One Writer's Life -- Barbara Mountjoy

I read the most delightful story this morning--it's called England Expects, and it came out on Everyday Fiction, a paying market for short-shorts. Less than 1,000 words about a well-loved pub patron, and it sparked a huge argument/discussion/brouhaha over creating characters who embody ethnic slurs. Go check it out. I'll wait. The comments will take longer than the story.

Photo by Howard G

Okay, so I'm not Irish.

Maybe that makes a difference, maybe it doesn't.

But I read the story as it was offered, the tale of a man who, for whatever reason, spent his money for alcohol and was well known for it, and what happened to him.

The onslaught of comments, however, troubled me, especially when it came to the point that the administrator went in and altered a previously-approved story to excise a reference some commenters took as offensive.

Are we really so fragile?

These days so much is offensive, intentionally or otherwise. There is much commentary about free speech and who's allowed to say what and whether kneeling at a football game constitutes an offense and who can gather and who can't. Is what people say in locker rooms really all right to ignore? or is it absolutely equivalent with what happens in Hollywood moguls' offices?

I understand--and agree--that lines can be crossed. Using a caricature of a Native American, i.e., appropriating cultural symbols, for a sports team? Wrong. Calling a person with diminished capacity a "retard"? Right out.

But in my opinion, especially in writing, sometimes what you see is what you get. In my WINDMILLS series  the character of Terry Johnson is a young black man from the city. He speaks in a certain way. He has been in juvie. He took the fall for a gang member to save his family.  I don't think this makes him a stereotype. Not all black people in the story are like him. He does come, as do other real people in the world, from this place, and from this place he teaches others (whites who view him as that stereotype) the truth (without having to be a magical Negro).

Same in this story. The man is, what he is. Yes, he's Irish. Yes, he drinks to excess. It's because of this fact that the story works. But I don't understand how this, or calling him an "Irish pisshead" makes every Irish person a drinker to excess. It says that THIS man is. Period.

Do we all have the right to collectively attack any piece of work because it might have offended some people and force editorial/artistic change? Should publishers second guess themselves when they get a few complaints? Can't we just take each piece and characterization for what it is?

I'd be interested in hearing thoughts. Feel free.

Yes, folks, NaNoWriMo is just around the corner. We're all getting out outlines, plot bunnies and other assorted necessaries in line before the big day.

I'm writing a romantic suspense set in the Montana forests with ecotage! And pagans! And Native Americans!  (no elves, tho....that's another series.)

So stay tuned...you can check my progress at the site under my nickname babs1e....wish me luck!

It's almost time for Context 25! This is a wonderful science fiction and fantasy con in Columbus, Ohio where in additional to panels on a variety of subjects, gaming sessions and filk concerts, attendees can (for a minimal fee) take writing workshops provided by a number of multi-published writers and professors from great writing schools like Seton Hill.

This year. I'll be teaching a workshop on Saturday morning about writing diverse characters:

This workshop will use exercises like those in Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward's Writing the Other and other sources to expand your thinking about using characters of other race/class/ethnicity in your stories. We’ll look at the power of first impression—what you glean from your first sight of someone—which may or may not truly give you their essence. Participants should bring pen and paper to work through some simple but eye-opening "What If?" questions that will show you how to expand your story's diversity. Finally, we’ll conduct an exercise designed to teach you how to convey the diverse uniqueness of your characters in subtle ways—i.e., without having Fred say, “Hi, John, this is my black friend Mike.”

The two-hour workshop costs only $20 and leaves you plenty of time the rest of the day for classes with Maria Snyder, Tim Esaias and Linnea Sinclair, as well as a multitude of panels.

The workshops are filling up, so get on over to the site and sign up!

You'll also be able to be one of the first to get a print edition hot off the press of my new book LOVE ME, KISS ME, KILL ME from Hydra Publications, which will be released at the con!

For those who are reluctant to attend conferences because you feel overwhelmed, I thoroughly recommend this one. The people are nice, the workshops intimate, and there's a very welcoming vibe. Definitely something for everyone here--you could attend the con to get your fill of gaming play and talk, or just take writing workshops the whole time, at an extremely reasonable cost. Tim Esaias of Seton Hill recently pointed out that his workshops are essential the same module he teaches at the University--but much less expensive. Don't miss it!

I've got to say, a lot of times I feel like I'm all alone on my writer's path.

