Author: beckylevine

Becky Levine is a children's book writer, working hard to strengthen her picture-books skills. She is the author of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, a book to help you get started with a critique group, learn to revise from a critique, and strengthen your own critiquing powers. She has also published two nonfiction children's books with Capstone Press. She is currently seeking representation. Becky lives in California's Santa Cruz mountains, where she spends a lot of time sitting on the couch, knitting needles in hand, thinking through the next revision. At her day job, she writes grants for a nonprofit healthcare organization.
Posted in Critique Groups, Critiquing

Friday Five: How to Keep Critiquing Strong Through the Summer

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, the solstice may not have hit, but as I mentioned last post, summer’s pretty much here. For some of us, that means kids out of school, family visits, vacations from work to someplace with lounge chairs and margaritas. As wonderful as these changes are, they can make writing…and critiquing quite the challenge. With schedules shifting and calendars filling up, it can be tempting to let the critique meetings drop, to write your way through as much of the summer as you can, but procrastinate actually getting stuff to your critique partners.

Resist that temptation.

Your critique group keeps you in touch with your writing and your current project, even if you feel like you’re mostly just showing up. Your critique partners will check in with you, you’ll end up talking about a character or a big plot point, and you’ll at least think about what you might write next. You will be critiquing work from the other members (yes, we pretty much always manage to make time for our commitment to others, even if we back off from that same commitment to ourselves), and that will keep you musing about strong setting, active dialogue, and how to weave some humor into a voice.  You’ll find yourself motivated to grab a few more minutes each week to write, and you’ll see that you are making progress–even if it slows down from the pace you’d like to set.

And, at the end of summer, you’ll find yourself still connected to your WIP, instead of having to find that connection all over again.

Here are a few tips to hold onto your critique pattern for the next few months.

1. If you’re in an in-person group, get everybody to bring their calendars to each meeting. Confirm that your usual meeting will work for everyone, or at least for the majority of the group. If too many people are scattering in the next couple of weeks, or cleaning for and entertaining those in-laws, set a new date for the next meeting. It’s okay if you’re a week late, and it’s okay if the one lucky member who’s spending the summer in France emails in their critiques. But schedule that time.

2. If you’re in an online group, shoot for the same kind of check-in. Email around and find out about everybody’s plans for the summer, and make sure your usual submission/critique schedule will work. If it looks like there’s going to be a bigger-than-usual gap, try to work something out for the “empty” time. Maybe you’ll email every couple of weeks for status reports and motivation; maybe you’ll commit to at least reading the submissions from the member who wants to submit to an agent in the fall. Find some way to avoid the void! 🙂

3. Be imaginative about where and when you read and critique. Maybe you’re used to a few hours of school time when you can sit quietly with the submissions from your group, but now the kids are home. Can you take them to the park for some run-around time? Are you up for allowing a few more hours of TV and/or video games during the summer months? Are you traveling? Can you critique on the plane without getting airsick? (Not mentioning cars here, because you don’t even want to THINK about me critiquing on a windy road!) What about pool-time at the hotel?  If you’ve got family visiting, let them know you will be mysteriously disappearing a few times while they’re there. Offer to drop them at a museum or a trailhead for a bit, then find a nearby cafe or bench to get your critiquing done.

4. Again, if you’re meeting in-person, consider shifting the location of your get-togethers. If one or more of you have small children at home, see if the other members will come to your houses. Yes, the kids will be distracting; yes, as soon as the group shows up, the shy ones will need Mommy or Daddy’s attention, and the non-shy ones will want everybody else’s. Work with it. Get a movie going at low volume in the same room (I can recommend any of the Land Before Time movies for a WIDE range of ages!)

5. Don’t beat yourself up too much if your focus isn’t as tight or if your critiques don’t go quite as deep as you usually shoot for. Yes, giving your critique partners your best feedback is important, but it’s just as important to keep rolling along with what feedback you can provide. It’s much better for everybody to swap a few basic ideas for improvement than to drop your creative exchange altogether.

