DAY #18: A Modified “NaNoWriMo” Challenge (Write 15 Minutes of Garbage Every Day)

I had some good news today.  It turns out that one of my essays, “I Am The Daughter Of Foreigners,” is going to be published on a popular parenting website called Scary Mommy.  This website has over 1.3 million followers.

It’s still hard for me to believe.  This journey to get published on this site feels like an eternity.  In reality, it has only been six months.  I actually have an entire category on this blog devoted to my rejections from this site.  Why don’t we take a brief stroll through what I affectionately term my “Rejection Diaries?”

• To My Lost Litte One:  I’m So Sorry  [Rejection #1]
• Dear Perfect Parent [Rejection #2]
• A PSA About Karma [Rejection #3]
• Finding Coffee In Chaos [Rejection #4]
• Five Reasons I Love Starbucks [Rejection #5]
• To The Lady Who Left Her Son Alone In The Car [Rejection #6]

After that last rejection, I lost the motivation to submit anything anymore.  I tried to motivate myself with pep talks about famous authors who had been rejected multiple times before achieving success.  I told myself that rejections in my past have always led to better things.  But the truth is that rejection SUCKS.  It just does.  So I walked away from submitting articles and focused my attention on this blog.

I think it was inadvertently the best thing I could have done for myself.  When I stopped chasing publication, I started writing with joy.  The irony is that the piece that they accepted was something I wrote for myself.  I had no audience in mind when I wrote it.  Odd, isn’t it?

So, for all of you who are struggling with rejection and wondering when you’re ever going to get a break, please don’t lose heart.  Sometimes, it helps to walk away from your project.  Sometimes, things will come your way when you least expect it.  Just keep on writing and love what you do.

My essay, “I Am The Daughter of Foreigners” will be published on Scary Mommy on Monday, October 19th.  I am especially excited that this particular story will be shared with such a large viewing audience because it honors my parents and other immigrants who left their homelands to pursue better opportunities.  The thought of all of the sacrifices that my parents made to give my sister and me a better life is what drove my response to the racist couple that I encountered in this essay.

Please stop by and check it out.  All “Likes” are appreciated!  And again, please don’t let rejection cause you to lose heart.  Keep on writing.

DAY #16: A Modified “NaNoWriMo” Challenge (Write 15 Minutes of Garbage Every Day)

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was check my email.  This single action could be the focus of an entire blog post about screen time addicts, but I digress.  I checked my inbox and was surprised to discover a message from the website Nugget Tales.  It contained the following message:

[New post on Nugget Tales] Shivani Roy and The Demon King of Lanka

Another piece here from a brand new writer, this is an excerpt from a novel they are working on and they would really appreciate some feedback from our readers. We hope you enjoy it!

YOU CAN CHECK OUT THE STORY HERE:  http://nuggettales.com/2015/10/10/shivani-roy-and-the-demon-king-of-lanka/

I stared at the screen in shock.  OH MY GOD!  THAT’S MY STORY!!!!  I knew that it was supposed to appear sometime in October, but I still wasn’t prepared for the surprise.  I would have shrieked, if not for the fact that the house was quiet.

I clicked the link to Nugget Tales and to my incredible delight, saw my story PUBLISHED LIVE ON THEIR SITE.  For a few moments, I just sat in the dark, basking in the glow of that incredible screen image.  Someone actually thought enough of my story to post it on their site.  Unreal.

After a few minutes, my husband walked into the room to inform me that the kids were up and saw me just sitting on the bed and staring.  He beamed when I told him the news, hugged me and said, “Congratulations!  I’m so proud of you!  You’re a published author now.”

I pushed him back and automatically replied, “No, I’m not.”

He looked at me strangely and tilted his head towards the screen.  “Isn’t that your story?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Isn’t it posted on that website?”

“Yes,” I said hesitantly.

He shrugged.  “Then you’re a published author to me.”

I didn’t argue with him, but had trouble accepting his words as truth.  Which is why I’m writing this post.  I have it in my head that to be considered a “published author,” I must have a published book or be a regular writing contributor to a large website.

So, is this my own personal issue?  Or do other people share my views?  What does a writer have to do to be considered a “Published Author?”

I recently read an article on Kristen Lamb’s blog about women not “owning” their achievements.  Men own their achievements, while women minimize them.  Is this my problem?  Is it because I’m female that I feel so insecure about owning this title?