Okay, most writers feel like they labor in a solitary profession, and to some extent that's true. But this is more than that.

I belong to a couple wonderful critique groups through Pennwriters, but because of where I am on my particular path, I have so many issues/problems/questions that they can't help me with, most of them having yet to be published. Other writers in Pennwriters, of course, are published and might have some advice, but they're traditionally published, so they tend to look down on the way I've chosen--indie publishers.

I'm a little fortunate, in that I'm not one of the "self-published." (see today's post from Kristen Lamb on this always-controversial subject.) I have contracts and royalty agreements for every one of my novels, with varying levels of support from the different small press publishers. And I have six novels coming out THIS YEAR. Six. It's crazy. I'm trying to write and promote all at the same time. I just finished a trip across the country for research and booksignings in person during the same period I'm running a 38-stop online blog tour. I've just turned in one contracted book for next year, I'm writing another, I have edits waiting on my book coming out in September and I have another set of edits due by November 1.

Oh, and there's the day job. And the family. And the bills, etc. Like everyone else.

Granted, I wanted to be a published writer. Now I am. I have no grounds to complain, and this isn't really a complaint at all, but just a cry of despair in mid-journey, feeling overwhelmed.

Thanks to Red Tash for this blog today, which really made me feel a little better. I am alone, but there are people out there who understand what I'm going through. You came along at just the right time, friend. :)

This is an article that appeared in our local paper--something very similar appeared in the Peru Tribune a month or so ago. But because neither made their stories available on the Web, I wanted to share them with you here. I was pretty tickled!

Most authors are excited to publish one novel, or maybe two in a lifetime. Writer Barbara Mountjoy will see six novels published this year, two of them this month.  

I just got the word that my class is coming up from Pennwriters-- if you're a beginning/indie author looking for tips and tricks on self-promoting, with lots of links to more reading, check this out!


Promotional Basics
with Babs Mountjoy

Date
August 3 – August 30, 2012

Pennwriter members' cost $79; non-members $89

 Limited class size. Early bird prices end soon.

Course Description
Congratulations! Your work has just been published. Now comes the hard part.
Getting your audience to find your work, buy it, and share it.
Most publishers now want to know your “platform.” What website, blog, or other publicity do you use to sell and promote you work? Such tools are part of the package you are often expected to present as a showcase for your laboriously forged words.
Online and social media are now your best means of broadcasting your efforts and reaching your target audience. Pennwriters upcoming online course, Promotional Basics, will teach you the arts of publicity and marketing, showing you standard techniques and modern tricks to make your release a success.
Learn the four most important things to include in your website. Discover how to get your work noticed on and offline. Tour successful blogs, learn to make your own, and understand why they are a great way to spread your name. Find out what freebies and giveaways attract your readers and followers. Plan ahead for compelling personal appearances and book signings that feature more than just a chair behind a table.
Plus, as a free bonus, receive a list of 50 sites where you can submit you books for review.
Boost your sales and traffic by learning proven promotional methods!
About the Instructor
Barbara “Babs” Mountjoy has written since she was a little girl, unable to restrain the stories that percolated through her fingers onto her keyboard – or, back then, onto the old Royal typewriter. Babs has been a published author for more than thirty-five years, with a number of publications under her belt.

Her non-fiction book, 101 LITTLE INSTRUCTIONS FOR SURVIVING YOUR DIVORCE, was published by Impact Publishers in 1999. Her first novel, THE ELF QUEEN, was released under the pen name Lyndi Alexander in 2010. THE ELF QUEEN launched her Clan Elves of the Bitterroot series, under which the second and third titles, THE ELF CHILD and THE ELF MAGE, released in 2011 and 2012.

Wild Rose Press released her romantic suspense novels, SECRETS IN THE SAND, in 2011, and, CONVICTION OF THE HEART, in June 2012. Will Rose Press will also release Babs’ THAT GIRL’S THE ONE I LOVE in September 2012. Zumaya Publications published her women’s fiction title, SECOND CHANCES, in July 2012.

Also in September 2012, Hydra Publications will publish LOVE ME, KISS ME, KILL ME, Babs’ upcoming vampire story.

