets at all, and their egos are always on display.  So where’s the line?

I think it starts with confidence, but it’s more than that.  I’m confident in my book, and in myself as a writer.  I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t.  But to shout my own praise from the rooftops?  That takes a kind of boisterous, extroverted confidence that maybe I just don’t have.  But since that’s kind of necessary to the whole selling-your-book thing, I’m going to give it a try.

So here goes:

My book is good.  I’ve never been more proud of anything I’ve done.  When it becomes available, you should buy it.  I know you’ll like it.

I joke around on here a lot, and I like to keep the mood light, if not downright flippant.  However, I say this with complete honesty and zero snark: that was hard for me.

It’s not because I don’t believe in my work.  I do.  I love the world I created, and I think others will, too.  But I’ve always felt the product should speak for itself; if something is good, it shouldn’t need to be sold, right?  Also, I hate tooting my own horn.  My least favorite part of job interviews is when they want you to list your best qualities.  I’d rather just be myself and let my best qualities show through.  But it doesn’t work that way.  People want you to tell them why you’re so great, why your book out of the hundreds of thousands out there is the one they should plunk down their hard earned coins for.  It’s not enough to say, “Hey, here’s my book; check it out if you want, or not.  Whatever.”  People need to be sold.

That’s not me, though, never has been.  But then, if I want a writing career, I have to make it me, don’t I? 

I can do it, though, because I’m awesome.  Just ask me.

* Don’t you, don’t you?

Top Ten Tuesday: Of Blogs and Books

This week’s triple T, brought to as always by the good folks at the Broke and the Bookish, is all about resolutions, but not just any old resolution.  We’re not interested in you quest to lose weight, or become financially independent the Tony Robbins way, or to finally work up the nerve to ask out JoBeth in accounting (actually we do care about all those things – we hope it works out with you and JoBeth, we really do – this just isn’t the place for that).  No, these resolutions are strictly bloggish and bookish.

And here are mine:

1. Blog more often and more regularly – I’ve been blogging more this year; this will be my seventh post, putting me on pace for twenty-one this month, roughly five a week.  But I also want to be more consistent, maybe have certain days of the week in which I blog about specific topics.
2. Comment more – I read a lot of posts.  I try to read all the posts of all the blogs I follow, or at least most of them.  The problem is I don’t comment a lot.  I’ve already made a few friends blogging by starting conversations that began with noting more than a blog comment.  Besides, I love comments, and I know others do, too.
3. Post more stand alone content – Once you take out blogfests, challenges, and Top Ten memes, there’s not a lot of stuff left, really.  I’d like to start a series on how to improve your writing: Description, character, that kind of thing.  I’m just looking for an original take, so I’m not treading over trampled ground.
4. EMS more – I made a choice when I started this blog to leave work out of it, but I think the occasional medical article, the what-to-do-if, post wouldn’t hurt and might actually convey some useful information.
5. Blogfest – It’s not unreasonable to expect I’ll hit 100 followers sometime in the next few months or so.  I want to mark the number with a blogfest.  I actually had a great idea for one, but I forgot it, of course.
6. Get my Library card – This one’s done.  I moved to Illinois a year and a half ago, but for multiple reasons I hadn’t gotten a library card for my new home town library.  That’s fixed, and now I have it.
7. Read better – I want to not just read more, I want to read more efficiently, more diversely.  I want to read as a writer as well as a book lover.  If I’m going to call myself a serious writer, reading is no longer just a casual pastime I get to when I can.  It’s now part of the job, too.
8. Help out my local libraries and promote reading – I love my local library, I really do.  In fact, I live in a cluster of small towns, so I've got quite a few around me.  The thing is, though, they’re small, and worse, they’re underfunded.  I figure now that between the blog and the newspaper, I’ve got something of a platform, though it’s really more like a bathmat than a platform at this point, and maybe I could do something to help.  Books drives, fundraisers, literacy drives.  Don’t know how I’d go about it, but it’s certainly worth looking into.
9. Read all the book on my eReader. – I acquired a ton of ebooks during the first year owning an eReader.  Didn’t read a lot of them.  I plan to rectify that.  For more details on this one, click here.  Because I know you’re dying to know.
10. Start a reading group – Believe it or not, I’ve actually found people around me lately who read.  You know, books and things.  Something besides Facebook status updates, I mean.  Posting my favorites books of 2010 list and my want to read in 2011 list made made me realize two things: one, I love discussing books with people, and two, it’s been years since I’ve been able to do that consistently.

Well Now You’ve Gone and Given Me the Warm and Fuzzies

I won an award!  Thank you so much to Every Book and Cranny for presenting little old me with the Versatile Blogger Award.   It’s my first blogging award, and it comes just in time to offset my mini-downer for not finishing NaNo.  I’m really touched and I appreciate her taking the time not only to read my little crazy ramblings, but also to recognize it in some small way. 