After struggling with this internal debate all afternoon, I finally updated my LinkedIn profile with the following title:  “Published Author.”  I still feel guilty about putting it up there.  I have this image in my head that people will see it, roll their eyes and snicker about it.  But I’m going to try and own it.  We shall see.

Four Things To Consider Before Self-Publishing

Last year, at a writer’s conference, most of the people I encountered had a very negative attitude towards self-publishing.  “Ugh.  Self-publishing.  Only loser writers who write crappy books would do that.”  I admit that I didn’t want to self-publish because of this stigma.  But that was before I stumbled across a book called Wool this year.

For those of you who haven’t read this book yet, it’s a fascinating story about a post-apocalyptic society that lives in underground silos.  The author’s name is Hugh Howey.  His amazing success has turned him into the poster child for self-publishing.

As a business person, I am completely intrigued by Howey’s success.  It would make a great case study for a business school.  Howey developed a great product (a novella), priced it at $0.99, and then released it directly to customers through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.  Then he just sat back and waited while pure market forces took control.  Sure enough, over time, Wool gathered steam on Amazon.  In fact, it gathered so much steam, that Howey was prompted to write more installments for this series.  He eventually sold enough books to quit his day job and focus entirely on writing.

This is every new writer’s dream come true.  If this is what happens when an author self-publishes, please sign me up!  But wait a second.  Before all of us stampede over to Amazon and unleash our precious works of art on the masses, here are a few things we should consider:  (The 4 P’s, if you’re a marketing person.)

PRODUCT:  Obviously, your story has to be really good.  Like, really, really good.  No one will buy a bad product.  But from a marketing perspective, the product should satisfy a customer’s need.  So what need did Howey satisfy for his readers?  Well, if you’re a writer, then you’re a reader.  What are YOUR needs as a reader?  I think that Howey just wrote a story that he himself wanted to read.  Fortunately for him, there were many readers who shared his interests.  So satisfy your own needs as a reader and trust that on a planet with 7 billion people, there are other readers who will share your interests.

PRICING:  This is an interesting dilemma.  So many authors are using the free/$0.99 strategy to get their books into circulation that they may be sabotaging themselves.  Customers buy stacks of ebooks and let them sit unread on their Kindles.  Now, I don’t know about you, but for me, I don’t want people to just buy a book I wrote.  I actually want them to READ IT.  So, I’m not sure that the free/$0.99 strategy is something I would pursue for all of my content.  HOWEVER, I do think that an unproven author will have to give away some content for free.  But how much?  One chapter?  Two chapters?  The entire first book in a series?  I think it depends on how many books you’ve written.  Howey essentially gave away the first installment in his Wool series and then raised the price in subsequent installments.  This may be the path I pursue, depending on what my finished product (book) is.

PROMOTION:  Let’s get this out in the open.  The dream for any undiscovered author is for his or her book to go viral.  So how does that happen?  I wish I knew the answer to that question.  But I can tell you how it will NOT happen.  By pestering people to buy your book.

No one wants to be pressured into buying something.  How do you feel when someone tries to push a product on you through Facebook or other social media channel?  If you’re trying to sell your book, you probably don’t want to irritate a potential customer.

The most enthusiastic customers find the products that they want on their own.  I think as new authors, we have to send our best efforts out into the universe and then let the readers find us.  This is where I really think “magic” happened for Hugh Howey.  His stories were aimed at entertaining himself, his friends and his family.  Any readers who stumbled across his book were pure gravy.  Obviously, now he’s swimming in a boatload of gravy.

Believe me, this is easier said than done for a control freak like myself!  But I think when you focus all of your energy on selling your book, it takes away energy from actually WRITING your book.  So I’ve been trying to tell myself to trust the universe.  Once I write the book, my readers will find me.  And they’ll find you too.

PLACE:  In marketing, this is really about distribution.  How does a reader gain access your book?  I know this will seem as if I’m contradicting what I said above, but hear me out.  I still think we have to trust that our readers will find us.  But as new authors, we also have to make it as easy as possible for them to find our books.

In Howey’s case, the place was Amazon.  He self-published his first novella in July 2011 and kept on writing other stories.  By October, he noticed that sales of Wool surpassed anything else he had written.  Howey quickly wrote and released four more installments for this series.

