4 Ways I Use Sigils as a Writer

sigil for my word of the year "Manifest"

While sigils have different uses historically, here we’re considering them symbols that represent another word or phrase.  They embody a whole string of words or ideas in a more simplistic way.  

The writer in me loves dead languages, codes, and creating whole cloth new words/ideas.  It’s little wonder sigils have lasting appeal.  Today I will cover 4 ways I use sigils to help me write.   

1. I make sigils for my book titles (and working book titles) and it helps me get into the atmosphere of my books.  So “Follow Me: Tattered Veils” is a mouthful, and its acronym FMTV feels ugly, plus the TV reminds me of television and I HATE that.  So instead, I use a sigil for the book.  Since I created the sigil, something about its flow and design helps me feel more true to the contents of the book.  It looks like this:  

2. I make sigils for characters in my books.  I’m not an artist.  I make mediocre chibis sometimes, but nothing I’d share or want to represent my written ideas.  You can make a collection of lines that look cool with little skill or time.  So I collect the character’s name and defining traits and make a sigil from that, which represent the character in my outlines.  

3.  Sometimes I use sigils to refer to spoilers or different endings.  Here’s the paranoid writer in me.  I don’t like for people to see what I’m working on until I’m ready.  Sometimes I use sigils to further obscure what I’m working on in case there is a casual person looking over my shoulder (my husband and I KNOW he doesn’t care, but I don’t want him to read even a stray word).  But the symbols take on their own emotional resonance.  They can help color the events of a story with their curves and points before I even write the scene. 

4. Sigils can be motivational.  I made a sigil out of my writers’ goals for the year and I look at them/doodle them just whenever.  I reinforce those commitments and sometimes drives me back to them when I was clowning around.

Did you enjoy this post and want more sigil goodness?  Check out An Urban Fantasy Writer's Toolkit: Sigils. 

Looking for more posts about the writing and publishing process?  Check out more posts on my novel publication process: Going Through Copy Edits, 1st Daft vs 2nd Draft, Goal Planning: Getting Through the First Draft, My Character Looks Nothing Like My MC, Cover Art: Truth in Advertising, and Post Book Launch: Reflections.  

Want to know more about my novel?  Check out my childhood stories recapping themes in my life I hope prepared me to write this book: Remember the Magic of Santa?, Closet Monsters: Gone too Far?, and Garden Gnomes and other Evils.

OR check out my series where I find similarities between my novel and other popular media.  Hopefully it gives you a better idea whether there are elements in my book you may enjoy. Lost Girl Comparison, American Gods Comparison, and The O.A. Comparison.

MY BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT AMAZON!!!  Please go look at "Follow Me: Tattered Veils" and see if it might be a story that interests you.

Monday Metrics

image from openclipart.org by cactus cowboy

If you are new, today is all about the numbers, not about my plans.   See the action plans I’m using to earn these numbers in previous posts.  My plan and reflects are on 16 week Review!  and the steps I’m taking are on 6 Steps for Twitter.

Twitter Analytics

I’ve been active on Twitter for 119 days. In the last 28 days I’ve had 255 posts, 788 profile visits, 104 mentions, and 114 new follows.  

Conversion based on profile views is 14%.
  
My engagement is 3.9%. 

I post about 9 times a day.  My goal is to sit between 6-10 posts a day, so success!


My daily view count has lowered to just under 2,000 views a day.  I received 164 eyes last week.  This week, I got into the weeds in a conversation about other’s favorite flowers.  A lot of engagements but not a lot of eyes.

Blog Stats


I got 71 views last week spread across 6 post.  An improvement from last week, but I’m uncertain if it relates to content or promotion of my posts.  I posted three times this week, and plan to post three times this week too.  I hope to replicate the results.

The North Alabama Writers’ Group blog has 26 views this past week.  The detail break out suggests that all my back links are kicking in.  Someone goes to the December Call for Submissions and ends up clicking on our Ongoing Call For Submissions. 

So talk to me!  What are your numbers?  What’s your social media strategy?  Are you counting anything else in your life and what does success look like?

Still need a number fix?  Compare this week to last week Dec 11th,  Dec 3rd, Nov 12th, Nov 5th, Oct 22nd, Oct 9th, Oct 1st Sept 24th, Sept17th, or Sept 10th.  

Reflections of a Writer: Softwares I've Used to Write a Novel

image from openclipart.org by bf5man

I’ve written four and a half novels in my time.  None of them published, but that‘s not the point of today’s post.  Today I want to talk about the different softwares I wrote with.

