Networking Tips for Shy Writers: Three Steps to Success

If you're a writer, you likely want to make a living from your craft, but the idea of networking to market your skills or work may seem too intimidating for you.  As a shy writer, I've had to develop the skills to connect with others to promote my work.  Here are three quick tips to get you started.

Be No One Else But Yourself

Much of Western business culture is biased towards extroverts. It seems that you need to be outgoing, charming, and charismatic to really make it big.  For a shy writer, this belief is not only intimidating, it's repulsive.  It seems that we must become someone other than who we are to succeed.  That creates an understandable resistance to the whole idea of making a living from writing.

Writers thrive most whenever they express themselves authentically.  That's why it's important to walk into every networking event as yourself.  If you're shy, be shy. If you hate small talk, don't do small talk.  Simply be yourself in every interaction you have when meeting others to promote your work.

Of course, you may be asking "how can I be myself and still be sociable enough to succeed at networking?"  The best way to defeat your anxieties about networking for your writing is to actually go and do it, as yourself.   

Attend Two Networking Events a Month

In the same way that you didn't have to take a class in order to learn how to ride a bicycle, the best way to learn networking is to just do it.  Find two open networking events happening this month in your local area, and then go to them.  Ideally, space them two weeks apart so you can establish a rhythm to your routine.

A great resource for finding these events is Meetup.com.  This is a site designed to connect like-minded individuals, so if you're a writer, look for writer's guilds, book clubs, and marketing groups to start.

If this idea stirs up your anxiety, then this should calm you: when you go, you don't have to talk to anyone. What you're doing is learning through immersion. Show up without attachment to any particular outcome.  Your only goal is to get in the room.

At these events, you don't need to invent an icebreaker. Everyone is there for the same reason you are: to connect with others in business, so feel free to walk up to anyone and just say "hi". For that same reason, you may not have to do anything to have someone come up to you.  As with riding a bike, you'll get used to networking with practice.  Let your connections happen naturally, and be gentle with yourself. 

Learn From The Experts

As critical as learning by doing is, don't forget to read up on what the experts have to say about connecting with people. I recommend Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends And Influence People, the cardinal guide on communication for business and pleasure.  Another great read is Nicholas Boothman's How to Make Someone Like You in 90 Seconds or Less, which uses an approach based on neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).


Jody Aberdeen is a freelance writer and the author of the sci-fi romance Convergence.  You can visit his page at www.jodyaberdeen.com or his blog, Another Odd Place For A Hill.  
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How Do You Promote Something Written With A Pseudonym?

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by Kelly DeBie

The rumors are true. I’ve been “writing” a few books for a while now, which is a round-a-bout way of saying that there are some really awesome books that mostly reside in my head, none of which have found their way to paper in a legitimate enough form for me to really refer to them as books.

I started one eons ago now, when I was in an entirely different place and time. Though that book still may end up manifesting in some form someday, it's not a reflection of where I am currently, and I've got other books to write these days.

One of them exists now in a form that I can comfortably call a book. There is a table of contents, a rough outline of chapters, a few completed chapters and a running list of things I need to make sure I include.

When I'm in the zone, I'm pounding out 3,000+ words a sitting.

It appears I'm finally in the place to write this book, and this one will get finished.

The trouble with this particular book is a simple one, but one that will inevitably make getting it published someday much more difficult. It is this: I can't attach my name to it. I can't have it associated with me. I need to use a pseudonym.

This presents an interesting problem.

I have a few contacts in the publishing world, and may have to call in a few favors...but this book is going to have to be completely amazing for a publisher to take a risk on it, particularly when I refuse to associate myself with it directly.

OR

I can self publish, accepting the truth that I will be almost completely limited in my ability to promote it, at least to any of my already established fans, readers and contacts. If I call in favors from the people I know, they will obviously know that I wrote the book. If enough people know, everyone will.

What to do, what to do?

Fortunately, the book is nowhere near done. Once it's done, I will almost certainly edit it for twice as long as it takes to write it. After that I will likely ask a few trusted friends to proof it for me, and depending on what they say entertain the idea of bringing in an editor.

Then I will have to make a decision. 

I suppose that in the meantime, I should start working on setting up a social network presence for this alter ego of mine. I'd tell you what I pick for my pseudonym, but then I'd have to kill you. 

Not really, but you get my point.

