Community
Photo courtesy of @sookieandivy from Instagram, used with permission.
“Everybody’s so creative!” is the catchphrase of social media personality @imtanaramallory. Tanara does interpretive dramatic voiceovers for other people’s disgusting-looking recipe videos and clickbait posts that tell you to put aluminum foil on your bathroom faucet before guests come over. I find Tanara hysterical. She’s one of my favorite creative voices on Instagram and one of my go-tos for middle-of-the-night anti-angst scrolling.
Speaking of being creative, have some of us lost our mojo lately? I know my own has taken a dive. It seems like scrolling Facebook and Instagram turns to doom in about twenty seconds. I got off Twitter in 2018 and recently left TikTok and LinkedIn and my new Bluesky feed seems to be all politics. I’m participating in fewer platforms and being more selective about who I follow. I’m also blocking more content. While I want to stay abreast of news, scrolling can feed feelings of existential doom and burnout. And it’s not just political news. On some days, seeing fellow writers post their multi-book deals and new cover art can unleash my personal demon, (whom I call Icky), who likes to poke me and say, Super impressive. Hey, look what they have that you don’t, you loser. Huh. Think you’ll ever have that? I think not.
Despite the gloom and doom, I still find Tanara and other content creators to be sources of enlightenment and joy. On Instagram, @shifferdiane delivers good sense and “Nana loves you” comfort, while rescue dogs @sookieandivy “sit, stay, and cro-slay” with their hand-crocheted hats. I follow hundreds of knitters, needleworkers, and miniature makers and draw inspiration from the work of my fellow crafters. Of course, I also follow thousands of authors, writers, and bookstores, too, and yes; I spend a ridiculous amount of time on funny dog videos and on forwarding the very best ones on to my daughter, whether she wants to see them or not.
There seems to be a surge—maybe instigated by Covid lockdown, maybe perpetuated by recent political events—of folks taking up crafts and needlework. Are we all in search of new sources of inspiration, or looking for comfort?
At twenty-eight, my daughter began to knit recently, in spite of my cajoling and offering to teach her since she was four. She’s taught herself by watching YouTube videos. I introduced her to a site called Ravelry, which is a mecca for knitting and crochet. She quickly caught the bug and joined some forums there. (I now confess that I spend other middle-of-the-night hours scrolling my happy-place Facebook group called Stranded Knits, where the chatter is all yarn and knitting color work, all the time.) Things can get snarky and heated, such as in a recent query from a member asking for help to find a pattern for a sweater she saw on the TV show Shetland. One member said (I paraphrase), “You could do a reverse Google search from the photograph. So easy and yet it’s amazing how few bother.” Well. As you can imagine, this began something of a kerfuffle over […]
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Books have been getting a lot of bad press lately. According to Penn America’s website, pen.org, more than 16,000 book bans have been implemented in U.S. public schools since 2021, 4,000 of which occurred in the 2023-2024 school year alone—more than at any other time since the McCarthy era of the 1950s. Public libraries have been under assault as well, with many people questioning their relevance and even advocating for their closure.
Estimates vary as to when books as we know them were first produced, but for the majority of time since the middle of the 15th century, when the invention of the printing press made them available to common people, books were considered precious objects by those who owned them.
The idea that books were treasures held true well into the 20th century, a fact I was reminded of recently when I pulled a few antique volumes off of a shelf in my living room. These clothbound gems, a couple of which were published in the mid-1800s, are marvels to behold.
The first in a two-volume set, Ruins of Ancient Cities by Charles Bucke, published in 1848 by Harper & Brothers of New York, features a detailed etching of ancient Athens across from its title page. The indentations made by the printing press on the book’s pages can still be seen if you look at its elegant serif typeset at just the right angle, a reminder that someone painstakingly set the type for all 360 pages by hand, a feat of craftsmanship few people living today could accomplish without error.
Perhaps even more impressive is Everyman’s Library: A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature by John W. Cousin. Published by E.P. Dutton & Co. of New York in 1910, the book’s endpapers feature a gorgeous, scrolling Edwardian design complete with a rendering of the Roman goddess Flora who symbolizes abundance. The publisher’s advertisement for the rest of the Everyman series at the beginning of the book is just as lovely, its type arranged to resemble a stylized tulip.