The first book was one document in Microsoft Word.  I was on an old school Windows 3.1, outdated even then (but ran well and was a perfect distraction free writing tool), and I transferred the novel to our updated computer for printing with a floppy disc.  All my technology nostalgia comes from writing.  Kept a hard copy of my book in a binder and I was the proudest 16yr old you’d ever met.

Microsoft Word was not an ideal writing platform.  It was hard for me to go back to specific parts in my book to edit.  My dyslexia/visual tracking issues are the stars of this gripe.  Going line by line, chapter by chapter, trying to match the hard copy with where ever I am in the electronic document was torture.  Sometimes I think I hate editing because it was so hard to scroll through this massive document, and not because the process is otherwise arduous.

Worse, a massive Microsoft document made it hard for me to copy paste portions to forums, journals, and emails.  I was sharing this first novel because it was the first in a series.  Sharing the work was time consuming.

There are no places in the same Word document to write notes, an outline, or research. Unable to keep all the work together in a single format, I had a separate binder with research, notes, outlines, and journalling regarding my process.   It was yet another syncing issue I had between the enormous wall of text on the computer and the pages in my binder.

 I write my storiesout of order, but Microsoft Word made piece mailing the work together tricky.  At first, I tried using page breaks to section off the story flow from scenes I wrote that needed in between chapters to connect, but this was lengthy and confusing.  I couldn’t scroll to the bottom of the document to return to where I “left off” writing.  Instead, I had to creep through each page, searching for all the breaks.  Frustrated, I reverted to paper and pen.  Here, I’d write chapters or scenes by hand and hold on to them until I’d got to the part in my story where I could copy them into the master document.

Next time I wrote a novel, I wrote each chapter as a separate document and kept it in a book folder.  This improved almost everything and I recommend another using a standard editor keep all the chapters as separate documents under a book title folder.  The single issue I ran into was that the folder is default organized by title or by last updated or whatever, and I wanted my files organized with the first chapter on top and all the other chapters in descending order.  Took me a good year to realize I could force the alphabetical order to do this if I labeled “1 chapter” “2 chapter”.  The sort is by numerical order.  Some difficulties arose because I write out of order and I don’t know what chapter I’m writing all the time.

It was inconvenient when every time I wanted to read from one chapter to the next; I had to open another document.  For a time, I would keep each chapter separate and have a “master copy” with the whole work, but it was too hard to keep both sets of documents synced.  Inevitably I would add edits to the master copy, not copy paste over to the separate chapter file, and then read the separate chapter file and make major changes over there.  Too much going on.

Next, I went to Nimble.  This seemed to solve all problems.  A single document that let me skip to specific chapters.  And bonus, areas for notes and outlining!  I’d long since given up hope on that.  But, I had a new problem: no spelling or grammar check.  Now I had to paste each chapter from the original document into LangaugeTool online.  LangaugeTool should have connected into Nimble, but my tech savvy husband and I could never make that work.  After LangaugeTool, I pasted the work into Grammarly.  Then I had to take the chapter and bring it back to Nimble.  And when the whole novel completed, I bring it all one chapter at a time to Word. @_@. The software said it would transfer over to Word, but I never made that element of it work and had to give up and copy paste by hand.

  On one side, it was lovely to write distraction free.  On the other side, my typing needs extreme help.  During the revisions, I felt like I was reading the work of a third grader.  It made me question whether I could be a writer.  I’d never questioned whether I was good enough to write and publish before then.  It was a dark time in my career where I faced the extent of my difficulties with the technicalities of writing.

From here, I moved on to Novel Factory.  I LOVE the structure and use Novel Factory for even short stories.  The format of Novel Factory pleases me more than Scrivener did.  Novel Factory has a basic spellcheck that keeps me from being overwhelmed by all my terrible spelling all at once. I still have to bring all my chapters over to the web editor on ProWritingAid, but I’m less overwhelmed.

Like Nimble, Novel Factory has space for character profiles and places in my fictional work, but it goes further and allows me to write out an entire story arc and attach pictures to characters/places.  Novel Factory also has space for multiple drafts of the same work, and I can compare two very different edits for some time without losing either.  There‘s also a place to track submissions within the software.

My main gripe is that the italics in Novel Factory do not carry over to Word, ProWritingAid, or Google Docs.  I have to run back through every copy and look for what I meant to italic.  *sigh* Nothing is hassle free for a writer.  At least it‘s simpler to adapt than handwritten manuscripts?

Talk to me!  What software do you use to write your stories?  What do you like about the software?  Is there anything you’d like to change regarding your current technique?

