Category Archives: #writetip

Putting On Your Writing Face

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Did everyone catch the Internet meme started in the wake of the Oscars by author Laura Lippman? Following the widespread criticism of octogenarian actress Kim Novak’s appearance during the awards ceremony, Lippman posted a picture of herself without makeup, lighting, or filtering, along with a hashtag, #itsokkimnovak (Which translates to “Its okay, Kim Novak.” I must admit that at first I misread the hashtag to read “It’s so Kim Novak,” which would have sounded a tad less supportive. My bad.)

Within days, everyone I knew on Facebook was jumping on board the auteur tout naturel idea. Someone assembled a montage of the pictures set to music. I’ll post it if I can. Or you can scroll back through my FB timeline or Laura’s to view it.

It was inspiring, even heartwarming to see a collection of authors put their morning faces forward. Not that we’re the ultimate test case. As a species, we writers don’t tend to be a glamorous bunch. (Your average writer’s conference resembles a scene from The Invasion Of the Extremely Nice People Wearing Comfort Shoes.)

I was a few days late catching up with the trend, but I took a deep breath and posted my photo, seen here. (In response, I got several helpful replies suggesting make-up tips, mostly from Mary Kay and Avon reps. Thanks for that, ladies).


The experience made me question how I approach posting pictures in public. I’m a severe critic of my own photos, even those kept in house. My husband has to snatch the camera or phone away to keep me from deleting 90 per cent of the ones we take during vacations.

My last official author’s photo was taken in 2007. I need have another one ready by the end of this year. Last time around, I remember that the photographer kept telling the makeup artist to “vamp it up some more”. Next time, I may take a page from Laura’s book and go unadorned.

But now I’m taking another look at my #itsokkimnovak photo. I may have to reconsider. I much prefer the girlified look I had in a recent profile in LA Beat Magazine.

Did you all post sans makeup, unfiltered photos online after the Kim Novak thing? Did you learn anything from it? Feel free to post a link to a picture of the “real you” in the Comments!

A Mindset Stuck in the Past

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There’s a tradition on social media called “Throwback Thursday”, in which people post pictures of themselves from the past. I was reminded of Throwback Thursday yesterday when I read an article in The Guardian, a British newspaper.

In “From bestseller to bust: is this the end of an author’s life?“, editor Robert McCrum interviews authors who find themselves struggling to adapt to an era of reduced advances from publishers. The article suggests that the mid-list writer is an endangered species. Read the article, and then come back.

I was astonished by the defeatist mindset of the authors who were interviewed in the article. They seemed to assume that if they were no longer getting livable advances from publishers, the game was over. Say what? Has no one in Britain heard of indie publishing? Indie publishing wasn’t even mentioned in the article (one reader did describe indie alternatives in the Comments, which sounded a bit like Sir Walter Raleigh  bringing news of the potato and other New World wonders back in 1589.) Other commenters then proceeded to confuse the indie industry with vanity publishing.

Most of all, the article mourns the passing of a more “genteel” era in publishing:

Publishers were toffs, booksellers trade and printers the artisan champions of liberty. Like the class system, we thought, nothing would change. The most urgent deadline was lunch. How wrong we were. 

Indeed. When it comes to adapting to a changed publishing model, I think American writers are ahead of the curve. People on this side of the pond are used to changing the way they work. Many former mid-list writers have  reinvented themselves as their own author brands. (And in so doing, have been astonished to discover that they’re making more money than they did under the old system.) Other writers are content to remain in the legacy publishing fold, or they become “hybrids” who do both legacy and indie work. It’s a matter of finding your own comfort level.

But judging by the Guardian article, one has to conclude that British writers are stuck in the Grief stage about the changed publishing world. 

It’s not helpful to remain mired in the past. Maybe we should send our British friends some copies of WHO MOVED MY CHEESE?

Do You Have a Writing Question for TKZ? Let Us Know!

