MONDAY MUSINGS: Characters Who Influenced Me

A few days ago my group and I touched on characters that were role models as we grew up. I got to thinking about women characters I liked and why. I’ll admit, these characters also influenced my writing in so far as female characters go.

Amanda Bonner (Kate Hepburn, Adam’s Rib)

She was smart, a snazzy dresser, a career woman, and yet she was also married and juggled both. It wasn't all roses. She had problems to overcome, but then, so do all good characters.

Of course, Hepburn always played the accomplished woman who was strong, smart, bucking against stereotype of her time, but not afraid of being a woman. She let her dry wit and sense of humor out to play.  Hepburn always played my favorite type of character, intelligent, funny, sassy, sexy, and confident.

Some of Hepburn’s leading men were favorites of mine too. Gary Grant, suave, dashing, funny, and sexy. Or a man’s man, like Humphrey Bogart in African Queen. But Heroes are a subject for another blog. 

These old movies have fond memories for me because my mom and I loved Hepburn and we always watched them on TV when I was a girl. I still catch them when I can

Honey West (Anne Francis)

Oh, I watched this faithfully as a young girl. I loved Honey West. She was everything I wanted to be when I grew up. She was physically strong to do what she did, she had confidence galore—which was very attractive to me at that age. Honey was a judo/karate expert and she could kick ass and take names. Honey, was a great character because she took the labels of the time and poked holes through them. She was the first female private eye to ever appear on television. Plus, she had, Bruce, a very cool cat (ocelot). As the show progressed she got tougher. Yes, she celebrated her womanhood, used her looks to disarm the bad guys, but when push came to shove she could hold her own. Honey knew her limitations but she also demonstrated a quality I've always admired. If you use your brain you can figure out most things. Honey showed that you didn't have to be mannish to be a strong and competent woman and I liked that. She was always classy.

Ann Marie (Marlo Thomas That Girl)

I watched it and loved the idea that Ann was young and enthusiastic, had a goal and was willing to leave the safety of home to achieve it. I like the fact the focus was on a young single woman and it reflected the changing roles of women. This show was the forerunner of two shows (and characters) I also loved—the highly successful Mary Tyler Moore Show and Murphy Brown (I was a big fan of this one even more than MTM)

Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson)

 

Pepper was smart, pretty, and capable. Able to be what she wanted to be regardless of what people thought the role of woman should be. She had a tough job but was still celebrated her femininity. She had compassion, a sense of humor, and used logic and reason to get through to people—whether they were coworkers, bad guys, or families she had to share bad news with. Angie Dickinson’s role opened doors for more dramas that featured women in lead roles.

Kate Lawrence (Sada Thompson, on Family)

 

Why Kate? Because she had the courage of her convictions in a time when wife and mother were becoming synonymous selling out and being unliberated. She was loving and strong woman. Kate was tough when she needed to be and very fierce in protecting her family—even against themselves. She seemed so wise and confident. Actually, I think she showed there was nothing weak or wimpy about the job of being a mother and a wife. Even in this day of *new* paganism (especially in books) and worship of the mother goddess, wasn't one of her roles motherhood and wife. The goddess perfected the strength required to do both and do it well.

 

• Who were some of your favorite film characters?
• Do find yourself using their type or style in your writing?    

Coming up: Wednesday: Stephanie Julian, What a Goddess Wants, Friday: is historical author Lavina Kent.

Creating A Promotion Platform Through Blogging

Laurie Creasy continues her series in Using Social Media Strategy 

Part One:  Promote Your Writing
Part Two:  Blogging: Improving Your Visibility

Your book is being published! Great news!




But now you have to market it.






You’re in one of two positions (either Type A or Type B):

•  You have a blog and a presence on one or more social platforms (such as Twitter and Facebook)

•  You just said, “Huh?” and scratched your head.

If you’re Type A, as soon as you get The Call, make sure each one of your accounts is neat, clean, and up to date.

• If you've been slacking off on your blog, pick up the pace. Try a few new things – a contest, hotos from a writers conference, some video of your reaction to The Call.
• Recheck your privacy settings on your Facebook profile. If you have posts or photos that could embarrass you – especially if you’re writing under the same name as your profile – tighten up the settings.
• If you have a Facebook profile only, get yourself a Facebook page. A profile maxes out at 5,000 friends, and you probably don’t want to go through moving people to a fan page later.
• Delete any … erm … unwise tweets. Yes, people will be able to find them forever, but most people aren’t techie enough to care.
• If you have a presence on any other networks, make sure it’s all tidy. If you don’t want to put the work in to get it up to speed, then change the settings to private.