Monday Metics

by openclipart.org by boobaloo

If you are new, today is all about the numbers, not about my plans.   See the action plans I’m using to earn these numbers in previous posts.  My plan and reflects are on 6 week Review!  and the steps I’m taking are on 6 Steps for Twitter.

Twitter Analytics
I’ve been active on Twitter for 112 days. In the last 28 days I’ve had 236 posts, 517 profile visits, 83 mentions, and 129 new follows.  

Conversion based on profile views is 25%. I got included in a Follow Friday post by one of my Twitter friends and this saw a HUUUGE boost in follows.  We’ll have tosee if I can keep these follows in the upcoming days.
  
My engagement is 3.9%. My change in strategy: tweet less and respond/interact more, should continue to see increases in engagement.  It was a huge surprise to go from 2.1% to 3.9%, dropping off the weeks with a different style of interaction makes a huge different.

I post about 8 times a day.  My goal is to sit between 6-10 posts a day, so success!


My daily view count has lowered to just under 2,000 views a day.  Proportionately I receive 210 eyes per post.  Slight dip from the 216 eyes last week, but I held prolongedconversation on some tweets, the longer you go back and forth, the lesspeople see your tweets, but the higher your engagement is and the more you’re getting to know one or two people, instead of introducing yourself to a group of people.  This is a balance I’m working on.

Blog Stats

I got 41 views last week spread across 8 posts and 1 pages.  I’m trying to stay the course in overall blog promotion.  I’m noticing that I’m heavy in visits on the front half of the week and fall flat in the back half.  That ties back to general exhaustion from work and me quitting to promote my posts.  I don’t know if I can improve weekly consistency, but it‘sgood to know

The North Alabama Writers’ Group blog has 5 views this past week.  The last week of November I tried my hand at writing a more critical work called “Why I Stopped Reading Daily Science Fiction” and it seems that there is no interest from the community for why I might not enjoy the writing on the site. I am trying to evaluatewhether critical feedback has a place in my style.  It‘sa personal issue I’m touching onmore in a later post. 

  My December Open Calls for Submissions didn‘t bring in interested writers, but it may pick up as the month goes on.  Most open calls are for the end of the month.  

I’m hoping my second post on “How to pick a publisher” may have more traction.   I have some great topics scheduled for the NAWG blog and I’m hoping to see an increase as more discussion and interesting topics pop up.  

So talkto me!  What are your numbers?  What’s your social media strategy?  Are you counting anything else in your life and what does success look like?

Still need a number fix?  Compare this week to last week Dec 3rd, Nov 12th, Nov 5th, Oct 22nd, Oct 9th, Oct 1st Sept 24th, Sept17th, or Sept 10th.  

6 Steps To a Twitter Success: Altered Plans

image from openclipart.org by Luen

After 15 weeks on Twitter, I thought I’d update my Twitter routine.  There are little tweaks here and there.  It turns out I only continue to use six of the eight original points in my plan and the steps I keep, I‘ve altered.  Want to compare? Check out the old 8 step plan

1. Create and Share Interesting and Unique Content

This is the foundation of my Twitter process.  In the past week, I‘ve done more straight Retweets because I haven‘t had time to share my own thoughts, but even then I share what I like.

2. Schedule Posts. 

Post scheduling makes everything else in my writing plan work.  Without Hootsuite, I wouldn’t be able to maintain a presence on Twitter.  My style of interacting is less constant than some of my more outgoing peers.  Post planning allows me to use that time and spread it out across the day so I can look outgoing while I’m sitting cozy with my dog or at work going through the motions.  Plus, when I have the “bright” idea to share blog content, I can spread it out across days instead of dropping too much self promotion all at once.  

3. Create More Personal Connections on the Medium

This happened/ is happening in unexpected ways, but yes.  I have a sense of “regulars” whom I Retweet or are most likely to respond to my posts/comments.  I’m getting more comfortable and can maintain a conversation for longer.  Sometimes I worry I talk about the same thing too much or my Tweets might bore, but then I remember that almost no one consumes my Twitter content all at once.  Their feed shows it intermittently and people go days without even seeing anything from me (when they have larger followings).

Building this Twitter empire has been eye opening.  No matter what a person does with the algorithms, nothing seems as important as connecting with other people. Granted, I got into this to find an audience so people would always be the focus, but somehow I thought I’d learn more about maneuvering around them and using software tools to get in front of the right eyes.  It’s far more organic than that, and I think with no other tools than these three, a person could find their audience on Twitter.


4. Use of Hashtags

While I’ve used hashtags to my benefit, I am a lot more relaxed about it than I expected.  Some Tweets blow up and others don’t.  Same hashtags, same time of day, but different results.  What’s more important is getting noticed and shared by someone with a large following that‘s different from yours.  

