The Blog that Binds Us

By Pamela

A few months ago the six of us gathered to discuss this blog to determine whether, in a sea filled with other bloggers, we should keep paddling along or abandon ship.

Last week marked the fifth anniversary of this blog and in those years we've collectively written over 760 posts. We originally set up a schedule that divvied up the duties between the six of us, so we'd post M|W|F each week with each of us posting once, every other week. Back then, I don't think any of us looked too far into the future; certainly I never thought that we'd rarely deviate from our original schedule over the next five years. But here we are, hundreds of posts later, still blogging about the writing life--the ups and downs of writing first drafts, editing second drafts, rewriting entire manuscripts, querying, researching stories, researching agents, entering contests, attending conferences, joining Facebook, Tweeting--and sharing it all as a team of six.

Our first retreat

We've now gone away on five annual retreats--with all six of us in attendance! Sometimes, in the planning process, it seems a little dicey that we'll all be able to make it (and this year, we weren't sure we'd get home after being iced in an extra day), but we always manage to make the retreat a priority and my hope is this year is no exception.

So, obviously, that lunch several months ago ended with all six of us still committed to keeping What Women Write out in the blogosphere. We'll continue to review books and interview authors and agents and editors. We're committed to encouraging each other and other women who write--whether she's pursuing publication, keeping a journal, working as a freelancer or just starting to find her voice.

My wish for every writer--male and female alike--is that you have a community of support as we do. That you surround yourself with sources of encouragement. That you pick yourself up whenever you feel like giving up. That when you think, 'there's got to be an easier way' you remind yourself that 'easier' isn't 'better' and if writing were easy, everyone would be great at it. That you take the time to reread your words and marvel how no one can turn a phrase the way you do. That you forgive yourself transgressions including misplaced modifiers and POV confusion. That you commend yourself for caring about the difference between pallet/palette and complement/compliment and stationery/stationary and understanding when others do not. That you love yourself enough to keep writing when doing just about anything else makes more sense.

We're so glad you've joined us on this five-year excursion--at whatever stage you stepped into the boat. Here's to the next five years! Bon voyage!

((hug)) a Writer Week

By Pamela

I've blogged before about how cruel the world can be to writers, with the anonymity of the Internet providing the perfect cover for people to unleash their fury. You write the best book you can, land a publishing contract and get a book into the hands of the public only to have them lambaste you for your efforts. It's perfectly fine to dislike a book; it's another thing to rip a fragile author's ego to shreds.

So, in the spirit of Paying It Forward or just plain good manners, I propose a ((hug)) a Writer Week. Anyone care to join me? Here's your assignment:

MONDAY--Choose the most recent book you've read and loved and post a positive review on Amazon, B&N or Good Reads. Heck, type it up in Word and copy and paste it in all three places! Why not?

TUESDAY--Select an author you enjoy and 'like' their page on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. While you're there, leave them a note about how much you enjoy their work. Easy.

WEDNESDAY--Buy a new book from an author, either online or at a book store. Pay the extra few dollars for a new version even if you usually buy used. Sure it's green to buy used, but authors don't make royalties on second-time-around purchases.

THURSDAY--Write a note to an author and tell him/her how much you enjoy his/her writings. Then mail it. Yes, snail-mail it. You can find contact information online. If he/she doesn't have a direct mailing address, send it to the publicity department. They'll make sure he/she gets it. Sure this takes a little bit more effort, but what a treasure it will be for the author to pull out and reread whenever he/she is having a rough day.

FRIDAY--Make a date to attend a book signing or other author event. Check your local paper, check online for upcoming events in your town, or check out your favorite authors' websites, Twitter or Facebook accounts. If you live in a small town and authors rarely pass your way, pick an alternate way to help them out such as telling a book-seller or librarian how much you love a particular author.

I'm sure there are other ways to spread the love (and the hugs), so use your imagination. You just might make an author's day. How cool is that?

Good question, Taylor!

By Pamela

Last night while sorta-watching the Grammy awards (they were on; I was doing last-minute weekend chores), I paused when I heard Taylor Swift singing "Mean."

