Gaining Exposure

A year ago as I was preparing to sign my indie publishing contract I was already getting excited and thinking ahead about promotional ideas. It was overwhelming but thrilling and I had absolutely no idea where to start. All I could do was picture selling my books at a show while signing copies for people that had seen the advertisement for the event. 

I wasn't prepared for the cover reveal or release party and had no idea how to organize or run the online event so I ended up muddling my way through it. It was a learning experience to say the least. next I began searching for a location to hold a live book launch party. This turned out to be far more difficult and expensive than I had originally anticipated.  While I did find a location in time it ended up being far different than what I had pictured at the onset of the venture.

Just before the three month mark of my publish date I scheduled a date to hold a book signing at an adorable little bakery cafe that I love. I contacted the local newspaper for a spotlight and announcement as well as created an event on Facebook to let people know. Unfortunately because it was held on a Friday afternoon during traditional work hours the turnout was quite low. I had a few friends stop by to hang out and support me but there were no people wondering in to check out the event.

As it turns out the book spotlight wasn't going to be run until a few months later. People had messaged me to say that if it had been held on a Saturday or later on then they could have come. It was somewhat heartbreaking. It is difficult to not believe that the lack of people was because of lack of interest either in my book or myself. I did however resolve to try again, to see if there was any way that I could create more of a buzz the next time around. I did manage a mini book tour in September with four signings held over the course of a week. 

While most of the people that turned out for the events I was able to get a few interested at a craft show partially from an ad run in the local newspaper. The weather hindered one event from having a great attendance. Another had promotional posters and cards that could have been handed out but instead had placed them on a back table where there was no foot traffic and so no one would likely see them. The craft show was by far one of the most successful and so I am definitely thinking of doing more shows like that.

Things died down over the holidays and since I have been working very hard on the writing side of my business. The only real promotions I have done have been during promo days on Facebook and Twitter. I am hoping to do more live events this year just a matter of scheduling once I find location willing to host. the other part of my plans thins year have to do with submitting. 

I am looking to send out all four of my next books currently between writing and editing for hopeful representation by an agent or agents if different people show interest. I will also be continuing with my indie publishing career and one idea I have come across for further promotions is to be a part of writing competitions. I am hoping to send out my work to gain an wider audience through reviews and with any luck a few placings in some of the competitions I enter. Fingers crossed I can stand along side the other entrants as I hold my breath and face my fears allowing total strangers to pass judgement on my work.

Unedited Excerpt from Welcome To Syn

Rebeccah turned without speaking but her face had a few choice words written across it. Persyphone watched them go with Samiya and Maryn flanking her on either side. It was not her nature to enjoy the misery of others but she felt at the moment that Rebeccah had brought this one on herself. Persyphone watched as they walked away. She smiled and waved in a mocking jubilance every time Rebeccah turned back. Asmara was waving at her side, the same smile on her lips.

Asmara was an incredible beauty and she was aware that people noticed her. That is why she was able to make a statement with even the subdued gestures she was now giving. Persyphone turned back into the house allowing Asmara to close the door behind them. She loved all of her daughters. They each had their own personalities that could shine through so strongly. While they all shared resemblances though it was clear that some of them took after her and some after their father when it came to their looks

Persyphone herself had long flowing blond hair. It could catch the light of the sun or the moon and shone with what appeared to be an inner light. Her eyes were a mystic grey-green color that seemed to shift with her mood. Some days you could almost swear there were emeralds there while others it was very clear storm clouds were gathering. Her porcelain skin carried the same glow as her hair. She never considered herself beautiful though Michael had insisted she was.

Her daughters on the other hand she had no doubt could catch the eye of any young man they desired. Lucasta had been gifted with an intuition as well as her violet colored eyes. They could look into your soul and see what you were thinking. She was a proud girl but held herself in check the way she had been taught. She was happy in her role as her mother’s right hand helping to raise her sisters. She had also loved walking in the fields assisting her father when she was done with her chores.

Both Michael and Persyphone had been thrilled when Hunter Williamston had come calling on her. It was never a question of if she would marry it was just a matter of when. He, fortunately, seemed to have an understanding of kindness and humanity that his parents lacked. While they were pushing for a large and extravagant wedding ceremony, both Hunter and Lucasta preferred something simple and understated. It was a source of great pride that her daughter showed that kind of restraint knowing money was no object for the Williamstons.

Showing Emotion

I had a conversation recently about emotions. A friend of mine observed that n everyday life I can be extremely guarded with my feelings. It was even suggested, and rightly so, that my ability to hide what is happening inside can cause people to feel shut out. People may not realize that I am upset or worse they may not know I care about them.

I believe that one of the best people one could ever question about that would be my ex husband. He stood by me for nearly six years as I grappled with my PTSD. In complete fear of doing or saying something wrong and embarrassing myself I shut my heart and mind off completely to everyone around me including him. We parted ways because I could never show him how much I had loved him.