Hashtags help me find other people with like minds that I haven‘t seen yet.  They also help my posts get noticed by different but similar groups.  To that end, they are important, but again, it comes back to people taking the next step and sharing you with the audience they’ve built.  

I don’t hunt in the Hashtags as much as I should, but so many new people come to my attention in an organic method, it‘s hard to follow them and anything happening in the Hashtag game.  When I have to choose, I choose the people.

5. Check in 

So I try to “Check in” every three-ish days.  What this means is that I pick a few new followers profiles and a few profiles of people who liked or retweeted something and I look through their feed.  If I like their content or their bio, I friend them.  Doing this once a week was way too overwhelming.  Committing to look at everyone who had eyes on me was also overwhelming.  I’m sorry if I overlooked you through this process.  I can promise that if you continue to interact with me, I check out your profile and feed, eventually.  And I follow—it takes over one interaction to get my attention these days.

6.  Use Twitter Analytics:

Still do this weekly.  My updates lack my desired consistency.  I will rectify that by drafting on Sunday.  The metrics won‘t be as accurate but at least the blog will come out.  Knowing where you stand is the only way to know if what you are doing is helping or hurting your goals, but also, I love numbers.  It fascinates me.  I learn more about what is important on the platform every day.  What interests me most (that I don‘t share with you guys) is the “Audiences” tab.  The most common interest for my followers is dogs and science news.  The male to female split is 50/50.  Most of my audience is American and they prefer to use laptops/desktops.  What does this stuff tell me: I don’t know, but I like having this information.  It makes me feel closer to the random voices I stumble across on Twitter.

Talk to me.  Do you use Twitter and if so for what?  Are you building a following and if so how?  Do you have tips or tricks to help find others with shared interests?  Do you like Twitter or do you prefer a different social media?  

Looking for the numbers? Check out my Monday Metrics Posts on:  11/19, 11/12,  11/5, 10/22, 10/15 10/9, 10/1, 9/24,  9/17, and  9/10

Monday Metrics

image from openclipart.org by GDJ

If you are new, today is all about the numbers, not about my plans.   See the action plans I’m using to earn these numbers in previous posts.  Last Week’s 6 week Review!  and 8 Steps I’m Taking on Twitter.   Full disclosure: to make certain these posts happen while I'm busy with work, I had to post plan them.  The numbers where pulled 24hrs ahead of this post date.  

Twitter Analytics
I’ve been active on Twitter for 105 days. In the last 28 days I’ve had 233 posts, 464 profile visits, 101 mentions, and 78 new follows.  

Conversion based on profile views is 16%. The past month was NANO.  For me, it seems it had a negative impact on conversion.  Could be because all my fellow writers were writing or it could be because I didn’t NANO this year.
  
My engagement is 2.3%. On my daily goals is the “interact with 3 people on Twitter” but it depends on what‘s going on that day.  Plus, I can add a comment to a conversation and not be acknowledged in the flood of feedback some posts get.

I post about 8 times a day.  My goal is to sit between 6-10 posts a day, so success!


My daily view count has lowered to just under 2,000 views a day.  Fewer posts = fewer eyes, but the proportions are better per post.  This past 28 days I got 216 eyes a post.  On Oct 22nd I had 330 posts with 52,400 views or only 158 eyes a view.  Less time but an increase in views per post.

Blog Stats

I got 55 views last week spread across 10 posts and 2 pages.  I updated my list of links to my posts across both blogs organized by topic. I’ve also spent a lot of time working on my recommended writing bloggers.  Some of my December plans begin this week with the launch of my “Be Bold Blogging” series where I talk about the pros and cons of sharing site metrics and how a person achieves these.  I also brought out an introspective piece on all the blog niches I’ve explored.

The North Alabama Writers’ Group blog has 6 views this past week.  It’s a shame I didn’t get to a Monday Metric last week because the blog had 11 views then. Of Note: because work ran away with me these past 10 days, there were no promotions for the blog and I think it sunk my traffic.

 Important for fellow writers: December Round Up of Calls for Submission is out on the NAWG blog.  If you ever wonder where I get all those calls for submissions check out my page here Bloggers and Groups I Follow for Submissions.  Also check out my list of Ongoing Submissions organized by genre and length requirements.  

 I’m experimenting with adding critical content to both blogs check out my first step in “6 Reasons I Stopped Reading Daily Science Fiction."  I’m told “spilling the tea” brings the views, but so far that‘s not what I’m experiencing.  Then again, I don‘t want a ton of draining drama, I want to discuss things that work or do not work in our writing community openly.  Daily Science Fiction doesn‘t work for me.

