Misfit Monday | Jennette Marie Powell

by Jennette, February 18, 2013

I have a confession to make: I am not overly fond of big parties.

This is especially true if the majority of the people there are people I don’t know; more so if they’re people I don’t have a lot in common with.

Is this weird? It isn’t if you’re an introvert like me (and like most writers). But I didn’t always know that, and so, when I was reluctant to attend a big gathering, or if I wanted to leave soon after arriving, I wondered what was wrong with me.

I’d much rather do this than go to a big party! (photo credit: Wikipedia Commons, Creative Commons license)

The thing is, if you’re an introvert, spending a lot of time in large groups of people is mentally draining. (For extroverts, it’s the other way around: not being around people is draining.) The more people there who I don’t know, or don’t have much in common with, the more draining it is. I feel like I have to be “on” all the time – upbeat and friendly, even if I’m tired or don’t know what to say.

My husband is 100% my opposite in this way. He’s totally an extrovert, one of those people who never met a stranger. He can strike up a conversation with anyone, and the fact that I’m not thrilled to go to big parties where I don’t know a lot of people is something that baffles him. How could I not enjoy it? (Add to that: I don’t drink much alcohol–not because I have a problem with drinking in general, but it takes very little to make me feel really bad. So being the only sober person in a roomful of people is even less fun.)

I used to think “introverted” was synonymous with “shy.” So when I wanted to cringe at the thought of going out to a bar one more night (because when I was young and single, I didn’t have much else to do), I wondered what was wrong with me. Because the thing is, I’m not shy. Once I get to know someone, and like hanging out with them, I don’t have a hard time talking to them.

Most of the time I went anyway, because I wanted to meet people. A good thing, too, for that’s how I ended up meeting my husband–at a bar, LOL. (Yes, it happens! For the whole story, see How I Met My Husband.) It helped a great deal that I’d recently taken the Dale Carnegie Course, where most of the people were introverts, and we learned ways to strike up conversations with people we didn’t know, ways to take an interest in others.

Of course for many authors who write romance, the national conference of Romance Writers of America is nothing but one party after another. Yes, I’ve gone. A couple years ago, I went with my main goal being to meet people and have fun. And I did! That’s not to say I didn’t need some down time between events, but it wasn’t bad at all. Of course at an RWA event, there are always a question that can break the ice: “What do you write?”

Kristin Bailey/Jess Granger (middle) signs a book for a reader while Stacy McKitrick (right) and I watch.

Reader events are fun, too, with the main difference being a slight change in the guaranteed question to “What do you like to read?” I attended one of these on Saturday, a panel discussion at a branch of the Dayton Metro Library. I shared the panel with four of my RWA chapter friends, and several people in the audience also were writers. Writing is something I can always talk about! But usually, I prefer one-on-one, or small groups.

What about you – are you an introvert or extrovert, or a little of both? What kind of gatherings do you enjoy most? Have you confused “shy” with “introverted” before? Is it weird to not enjoy parties? Please tell me I’m not alone–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

by Jennette, January 28, 2013

Mine is. I pretty much do the same things every week: go to work, come home, hang with the family, walk on the treadmill, and get on the computer. I don’t go out much–oh, I could if I wanted to; my husband does fairly regularly. But that’s my writing time, and I don’t drink much. The older I get, the less I can drink without it making me feel really bad. And it’s just not worth it to lose time for doing other things to feeling bad when I can avoid it.

Dog Shaming is one of the more exciting things that happens around here – and I’m OK with that!

I do things like laundry and once in a while, even clean. But we don’t go on glamorous vacations (can’t, with a kid about to go to college), and I’m not much of a shopper.

And you know what? That’s not a bad thing.

Twenty-pus years ago, when I was single, I might have thought differently. Of course, we didn’t have Internet back then, so if you wanted to be social, it required getting out of the house. Sometimes, finding someplace interesting to go, where there were people I actually wanted to hang out with, was a challenge. But I managed, met my husband, got married, became a mom, and by then I didn’t have time to get out just for the sake of getting out. I was too busy to be bored.

