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?
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• 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

Investing in Your Writing

Everyone is gearing up to go to writing conference this summer. Some have been and are trying to absorb all they've learned and apply it to their writing.


Conferences are a great place to network--you meet agents, publisher reps, other authors. You do learn a lot even from those seminars that don't quite fit what you're looking for. I've found some good info bits in some of them.


A writing buddy of mine, James Rafferty  recently attended a writer's conference shared some of it with me.

Recently I attended two conferences, one for my work in telecommunications and the second for my work in writing. The conferences were in very different fields, but I observed several common themes that applied to both events. At the conferences, I invested time in learning new things, networked with other professionals in the field and promoted my current projects.

I'm not a newcomer to conferences. I've probably attended 4-5 telecom events for the past 15 years. My participation in writing conferences is mostly much more recent. I attended a few SF conferences as a reader and fan many years back, but my participation at Boston area conferences the past two years has been as a writer. Why should writers attend conferences?

I view conferences as an investment. It's a chance to step out of the normal day to day routines and find out what's going on in the rest of the world. Publishing is undergoing a sea change which has much in common with the changes the high tech industry experienced during the past ten years. Business models are changing, there are new ways of getting products to the market and the roles of industry participants are shifting before our eyes. In this kind of environment, it makes sense for individuals to study up on the new trends, perfect one's own areas of craft and expertise and make contacts with the shakers and movers of your industry.

    Muse and the Marketplace, sponsored by Grub Street of Boston, offers a breadth of possibilities for              aspiring writers. The conference took place over a weekend and I chose to attend the Saturday portion of the event. From among a plethora of sessions, I decided to focus on a mix of craft, marketing and promotion.

Boston-based author Gary Braver conducted a session on ten essential elements for writing thrillers. A key point was that the mission of the thriller writer is to establish an atmosphere of dread and then build up tension throughout the novel. I'd previously read Braver's book Flashback and really enjoyed it, so he was a credible source for this kind of information.

Next up, I attended a session on promotion, which was useful, but tending toward being repetitious. The key point was an emphasis on the need for author to be ready to promote their work at all times and along the way, builds up a platform. Most of this information was familiar for me and the leader offered a useful reminder that we needed to be ready with an elevator pitch on our projects.

One of the unique parts of Muse was the chance to participate in their Power Lunch. For a reasonable fee, we could choose a lunch table and chat with four members of the publishing industry. I chose a table with two agents, a publisher and an editor. Three other conference attendees joined me at the table and we all had chances to talk with everybody at the table by changing seats a couple of times. I found this to be the best part of the day. My fellow authors and I each pitched our current projects and I even had enough time to chat a bit about a work in progress with a couple of my lunch mates. I put the prior session's emphasis on the elevator pitch to immediate use and got enough interest so that I've got a couple of action items to pursue in the wake of the conference.

In the afternoon, I shifted gears and went to a session called Agents on the Hot Seat. Agents are the gatekeepers for the traditional publishing industry and tend to be very knowledgeable about the market, so getting a chance to listen to four pros talk about how they chose authors to represent and how the agent's role is evolving was enlightening.

I concluded my day by participating in a Manuscript Mart session. This is another unique feature of Muse, since an author can prepare a submission in the form of a query letter, synopsis and a 20-page excerpt of one's work, and then get detailed feedback from an agent or editor. In my case, I submitted an excerpt from my first novel, Growing Up Single. The agent I chose had done her homework and offered a detailed review of both the query and the excerpt.

I had several takeaways from this session. One key point was to sweat the details on the query. The agent really wanted to get a clear idea about the book in just a few lines and offered her thoughts about whether I'd accomplished that. She'd also done a line by line review of the excerpt and gave me her take on what worked and what didn't. When I had a chance to take a fresh look at her feedback a couple of days later, I found myself agreeing on some points and not on others, but felt the overall critique was useful in giving me some direction on where I'll go with this project.

James Rafferty

By the end of the day, I felt like this day had been an excellent use of my time and that I'd learned a few things that will help me progress as a writer. I also had some great positive reinforcement that will help me to stay motivated on these projects. And I had those action items that will keep me busy for a while.

