It’d been two days since anyone had seen or heard from Twigs. A day since Spider sent Axle and Wrench out lookin’ for him. Another two days before Spider intended on leading his tribe out of Seattle.
Only last week, he and Rat had made a pact to bring their tribes together and head north in hopes of escaping the madness that was slowly taking hold of the city. With some of the tribes beginning to hunt down and eat each other, it was like pouring kerosene on an airstream bus with nothing left but half an ass. A single spark…and whoosh, nothing left.
Spider knew it was only a matter of weeks, maybe even days.
Twenty years ago (just after the first Lady was found at 3:00AM, running across the White House lawn in nothing but her husband’s swimming trunks, carrying the torso of a female mannequin yelling, “Someone, please help me save the children.”) President Sousa declared all US citizens to be nothing more than illegal immigrants, and as such, given thirty days in which to leave its borders.
Within two weeks WWIII broke out. It hadn’t taken more than a year before all that was left of one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, were bombed out cities, and crazy, starving people. And the worst of the devastation hadn’t been limited to just the US. The fallout went worldwide with people of every nation rising up to overthrow their own governments.
While Spider waited to hear back from his lieutenants, he thought back over recent rumors about creatures hiding out in the Underground, luring tribal member’s into manholes with food. So far, more than ten kids had gone missing within the last two weeks.
He could feel the anger start; his sense of responsibility over the other’s something he considered sacred; as though he’d been chosen by God. He should have never let Twigs go out on patrol. With this new threat, it’d be safer sucking the brains out of an alligator’s snout, than stayin’ one more day here and becoming food for the others.
The sound of running feet reached him moments before a boy, not much older than Twigs, came bursting into the tribal leaders nest.
Giving the boy a moment to catch his breath, Spider swallowed past his fear and asked, “Did you find him?”
Suddenly trickles of water began to slip down dirty freckled cheeks. Wrench shook his head no.
The sound of plastic, gripped between fingers caught Spider’s attention. Looking down at the half eaten bag of Oreo’s, he felt the fear give way to anger. Cutting his eyes back to Wrench’s he growled, “And Axle”?
“Gone.”
Spider was suddenly robbed of the ability to breath.
“How?”
Holding the bag where Spider could see it, “A trap. The thing laid these cookies right next to a manhole…Axle said he was faster than me…he’d be able to get the cookies without getting caught.”
“And” Spider asked, beginning to feel sick.
“No point in wasting good cookies.”(c)
Copyright: The Remnant; SSpjut;Shawn Y. Spjut; Shawn Y. Gooding; 2012
Book 1 in “The Dark Legacy of Shannara”; Terry Brooks; Del Ray, New York, NY, 2012
Just the fact that Terry Brooks writes again is enough to send me to the nearest bookstore and spend the bucks.
I picked up my first Shannara book at the age of fifteen and have never looked back. From the hollowed shelves of my library, every book Terry Brooks has ever written, looks out on the vicissitudes of my life, and offers distant lands and heroic individuals who inspire, and like the scented waters of Calgon…take me away.
But not this time, and not that far.
Only twice (not counting his autobiographical, “Sometimes the Magic Works”)) have I seen Brooks deviate from the paths of Ohmsford, Elessedil or Paranor; “The Magic Kingdom”, and “The Void and the Word”. So I don’t know why, but I was hoping that this might be number three.
Don’t misunderstand; I love the sagas of Wishsongs, Elfstones and Druidic orders. But after more than forty years I was hoping that, “Wards of Faerie” might offer a significant enough departure from the land of Shannara (like he did with “The Void and the Word” and “Genesis of Shannara”) that I wouldn’t feel like I was stepping back into the same dream, with the same players, over and over again.
Another thing I was disappointed with was that I felt like Terry spent a lot less time developing his characters and story. Now I know that in the past, he tended to spend an inordinately long time on both, but by the time you finished another Shannara series, you felt like you had an intimate knowledge of characters like; Walker Boa, Shea Ohmsford, Grianne Ohmsford, Allanon, Wren Elessedil and more. Just as J. R. R. Tolkien pioneered Middle Earth, I always felt like Terry Brooks pioneered the Four Lands.
But in this newest Shannara series, “The Dark Legacy of Shannara” I felt as though Brooks was in a rush to get somewhere, and I had to spend 366 pages with strangers.
Almost like speed dating; five minutes with strangers, expecting to find the love of your life; great expectations, without any of the calories.
Yet for all that, I still love Brooks and will continue to aspire to model my own writing after his. Few authors today are able, or willing, to tell a story without embellishing it with profanity, depravity, or pornographic sex.