Overall, be flexible and gentle with yourself and your critique partners. I’m learning big-time these days that baby steps can lead to big productivity and keep us sane! Odds are, nobody will make it to every meeting this summer, or be on-time with every submission to an online group. And, sure, you may see the intensity of your critiques drop a bit. That’s okay. What’s important is to not let the whole summer slip away from you, to keep touching base with each other and keep at least some feedback flowing.

It’s another time to remember that our writing is important to us, that it’s one of the things in our lives we love and need. It’s another time to make sure your current project is on your to-do list–somewhere near the top. It’s another time to commit to our WIPS and to the critiquing that keeps them going.

You can do all this and enjoy the sunshine. I promise.

Posted in Uncategorized

Summer: The Countdown Begins

Posted on by beckylevine

Here’s what my son’s next two weeks look like:

  • This week-finals, for which I think he’s pretty much prepped. And, I’m guessing, no homework.
  • 8th-grade party.
  • One more weekend.
  • Next week–two days of math games.
  • One day of not-sure-what: do they practice for 8th-grade graduation ceremonies?
  • One day at Great America.
  • Last day of school/graduation.

Here’s what my next two weeks look like:

  • Write
  • Critique
  • Market
  • Pretend the calendar pages aren’t turning any faster

Normally, this time of year, I’m not ready for June. I’m not ready for the shift in schedule that disrupts my writing pattern. I’m not ready for hot weather.

Well, as all of you know who’ve listened to me whining this spring, I’m SO ready for hot weather! And the rest of it.

As my son gets older and, frankly, wants less time with me hanging around, it becomes easier to get my work done and then enjoy the bits and pieces of our days that do overlap. I have a child who pretty much epitomizes the sleeping-in teenager (wonder where he got THAT trait!), so I can turn off the alarm, wake up on my own, and still have plenty of morning time to write. And the other things I need to get done–critiquing and prepping for conference workshops, well…they’ll get done.

If I had a writing goal for this summer that I was brave enough to speak out loud, it would be to finish the draft of this WIP. Looking at that goal, I think it’s a good one. The more I open myself up to dumping those icky first-draft pages into my computer, the sooner I’ll get to revision. So I guess the push this summer will be for me to keep pushing myself–to come back to the computer each morning, throw a semi-thought-out dart at some path for my MC to head down, and write it. My son is heading into high school this fall–I’d love to be heading into a revision at the same time.  Milestones for both of us.

What about you? How does your writing path shift and curve in this next month, and what do you do to keep things on some kind of track? However you make it happen, remember to relax and enjoy some of that vacation feel. I know I’m going to!

Posted in Character, First Drafts

Vagueness or: You Know, that…that…that…THING!

Posted on by beckylevine

When I critique, I make a lot of notes asking for an author to be more specific, more concrete, to come up with a tangible image or object or action to take place of a vague word or phrase. And when I revise my own work, frankly, I love the  magic that happens when I manage to find those vagueness in my writing and replace them with something a reader can touch, hear, see, taste, or smell.

This week I’ve been trying to work on my characters, because as I write my first draft, they’re driving me a bit nuts with their current state of vagueness. I’m finally, DEEPLY realizing the distinction between an action-driven plot and a character-driven plot. Every book, I think, has to have both, but in a mystery–for example–the need to find clues, investigate secrets, and interrogate suspects can drive the big events and actions that move that story forward. Yes, the protagonist had better have a personal goal, as well, but it’s not usually the top-level plot that the reader is following. That’s pretty much the kind of plot I’ve written before. In this WIP, the plot has to be driven by what my MC wants. Yes, of course, external events and actions by other characters will impact her big time, but when I’m looking for what she herself is going to do, or try to do, next, it’s got to be based on her personal goal. Her concrete, specific, tangible goal.