• If you're a writer, what steps are you taking to advance in meeting your goals?
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• Do you feel conferences are the right investment of your time and money, or would you recommend a different approach?

You can find James on Facebook or on his Writer's Notebook blog

Monday Musings: How Important Is Having Editor?

This week Over Coffee will be about different aspects of our writing careers, whether it's procuring a good editor, investing in writing conferences, or building a online presence.

Most authors come into contact with editors. There are all sorts of editors from acquiring editors to copy editors. They have all have an important role in an author’s career and the quality of their writing. They work with non-fiction and fiction authors and these professionals edited everything from articles to books.

Although I know several editors and their roles in publishing a good book, there was much I didn’t know. So I researched. With so many opting for self-publishing, or working with small indie presses, the need for a good editing is vital for your finished product—your novel.

In a publishing house, the acquiring editor is the liaison between authors, staff, and readers. They act as project managers. Their job is to make sure your work the best it can be. They take into consideration the overall picture of your story.  They contemplate your genre, writing style, and the demands of the market. All this involves a lot of ripping, tearing, and rebuilding of the manuscript. It’s not an easy process for authors or editors.

Once you sign your contract, the editor will read the whole manuscript. These editors read for story structure and may come back with a list of changes of necessary for your manuscript. This may be commenting on your setting, characters, conflict, pacing, plot, and word choices. You, the author, then revise your story according to these comments. It may take several revisions before both you and the editor come to agreement. Once all that is worked out the manuscript moves to another editor.

The copy editor is the one we usually think of when we think editor. Copy editors get the manuscript and read or *proof* it for grammar and punctuation, word usage, spelling and typos. They also check for consistent formatting of chapter headings, and more. This process may take more than one pass to get everything correct. Then it’s sent back to the author to do a final edit. Meanwhile THE editor finalizes all the pieces farmed out to various staff members (the design editors, the copywriters who might write the back cover blurb, the publicity department) approves it and now it’s off for publication.

There are a lot of extra steps in this simplified telling. I just hit the high points. One thing I have learned, not all editors are created equal. I found this out by letting a good friend who was a newspaper editor read one of my first stories. She’s very good at what she does for newspaper editing but it’s a different form of editing. Suffice to say, if ever I decide to self publish, I will be utilizing a fiction editor who has a good copyeditor around, or she can wear both hats well and I’ll be asking for references.

No wonder so many authors gush over their editor in their acknowledgements. A good Fiction Editor is worth having. They make the difference between an okay story and a great story.

• As an author, what have been your experiences with editors? 
• Would you put out a book without one? 

A Highland Wolf in a Kilt!

My guest is author,Terry Spear. She writes Scottish Medieval Romance and paranormal romance.

Terry says, "I've been researching my Scottish and Irish roots for some years now.  Even in my own family there was political intrigue, ties to royalty, romance, and tragedy that inspires me to write medieval stories set in England and Scotland."

I can't say I love all books I've read set in the Highlands, but I understand the allure of reading about the Scots. There is something fiercely proud about highlanders. I'm of Scot decent and proud of my heritage. I know there are some present day Scots who take exception to us Yanks claiming to be Scot.

Whatever. 

Being Scot, and a highland Scot, is more than living in the country of Scotland. Many had to leave Scotland for various reasons, but took traditions with them. For example, much of the old Scottish bagpipe music, folk tunes, some of the dances, would have been lost had it not been for the North American Scots who kept those identifying traditions alive in their new homeland. There were no laws here, you see, forbidding the speaking of the language, wearing of the kilts, or playing the bagpipe or having a form of the highland games, as there was in Scotland. 


In Terry's book, The Heart of The Highlander, she gives us a glimpse of that pride and a corrected view that many, even titled ones, are not rich. Some are still struggling to keep family lands. She talks a bit about what drew her to write about Highlanders and her own Scot heritage.


Welcome back to Over Coffee, Terry! 

Many authors write about Highlanders because they catch the romantic imagination. But I write about them because I have roots in the Highlands—the MacNeills and the Campbells and the tragic love story that was carried down from one generation to the next about a commoner MacNeill’s love for the Duke of Argyle’s daughter. Though her father was angry that she would marry beneath her, he offered for the MacNeill to step off as much land as he could in a day’s time, and he could own it. But the MacNeill was too proud and paid for passage to the Carolinas, and her father disowned her.