My daughter has friends, a boyfriend, after-school activities, so she’s often not home. My husband likes to go out for a beer with friends or to play darts or watch sports. At home, it’s me and computer.

And that’s not a bad thing.

Twenty years ago, had I been able to look forward to see, I might have worried.

But then think of the other “excitement” people at my stage of life have. My brother had a heart attack on Christmas night. He’s fine now, but that’s the kind of excitement no one wants. I know people getting divorces, or contemplating it. My DH and I hang out enough, and we stay out of each others’ way enough, and we don’t have that kind of drama. We have other friends with grown children, who are constantly into some kind of ugly disagreement with them. Our daughter is 17 and still doesn’t mind hanging with us, so I take that as a good sign we’ll avoid that kind of drama too (one can hope!). So far she’s made good choices.

So I’m okay with being boring! Of course, there’s another side of the coin. We can get complacent, get stuck in a rut, stop trying new things. Life in general becomes a comfort zone, and you know how that works. Staying in our comfort zone for too long means we stop learning, stop growing, and stop developing our skills. We stagnate. I do feel that from time to time, but am unsure what to shake up. Years ago, that feeling of complacency might mean it’s time to look for a new job. But who wants to do that in these uncertain economic times, when I have a good job, working with good people, doing work I like, for decent pay?

For some people, “shake something up” might mean it’s finally time to kick the deadbeat boyfriend to the curb, or the tell the slacker (grown!) kids it’s time to move out. My family’s great – no messing with that!

Some people move. This can be great if you’re single and ready to make a change on the job front, or if you have the kind of job you can do anywhere. But for me, see family and job, above. Not going to mess with that, although maybe in a few years!

Last fall, I shook things up in my writing by writing in a genre I thought I never would (YA), and with no speculative elements. I had fun, and I did stretch myself, even if it’s not something I’ll publish (still haven’t decided on that).

What about you – is your life boring? If so, is it in a good way or not so good? What do you do when you sense you’re in a rut? I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, January 14, 2013

Ever feel like that? I feel like that… um, on a regular basis. Pretty much every day.

Do you ever feel like this?

There is so much minutiae in our lives (don’t you love that word “minutiae?”) that it’s sometimes overwhelming. Actually, it’s often overwhelming. There are groceries to get–or in my case, since my DH does the shopping (bless him!), groceries to remember to put on the store list, or he won’t get them. This is why, as I write this, we are collecting kitchen trash in one of those little grocery store plastic bags. No one remembered to put “trash bags” on the list.

There are appointments to remember–dentists, doctors, the tax accountant. My husband’s in the process of doing some work on the garage, so there are things to remember related to that. There are school projects for our daughter, and programs we want to attend for her. There are things to do related to those appointments–medical info to collect, tax info to collect (and with three businesses, there’s a lot of that), lists of things that need to be done to the garage by the construction guy. Oh, and we’re almost out of turtle food. And will you pick up this prescription on the way home?

And that’s not even counting my to-do list relating to my books and being an author–a to-do list that’s even larger when you’re also your own publisher. I thought I had a lot to remember before I published. I’d always heard that it got worse after you published, but that’s one of those things, like having a kid, that you know mentally before, but have no idea until you have one, how much more there is to do. (And like kids, it’s very worthwhile, so I’m not complaining, just explaining.)

Add in the holidays, and there are presents to buy, parties to attend (or host, with all the additional things to remember for that), kids’ programs to see, wrapping to do, cards to buy, sign, seal and send….

Just typing that is making me stressed, and it’s over until December comes back around!

How do you manage it all?