To keep with the theme, I’m going to give you a specific, concrete example. We all know bits and pieces of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. We know what it’s about…his dream. Nice and vague. Except he doesn’t let it be. Look at these lines:

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with the little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

 Look at the specificity of what King wants and dreams–his goal.  Yes, he uses words like freedom and oppression, but he makes you see the concrete meaning of those dreams in his imagery of the governor, of his own four children, of those red hills of Georgia. You see the tangible, reach-out-and-touch solidity of what this man wants. You see things you could create serious plot points around, and from which he drove his own actions and the actions of millions of other people.

Because they knew what he wanted.

I have the dream part of my MC’s character. I’m still working on those concrete details, those specific things she is driven to go after. So today, with a BIG mug of tea and some good music, I’m asking her more questions. Today and tomorrow, I’ve slotted out for this. I know I won’t get all the way there. I know I’ll still, by Friday, be left with a lot of questions. But they’re getting me closer–they’re showing me what’s missing and will, hopefully, sit in my brain as I go back to writing scenes–pushing me toward something solid.

How do you get to the tangible objects, events, moments your hero wants? How do you take her from that thematic goal to the concrete quest? Share any tips and tricks in the comments–we’ll all benefit!

Posted in Storytelling

Storytelling

Posted on by beckylevine

For years, I’ve been wanting to take my son to a storytelling festival. This year, finally got my act together, tracked one down, and got it on the calendar. Yesterday we headed up to El Sobrante for the Bay Area Storytelling Festival. We’d opted to just go the single-performance route and then maybe hang around for some of the open-mike storytelling. We drove up the east side of the peninsula and out past Berkeley and ended up in the overflow lot at Kennedy Grove Regional Park, then walked in got our tickets and some junk food and took our seats to hear Syd Lieberman.

What an  hour. Syd framed his performance by starting and ending with a couple of traditional Jewish stories, then filled the rest of the time with stories about himself and his family. Syd was an English teacher in Chicago for 30 years, and I’m pretty sure my son’s standard of what he expects/hopes for from his teachers next year just went up a notch. Especially, you know, when Syd told the story about taking his senior class–blindfolded–into downtown Chicago, dropping them off in pairs on streetcorners and telling them to find their way back to Evanston. And almost getting arrested one year for kidnapping.

After Syd’s hour, we bought a couple of his CDs, then headed to another tent for the five-minutes-each story swap session. That was fun–seeing how various people did on writing and delivery, confidence and ease. And admiring every one of them for doing the hardest part, getting up in front of that audience.

It was a wonderful day. I was right–I knew this art would resonate with my son who has a definite bit of the actor, as well as the writer, inside of him. On the way home, we talked about what makes someone a storyteller and when different people might be ready to take their stories up on the stage. We stopped at Starbucks, him for food, me for some caffeine, and we noted the fact that sitting and listening can tire you out (in a great way) as much as any form of physical exercise. And we drove home listening to more stories, on one of Syd’s CDs, both of us laughing and smiling and me, at least, having the tears come a couple of times, too.

It was one of those days that you set up and hope for the best and then, as it plays out, you see it turn into everything you hoped for and more. How old is this art? How long have people been telling and listening to stories and feeling connections between the storyteller and the audience, between themselves and the person seated next to them? And how much does it matter what form we use to tell and share these stories–whether it’s through the spoken word in person or in an MP3 file, or the written word on paper or in an e-book?

It’s the story, folks. And that, I can tell you, is here to stay.

Posted in Uncategorized

Friday Five: Library Finds

Posted on by beckylevine

Believe me, it’s seriously easy to feel like you’re going overboard on the research part of writing a historical novel. On the other hand, it can sometimes take reading (or at least skimming) through several books to get a true sense of the time you’re writing in or to find a single answer to a question that truly impacts your hero’s path. So this morning, I drove back down to the Dr. Martin Luther King branch of the San Jose library and roamed the shelves again. As I headed over to the self-checkout line with my heavy totebag of books, I thought I’d better check if I had too many books. (Yes, I should have thought of this BEFORE I started looking, thank you very much.)