So talk to me!  What are your numbers?  What’s your social media strategy?  Are you counting anything else in your life and what does success look like?

Still need a number fix?  Compare this week to older updates on Nov 19th, Nov 12th, Nov 5th, Oct 22nd, Oct 9th, Oct 1st Sept 24th, Sept17th, or Sept 10th.  

#BeBold Behind Posting Metrics

from openclipart.org by liftarn

There are many “behind the scenes” style posts bloggers and content creators indulge in.  They include: posting their strategy for social media and creation, posting results of their efforts, publishing reviews in the genre they create in, publishing fiction and short stories to their blogs, and posting a creation process behind their creations.  This series seeks to explore the “pros” and “cons” of content.  Today‘s topic includes posting strategy and results.  In the interest of full disclosure, I’m in favor of all these style posts so these posts will take on a “just go for it” style tone.

The Concerns

-Someone might “steal” the technique and implement it better

-Someone might ridicule your performance or technique

-You may not achieve your goals and when you release a goal/schedule post, it allows others to see your failure/ accountability

-Some of these “metric disclosure” or “advice posts” are deceiving or skewed and creating your own might place you in a with a crowd less than honest or only trying to sell their online course/book on how to be awesome

-The “how to rock at x” post is very prevalent, if you don‘t have specific new information, it is hard to stand out or it may just feel you‘re looking for a massive following massive metrics bump while offering nothing substantial

-You might think you’re “too small," or “too new," to offer advice or to bother sharing your metrics.  In the beginning, it’s embarrassing to be excited blog X is getting 18 page views a week.  It becomes more embarrassing if you‘re trying all these things and don’t see more hits or more post interactions.  If you’re not a person with “massive success” in a sea of people offering their “huge results” sometimes you ask “what am I doing wrong?” or “How could I have anything worth sharing?”

-Your metrics may not be impressive.  While you might “trick” a viewer with a clean professionalism, strong writing, and spam comments that build up on blogs, showing them the hard numbers may tell the “true” story of how often folks visit a site.

-Your plan may change as you write and maybe continuing to either update an original post or create a post outlining these changes is draining.

-If you like linking to related content, and if you batch blog posts, going though and updating your posts with all the related links is VERY annoying

The Pros

-People love to see hard number results. Anyone can post “How to Have a Successful Blog” or “How to Gather a Social Media Presence” on their blog.  There‘s so much generic copy and paste style blogs we tire of hearing the same advice.  Show me the results!  Prove your technique works!

-People love to know their time is invested wisely.  So comparing the views I get off of Facebook vs Twitter is a wonderful way to show why investing in one site over another might be worthwhile.  Also noting side benefits attracts audiences.

-People like to “be there from the beginning” and they like updates that show their time is spent well.  The whole underdog story or starting with nothing to gain something is very appealing.  These metric posts and plans posts let people have insight and connection to that arc

-Creating these blogs means you are checking your results often and performing an analysis on your results.  This let‘s a person course correct as they go instead of giving up in frustration because they are “doing all the things” and seeing nothing from it. You can be more pro active in driving results

-Posting your intentions helps build personal accountability

-Posting and sticking to your schedule will help build discipline, consistency and a following

-Posting my metrics every week is a simple post that keeps my blog active.  The format and phrasing is the same week to week so I/readers can use easy side-by-side comparison of each week‘s results.  But this also means it takes precious little time to write.

The Outcome 

For me the pros outweigh the concerns.  I’ve never much cared what other people think of my progress.  If I cared, I would have stopped writing long ago and gone off to do something “successful”, whatever that is.  In Fairness, no one online has been mean or belittling over my progress or plans.  I think the fear of mocking/failure/disappointment is low.  When your numbers are low, there‘s no one to care and when they‘re high, they offer credibility and transparency.

  Personally, I love metric and “how to” posts.  Hard results give credibility and when I think “that sounds terrible” I can know what the overall “gain” would be.  And I’m wondering “when/how” do I monetize or “how does this get me published” or “how does this get more eyes on my story and/or blog?”  This metrics/plan style blog gives me new ideas to consider.

Talk to me!  Do you use metric or “how to" style posts in your blogging?  Do you like reading others’ blogs on this topic?  Do you have a good tip for me about writing, networking, or some other related topic?  Who is your favorite blogger and why?