I used to write notes. But there were problems with that. One, there ended up being notes lying all over the place. My husband still does this, and our daughter and I are constantly clearing the clutter, tiny slips of paper, used envelopes, sticky notes with a phone number or a cryptic few words scrawled on it. When I ask him if he still needs them, he almost never does, but invariably, if one gets tossed without us checking first, that’s one he still needs. As for me, when this was my MO, the biggest problem with the notes wasn’t even the clutter, but I’d lose the note.

One year my company bought me a big, thick day planner, but it was so big and thick (and heavy), it never left my desk. It did help me with stuff I had to do there, but did little that a to-do list I’d scribble on a piece of paper didn’t.

My Cozi to-do list: It’s frightening

Now we have Cozi Organizer to help, but even that’s imperfect. First, we have to remember to put something on it to begin with (trash bags?). Then, if it’s an appointment, we can put in a reminder that will ring an alert on our phone or email us at the specified amount of time before it, but that only helps when I’m actually sitting next to my phone and hear the notification when it goes off. My daughter got a tablet computer for Christmas, and one of the first apps she downloaded was Cozi. She’d used it on her computer before, but that only helped if she was actually sitting at her computer when she thought of something to add to it, or if she had her phone in hand when a text notification came in. The tablet is in her hands enough that this will help, one hopes. 😀

What do you do to rein in all the minutiae of day-to-day life? Do you take it in stride, or are you constantly in danger of forgetting something, like I am? What tools do you use to help, and how do you get the most out of them? Please tell me I’m not alone in feeling like the person in the photo!

by Jennette, December 31, 2012

Today is New Year’s Eve. Historically, this (and the real holiday, tomorrow) used to be my least-favorite holiday.

New Year’s Day was just like any Sunday in the winter when I was a kid, except that you couldn’t go anywhere because everything was closed. It was boring, because it was nothing but the parents sitting around watching football, which I was never into. Then the retailers started wising up, and realized not everyone was into football and there was money to be made from those of us who weren’t. Now everything’s open, so there’s shopping to do if you need or want something, and it’s less boring. Football is spread out for several days both before and after New Year’s Day, so that’s less of a Big Deal too.

But for many, the real holiday comes the night before, when we gather with family or friends to cheer the clock striking midnight.

New Year's Eve The allure of this, too, escaped me for many years. Of course, the big attraction for many is drinking. I was a boring, rule-abiding teen and didn’t drink. In fact, I was usually babysitting for people with glamorous parties to attend. I didn’t even get dressed up, and I drank Coke. TV was usually boring–I never liked any of the entertainment on those New Year’s Eve shows (still don’t). New Year’s Eve got better when I met my husband, and actually had someone special to kiss at the strike of midnight, but it was still just another night at the bar. When we owned the bar for over ten years, it also meant I saw little of my husband, as he was always working, and I needed to help distribute the champagne. This was okay in and of itself, but there were always the one or two PITA patrons who either tried to scam us out of an extra bottle, or who bitched because we hadn’t gotten around to them yet (everyone always got their champagne before midnight). The best part of New Year’s Eve was having my best friend from college over–there is no such thing as a dull moment with her around, especially with alcohol! 😀 But that stopped when she found a significant other of her own, and they stayed closer to home.

At any rate, all the New Year’s Eve stuff seemed a big, freakin’ deal to make over what, IMO, amounted to nothing more than swapping out the calendar.

It got better after we sold the bar. All of a sudden, my husband didn’t have to work!

We got together with friends, and went bowling a few years there. I suck at bowling, but it’s still fun. The past few years, we’ve gotten together with neighbors, either at our house or theirs. We aren’t friends with them any more (long, stupid story), so I’m not sure what we’ll do this year. I’ll leave that up to my More Sociable Half to determine.

But it doesn’t matter. Because somewhere along the way, New Year’s Day became more than getting out a new calendar, more than a day to put away Christmas stuff while my husband went somewhere to watch football.