Me: Is there a limit to how many books I can check out?

Librarian: Yes. 100.

NOT A PROBLEM.

So, today, a few of the (hopefully) treasures I brought home:

1. The Positive Image: Women Photographers in Turn of the Century America, by C. Jane Gover

2. Avenues to Adulthood: The Origins of the High School and Social Mobility in an American Suburb, by Reed Ueda

3. The Souls of the Skyscraper: Female Clerical Workers in Chicago, 1879-1930, by Lisa M. Fine

4. Secondary Schools at the Turn of the Century, by Theodore R. Sizer

5. Lines of Activity: Performance, Historiography, Hull-House Domesticity, by Shannon Jackson

Honestly, part of me is saying, “Whee!” and part of me is saying, “Oh, dear.”

Oh, well. Here’s to knowledge!

Posted in Uncategorized

Thanks for the Commas, But…

Posted on by beckylevine

This is my sister.

http://web.extension.illinois.edu/state/staffdetail.cfm?StaffID=942

I know, no resemblance, right?! Yes, we did (along with our other sister) get mistaken as triplets when we were young. But if you take a look at her bio and see all those references to “Science,” you’ll know we’re far from identical.

She does know how to ask a good question, though. The other day when I posted on Facebook & Twitter for questions about critiquing, Kathy wrote this:

How do you get people to focus on the content of what you’ve written (or forgot to write) rather than just grammar problems? May apply more to nonfiction writing.

This so DOESN’T apply any more to nonfiction than fiction. Most, if not all of us, have gotten very nice critiques where a reader told us they really liked a scene or chapter, but had marked a few places where we had our spelling wrong. Or our commas. And we’ve sat there, feeling okay about the compliments, but being pretty sure that there was plenty wrong with what we’d written. And still wondering what exactly wasn’t working.

There are a few times when it’s fine, even helpful, to mark proofreading and copyediting problems during a critique. You may want to do this when:

  • You know the author is getting ready to send off the writing–either to an agent or editor, or to a website or newsletter, or to the company that’s going to print their self-published book. They want the manuscript to be as professional and clean as possible, and if you can offer a bit of help in that direction, go for it.
  • You see a grammar or style issue that’s turning into a pattern, that the writer is repeating a lot. If you can show the writer what isn’t working and why, even point out the fix, you may be saving them a lot of extra work down the line.
  • If you’re trying to win the author over from the dark side and convert them to the serial-comma side of the debate. (Oh, wait, no, that’s just what I do.)

***

Most of the time, though, a critique is bigger than commas. (Yes, there are things in this world bigger than commas.) For fiction, it’s about things like plot and character and voice. For nonfiction, it’s about structure and organization, clarity of content, whether the humor is just light enough or has moved into overkill. When you hand someone a piece of your writing and ask for a critique, you want them to come back with comments and suggestions and questions that can really help you with the next rewrite.

The first thing you need to do is let your critique partner know this is what you want.  It may sound obvious to you, but there are plenty of people around who really are only looking for a pat on the back, for praise, and your critique partner may have gotten a pretty negative response from one of those people somewhere along the way. Reassure them that you know better than to shoot the messenger, and I’m betting you’ll get something useful out of their read.

Sometimes, however, you’re going to run up against someone who doesn’t have much experience critiquing, who hasn’t yet learned how to dig deep and produce constructive feedback. The best thing you can do in this situation, I think, is hand over a few specific questions with your writing. If you’re working on the opening of your novel, you can ask them if they like the hero yet, if they think the chapter moves quickly enough, if they were caught by the conflict you’ve tried to write. If you’re passing them an article about growing fruit trees, you may want to know if you’ve explained the planting procedure so that it’s interesting and informative. You can ask them to note anywhere they got confused. You can say you’d be happy to hear about any spot where they think an illustration would be helpful.