Betting On Myself

image from openclipart.org by j4p4n

The Problem

Things are crazy in my professional life right now.  My “day job” is in shambles (from my perspective to them everything is the best it’s ever been or at least that’s the party line they are sticking too) and since that’s forty hours of my work week my emotional/mental life is shredded.  I feel like half a person, and that person is always on the attack, hunting for weaknesses in others to pounce on.  There’s no turning the snarky, angry, lashing aspect of myself off.  Something people don’t get: if you are a compassionate intuitive soul, you can take that knowledge and use it to be vicious.

In the middle of what for me is the worst three going on four months I’ve experienced in the last five years, I have to step back and ask myself “What can I do?”  I can’t change the policies happening at my work.  I can’t control how they are implemented.  I can’t force peers, superiors, or team members below me to be the right people to enact this cultural shift within the company.  But if you know me, there is no way in hell, I will sit back and let them wreck me without pushing back.

The Solution 

So first of the all, I’ve rejected the incompetent management and have turned around to challenge every move they make, using their own guide against them.  If I have to follow these rules, everyone will get on page now.  I will not struggle while everyone else tells me that “this is different”, and it’s “just this once”.


How I'm Choosing Me First

It’s time to come back to what I love.  What makes me passionate is writing.  I’m turning inward, back to words, and I’m turning all that frantic energy into creating space for my creative work to stand.

I’m unhappy, but part of me sees this work drama is the best thing that could have happened.  Nothing short of working at a huge corporate place that’s just shitting all over itself would have made me say: “If this is a thing, then I’m rejecting you and going back to my base.”

I’ve done a lot and continue to do a lot since I’ve turned back to reading and writing.  I’m reading more now than I ever have in my adult life, and I love that part of my life (check out my Goodreads reviews and stats here and see my "Best of Kindle Unlimited Series").  I’m writing (though mostly blogs and tweets) about 10,000 words a week.  My blog(s) pre-scheduled posts are insane.

I tried something new with the Writers’ Group where we each share a Halloween based flash fiction this month.  Chris Palmer finished and scheduled his story first.  Can I say, I appreciate how my fellow writers are stepping in and joining me on this new adventure?  I can’t express how grateful

I’ve noticed this conversation game trend on Twitter and I want in on that.  Right now I play with #theMerryWriter and #authorconfession but I’d like to play in some other Hashtag parties/conversations and I would LOVE to host a Hashtag game through NAWG.

I have more ideas and more planning than ever in my creative writing life.  I’m working in a class (the class itself isn’t going great, I’m waiting to give a full review), trying to get beta reading for the second draft of my novel “Follow Me: Tattered Veils”.  While discussing the book with my friend Ashley Sanders, I had a major break through.  Now I know what I need to do to pull the work together that I am beyond excited to dig in and execute.

Ashley and I are also experimenting with running our own writing class.  We’re talking structure and what value we could add to other writers along with all the inspiration they may bring us.  I can’t wait to work with her.  We have a very similar process and goals for our novels, and I’d love to help other people work through what their goals are.

I have an outline for a co-writing novel gig called “Familiar” with a friend in the North Alabama Writers’ Group and I’m thrilled to bits about working more with the wonderful Zach Standfield to create something cool together.

I have never chased so many avenues at once and it’s occurred to me that my job and my lack joy in my professional life brought me to a place where I had to roll the dice on my projects I'm passion about that I would normally keep as quiet background gigs.  My story telling, my ideas, my ability to network.  Stuff I’m “good” at that I figured would never amount to anything.  It feels powerful to see how things I love could bring me an ounce of professional success.  All my life, people have told me my writing would “never amount to anything” and that I “should focus on something that will make me financially stable.”  Here I am, at the worst point in my professional career, with nothing to draw on.  In desperation, I‘ve opened myself up to this blogging, social media, creative writing thing, and it seems like these “useless“ skill set has breathed new life in me.

The path to monetization is opening and new opportunities rise on the horizon.  They are taking time and persistence, but I’m seeing incremental steps towards my long-term goals. It feels like I’m proving all those people who told me my skills and me through association were “nothing special” and “not valuable” wrong.

Have you ever been in a terrible situation at your job or life where you needed to get out?  What did you do?  Are there other angles I’m not exploring?  Did you ever follow your passion regardless of the money or the risk?  What was the outcome?  Do you have advice/regrets/victory stories?  Talk to me.

Weekly Metrics

from openclipart.org by oksmith

Sorry this is late, my job has a new policy that I “can’t” leave until the work “is done”, a policy that was sprung on me Monday.  Blindsided, I ended up forced to work until 6:30 due to poor staffing and high sales traffic.

If you are new, today is all about the numbers, not about my plans.   See the action plans I’m using to earn these numbers in previous posts.  Last Week’s 6 week Review!  and 8 Steps I’m Taking on Twitter.   