It became a new start, a time to set goals (never resolutions for me!), a time to evaluate last year’s goals and accomplishments. I’ve revised one long-ass book and published it, written and published a short story, written another short book (and won NaNoWriMo!), and designed covers for/formatted two anthologies, plus my Saturn Society Boxed Set, and revised a third novel, which is currently with my editor. It didn’t feel like I’ve done that much, but when I list it out like that… yeah!

I’m in the process of that evaluating of goals now, and it’s exciting to see not only what I’ve done, but what’s to come. I think 2013 will be a good year.

What do you do to celebrate New Year’s Eve/Day? Is it something special to you, or just time to change the calendar? Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, December 10, 2012

I’m such a Looooooooser!

Have you ever felt like this: You’re cruising around on Facebook, clicking links, Liking posts, catching up on all your hundreds of friends’ statuses–oh, look, over there on the right, your friend just Liked something else. Your brother made a funny observation. Your friends’ baby said his first word–and it was “daddy,” your sisters’ kid just got a full-ride scholarship to an A-list college, your cousin just sold a novel–to a big, NY publisher, in a three-book deal; your friend over there just sold a zillion copies of her self-published book (which means she’ll be making a cool three-zillion dollars come Amazon Payday), your friend from high school just hit the lottery…

and you’re ready to pick up your computer and toss it through the window??

While you’re sneaking that look at Facebook as you take a short break from the same job you’ve had for years, after getting the upteenth rejection from a publisher on the book you wrote that you were sure was IT, while your self-published book molders in the five-millions in the Amazon rankings, and your kid brought home a report card full of C’s, your other kid needs to be picked up from detention, and the electric bill’s past due because it was buried in the pile of crap that never leaves the kitchen table???

Yeah, I know, me too. OK, things aren’t quite like the above paragraph, but definitely not like the first!

And it’s not just Facebook–it’s Twitter, and blogs, and Tumblr, and Pinterest…

Enough!

I’m not talking simple social media overload, I’m talking when it seems like everyone but you is doing great things, having great things happen to them, their perfect family, their awesome tons-of-money-making job, you name it. While you’re pretty much standing still.

In the old days, this could have been called Holiday Newsletter Syndrome, you know, when it seems every other Christmas card you open contains one of those newsletters where everything is wonderful and while you feel happy for your friends, you can’t help but feel like you’re a big, stagnant LOSER.

Of course, we don’t put the bad stuff in those holiday newsletters–or if we did, it’s something we gloss over and that was, of course, no fault of the writer’s–a death in the family, perhaps, “we miss her, but we’re getting through it.” And we don’t usually put that stuff on social media either, because who wants to read a whiner? “(Sigh) another rejection” or, “my publisher’s dropping me because I didn’t even come close to earning out my advance,” or “well, that’s nice for her; I sold a whopping three ebooks last month on Amazon.” It’s easy to tell ourselves people don’t post stuff like this, but it’s still tough not to feel like a big, stagnant LOOOOOOOSER.

In the 2004-6 or so, I read a lot of blogs–industry blogs, and a lot of authors’ blogs, which back then, were “Follow me on my road to publication!” And over those couple of years, many of those authors did indeed sell to publishers. So many, eventually, that it seemed everyone was writing something like: “Oh, look! My contracts arrived today.” Or, “Squeeee! I got cover art and it’s beyoooooootiful!” or “I hit the best seller list again this week!”

It got to the point that with each blog post like that I read (and it seemed most of them were like that, for a while), I got more and more bummed out. It wasn’t that I begrudged those authors their succes; I just wanted a little of something like it for myself.

Finally, I realized it had to stop–not the successes, or even the blog posts, but me reading them. I unsubscribed from one blog after another, until I stopped reading blogs altogether.

Most of the blogs I read now are either strictly industry-focused, or they’re authors blogging about something besides writing. Some of them are further along than me in their careers, some are just getting started. Their blogs are fun to read, and it’s fun to cheer them on. Some of them come to my blog and cheer for me, too, and that means a lot.