If you’re in an ongoing critique group, this process can be part of the education your group offers to new, less experienced members–especially if this person is someone whose writing everybody likes and who has shown signs of turning into a strong critiquer, with a little help.  If you’re in a work environment and you’re looking for a fresh set of eyes to check your writing before you publish it, these questions can produce a supportive, constructive back-and-forth between you and a colleague. They can also help you actually figure out which co-worker will–with a little nudge–start giving you back the kind of feedback you want and that you can truly use.

And then, guess what? You’ve got a new critique partner! 🙂

***Thanks to son for the Vader art!

Posted in Character, Heroes

Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda…

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, let’s talk characterization. Or, more specifically, hero-ization.

At any given moment, what does your hero do? You’ve opened a scene file, you’re stuck her in a setting, with a few other characters around, and you’ve presented her–via story–with a choice. She’s facing a path with two or three forks in it. Which way does she go?

If you’re lucky, she tells you herself. She looks down that road, sees that one route offers her exactly what she wants (or what she thinks she wants), and she takes off. Your only job is to follow along, get it all down, then take a look later–during revision–to see if she really had a clue about what was best for your story. Or whether she didn’t but has taught you something you needed to know anyway.

What do you do, though, if she stops at the divergent ways, studies the options, then turns back to you and shrugs with that “Huh?” expression you hate so much. FYI, it’ll look a lot like the raccoons who wander around my house (or into it) and wonder why I’m yelling at them.

What do you do if your hero expects you, at the moment, to make a decision?

Try going back to these questions:

  • What could she do?
  • What should she do?
  • What would she do?

Could pretty much reflects the story you’re telling (so far) and the parameters set by the world you’re reflecting or creating. My hero cannot, in 1913, jump into a space shuttle and take off into the stratosphere. Okay, I guess she could, but this is (so far) realistic historical fiction I’m writing. She also cannot get a job without her parents permission.

Or can she? This is the power of could.  You don’t actually want your hero to always be doing something that’s easy for her, that you know she could, without even having to work for it. You want her, a lot of the times, to do the things that–at first–seem impossible, but that, with a bit of creativity, imagination, manipulation, or direct confrontation–she can make happen. In other words, what would my hero have to do so that she could get that job? 

Should is just fun. In real life, I’m not a big fan of should–loaded as it usually is with way too much social judgment and way too much power to make me worry and fret. In writing, though…oh, yeah. Because a should for your hero is pretty much an invitation to conflict. (Okay, maybe it’s that for us, too, but there’s the whole manners thing…) So when you ask what your hero should do, make sure you’re asking it from the perspectives of all the characters around her. What does she want to do, but only to make them all happy? And then dig deep and find out what she can do that goes against those shoulds–that make life harder for everybody else and for her, as well.

Would is the hardest. Because this one’s all about how well you know your hero. This is where you (I think!) strip away all the things around her, even if they’ve helped make her who she is, and concentrate on who she is, in and of herself. What are her goals? What are her strengths and weaknesses? Does she move slowly toward what she wants or explosively? Is she likely to succeed or trip herself up? When she’s presented with a choice, which is she–with detail of her personality that you can learn–most likely to choose. Will my hero go along with what her parents wants, will she compromise, or will she out-and-out lie to go her own way.

Yep. You guessed it. That’s what I’m thinking about today.

Because it’s most likely when you don’t know the answer to these questions, or your version anyway, that your hero is going to turn and greet you with that shrug. And this is the time when you may need to step away from the writing, even from the plotting, and spend some more time getting acquainted with this person.

This person who called you to write the story in the first place.

What do you still need to learn about your hero?

Posted in Historical Fiction, Research

Two Steps Forward, One Step Somewhere

Posted on by beckylevine

Here’s what I’ve decided it’s like to write historical fiction.