Babs is a contributor to two CUP OF COMFORT anthologies. She blogs about autism, writing and life at awalkabout.wordpress.com, and spent seven years of her career as a news reporter and editor in South Florida. Her romances/womens fiction books are published under the pen name Alana Lorens, and her fantasy/sci-fi under the pen name Lyndi Alexander. For more information on Babs Mountjoy or this course, email her at bmountjoy@zoominternet.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

It's always a toss-up at the end of the year: look back on the year that's passed, or set that aside and concentrate on the year ahead. Or both. I think that's the kind of year it's been for me.

Personally, the year has been a hard one, as we've struggled with the issues of our special-needs kids, some of them improving, others not so much. The stress has taken a toll on the marriage, as so often happens. I suppose it says something that we're still hanging together. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. We'll find out, I guess.

We're getting older and falling apart a little more--but that's the way of things. Resolutions for next year include to find a therapeutic pool exercise class handy, since the Lyrica didn't work out. Fibromyalgia is such a frustrating condition. You need to get good sleep to bolster pain management, but the pain prevents good sleep. They recommend exercise, even when you feel like you couldn't stand to move an inch through your aching muscles. Best practice for me so far is to take something for pain and just soldier through. Hopefully it'll be better next year.

Professionally, though, what a raft full of blessings! I scored a part-time job with the county as an attorney for families working through Children's Services, that came with benefits and a regular paycheck. This opened up my time formerly spent chasing new clients to spend writing.

I haven't wasted that time, either. In 2011, I signed contracts for five new novels to come out in 2012 and 2013. This is what my new email signature looks like now:

Also writing as Alana Lorens:
Secrets in the Sand, a novel of romantic suspense---The Wild Rose Press, April 20,2011

Conviction of the Heart, coming from The Wild Rose Press in 2012

This has been a busy week for me--in addition to real life intrusions, I've been working steadily on NaNo, with 22,000 words in 11 days, and I've had a blog on Savvy Authors and Lyndi's books are featured on Jerri Hine's Facebook Novel Works today!

Then I have competing blog posts today: On the irony of being a divorce lawyer writing love stories, at IcySnowBlackstone (click through to the blog page) and on how being a fantasy writer has helped me deal with our youngest, who's diagnosed with autism, sensory integration disorder and other language delays at A Splash of Scarlet. That's her proud face with her fair ribbon above!

If any or all of these interest you, I invite you to stop by!

Yes, yes, I know I haven’t posted here as often as I’d like–hopefully you’ve missed me! The good news is I’ve been doing substantial amoounts of writing-related work, which is a good thing! The latest venture is this little bit of video, a book trailer for my first published novel, The Elf Queen. A book trailer is supposed to be like a movie trailer, giving enough of the story to entice folk to come see/read my book. (and hopefully the rest of the series!)

So what did you think? Is it exciting? Suspenseful? Must you go buy the book at Amazon right now? Okay, if you must. Pssst: pass it on… :)

I've got a guest post up at the web home of romantic suspense writer Joan Swan. She's written a wonderful paranormal romance series coming out from Kensington Brava that I can't wait to read :) Come by and see if I'm working for love or money!

Thanks to my newspaper-days writer friend Hank Henley for this guest post. He's hot in process on his own novels, and I can't wait to read the college-based murder mysteries! For more of his wit and wisdom during his Best Year Ever and future tales of Constantinople, visit him at www.hankhenley.com

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You learn something new every day.

I don't think the old platitude is true--in fact I'm convinced it's just crap. There have been plenty of days in my half century on this earth where where I'm certain I was just taking up space and didn't accomplish or learn a single damned thing. And I personally know a bunch a people who haven't learned or done one useful thing in decades.

Learn something new every day? Give me a break.

Last weekend I made up for a bunch of the wasted days and wasted nights of my life when I attended the Alabama Writers' Conclave. Over three days I filled up a fresh composition book with all the new things I was learning. A lot of the things I learned were kind of writery, so you probably wouldn't be interested in hearing about them, Discerning Reader.

But four of the lessons learned over the weekend were so powerful I had to add them to my personal Rulebook of Life. These four discovered precepts belong in the "general societal hazards" chapter of the rulebook, and I've decided to share them with you today as a public service to all mankind. Now pay attention and commit these four rules to memory.

Are you ready?

1. Never hand a poet a microphone.

2. If you are in a room containing a poet and a microphone, the two will inevitably find each other over the course of the evening.