In my mind’s eye, I can picture the families who once owned these books, sitting in their living rooms, reading passages to one another aloud. Back when these hardcovers were published, reading often felt like an adventure. These books were prized possessions, not just because of their content, but because they were well made, beautiful to look at, and expensive to buy. Books like these said something about the people on whose shelves they were stored.
With their flimsy cover stock and recycled paper pages, modern-day print books, by contrast, often feel disposable. And although they are convenient to buy and read, and better for the environment, electronic books are like ghosts even in comparison to these, gone at the touch of a button.
Of course, the format of modern books makes them affordable and widely available to large numbers of readers. And the myriad types of other media readily accessible online makes it unlikely that books will ever regain the status they once enjoyed on a large scale.
Not unlike the American Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries—a […]
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Among the many powerful things I’ve read recently, the one that struck deepest as a writer of fiction came from Robert Stone’s piece in Paths of Resistance: The Art and Craft of the Political Novel. The piece was titled “We Are Not Excused,” and the section in question was this:
The practice of fiction is an act against loneliness, an appeal to community, a bet on the possibility that the enormous gulf that separates one human being from another can be bridged. It has a responsibility to understand and to illustrate the varieties of the human condition in order that consciousness may be enlarged.
The writer who betrays his calling is the one who, for commercial or political reasons, vulgarizes his own perception and imagination and his rendering of them … The reassurance [such writing] offers is superficial: in the end it makes life appear circumscribed. It makes reality appear limited and bound by convention, and as a result it increases each person’s loneliness and isolation. When the content of fiction is limited to one definition of acceptability, people are abandoned to the beating of their own hearts, to imagine that things which wound them, drive them and inspire them may be a kind of aberration particular to themselves.
Stone’s remarks reminded me of something Simone de Beauvoir wrote in a review of Violette LeDuc’s memoir, La Bâtarde:
She who writes from the depths of her loneliness speaks to us of ourselves.
Finally, I was also reminded of the philosopher Richard Rorty’s concept of ironism, which can be described as “fashioning the best possible self through continual redescription,” an effort that requires us to reach beyond our own experience to learn from the experiences of others—in no small part from reading and writing. This is how we create solidarity:
Solidarity is brought about by gradual and contingent expansions of the scope of “we;” it is created through the hard work of training our sympathies … We train our sympathies … by exposing ourselves to forms of suffering we had previously overlooked … to sensitize [ourselves] to the suffering of others, and refine, deepen and expand our ability to identify with others, to think of others as like ourselves in morally relevant ways. The liberal ironist, in particular, sees “enlarging our acquaintance” as the only way to assuage the doubts she has about herself and her culture.
The task of achieving solidarity is … divided up between agents of love (or guardians of diversity) and agents of justice (or guardians of universality).
I doubt I’m alone in taking heart from thinking of “guardians of diversity” as “agents of love,” though it is also disturbingly clear that this is a view currently under strenuous attack.
My point here, however, given that it’s Valentine’s Day, is to broaden our understanding of love as it pertains to the stories we write, and why we write them.
I imagine it seems somewhat counterintuitive to think of fiction that conforms to convention as enhancing a sense of loneliness or isolation. The whole point of writing in a conventional manner is to be popular, to gain as wide an audience as possible. Stone’s point is that this is an act of bad faith, […]
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Greetings, WU Family. In my first post of the year, I’m introducing you to Ann Michelle Harris. Ann Michelle is an attorney by day, and at night, she writes romantic suspense and fantasy/speculative fiction with diverse characters and positive social justice themes. In today’s Q&A, she shares how her work in the areas of poverty, abuse, and child welfare guides her, how that work inspired her novel, North, and why she feels building community is one of the most important things a writer can do for their career.
GW: One of my favorite parts of this series is learning about an author’s origin story: the thing that propelled you from someone who only thought about writing to someone who actually wrote and has a book out. So, what’s your author origin story—in other words, why did you start writing and keep writing?
AMH: I have loved reading adventure stories since I was very young. I was an English major at Penn so I loved not just stories but also story analysis, themes, and structure. Several years ago, I went through a stressful time in my life and began immersing myself in escapist stories as a form of comfort. After months of consuming other people’s stories, I decided to become a contributor of short stories to a public writing forum. Positive responses convinced me that I might have a larger story worth telling and that I could be brave enough to take the risk to try to tell it. I specifically wanted to write an adventure story in honor of my children. Shortly after this, the pandemic came and gave me even more stress but also much more time to write since I no longer had to spend hours commuting to the office each day (and it gave me plot inspiration). That extra time allowed me to dig deeper into creating a full manuscript and begin the process of querying.