In every book he’s written, the author demonstrates moral integrity, while till delivering excitement, fantasy, and adventure. Like his predecessor Tolkien, Brooks provides content that is ageless, classic, and which any parent, at any time, will never have to worry about the wisdom of letting children under the age of ten read.
So even though I was disappointed by the journey of yet another Elessedil, Leah, and Ohmsford looking for lost Elfstones, I am not disappointed in the author’s commitment to leaving us a legacy of quality writing that I have every intention of passing on to other generations of dreamers, and alien life forms.
Brenda Rickman Vantrease, ST. Martin’s Press, New York, 2012
“Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.”Samuel Adams
Several years ago I purchased Ms. Vantrease’s book, “The Mercy Seller” but just couldn’t get into the story line. Not that there was anything wrong with the storyline, but during that period of my life, I wasn’t reading a lot of fictional books, so trying to make myself read this one wasn’t working.
But then a couple of weeks ago I came across the “The Heretic’s Wife” and thought, “What the heck. The worst thing that can happen is that it’ll end up on the slowly growing pile of books I can’t even pay myself to read, let alone waste the time to comment on.”
Let me start off by assuring both the reader, as well as the author, that this book was worth not only the time it took for me to read it, but the time it took to comment as well.
I’d also like to add, that I have placed it on a shelf as far from the garbage heap of the unread and discarded, as possible.
It was truly one of my favorite history reads to-date (It doesn’t’ hurt that I am a huge fan of that particular era of history (1500-1600 AD), or that as a Christian, I am always fascinated by people who have lived a life of conviction, no matter the cost).
Set in the early 1500′s during the reign of King Henry the VIII, the author does a brilliant job of drawing out of history annuals the players and events surrounding the persecution of people like William Tyndale, John Firth and hundreds of others involved with interpreting and publishing the Holy Scriptures from Latin into other languages. People persecuted and burned at the stake by individuals such as Sir Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell , John Fisher and Mary Queen of Scots (to name only a few); who believed themselves to be the ambassadors of God, the Holy Roman Papacy, and King; men and women convinced that it was their responsibility to eradicate, at all costs, any and all who would try and advocate for religious, government, or social reform.
The main character of this story is Kate Gough-Firth; sister to John Gough (an historically known English Bookseller and smuggler of Luther and Tyndale’s printed scriptures); fictional wife to John Firth (historical translator of scriptures from Latin to English) and instigator of Finnish woman of faith (woman later arrested and burned as seditionist’s and witches).
Through no intentional plan on her part, Kate finds herself; harboring the much sought for Oxford – student -turned – heretic John Firth; smuggling New Testament Bibles across England’s borders, and leading others in the pursuit of religious freedom. It’s a story told through the eyes and heart of a woman caught up and tossed through history by the passion and convictions of those she loves.
“I come hither, good people, accused and condemned for an heretic, Sir Thomas More being my accuser and my judge. And these be the articles that I die for. First, I say it is lawful for every man and woman to have God’s book in their mother tongue. Second, that the Bishop of Rome is Antichirst…The Lord forgive Sir Thomas More”. -Statement Made By James Bainham Upon His Burning, April 1532
“The Heretic’s Wife” has all the rich ingredients of history, conviction, injustice, and romance that make for a good read. But even more than that, it is a reminder that we in America (and other democratic countries), live off the freedoms that our ancestors paid dearly for. And whether you’re a Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, or Buddhist, the fact that we have the liberty to read, speak, and protest without threat to life, family, or goods, is something we should always be grateful for, and never take lightly.
When I see Americans and people from other nations or cultures protesting in front of our government buildings, businesses, and schools, condemning whatever political – special interest group that is currently pissing them off, I breath a prayer of thanksgiving that we are still able to do that; because somebody else had the courage to stand up to the Nero’s, Pope Peter’s, Sir Thomas More’s, slave trader-owners, or denier of human rights, and demand all human beings have the right to pursue conviction of faith and political belief (more often than not, at the cost to their own lives).
“Let it not make thee despair, neither yet discourage thee, O reader, that it is forbidden thee in pain of life and goods … to read the Word of thy soul’s health; …for if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes…”From William Tyndale’s The Obedience of a Christian Man, 1528
So whatever your religious preference (or not), literary interest, political persuasion, or internal moral compass, the right to breathe and enjoy the freedoms you do have, should awaken in you a sense of gratitude and awe. You may not like our current political leaders or social reformers, but as long as they are protecting the rights our forefathers (and military personnel), who have or are currently shedding their own blood and fortune for us, then at least have the decency to honor their measure of bravery as well.