So how does this apply to us as new authors?  I know that I have to retrain my middle-aged brain to reevaluate what I consider the optimal location to sell my book.  I have to replace “shelf space” at a bookstore with “footprint” on the web.  And in a cluttered cyberworld, that means creating a series of works instead of just one.  The more works you have, the larger the footprint you’ll have on the web, and the more likely it is that readers will find your work.

TO MY FELLOW WRITERS:  So, that brings me back to the dilemma many of you may face as authors.  The publishing world is changing.  Has the stigma of self-publishing changed too?  Have you self-published your book or are you considering it?  Do you have any helpful suggestions for other new authors out there who are still swirling in this new publishing world?  Please share your thoughts!  I would love to hear them!   

My Three Revelations About Storytelling

I’m starting to realize a few things about writing and storytelling that I wanted to share in this post:

Writing vs. Storytelling

There’s a difference between being a good writer and a good storyteller.  I used to believe that the two were always interlinked, but recent book successes (cough, cough, 50 Shades of Grey, cough, cough), have proven otherwise.  I haven’t read Fifty Shades.  The subject matter doesn’t interest me, but I do admit that I was intrigued enough by the hype to read a preview of this book on Amazon.  I couldn’t get past the first few pages without growing irritated.  Why on earth is this book selling?  The 1-star reviews on Amazon were written more eloquently than the book itself.  (Plus, they were hysterical.)

But, obviously, the international sales figures for this book speak volumes, so who am I to judge?  E.L. James did something right.  If you can look past the questionable writing and subject matter, which I admit was difficult for me to do, she’s a genius when it comes to connecting with her audience.  Readers identify with her characters.  There are plenty of well-written books gathering dust on the shelves of libraries and bookstores across the nation.  I have to give credit where it’s due.  E. L. James is a phenomenal storyteller and I can learn a lot from her.

Scene Construction

My last post on this blog, I Am The Daughter Of Foreigners, received the most response.  People actually read it and sent me positive comments.  That’s huge compared with the crickets chirping after some of my other posts.  So, I’m scratching my head trying to figure out what I did differently on this one so that I can replicate it in future posts.

The bottom line is that I focused on the story.  I wrote for myself.  I had a clear picture of the scene in my head, since I actually lived it.  This post took all of 15 minutes to write.  I spent another 45 minutes polishing it, which included walking away from it and returning to it a few times.  But that post almost wrote itself.

When I went back to analyze it, I noted a few points about how I constructed the scene:

1.  Title:  A few friends told me that they stopped to read it because of the title.

2.  Setup:  The first paragraph setup the story at the Secretary of State’s office and introduced the main characters.

3.  Framing:  I didn’t start the scene too early and I didn’t drag the story on for too long.  I got to the point.

4.  Conflict:  There was an obvious confrontation between me (the Protagonist) and the older couple (the Antagonist).

5.  Resolution:  The “story” had an emotionally satisfying conclusion.  “Justice” was served.

6.  Emotional Premise:  The “racism/immigration” theme of this post would make most anyone’s blood boil.

7.  Information Exposition:  I knew the point that I wanted to make with this post without even thinking about it.

I’m not sure if I can replicate this each time I post something.  Every day of my life isn’t a conflict (thank goodness!).  But I think the takeaway from this is to have a clear picture in your head of the scene and the point that you want to make before writing it.

Selling A Book Will Be Harder Than Publishing A Book

Okay.  Let me be up front about this.  I don’t have a finished manuscript.  I’m nowhere near publication.  But only two months into this blog, I’m starting to realize that it’s hard to get people to read what you write.  There’s so much noise.  How does a person cut through all of that?

As challenging as writing a book is, publication is harder.  As hard as publishing a book will be, selling it is the ultimate challenge.  If I can’t get people to read the FREE content on a 900-word blog, how will I get people PAY MONEY and read 300 pages in a book?  (NOTE:  The assumption is that the free content on a blog is technically well-written and emotionally evocative.  That’s the minimum requirement in this market, and I’m still learning the craft.)

Let’s assume that I’ve written the next Harry Potter book and that it’s been published.  (I know that this is arrogant, but hear me out.)  So what’s the next step?  How do you get readers to actually look between the covers of this supposed jewel if you’re an unknown author?  How did J.K. Rowling, who had her struggles getting HP published, get people to read her book before she became a writing legend?  At some point, no one knew who she was.  How did she break through the barriers to entry?