If you’re Type B, as soon as you get The Call, it’s time to think, and think hard.

• Brainstorm ideas for a blog. (Friends can help.) Choose an idea you can have fun with and that won’t bore you silly in a week. You can photo blog or video blog, too.
• At first, you’ll be spending at least an hour and a half a day (that’s if you write fast) writing a blog post and publishing it. Be honest with yourself and figure out exactly how often you’ll be able to do that – and it’s no shame to do it once a week only. (When you’re considering this, here’s a tip: People read thrice-weekly posts more often than they read daily posts. Save yourself some heartache.)
• Write six or seven evergreen blog posts that you can put up when things are tight. If you have friends who are published authors or editors, beg them for a few evergreen posts. These can include book reviews, author bios – anything that’s not going to yell, “Written two months ago!” to your readers.
• If you don’t have a Facebook page, start one. If you have no fans, bribe your friends and relatives to “like” your page.
• Don’t jump into every possible social media platform. Right now, a blog and a Facebook page will be enough.

Ideas to help Type As:

• If you've done a number of blog posts that can be combined – for example, how to choose a laptop, reviews of laptops, tips about programs that help writers plot, combine them into a PDF (you’ll want to do some polishing), and e-pub it for free or for a minimal fee to get your name out there.
• Figure out a way to meet up with some of your fans – ice cream socials, tea parties, chocolate tastings. Keep it small and keep it simple. Hold some kind of contest so your fans can “win” invitations. Take photos and post them to your blog.
• Have fun! It’s your first book – celebrate, and invite your fans to celebrate with you.

Ideas to help Type Bs:

• Do a white paper – a brief report – on something you’re expert at. Include photos or links to videos if you want. These don’t need to be serious, professional three-piece-suit things. If you’re an expert at making seashell flowers, go for it. Are you expert at knowing who’s who among fallen angels? Write it up.
• Go to a conference armed with a small tape recorder and an inexpensive video camera (take the tape recorder, because inexpensive video recorders have terrible microphones) and get a few quick soundbites from published authors. Ask each one the same question, then edit the answers together and post the video – complete with your name as producer, director, and interviewer.
• Have fun! It’s your first book, and all published authors have been where you are now. Don’t be afraid to ask for their help, as long as you keep things short and sweet and don’t shove the camera at them under the bathroom stall.

Don’t just get fans. Figure out how you’re going to keep them. Be creative, be imaginative, and take a few risks.

I want to thank Laurie for sharing her professional knowledge of Promotion and Marketing with us this week.


Next week we'll be back to our normally scheduled authors.

Blogging: Improving Your Visibility

Laurie Creasy continues her series in promoting your writing through social media. This installment talks about how to improve your visibility and cement your presence through blogging.
You can find her first article here: Part One: Using Social Media

OK, you’re no longer a newbie. You’ve written enough to query an agent or editor; maybe you’ve even e-published something.

And yet … and yet … the mojo just ain’t there. You’re getting a few hits on your blog – and of course you have a blog – but it’s nothing to write home about. No one’s breaking down your doors and demanding more, and you’re not the overnight success you always dreamed you’d be.

Here are four steps you can take to improve your visibility and cement your presence:

Analyze. (Just start every list of things to do with this word – it makes things much simpler.) Yes, yes, every the, a, an, and that is deathless prose. You couldn’t possibly change a word.

Here’s a checklist to help you analyze your blog:

n      Which posts got the most hits?
n      Which got the fewest hits?
n      What do the popular/least popular posts have in common? Length? Topic? Tone?
n      Are you using tags and categories to improve your search engine rankings? If you aren’t, read up on why search engine optimization matters.
n      Are you getting linkbacks and pingbacks? If you aren’t, you need to begin linking to helpful articles.

Once you figure out what your audience wants from you (i.e., the popular posts), give them more.

This doesn’t mean every post has to be a breathless monologue about, for example, the hot embroidery details on Regency gowns year by year, but maybe two out of three or three out of four should be.

Your posts showcase your writing. Don’t stint on the time and effort you put into them. It may be the first introduction others have to you.

You plan on writing stories aimed at certain audiences or publisher’s lines, right? So why would you want to flit all over cyberspace with topics on your blog?

Separate personal from professional. Not everyone agrees on this, and in the end it’s your call. But do you really want your editor or agent to see into every corner of your life?

Yes, people should accept you the way you are … but if you worked in an office, rather than at home in your PJs, how much would you tell your boss about your problems with hubs leaving the seat up? How much would your co-workers want to know about your sexual preferences?