And guess what? Facebook’s the same way. Sometimes it’s one big cheering section, other time’s it’s better to just step away, sometimes because of time constraints, sometimes when Holiday Newsletter Syndrome threatens. But I don’t stay away for long.

What about you? Do you ever get Holiday Newsletter Syndrome? Ever need to step away from Facebook, blogs, Twitter, whatever? Or does it roll off you, no matter how far along you are(n’t) in your career? Please tell me I’m not alone! And if you haven’t already, maybe Like me on Facebook? 😀

by Jennette, November 26, 2012

While I work on my book for NaNoWriMo, here’s another blast from the past… IOW, a post from way back when, in 2006, when publishing was a different world… yet it wasn’t.

This topic’s been brewing in my mind ever since the 2005 RWA National conference, and a young writer’s thoughtful post yesterday reminded me of it. At the 2005 conference, one of the keynote speakers was Debbie Macomber, who gave a poignant talk about her struggles to become a published writer. During the journey, she decided she’d never become a published author unless she took a chance and quit her day job to write full time. She gave herself a year (if I recall) and told her husband she’d go back to work if she hadn’t sold by then.

It wasn’t easy (is it ever?). She struggled to pay the bills. Right before she sold (which was also right before her self-imposed deadline), she struggled to come up with the postage to mail her submission to Silhouette. Though we are talking back in the eighties (again, I think), that couldn’t have been more than ten bucks. Can you imagine not being able to come up with ten bucks, with having to choose whether to eat lunch, or mail your manuscript? I can’t. Yet plenty of writers deal with this. Even more (published and not) have difficulty coming up with $75 for their RWA dues each year, or to fund attending National conference.

Do we have to struggle financially to sell? I don’t think so.

Perhaps the pressure gave Debbie Macomber that extra push to produce, to hone her craft, to excel. It would have the opposite effect on me. For me, this kind of stress is burdensome and stifling. I would not be able to produce. The quality of my work would suffer if I was worried about having the electricity shut off, or feeling guilty because we were eating ramen again instead of steak (or even chicken).

My late father in law was a gambler. My husband’s childhood memories include getting steak for dinner because the Lakers won – and eating macaroni and cheese (again) when they didn’t. My husband is never comfortable without having considerable savings. Many full-time authors still struggle to pay the bills, and live off of credit card debt. My husband would not be able to sleep at night if this were our case. Neither could I.

Granted, plenty of full-time writers are supported by a spouse or by retirement income, and while they may not have the standard of living they’d have with a regular paycheck, they don’t struggle financially. I was without a job for two years, thanks to the dot-com bust. We got by fine, but I always felt a cloud hovering over my head because we didn’t save anything during that time, much to my husband’s discomfort. Because I felt obligated to help in any way possible, I did all the child care and taxiing during that time, and often ran errands for my husband’s business. I ended up not producing any more writing than I did while working for a paycheck. I did freelance graphic design work to alleviate the burden somewhat, but the fact is, it was a huge relief when the current day job fell into my lap.

Many people posted blogs last week about what they are thankful for this Thanksgiving. Of course I’m thankful for family, friends, home, health and all that. I’m also thankful for my day job. It allows me to focus on my writing during my writing time, without worrying about credit card debt piling up or not being able to pay the mortgage. I’m fortunate that my day job is fairly low-stress, pays decently, and provides health insurance without requiring me to take work home. There are plenty of writers who work crappy-paying jobs to pay the bills while they try to sell, because they can’t get anything else that wouldn’t take too much time away from writing. These are the folks I really feel for. I have worked hard over many years to excel in my fields – graphic design and software development – but I still realize I’m very fortunate.

Each writer can only determine for her/himself which is the right path. The young woman linked above is smart to go to college and plan on a career where she can earn a good living. You can’t count on ever making a penny on writing. Sure, it would be great to get paid for the stuff I make up, and yes, I think my work is worth being paid for, but realistically, the odds are long. I don’t plan to quit the day job when I do sell (thinking positively), as I know how low the advances typically are for a first-time romance author. Plenty of successful authors continue to work a day job. For now, I consider my writing a second job. It works for me.