3. If you are trapped in a room containing both an aggregation (or barista, see post above) of poets and a microphone, you will soon experience both disorientation and discomfort. This is also inevitable.

4. The only thing worse than a poet with a microphone is a drunk poet with a microphone.

A significant minority of the people attending the writers' conference over the weekend were poets.

I've always been fascinated by poets. I'm challenged by their intellect and mastery of the English language. I'm in awe of their talent--at their ability to weave words in a way that stirs and illuminates the soul. I admire the civility and sincerity I've observed in every poet I've ever met.

Mostly I'm amazed these people are so dedicated to creating things so beautiful yet so undesired.

Most people today don't seem to care about poetry, and, other than in Hallmark greeting cards, you don't find a lot of it out there in everyday life. A reality show about trampy housewives can get boffo ratings, but of the hundreds of cable channels on my television, I can't think of a single place where poets and poetry are celebrated, featured and discussed.

Poets know the world ignores them, but they pursue their craft anyway, laboring in determined obscurity to create masterful works of art that have no hope of ever being seen by more than a handful of people.

To be a poet you've got to have a day job. Even if your self-identity is "poet," you need to find some other way to pay the bills. Poet is not a viable career path. A lot of poets are (or were) English teachers, which is about the closest one can come to being a poet full time.

Can you name the Poet Laureate of the United States? Me either. But I can now name the Poet Laureate of Alabama--a charming, energetic, whip-smart and frighteningly talented woman named Sue Brannan Walker. I met her over the weekend. In a room. With a microphone. They found each other. It was inevitable.

Even Dr. Walker has a day job to support her compulsion to write and disseminate poetry; she's a professor at the University of South Alabama.

I think you must be born with some sort of practicality gene missing in order to become a poet, and Dr. Walker embodies that spirit. When the microphone found her on Friday, of course she shared a few of her own poems. Poets are powerless to stop themselves from reading their own work. Between poems she spoke about an initiative she's leading to teach the homeless people of Mobile to write poetry. Everyone in the room, including me, heartily applauded the sentiment, positive energy and pure motivations behind this cause, but was I the only one to wonder if it is wise to expend resources and energy teaching unemployed people the single least financially useful skill on earth?

They may be accustomed to a world that ignores them, but poets crave affirmation and recognition too; so when the "open mic" times came after the day's formal activities were completed, the poets were irresistibly drawn, like flies to honey, to fill the available slots and share their work with an actual willing audience.

The open mic times were a sort of karaoke for writers. Anyone who wished to read from their works had five minutes and the microphone. A handful of prose authors and essayists read, but the vast majority of the presenters on both nights were poets.

Most of the poetry I heard was very good and crafted from words strung together like bright beads around a pretty woman's neck. Hearing those poems reminded me how much I like poetry when I accidentally bump into it. Some of the poetry I heard over the weekend was incomprehensible and quickly forgotten but I clapped for every single reader anyway.

Two of the poets were tipsy. Liquored up poets don't become aggressive or mean like drunks at a biker bar, but their condition does compel them to deliver rambling introductions to each poem they read and leads to the unfortunate decision to read poetry composed moments before on the back of cocktail napkins. When a poet introduces her work with the words "this is going to be a little rough," you can be sure a few incoherent moments are just ahead.

In case any poets stumble across these words, I'm not mocking you. Okay, I am mocking you--a little--but only because I love you and admire you for possessing a talent and a way of seeing and sharing your world that is absent in me.

The world may not respect them, but the world needs poets more than it could ever know. I am comforted they are out there hiding in plain sight among us and carefully tending and protecting words like gibbously on behalf of the rest of us. You never know when we'll need those words back.

Here's to poets. I love you all. Now will someone please switch off the microphone?

“Do or do not... there is no try.”

Yoda's words don't only apply to the use of the Force.

Perennially, one of my writing groups, Pennwriters, debates between those who have been published traditionally and those who aren’t about which writers “should” do.

The old guard insists that if you want to write novels you must get them to one of the five big houses, get the publicity machine and promotion. Of course this means you have to get an agent.

If you’re a writer who has tried to do either, chances are 99 times out of a hundred, it’s just not happening.

The old guard then cites the urban legends of authors who just kept sending out until sure as heck, that 101st letter did it. And maybe they did. More power to them.