Let’s face it – you aren’t selling your real self on the Internet. You’re selling a persona. No one wants to read about Jane Doe, housewife up to her eyeballs in dirty jock straps. But they may want to read about Desiree Divine, author of the steamiest sex scenes romance readers ever panted over. And Desiree Divine does not deal in dirty jock straps.

Think before you post.  And before you e-mail, tweet, Tumbl, Pinterest, or anything else on the Internet.

If it’s on the Internet, it lives forever, even if you take it down. So go ahead and type that rant about Nora Roberts not paying her dues or that acerbically brilliant response to a bad review … and then delete it.

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever (are you seeing a pattern here?), ever snark on the Internet. To anyone, at any time, anywhere.

Believe me, your sins will find you out. Ask the guy who got his whole agency fired from a job with Chrysler for tweeting improperly. Ask the guy who lost his job at Columbia for making snide remarks about the CNN reporter who was sexually assaulted in Egypt.

Help and share. Support other writers. Support other bloggers. Help newbies navigate the labyrinth of the publishing world. Encourage new and old writers. Give positive, constructive feedback.

In short, spend time building your reputation as a go-to person on certain topics, as a professional who can set and keep boundaries, as someone who can stay silent at the right time, and as someone who’s generous and kind.

Yeah, it’s kind of old fashioned.

Then again, maybe everything old really is new again.

~*~*~*~

Readers you might also like:
Spunk On A Stick's Tips
Discussion - Length of Blog Posts

Using Social Media Strategy To Promote Your Writing

Blogging and promotion is part of the new job description for the today’s author. Getting your name known in cyberspace. Setting your *brand.*

It either scares the bejeebies out of a writer or they feel at a loss as to where to start. They want to use their time to write, not *play around on the internet.* I was the promotion/marketing director of a small Indie press. I heard variations of this daily.

So many books. I want to look for you, why?

My answer? You can do both. How are your readers going to find you if they don’t know your name and what you write? Books don’t just magically sell because your name is on it. And many writers don’t start that process until they have a contract or a book published, which puts you at a disadvantage of racing to catch up.

Yes, you need time to write but you also have to invest the time to get your work in the hands of your target audience—your readers. So, if blogging and promotion is a must, then learn how to blog in a way designed to gain readers and build a platform of future fans.

My guest is Laurie Creasy. She has graciously agreed to share her expertise to help one get started and how to use social media to promote your work. 

This will be part one of a three part series. 

It’s never too early to plan a strategy for using social media to promote your writing.

More and more, traditional publishers rely on authors to promote their books. In e-publishing right now, you are author, marketer, and sometimes even editor and designer.

To promote what you write effectively, you’ll need momentum.  Here are five ways to build it.

Blog. As a new writer, this may be the most important thing you do in social media. A blog anchors everything else you do – it gives you a place to explain or extrapolate, to test ideas.

Don’t tell me you have nothing to say. Of course you do. If you really had nothing to say, you wouldn’t be a writer. Right?

So write about something you love – something that also touches what you write about. Adore steampunk? Tell us about the clothes, the foods, and the buildings.  If you write fantasy, give us some tips on how you build worlds from scratch.

Not only are you giving your readers great information, you’re building an audience for your stories.

Experiment. I started a Tumblr blog several months ago and floundered until I began taking photos of flowers. Suddenly my blog took off (in a small way). Who knew?

If things aren’t working, try a different angle – maybe steampunk clothes are just too, well, done -- or try a different tone for your posts.

If you don’t do well with a traditional blog, try something different.

Tumblr (tumblr.com) is fun, and it’s an excellent way to show off photos and artwork.

A new service, Pinterest, lets you create the virtual equivalent of a bulletin board for things you’re interested in. (Pinterest is in beta, but you can request an invitation at pinterest.com.)

You may also find that you work well with Storify (storify.com), which allows you to tell a story through tweets and Facebook status posts. Unlike a blog, however, Storify creates standalone pieces.

Play around until you find out what works best for you.

Help and share. Your job as a budding author is to build relationships with everyone, not just big name authors. It’s what your mother always told you: To have an audience, you have to be an audience.

This means you can’t just post to your own blog and ignore everyone else’s. Get in there and comment, question, and even disagree on other blogs.

Yes, it takes time. Yes, you might spend that more productively by writing, and writing is your future.

Let’s be blunt: Selling your writing is your future, unless you like starving in a garret and achieving renown only after you’re dead. The time you put into building your social media presence now is an investment in your writing.

Analyze. What works on a blog doesn’t work on Twitter. What works on Twitter doesn’t work on Facebook.