GW: Can you tell us about your path to getting North published?
AMH: After completing my manuscript, I began to query it to a few agents and independent publishing houses. I got rejections, but one rejection from a large indie press had detailed feedback about the plot (particularly the ending) and that helped me tweak some elements. I also worked with a developmental editor, a beta reader, and a critique group to fine-tune the scene structure and build more tension in the story arc. By then, I had heard from a few writers that it is sometimes more accessible to directly find a publisher than to find an agent. I had another historical gothic manuscript that was getting a lot of traction with agents, but I decided to pitch North to a small press at a writing conference, and they loved it after reading the full story. After I signed the publishing contract, I continued to fine-tune the manuscript and then worked with the publisher for editing, galleys, and cover design. I tweaked everything until it was ready for submission to the distributor, and then finally it went into pre-order. I used my pre-launch time to promote the book online, connect with readers, and lean heavily on the wisdom of my more experienced writer colleagues, who were incredibly supportive. Then the big day came […]
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Please welcome back long-time community member Keely Thrall as our guest today!
Keely writes contemporary and paranormal romance and is a proud member of the Stays Up Too Late Society of Book Addicts. (Their motto: “Just one more page, I swear!”) Her next short story, “The One That I Cherish” – in the Finding Forever Limited Edition Wedding Romance Collection – is available for preorder. Learn more about her books on her website, HERE.
Read on to learn about her efforts to grow a local writing community — especially if you live near Dulles, VA!
Welcome, Keely!
In March of 2024, I heard a call to step up to leadership in my local writers group.
Like any sane person, I stuck my fingers in my ears and said, “I’m not listening.” I had my priorities straight: write more stories, continue publishing, get better at marketing. Sell a few books.
But over the next two months, the whisper resurfaced, exhorting me, “It’s time.”
Time to put my strengths back into service in support of Washington Romance Writers (WRW), the writing community I’ve called “home” for 25 years.
That March, members of WRW were gathered at a rare in-person presentation and the then president asked, “What do you want from this community?” Among the replies:
“I want something on worldbuilding.”
“I’d like help with social media marketing.”
“How do I get better at conflict?”
“What should I include in my newsletter?”
All practical requests geared to helping writers at various stages. Yet even as folks voiced their individual asks, one wish was universally expressed:
“Nobody else understands me the way writers do.”
“I miss my people.”
“I want to network with other word nerds.”
“I crave more of the inspiration and support that comes when I’m with my writer pals.”
“I need more writer buddies.”
The common thread: each of us yearned for more time in the company of writers. For deeper connection.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not that online communities don’t allow for building strong ties. I’m still logging into a morning Zoom writing session with a group I started back in May 2020. And, the leaders of Washington Romance Writers during the pandemic years kept our community up and running online when it could have poofed into nothingness.
But in March 2024, in that room with all of us rocking the particular high that comes from grooving with folks who are wired for story, that whisper reminded me: creating this kind of welcoming space is one of my superpowers.
Flash forward to July 1 when my term as president of Washington Romance Writers begins. We have 42 members (our pre-pandemic numbers hovered between 250-300). We have a July word count challenge starting. But the rest of the program year is a blank slate and I’m holding two priorities:
How could our team show folks that entrusting us with their time, attention and dollars would net them a worthwhile ROI? Could we develop a mix of online and in-person offerings to maximize member and potential member engagement opportunities?
Equally as important, how could we do this without burning ourselves out or eating through the chapter’s funds?
We make two immediate low-no cost/high impact changes:
We set up a […]
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Therese here to introduce our newest regular contributor for Writer Unboxed, author Harper Ross! Harper’s debut novel of magical realism, The Unwritten Rules of Magic, will release on 2/25/26. We’re thrilled to have her with us. Welcome, Harper!
I wrote my first manuscript in secret. No one knew—not my husband, my kids, or even the dog. Well, okay, our dog might have suspected. I snuck in writing time whenever everyone else was occupied, relishing the freedom of creating something without the weight of anyone’s expectations, opinions, or questions. It was a magical experience, yet not one I would recommend. Why? Well, let’s just say that my fledgling novel holds far more sentimental value than commercial appeal.
