The Guest Post conundrum

I was working my way through a guest post (I'll link to it later in the week) tonight, remembering all the time a conversation that I'd had recently with Sister C:

C: "I read your guest post at [insert name of fabulous blog] today," she said. "It was good. But..."

Me: "But????" (There may have been a hint of defensive paranoia in the tone. Maybe.)

C: "Your guest posts never sound as 'you' as your blog posts do."

Me: "Hmmm." Ruminations. "I think it's because I'm writing in someone else's space. So it feels more like a column or an article. So I immediately switch to a more professional voice. A magaziney voice, I guess."

C: "Like a broadcast voice versus an intimate voice."

Exactly. When I write here, I feel as though I'm writing in a room. One part of me is aware (always aware) that it's a public room, but it feels like a live, unplugged gig. As soon as I step into another room, I'm more aware of the audience, so I step up a little, put on my stage face and plug into some electricity.

On someone else's blog, I feel like the support act, warming up for the show that everybody really wants to see (the blogger that they love), singing my heart out to a room full of people who are all talking amongst themselves and trying to time their toilet breaks so as not to miss the main act.

One of the first things I learned about blogging, via my endless, obsessive reading in the first few months, was about the importance of guest posting in helping to build a blog. It makes sense. A guest post introduces you and your style to a whole new audience. One that, hopefully, will like enough of what they see to follow you home. For that reason, I always say yes when I'm asked to guest post. If someone is kind enough to put me on their marquee (and offer M&Ms (red only) for my rider), I'm going to say yes, thanks for having me, and do my best to deliver them a show-stopping post.

But I won't say that I don't get stage fright about it.

How do you feel about guest posting? Do you love it or do it because you feel you should?


[image: button by BuyTheLightOfTheMoon/etsy}

You do what you do

My mum is a very wise woman. One of her best pieces of advice ever? "You do what you do." Always useful in those moments when you're second-guessing yourself. Looking at everyone else. Wondering why they seem to be more popular/cool/successful than you. Slanting green-eyed looks at the person next to you. Or the one across the room. Wondering if what you're writing/saying/doing is ... enough.

You do what you do. Nobody else does what you do.

Trying to be someone or something else is never the answer. The only voice that will work for you is your voice. Have confidence in that voice.

Stop comparing. Stop contrasting. Focus on making what you do the best that you can do.

Or, as Melinda Schneider sings, "Be yourself. Everybody else is taken."

It's great advice. It works. In writing, in blogging, in life.

[image: via weheartit]

The key to getting your fiction published

June is a month of bonuses. Well, here at the Fibro it's about bonus Writer Q&As anyway. As we head toward the end of financial year, I'm having a stocktake sale and there will be two Writer Q&As this month. Two this week, in fact. Are you on the edge of your seat?

The first person on the Fibro lounge is author Christine Stinson. Christine and I met at the 2010 Romance Writers of Australia Conference. In a line for something. Her first book, Getting Even With Fran, had been out a few months and we were chatting about Facebook and this and that and the other. Specifically, how she'd been writing seriously for 20 years before her first book was accepted for publication (in a two-book deal with Pan McMillan... the second book, It Takes A Village, is out now).

Twenty years. Unsurprisingly, Christine believes that persistence needs to be a key part of every writer's makeup. 'Dogged persistence' is, I believe, the phrase she uses. I figured this was a woman with plenty to teach us all about what finally worked, and what didn't, and the importance of 'waiting' well. And you know how I like to ask questions...

Given that it took 20 years to see a book with your name on it, how did you keep going? What made you think you'd get there in the end?
CS: "I don't know that I was convinced I would get there in the end... The only thing I've ever known for sure about writing is that I love doing it. Joining RWA in 1992 helped keep me going through the rejections: misery does love company. I've learned a lot from being in a critique group. We work hard, help each other through the tough times and make a point of celebrating each other's successes with gusto."

What was different about Getting Even With Fran, do you think? What finally got you across the line?
CS: "Getting Even With Fran was the first novel I ever submitted that wasn't a romance. I finally worked out that my writing voice wasn't best suited to the romance genre. Within three weeks of sending Fran to a publisher, I was offered a two-book contract. What sold the book, according to the lovely people at Pan MacMillan, were the 'strong female voices', the humour and the way the novel tapped into the concerns and issues affecting women in their late forties - an age group not particularly well represented in contemporary women's fiction."

Is being a published author what you thought it would be?
CS: "I didn't have too many preconceptions, so it's fair to say that most of it has been a surprise. I did expect to feel some satisfaction, as well as the pinch-yourself thrill I'd heard about from other writers, the first time I saw Getting Even With Fran in a bookstore... Instead, what I felt was mostly relief that the long wait was finally over, coupled with a sense of disbelief that the name on the cover was really mine.