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It’s time for something new! Do you have a question about writing, marketing, or your work in progress? We’re collecting questions from readers over at our email address: 
killzoneblog at gmail dot com
One Thursday each month, we’ll use some of the questions as a launch pad for discussion. 
Let’s kick off this idea today in the Comments. If you have a question for one of our motley crew of bloggers, or for the TKZ community, go ahead and post it in the Comments. We want to hear from you!

Reader Friday: What’s On Page 69?

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It’s been a while since we played the Page 69 Game, which was introduced to us by Joe Moore. The idea is that you can tell whether a book is worth reading by turning to page 69 of the book, and reading that page. If you like that page, chances are you’ll like the rest of the book.

So, let’s share page 69 of our WIPs. Does it make the reader want to keep going? (And if you haven’t gotten that far, turn to page 69 of the book you’re reading, and tell us what’s on it.)

Do Crime Writers Make Good Jurors?

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Over the last few days, the news has been filled with reactions to another high-profile murder case out of Florida–the so-called “Loud Music” Murder Trial.  From the cable news bloviators to the Twitterverse, everyone seems eager to second-guess the jury’s deliberations (at least, the ones that resulted in a mistrial).

Such passionate opinions! people shared. But here’s the thing–few of these people, if any, would actually want to serve on a jury. Or even be willing to.

Dodging jury duty. It’s an American tradition. We’ll plead anything to get out of serving this civic duty–we’ll claim job hassles, childcare responsibility, a passing gas attack–almost any excuse will do, as long as we can make it believable.

I remember the last time I got called up for jury duty. It was Wednesday, the week before Christmas. A robbery case. As a court official polled the rows of prospective jurors, people were practically diving under their seats to avoid being called. Meanwhile, I’d positioned myself in the front row. I was all but waving my hand like an overeager student: “Oh, oh! Choose me! Choose me!” As a writer. I’d been dying to experience a jury trial. This was my chance. 
I couldn’t wait to hear the case, take copious notes, and start deliberating. 

The case itself was a bit anticlimactic.  The “robbery” we were judging turned out to be little more than a glorified shoplifting case. I was amazed at how lousy the defense attorney’s arguments were. Partly because of her poor presentation, I drove everyone crazy once we reached the jury room. My fellow jurors seemed to want to take a vote and get out of there, but I insisted on dissecting all the evidence. I think the others were afraid I was going to prolong the deliberations until Christmas. Finally, we found the defendant guilty of petty theft, a far lesser crime than robbery. The accused–a young male, he looked about 19 years old–collapsed his head to his knees with relief as we read the verdict. I imagine that the sentence would have been even shorter if he had actually got a good lawyer to defend him. If you’ve committed a crime then it would be wise to look into every option before you decide who you want to represent you. For example, if you live in Philadelphia then you will want to look at all of the philadelphia criminal lawyers to find the best one for you. You know never know how helpful a good lawyer can be to you. I wonder where that young male is today.

The writer’s part of my brain soaked up every drop of the jury experience. The next time I have to craft a court scene, I’ll be able to draw on real memory, not something I learned second-hand. Or, worse! from the movies. The next time I get one of those summons in the mail, I’ll be back in the front row, hoping to get called.

Am I the only person who gets excited about jury duty? Have any of your jury experiences been useful in your story-telling?

Which Writer Species Are You?

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Hey Zoners, this is Kathryn Lilley. I’m trying something a little different today. I’m narrating my post to see how it feels. (Click embedded Player, above). Be sure to comment when you finish reading. Let me know whether you like having audio served with your post.


Here’s my thought about writers: we come in all different flavors and styles. I spent some time today pondering the variety of our styles. Here’s my list of some of the major categories and characteristics of the writer species:  


1) The Proud Pantster


Outlines? You don’t need stinkin’ outlines! To get inspired, you bite the heads off voles and spit them out. Sure, sometimes you have to perk up saggy spots in the pace by throwing in a dead body or two. But hey, that’s the way you roll.