I have to rate “The Heretic’s Wife” at four stars for overall plot and story, and four and a five for its ability to weave history with conviction of faith. Excellent!
Garnering advise from other successful bloggers, authors, and who-whats, I try to be diligent about keeping up will the comment department of both my blog, and the ones I am a ghostwriter for. And as you’ve probably already guessed, it didn’t take me long to discover that not all spammer’s get spammed. Oh the really nasty - this is worse than porn – your mother should wash your mouth|mind out with soap - spam does. I guess those aren’t difficult for Spam Blockers to pick up (but occasionally even one or two of those manage to get through). But after awhile, I start feeling like I’ve just waded into a chat room whose occupants are more like pubescent teenagers than adults.
Yet when I started to investigate how to block this kind of garbage from clogging up the comment stream, I discovered that often its the very spammers I’m trying to get rid of, that are the ones trying sell me the software to keep them out. Much like the notorious Kim Dotcom, it seems many of these dubious internet leeches get off on creating havoc and then selling its remedy.
Urban Dictionary: spammer; A clever, diabolical person who gets free non-stop advertisement across the globe in millions of people’s electronic mail boxes.
What is it about liberty and the right to be a jerk that fuels that kind of thinking? In a country where we haven’t yet taken up throwing our dissidents into prison for being smarter than the average bear, it seems to me that abusing that freedom will eventually lead to self-destruction, ie; creating more and more laws to stop online mayhem, which will ultimately leads to censorship, and big brother getting even bigger.
And it’s not just the twenty minutes I have to waste going through this stuff; it’s the whole, “What makes you think I would have anything to do with you now?” that makes me growl, and say very un-lady like things. Do they honestly think that spamming my blog site will generate some dormant need to buy whatever it is their trying to sell, or waste anther twenty minutes looking at theirs? Why would anyone in their right mind want to create links or association with individuals who only want to spam you? It’s like going on a blind date and discovering that the other party has no interest in anything that’s going to take longer than ten or fifteen minutes of their time.
Not only are they irritating, but a lot of them use our URL’s, Podcasts etc. to monetize their own sites, or generate more mischief on yours(should you make the mistake of clicking on whatever it is their trying to sell).
In my not so humble opinon, spammers are individuals who are either too lazy to invest in themselves and the community they’re so desperately trying to be a part of, or their demented twits who need to get another life. In either case, they’re intrusion into my email or the comment stream of blog sites, makes it harder for those who are legitimately trying to engage in the community to even get their comments read.
I’m not personally fond of censorship (I like my freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and the ability to make my own choice to just say no), but after spending the better part of my morning wading through this kind of stuff, I’d almost reconsider…almost. But since I refuse to forfeit my freedom over their lack of integrity, I’ll just have to keep doing to them what I’ve done with anyone who tries to feed me congealed meat in a can…politely say “No thank you”, and scrape it in the garbage.
“There is an increasing amount of interest and attention around the idea of ‘transmedia storytelling’ these days because of our increased awareness of converging and permeable media technology boundaries, but humans have always been transmedia storytellers.”Dr. Pamela Rutledge, PhD, MBA
From scratching in the dirt with a stick to shielding our e-book screens against the distorting rays of an afternoon sun, humans have been searching for ways with which to record and share the thoughts, events and imaginations in their lives through a media that would draw the listener and reader into the experience with them.
In the beginning our media was limited to cave walls, large rocks and tree bark. But as the wheel of time rolled forward and our imaginations and experience’s changed, we found ourselves chiseling on stone, scribbling on papyrus and pressing ink soaked blocks of wood on to sheets of paper. Often in an effort to engage as many of the five senses of the reader as possible, these recordings were augmented by beautifully etched pictures, pressed flowers and wax – sealed impressions.
Like oil and chalk, words were used to paint images, recall childhood memories or draw forth the secret longing within the reader’s heart to be that hero, slay that villain or save that damsel in distress.
Through the use of layered media, a reader was invited to go beyond the written word and join the author in a partnership of the mind and senses. For a moment following the last word spoken or the final page turned, the audience was able to feel as though the possibility of living another life was but a word or thought away. The power of storytelling (be it verbal or written) offered even the lowest peasant a chance to be someone other than who they were for however long they could hold onto the imagined experience.
Then suddenly mankind is thrust into the twentieth century where we find ourselves viewing yet another tale or event from a variety of angles, textures and stimuli. What began on the pages of a book moved to the fabric of a theater screen, and from there we were handed tools which allowed us to delve even deeper into the characters we’d just watched through ARG’s like Warcraft, RPG’s such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and in some cases, like Neal Stephenson’s multimedia metaver novel “The Mongoliad”, made a partner in creating alternate story>plot line and endings.
