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I recently received an email from a friend who was on vacation. She had referred me to another friend of hers who needed her book formatted, so she wrote to me to tell me this. While on vacation. I didn’t think anything of it. I do the same thing. A day doesn’t go by without me checking my email and responding to at least those messages that need an immediate response, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. We all do this, right?

Well, in today’s ultra-connected world, yeah, we do. But should we?

This idea was brought home to me yesterday when I was talking at the Frederick Book Festival on a panel about the pros and cons of self-publishing.

One of the things I asked the panel (I was the moderator as well as a participant) was to name the worst thing about self-publishing. Some people said it was the fact that you have to do everything yourself – see to the editing, cover art, formatting, as well as all the marketing after the book is published. Some said it was that all of these things are expensive and you’re taking a risk laying out money for something you don’t know will sell. You don’t know whether you’ll earn that money back or not.

I made the point (as did Jeanne Adams, who was also on the panel) that when you’re a self-publisher you are your own boss. That’s not easy. Jeanne talked about her difficulty with deadlines — they’re so much easier to meet when they’re being imposed by someone else, rather than yourself.  For me, I’m my own worst boss because I rarely let myself slack and even more rarely do I give myself time off, even when I’m on vacation. And clearly, as evidenced from this email I got from my friend, I’m not the only one.

What sort of example are we setting for our kids? Is this a good thing that we do this — that we don’t or can’t let go of our work? Do you do this too? How do you feel about it?

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Showing versus telling is, I believe, one of the keys to writing a great book, rather than just a good book. It’s not an easy thing for a writer to catch a hold of either because we are born story tellers, not story writers. So, sometimes, it takes a second pass at your writing to make sure that you are showing your story rather than telling it.

Let me start out by explaining the difference.

When you tell a story, you are telling your reader what’s happening in the story:

Julian was hurt, but he wasn’t going to let it show. Not tonight. He forced himself to continue on despite the cuts he was receiving left and right. He stopped and tried his best to be polite, to talk to people, but to no avail. He was still the ostrich in a room filled with swans.  

He turned and caught sight of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She looked just like a porcelain doll. He just could not take his eyes off of her – and she was looking back at him!

That’s ok, but I’m telling you how Julian felt. I’m telling you how he was being treated. You can read this, but you’re not drawn in to the story. And that is the key.

Think for a minute about why you read a novel. It’s to transport yourself away, out of your life, out of wherever you are, even if it’s just for a short time. Reading fiction is an escape. So if a writer doesn’t do that, doesn’t transport you to another place or another time, what’s the point?

When we read, we want to live someone else’s life and experience all the exciting things that they can do that we cannot in our ordinary lives. I would even add the caveat, that we really, honestly, don’t want to do all the exciting things that characters do in book. We don’t want all of the horrible things that happen to them to really happen to us. But it’s exciting and enjoyable to read, nonetheless. We get to experience adventure and exciting things, without actually getting hurt or nearly killed – or in the case of my example, being treated with such rudeness that a person might just want to curl up into a little ball on their bed and never venture out into the world again. (But if my hero did that, I wouldn’t have much of a book, would I? No, poor Julian has got to be heroic. He’s got to put up with such rudeness and smile in the face of it. He’s got to continue on because he is a hero.)

To bring a reader deeper into your story, you can’t just tell them about what happens to your hero (as I did in the example above), you’ve got to let them live it. More like this:

Julian Ritchie entered the ballroom with his usual self-confident swagger. This night was going to be different, he told himself.

He didn’t know what it was that made him think so. Indeed, he had entered many a ballroom before thinking the very same thing, only to be severely disappointed.

But tonight there was something in the air—something magical. It was going to be a good night.

He stopped for a moment just inside the door and took in the ballroom. The brilliant colors of the ladies’ dresses and the officers’ uniforms warred with the vibrant colors of the flowers which were everywhere overflowing from sconces on the walls and in vases on every surface. The smell filled the room. It made for a very nice change from the street smell of spices and animals that always seemed to hang in the air.

And then there were the people themselves. All of Calcutta’s English society was here. Everyone who was anyone had been invited to Miss Renwick’s coming-out ball. He could even see a few prominent, wealthy Indian gentlemen present.

Julian had been a little surprised that he had been invited, but then, everyone in his office had been on the list of invitees. It would have been too obvious a cut if he alone had been left out.

Besides, he believed his employer, Sir Lionel Renwick, rather liked him, despite the fact that his wife loathed the sight of him. He suspected Sir Lionel had insisted on Julian receiving an invitation. Lady Renwick certainly would not have issued one otherwise.