If anyone out there has advice for me, lay it on thick and rich. I have no clue how I'm going to do this.

To Sell or To Buy? Shifting books ain't easy

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I sometimes think the only thing harder than writing a book is selling it. We've all been on Twitter, and bombarded with "Buy my book!" tweets, and if we follow a lot of the same writers, our feeds can be jammed with the original tweet, and fifteen retweets. After a while, you start to tune them out. On Christmas Day, I was astounded by the number of "Did you get a Kindle for Christmas? Then buy my book!" tweets doing the rounds. Take a day off, people!

So how DO you sell a book? Well I'm not entirely sure. I find it quite difficult to approach people to sell my book because I don't want to look like all I'm interested in is selling. I have tried blog tours, tweeting, joining discussion groups about my genre on Facebook, setting up a Facebook page for the book itself - I even took quotes from the book and turned them into 'quotes pages' which I uploaded onto both Facebook and a Pinterest board I created for the book. I've included an example in the post, not to sell the book but to give you an idea what I mean by 'quote page'. The book is a Western so I tried to choose a design aesthetic that would scream 'Old West'. Obviously if you're not a designer that's going to be more difficult to do, so this option of creating interest might not work for everyone.

So I figured instead of talking about how I sell books, I'd talk about what makes me buy books, in the hope that some specks of wisdom can be found in looking at the situation from the point of view of a reader - after all, readers are paramount.

I talk to a lot of writers on Twitter and Facebook, and I don't necessarily talk to them solely as a fellow writer - in a lot of cases, I'm one of their readers, too. However, I don't respond well to sales pitches, or "buy my book!" statuses and tweets. It's too "in your face" and intrusive. When anyone tells me to buy their book, my default response is "Why?" So I tend to ignore those writers who plaster links everywhere but don't really engage with anyone. The writers I do respond to are those who I just get chatting to, about everything and nothing - conversation flows, we get to know each other, and if I think they're cool, I'll check out their blog. Lo! They have a book for sale! At this point, my interest is piqued because I like them as a person, not as someone trying to directly sell me something. So I trot off to Amazon and download a sample. Now I'm a potential reader, and the only way the writer can make a sale is to write a good book. If I like the sample, I buy the book. Simple!

Well it sounds simple, and I know there's more to it than that - there are a lot of writers using social media, and it's impossible to be friends with everything because one day they might buy your book, but the point I'm trying to make is that I'm far more likely to buy a book because the writer interacted with me in some way. Maybe they bought my own book, or maybe they just helped me promote it. Maybe we swapped guest posts on each others' blog. Maybe they're the kind of cat who's happy to talk nonsense at 3am when neither of you can sleep. Either way, there's a personal connection there, and that's something you just can't forge with an automated direct message on Twitter.

What makes you want to buy a book?

Do it yourself, for yourself

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By Clark Brooks

I published a book last week. What's that? Why, thank you! Yes, I'm very pleased. It's on sale at Amazon.com and at the on-line store at my personal web site among other places. Again, thank you very much. What's that? Oh, I decided to go the self-publishing route. Hey wait! Where are you going?

Are you one of those people who still attaches a stigma to self-published books? Aw, come on, don't be that way. Listen, I know there are stereotypes out there:

• Self-published authors are lazy: They lack the ambition necessary to get their works published "legitimately"
• Self-published books are vanity projects: Some authors just want to be able to see their name on the cover of a book.
• Self-published books aren't good: A self-published book was probably rejected several times by "real" publishers, because it didn't stand up to standard quality control processes like editing or proof-reading and/or it just sucks.

As is the case with all stereotypes, there's some truth there. However, I can assure you, at least in my case, my book was thoroughly scrutinized by professionals (they cashed their checks, that's for sure) for quality control purposes. Whether it's any good or not is for the reader to determine, but it went through extensive edits. Vanity? Not to brag (honestly), but between my blog, my sportswriting and various other published works, the novelty of seeing my name on something has pretty much worn off. Okay, it's still a thrill to see it on the cover of my book, but that's not the reason I did it. And as far as being lazy... well, all right, I'll cop to that, to a degree. I simply didn't want to go through the whole query letter-rejection-find an agent-more letters-more rejections procedure. Not because I have thin skin and fear of rejection but because that stuff just doesn't interest me. I don't care about it. Writing query letters takes time away from writing content and days are too short as it is. I didn't want to do it so I didn't do it. Just like so many writers conferences and workshops that focus on How To Get Published (ie: navigating the quirks and perils of an archaic system designed to stack the the odds heavily against you even if you do everything exactly correct) instead of How To Write More Gooder, it's a waste of time.