It wasn’t until my third manuscript that I finally landed my agent. Those in-between years were my crash course in what it takes to go from dreaming about publishing to doing it. I dove into craft books, attended workshops, and wrestled with my personal demons, like self-doubt and perfectionist tendencies. (How many times can you rewrite a first chapter? Spoiler: far too many.)
But if I had to credit one thing that got me to the finish line, it would be finding my people.
Why a Writing Community Matters
As writers, we spend an inordinate amount of time alone with our imaginary friends. It can become slightly claustrophobic to live in your head, retreading your same “thought ruts,” as I call them. A circle of writer friends is a lifeline to the outside world. They also provide a creative brain trust. Unlike a lone wolf, a team can cover all the angles: brainstorming ideas, giving honest feedback, sharing industry know-how, and, most importantly, offering moral support when the writing life inevitably gets messy.
Of course, many writers are introverts, which makes the idea of “putting yourself out there” as appealing as signing up for an insurance industry networking event. Add in a rural setting or a lack of MFA connections, and it’s easy to feel like building a community is impossible.
But don’t worry—I’ve done the legwork and am happy to share my experiences.
Places to Find Your People
Writer Unboxed
Let’s start with the obvious: if you’re reading this, you’re already halfway there. Writer Unboxed has been a constant source of craft advice, writerly encouragement, and solidarity in the face of self-doubt. While online communities serve an important function, nothing beats personal contacts. If you ever get the chance to attend one of its in-person conferences, go. Seriously. There’s something thrilling about meeting your “virtual friends” in real life. The only thing that might be more delightful would be bringing your characters to life. At any rate, by the end of the conference, you will have found at least one or two writers with whom you spark, and from there you can explore offline ways to help each other along.
Genre-Specific Writing Groups
Organizations like the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and Romance Writers of America are goldmines for connections and even offer membership levels for unpublished authors. Yes, there are annual dues (ranging from $50 to $500), but they often include benefits like critique partner programs, mentorships, and access to private online groups. Taking advantage of these opportunities affords you more continual contact with […]
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Design by Camille LeMoine
This is the eighth installment of these nerdy linguistic posts, an accidental series I stumbled into on seeing how many of the Writer Unboxed community share my appreciation for the delights and idiosyncrasies of words.
Generally I like to approach these posts from a fairly light and irreverent perspective, but today, to borrow from Hamilton, can I be real a second? For just a millisecond? Let down my guard and tell the people how I feel a second?
For all our gleeful enjoyment of the many vagaries of words, they are among the most powerful forces of society and history, which makes authors the formidable warriors who craft and wield them. As the cliché goes, the pen is infinitely mightier than the sword.
And like any warrior, we can choose to use our sword to destroy or to build.
Heroes Rise in Darkness
How many stories have you read where the hero triumphantly rides into a world where all is good and right and bending toward justice? That wouldn’t be much of a tale to tell; what makes a hero heroic is how he handles a world gone wrong.
Maybe it’s hubris or self-importance or just my own in-built bias toward creativity and the power of language, but I think authors and artists are often the heroes of history. Storytellers shed light in the darkness, increase connection and understanding, open minds and hearts. Yes, it may be politics and people who shape the course of the world, but it’s the storytellers who can help shape the ideas and mindsets behind them.
But it requires heroes, those who can transcend the oh-so-human reactions of fear and hopelessness and rage and contempt and disgust to spin a golden thread to connect one person to another, and to teach them to spin their own golden threads to draw in others. Weaving together all those tiny threads can create an unbreakable rope that can help guide all of us toward the good.
No one was ever attacked into changing their mind. Few people reexamine their views and search their heart because they were shamed or mocked or belittled or dismissed. On the contrary, those approaches are almost guaranteed to make most people entrench, to double down on their worldview, and to feed the flames of their own fear or hate or rage.
In moments like that we look to the heroes to help save us, to help create a future with promise and hope and love and good. And the heroes are those who can transcend their own darker feelings to help spread light into the world.
We are the heroes we’ve been waiting for, we wordsmiths. We have to be. The ones who understand the power and potential of that mighty tool we wield to divide or to unite.