Now instead of voyeuristically imagining ourselves as part of the story from a flat, one dimensional plane of readership, we have been given the opportunity to become engaged in a partnership whereby the ‘tellin’ is a collaboration of transmedial immersion which will bring you and I into a 360˚ storytelling experience. An alternate reality where it is no long one person’s imagination controlling our own.
Even as recent as eight months ago, these experiences were still ( in this literary purist’s mind,) gaudy attempts to try and get people like me to leave our celestial peaks of antiquity and come down amongst the rabble rousers of technology. And without an object shiny enough to rouse my curiosity, I remained immune to their best marketing persuasions.
That is until I came across an article in Wired.com about a young first time novelist named Amanda Havard and her visionary concept Immersedition. The flight out of my mountainous domain was rather faster than I was prepared for and even now I am still applying dressing to my skinned ego and cold compresses to my bruised imagination.
Ms. Havard’s bio reads like most YA author’s who have grown up living with one foot in flat land and the other in the multi dimensional world of their own imaginations. Writing and telling stories from the time she was a little girl growing up in Dallas Texas, Amanda, like so many who have gone before, followed the natural literary progression from budding elementary school author to Vanderbilt University, where she received her MA in childhood education.
In an interview with Sally Schoss (freelance writer for Nashville Arts Magazine), Ms. Havard said that it was while she was on her way to attend a wedding in Tupelo, Mississippi that the idea for her The Survivor’s (a first novel in a five part series) and its immersive transmedial storytelling potential was first conceived.
But in 2008, while pitching to agents her vision of publishing The Survivor’s in a transmedial format that would retain all the appearance of a book, while still allowing Ms. Havard and other collaborator’s to produce a story that would offer the reader an immersive 360˚ experience, she told reporter Angela Watercut that what those agents basically said was, ‘That’s a really cool story you have here and it sounds like a really marketable product, if you could just stop talking about all that other stuff, let it go and realize that you’re not going to have that, sit down, shut up and listen to what they tell you, then you’re going to be fine.’
But according to Ana Maria Allessi, vice president and publisher of Harper Media, due to the speed at which Ebook technology is changing, what Amanda Havard encountered was not a surprise. “That kind of reluctance to adapt and adopt new ideas in e-books is unfortunate, but it’s somewhat understandable. Tablet devices evolve at the speed of light compared to the book industry, in which a single title can take well over a year to produce. Heretofore publishers have been dependent on device makers to support any new ideas they want to execute….One of the biggest hurdles…is creating something that will work across all devices and platforms. Currently, each enhanced e-book her company wants to put out must be altered to adhere to the specs of the Kindle Fire, the Nook Tablet and the iPad. (Nearly all tablets, however, support the stripped-down “.epub” files used in basic e-books.)
Undaunted in her vision, Ms. Havard, along with her father L.C. Havard (a former executive in the health insurance industry) created Chafie Press, a publishing company whose mission is ‘to reinvent storytelling’ by bringing several collaborators under the same roof. By bringing together a full media studio, Chafie Press book publishing, FPR music recording label, Point of Origin Music Publishing as well as a score of other in house videographers and designers, she was able to bring her dream to fruition.
Add Demibooks (who designed the Immersedition app for iPad, iPhone application) and you now have a revolutionary concept for storytelling that combines an undesecrated screen with immerseive watermarks, that when touched, take the reader to more than 300 pages of history, backstory, character profile as well as ‘written>produced for music>video, fashion, iGoogle maps and interative real time Twitter and Facebook accounts.
In this transmedial evolving reader’s mind, Amanda Havard and Chafie Creative have given a whole new meaning to what it is to ‘do the tellin’ and pass on to yet another generation the ability to give greater depth and dimension to the world around us, and the ones we’ve yet to encounter.
If by the simple touch of a finger, the flick of a wrist and the push of imagination we can now extend ourselves beyond the confines of our known world, how much longer will it be before movies like Total Recall, Twilight Zone, Star Trek and Star Wars have become our past and no longer our future?
From the laptop of an uncensored dreamer,
SSpjut
If you’re an emerging author, established one or just like to read interesting content, feel free to share your thoughts on what you think transmedial storytelling is and how you see it affecting you and the future of ‘Doin the Tellin’
In Transmedial Readership, (the first of a three-part series on Changing Landscapes in the world of publishing), I took a look at the evolutionary progress of the modern-day Ebook from its 1940’s humble (HES) electronic beginnings as a means to record the work of Catholic philosopher>theologian Thomas Aquinas to its use as a way of sharing large amounts of text within the educational community.