The ship sailed instead to the largely uninhabited Prince Edward Island, the captain of the ship being the brother of the man who owned a large amount of PEI and needed it settled by order of the king. So the settlers arrived without the tools to build homes and were unprepared to settle the land.

Lady Elizabeth died, unable to weather the harsh conditions, and two of her children, a very young daughter and a son, of whom we are directly descended, were raised by other families who had come over on the ship. And another son was raised maybe by his dad, being that he was a little older.

The Indians living there helped those struggling to survive to catch walruses to live off of until they could build homes and grow their own food.

My great grandmother didn’t think much of Lady Elizabeth for giving up the easy life she could have had, and we might have lived in the castle instead of those who do now. Her daughter, my great aunt, who was a twin of my grandmother, was so enamored with the Highlanders, she married a Scotsman.

At one point, the Duke’s line died out, and Scotland Yard was asked to locate family members who might carry on the dukedom. My great grandmother and great great grandfather were questioned, but no one had the family Bible that would show the family line back that far.

Nowadays, DNA testing could prove it.

So in my story, although I have changed the names and the circumstances, I did add one part that has all to do with the true story of the MacNeills and the Campbells. But with mine, of course, it has a happily ever after!

And a twist. It’s not about ye ol’ regular Highland hunks, but about a clan of Highlanders who are also a pack of gray wolves, and an American red wolf who has an agenda—which has nothing to do with filming a Highland film at Ian MacNeill’s castle. But even Julia Wildthorn, werewolf romance author, doesn’t know what exactly she’s to find hidden in the castle somewhere. And she didn’t know before she arrived that Ian and his clan are werewolves to boot.

Not only does she have the mission of gathering enough information about the clan to write a sexy Highland werewolf novel of her own, sure Ian wouldn’t like it at all, she’s got to find a way to slip into the castle sight unseen and retrieve the family box. But Ian MacNeill is wary about the little red wolf’s reason for being with the film crew. She’s already lied about her name, and her occupation—which makes him wonder if she’s in bed with the enemy’s clan.

He’s already got enough troubles with losing money to a crook that’s caused him to have to open up his castle to this American film venture, but now he looks to be losing much more than sleep over one hot little red wolf.

HEART OF THE HIGHLAND WOLF is the first of the Highland wolf stories, and I hope you love them as much as I loved writing them!

• Do you have a little bit of history that your family has passed down through the generations that’s fun to share?

One of my Texas friends had a great great grandfather who was hanged for robbing a stagecoach, which resulted in a man dying of a heart attack. Who says genealogy is all birth dates and death dates and boring?

Heart of the Highland Wolf Available now

  My review

Read the first Chapter here (on Amazon) 

Sourcebooks and Amazon is running a kindle special for $2.99 

Buy: e-book or mass paperback. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Books a Million 

Terry Spear also writes true stories for adult and young adult audiences. She’s a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and has an MBA fromMonmouth University and a Bachelors in Business and Distinguished Military Graduate of West Texas A & M. She also creates award-winning teddy bears, Wilde & Woolly Bears, to include personalized bears designed to commemorate authors’ books. When she’s not writing or making bears, she’s teaching online writing courses.

http://www.terryspear.com/

http://www.facebook.com/#!/terry.spear

https://twitter.com/#!/TerrySpear

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tspear

Monday's Musings: Digital Is Changing Everything...

There is an enormous amount of chatter, gnashing of the teeth, and good amount of jubilation, over the changes impacting publishing world today. Everything is changing.

On the surface, the changes seem rapid although they’re not really. We’re just seeing more concrete results of the impact digital technology has had on the market. These changes have been developing over the past fours years that I’ve been tracking them.  People don’t react well, for the most part, with change. It pulls them out of their comfort zones. So, what we’re really seeing is the knee-jerk reaction to that change.

Like everyone else, I’ve been watching the debate over traditional publishing versus self-publishing, paper books versus e-books on blogs, industry rags, and forum chatter. I’ve seen authors devote a blog post on why their dear readers must help them out by buying their latest books as paperbacks or hardcover as opposed to e-books so they can reach the bestsellers list. I’ve heard the wailing over e-books taking away revenue of authors not smart enough to have their agents negotiate better profits on digital.