Twitter Analytics
I’ve been active on Twitter for 42 days. In the last 28 days I’ve had 336 posts, 505 profile visits, 128 mentions, and 68 new follows.  

Conversion based on profile views is 13%.  It seems like my new growth rate is stabilizing.  Last week I spoke of losing 5 followers, but this week I went up a little over 20 followers in just the week.  I have done nothing different, so maybe the first week of a month is slow?
  
My engagement is 3.0%.  It wobbles, but I don’t know I’ll break 3ish. I post plan, and I am trying to spend less time on Twitter while maintaining a sense of presence.  I kind of think my “engagement” can’t go up when I’m not in there making the connections. 

I post about 12 times a day.  I plan five posts and the others of responses or impromptu promotions.  Planning posts is can feel like pulling teeth.  Sometimes my Twitter feed is just not that interesting. 

I broke 2,000 views for the second time on Thurs and Sun.  My views on the rest of the days remain strong, well over 1,000 view mark.    


Blog Stats

I got 97 views last week spread across 5 posts.  Sitting at week 2 with about 100 views, so I’m seeing something cool.  It’s no secret, this blog is for recording my writing process and giving personal feedback about the process of writing and self promoting on social media.  I don’t know if that kind of content is helpful or engaging to others, but I sensed there was a niche for it and it’s rewarding to see growth here.

The North Alabama Writers’ Group blog has 62 views this past week.  I would love to take the credit, but I believe Christopher M. Palmer kicked off our October success with his flash fiction “The Ghost Strikes at Midnight."  I‘m trying to capture that lightening in a bottle with my own flash story scheduled to drop Oct 10th!  I still want to recommend to fellow writers our October Open Calls for Submission.  And I still want other writers to share how they choose a genre.  


So talk to me!  What are your numbers?  What’s your social media strategy?  Are you counting anything else in your life and what does success look like?

Still need a number fix?  Compare this week to last week Oct 1st, or go back further to reports on Sept 24th, Sept17th, or Sept 10th.  

Monday Metrics: Pour Those Numbers on Me!

image from openclipart.org by Scout

My week review posts are too long, so I’m breaking it up into straight numbers and progress updates/plan adjustments.  Today is all about the results.   See the action plans I’m using to earn these numbers in previous posts.  Last Week’s 6 week Review!  and 8 Steps I’m Taking on Twitter.   

Twitter Analytics
I’ve been active on Twitter for 45 days. In the last 28 days I’ve had 340 posts, 600 profile visits, 108 mentions, and 75 new follows.

Conversion based on profile views is 12%.  This is a 7% drop in follow (I saw that 6 people had unfollowed me went from 525 total follows to 519).  What does this mean?  I’m not sure.  Could be that I’ve grown as far as my audience/interest allows.  Could be I had a lousy week on Twitterverse.  It’s something I must check in the long term.
  
My engagement is 3.2%.  It wobbles, but I don’t know I’ll break 3ish.  

I post about 12 times a day.  I plan five posts and the others of responses or impromptu promotions.  Planning posts is still tricky.  Feels like I have little to “say” or I keep censoring responses.  Maybe I need to get back to being off the cuff?  

I broke 2,000 views for the second time on Thursday, but my following Friday, Saturday, and Sunday views were  under 1,000 (which I’m considering bad).  I wonder if people staid off Twitter because of the Judicial Court Trials or if my Tweets were subpar? I have 4 Tweets with over 1,000 views.  My engagement stats are all over the place. I can’t make sense yet over what people like and what they pass on.


Blog Stats

This blog continues to put in work.  I got 94 views last week spread across 10 posts.  It’s not brag worthy, but this is a personal blog with more impressions, personal plans, and results.  I don’t expect it to be a traffic generator.  There’s value and casual interest in how a fellow blogger/aspiring writer is doing, but I don’t think there’s much interest when I don’t have name recognition.

The North Alabama Writers’ Group blog has 18 views this past week.  We have 15 hits on my latest collection of Open Calls for Submission in Oct.  I’m pleased it’s gathered attention but disappointed my post asking how writers choose a genre for their book didn’t garner more attention, even though I’ve promoted it a few times.  

So talk to me!  What are your numbers?  What’s your social media strategy?  Are you counting anything else in your life and what does success look like?

Still need a number fix?  Compare this week to last week Sept 24, or go back further to reports on Sept 17th, or Sept 10th.  

"Making of a Wannabe Writer" My Response pt1

from open clipart.org by Eypros

The Writing Cooperative have a great post "Making of a Wannabe Writer". I recommend anyone undertaking a large writing project read their article and answer the questions they present.