Of course, there are stipulations.  The rules are:

1. Share 7 things about myself
2. Pass the award to 15 bloggers five bloggers recently discovered
3. Notify the blogger recipients
4. Link to the blogger who gave the award

Okay, seven things about me:

1. I’ve lived my whole life since I was two years old in the American Midwest, yet I’ve never been on a horse.  And it’s not from lack of want to, either.  I have been on an elephant, though.  Go figure.
2. About four years ago, I had the Roman numeral thirteen tattooed on my wrist in an attempt to overcome my triskaidekaphobia.  It worked.
3. There are three levels of emergency medical technician.  EMT-B are the “basic” techs.  They can do first aid, administer oxygen, and perform CPR with an AED.  EMT-I are “intermediate” and are just as the name suggests.  Indiana and Illinois (where I work and live, respectively) do not utilize “I’s” too frequently.  EMT-P are the highest tier and also known as paramedics.  Paramedics can start IV’s, perform CPR with manual defibrillators, give medications, intubate, and a lot more, like drill a hole into your leg (seriously).  I’m a paramedic.  Being a paramedic is in at least one way like being a writer: if you don’t have the passion for it, if you’re just doing it to cash a paycheck, you’ll burn out really fast.
4. In the past few days, I’ve become mildly obsessed with a particular Richard Scarry book I had as a child.  I can’t remember the name, but I’d know it if I saw it; I can see several of the pages in my head as if I’d just leafed through them yesterday.  I don’t know why it’s so important to me lately, except that I loved that book and for what could have been years but were more likely months, I carried it with me everywhere.  It’s a time stamp of a simpler day, a time before car payments and broken faucets, and other trappings of adulthood.  It runs the risk of becoming my “Rosebud”.  On the other hand, if chasing after a kids’ book starring an earthworm in a fedora is the extent of my midlife crisis, I think everyone will be okay with that.
5. The three greatest words in the English language: “Wrapped in bacon.”
6. I’m a pretty awful speller* (in fact, I just misspelled “awful” (and “misspelled”)).  In my world, which mostly consists of family and work, I’m “that writer guy,” or the “book guy.”  So people are always asking me how to spell things.  It’s probably like working with someone who happens to be a podiatrist on the side (“Hey, can you take a look at something for me?” Plops bare foot on lunch table).  Generally, the people asking me to spell things aren’t writing words like triskaidekaphobia, but sometimes I feel like I’m hiding some dark secret from them, like I’m secretly a Cylon** or something.  I spelled “Cylon” right, didn’t I?
7. About two and a half years ago I was living alone as what they used to call a “confirmed bachelor”.  I’d been spit out of one bad relationship after another and decided I was done; never again would I get serious with anyone.  So naturally, I celebrated my one year wedding anniversary this past September and for the past year and a half, I’ve been the father of two teenage boys.  That was probably the biggest, most abrupt change in a life of abrupt changes.  But it’s also been the best thing that’s ever happened to me: challenging to be sure, but worth every minute.  I never would have thought I wanted kids, but must have, because I don’t what I’d do without either of them, or their mom. 

Anyway, enough with the mumbo-jumbo.  On to the fun part.  My immediate predecessor doled out five of these instead of fifteen.  Five sounds like a good number to me.

Here they are:

Spinning Threads – Emily writes very nice poetry and blogs about writing, spirituality, and life in general.
 
Turning the Page: A Literary Ramble – Jodi’s site is jammed packed with all kinds of writer goodies like writing tips, anecdotes, book reviews.  She even offers up samples of her work (it’s very good).  On top of all that, she’s hosting a Query Letter Blogfest in about a week.  You can sign up for that here.

Elevator Musings – Erica blogs about reading, writing, and grammar.  She manages to be witty and down-to-earth all at once.  Not only that, but she forever changed how I dunk my Oreos.

Busy, Busy, Buttons – This site has nothing to do with writing or publishing.  In fact, the author of the blog doesn’t even have opposable thumbs.  Buttons, a ten-year-old Shih Tzu blogs about life as a (pampered) pooch, her occasional power struggles with her mother, and her dazzling collection of squeaky toys.  I don’t really remember how I came upon this site, but I’m so glad I did; it’s a lot of fun.  I defy you to read this blog in a bad mood and not be cheered up at least a little.

Dead End Follies – Not only does Ben blog about writing, books, and the literary world in general, but he also offers insightful reviews running the gamut of popular culture: music, movies, video games.  He blogs a lot.  I had three posts in November; I think he had three in the time it took me to write this.  That’s a good thing, though, because he always has something interesting to say.

---

* I’m a bad speller and a bad typist.  You’d think those two would occasionally cancel each other out and I would “typo” the misspelled word into the correct spelling.  Well, no.
** How awesome would that be?   