Personally, I wanted to put my material into a traditional format (a book) that I could put in people's hands. I wanted to work with people (editors, illustrators, etc.) with whom I wanted to work. I wanted complete control over what the final product would look like. I wanted to retain full ownership of every piece of it. I wanted to be actively involved in the marketing and distribution of it, on schedules set by me. I wanted all of that and very little of it would be afforded to me by submitting to the traditional publishing process. In exchange, I might have gotten my book on the shelves at Barnes and Noble for a year, maybe. For me, that trade off wasn't good enough.

Someone who gets their hands on a lump of clay is a sculptor. Someone who puts paint on canvas is a painter. Someone who can get sounds out of a guitar or a piano is a musician. Yet when it comes to writing, someone who doesn't follow the one long-established path from point A to point B doesn't deserve to be considered a legitimate author? That's nonsense, but writing is the only creative discipline where that provincial mindset still holds sway. One need look no further than the crumbling remains of the music industry to see that not only is it not necessary, it's probably not even sustainable.

The gatekeepers of the traditional publishing process still serve a purpose for those who feel it suits them, authors and readers, and that's fine for them. But if you think there's still just one way to get things done, you're simply not paying attention. After all, why should anyone wait to be let in through a gate when there are so few walls to keep them out?

A Short Collection of my most Controversial and Opinionated Observations on Writers

by Carrie Bailey

If you suck as a person, you will suck as a writer and everyone who reads your work will be granted great insight into exactly how you draw into your mouth by contracting the muscles of the lip and mouth to make a partial vacuum. 

 I’m not saying great writers are great people. Some are the emotional equivalent of a tar pit or a new strain of bird flu. They are very much themselves when they write and happen to be jerks.

What I am saying is that if you have an obvious fault in your personality, it will come out in your writing. I say this thinking about an aspiring YA writer I read with teenage characters having dark jaded and sophisticated sexual relationships that screamed PEDOPHILE to me. I know teenagers can be complex emotional creatures, but this writer was clearly drawing from his own sophisticated sexual

"Hi, I've just finished reading your first draft. I realize
these are unusual circumstances, but I have just sent
a copy to a mental health professional and the authorities. Also,
there were numerous typos on page 6 and 27."

confusion. Most writers aren't as transparently cringeworthy as this man, although published fantasy author, Piers Anthony, certainly is.

How Not to Write a Novel is a book with a lot of examples where writers just get creepy. I recommend reading it.

Creepiness is only one obvious fault that a person can have. Some authors are shallow, overly idealistic, racist, timid, boring... and that's why they suck. Sure, they can still get published. People do, but a writer has to balance out their negative repulsive qualities with enough good ones to tip the scale in favor of attraction.

Bookishness does not make you a superior form of life anymore than wearing glasses makes you more intelligent.

A lot of farmers don’t have time to read, although many listen to a great number of audio books. A lot of poor single mothers don’t have time to read. Many worthwhile people have lives that don’t involve reading books. Time to read is a privilege. It irks me when writers pat themselves on the back for having a noble hobby as if we've all forgotten that there was an era when reading was considered an immoral distraction from responsibility. Humanity can survive without books, but we can’t live without food. Respect the hardworking people who don't read, they may just be catching your book when it gets released on film.

Shocking! It is possible for someone to follow an "author" on social media and not be their adoring fan. 

I bubble over with revulsion whenever an author I friend on Facebook, adds me, and then posts a “Thank-you for friending me” message on my wall. Why don't they thank me privately? Because, they want my friends to see that I made the choice to friend them. Bastards! My Facebook wall is not for you! People I know personally are more considerate about posting on my wall than these authors I've just met.

Real fans are not numbers on social media. Authors friend each other as colleagues not as fans. We inflate each others numbers to make each other look more popular. Sometimes we do read each others work. We share technique, stories and industry information, but we are rarely fans.