Without the suffering.

What do you think? Are writers with a hard luck story more deserving of success in their art? What is it about the whole “starving artist” thing that makes it seem so? How much are you willing to suffer for your art, whatever that may be? I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, November 12, 2012

Note from Jennette: This post was originally posted on March 22, 2006, before eb00ks were a truly viable means of reaching readers, unless you wrote erotica. So the publishing industry details are majorly outdated now, but the sentiment could still ring true. Oddly enough, I’m now published by a means that back in 2006, would have been considered desperation, or a last resort, and I feel more published now than I did then. Anyway, here goes…

A lot of authors are blogging about their first books this week. The book I’m currently working on is my fourth. The one I’m shopping to agents is my third.

The second will never see the light of day. But the first… I guess it’s time I came out about it. I was an e-book author.

I say “was” because my book went out of contract two years ago and has not been available since. I was published, once. My book sold all of two dozen copies.

A couple months ago, an RWA-chapter sister reminded me that I’m published. My response? “But I don’t feel published.”

Don’t take this the wrong way. E-published is real published, assuming it’s with a royalty-paying, non-subsidy publisher, which mine was. But my book never felt real-published to me. Maybe it was the sales (or lack thereof), I don’t know.

I wrote my first book in 1999. Nothing to Hide is a romantic suspense with a paranormal element (empathic hero). I queried Harlequin – it was targeted to their Intrigue line – in February of 2000. Got a request for the full one week after I sent my query.

Two months later I got a form rejection. (As well I should have.) I was comforted by the fact that I didn’t have to wait a year or more for it, as many writers do. And heck, my only goal when I’d started writing it was simply to see if I could finish something. So I’d gotten much further than I thought.

At the time, I didn’t know of anyone else who took romantic suspense of less than 90,000 words, and my book was only about 75,000. (How hard that is to imagine now! )

I let it sit. Started to work on a couple other things, one of which I never finished, the other of which was the abortive beginning of the ms I’m now shopping to agents.

A year later, I got that first book back out. I thought it was good. I thought it should be published.

So I queried an e-publisher. A royalty-paying, non-subsidy e-publisher who’d been in business since 1996 and is still around now – no small feat in today’s business climate.

Almost right away, they asked to see the whole book.

A month later, they emailed me a contract.

I was thrilled for a short time, but made myself forget about it, and concentrate on my current WIP. After all, they’d told me my book wouldn’t be released until the following April (this was in July of 2001).

Even the book cover is outdated!

I designed the cover myself, hoping to accelerate the release, or at least to ensure the cover art wouldn’t be the cause of a delay.

They liked my cover and used it.

The book still didn’t come out until June of 2002.

Between the time I signed my contract and the book was released, several things happened:

The dot-com bubble burst.
I got laid off from my job.
The promise of the e-market was starting to sour.
Distributors who’d carried e-books were no longer doing so.
My publisher found Amazon’s business model unprofitable for them, so they stopped selling through Amazon.
The e-market was also maturing, and it was becoming apparent what kind of books that market wanted: erotica and erotic romance.

Romances like those readers could find on bookstore shelves didn’t sell well as e-books. In fact, I believe e-books’ time still hasn’t come*, other than for erotica/erotic romance.

My publisher had started to pick up on this last fact too, and between the time I signed my contract and the time my book was released, they’d changed their business focus to reflect this, and the books they promoted the most aggressively were the erotic romances.

My book contained only one love scene, and it was more sensual than erotic. So my book sold all of two dozen copies. After two years, my publisher released me from my contract,** along with several other authors who were no longer submitting new material to them and whose work wasn’t selling.

I was OK with this. I understood the publisher’s reasons for changing their business focus. And by this time, I realized Nothing to Hidewasn’t that good of a book. I mean, it had tea scenes*** for dog’s sake!