Words Can Wound—or Heal
In 2018, outspoken comedian Sarah Silverman tweeted that she was trying to understand people who voted for Donald Trump, and was subsequently attacked on Twitter by a man trying to cut her down with his words, including a potent one intended to diminish and vilify women that many people have a visceral reaction to (it refers to female genitalia and rhymes with punt).
The understandable impulse is to strike back, particularly for those of […]
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Dinosaur, by Iván Argote – New York, NY
Maybe it’s something about autumn that leads me to flights of rhetorical fancy. It is, after all, my spiritual springtime. Even as a child in Florida, the first chilled breezes free of humidity awakened something, like a breath sweeping in from the horizon, ushering in the promise of change. I mention this because in preparing this post I at one point sought out one from the past. Sure enough I found it, planted in November 2021. Drawing from a similar vein, today’s post isn’t so much about craft as it is inspiration, possibly even hope. Because heaven knows we need that now. This is my gentle nudge to look beyond the uncertainty hanging over us, and to instead focus on our purpose.
My message is simple, a phrase we’ve heard our whole lives but discount far too often – Keep your eye on the prize.
So, let’s get to it, shall we?
Wild Cards and Wise Words
This summer I stumbled upon a wonderful new podcast. NPR describes Wild Card as “part-interview, part-existential game show.” I call it fascinating. Rachel Martin is a talented host with a gift for conversational exploration. And the team behind the show has done an amazing job finding individuals from a variety of creative backgrounds to delve into topics that strike resonating chords in a fresh, inviting way.
The concept is intriguing. Martin engages guests via a series of card options, each with open-ended questions intended to spur discussion on, well, whatever comes to mind. The questions themselves touch upon memory, belief, life lessons. Past questions have included the following:
Last week’s guest was Erykah Badu, a singer songwriter some call “the Queen of Neo-soul.” Badu’s music combines elements of jazz, soul and pop, delivered with a voice reminiscent of Billie Holiday (though she is quick to point out that many artists influence her). Embarrassingly, until the podcast I had never heard of Badu. But her response to one question made me take instant notice. Badu was asked, “Is there anything you long for?”
This was her response: “Yes. I want to get my best work out of me, because it’s still in me. And I feel it. And something in me can’t let it go yet. I long for that moment that I’m able to let that go and give it to the world.”
Wow! Talk about cutting to the chase. I had my own driveway moment evaluating my own life choices. And you know what? It felt wonderful. Because for the first time in weeks, I was swimming in my world instead of tussling against currents beyond my control. That realization was my spark for today.
How does one get back to what truly matters? How do we rediscover the things we love and the things that motivate us, both creatively and personally?
Make an Honest Assessment
One lesson from my life, which I have to relearn on occasion (and my answer to another Wild Card […]
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As a connoisseur of writing how-tos (and yes, I had to look up how to spell connoisseur – and okay, “addict” might be a more accurate word), I have read a TON of them. And while I find valuable nuggets in nearly all of these books, lately I’ve noticed that many recent writing how-tos are essentially sharing slightly different flavors of some very similar core information.
So when I encounter a book about writing that offers some new (to me, at least) ways of looking at the craft, I sit up and take notice. My gushing ode to Chuck Palahniuk’s Consider This in this 2020 post is an example.
I just finished reading another such departure from mainstream writing how-tos: The Intuitive Author, by WU’s own Tiffany Yates Martin, who, in addition to being a wonderful writer and editor, is also an insanely good teacher and public speaker. Seriously, if you ever have the opportunity to attend one of Tiffany’s sessions or events, take it. And if you’re an author who speaks at literary conferences, trust me: you do NOT want to follow Tiffany. She’s that good.
Having seen Tiffany’s amazing presentation on backstory at WU’s brilliant 2022 OnCon, I knew what an extraordinary editorial mind she has, and how good she is at getting under the hood to amp up and improve your writing at multiple levels. So with The Intuitive Author, I guess I was expecting a book full of deep analysis into the mechanics of writing, along with some sophisticated editorial techniques. Instead, much of the analysis she offers in the book leans more towards the psychology and strategy involved in pursuing – and ideally, enjoying – the life of a writer.