Fans are people who are in awe of a writer's work. It can be very uncomfortable to get your first real fans, because you may never have experienced that sort of un-tempered and unreciprocated adoration. While some people may be impressed that you wrote a book, they don’t necessarily plan to read what you wrote. Authors who treat every social media contact as a fan need to recognize the difference!

Being a successful writer is a group effort and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be led into the forest and left there for 20 days with only saltine crackers.

People, who I know offline, come to me all the time and say that they would like to be a successful author. Can I make that happen? No. I cannot. I have only single digit book sales each week myself and that great trickle of dimes has taken me three years to unleash. People who believe that anyone wields the power to make them successful overnight are naïve. It is kind of cheek-pinching cute though.

However, there are arrogant pricks among writers who knowingly perpetuate this mythology of the author. One day, we click the last button and place the final period on the last paragraph of our great masterpiece. There it sits. Moments later, fans are pounding on our door. Why? Because, authors either have it or they don't; that elusive something that drives sales. It's magic!

Do you agree? Better not. I will come. I will find you and we are going out for a little walk in the woods. We'll have a nice chat. I will leave you there.

If I do take the time to give a writer advice, I expect them to either show me some support by reading one of my books, promoting me, or turn around and mentor someone else. A writer’s time isn’t free just because we aren’t paid hourly. But, we give a lot of it away, because a lot of people gave their time away to us. Now, there it is. The connection between writing and success is a lot of time invested and a lot of help from other people. We have to learn about the industry, make connections, and promote our work. No magic. Just time and the hard work and time of other people.

Giving blanket advice to writers is wrong and dumb and mean and thoughtless and a generally bad idea.

There is no advice that applies to every writer. We’re all at different points in our artistic development and career. But, sometimes people get stuck in a herd…of writers, which they find comforting and validating. And then. They get cultish. It happens.

These rabid and blind writers start to believe they have found absolute knowledge about being an author. They begin to form rules. And that isn't criminal. But, someone of these creatures with laptops and pens, go after the young and those new to writing. They attempt to validate their rules by forcing others to follow them. They oppress creativity. They crush the artistic spark. They douse the fires. They trap the muse in a small cage and poke her with a stick.

Having said that, I would like invite you to read a copy of The Handbook of the Writer Secret Society. It's free when you follow our site and connect with us. While there are no oppressive rules to follow, authors do benefit from the company and companionship of encouraging and unoppressive writers and we've captured that in book form. This handbook holds the epiphanies, experiences and humor of many new authors progressing in their careers within our changing industry.

There are only two types of writers.

Idiots and fools. No! Kidding! We are engaging in a difficult process with uncertain reward or benefit, but there is nothing foolish about it. The benefit of writing is unique to each person and infinitely meaningful to many.

However, I personally classify writers into two categories: the hopeful and hopeless. Some writers add hope to my life and some take it away. It's that simple. I try to avoid the later. I try to identify them early on during our association and keep my distance. It's my overly simplified opinion that this distinction exists and I am proud to say that it has helped keep me writing. But, more than that. It is my opinion and not one I adopted from someone else.

Having and knowing and articulating my opinions is grand. I'm not sure I do it often enough. This month at Peevish Penman, all the authors and I are being opinionated just to practice opening up and saying what we really think without worrying about offending or alienating people. If you have a very opinionated post on your blog about writers, please link to it in the comments. I'd love to read it.

Opening up to criticism

by Clark Brooks

I get critics. I understand them. I appreciate that they have an important role to play. People are busy, money and time are scarce. Recommendations, pro or con, can be invaluable to readers. I also know there's a very fine line between critics and trolls, especially now when anybody with an internet connection can cast themselves as a person of influence. This little tidbit from an interview Prince did with Rolling Stone way back in 1985 has always stuck with me...

"One time early in my career, I got into a fight with a New York writer, this real skinny cat, a real sidewinder. He said, 'I'll tell you a secret, Prince. Writers write for other writers, and a lot of time it's more fun to be nasty.' I just looked at him. But when I really thought about it and put myself in his shoes, I realized that's what he had to do. I could see his point. They can do whatever they want." 