Today, I am sharing my responses to these questions. It should provide readers better insight into what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and whether I'm meeting those goals.  

A formatting note: The main questions from the articles are in bold and a chaser question is in normal font.  I will provide my responses in italic purple for clarity.

• 
  

Why do you wish to write? Is it for self satiation, fame or money?

Writing is a compulsion for me.  I feel like I have hundreds of stories bubbling up in me I want to share.  Crafting them and making something larger than myself  is fulfilling 

As far as blogging goes, I have observations during my writing process.  Most often I prefer to share them with my husband or with my writing group, but sometimes they are so repetitive, I feel the need to get them down in print.  That's how the blog arises.  

I don't have the success where I feel I could offer advice.  Still, there are areas of my personal journey that thrive.  I like to record what I'm doing and what results I've seen as a guide for others and a reference for myself.

Who is your target? Talk to yourself about the genre and the suitable target audience. What will be their volume?

My creative writing has several genres.  Fantasy, Urban Fantasy that sometimes borders on Magical Realism, Scifi, supernatural, paranormal, and genre fiction (very little genre).  My writing is character driven, emotion based, and revolves around explore themes instead of plots.  It leans towards a more academic crowd and most people believe it's more female centered (though I still don't know why, but I'll embrace the label).

My creative writing has a smaller but fervent niche and I'm looking for my people.  

My blogging is more large scale.  Where I am in process leans me towards an audience of fellow writers and social media engineers.  Authors because their experience and mine resonates.  Social media engineers may be interested because I'm publishing plans to cultivate a following/sell a produce and I'm also publishing real time results.  This is the kind of things marketing media companies should live for even if I'm only working on a smaller scale.

  I believe as my process evolves it will expand out to publishers, agents, and editors.  As editing is a weakness of mine, I'm most dubious that I'll have something to offer them, but I haven't snuffed all hope of expanding in that direction.

Why should people read this? Can they relate it to their life? Will it be helpful for them? Will it entertain them?

People should read my creative writing because it's a fun ride.  The stories are well constructed and flow with purpose.  The characters realism grounds a story off set by fantastic surroundings.

  People may also enjoy my stories because many of them explore issues I see in the real world and transform them into fictional stories where we can hold a less charged conversation about observation or issue of the day.

It is my goal for this blog to provide insight into how a writer may balance the many tasks required to be a known writer.  This includes making time for creative writing, maintaining a blog, creating and curating a social media presence, submitting to publishers, finding an audience, and supporting other creatives.  I hope to do this by sharing my plans along with progress or setbacks I find along the way.

Identified your genre? Be wise to chose the correct publication for maximum impact and response. This can do wonders to launch you!

This is a loaded question for me.  As someone who sees connections rather than divisions, I'm torn on what "genre" my work falls into.  For simplicity I tell others it's "Urban Fantasy", but I hold personal doubts.  While the settings of my work are modern and magic exists in these worlds, I lack other elements like humor or a romance that most Urban Fantasies experiment with.  I've read "gritty" or "hard boiled" Urban Fantasy but the main leads are men and my leads are women.

  My stories are character driven, the "stuff" happening to them is secondary to how the characters react, where most Urban Fantasies portray all the cool magic stuff with character reactions taking a back seat.  

If someone told me I was writing women's fiction, I wouldn't disagree, except I've read women's fiction and while we are bonded spiritually by themes, the fantasy elements depart from most women's fiction.

My blogging style is far easier to describe.  It's for personal revelation and insight,  A public baring of the soul so we might all learn together.  Upbeat, supportive, and highly female in its presentation.  

My journey is too early to provide "expert" advice but I see myself growing into being a writing coach.  Someone who helps others organize and prioritize their time and efforts.  I also see myself as a publishing scout.  I'm always checking out writing markets and I have a good sense of when others are ready to publish and where to submit.  Just ask my writing group.

Is it impulsive or a passion? Discover if you are passionate about your work. If no, you won’t last long. Try writing about what interests you the most. Blogging doesn’t work on temporary impulses. Persistence is the key!

A little of both.  I've been writing stories since I was six, and I've never gone long without writing. I don't think I could stop writing at this point and I very much want to share my creative work.  

Blogging likewise, is something I've played with since it was a thing. I have an old Livejournal and Insanejournal account that are embarrassing   I'd delete them if I could, but I've lost the email and passwords in long ago.  

Here on blogger, I've played with several formats.  Anytime I wanted to try something journalling became a natural extension of that exploration.  

I have a plan, and I intend to commit, but I've said before.  The only way to be honest is to come back in thirty days and see if I had a habit moment.