NaNo NoMore

This past Halloween, otherwise known as the day before NaNo, not only did I bury my dead cat, but we were also on Puppy Bowel Movement Watch, because all three of the dogs had devoured a plate of bone-in buffalo wings while no one was watching.  It’s a funny story now, but for the last day of October and the first of November, we were certain at least one of them was going to have a blocked colon or ruptured intestines.  As if that weren’t enough, I spent the first six hours of November in the emergency room with my wife.  Oh, and I got stopped by a cop on the way there.  With expired plates (me, not the cop).  He let me off with a warning, but took his sweet time doing it, or so it seemed at the time.  Fortunately, my wife is doing fine now, and so are the dogs.  November, however, did not get off to a very fun start, although it did better.

Sadly, December has arrived and I did not reach 50K, nor did I finish the novel.  I’m disappointed but not really upset about it.  I knew going in that after spending three years on my first first draft, NaNo would be like going from climbing Mt. Baldy (a sand dune on the Indiana shore of Lake Michigan) to climbing Mt. Everest.  I made it more than 80% up before the lack of oxygen started making me loopy.  Despite my rough start, I actually recovered pretty well and got into several nice strides.  By the middle of last week, however, NaNo, work, more work, home, and everything else just piled up and I crashed.  I made a pretty good rebound, writing nearly 10K in two days, but my heart just wasn’t in it.  And my brain was fried.  I really didn’t want to just type out a bunch of train-of-thought nonsense just to win a virtual sticker.

It was definitely a worthwhile experience, though.  My goal, of course, was to finish, but my intent was to learn from this, to pick up some tools and habits that will make me a more efficient writer without sacrificing quality, to learn how to persevere, to write when I need to, not just when I want to and still hold on to the truth and heart that makes any book worth reading.  Writing a novel on a month may be unrealistic; writing one in six isn’t.  I can do that now.  So yes, I won NaNo.

As far as the book itself, I’m going to keep plugging away, at my own (now quicker) pace.   I’m going to unshackle my inner editor and let him out of the cellar where he’s been eating Baby Ruths and watching pirate movies with Sloth for the past month.  I hope to have it done in a week or so.  After that, the book gets to sit in a (virtual) drawer for awhile.  Next up, polishing The Wind Maiden just a little more, rewriting my query letter until my fingertips bleed, and of course, working extra to pay for Christmas and the writer’s conference I want to go to in January.

Oh, yeah, and I want to start on the sequel this month, too.

November’s gone, but December’s just getting started.  Wish me luck.

So what are you post-NaNo (or didn’t-do-NaNo-in-the-first-place) December plans?

Writing Downhill - In a Good Way

NaNoWriMo starts in three days and I’ve been note-taking, outlining, character arc-ing, and the closer I get to the sheer cliff face that is November, the larger it looms, and the steeper it becomes.  I had intended to do it privately so no one would see me fail, but I was overcome by the moment and “came out” a few days ago.  Being an acknowledged participant not only gives me one the most time-honored incentives to not give up (shame and disgrace), but also allows me to be an active part of the NaNo community, sharing and receiving tips, anecdotes, and pep talks.  Plus I get to play with word count widgets.

I’ve been reading about other writer’s strategies and philosophies relating to starting a novel, especially one that’s supposed to be all done thirty days later.  I consider my own strategy to tackling the novel-in-a-month  mountain and realize this:

I don’t have one.

It took me nearly three years to finish my last – and first – novel.   In the time it took me to write it, I changed careers, then changed back again.  I moved three times, bought a car, went back to school (again) and had to quit (again).  I broke up with my girlfriend, then later met a beautiful, spunky waitress and married her.  I also became a father to two teenagers.

Writing was, in my head, a priority, but everything else got in the way.  I love to write, but somehow it became a chore, something I had to do.  I tried everything – writing schedules, deadlines and quotas, dedicated space to write, changing scenery.  Nothing helped.  It wasn’t my strategy that was the problem; it was my approach.   I was writing uphill.  A finished novel was the unattainable goal, number one on my “bucket list” and gateway to my future as a Beloved Author.  Some days I would whittle off two or three thousand words in a day, but that was rare, and never more than one day in a row.  More often, I’d hammer out a couple hundred, or none at all, waiting until everything else in my life was taken care of, or I was in the mood, or some other excuse to push the goal further away.

I’m taking a different approach this time.  I’m not going to climb the Mountain of November, but rather I’m riding the ski-lift to the top now so I can throw myself down, building up speed as I careen toward December 1st using whatever analogy (skis, soapbox derby cars, super-happy-fun slide) you prefer, hopefully spilling 50,000 plus words and a complete novel all across the finish line.  No writing schedules, no quotas, no perfectly feng shui-ed writing space.  Just me and the novel.  It’s not my adversary; my novel needs me as much as I need it.  Nothing technical has changed, just my attitude, but that could be the most important change of all. 