Over the last year, I’ve read a lot about the state of publishing, and indeed about the world of communication in general. Time Magazine did a whole series of articles about publication in the digital age, and their conclusion is that the traditional routes are no longer exclusive.
Lev Grossman’s article said “Publishers Weekly (PW) predicts that 2009 would be ‘the worst year for publishing in decades.’ A lot of headlines and blogs to the contrary, publishing isn’t dying. But it is evolving, and so radically that we may hardly recognize it when it’s done.”

At the same time, newspapers are closing their doors, magazine and book publishers alike laying off staff, and paying markets, in the way we have always thought about them, are drying up.

Also at the same time, the whole concept of access to the masses has changed. Once upon a time, you needed to be cherished by Harlequin or Doubleday to even have your book see the light of day, unless you wanted to type out versions on your old Royal typewriter, one at a time, to circulate them. The Internet has changed that game.

Now authors have options. They can self-publish through Lulu.com or iUniverse, or epublishers which pay a royalty for books available digitally, or in print books. As I pointed out recently on my writer’s blog:

If I were Stephen King, my books would be available online at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, at the publisher's website, and all the other ordering sites.I'm not Stephen King. But when The Elf Queen comes out this fall, you, the reader, will be able to order it online at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, at the publisher's website, and all the other ordering sites.You will be able to order it in hardback, paperback or for your favorite e-reader like the Kindle, Sony, Ipad and more. So what's the difference to the average reader?

Writers don’t need the fancy publicity tour, either. Authors like CJ Lyons and Christina Katz, aka Writer Mama, tour online, guest blogging in as many places as they can. Cost? Your time. The Internet has millions of outlets to reach the people who want your work.

Many professional artists are choosing non-traditional routes to promote work they want to do, and it’s starting to make headlines. Musician Jill Sobule found the traditional music business wasn’t working for her–and didn’t get money in her hands– so her latest album was funded entirely by donations from fans and giveaways. Screenwriters like Joss Whedon are thinking outside the box with projects like Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, which first appeared on the Internet for free, but afterward started collecting revenues.

Communication venues like Twitter bring the celebrity even closer to fans, and news you want to share with many more people. Email and forums bring artists directly to their public, for the kind of one-on-one connection that sells readers, just as it sold Barack Obama to the American people at election time.

So we can all dream about that blockbuster sale, movie rights and New York Times listing right out of the gate. We can even work at it around busy lives of work, parenting and other distractions for forty years. Maybe some of us will get it.

But in the meantime, don’t you have something to say? Don’t we write so others can read? What’s the sense of having fifteen polished manuscripts in a drawer collecting dust? Maybe instead we should be out there exploring the new digital publishing world, meeting our readers, and sharing what we have to offer.

Welcome to my fellow CoyoteCon attendees! It's my privilege to share this with you, and I hope you come back again soon. :)

Recently I expanded my writing goals in response to a couple of opportunities that cropped up, just to see what would happen.

Normally, I write novels. Period. I'm not great at poetry, even though it's a lot shorter, because I think it's so difficult. See here. I've written short stories from time to time, but I always feel like I have more to say than that. My main blog continues to say what I need to say, now more than two years in, and my articles and reviews at Firefox News are geared to Web reading.

But when our Pennwriters rep sent out a prompt from National Public Radio's Three-Minute Fiction, for Round Three, that lonesome newspaper lying on the table did suggest a story to me, and I put together the piece of flash fiction and sent it in.

About the same time, I ran across an invitation at Writer Unboxed for a writer who had not yet published a novel to become part of the group that creates the wonderful material on the blog.

I wasn't sure I was up to it, as the site was voted one of Writer’s Digest’s best 101 websites for writers in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The interviews were fabulous, the commentary from the other writers interesting and helpful. But...I gave it a shot.

I'm pleased to say that I was one of the top 14 semi-finalists out of 187 entrants, and as such, I will be entitled to publish a column with them each year, and perhaps more, if all goes well. Talk about Snoopy dances all around!

Add that excitement to the ongoing dialogues I'm having with editors and agents about my novel manuscripts, and I'm feeling an awful lot like a writer these days. How about you?

I think we're finally ready to go live here with this blog, now that the "business" is all caught up, so to speak. Blogger has some different features than Wordpress, and we've been able to pull together the widgets we need.

So sit back with a cup of your favorite beverage and enjoy! Nice that you came by to visit.