I quickly realized I was not reading The Average Writing How-To, and I dove into the book with my curiosity piqued. (And yes, I had to double-check whether it was “piqued” or “peaked.” Got it right the first time – yay! Hey, it’s the small victories. But I digress…)
In short, The Intuitive Author is filled with insights and perspectives quite unlike those offered in the vast majority of writing how-tos currently on the market. And reading Tiffany’s book made me think about another writing how-to I’d recently read that takes a pretty big departure from most conventional writing wisdom: the provocatively titled Kill the Dog: The First Book on Screenwriting to Tell You the Truth, by author and screenwriter Paul Guyot.
What does this Guyot dude have against dogs, anyway?
Nothing, actually. Instead, the animal Guyot truly hates – and is taking a not-at-all thinly veiled swipe at – is the cat. Specifically, the cat in the well-known “Save the Cat!” series created by the late Blake Snyder.
If you’re not familiar, Snyder’s initial Save the Cat! book (STC to the cool kids) burst onto the scene in 2005 with a VERY structured set of templates for storytelling, which he reverse-engineered from studying many successful movie scripts. Targeted at aspiring screenwriters, Snyder’s methodology offered a compelling framework for them to adopt […]
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By Ann-Marie Nieves with Randy Susan Meyers
Today’s post by Ann-Marie Nieves of Get Red PR features her perspective on marketing and the opinions of Randy Susan Meyers, her friend and client.
Will it be dueling points of view or simpatico? Read on to find out.
We are all marketers.
I know you don’t believe me. I know it feels safer to say, I can’t do this because I’m not a marketer.
You can continue to say…
I can’t.
I won’t.
I’m not.
It’s my publicist/marketer/publisher’s job.
But it’s your story. It’s your brand. So it’s your job too.
And letting the value of marketing rest solely on someone else’s shoulders is not enough to sustain you.
This advice isn’t exclusively about accepting that you need to get involved with spreading the word; I’m not saying get over it.
I’m asking you to open your arms wide and embrace your compelling story.
A few weeks ago, author Randy Susan Meyers wrote about choosing joy in marketing. Here’s how she fully embraced her story:
From Randy:
Years ago, I heard the words that guided my career regarding (for me) the most vexing and challenging part of publishing a book—marketing and publicity:
Wisdom from literary agent Sorche Fairbank, speaking at a writer’s conference, became my mantra when facing the after-the-writing part.
Nobody will care about your book as much as you—not your agent, editor, husband, wife, mother, or father.
Nobody.
My literary agent, Stephanie Abou, became my other source of wisdom on taking responsibility for spreading the word—how to do what my publicist and marketing folks could not.
She urged me to, starting that day, move beyond relying on my writer circle and spread the word among friends (from past and present), family, alumni from any school I’d ever attended, camps, and houses of worship. Please do not rely solely on folks you are on contact with on social media.
I pretended I was throwing the largest giant wedding, bar mitzvah, and christening and prepared the most extensive guest list in history.
I even included old boyfriends. Hey, everyone’s curious about their exes, right?
Trusting my agent, I moved beyond my natural inclination towards quiet privacy and tracked down email and physical addresses. I designed postcards, wrote emails, and crafted a message that (I hope!) shared my news with a ‘letting you know’ tone that I might use to share any fun, good news. (I’m getting married! I became a grandma! I joined Habitat for Humanity!).
People responded with warm excitement. Nobody scolded me.
Okay, that’s a lie. One FB alumni group member scolded, “This isn’t the place for selling things.”
But he was always a jerk.
There are miraculous things only publicists can manage and things they can never do—and vice versa.
Now, with my sixth novel releasing (The Many Mothers […]
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By Randy Susan Meyers with Ann-Marie Nieves
Today’s post by Randy Susan Meyers features not only her perspective on writers facing promotion, but also the opinions of Ann-Marie Nieves of Get Red PR, her friend and publicist—the person who keeps Randy from repeatedly hitting the wine bottle until the launch is over.
Will it be dueling points of view or simpatico? Read on to find out.
There is a subset of writers for whom promotion and marketing come naturally—men and women who get and enjoy the many sides of promotion. Come launch day, they leap from bed, put on their (bright red!) lipstick, shrug a perfect blazer on their sharp shoulders, flick their perfectly cut hair over their collar, smile wide, and greet the readers of the world with joy.
Then there are the rest of us.
We slouch towards book release day with equal amounts of dread and fear. If we’re lucky (and smartish), we’ve read Naked at the Podium, a must-have guide for readers. (“This practical book of tips, solutions, and exercises was born of a writer’s angst: how to present material in a way that was appealing to bookstore audiences, flexible enough to use in non-traditional venues, and dramatic enough to keep any audience awake and eager to buy.”)