Writing shouldn’t be an unconquerable mountain.  It should be what it is: a super-happy-fun slide.

The Investment

My wife works as a waitress at a local restaurant.  She is better at her job than I’ve ever been at any job I’ve had.  And I’ve had a lot.  She works the day shift and still manages to bring home a ton of money.  Unfortunately, the owners recently eliminated breakfast from their menu, cutting into my wife’s tips.  Without her regular breakfast customers, business has been a trickle and her tips have suffered.  I feel bad for her because she enjoys her job, and she works her butt off.  She doesn’t work as many hours as I do, but she does a lot more when she’s there.*

The point is, we don’t have a lot of money coming in (through no fault of hers), and as I plunge deeper into the haunted forest that is the road to Publication, only now do I see what a financial commitment it’s going to take.  I knew about the time commitment: writing, revising, research, marketing, but I never realized how damn expensive the whole thing is.  It cost seventy bucks to have five copies of my book printed – single spaced (!) for my beta-readers because I couldn’t afford to double space it.  Aren’t we supposed to be starving artists?  Aren’t organizations like Writer’s Digest supposed to know that? 

I just spent ninety bucks on a writing webinar.  It was worth it; the advice I got took me from not having a clue about querying to potentially writing a killer pitch.  But my point is, I really couldn’t afford it, I definitely can’t afford that next one that rolls around, whether or not that one also could prove invaluable.  I was looking at writers’ workshops online today; so many caught my eye.  Then I noticed the price tag.  What good are workshops if the people who really need them can’t afford them?  Some may say if it’s important to you, then you have to spend the money.  True, but eating is also important to me (and my family).

Anyway, before this turns into Broke Writer’s Lament, I found an online writer’s conference in New York this January.  I can’t afford to go, but in this case, I think I can’t afford not to.  In addition to the seminars, guest speakers, and networking opportunities,** they have what they call a “pitch slam,” where they lock you in a room with fifty agents who slam your pitch.  No, not really.  It’s an opportunity to essentially do what I did with the pitch critique fifty times over (actually thirty-four if you consider three minutes per agent plus “shuffle” time over two hours).  I’ll get a chance to verbally pitch my novel to as many agents as I can, and they’ll tell me what works and what doesn’t.  Theoretically, I could even get an offer for pages, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

I told my wife about it and what it costs; not only is she okay with it, but I think she’s making me go.  I can’t believe how lucky I am to have the support and patience she gives me, and yes, I do appreciate how rare that is.  Maybe that’s my secret weapon.  I can’t afford writing workshops or fancy software or a ton of accessories.  But what she gives me is worth all that and a universe more.  I just hope I’m worth it.  

*I once heard being a paramedic described as hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror.  It’s not unusual for us to go for hours on end without a call, then get that one really bad call, where nothing goes right, and the stakes are literally someone’s life.

**Yeah, I don’t ‘network’ well; you should see me at the few parties I attend (“Dan, this is the hydrangea in the corner; hydrangea, Dan.”)

First Contact

Yesterday, after six months revising and nearly three years writing my novel and over a decade before that of failed attempts, aborted story ideas, and general foot-dragging, I finally took my first baby steps into the business end of the book world.  No I’m not published yet not by a mile, but for the first time, I interacted (sort of) with an honest-to-goodness literary agent and a tiny piece of the literary world.  It may not seem like anything to those actively immersed in the world.  To me, however, Publication* is now no longer a mythical city on a hill, but an obtainable, albeit challenging, reality. 

I’ve spent the last ten years working on an ambulance.  Wonderful people, but not exactly the literati.  It’s been difficult just finding people to read my manuscript, finding like-minded souls to muse about the peculiar life of a writer, particularly an unpublished one.  I work a crazy amount of hours, and of course there are no writing groups in my immediate area.  My friends are all paramedics, EMTs, and firefighters; it would be tough starting a reading group, much less one for writers.  Therefore, like the solitary witch, I write without a coven; I edit with only an inkling of feedback.  And as I put the finishing touches on my manuscript and prepare with trembling hand to send that first query letter into the world, I do it alone.

Which was why this seminar was so important.  To hear from an agent in her own words exactly what she’s looking for, to have her address my questions and even look at my pitch proposal gave everything weight; it made it all real.  I can get Published; it’s hard work and could take years, but I know it’s possible.  There are people like me, no experience, no background in publishing, that every day are selling  their manuscript, or finding that perfect agent who’s passionate about their work.  I’m in the game now.  It’s the fourth quarter, I’m down by three touchdowns, and my offensive line has snuck off to Applebee’s, but I’m in the game.

As I get older, so much about life seems to involve endings.  This, however, is a beginning, and a big one.  And beginnings are so much better.

*I've decided to capitalize Published and Publication until I am Published.  Or until I get tired of it.