2) The Reluctant Pantster
You always plan to outline, but never get around to it. You feel remorseful that your track record is so haphazard. You  promise to outline the next one.

3) The Writer-Terminator


You churn out an impressive  quota of words every day. No. Matter. What. You finish projects before deadline, and juggle multiple WIPs while breaking the minute mile on the treadmill. Your fellow writers admire you. And resent you.

4) The Unemployable-As-Anything-Else-But-Writer Writer

Thank goodness you can write pretty well, because basically, you have no other marketable skills. If it weren’t for words, you’d be pushing a shopping cart.

5) The Accidental Writer

You didn’t plan to spend your career writing fiction–it just seemed to happen. A series of lucky breaks meant that you didn’t have to work too hard to get published. You don’t like to talk about how you got started–people get annoyed. Besides, nowadays, you are definitely suffering

6) The Cranky Writer

You like having written, but you hate to write. Writing for you is like pulling out a fingernail. And then smearing the blood on the screen.  Your bottom line: Writing. Sucks.

7) The Harried Writer
You cram in your writing time between a million other duties: job, family, life. Your perennial dream is to go on a writer’s retreat. Or simply to take a nap.

8) The On-deadline Writer
See Harried Writer. See also Cranky Writer.

9) The Fantasy Island Writer

Words flow easily from you, in delicious, buttery prose. You landed your agent and a contract with a Big-6 publisher within weeks of finishing your first draft. You don’t understand what people mean when they say they’re “blocked.” When you write, you’re simply taking dictation from a band of leprechauns who conjure stories deep inside your brain.


Just one problem: You don’t actually exist.

 
So here’s my question for you Zoners out there: which writer style, or species hybrid, are you? Can you think of some style categories I missed? Let me know in the Comments.

Thanks for visiting TKZ.

Finding Your Purpose

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“Every one of us needs a purpose that’s big enough to call forth the gifts and abilities within us.”
           — Richard J. Leider, Life Skills

Do you live your life “on purpose”? Do you know what that purpose is?

That unsettling question was posed to an audience of about 200 people at a workshop I recently attended.

Many of us don’t think too much about the real purpose of our lives, said the workshop’s leader, a vivacious woman named Kathleen Terry.  We know what we like to do, what we’re good at, and what we have to do. But if we can discover a purpose behind all those activities, according to Terry, we can develop a richness of spirit and add meaning to our lives.

Terry gave us an actual formula for finding one’s purpose:

G + P + V = Purpose

This is how she explained the equation:

“You heed your purpose when you offer your Gifts in service to something you are Passionate about in an environment that is consistent with your core Values.”

Next, we set about drafting a Purpose Statement. To identify our Gifts, we were each given a stack of activity cards. We had to sort the activity cards into three piles, with each pile representing our preferences: 
1) Activities we Love to Do 
2) Activities We’re Not Sure About
3) Activities we Definitely Don’t Like to do.

From the “Love to Do” pile, we had to select our top five favorite activities, then designate one activity as the most important of all.

My Number One activity card turned out to be “Writing Things.” My four runner-up cards were “Researching Things,” “Discovering Resources,” “Analyzing Information,” and “Putting the Pieces Together.” 

All my activity cards–a.k.a., my “gifts”–identified me as a writer. No big surprise there. At least it was obvious what I like to do.

But I still lacked a purpose. How am I meant to use the  writing in the service of a greater purpose in life? Is that purpose merely to entertain and sell books? (That doesn’t sound very noble.) Is my purpose to inspire others to develop their own creativity? Perhaps I could volunteer as a blogger or writer on behalf of a cause I’m passionate about, such as Monarch habitat preservation.


We weren’t expected to finalize our purpose statement in the two hours of the workshop, I was relieved to learn. It turns out, sometimes it takes people years to discover their life’s purpose.

But I’m glad to be thinking in this general direction. And if you ever have a chance to take a “Finding Your Purpose” workshop, I highly recommend it. 

What about you? Have you given your life’s purpose much thought? Is your writing an element of a higher purpose?