I’m an engineer.  I like to figure out puzzles and to me, this is the ultimate marketing puzzle.  I will definitely share any insights that I uncover, so stay tuned!  Happy Selling!

Five Ways Karma Changed Me Since Becoming A Mom

A Writing Mama's Journal

Karma has it in for me.  You may not believe me, but it’s true. Since becoming a mother, I’m doing all sorts of things that I swore I would never do. Here are just a few examples of how Karma smacked me back to humble reality:

I never thought I could forget my purchases at the store.    

Last week, I officially lost my mind. I arrived at this conclusion when I nearly pulled out of the grocery store parking lot without my groceries. The teenager behind the customer service counter looked at me with pity when I rushed back inside the store and explained what happened. “Well, it could be worse,” the girl tried to console me, as she handed me my groceries. “At least you didn’t forget your baby in the store.”

Is this my future? Forgetting my children in public places? As I walked out of the…

View original post 1,103 more words

Post 14: My Moral Dilemma About A Child Left Alone In The Car

To the lady who left her son alone in the car,

I don’t know you. I only know that I was angry when I saw your little boy alone in the blue minivan that was parked next to mine this morning.

At first, I didn’t even realize that he was there. I had just dropped off my four-year old son at summer camp. It’s his third day of camp with a new group of kids and he’s still adjusting. So when I walked back to the parking lot, pushing my daughter in her stroller, all of my thoughts were with my son.

As I carried my daughter from the stroller to the parking lot, I glanced over my shoulder. I saw a pair of large brown eyes peering at me from inside the blue minivan parked next to ours. I didn’t really think about it. This school is populated with helicopter parents. I assumed that there was an adult in the car with him. I buckled my daughter into her car seat, before closing the sliding door and turning around. And that’s when I realized that the little boy was alone in the blue minivan.

Your little boy looks like he’s close to my son’s age. Maybe one year younger. All of the tinted windows in your van were rolled down 2-3 inches. You obviously know that today is going to be a hot summer day. It was after 9 A.M. when I saw your son. I could already feel the sun beating down on me as I stood between our two minivans.

Your boy was also standing up. He poked his nose out the window. Maybe he was hot. I didn’t know how long he had been left alone in the car, so I asked him, “Where are your mommy and daddy?”

He didn’t answer me. I found it ironic that you’ve probably taught your son not to speak with strangers. I tried again. “Are they inside the school?”

He hesitated, and nodded. “My mommy is in there.”

Slightly relieved, but irritated, I asked one more question. “Is she dropping someone off ?”

He said something I couldn’t quite make out, but I was under the impression that you, Fellow Mommy, were there for the same reason I was. To drop off an older child at camp.

I told your little boy that I would be in the car right next to him if he needed something, and he nodded again. Then I slipped into the driver’s seat of my minivan and turned on the air conditioning for my own daughter. Because it was already getting that warm.

I admit it. I was pissed off at you. Who would leave a little kid unattended in the car like that? He wasn’t even buckled into his car seat. He was climbing over the front seats like a jungle gym. My knee-jerk reaction was to call the school’s security office and let them handle it.

Yeah, it’s hard having more than one kid at pick-up and drop-off time. I get it. It would be a lot easier if I could just leave my one-year old daughter in the car by herself for a few minutes while I drop her four-year old brother off at camp. And I admit that I’ve thought about it during milder weather. But I wouldn’t do that. Because even though the likelihood of something bad happening is small, it still exists. And I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to my daughter the one time I took the easy way out.

But that’s my choice. And this morning, you, Fellow Mommy, made yours.

So there I sat, in judgment of what I should do about your choice. And that’s the core of what bothered me. Why did you put me in this position? I didn’t want to judge you, but I did. I thought that you did something incredibly stupid. I thought that you took an unnecessary risk. I get that you’re tired and you want one thing to be easy in your incredibly difficult day. Believe me, I understand. But this isn’t the thing that you should make easier on yourself. Get fast food for lunch today. Turn on the TV a little longer this afternoon. But, for God’s sake, don’t leave your kid in the car unattended.

Fellow Mommy, I was torn. The easy thing for me to do would have been to just call campus security and wash my hands of this whole situation. But I didn’t want to do that to you. Because what if you’re actually a really great mother?  What if you would normally never do this?  What if today you just felt tired and overwhelmed? What if you were so close to the breaking point that you made this incredibly stupid decision? Do you deserve to have your children taken away from you by the CPS for one stupid decision? Because these days, something like that could happen.