You go along, sort of researching and writing together, at slightly more than a snail’s pace–or so it feels. So you put the researching aside for a while, because you want to just GO for that flow-of-words feeling, even when you know the flow is a bit muddy and cluttered. Or really muddy and cluttered. So you take a stab at a few things, concentrate on the story elements of your scenes, versus the true-to-history stuff, and you write. And it feels great–you’re getting to know your characters a bit more, finding a few gems among  the garbage, and you’re watching the pages pile up in the old binder.

And then, all of a sudden, you get to a choice. A choice the hero needs to make to take the story in the next direction. And you realize you just do not know enough about what was possible and probably in 1913 Chicago’s public schools for a smart, active lower-middle-class Jewish teenage girl your world. And you feel like if you keep writing, it’s going to be a lot like this:

 

or this:

So you backpedal really fast and save all those scenes you have written on the flash drive, and you hit the books. And you find everything on your shelves that might have the tiniest tidbit of information about 1913 Chicago’s public schools for a smart, active lower-middle-class Jewish teenage girl your world, and you browse the internet for articles and more books, and you probably take a trip down to the big library with access to lots of databases, and you read. And it’s a lot like the writing–much of it muddy and unclear but, hopefully, with a few gems.

And you make a decision (for now) about what your hero could do and what she (for now) will do, and there you are again, back to the writing. So now, it’s more like this:

Although probably not with that much grace and style.

 If you need me for the next few days, you know when to find me.

Posted in First Drafts

Loosening the Reins

Posted on by beckylevine

We all know what Anne Lamott says… “The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.”

Working on it, Anne!

But here’s the thing. She also says this:

The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants,” you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him. Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go-but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.

This month, I’m finding myself thinking more and more about what Anne talks about here, and I’m reminding myself to loosen the reins on my writing. I don’t usually have much of a battle with my inner editor over prose, but about heading into a story without knowing pretty well where I’m headed, well, that’s where I get into conflict. Not with my editor, but with my muse. We frequently have words. It usually goes something like this.

MUSE: Just write. Be creative. It’ll come. I promise.

ME: Just write? Are you crazy? I have no idea what is supposed to happen in this scene, who my hero’s supposed to be in conflict with, what she WANTS, where she’s heading next.

MUSE: Just write. Be creative. You can answer those questions in the second draft. (And the third. And the fourth.)

ME: What if I can’t, even then? What if it never comes together?

MUSE: Just write. Be…

You get the picture. She can be annoyingly repetitive.

Here’s the thing. What Anne is talking about above is trust–in the muse, or in the process, or in the skills you have been developing over the years. Logically, rationally, I believe in all these things. I believe it will come, and I will see the patterns, and I will get them on the page. But emotionally…yeah. Trust.

Mostly, I have that, too. It takes me a day or so of scrabbling around on the page, with each new scene, trying to force things into place before I’m ready, but then I whack myself upside the head and say… “Shitty, Becky. Anne said, ‘shitty.'” And the only way to even get shitty on the page is to actually write.

WARNING: HORSE METAPHOR

I’ve ridden a few times. I am not a horse person, although I did my share of galloping around the playground when I was a little girl. I had friends with REAL horses, and you know–they’re VERY tall and VERY fast. When I’m on a real horse, I’m all about pretending I do have control, about holding those reins still and not moving a leg until I’m totally ready to send that animal a signal. And then I’m all about hanging onto the pommel and doing my best to let that horse know I’m perfectly happy at a walk. No trot needed, and we seriously don’t need to gallop.

When I write, I remind myself to loosen up on those reins and give the horse its head.  I might fall off (but, honestly, THAT’S not going to hurt as much as the real thing, thank you very much!), and I’m sure to give the horse a few misleading cues, but mostly that horse is going to amble along, letting me lurch back and forth on its sun-warmed back, and it’s going to take me along a few different, maybe confusing trails. If I’m lucky, it’s going to toss its head and run a little crazy.