In wasn’t until the late 90′s, early 2000′s that we saw this PC monolith of data transfer evolving into an embryonic hand-held device which would eventually morph into a AI that responds to voice recognition and allows its user to down load @4GSpeeds books, magazines, games and movies, access the internet, read PDF files as well as import>export those last minute>out the door>I forgot to send the statistics the boss needed 30 seconds ago.
Then I took a look at the predictions of the early 2000′s in regards to the viability of these handheld book readers, and concluded that the greatest giants to be slain at this present time weren’t the consumers, but rather the twin peaks of Author and Publisher on the Mt. Olympus of Literature, where change for the sake of change doesn’t come easy. From there I concluded that with an ever-increasing readership demand for “newer>better>faster” ways in which to partner with the writer’s, producer’s and designer’s of today’s storytelling, there is now a natural impetus for author’s to relook at how they will develop story content, as well as explore what other forms of media are available in order to bring the purveyors of sensory interaction into the best experience possible.
So What is Transmedia?
In an interview with Neela Sakaria, SVP @Latitude magazine, transmedia creatorAndrea Phillips said that a true transmedia project is one that involves audience participation, which in turn means they will have to seek out and find multiple layers or pieces of information in order to understand the entire story.
TheProducer’s Guild list its Credit Guidelines for “transmedia” as a project which “…must consist of three or more narrative storylines existing within the same fictional universe on any given platform: film, television, short film, broadband, publishing, comics, animation, mobile, special venue, DVD>Blu-ray>CD-ROM, narrative commercial, marketing rollouts and other technologies”.
In other words, there has to be a collaborative effort of three or more forms of media being used to tell the same story within the same platform. An early example of this would be L. Frank Baum‘s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic Frankenstein, both of which were presented to the public on multiple platforms or layers of media (book > play > movie).
So What is Storytelling?
Wikipedia tells us that storytelling is a means by which mankind has of conveying events through words, images and sounds, which in turn are a part of every cultures means of entertainment, education and cultural preservation, endued with the power to instill moral values. In his interview with fastcocreat.com, Gottschall said that he believed that fiction was more effective at changing the way a person believes about something than any writing that was specifically designed for that purpose.
WhenRobert Pratten of Transmedia Storytelling was asked why people tell stories he said, “We tell stories to entertain, to persuade and to explain. Our minds do not like random facts or objects….we naturally and often subconsciously connect the dots…in a… stimulating way we call stories. Great stories win hearts and minds.”
Jonathan Gottschall, author of “The Storytelling Animal” states, “….story is the most powerful means of communicating a message…..People are moved by emotion. AndPeter Guber, Studio Chief at Columbia Pictures and author of Tell to Win, says, “The best way to emotionally connect other people to our agenda begins with “Once upon a time…”
So Why Use Transmedia in Storytelling?
In a gathering of creative individuals hosted by Electronic Artsin 2003, Henry Jenkins, a Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Art at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and the USC School of Cinematic Artsnoted in an article he wrote for TechnologyReview , that transmedia>multi- platform or enhanced storytelling as they knew it, was on the cusp of undergoing significant changes and that those changes would mean an entirely new way of ‘doin the tellin’.
Those present stated that they saw a future where the masses would no longer be satisfied being told stories on a one-dimensional plane such as watching a movie or reading a book, leaving the theater or turning the last page, and be satisfied that what they have just experienced was all there is and there is nothing more.
People today have evolved from hunter>gathers on open grass lands to hunter>gather’s on the internet, and they take “great pleasure…uncovering character backgrounds… plot points…and… making connections between different texts…” It’s no longer enough just to read or watch a story from a one-dimensional aspect. Audiences now want to have an opportunity to enter into the story and participate in both its development as well as being able to decide alternate endings. It becomes a case of where the whole is now greater than the parts.
By combing multiple layers of media in the development and publication of EBooks, authors can now take a story which began as an arrow through time and folded it back upon itself in complex layers impregnated with texture, depth, emotion and visualization. No longer do our characters move from point A to point B solely dependent upon their creator’s narrative abilities as the primary means by which the reader enters into and experiences the story. By apply multiple sensory applications the story now becomes a collaborative partnership between the author, the characters, the reader and everyone else who has contributed in creating an experience that moves everyone beyond the land of cardboard cutouts and into the realm of interactive>inter-dimensional> transmedial adventures.