My first book isn't published yet so I haven't had a real personal stake in the review process yet. I'm not looking forward to it either. Not because I have thin skin and I dread the idea of people I don't know judging me and saying mean things about my work (that doesn't mean that I'm rough, tough and immune to that kind of thing; I have skin like toilet tissue and I'm already planning on spending a great deal of time in the fetal position in a darkened room once the critics finally get hold of the stupid thing) but because it's one of those things that's part of the deal and everybody has to go through it. I hate that kind of crap, especially the politics of it. All that stuff that isn't actual writing but necessary components of the writing "biz" seem so time consuming and counter-productive in that it has nothing to do with The Creative Process (I put that in caps in case it wasn't clear that I'm an artiste who is in love with the smell of his own farts). All the business parts of this business bore, confuse, frustrate and/or intimidate me. I know I have to sit down and grow up soon, though. A big part of that is embracing critics and reviews. That means taking time to really figure out all the nuances of Good Reads and Amazon and make connections with people whose reviews could be beneficial to me. All of that is going to be time not spent writing and creating product. "Tough luck, Suzie", you're saying (which isn't very nice and you haven't even read my book yet). "It's something every author goes through. Put on a helmet and shut up." And of course, you're right.

That doesn't mean I'm looking forward to it, though.

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End of The Year: Decide! Execute! Finish! ... Start?

By Molly Field

The cleaning ladies are here. Which means I can't really think because they're being generally awesome and vacuuming my lair.

No matter, we will press ahead and see how this post turns out, right? Steady on your horses, friends, there's unknown territory ahead. 

I am having an issue (God, that vacuum is reeeeeally loud, I think it's got a Lego loaf or my kid's Millennium Falcon in its rotors) with perspective and point of view in the book that I have decided to go back to writing. This decision is almost a 180˚ (I'd like to think of it more as a 168.5˚) turn from my previous stance of believing that all my written works must be authentic, real and not fiction. Well, if politicians can lie (the vacuum is right behind me now, the floor is humming and this is hard to write) so can I; I can lie too. 

My former boss, and current friend, Liam Callanan, wrote a book, All Saints, from the point of view as a former teacher (I almost wrote 'former female nun,' now that would've cranked up some editors' eyebrows now wouldn't it've? How many more times can I say 'now' in the same sentence? And 'it've'?? Who talks like that?!) at a beachfront Catholic school. It was a brilliant book and I absolutely loved it. And Liam's a man; always has been. He was never a former female or a nun, so I've got room here, to y'know, do what I want. 

The problem is: the first, oh, 75,000 words all of this book I'm going to get back to very soon (and I'm not saying 'real soon' as if I mean 'oh, y'know after I win the lottery and build my parents a ficus tree terrarium made of sapphires...' 'cause I've already said that) are all written in 3rd person narrative, interrupted at times with 1st person thoughts and observations from the protagonist. I swear I've seen this whole 1st person interruptus done before... where was it? ... Oh, yes, I don't recall never. So, maybe because I've not taken a writing class since college (that was last year, I'm 23 - FIRST LIE! hooyeah, this feels good!) it's not the best technique? But this is the 21st century, baby... it's all good. Recreational use of pot is legal in two states now.

I've got this. 

Not really. 

What I do 'got' is 195 pages of perhaps the wrong perspective. I say 'wrong' because I'm finally OK with writing this book as a mostly fictionalized memoir  (is 'fictionalized memoir' even a genre? Did I just create a new genre? Well... this is the age of do whatever you want) and if I really want to be authentic, I could just crank it out as a book from me about me by me for both of me. What to do... what to do...? I have plans...

I plan to get back to the book within a few days to get a jump on the new year. I'm waiting until 12/12/12 ends so that my efforts won't be a complete waste of time if the Mayans are right about that end of the world thing. Oh, you can joke all you want... but isn't just one teensy bit of you curious if they're right?

I think they're wrong: I have Egg Nog that is good until 12/12/12 (but look at the time stamp... that's hedging it awfully close, don't you think?) next to whole milk which just y'know, GOES for it and doesn't expire until the 17th. That whole milk has cojones; it knows who it is.

This is what the end of the year world year thing does to me. I'm not big on the hype of New Year's resolutions, so I think I'm beating myself to the punch and causing as much angst about the whole thing before I even get started. I need to be like that whole milk: just go for it. 

Readers: what do you think about in terms of reading a book from its point of view? Do you like to hear from "me" or from "him" or "she" or ... "thems"? (Jusssst checking to see if you're still with me.) 