If we’re massively unlucky, we live in the killer zone of denial and decide that winging a launch will be fine. At least our wrinkled shirt is clean!
And hey, didn’t we put our book up on social media? Over and over and over?
Can you choose joy in marketing? Is that even possible?
Sometimes it is possible to find joy in marketing, but I’m using my definition of joy:
noun
She felt the joy watching the cat chase a laser pointer.
Synonyms: absorbing
For instance, writing this piece thoroughly absorbs me, even if I’m not jumping for joy. This work nourishes me. Self-engagement is what I want marketing my novel to bring. Absorption. Interest. Cause if I’m bored with what I’m doing, there’s a good chance so-too will be my potential reader.
What authors do is usually different from the marketing and publicity work done by our publicists and marketing people, whether they be from inside our publisher’s domain or outside professionals. They are professionals and know their business.
The marketing we do—think social media, events, emails, author newsletters, walking the streets with a sandwich board—that’s the part that can destroy our souls if we’re not careful—or can work against our intentions.
We want readers to know we’ve written a book. (Because they’re readers—and books are what they want.) But we don’t want them rolling their eyes (see above me-me-me)—we want to tempt them to hunt down our books. Thus, consider these tips:
You Don’t Have to Do Every Single Kind of Social Media
In truth, unless you do them in an authentic and semi-enjoyable way, you don’t have to participate in any. One could make social media a full-time job between Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X (formerly known as Twitter), BlueSky, and TikTok. How do you choose which to […]
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Therese here to introduce you to someone near and dear to me: my son, Liam. ❤️
Liam’s screenwriting journey started as a Rod Serling fan. Inspired by Serling’s allegorical storytelling, he attended USC’s film school where his thesis film, You Missed a Spot, was selected in over 30 festivals internationally. Since then, he has worked on the production-side of the industry, most recently wrapping as the line producer’s assistant on FX’s Mayans MC.
You may have heard about the downturn of work in Hollywood, and so Liam has bided his time between jobs doing something he was likely, inevitably, genetically born to do: WRITE. That the short story he’s written, that he’s now determined to see produced (see Kickstarter), taps into a real-life wound should come as no surprise to you, WU community.
But I’ll let Liam tell you about that, WU-style. Take it away, kiddo.
As writers, we often face the challenge of crafting stories that feel authentic, especially when venturing into experiences we haven’t lived ourselves. This was the case for me when I set out to write my new short film, Venus in Furs, a psychological thriller that personifies heroin as a woman.
I’m a filmmaker living in Los Angeles, and my life was deeply impacted when one of my close friends from film school overdosed on drugs laced with the powerful synthetic opioid, fentanyl. I remember the first time I met him—we were attending a mandatory lecture on the cinema and music of the 1960s. We were sitting on either side of another student we both had a crush on and got into a pointless debate about The Doors, as if this poor girl remotely cared about some band from five decades ago. He demolished me in the debate. The guy was like Jim Morrison himself—long-haired, charismatic as hell, with a ribcage you could practically see through his t-shirt.
After the girl successfully escaped, the two of us grabbed lunch and admitted we were only trying to impress her. Instant friendship.
During lunch, our conversation abruptly ended when he mentioned he was going to leave to smoke some opium. I assumed he was joking at the time—I mean, I had just met the guy. What, opium? You mean that shit from the 1800s? But over time, I came to learn that he was affected by a powerful addiction that, to him, wasn’t some unshakable affliction as often depicted, but rather the means to radically take hold of his post-high-school freedom and live out the fantasy of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle he so loved.
The last time I saw him, I visited his three-bedroom high-rise in Downtown Los Angeles, full of vintage records and a collection of Les Pauls paid for with credit cards he couldn’t pay off. It was the Fourth of July, and he was excited to launch fireworks at passing cars. At that point, I had witnessed the drug obliterate his ambitions. He had stopped attending classes, gained weight, and lost that magic spark that drew me to him in the first place. Heroin took everything from him. And yet he was so happy to participate in his own self destruction. In fact, sitting there with all his guitars and […]
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Recently, I parted ways with my agent and although I know it was the right decision, it’s still gut-wrenching.
