Free Flash Fiction - Up The Chimney

Last week, the guest posts were Kim Mainord with “Your Mileage May Vary”, Sandra M. Odell on fantasy podcasts, Ken Altabef on using Inuit mythology in his work, Rhonda Eudaly with “Writing is Only Glamourous Until This Face Appears,” and Raven Oak talked about “Linguistics in Fantasy — To Thee or Not to Thee”.

This week, we have John Johnston III musing on Fictional Characters, Pete Sutton will talk about succesffully crowdfunding an anthology, Jamie Mason will wax philosophical about Candadian zombies, Mercedes M. Yardley will discuss finding your literary voice, and to wrap up the week, J.T. Gill will tell you why reading fantasy makes you smarter. I’ll also be posting snippets from the sequel to Beasts of Tabat, which I’m working on right now, keeping you informed of any recent SFWA developments, and talking about point of view and being inside a character’s head. And finally — for online writing class news, either sign up for my mailing list at the bottom of this post, or keep checking this site.

What else is coming up in March and April? There’ll be some giveaways, including audio copies of my collection Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight, both hard and e-copies of my collections and the new novel, and some cool surprises. 🙂 You’ll also see “Documents of Tabat,” a number of small pieces of fiction, each of which ties into the book (they’re interstitial pieces from an earlier version of the novel), starting March 24 and continuing on weeks through April 21st. I’ll point you to the GoodReads giveaways when they come up, and at the end of the week, I’ll include a wrap-up of the various places I’ve guest posted and any places reviews or other mentions have occurred.

Some of you reading this have been with me since I first started writing stories set in this world; others are new to my words. Either way, I hope you’ll enjoy the novel that I’m finally getting the chance to lay before you, and I hope you’ll share some of the fun of the next couple of months.

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It’s natural for writers to want to spread word of our work. We all realize that, short of hiring a publicist, we’re our own best champions. But if we go too far, or are too single-minded in that pursuit, we can come off as boorish and arrogant.

To do it successfully, keep some things in mind.

• Push the good stuff. In an ideal world, everything you have appearing is amazing and wonderful, but if your experience is closer to mine, some stories are stronger than others. Pick the best, and when you’re mentioning that you’re eligible for something, point to those and not to an exhaustive list of everything published that year. Presumably you’ve got a bibliography available somewhere on your website (here’s mine, for example), and if anyone wants to see everything you produced, they can check that out.
• Pay it back, in spades. Want other people to feel inclined to spread word of your stuff? Then make sure you’re doing it for them. If you read a story you like online, point other people to it in a blog post or on whatever social network you use. Drop the author a note and say why you liked it. Don’t sit back and expect glory to come your way, whether or not it’s well-deserved. Make nominations and recommendations, and vote. Go to other people’s readings. If you’ve got to pass up an opportunity, try to steer it towards someone that needs it. You don’t need to be insincere about any of this. Praise the stuff you like, and if you’re having trouble finding it, you should be looking harder.
• Monitor and maintain connections. Pay attention to other people’s events and celebrate their victories. Just be a decent human being, and life will be better overall (at least, in my experience. If you’re a personality type damaged by human interaction, take all of this with a suitably-sized grain of salt.) This is part of paying it back, really, but it’s more than that. It’s being aware of the people around you. I stress it because I’m bad about it and it’s something I’ve been trying to be extra mindful of lately.
• Listen more than you talk. This helps with maintaining connections. Remember that sometimes communication isn’t about what’s being said, but about the act of performing it. Time is one of our most valuable commodities – to say to someone that you want to share yours is a valuable thing. (But at the same time, remember that other people’s time is just as valuable to them. What you view as quality time spent with them, they may think of as time they could be spending on something else.)
• Eyes on the prize. As with so many other things in life, time spent doing this is time spent not writing. If you’re thinking of networking as a career-building activity, make sure you’ve got an actual career to build on. The greatest network in the world won’t do you much good unless you’re actually producing something.