Figure out what’s best for which platform and why. My job involves maintaining a Facebook page for a large university. I can tell you right now that our audience loves photos of campus, news about our sports programs, news about our research in health, and news about our astronomy research. Any of those will draw likes and comments for us, and on Facebook, likes and comments are the name of the game.

If you have a Twitter and/or a Facebook account, begin experimenting now to find out what mix of content will work for you.

Stop worrying about numbers. Millions of Facebook fans, tens of thousands of Twitter followers – stop right there.  Just stop, OK?

You’re going to buy a friend’s book, or you’re going to buy a book by someone you feel as though you know. If you like that book, you’ll tell others, and if they like it, they’ll tell even more people.

That’s the point of social media, to build friendships. Not only do you want to get to know the people who will buy your book, you want them to get to know you.

After all, readers aren’t really investing in any given book. They’re investing in a relationship with an author they’ve come to trust.

• What strategies have you employed? What have you found to work?
• 
  
• If you have any questions be sure to ask and Laurie will do her best to answer them.

At age 53, Laurie went back to college for a master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction. Her younger classmates introduced her to social media, and she has never looked back. She leads the team that maintains a university Facebook page with more than 200,000 fans -- an increase of 130,000 fans since she began her work in early 2010. 


She has won national, regional, and international prizes for poetry, fiction, and reporting, including the RWA's Golden Heart award for romantic suspense, and has taught creative writing classes.


You can find Laurie: Facebook and her blog

Christmas story: UNDER THE HOLLY

~Story by Ken Coffman~

Tom carefully parked the old Toyota on the crest of a hill. The starter did not work, so he needed the incline to compression-start the car. The sky was obscured by woolen blanket of clouds that seemed to suck color from the world. He rested his head on the steering wheel for a moment and gathered the willpower to move. Tommy was with the next door neighbor, Claire Jensen, who watched daytime dramas with the TV volume turned up so high that Tom could hear the tinny chatter in his car as the cooling engine ticked. With the steering wheel imprinted on his forehead, he slowly raised his hand and wiggled his fingers. He was not paralyzed, but it was as if the world pressed on him with cruel force. Cold wind slipped through loose window seals. Snow looked imminent. He needed to go.

Standing on Claire's sagging porch, he lifted the knocker and let it fall. It snapped like a toy pistol. Tommy's feet clomped on the floorboards; miniature thunder as he ran to the door.

"Daddy," he shouted. "Where have you been? I've been waiting. It's Christmas."

Tom was proud of Tommy's vocabulary. He was not quite four, so his enunciation was sloppy, but his thinking was clear. Tom gathered him in his arms squeezed.

"No, Christmas is tomorrow."

"No, Christmas is today, right now, they said so on TV," Tommy explained patiently as if that settled the matter.

"Okay, maybe I'm wrong," Tom said.

Dressed in several layers of bathrobes, Claire muted the TV and poked her head around the corner.

"Merry Christmas, Tom," she said.

"Back at you, Mrs. Jensen. I hope Tommy was no trouble."

"Never. I wish my kid was as good as him Tommy's an angel. We were watching the Christmas special As the World Turns. It's a rerun of old highlights, but it's still pretty good. Eddie didn't find out Deena was his mother until after Margo killed her."

"That's nice, Mrs. Jensen."

"A man in a uniform walked around your house. I think they turned the power back on."

"Why would they do that?"

"I don't know, but look."

Tom peered through lace curtains at his little house. It was true, some of the lights glowed.

"I didn't pay the bill," he mused.

"If it's still cold over there, come back. At five o'clock I'm going to have a nip of Smirnoff from the freezer. You can share a toot."

Tom knew that a nip meant a fifth, but he did not begrudge her habit; she was always sober during the day. He knew she didn't want to share her bottle but he appreciated her asking.

"We have something to do, but we might stop by later."

"You do that, Tom."

She waggled her fingers at Tommy and he returned the gesture. Outside, Tom strapped Tommy in the car and settled himself in the driver's seat.

"Are you ready?"

Tommy nodded solemnly and took a deep breath. He was convinced the car would only start if he held his breath. Tom released the parking brake and popped the clutch as the car picked up speed. It rumbled to life with a puff of blue smoke.

"See, Daddy, it works," Tommy said.

"It always does," Tom replied.

They turned at the corner.

"Where are we going? It's Christmas, you know."

"So I've heard. We'll go see Mommy."

"Oh." Tommy watched the scenery flowing outside his window for a minute. "What's a pregnancy test? I asked Mrs. Jensen, but she said I should ask you."

"Is that something you heard on the TV?"

Tommy nodded vigorously. "Yes," he said.