A couple friends have vocally stated they prefer 1st person and I see their point: they feel it's more relatable, more intimate and they get sucked in (like a vacuum). But then there's this part of me that says, 'No, write as a detached observer'; but then I'm nervous that the whole thing I've got going on with my character's thoughts and observations is like a giant vacuum in the room: distracting, loud, fantastical, awesome and hot...

I'm re-reading Life of Pi right now and I find the whole experience -- from the author's notes in the beginning to the entire structure of the book -- to be slightly off-putting in that it's so in-your-face fiction. All of it: I'm caught in that familiar, yet ancient place from "The Wizard of Oz" - where Dorothy wakes up and the child in me believes what she did: that she went on a yellow brick road with a talking lion and living tin man and scare crow to see a floating head, aw c'mon... who am I kidding?; and the adult in me believes what the adults did: that she was smokin' crack. It was Judy Garland... 

But when it first came out, I loved Life of Pi. So the problem is me. I need to stop being such a realist. I love fiction. I think my problem... is guilt. More of that next time. Maybe.  

NaDoReMeFaSoLaTeDoNo-NoWriMo

By Molly Field (www.mollyfield.com)

I’m supposed to be writing for NaNoWriMo this month and I have to admit: it’s not going well a’tall.

In fact, this post was supposed to be written a week ago.

The first day, November 1, I was raring to go. Woke up early, felt great, made a vat of coffee, prepared the children for school, came home, put on my woobies, turned on my writerly music, sat down with my mug of half-caf java (sorry Carrie, I’ll take hostages if I drink too much coffee) and long straw which used to be an aquarium tube and immediately got a headache.

I don’t get headaches.

Almost a week went by and I woke with the headaches after going to sleep with them. Last Friday, I went to the doctor’s and diagnosed with a sinus infection. It didn’t present typically with copious output and according to my physician, my “nose [was] clear, but [my] entire head [was] covered in fluid.”

Well, there it is: a fluid-covered,vise-clamped head.

This about sums it up. 

The diagnosis was like permission to allow my realization that I didn’t want to do NaNo this time. It wasn’t about incentive, camaraderie, or initiative. I have plenty of all of those, I just don’t have the interest or the compulsion or ah, hell, who am I kidding… I didn’t have a story this time either.

I sat down and wrote a few things, but they felt forced. They didn’t sound like me and I didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t writer’s block, it was writer’s blech.

My mother People My mother says, “Oh Maally! Relaaaax. It’ll be faaantaaastic, like everrrything yooou do. Yoooou’re your owwwwn worrrrst critik.” And I was. I was a really bad critic. I was so bad, I didn’t show up for the act.

I wrote a couple blog pieces, I enjoyed doing that. What’s funny about that is that at the end of October, I had announced on my vastly and wildly popular blog (really, you should check it out, it’s all the rage) that I was going to dial back on blogging so that I could write more. So what did I do? I didn’t write so I could go back to blogging. Even though I felt like crap but didn’t know it.

Once I’d learned the sinus infection was real and that it had been validated by my doctor, all of a sudden, an intense sharp pain slammed me from the back of my head to between my eyes at the brow bone. My doctor was in mid-sentence when this happened, telling me about the meds and what I had to do and I had raise my “just a minute” finger in her face and sit back, and take it all in. I was overcome.

“Sharp pain? Right now?” She asked and I nodded.

“First time ever in all this time?” she asked, already knowing the answer, to my furtive, micro-nodding upper body. Viselike, my chin was resting on my chest; I had become a clam, a nodding clam.

“I see that a lot, with some people. I see it a lot with moms. You needed validation didn’t you, to be unwell?” I nodded, sniffling now. Not from the pressure, but from the blessed relief of letting the pressure go.

A couple moments of quiet passed between us. I blew my nose, crumpled the tissue until I spoke, “I was one of those kids, who when I’d get in a fight with a schoolmate on the playground or with my brothers or a neighbor, I wouldn’t let them see me cry. I took it and held it all in. But when I got home, and I saw my mom or dad, I cried and howled. I let it out then. When I felt…”

“Safe.” She said. “When you felt safe.”

And I said sniffled ‘yes,’ which sounded like, “Shnesh.” 

So this brings me to my point: forcing is wrong, holding in is wrong and pushing ourselves to do something that isn’t ‘fitting’ is wrong. It’s not that it’s wrong in an ethical or moral sense; it’s simply wrong in a sense that it doesn’t improve things. We explode. But I know this! I wrote about forcing on my blog. 