Julian took a deep breath and headed for the first group of people who were standing and chatting nearest the door.

“How do you do, Mrs. Hurst, Miss Hurst,” Julian said, bowing to the two ladies.

Adelaide Hurst turned around, gave an imperious sniff and then turned her back on him once again. Her daughter, Anne, did little better, managing a small nod in his direction before turning back to her conversation.

Julian did not let their reactions bother him. He moved on, slowly strolling about the room and nodding to people who deigned to notice his existence.

He stopped outside a few different groups of people whom he knew, but they always closed their ranks against him just as he approached.

He found Sir Lionel in conversation with the Governor-General, Lord Minto.

“Good evening, sirs,” Julian said, bowing to them.

“Ah, Ritchie,” Sir Lionel said, nodding to him, “I am happy to see you could make it.” 

“Good evening, Ritchie.” Lord Minto gave him a very brief smile and then turned back to his conversation with Sir Lionel.

Well, it was the warmest welcome he had received all evening, Julian reasoned.

He turned toward the dance floor. The dancers hopped and skipped about as they executed the complicated steps of an English country dance.

But his gaze was held captive by the young woman at the head of the line. She was dressed in white and staring directly at him.

Julian couldn’t help himself. He stared right back.

She was beautiful.

There was an odd sensation in his stomach. As if a fire had been lit somewhere inside of him. Heat began to rush through him as he watched her.

She was like a porcelain doll. Her creamy complexion set off by just a little flush of color on her cheeks from the exertion of the dance. Her eyes were the color of the sky and her hair the color of the sun.

If her mouth was a little too wide, or her nose a little too small, he could not say. To him, she was perfect.

But why was she looking at him, of all people?*

Wow, that took a lot longer, didn’t it? That’s the thing with showing. It takes a lot more space, a lot more words, but you really felt it that time. I brought you into the scene and I let you live it right along with Julian. There is description of the place through my hero’s eyes (and other senses). There is dialogue. There is what he’s feeling. Everything pulls the reader into the scene and allows them to live it.

Give your reader this experience. Let them live your story – show rather than tell.

*Excerpt taken from An Exotic Heir (by Meredith Bond).

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What do readers want from a newsletter? What do they hope for when they join a mailing list?

I can’t imagine that anyone joins a mailing list in the hopes of being left alone, or without the expectation that they’re going to get notices of books being published by the author producing the newsletter. So, why do you join a mailing list?

I imagine you all noticed last week that I have created a sign-up for my own mailing list. It’s because I’ve been told a number of times recently – and by various people – that I really should have one and that I should reward people who sign up for my list with a newsletter. This naturally got me thinking about what I would put into a newsletter. It can’t be boring, or else people will un-sign up for it as quickly as they signed up. And it can’t be filled with “buy, buy, buy”, because that’s worse. So what goes in there? What do I write about?

This past year, I have been lucky enough to be able to publish three “books” (I put that in quotes because only one was a full length novel, one was a novella and another a short story.) and I’ve got more (full length novels) sitting on my computer waiting to be published after professional editing. This does mean that I’ve had news which I could have shared with any potential newsletter readers. Since I had no newsletter, I put the news up on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/meredithbondauthor). In essence, I’ve been treating my Facebook page as a newsletter that goes out to my friends and readers every day.

So, I’m looking at different things to put into my newsletter. I could put in a super-short story (5-8 pages), articles on writing, reviews of a book I’ve read, or even a serial novel. What would you be interested in reading? Tell me what you want and sign up.

 If you’re an author, what do you put in your newsletter? If you’re a reader, what do you want in a newsletter?  If you’re both, tell me all!

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Before you get to today’s fun blog — I’ve started a newsletter sign-up. If you’d like to hear from me every couple of months with my publishing news (and, just for fun, I’m going to try to put in an exclusive short story into each newsletter), just add your name to my mailing list by clicking on “Get the news” in the menu bar above. Thanks!

I’ve been working hard all day at my garden. I’ve planted shade loving flowers in the shade, sun tolerant flowers in the sunnier spots and tomatoes and green pepper in the vegetable garden. It’s been a long hard day of work, but I know it’ll be worth it. I just wish I could say that I planned my garden as well as I plan my books— but I don’t.