Soon after, I sent out a couple of queries and had a request for the full of my latest manuscript. That agent asked for an exclusive look for two weeks. I agreed and withdrew my other queries. The exclusive teased out to a month. She said no.
Fair enough. This is not my first rodeo.
The next day, I sent the full to another agent who had asked to see it, if it was available after the exclusive ran out. After saving the draft I sent to her, I made a new Scrivener document called “Draft Seven”, intending to incorporate the first rejecting agent’s critical input, which I was grateful to receive. I intended to revise, then send out more queries.
When I began, that morning, to rework the opening of my novel, I fumbled. I tripped, started again, stopped, then consumed a full bag of M&M’s (the ‘sharing’ size). Like a floodgate opening, self-doubt rushed in and I felt like I was bobbing around some pretty rank water, trying not to panic and to remember how to float. I doubted I could fix what was wrong and wasn’t even sure what to change. Every shred of negative feedback I’ve ever received on anything I ever wrote came raining down. Should I switch from first person POV to close third? Should I Save the Cat?
After a few more days and a ‘no’ from the second agent, I decided I needed time to stew, contemplate, and process. To float for a bit. Because, yes, those feelings of rejection and failure I was pushing away were absolutely real.
Then I thought, why just step back? Why not walk away?
Please don’t write me off (no pun intended) as a slacker who can’t take criticism. I have and I can. This was a crossroads moment. My third novel has been under construction for three years, and it hasn’t come easily. Soon, I’ll turn sixty-five. Instead of writing, I could use my time to make dollhouses and to garden. Maybe I could become a more interactive grandmother. Maybe I’d order a Jitterbug flip phone and take up Prancercizing!
Afloat in the balmy sea of denial, I decided I’d try Not Being A Writer (henceforward, NBAW) for a few weeks and see how it felt.
My first week of NBAW involved some tidying up of loose ends, beginning on Sunday with a book club talk that had been on my calendar for months. The group had read my second novel, In All Good Faith, which was published in August 2021. I gave the 25-minute PowerPoint slideshow I usually give, with lots of vintage photographs from the Great Depression. After my talk, there was chitchat, with cheese cubes. As always, interacting with readers was gratifying. Someone asked when my next book would come out and I gave my pat answer: I’m revising. I didn’t know how to say that I was no longer writing.
On Monday, I read an ARC of a debut novel by a friend from my MFA program. I’d agreed to write a blurb. I remembered the agony of asking authors for blurbs and the […]
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At Orange Theory Fitness (OTF), where I torture and nurture myself each week, the trainers like to say, “How are you going to show up for yourself today?” Entering the OTF building, walking up the two extremely long flights of stairs, and starting each block of torture exercise, is me showing up for myself. This is my time to sweat, set free the to-do lists forever running through my head, and pretend like I’m a thin, athletic goddess. No phones, laptops, husband, hound, or children. And for the rest of the day, I am a better me.
A few weeks ago, I attended a celebration of life ceremony for a long-time client, Sharon Rowe, the fearless founder of Eco-Bags Products, the first reusable bag company. One of Sharon’s friends talked about the various sayings she lived by, which were chronicled in her book The Magic of Tiny Business. SHOW UP was one of Sharon’s tenets in business and in her personal life. Having worked with Sharon since 2006 or so, I saw her show up time and time again. She asked questions, responded quickly, worked hard towards goals, stated her case, recognized and celebrated achievements, boosted the morale of those around her, joined organizations, gave to charities, mentored, continuously encouraged women in business, counseled entrepreneurs, and understood the importance of pleasure, family time, community, and planet.
So what does this have to do with PR and marketing? Well, everything.
Every time we show up, we feed our creativity, boost morale, gain insight, increase our visibility in the industry, and build community.
When Sharon hired the marketing firm I freelanced for in the early aughts, her goal was to be on The Oprah Winfrey Show, despite never having seen it. What working woman with children watches daytime TV, she asked. (That’s for another post. ) You, we collectively told her. You’re the working woman who will watch this Oprah show, so you understand what it is you want. Well, she showed up…ECOBAGS® were given away to the audience of Oprah’s first Earth Day show, forever solidifying Eco-Bags Products in the zeitgeist. It was a moment so many showed up for and continue to do, carrying those bags to the market each day.
Who or what are you showing up for?
Got PR and marketing questions, drop them in the comments.
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