If you're not familiar with the song, the video is here on YouTube:



Part of the lyrics read:

You, with your words like knives and swords and weapons that you use against me
You have knocked me off my feet again got me feeling like I'm nothing
You, with your voice like nails on a chalkboard, calling me out when I'm wounded
You, pickin' on the weaker man

Her ballad made me think about how mean we seem to have become as a society. You can blame it on the anonymity the Internet provides, but I'm astounded at the meanness that prevails today. It's gotten so bad that you see people disabling comments on blogs or articles, blocking people on Facebook, doing whatever possible to heed off negativity. I could give you a list of examples I've seen, but I have no doubt you've seen them too. In fact, I remarked to my boy the other day that I could post an article about how I'm donating most of my paired organs and someone would question why I wasn't giving more. Or my motives. Or slam my haircut if a photo of me accompanied the story.

Why you gotta be so mean?

It's enough to make you want to crawl in a hole and keep anything and everything about your life private. But writers depend on publicity to help sell books. In fact, most authors I know work tirelessly to self-promote by whatever means possible: Facebook, guest blogging, Twitter as well as hoping people post positive reviews on Amazon, Good Reads, B&N, etc.

I'm not naive enough to think that anyone is immune to negative reviews. Even best-sellers don't resonate with everyone. I do think it's not too much to expect people to play nice. Posting ugly comments about a book--even to go as far as to say that the author has no business being published--is really just mean. If you think your comments might be helpful to other readers, then I think that's fine. Just remember that authors are human beings with feelings and do read their own books' reviews. Even though you're commenting about a BOOK, you're really commenting about the person who wrote it.

If anything, you can try living by the mantra my mother used to repeat to me: If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all.

As I step off my soapbox, let me leave you with one last suggestion: If you've recently read a book you enjoyed--or even absolutely loved--make that author's day and leave a positive review on a book site such as the ones mentioned above.

I think Taylor would approve.

I Have a Book to Finish

By Kim

The blogosphere has many posts about balancing the writing life with real life. I even wrote one myself at this time last year. Summer vacation loomed and I despaired at the thought of accomplishing nothing on my novel during it. My children were, to be fair, only a fraction of the problem. I had reached a point in the manuscript where my muses weren’t talking, or perhaps I just didn’t like what they had to say. I needed to tune them out for awhile.

Now I can’t ignore them. They jabber away in my head while I run errands, do laundry, and tend to my family’s needs. Even when I have the house to myself, other obligations prevent me from taking dictation for hours on end.

If I didn’t share posting duties at What Women Write with five other women, there’s no way I’d ever finish my manuscript. I’m not the sort of writer who can bang out five hundred words in an hour and throw it up on this blog anymore than I can compose three (or even two) thousand words in a day. I envy authors who can, but I’m too much of a compulsive editor.

A typical post takes me a full day to compose, edit, and put up on Blogger, and that’s after I know what I intend to write about. A book review is far less time consuming to compose, but requires me to read a novel before I can write it. The same goes for an author interview, only in that case I need to tack on at least an hour’s worth of time to come up with questions the author hasn’t already answered on twenty blogs, in the Q and A sections of their books, or on their websites.

Before the tone of this post scares my WWW colleagues or you, I should clarify that I have no intention of bowing out of my blogging duties. I’m simply taking stock of the time commitment involved in the hope that our readers who may toy with the idea of starting a blog of their own will find it helpful.

Painting by Carl Ahrens

Having to write on a deadline, even when ideas and words don’t flow, is a valuable exercise. Someday I hope to have a new novel to write, a finished one to edit, and a published one to promote. I’ll have book club meetings to attend, guest blog posts to write, Facebook and Twitter to update, interviews to give and, I suspect, my sanity to lose. I know I’ll look back with longing on this time when I had no writing obligations other than a novel to complete and a blog post every other week.

That said, I still must prioritize my time. I have roughly 80 pages left to write before The Oak Lovers is complete. My posts may get shorter. I may have a looming blog deadline and not be at a place where I can leave Carl and Madonna’s world longer than it takes to recycle an old post. My prose may be less than perfect once in awhile. I’m not slacking, and I trust that you will forgive me.

I have a book to finish.

Photo of Kim and her children by Deborah Downes