I’ve read about publishers decrying Amazon, and like online bookstores, for allowing low prices for e-books. How readers are shying away from buying the book at full price (Winged brow. Well, Duh) Then I came across another argument by a literary publisher against e-books, which had my brows climbing into my hair, followed by an unladylike snort (sorry, Mom), and laughter.

“This has always been my problem with e-books: they emphasize immediate entertainment — and gratification — over real 'reading,' which takes more commitment, patience, attention and time.”

Say what?

C’mon, reading is reading, whether you choose to read on an e-reader, paperback, or hardcover. I have news for him; reading is entertainment as well as a pleasure. Reading is also a learning experience. What difference does it make if I get my entertainment, or research, immediately via my kindle, or I-pad? How does this devalue a book, author or publisher? How is this not real reading?

So, we who use e-readers are basically lowbrow plebeians? Apparently we can’t read something of import on an e-reader and take the time to soak in the ambiance and beauty of the words and meaning unless there is an actual paper book in our hands? How screwed up is that reasoning? Shall I send him a catalog of “classic” literature now available as digital files?

Are we seeing a comparison to a certain little Dutch boy putting his finger in a levee thinking it will save life, as we’ve known it?

Don’t get me wrong. I love books and always have. I love the smell of a library, of opening a book, of holding it in my hand because it’s special. Reality is, it’s not the book itself, but what it represents to me, a portal to learning, adventures, new worlds and people. I have colIected books all my life. I have favorites I have read many times over. I don’t go anywhere without a book. I’ve crippled moving company workers who have carried 15 large metal (think 5 ft long x 5 ft wide, and 3 ft deep with locks and padding) trunks of books from one house to the van and unloaded them in another duty station. My husband and I got into one of our first major fights over not only the money I spent on books but also the space my books took up. He’s since learned to grumble under his breath and has accepted the fact that whither I goest so goest my books.

I now have a kindle. I love it--E Ink display is easy on the eyes and simulates  reading a printed page w/out any glare or back light and I can adjust font size. It's light and easy to carry around. I must have a couple of hundred titles (thank god for alphabetical order and author's names). My husband has said a quiet hallelujah to the heavens that they are on the kindle and not physically taking up space. He’s been eyeing my collection and I've given my trademark evil eye, sweet smile, and a growl--don't even think about it, 'cause we're talking death, dismemberment and itty-bitty pieces scattered to the four winds.

While we’re at it, let’s add my opinion to the heated discussion over the pricing of e-books.

I’m eclectic in my reading choices and always have been. My choices on Kindle are no different than what I buy in a bookstore, except I’m more inclined to try out ‘new to me’ authors.  I like how many publishers offer specials—free to $4.99. Publishers and authors recognize this is a perfect way to build a readerbase. I’ve found some wonderful books and authors that way. I’ve also gone back and bought other titles from those authors that weren’t discounted.

The most I’ve paid for an e-book is $12.99 and I cringed. I collect hardback copies of several authors and will buy those on Amazon.  Frankly, shelling out $17-30 for an e-book is not something I will be doing anytime in the future, unless it’s a research book I need and even then, I’m analyzing whether I really need it. If I can’t get it any other way, I’ll buy it.

My thoughts on this: I can understand the price of paper books being high. I don’t like it, but I understand it. You have to factor in all involved between the time the authors submit a completed manuscript (electronically as a digital file), buying the paper, ink, and running thousands of copies on a printing press for mass paperbacks (or even hardcover), the high cost of transporting to the market and exorbitant cost of returns. There is a lot of money built into that book I hold in my hand.

E-book. Transmitted electronically from author to publisher. Design is done by computer and attached to the digital file, format setup by computers to a digital file, electronically submitted to the market place, via digital file,where it is bought electronically, delivered electronically, as a digital file, from online to your electronic reading device.

Hello?

Digital doesn’t have the same built in costs to produce. So why should I pay the same price for an e-book as I do for a hardcover paper book?  Especially when it's first released as a hardcover and the price is the same for the e-book.  As Spock would say, it’s highly illogical.