I’m afraid I’m a very lazy gardener. I plant whatever will work,  and sometimes I don’t plant anything at all if something else has come along and planted itself first. For example, I’ve got a strip of garden along the fence I share with my neighbor which is nothing but hibiscus trees and two hydrangea. The hibiscus planted itself about three years ago soon after I had cleared out the space and popped in the hydrangea. It’s now quite a forest with the hydrangea trying desperately to get some sun among its taller neighbors. The rest of the fence is lined with raspberry bushes which crept over from the neighbor’s yard. I didn’t do a thing but stake them up, but now I get tons of the sweet berries every summer and right into the fall.

But what would happen if I left my novel to grow so haphazardly? I’d probably end up with the same sort of untidy mess I’ve got in my garden. I’ve got a few beautiful specimens in there, but frequently they get lost among the weeds (or hibiscus, which while pretty, don’t really go with hydrangea).

No, I’m happy to say when it comes to planning a book,  I do my work right. I plan out what I will need to make the most impact, arrange things so that nothing is hidden and there isn’t anything overpowering where it doesn’t belong. I draw a map of my story to ensure that everything fits and works out just the way it should. And I make sure each piece is the right one – characters, setting, conflict,  and that they all blend and work to support each other.

If only I could garden as well as I write… But then, I suppose, I would have to devote more time to it, and I’m too busy with my writing to do that.

So,  how is your garden coming along this spring? If you want to see pictures of mine,  pop on over to my Facebook page (www.facebook.meredithbondauthor) where I’m posting pictures of my garden all this week.

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I feel like I’m going on a Hero’s Journey of a sort. I’m off today for my annual Washington Romance Writer’s Annual Retreat. In fact, when you read this (assuming you read it on Sunday when it’s posted), I’ll just be on my way home. So let me delve into this analogy, if you will.

We’ll begin in my Ordinary World – me, at home, working frantically to get A Dandy in Disguise in good enough shape so I can hand it off to my editor without being completely embarrassed by stupid mistakes – oh, and to make sure I actually did what I set out to do in my editing, which was to make my heroine stronger.

I’m avoiding my editing, because, to me, it’s the most tedious part of writing. So, I’m writing my blog and I’m preparing for the retreat.

I have been issued a Call To Adventure. It actually went out this past January when registration for the annual retreat opened. I did not Refuse the Call because, while there may be some nerve wracking things which could happen at the retreat, I don’t anticipate any big problems (stupid? Maybe.).

We’ll skip the Mentor part of the journey because I’ve been on this journey before. I no longer need a mentor. I know I can do this one all on my own.

I will cross the threshold – out of my house – and then another when I enter the hotel where the retreat is being held. It will be a magical crossing too. When I leave my house, I leave Merry the Mommy behind. Merry the Wife will be left there too. As will Merry the Teacher. I leave behind all of my alter-egos and take with me only my true self and my writerly self. That’s all that I’ll need on this journey — why be loaded down with unnecessary personas? I like to travel light.

When I reach the Retreat, I’ll be met with Allies. Many, many allies. All of my WRW friends will be there. People I haven’t seen since the meeting last month, and people I haven’t seen since the retreat last year. It’s really the people who make the retreat the wonderful experience it is.

Will I have enemies there? Possibly. But, hopefully, they’ll be tactful enough to not let me know that they’re my enemies. They’ll be kind and gracious and just try not to sit next to me at a meal. I’m good with that.

I will go through a couple of Ordeals while I’m there. I run the raffle through which we raise loads of money for literacy. And I’m going to be introducing Darynda Jones and moderating a Q&A with her – which means I’ve got to have enough questions ready for there not to be a lull in the talk. That could be nerve wracking if it doesn’t go off well.

And I will get a Reward while I’m there. It will be in the form of knowledge and friendship. It is the sharing of information in which we engage both inside the seminars and outside in the bar. It is in sharing a drink with friends and taking part in interesting, and quite often enlightening, conversations at meals where everyone sits wherever they want and everyone changes places at every meal in order to socialize with the most number of people possible.

Eventually (on Sunday early afternoon) I will take the Road Back to my home. My retreat will have been vanquished, and it’ll be time to return to my ordinary world.

As I enter my home again, Mommy, Wife and Teacher will be Resurrected from where I left them. My daughter will give me a good long hug and tell me she missed me. My husband will give me a kiss and do the same. My students will look expectantly at me on Monday night when I go into my classroom in the hopes of learning something new and useful to their own writing.