While looking back I can honestly say that we wouldn't have worked anyway because we are vastly different people, it is fair to also say the divorce was my fault. I pushed him away in a terrible set fulfilling prophecy that I wasn't good enough to keep him. He didn't deserve that. While divorce was imminent he had a right to know how much I cared, how grateful I was and to understand exactly what was really going on inside me.

I still manage to hide my heart to this day. It is more of an unintentional side effect of me being in an uncomfortable situation but it most certainly still happens. I have a boyfriend now that at least has been with me long enough to know I deal with the anxiety disorder and for the most part is very supportive of the mood swings and times of emotional distance. We still have our fights but at least I can more openly discuss what is happening.

The part that is still a major struggle for me is with friends and family when I feel something like love and appreciation but I am unconsciously in one of my hiding moods. I feel it so strongly but yet it is hidden beneath the surface and at times those around me can feel unappreciated. I am working on that. It is kind of a cheating way to handle things but I have found that I can be more open in my writing.

Just earlier today I was trying to get into the proper mindset for my PTSD novel Sharing Strength and I was listening to the song You Raise Me Up by singer Josh Groan. It immediately made me curl up and cry. There is so much intensity in that particular song for me and it clearly represents the point in the story I am currently residing at that is struck me to my very core. As I sat on my staircase, tears streaming down my cheeks I listened not just to the lyrics but the passion behind every noted played. It moves me.

I do my best to make sure that the characters in my books have the same passion and emotion which is why I listen to such songs as I create. I hope that one day I am able to share how I am feeling as freely as I can when I write but in the meantime I will do everything I can to show who I am, how I feel and how much I love through the words and actions of my characters.

Character Inspiration - Dr. James Kurtsman

Seven and a half years ago I lost my father. He was an incredible man that I am ashamed to say I was too selfish to get to know until the last few years he was around. I loved him with my entire heart but being completely different people that struggled to communicate I would not say that for the majority of my life we were very close. I do look back on things about our time together though as inspirational and I know he molded a great deal of my thinking and feeling about parts of my own life.

I am currently working on a book called Sharing Strength. In it there is a small support group of people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Two of them are military men that saw combat and lost a friend. One is the father of a small boy killed in a crash that he blames himself for. One is a rape victim and one if the survivor of an extremely abusive relationship. I have a number of military friends that have helped with the two soldiers. I have spoken with a family torn apart by the loss of their child and the two young women are based on my own personal experiences.

While I have focused a great deal on how hard it is for me to write about what happened to the women, Rachel and Jasmine, I have found another character that is very close to my heart. The leader of the support group is a therapist named James Kurtsman. He is in his sixties and several years ago both he and his wife were diagnosed with breast cancer. They both fought it, he survived but she lost her battle. He suffered tremendous survivor's guilt causing him to seek retirement until his friend asked him to oversee the support group.

As time goes on in the book the cancer becomes a subject injected periodically from the strength to fight the disease to his mental state after losing his love to it. My father also had cancer. It is not what killed him but it is an area of his life I also do not know that much about. He was intensely private about his struggle and I wish as I delve deeper into what happens with Dr. Kurtsman that I had been there to talk to him, spend more time with him and just generally know what he was dealing with. I have unconsciously found a way to bring my dad, a man I still miss and cry for everyday, back to life through a man that was supposed to just be a minor character I never intended to know.

He speaks to me and I know deep inside that it is my dad reaching out to let me know he is still with me. I am so glad he is able to be a part of a story that means so much to me.

Avoiding Lazy Writing

I have been working on a number of projects simultaneously for quite some time now. I have Breathe, my drafted romance novel that is in the editing stage. Chocolate Covered Cherries is another romance novel that is still just being drafted and conceptualized. Sharing Strength is being written though slowly since it is an extremely emotional book. And finally Welcome to Syn which is completed through the initial drafting stage but needs to be proofread, edited and revised before it will even be ready for beta readers.

Sharing Strength I know for the most part exactly what is going to happen. While there are always nuances that can surprise a writer I do at least know the major happenings of the book. Rachel, Jasmine, Brian, Kyle, Craig and James are all intertwined in a rather painful but imminent journey through the overwhelming world of PTSD. I have used a great deal of my own experiences in this book which has caused me to take extra time with it. I want to make sure that I represent each aspect currently and do justice for every character associated with this book.

Welcome to Syn is such a leap for me that I am honestly hesitant to jump in and get started on the rewrites. I am very excited to be branching out and there are so many new elements for this book. To begin with it is the first in a series which I have never attempted before. I love the idea of taking a theme and running with it through a number of varying storylines but I could never picture how to do it until now. It is also historical making research a vital part of writing the book. I need to make sure I get the dialogue, setting even details such as clothing and interpersonal communications down to a believable science. Last but certainly not least there is an element of witchcraft. Because of that I need to establish how much to use it and what the different rules are for the magical abilities. Because it will be central to the rest of the books in the series I still have quite a bit of work to do.