So, the debate over digital publishing and e-books will rage on until an effective compromise is reached. Pricing will have to factor in the cost of staff to produce a finished product and if we want paper books to hold in our hands or put on our shelf we’ll have to pay the higher price for the privilege.

I can work with that.

Although this article is somewhat of a rant and a bit sarcastic, this whole issue is a serious one.

Your thoughts? 


Trust me, you're not going to hurt my feelings if you don't agree.

.

Doing What I Was Born To Do

My guest is bestselling historical author, Grace Burrowes. By day, Grace is an attorney and an advocate for children.


When she's not practicing law she writes grand adventures set in England. Her stories are filled with passion, romance, a fun dose of witty repartee, and a touch of mystery. 


Grace shares a bit with us about her world and her passion for writing.

I got into a discussion the other day with The Mayor of Courtroom Two about self-discipline and the writing life. Courtroom Two is where I conduct most of my legal business, advocating for children in abuse and neglect proceedings. It isn’t where I thought the practice of law would take me, but I love my work and I consider that little courtroom part of my professional home.

The Mayor of Courtroom Two loves his work too, though most people would call him The Bailiff. A bailiff in my jurisdiction wears many hats. He’s part master of ceremonies, rounding up the parties for the next case, ushering the parties for the last case on to the their next destination; he’s also a scheduling assistant to the judge, keeping an eye on what attorneys are trying to juggle work in two or more courtrooms on the same day. The bailiff steps and fetches for the judge and he works with the sheriff’s deputies to ensure the safety of all in the courtroom.

Our bailiff goes extra miles beyond that: He makes sure the witnesses have tissues in their teary moments, he makes sure the water pitchers on the counsel tables are full and the clerks and reporters have ice in their cups if they want ice. He tidies up the chairs and tables at the start of the day and again at the end, so the courtroom looks neat and not like some eighth grade desk charge supplanted the workings of justice. He greets the regulars in the morning and he wishes us good day each afternoon with unfailing good cheer—no matter how stupid our closing arguments, how obnoxious our clients, how lacking our case presentation.

This guy just has the gene for being a bailiff. When he tried doing something else for a few weeks, I grieved the loss of him.

Writing is like that for me. I have no writing goals much less written goals displayed in a prominent location. I have no quotas, I don’t do page counts, nor keep a tally of how long it took me to write what. If I were not permitted to write regularly and in quantity, I would go into a decline. The hardest, hardest, worst, most impossible thing for me is that part of the creative process when I must to sit on a toadstool and think up an external conflict for each book. Oh, that is painful, to not have my hands on the keyboard, to not hear the words being tapped out in a steady, mellifluous rhythm, to not see black pixels filling up the screen where white pixels were.

But even the pain of the off-keyboard plotting exercise is precious and to be relished because it’s part of writing my stories.

I get up every morning, wanting to write. If it’s a court day, or even a fly to England day, there’s still a little part of me pouting because I don’t get to write. I get up every day grateful that I can write, and gleeful with the knowledge that I have a WIP, even if I can’t open it up and work on it THIS INSTANT. This is not discipline; this is the farthest thing from discipline.

This is the great, soul deep pleasure of doing the thing I was born to do, the thing that makes me passionately happy, the thing I hope can please my readers for many, many, many books to come.

THE SOLDIER BY GRACE BURROWES—IN STORES JUNE 2011

Even in the quiet countryside he can find no peace...His idyllic estate is falling down from neglect and nightmares of war give him no rest. Then Devlin St. Just meets his new neighbor...

Until his beautiful neighbor ignites his imagination...With her confident manner hiding a devastating secret, his lovely neighbor commands all of his attention, and protecting Emmaline becomes Deviln’s most urgent mission. Excerpt (at the bottom of the page)

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Available in e-book and mass paperback

Be sure to check out her first book, The Heir

Grace Burrowes is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of The Heir, also a 2010 Publishers Weekly Book of the Year. She is a practicing attorney specializing in family law and lives in rural Maryland, where she is working on the next books chronicling the loves stories of the Windham family. Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish will be in stores in October 2011, and The Virtuoso will be in stores in November 2011, with more to come in 2012!  For more information, please visit www.graceburrowes.com. (Her site is in the process of expanding).