Horse football

At some point, though, that horse is going to smell the barn. Or the stable. Or the paddock. (WhatEVER!). And it’s going to head home and take me with it. And I’ll know more about the places that we’ve been together than I could have ever imagined when I put my foot into the stirrup and pulled myself up into the saddle.

And that’s when I’ll start over, pulling all the shit together into something better. That’s what I trust in. That it will happen, even if I can’t see it today.

Right? Of course right!

Posted in Social Networking

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Etc…a Semi-Often Assessment

Posted on by beckylevine

I’ve been blogging for several years now. I’ve been on Facebook over a year, I’m sure, and Twitter not quite so long. Every now and then, I stop and just look at what’s going on out there, at the conversations I’m taking part in, at the people I’ve met. And I’m pretty much amazed.

I’ve talked about social networking a couple of times here, discussing its value and its distractions. Since my books been out a few months now, it seemed like a good time for another check-in.

I have to tell you, I’m convinced.

I don’t really know how well my book is selling. I know that it is selling, if only from watching the stats on Amazon go up and down, and down and up. The most that tells me is that every now and then, someone heads over there & buys a copy. I know from my own blog stats that people do head over to the other links I’ve got up (IndieBound, Writer’s Digest, etc.) but I can’t tell you what they’re doing when they get there–browsing or buying.

What I do know is that people I have never met or talked to in person, people I would have been hard-pressed to even find out about without social networking, have bought my book. How? Well, frankly, because they’re nice enough to tell me. Or blog about it. Or recommend it on a discussion forum. Which, every time it happens, honestly makes me say, “Whee!”

Does this mean you’ll see me on the NY Times Bestseller List next week? Um, no. Does this mean I’ll be getting that butler anytime soon. Not so much. Does it mean that social networking has expanded my word-of-mouth capability, so that I have better chances of a second printing, sooner rather than later? I believe so. There are people talking about my book in Virginia, in parts of New England, in Texas. I’m in California. Yes, it helps incredibly to have Writer’s Digest behind this book–you could hide my mailing list in a teensy-weensy corner of theirs and never find it! I also believe, though, that by being out there on the Internet, I’m doing my part.

Honestly, I’d be out there even if I didn’t have a book to talk about. The Internet is an incredible place, or maybe it’s just the writers’ corner that’s so warm and welcoming. I get support, I hear about books, and I listen to jokes. Yes, I get overloaded; yes, I take breaks. It’s a party, though, that I want to come back to. For whatever reason, this in-person introvert is a happily extroverted social-networker.

If I was doing this JUST for the marketing & sales benefits, I think I’d go nuts. I have to remind myself to type in the title of my book the times I do mention it! I think if all I used social-networking for was sales and marketing, I’d need a Dorian Gray painting in my office, to collect all the bad feelings I’d be carrying around and hide them under a happy facade. I can’t work that way, and I don’t want to.

That’s the thing. Once you step out here, you’ll be handed plenty of “shoulds.” You should be on Facebook. You should be on Twitter. Get into a chat. Blog daily.

Sit back and watch your head explode. 🙂

You have to do it your way. And start slow. The one thing I’m learning lately is that baby steps work. Pick one thing and do it gently. Set up a Facebook page and add a dozen people. Sit with that for a while–read their updates, leave a comment if you want, post your own update every few days. Ready for more? Great! Add a few more friends. Or if you like a bit more craziness in your feed, go for Twitter. Post a few times in the mornings before you start work. Skim what’s happening in the updates, and don’t feel like you have to keep up. (I’ll tell you a secret…you can’t!) Play.

Is social-networking worth it? This month’s assessment says a definite yes. It’s worth it because it helps a writer connect up with other writers and readers around the world, to hear what’s happening with them in England or Egypt or Southern California, and to share what’s happening with you.

Sometimes this turns into a sale. Sometimes it turns into a smile, a laugh, or a new friend.

Okay by me.