"We'll talk about that later, okay?"

"Does later mean never, Daddy?"

"You're a funny little guy. I don't know what I'd do without you."


The cemetery was on a hillside. Cedarville, in all of its small-town patchwork glory, spread out on the valley floor. The river weaved through trees and glistened in the flat winter light. Tommy fumbled with his seatbelt and door and then ran to his mother's grave site. Towels, decorated with sprigs of holly and evergreen fronds, were spread on the damp grass.

"Mama didn't forget Christmas," he shouted. "Hurry up."

Tom handed him a pair of woolen socks.

"Put these on, it's cold."

"Wally has mittens, they're really cool. I mean they're warm, but they're cool."

"We don't have any mittens, so you have to wear socks. They're warm, put them on."

"No one else wears socks on their hands," Tommy complained, but he pulled them on.

Tom stood for a minute reading the inscription. Rebecca Thomas, Beloved Wife and Mother, Taken Too Soon. 1982-2007. RIP

He wanted to scream and tear out his hair and rip the stone from the ground and throw it down the hill. Instead, he pulled a Thermos from a paper bag.

"Give your mom a kiss and have some chocolate," he said.

Tommy kissed the cold granite and settled on his haunches on the picnic towels. He sipped the hot chocolate and studied his father.

"Are you alright, Daddy?"

With his thumb, Tom worked on a smudge of chocolate on Tommy's cheek.

"Sometimes," he replied.

A man, dressed in a long gray overcoat, picked his way from the parking lot. It was George Wilson, Rebecca's boss.

"I took a chance on finding you here. Hello Tommy."

"Hello, Mr. Wilson," Tommy replied.

"We took a collection around the office and got your power turned back on."

With creaking knees, Tom stood, and then took George's arm and led him a few steps away.

"We don't need charity," he said.

"You can call them and tell them to turn it off again."

Tom took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, I know you mean well..."

"Rebecca wouldn't want you two to freeze to death on Christmas. Let us do this small thing. Also, the man from the insurance company came by again."

"I told you, I don't want their money. It has Rebecca's blood on it."

"You're so melodramatic. He gave me papers. The money will go into a trust for Tommy so he can go to college when he's 18. Rebecca would not want you to be stupid."

"I'll get a job after the first of the year."

"Don't be a fool. You don't want the insurance money, that's fine, but sign the damn papers for Tommy, okay? The man from the insurance company is driving me crazy."

"Okay. I don't have a pen."

George proffered a silver pen and Tom scribbled on the paperwork at all the places marked with red X's.

"Another thing is, you need to turn on your cell phone. That agent lady from New York has been trying to get in touch with you. I don't understand all this stuff, but she says there are two bidders and you need to decide if you'll sign a two-book deal. That's good, right? She says it's a fair amount of money."

"I can't think of that stuff right now. My wife is dead."

"I know all about the horrible accident, Tom," George said gently. "I also know she supported you for three years so you could write that book. I told the agent I'd let you know. Now you know and I'm done. You take care, okay, Tom?"

"Yeah," Tom said.

He watched George navigate his way back to the parking lot for a moment before turning back to Tommy.

The picnic bag held a partial package of Oreos. He held out a handful for Tommy who took them in his ensocked hands.

"I haven't had dinner yet," Tommy said.

"On Christmas, you can have cookies for dinner."

"I like Christmas," Tommy mumbled through a mouthful. "There's no money for presents, is there? We're flat."

"That's right, Tommy, we're flat busted." A sprinkle of snowflakes drifted from the woolen sky. "But, maybe your mama sent you something..."

"What?" Tommy jumped up and ran around the tombstone. "I don't see anything."

"Maybe she left it under the holly."

The holly flew as Tommy tossed off the sprigs. He raised a package wrapped in red and green paper.

"Look, you're right. Mama didn't forget about me."

"No Tommy, your mom will never forget about you."

Tommy jumped on his dad's lap clutching his present tightly in his chubby arms.

"Go ahead and open it."

"Can I wait a while, Daddy? I don't care what it is."

"Wait as long as you like," Tom said.

The snow, drifting from the sky like apple blossoms, slowly turned the ground white. They stayed as long as they could stand the cold and then headed for home.

~*~*~*~*~

Ken Coffman is the author of Steel Waters, Hartz String Theory and other mad novels available from Amazon.com and other online bookstores. He wrote a popular technical book called Real World FPGA Design with Verilog published by Pearson-Prentice Hall.


Ken lives in the Northwest with his wife Judy who is a well known artist. He is a Field Applications Engineer and Member of the Technical Staff at Fairchild Semiconductor.