I need one of these. 

I’m all for writing a book, participating in NaNo when I’m ready to go; when I’ve got something with legs: go forth, write, edit, beg and publish. But if you love to write and you don’t have a clue as to what to write about and your heart’s not in it, then uhh… don’t force it. It’ll be obvious. We writers? Historically we are tortured, brilliant, sad, alcoholic, codependent and tragic people; there are enough of those in the world already... why add 'stupidly masochistic' to the list? Oh, that's right, because it sells.

I might be totally against the writerly establishment when I say all that, but I feel I must clarify: I’m not saying give up, I’m not saying don’t write and I’m not saying don’t push through, even though I sort of am. I’m saying this: write something else. Step away from the laptop. Use a pen and paper. Play Pictionary. Try a poem or a couple of dirty limericks. Take some photos or write in your journal. Don’t let your right brain dry up, just don’t beat it up. When the brain is fertile, the book will grow. 

I have books in my head, for sure. But not NaNo books; I say this at risk of sounding snobby, and it’s not what I mean at all. Rather it’s quite the opposite: my thinking is tragically pedantic: it’s the No in the word that gets me every time. I am not good with fiction (if you read my PPM interview, you’ll see this if this post hasn't convinced you). My every attempt at writing a novel becomes a poorly veiled memoir, sad and dressed in outdated and ill-fitting clothes, clicking on a broken stiletto, and with terribly bad hair despite blatant attempts to prove otherwise.

I'm not sure what this picture of Tara Reid has to do with this post other than the fact that it seemed to be the most appropriate for my vision of searching for "drunk but trying to fake sobriety" images. 

Who knows what I’ll do next. I’ve got some ideas in the hopper that if I disguise them well enough no one will ever be the wiser. No one. I’m talking alternate universes, amorphous plasma, vegetative, non-humanoid forms, laser appendages and stuff. But non-humanoid plasma that came from dysfunctional cosmic petri dishes who are dealing with serious behavior issues. That sounds easy enough.

So what about you? Do you force and then when you’re validated by someone else that the forcing is for naught, do you suddenly release? 

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The Cost of Books in New Zealand

by Carrie Bailey


I'm writing about this topic, because I'm thinking about this huge glaringly immense problem that I face on a daily basis. Kiwis (that really is the term they prefer to call themselves) buy most of their books online and I don't blame them. Actually, online or they post them with a trading website similar to Craig's List. The fact is that their bookstore selection is so poor that I'd have a better chance of finding a menorah in someone's window this year than a single book I'd honestly like to read and the prices make me want to change careers, but alas, no, I'll stay a writer. If I were to open a bookstore, it might very well descend into Black Books style debauchery, which is a great series if you've never watched it...

Currently, I don't have a solution to this problem other than beg friends and family for a new eReader since my last one met a tragic end on set of conveyer belt rollers. Ebooks have incredible potential here, but first eReaders need to gain popularity. I can only tell those living and breathing nearby on these green little islands that it's too much to bother with the buying and selling and posting book titles online. Get an eReader. Then, buy The Handbook of the Writer Secret Society. Okay, that's shameless promotion of all the awesome writers who contributed to the first edition, which is absurdly entertaining and likely to make all writers a bit more successful at what they do, and I apologise.

Alright, so if you're a kiwi, please buy an eReader this holiday season for everyone you love. If you know a kiwi and you're able to mail one down this way, please package the contraption appropriately. If you're not a wealthy kiwi, but you're dying for an eReader (you're probably one of my classmates or much like them) then enter every single eReader give away you can find and keep the hope alive that a single day of reading may someday be less expensive than smoking, drinking, gambling and every other vice.

Note: Wellington Public Library in New Zealand charges quite a bit for checking out books, which is fine if you do so every once in a while, but if you do so every once in a while and then drop them in the bathtub after drying out the coffee stains, then well, you understand why I'm recommending eReaders. They dry out better than an average book although better could be debated when most books don't survive the tub anyway. Do they make a waterproof eReader?

Carrie Bailey is an American graduate student living in New Zealand studying at Victoria University of Wellington. She misses decent Mexican food, Powell's City of books in Portland, Oregon and tacky pictures of turkeys prepared by the fourth grade and under crowd. She also edits Peevish Penman.