"I definitely didn't realise how many things I'd have to learn to juggle at the same time: working to a deadline with the second novel, doing structural and copy edits on it, while dealing with the promotional work for the first novel and starting to write the third. Thank goodness housework's expendable."

Was the second book more difficult to write than the first?
CS: "Much more difficult. This time last year I was in intensive care with a burst appendix, peritonitis and sepsis. It took quite a while to get over that: I lost the better part of three months working time on It Takes A Village. But the people at Pan Macmillan were wonderful, giving me the extra time and help I needed to get the book finished, polished and ready for publication just before Mother's Day this year."

Do you agree that perspiration is as important as inspiration when it comes to writing?
CS: "I do. Writing's often described as a muscle: if you don't use it, you run the risk of losing it. Words don't always come easily; there are days when you can sit at the computer for hours and do nothing more productive than move a couple of commas around. All the same, it's important to stay sitting there and keep yourself in the habit of writing. If you're lucky, the good days will outnumber the really sweaty ones."

You can buy Christine's books here at Booktopia. Or say hello to her on Facebook here.

A blog post about blogging

I hope you're noticing my evocative and enticing use of key words in the headline to this post. Blog. Blogging. Oh, whoops, there they are again.

So I missed the SEO session at the Aussie Bloggers Conference. You could hardly tell, could you, given how unobtrusively (blog) my keywords are placed (blogging). I'd had every intention to go. It's an area of internet writing about which I know surprisingly little, given I've been writing online for about five years now. I had professional reasons for being keen.

But, as always, I got seduced by the stories instead.

I confess that the My Blog, My Story session was not one that leapt out at me from the program with a 'pick me' sign on its forehead. I confess that I thought 'Meh'. Just a little.

I was wrong. I learned so much from that session. I learned about the power of community. I learned about the pluses and minuses of blogging raw. I learned about boundaries in blogging - and how they sometimes turn into six-feet-high walls due to circumstances. I learned that one of the greatest things about blogging specifically and the online community in general is its ability to give a voice to those who are often not heard. I learned that a computer can become a lifeline.

So to My Three Ring Circus, Lori at Random Ramblings of a Stay at Home Mum, Magneto Bold Too, Karen at Miscellaneous Mum, Carly at Tune Into Radio Carly, Kim at FrogPondsRock*, a huge thank you.

The story is at the heart of everything. Write the story and the SEO will look after itself. (And blog, blogger, blogging, just in case and because ignoring the experts is foolhardy).

{image: via weheartit.com - please let me know if it is yours}
*if the bloggers name is not mentioned on their blog, I haven't mentioned it here.

Finding the right approach for writing

I'm going to answer a question today. I'm not usually one for doing that, preferring, as we all know, to ask them. But it's a slow news day in the Fibro and I'm scratching around for a post. So...

When I ran my interview with Mia Freedman on Monday, Gill from Alice Becomes (great blog incidentally by Gill and Nic from Our Park Life) asked the following question in the comments:

"I would love to know your thoughts and how you balance and differentiate between separate styles of writing? Similar to Mia's point of view?"

Mia's point of view, just to refresh your memory, was this:

"Every type of writing I do - from Twitter to books - is different. It requires a slightly different approach and, often, a different tone. Since I'm constantly flitting between social media, Mamamia, my column and books, I barely even have to think about it now. Although, books can be a bit of a gear shift. You need to lengthen your concentration span, which is reduced constantly by tweeting and blogging."

I do agree. Magazine writing requires voice + objectivity. You are writing for a large, faceless audience who have certain expectations about what they will see in that particular publication. There will be a certain vocabulary that will resonate with that demographic (and you must never forget that each magazine has a specific demographic) and you may find yourself using such terms as 'BFF' and 'vajazzle', which you would not generally use. You must also in feature writing make room for expert voices, weaving them in and out, providing a balanced view of whatever your subject may be. Having said that, the essential tenor of the article must remain true to your own style and voice. Easy, huh?

Writing for a personal blog, on the other hand, requires intimacy. Here, it is all about your voice. This is what I love about it. You can truly give voice to your own voice in a way that you can't when you have an editor, a specified readership and others to please.

Twitter and other social media has been very good for my writing in a strange way. While it is not good for the attention span (I agree 100 per cent with Mia on that), it is superb for clarity. Getting a cohesive message into 140 characters can be a challenge and is a simple way to spot waffle at 20 paces. As for Facebook, there is an art to an excellent status update... one which I'm still learning.