In the third and final part of this three-part series I want to zoom in on what transmedia storytelling is doing for EBooks and how Amanda Havard, first time author of the Urban fiction “Survivors“ and entrepreneurial genius behind Chafie Creations and the development of Immersedition, is taking the world of literary experiencialism to a whole new level.
Growing up on a farm, our family was overly large (numbers, not mass), my parents were blue-collar workers and there wasn’t a lot of money for things like going to the movies or taking the kids to Disney Land. So the entertainment on Friday night at our house was homemade fudge, popcorn, and movies like “The Monster From The Black Lagoon”, “Dracula”, and of course “The Mummy”.
For the other six days it was Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Edgar Rice Burroughs. The one made me scared to go to bed; the other beckoned me to become the hero that slew them all.
From literature to film, from history to modern-day viral feeds, we are bombarded with the opinions and belief systems of others. Many of us grew up being influenced by folklore, mythology, religion and philosophy as the interpreters of cultural events both past, present and future.
And more recently we’ve added; YouTube, reality TV, news casters and biased journalism – all of whom report on the world through the lens and paradigm of whatever corporate monolith is footing the bill.
It’s interesting to look back on our lives and trace our actions to our thoughts, our thoughts to what we’ve been taught and what we’ve been taught to the cultural media we took it from. How many of us believe what we believe, not because we came to these conclusions through our own personal journey of seeking, knocking and finding, but through vicariously absorbing what we’ve seen, read or heard from other‘s?
When someone told us that the wall was white, did we just nod our heads in all the right places and accept that it must be so, or did we say, “Hey! Wait a minute. I’ve got a pocket knife here, so let’s scrap some of this paint off and see if the wall really is white.”
I’ve discovered over the years, that the real monsters are not the ones hiding under my bed, or the big screen, or internet browser of my lap top. It’s not loud mouth reality stars or biased new casters, political leaders or even the disturbing legislation of whatever current leadership is trying to rob us of our rights under the guise of keeping the citizens of our wonderful nation healthy and safe.
No the real monster is the one in my own head that tells me not to ask whether the things I believe are true, or question why I even believe them in the first place. It’s all those little voices denying the need to be willing to have my mind changed – screaming that even admitting such a thing is too frightening to consider.
Real monsters live within ourselves, and they need to be slain every day of our lives; because let’s face it, the true hero’s in our story are the ones who aren’t afraid to look a monster in the eye and yell ‘Boo’!
What monsters did you grow up with that needed slaying?
Keeping up with the Jones’s of authorship and platform building can be an exhausting, and on some days, seemingly unprofitable way to spend a writers time. What with getting the initial story down, working through the labyrinth of editing, plus all the SM we need to stay in the loop, we all wish we had more time in a day than God allotted for.
But since we don’t, how do emerging writers like you and I find a way to juggle our writing time, stay connected, pump out a stream of intelligent blog posts, go on the occasional date and still remain sane?
Blogging on a consistent schedule actually frees up more of our time, rather than posting sporadically or on impulse. By intentionally setting aside time to research, write and link our blog posts, not only are we managing our time better, but we are, in fact, giving ourselves an opportunity to develop better content, communicate it more succinctly, and potentially appear more brilliant than we truly are.
Discipline
By committing to regularly posting we are learning how to produce quality content under deadline, whether we feel inspired to or not. It’s one way of forcing ourselves to push past that first creative stall, and dig down deeper. Author of Lowcountry Bribe, C. Hope Clark said during her podcast interview with Austin Moss, that learning to write under deadline is one of the major tools that helped her become a better writer, by teaching her how to say more, with less.
Personal Branding
I’ve already covered this in my post on Personal Branding | Creating Author Visibility. But let me just add, that not only is blogging an invaluable tool to building an author’s platform, but it adds worth to the community he or she has moved into.
SEO Rating
Part of our SEO rating has to do with content and consistency. According to Corey Eridon of blog.hubspot.com, blogging on a regular schedule is critical to the continued success of SEO’s. Without it Google may no longer put us on page ranking that is higher than that found in the outer Siberia of Internet-land.
Value
When we’re posting quality content on a consistent basis, we add value to our site by assuring those that follow us, that when they stop by for a visit, there is an excellent chance that they’ll find exactly what they’re looking for.
So what kinds of tools can we use to help us do a better job of blogging consistently? Here are two I discovered and began implementing in order to improve my own attempts.