And, finally, I will return with my Elixer, my knowledge, which, to make the journey complete and worthwhile, I will share with my students, and quite possibly with you next Sunday. I will share how wonderful it was to make these connections. I will talk about all that I learned. And I’ll encourage everyone to go out and seek writer’s retreats of their own in their own genre so that they too can experience the wonderful excitement and rejuvenation that comes with attending a weekend like this.

Do you attend retreats? Conferences? Cons? Are they always as good as you expect them to be?

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How much time do you spend marketing? How much time do you spend going through your email?

When I turn on my computer, usually around 8 am, I usually have over thirty emails to go through. Most are things I can just delete right away without even opening, some are digests of Yahoo! loops I follow and require time to read through. Quite frequently, through these loops I find marketing opportunities which I need to take advantage of right away before either I forget or the deadline passes.

By the time I realize what’s happened, it’s 10:30 and my body is telling me that it’s time to get up, walk around, get a cup of tea, or generally take a break. That’s two and a half hours of just reading email and following up on marketing opportunities. That doesn’t include going out and finding any new ones on my own (usually), or checking on the ones I’ve already set in motion, not to mention spending time on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. To do that will take another hour or so, and then suddenly, it’s lunch time!

Where did my morning go? Why haven’t I gotten any writing done? I look around and am just stunned by the passage of time. This happens to me too many days to count.

I’m spending way too much time marketing and keeping up with social media. And yet, I know that that is the way to get my name out there, to connect with readers and build my brand.

On the other hand, I also know that writing my next book and putting it up for sale (after it’s been properly edited and beta read) is the absolute best form of marketing. Clearly, I’ve got to get a handle on my time here.

I am capable of doing so. I’ve done it before. I just don’t answer my email – except for the most urgent personal messages. And I don’t read all of my Yahoo! loops. I don’t check social media. I just leave it alone. I would do better if I completely disconnected my computer from the internet altogether, but that’s a much bigger step than I’ve been able to make so far (I still need to at least see what emails are coming in, even if I’m not answering them). So, when I’ve got a book I need to get done, I can buckle down and get it done, but it takes commitment, drive, will-power and all that other good stuff of which writers are made.

So, how do you do it? How long do you spend on your email or marketing or both?

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Yesterday I did something I probably should have done a long time ago. I’ve been getting these requests from people to join LinkedIn. I thought they were spam and deleted them. But then a discussion began on one of the Yahoo! groups I’m a member of and some people made some very compelling arguments to join. (Some people have made some very compelling arguments against doing so, and I respect that and will be careful – apparently I might start getting a ton of spam, including some very nasty viruses through my email. I’ll keep an eye out and not open or download anything!)

What you get when you join LinkedIn is a feed much like you get in Facebook of posts from people you are “connected” to. So far, I’ve found a number of them to be very interesting (there’s one person who seems to post links to a lot of blogs, maybe by writers in her RWA chapter? I don’t know, but some are really interesting or could be a good place for me to visit if I can wrangle an invitation). There’s also your usual garbage, but I’ve gotten to used to that from Facebook so that it doesn’t bother me, I just move on.

There are also groups there, just like Yahoo! Groups. They specialize in something and then people post questions and comments. So far I’ve joined five groups all dealing with self-publishing or writing and already I’m learning stuff from what other people have asked and how others have responded – people are so wonderful and generous with their advice!

So, this is LinkedIn. It’s a place to make connections. It’s a place where you can meet people and learn from them. I’m very excited!

Yes, it’s another place for me to waste my time that I should be spending writing – this is not a good thing. I’m really into my writing right now and working off of the concept that the best marketing you can do is to write your next book, and make it fabulous.

But I also really enjoy learning from others, connecting and will soon, hopefully, merge into getting my name out there as well as I ask questions or commenting on the questions asked by others.

Right now, I’m still in lurk mode, trying to figure out the etiquette of this new-to-me social media platform. But I think it’s going to be something really useful – even if I do have to deal with some spam as a result of having joined.

So, how many of you are on LinkedIn? Do you like it? Any advice you can share with a novice?

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Last weekend I had the pleasure of hearing Bob Mayer speak at my local RWA chapter. He was with us for two days of intense seminars. Essentially, he covered all of the material in both of his wonderful books, The Novel Writer’s Toolkit and Write it Forward: From Writer to Successful Author. But there was one idea that I just didn’t get, and I’m not sure I agree with.

He thinks that people shouldn’t write novels that are essentially about themselves. He says in The Novel Writer’s Toolkit, “Your first novel should not be the journal you keep…” And he states that a novel is all about the reader, not the writer.