Now for books. Ah yes. So many words. With non-fiction books, I usually break it down into chapters, write each as I would approach a long magazine feature and then work out where I've repeated myself so that I can cross-reference and double check. Fun.

Fiction, on the other hand, is a whole different kettle of fish. It comes back to voice - presenting your story in your own words - but also creating characters with their own voices. Not easy. There's also a lot of persistence involved. As discussed, I am not a plotter (though I am rapidly appreciating the value of having a map through a story), so I tend to just start and see what will happen. I find that fiction requires long periods of thinking followed by short bursts of activity. I put down 1000 words here and 500 words there, and then ruminate for a while before banging out another couple of thousand words. I know that many experts say that the best advice is to write every day, but my thinking on that is that I do - just not always on the same project. Perhaps this is why my fiction remains unpublished...

I also write for other websites, do corporate work (including newsletters and media releases), and write advertising copy. All of which require different approaches again (which we might go into a different day as I'm getting sick of the sound of my own voice here...).

So, yes, I am constantly switching between forms, but each has a quite specific approach. Sometimes I do find myself wishing that my next magazine feature was 140 characters long - but I have to say that writing short can be a lot more difficult than writing long. Less room to cover up if you get it wrong.

The one thing that carries over in every form of writing is discipline. Mostly, the discipline to do it.

{image: Natashanb/Tumblr}

Too many ideas can be dangerous

I left the muse on the train. A weekend away from the Fibro and my head is whirling with ideas, thoughts and impressions. Usually, this would be a good thing. But I'm struggling to distil it all into a single post. I've talked before about finding the armpits of a story. Today, I think I've turned left at the belly button and ended up somewhere under the right shoulder blade.

Too many ideas can be just as difficult for a writer as too few. When you've got nothing, you have to magic something out of thin air. When you've got a flood, you need to find a rowboat and decide a course of action. It's your voice that helps you swim through, technically popping you up into a life ring just when you need one.

Deciding what to leave out is as important as deciding what to put in. Give three writers the same set of information and chances are they will each come up with a different story. Or should.

At this point, I'm still swimming in fragments. Two 17-year-old boys discussing life, Slash and hair. Whether it's polite or not to insert yourself into another family's crossword-puzzle debate ("no, no, stationary with an 'a'"). The science of managing expectations. The sheer magnitude of realising that I'm okay with not being 25 any more.

Where am I going with this? Precisely my point.

I'm going to leave this post right here and head back to the station to await that muse. With any luck she'll arrive with a clear plan on the morning train. Either that, or a full day of the family-work routine will swiftly bring me back to earth as a one-idea-at-a-time kind of gal.

{image: galeriemontmarte}

It's not easy being funny

A little while ago, I wrote about words that bring fear to a parent's heart, and introduced to the world the 'Concert Face'. This is an addendum to that post, mostly because I realised that I forgot the one sentence designed to horrify any parent. Or just me. Particularly at the end of a long day. Particularly spoken by a child who probably hasn't stopped talking since dawn. It is this sentence:

"Mum, I've got a joke..."

In other households, this may merely herald the latest in a long line of Knock Knock jokes. In the Fibro, it means that Mr3 has been busily dreaming up punchlines. Make that lack-of-punchlines. To whit, they are not funny. To even more whit, they do not make sense. To the most whit, there is no wit.

An example:

"Mum, I've got a joke!"

Pause. Sigh. Summon enthusiastic face. "Okay, hit me with it."

"O-kay. Ready? What do bulldozers do on the weekend?"

Pause. "I'm not sure, what do bulldozers do on the weekend?"

"THEY GO TO THE SHOPS! AH-HA HA HA! Do you get it?"

Pause. Summon fake laugh. "Tee hee. Not really. Okay, let's get ready to vacuum the floor now."

I try, I really do (though the example above may not capture the essence of that effort), but jokes without punchlines are just not funny. And Mr3 has so many of them. Mr6 went through this phase, so I know it's just a phase and, soon enough, Mr3 will get the point that there needs to be a point to the joke. But in the meantime we are here, in this wasteland of wit, wondering when the main act is coming on.

If only he realised how incredibly funny he is when he doesn't try. Today he asked me, peering deep into my eyes, what those little glasses in my eyes were for. It took me a few minutes to work out he was talking about the iris/pupil arrangement which, if you look closely, does resemble a pair of specs. See - funny.

It's an excellent example of the importance of voice. Jerry Seinfeld was funny when he talked about nothing because he talked about nothing in his own special way. Mr3 manufacturing jokes about bulldozers = not funny. Mr3 sharing his own particular view of the world = funny.

All he needs now is a link between intention and humour and he'll be a headline act.

That, and a punchline or two.

{image: wopc.co.uk/cappellano}