Blogging Template
Using blogging templates for creating content aid you and I in keeping our ideas, resources and content flow more organized. The blog template works as a guideline by helping us stay within the perimeters of where we started and where we need to end. In his post ”Six Blog Post Templates That Highly Effective Bloggers Use“, Don McAllister shares where he gets his own inspiration for blogging templates from.
Because of my need tactical visibility, I use Office Suite’s “Notebook” (a program that lets me create notebooks, build files, store source material, embed media and drop-drag whatever I’ve written or copied), Free Mind as well as good old fashion sticky notes.
So when should you and I start attempting to organize and schedule our posts, now.
If you’ve been neglectful and suffer from sporadic-posting-disorder; repent, go and grab your favorite creative legal stimulant and get going. If on the other hand you’ve been a good writer and have tried and tried, but just haven’t gotten the swing of it yet; repent, go and grab your favorite legal stimulant and try it again.
Now for other A-Type personalities such as myself, a little humor along the way.
What are the things that inspire you to blog more consistently? What kind of tools have you discovered that have helped? Go ahead, start the conversation.
The 1950′s television show “What’s My Line“, was a game show that featured a panel of four people whose sole job was to guess the identity of a mystery guest. Like any emerging author, the identity of the shows guest was unknown, and could only be discovered by someone on the panel asking a question such as: where they came from, what was their niche or line of work, what or where had they performed before, etc.
In other words, by asking the right questions, it was possible for anyone on the panel to discover who the mystery person was. But unless this person had done something to set themselves apart, or had created a unique niche, the participant often remained unknown, simply because they hadn’t really done anything that set them apart from everyone else.
An author’s ability to successfully market themselves is a lot like being that ‘mystery guest’. When you first emerge out onto the landscape of readership and publishing, no one (except for your friends and family, agent and editor) really knows who you are. You may have even been around on the social network scene for a while, but without being intentionally engaged in the community you surf in, and establishing yourself as someone worth investing time and money in, you too will go undiscovered.
So how do we take everything we’ve been working on: building community, honing our craft, developing credibility and becoming socially visible, and roll it into a marketing strategy that will take us to that all important goal of getting our work in the hands of readers, agents and publishers?
How do we market ourselves from obscurity to financial viability?
I decided to start with “Books & Such” Blogger, Janet Kobobel Grant. In Janet’s 2 part post, “What Do Your Readers Really Want From You?”, she uses Jessica Beinecke , (digital story-teller who teaches Mandarin Chinese youth, American slang via her online program ,OMG! 美语, ) successful YouTube video feeds to highlight the power of engaging our community in unique ways, that also allow us to be ourselves, build friendships and connect with our audience at a deeper level.
“Your mission in connecting with your readers online goes beyond getting them to buy your books, says Janet. If that’s your goal, then you’ll end up offering potential readers ads. But if your desire is to make an inherently deeper connection, then you’ll be more self-revelatory and, well, someone the reader feels as if he or she knows. That engenders loyalty that goes way beyond selling a copy of your latest work.”
My next stop was The Creative Penn where Joanna Penn doles out some much needed advice on different things that have worked to make her blog site voted the Top 10 Blog Site two years in a row.
“In order to stand out, you need to have an online presence with quality content that people want to consume either for information or entertainment. Each piece of content you put out there is another way for people to find you. By spreading your content across different media, you will be able to target a variety of audiences.”
Some of her recommendations are:
Blogging (of course) for ourselves as well as others. Joanna says that once we’ve gotten the hang of writing a blog on a consistent basis, we need to start looking for guest blogs on other sites as well as inviting other’s in our community and niche to guest blog on our own.
(A great collective blogging site I recently discovered is, My Blog Guest. This is a free guest blog site where authors can submit and access quality articles on a variety of topics, thus enlarging their sphere of influence, garnering new friends as well as marketing their PB.)
2. Using online video and audio s such as YouTube, iTunes and webinars. One my favorite ‘go to gals’ for all things author>writing is C. Hope Clark. The other day she posted her podcast interview on What The Glass Contains with Austin Moss on SoundCloud, a free site that lets you record and upload sound and connect to SM like Twitter, FB and Tumblr.
3. Joanna also recommended uploading drawings (such as sketches or maps of your book), doodles or pictures that can help to engage your audience with more of who you are and what you’re doing. You could use this to tell about your hobbies, vacations, friends and family.
4. And of course there is the standard; SM of Twitter, FB etc. I love to Share other bloggers, authors work on-line at places like Digg, Stumble Upon, Tumblr and Linkedin. It’s a good way to build community as well as let other people know what my likes and dislikes are. I’ve had several people stop by my site simply because of what I posted on SM.