While Breathe is drafted and all I am doing is fixing the last third of the book I do have a concern that keeps popping up when working on either Breathe of Chocolate Covered Cherries. They are both romance novels. They are both seen through the eyes of the main female character. Both Kelsey and Jessica are running away from a problem that cause tremendous grief in their past and trying desperately to create a new future where they can forget what has already happened. I am concerned that because I wanted to complete the drafts of all four books at the same time and the last two are so similar in many ways that I will create a parallel while working on them.

Each woman is her own person. Their past problems while in the same realm are still vastly different. But when I get into a particular frame of mind, just as a romantic one, I need to make sure that I am opening up to the current character and telling her personal story and not simply writing from a template. I believe in my abilities but there have been times when I have seen authors use a formula that runs through multiple books and it may have enough variations to be gotten away with once or twice it eventually becomes obvious and that is just lazy writing. I want to create not just fill in the blanks.

Unexpected Inspiration

My first book was written following an accident that caused traumatic injuries particularly to my back and neck. I was hospitalized and given a laundry list of restrictions that I could expect to deal with the rest of my life. I may not have been auditioning for a prestigious dance company but it was still life altering as far as I was concerned. Now just days away from the twelve year anniversary of my accident I have overcome many but not all of the pain and injuries caused that day.

I found it therapeutic though at times difficult to describe the frustration I felt, the depression I suffered and most of all the journey towards realization I went on to move past what happened. Even though the story is fictional there are definitely some elements of me woven into the story. That is also the case with Sharing Strength, my current work in progress.

I was watching television one day and saw an advertisement for a show about veterans with PTSD. The show made it seem as though the only people that suffer from the disorder were military. I can agree that they are the largest and most well publicized but there are people like me that have been diagnosed for numerous other reasons. I have written about this before but after a tragic scene I wrote not so long ago I have been working on the recovery of the characters and found something I wasn't expecting, inspiration.

I have spent months being consumed by the sorrow that comes from this disorder and what I have dealt with because of it. I have gone through a few emotional breakdowns crying as I relived my own experiences that have once again been sown into the very fabric of the story. In fact I would dare say that Jasmine and Rachel of Sharing Strength have more of me in them than Akaylia from Never Give Up ever had. 

As hard as these moments have been they were not unexpected. I knew I would feel a roller coaster of emotions as I relived some of the most painful times of my life. I have traveled with these two girls  and it has wrenched my heart and soul in ways I thought I would never have to deal with again but I was resolved to do justice to these women and in turn justice to myself. I wanted to make amends for failing those around me and and apologize to my heart for all the years I had blamed myself. 

Today I was writing a scene that was supposed to be about a man accepting fate and giving in to cancer. He was supposed to decide not to fight after he came out of remission but as often happens the character hijacked the story as I was writing it and showed me something I didn't expect. When I faced problems I retreated and gave up but in the face of sorrow one of the men in the story changed his mind and stood up and decided to fight. He found a passion for life in the wake of tragedy. I cried for just a moment to know that deep inside I could find that kind of courage to give to a man that suffered a moment as painful as anything I had ever gone through. Now I find myself wondering do any other writers find themselves inspired and empowered by their own characters?

Real Life vs Writer Life

It can be amazing the way life affects us. The more we need something and feel the pressure, the more difficult it becomes to make it happen. I have had two day jobs for nearly three years working to try and get ahead on some credit card and medical bills. I did manage to make strides toward the goal of getting caught up but I fell short of the goal and now still have several bills that need attention while I now have gone down to just one position.

For the sake of my health and the stress level of those around me it is for the better that I work just the one job. It also frees up a large amount of time to put towards my writing. This should be wonderful seeing as how I have five projects currently in the works. I have more time to write, edit and especially promote. Since my favorite way to do promotions is live events the extra time is a definite benefit.

Yet I also find myself putting a tremendous amount of stress on the writing side because I need to find a way to use it to make up some of the money I am losing by not working the additional job. Feeling this importance I cannot seem to concentrate. I jump from book to book. I am unable to simply settle down and complete any one thing. I have my to do list but it seems my brain has an entirely different view on the matter.

I find myself staring blankly at my computer or doing research on house projects I can't even afford because looking at my books puts me at a loss. I do chores in order to help with the restlessness but then I feel upset with myself because I should be writing. I need to find the focus and motivation I am always able to pull out each and every November for Nanowrimo. It makes me wonder if other writers are going through the vicious cycle.

Do you find yourself hiding and then punishing yourself for your own fear? Do you throw yourself into your work while neglecting your daily duties and then argue with others that rely on you for such things? How do you find a balance between real life and writer life while maintaining the motivation to be productive and successful at both?