Category: Work in Progress

Feeding the Creative Muse is Job One

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

I’ve spent the last few weeks concentrating on marketing my published works and the summer bundle, “Under the Italian Sun.”

It has been exciting trying out new promotional processes and I’ve learned a lot.  Mostly I’ve learned to moderate my expectations.

Being pretty new at marketing my books, I’m afraid I expected huge results from these  increased efforts. When I failed to see the anticipated surge in sales and reviews, I began to feel anxiety and disappointment. I didn’t like these feelings,  so I took a deep breath and decided to get back to my work in progress, featuring a small town pastor’s wife on the Oregon Coast.

I introduced Naidenne and Pastor Scott in my book, Seadrift, and became so fond of them I decided to find out what has been happening to them since their marriage.

When I got back to the early chapters of the manuscript it was like a welcome visit with old pals. All my anxiety about sales dropped away as I became fired up to see what would happen next to these dear friends.

My creative juices, which had been growing stagnant during my promotional push, are once more springing alive. The muse is back.

I will need to revisit marketing and promotion again, of course, or I’ll be writing only for myself, but now I know where my priority lies.

 

This is not a competition

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

I must admit to being way too competitive in almost every area of my life. I can’t even join an exercise class for fear of hurting myself trying to be the fastest, strongest, etc. So, I’m doomed to mostly solitary workouts.

I figured writing should be the ideal activity for me. It is already solitary with no one to compete with but myself, right? Not necessarily.

Once my books began to sell and be reviewed, I found myself mentally competing with other independent authors, especially those in my genre. How self-defeating.

There are enough readers “out there” to share.

Competing with my peers is counter-productive when there is so much to gain from networking and supporting one another.

I learn something about myself with every book I write, and now I’m beginning to learn even more as I move into publishing and promoting.

A competitive spirit may be wonderful for the professional athlete, but I think it is something to overcome for me in my writing career.

Ouch! That hurts, thank you.

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

One thing both independent authors and traditionally published writers share is criticism. However a work gets published, once it is “out there” it is fair game.

The first time I hit the “Publish” button, I felt physically ill, for fear readers would hate my book. When I received my first print copy I could not even open it until my son read it and assured me it was all right.

I was fortunate that all my early reviews were positive and I even relaxed enough to joke about the fact that the only non-five star review came from my hard-to-please sister, who gave the book four stars.

Inevitably, a dreaded poor review was posted. I was so distressed I almost gave up on finishing the series I’d outlined.

Going back and re-reading the criticism, like probing a toothache, I suddenly realized what that two-star review meant. This reader had read the whole book and cared deeply enough about the characters to write and complain about the way some of them behaved. It wasn’t my writing that was objected to, after all.

That insight helped salve my hurt feelings (somebody doesn’t like me!) so I can now read my reviews with an eye to learning from them. It helps to find out what my readers expected, or wanted, to happen to my characters.

After four published books and many reviews, both positive and critical, I’ve also come to accept the fact that I can’t please everyone. The very same aspect of a story for which I receive praise from some readers can be the most strongly objected to by others.

Whenever a reader of one of my books cares enough to take the time and effort to post a review, pro or con, I am grateful.

Like the subtitle for that wonderful classic Peter Sellers movie, “Dr. Strangelove,” I have learned to stop worrying and love the critics.

 

Am I a real author?

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

Nearly three years ago when I finally finished my first novel, Hollow, and published it through Amazon’s CreateSpace, I felt apologetic when people asked about my publisher, responding with some version of, “Oh, I’m afraid I just published it myself.”

When friends asked me to sign their copies of the book I was embarrassed and treated it as a joke, “Keep that for when I’m a famous author, ha ha.”

As of today, I have four books of a mystery/thriller series in print and for Kindle. They are available, not only from Amazon, but at many book stores and my local library.

I’ve been interviewed for the local newspaper and a regional publication, each time feeling that I must apologize for not being a real author.

Since being honored by indieBRAG for Hollow, I’ve begun to rethink my attitude.

Yes, I haven’t made enough money to quit my day job, but while working at a very demanding full-time position with my county department of education, I have managed to write, edit, format, create cover design, publish and promote four full-length novels.

I have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. Although fairly modest amounts, I receive royalties every month.

My digital books have been downloaded around the world, with sales in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, Germany and India. Print editions have been sold in Canada, the UK, Italy and here at home.

Yes, by gosh, I’m a real author. And if you read my reviews, you’ll see I’m a darned good one.

I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. And, if you are an independent author, neither do you.

Priorities of the Independent Author

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

Like many (can I say most?) independent authors, I support myself by working a full-time job.

Since completing the Bunny Elder Adventure series, publishing a new book every six months, I had planned to use some of my precious writing time to promote my published works and set a more leisurely pace for my current project.

This is proving more difficult than I’d anticipated for a couple of reasons.

One, a common theme in a lot of the expert advice encourages regular, rapid output to establish a readership base.

When I read, “publish on a regular schedule, whether one book every six months, or a book each month,” I was stunned to think my two-books-a-year schedule was the outer limit, rather than the Herculean task I’d previously considered it to be. Heeding this advice would have me concentrating on rushing my next book to completion, leaving no time for promotion and marketing.

My second issue sjuggling timeurprised me even more: promotion takes a lot more of my creative energy than writing. Writing, although occasionally hard, slogging work, is still my joy and a natural creative outlet.  Self-promotion, even just learning the ways and means of marketing, runs counter to my personality, leaving me completely drained, in no shape to work on the new book.

This is probably not an issue for those authors who have the luxury of independent means or who have already started earning enough to quit their day jobs, but what is the answer for those of us still doing double-duty in the rat race?

I would love to hear any solutions or suggestions.

 

 

Writer’s Block? What Writers Block?

~ Jonna Hawker Turek ~ Leave a comment

We all hear a lot about the struggles writers can have coming up with the next plot turn, but I struggle with the opposite problem, something I call writer’s rush.

Once the plot has been outlined, the main characters roughed in and I begin writing the first chapter of the narrative, I must constantly rein myself in so as not to hurry to the climax or give away plot points too early.

I’m near the end of the first chapter of my current work and already feeling the familiar tug to speed to the ending.

The technique I’ve been using to prevent my books from becoming short stories or novellas is to decide ahead of time what I want to accomplish in each segment. I bracket that goal on the page before I begin, and then paragraph by paragraph reread what I’ve written, comparing it to what’s in the brackets. When I’ve covered some point, I delete it from the brackets and when the brackets are empty I am ready to move on to the next chapter. In this way, my first rough draft moves at approximately the pace I want.

Of course, goals change and those draft chapters will be revised many times before I am ready to send the work for editing, but the basic structure remains.

If you deal with a similar issue, I’d love to hear how you handle it.