5. Developing a schedule for blogging, writing, networking and marketing. Her list entails everything from daily Tweets, to using links in post, to audio>video, to how many books to write per year. I have started using a program called Free Mind, that lets ne visually map out my blog post for the next year. I’ve also used it for my ghost blogging as well as a way to strategize plot and chapter outlines.
And of course no article would be complete without going over to C. Hope Clark’s site and taking a look at what her favorite marketing tools, which are writing articles and using postcards. As an author (Low Country Bribe) and free-lance writer, Hope understands the power behind authors getting their work out where editors, publisher’s and other writers can see it (She attributes much of her success as an author to learning how write content in 700 words or less under deadline). And using bright, shiny well designed postcards as a means of giving away something for free that customers and followers are less likely to put down and lose.
While researching this post I came across an article by Robert Lee Brewer, (site owner of My Name is Not Bob) entitled How to Brand Yourself (And Take Over the World). In it he makes an astute comment about writers and authors in general,
“First off, I know that personal branding is a topic that will probably turn many writers off. For one thing, many writers (including myself) like to think of themselves as unique creative talents. For another thing, isn’t branding reserved for businesses (not writers)? Shocker: If you’re a writer who’s interested in getting published and making an income (whether supplemental or full) from your writing, then you’re in the business of writing…”
Whether we write because it’s an addiction we don’t’ want to be rescued from, or we write because we have a BA in Journalism and believe its compulsory, the brutal fact is, the responsibility for marketing ourselves is serious business. From the moment we start taking ourselves as writers and authors seriously until the last breath leaves our bodies, the PB and marketing of ourselves will never stop. Be it guest blogging for one of our peers, submitting a first draft to our online writers group for critiquing, to announcing the launch of our first book the process of marketing ourselves will never stop.
By building a strong foundation of community, credibility, content and visibility, we as writers will develop a PB that is not only marketable, but sellable. Who better to help promote ‘You’ than the people and communities you and I have taken the time to share, comment and interact with? Sure there a lots of other ways, in which we might reach the public without having to extend ourselves beyond laptops, book signings and occasional Twitter or Facebook posts. But when things get tight and money is held close to the chest, people tend to spend where loyalty has been earned.
In my next and final post in this series on Personal Branding, I’ll take a look at how you and I can celebrate and share the glory of success with those who are as much a part of it as we are.
So what have you been doing to market yourself and your book? What tricks of the trade have you found that work, and which have your found that didn’t? Feel free to drop the ball and get the conversation going.
In my search to broaden my reading base, I came across “The Blue Notebook” by James A. Levine.
At first I thought it was going to be another badly written allegory of the horrible oppression of women in the Middle East. Instead I found myself immersed in an even worse nightmare of the life and injustice of children sold into the slave and prostitution trade of India.
“The Blue Notebook” is the story of Batuk, a young Indian girl sold into sex slavery by her father in order to pay off his gambling debts. It may be because I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box, but it took me a about four or five pages before I realized that the POV this first time author used, was that of a child prostitute who creates an entire fantasy world around what she is subjected to, in order to have even the smallest glimpse of sanity and hope.
The blue notebook is her record of that journey.
The sense of betrayal, injustice and immeasurable outrage I felt when I finished the last page can only be described in short gasps, flushed cheeks and clenched fists. (Not to mention the entire photo-shop of ungodly images running through my mind where I am welding a very sharp object in an attempt to remove vital male appendages , as well as giving very stupid women much-needed lobotomies. )
Overcome by his own sense of injustice, James Levine, a British-born doctor with the Mayo Clinic, while on a trip to India, discovered first-hand the atrocities of child slavery. And witnessing these victims of unimaginable evil, found himself compelled to write a story that reflected some of what he saw.
The compassion and need for Batuk’s story to be heard by the world comes through every page.
If you are related to ostriches, and don’t want the status quo of your safe and imaginary world to be disrupted, don’t read this. But if, on the other hand, you are brave enough to open your heart and realize that the majority of us live very sheltered lives (and it behooves us as human beings to come out of the cocoon of our own making and see the harsher realities of life), then by all means pour yourself a very stiff drink and read Levine’s story of one child’s fight for survival.
All US proceeds from the sale of “The Blue Notebook” go towards helping extricate children out of slavery and prostitution.
If you would like to send a donation to other agencies fighting the exploitation of children:
“All around you, people will be tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don't tiptoe.”
― Shane Claiborn
2nd Daily Quote
Brilliant ideas are born when you give the creative genius within you permission to break all the rules your mind holds so dear. - Mick Mooney
Chapter 2: 
