How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Social Networking

Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest. Tumblr. Blogging.

You just stabbed yourself in the face, didn't you?

It's OK, I wanted to do that at one point in my life too. Luckily, I did not. I learned that I was looking at the entire experience of social networking in the wrong light. I thought I didn't have anything to say. I thought nobody would care. I thought my follower list would be small and that would be embarrassing.

Here's the thing. If you want to make a big bang, it takes time. Building relationships in the e-world is no different than in the real world. You can't be pushy. You can't always talk about yourself. You have to make it clear you're interested in the actual person, and what they have to say. There's a great way to learn about social networking, and have a built in follower base before you even jump into the larger world of social networking.

Join a writer's forum.

Oh yeah, sure, one more thing I have do to, right? I'll tell you flat out I wouldn't have a decent query, an agent, or a deal, without the spectacular community over at AgentQuery Connect. No, really. I wouldn't. I learned so much over there, I can't even begin to break it down. These are the people that helped make my query better as a group. This is where I met my crit partners who helped mold my novel into something attractive to an agent. This is where someone finally said, "Dude, start a blog already."

My first followers on my Twitter and my blog are from AQC. And I think that says a lot.

I admit that I love social networking. Love it so much that I am now contributing to three group blogs. The fantastic From the Write Angle - a blog that offers multiple perspectives on writing and publishing industry, The Lucky 13's - a group of MG and YA authors who are debuting in 2013, and launching TODAY is the newest group endeavor of which I am a part. Book Pregnant - a group of 30 debut authors who are dedicated to helping you understand what to expect as you bring that first book baby into the world.

And THEN you know what I went and did? I'm on Pinterest now.

I know, I'm insane. But I do love that bomb.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Pain

I've heard it said many times it's much easier to make your audience cry than laugh.

I'll add to that that it's easier to make your reader identify with falling in love than say, having your arm ripped off.

When we write we appeal to common experiences to allow our readers to fill in the blanks. The nervous tingling of your spine when you make eye contact with that guy/gal, the lingering burning sensation on your skin after you "accidentally" brush hands. These are all things we can allude to without going into detail. They know the drill.

If, though, we're talking about having your spine ripped out or a literal burning of the epidermis we tend to fall back on stock phrases. How many times have you read about "searing pain" or "explosions of pain?" It's like we can't even write about pain without using the word itself.

Even better is when the tortured character loses consciousness, the end-all writer's escape. C'mon? Really?

I don't have the answers about how to write pain effectively. I can say my approach is to read. A lot. And I pay attention when someone has written something distinctive enough to make me writhe a bit.

Writhe.

There's a good word.

The Nice Rejection vs. The Honest Rejection

Hooray! A rejection!

OK, so that might not be realistic. Every now and then I used to get rejections that had the inevitable initial sting, but after that I would get past my despair and actually read the rejection and it would say something like:

After careful consideration I decided that while your concept is fresh and interesting, I just wasn't as pulled into those first few critical pages as I would've liked to be. Understand that this is a subjective business, and another agent may feel differently.

Ouch - my first few pages aren't that great. Hooray - I've got a fresh and interesting concept! That's a seriously big hurdle cleared! So I get my e-self over to QueryTracker to record my latest failure and see that another user has posted their rejection in full and it reads:

After careful consideration I decided that while your concept is fresh and interesting, I just wasn't as pulled into those first few critical pages as I would've liked to be. Understand that this is a subjective business, and another agent may feel differently.

Oh... so my concept isn't fresh and interesting. And maybe this means my first few pages aren't that bad... So what do I do?

If you're me (and I know you're not, but let's play) you obsess about it for a bit. So, somebody that sent a query about a girl torn between her love for a vampire and her buddy a werewolf would've had the same "fresh concept" form rejection I did. It also means that someone who sent a badly written query for a 500 page biography of a field mouse named TukkaBobba did too.

What do I deduce from this? The very real possibility that I suck, and no one has bothered to tell me yet.

I'm not saying that agents need to tell every single author exactly why they are rejecting them - that's an impossibility. But I do wish agents used a "You really need to do more work on your sentence structure and grammar use before considering being a writer," and a, "Hey nice try, keep working at it - you might have something here," form rejection.

Do you obsess over every word in the query, like I do? Or do you just notch the bedpost and keep going?