After ten minutes of waiting and watching, I didn’t think so. You don’t deserve to lose your children. But you do need a warning. So I picked up the phone and called the front desk of the school. After explaining the situation, I told the front desk assistant that I didn’t want you, Fellow Mommy, to get in trouble with the authorities.  The school should warn you not to do this again.

While I was speaking with the front desk, you, Fellow Mommy, approached your minivan, quickly got in without a glance in my direction and drove away. I didn’t get the chance to talk with you, but I did report what you looked like.

Should I have minded my own business and just left your little boy alone? Some people may think so, but it didn’t feel right to just drive away. Did I do the wrong thing by not calling the police? I hope not. Only time will tell. I hope that when the school contacts you and gives you a warning, you’ll do better next time.

MY COMMENTS:

This piece was rejected by both Scary Mommy (Rejection #7) and The Mid (Rejection #8).  The lady who rejected it at Scary Mommy called it “thought provoking” but said she didn’t have a place for it.  The person at The Mid just rejected it.  I’m not sure where to go from here.

Post 13: Why I’m Trying To Embrace Rejection

Ah, rejection.  It’s one of the few words that can send chills down the spine of an aspiring writer.  The thought of pouring out my heart onto a piece of paper only to have it be rejected by a stranger via form letter paralyzed me with fear.  Who wants to go through that?  I’m better off waiting until I can write perfectly.  I’m better off waiting until I write the perfect manuscript.

But I’m never going to write perfectly and I’m never going to have the perfect manuscript.  No one can.  Everything about writing is purely subjective, which is why it’s so scary to me.  You just have to pour your heart onto the page and trust that if your writing is meant to reach someone, it will.

Rejection comes with the territory of being a writer.  Even some of the most successful writers were initially rejected.  (Those publishers must be kicking themselves now!).  Take a look at how many times the following authors were rejected before their debut (and ultimately wildly successful) novels were accepted for publication:

L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables):  5 times

J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter series):  12 times

Stephanie Meyers (Twilight):  14 times

Stephen King (Carrie):  30 times

Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind):  38 times

Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (Chicken Soup for the Soul):  140 times!!!!!!

Being rejected was like a badge of honor.  After giving myself a pep talk, I finally mustered the courage to submit something at the beginning of May.  But alas, one week later, it was rejected.  So I submitted something else.  And once again, after one week, it was rejected.  I did this four more times.  All of my submissions were rejected.

So from May 4, 2015 to June 25, 2015, I’ve been rejected six times.  Five times by Scary Mommy and one time by Blunt Moms.  I’m not even close to the number of rejections experienced by some of the authors above, but I have to admit that it’s still disheartening.

After that first rejection back in May, I just wanted to crawl into a cave and not even tell anyone that I had even tried.  I have a healthy fear of failure.  I pictured everyone smirking at me and wondering who I thought I was to even try writing.  I’m not a trained writer.  I don’t have an MFA degree.  I’m an engineer who happens to love writing.  I have a lot of nerve to think that I could do this for a living.

And then I thought about it.  In my life, rejections in the corporate world have always led to something better.  Two examples immediately popped into my mind.  I remember being crushed when I didn’t get a job at an assembly plant in 1999, only to get a better job at an assembly plant in 2002.  I remember being crushed when I didn’t get the job I wanted in Volume Planning in 2001 only to get my dream job in Product Planning in 2004.   With that in mind, I now realize that I should actually be grateful for rejection.  It’s a blessing in disguise.  Rejection helps me to stop wasting time on ill-suited endeavors and to focus on pursuing better options.

So now I’ve come around to this bizarre notion that I should actually embrace rejection.  I’ll keep on writing and submitting articles.  If I get rejected, oh well!  At least I can say that I tried.  I might even learn something that will improve my writing.  It’s a lesson that I want to teach my children, but how will they learn it if I give up so quickly?  I’d be setting a pretty lousy example if I just walk away from my dreams after a few rejections.

So, as part of my journey to become a writer, I will embrace my rejections by sharing them on my blog as part of “The Rejection Diaries.”  Someday, when I finally break through the writing barrier to entry, this blog will be a good story for my children.  The more rejections, the better the story.  It will teach them to never give up.  Keep on trying.