But why shouldn’t a novel be about the writer? Who else does a writer know as well as himself?

So many people write memoirs. That’s all about the writer. Why not fictionalize your memoir and call it a novel? As long as it’s entertaining, is there anything wrong with an author writing about their own life? Maya Angelou did it – in seven books!

If someone is strong enough to expose themselves in that way, why shouldn’t they?

For me, all a novel needs to be is an entertaining story in which I can lose myself for a few hours. Do I care if it’s something that actually happened to the author? No. I just want to be entertained.

In my writing classes, I get a lot of students who want to fictionalize their lives. I do warn them that they’ve got to be sure not to make the other characters in the book recognizable to the real people they’re modeled after (we don’t want any lawsuits, thank you very much). But some people have lived lives that are fascinating, or harrowing. They’ve experienced things that are the stuff of novels. So is there a reason why they shouldn’t make their life into a novel?

The difficulty, of course, will be the opening of that vein. Letting the blood flow. It’s going to be painful. Cathartic, but painful.

So what do you think? Is there something wrong with blood-letting, demon-slaying or taking revenge on the page? Should people only write completely fictional stories? Or is it okay to pull from one’s own life to create fiction?

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Well, folks,  it’s that time of year again. Spring. Have you put your characters through hell yet? Have you created as much conflict as you possibly can? Killed or nearly killed your protagonist? Made his or her life unbearable – it is that time of year.

What do you mean what does Spring have to do with conflict? Why,  it’s got everything to do with it, especially this time of the Spring.

This is The Time Of Conflict. Think of those poor little seeds you’re about to (or possibly already have) thrown into your garden. What are they doing? Yup,  they’re breaking apart so that they can then grow into a beautiful and/or nourishing plant.

Jews and Christians are looking forward to important holidays of death and destruction as well— Passover and Easter. They’re filled with conflict,  which makes them all the more fun and interesting.

What would Easter be without betrayal and death—Christ couldn’t have been resurrected if He hadn’t been killed first – and that was not an easy death! Talk about painful!

The Jews couldn’t have become free if they hadn’t been enslaved first. And what was the inciting event that kicked off the whole thing? Yup, good old Mosses killing an Egyptian slave-master. If he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have run away to Midian and had that little chat with You-Know-Who.

Even Hinduism flourishes in death and destruction when every eon or so, Shiva destroys the world so that Brahma can rebuild it again, shinier, newer and better.

The point is that people have to go through hell and/or die in order to get better, to grow, to learn. So, get you there and kill someone… er, wait, no. Get back to your work and make life really, really unpleasant for your protagonist… yeah, that’s it. We want to see your protagonist grow and become a better person so make their life hell.

Let’s hear it for conflict! Let’s enjoy our Spring. And a very happy Passover and Easter to all!

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It hates me and I hate it, what’s complicated about that?

Some people might think that Grammar and I have a complicated relationship. I don’t think so. I hate it and it hates me… oh, all right. We just barely tolerate each other.  Every so often I follow its rules. Once in a while it lets me get away with breaking them while still allowing my meaning to come through.

I started off deploring Grammar. In high school, I was forced to diagram sentences for hours – and still those rules barely penetrated my brain. I just didn’t see the point. And then I started writing and all of a sudden I needed Grammar and it was nowhere to be found.

My husband laughed derisively at my run-on sentences, shook his head sadly when I didn’t know where to place a comma, and was galled by the fact that I didn’t – and still don’t – use semi-colons unless someone yells at me. And he wasn’t even raised in an English speaking country!! (Yes, he went to English medium schools and has been speaking the language – or some version of it – his whole life, but that’s neither here nor there.)

So I studied the damned thing. I took a class. I bought books. I read about it on web-sites. Now, I think, we’ve come to some sort of an understanding. I try to follow Grammar’s rules as best as I can. This is not so much because I believe in them, or even appreciate them, but more because I know that it’s important that I do so, so that my meaning can get across (and I don’t look like a total nincompoop claiming to be a writer but putting out unprofessional work). I even teach some grammar in my writing classes, because it’s just as important for my students to be able to use it properly as it is for me. I know I still make lots of mistakes (I can tell when my husband starts shaking his head as he reads through my work), but at least I can say that I make fewer than I did.

So, yes, it’s a difficult relationship we’ve got, Grammar and I. But, hopefully, if we continue to work at it, we might – dare I say it? – become friends someday.

*Addendum: My grammar-know-it-all daughter has read and approved (and corrected) this blog, but says she disagrees with the last sentence. L