OTOH, I still don’t think it was a bad book. It got some very nice reviews. It even finaled in the EPPIEs.

So that’s the story behind how I once was published, now I’m not. I guess the main reason I consider myself as unpublished is because this is not something I can use as a publishing credit when querying agents or editors. If it had decent sales, it would be.

What it comes down to is I lost patience – with learning craft, and in submitting. I wanted an easy way to publication and I got it, for what it was worth.

Which isn’t a whole lot.

If you’re considering e-publishing, don’t let me dissuade you. I’m not dissing the medium. But do research your publishers carefully, and know their markets – as in, their readership.

* I do think it will come, as technology improves and becomes less expensive. But who knows when?

** This is when it’s actually a good thing to have designed my own cover – if I wanted to sell this book myself, the cover is mine. Other authors who were released and wanted to sell their own books had to get new cover designs. I designed a few of them, when I was freelancing between full-time jobs.

*** Scenes where a character is doing nothing but sitting, sipping tea, and thinking. Yawn.

What about you? If you’re an author, have you ever felt like a fraud? And whether or not you’re an author, do you read ebooks? If so, when did ebooks start seeming like “real” books to you?

by Jennette, October 22, 2012

No, I’m not talking about that lunch meat that someone forgot to put back into the fridge, that you really shouldn’t eat. I’m talking about way back when (in my case, at least), when one of the simplest, most unintentional things makes us feel terrible: being Left Out.

If you were like me, and were the slowest runner in your class, you know all about this. Being the last one picked for anything in gym class. Being the only one guaranteed to strike out when forced to play softball (because yeah, when you’re as bad at it as I was, it sucked). Being the unpopular kid, the one that didn’t get invited to the cool kids’ parties. Of course now, I look back and think, I wouldn’t have enjoyed those parties anyway (talk to people I don’t know? who were all drinking when I wasn’t?). But back then, it was just being Left Out. If I were a holiday TV special, I’d be Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

It happened in college too. See, freshman year, I was an English major. Writing was something I’d always wanted to do. Then over the summer, my dad had the “what are you going to do for a job with this” talk with me. Since I didn’t want to be a starving writer, and I liked art too, I changed majors. It worked out well, because the way the courses were set up, I could cram four years’ worth of major courses into three years – and graduate on time.

I met wonderful friends in some of my art classes. They were all a year younger than me, freshmen when I was a sophomore. But in my other art classes, the ones that were all sophomores, most people already knew each other from a year of being in class together already. Cliques had formed. Cliques I might have been a part of in the classes where everyone was new like me, but in the second-year classes, I was left out. Since I had my own artsy friends, I didn’t care, and unlike elementary and high school, it wasn’t like the students in the older classes weren’t nice to me – they were. I just wasn’t really one of them. Having my own band of misfit friends helped.

You’d think this stuff stops after we get out of school. It doesn’t. People can be clique-y in workplaces (thank goodness, not mine!) and really, anywhere people congregate, even online.

More recently, this has happened to me in online classes. Several years ago, one of my RWA chapters offered an online workshop on query letters, taught by a big NYT Bestselling Author. Every one who took the class and participated got a query letter critique by the NYTBA.

Except me. By the time I found my big girl panties and emailed the workshop coordinator to ask about it, the NYTBA had left the building. So no critique for me. It was a free class, and I already had a good query letter, so it wasn’t a big deal, but…. yeah. That Left Out Feeling never goes away, even when we can’t imagine that it’s intentional.

I was Left Out in another online workshop a couple months ago – mine was the only homework assignment the instructor didn’t address in the class. I still got a twinge of that Left Out Feeling, even though I’d taken workshops with this author before, and knew it was simply an oversight. This time I found my big girl panties right away, so I emailed her. Not only did she post my assignment, but several others in the class gave me some very nice feedback, and the instructor offered me a future workshop for free.

Yet that Left Out Feeling never stays far away from misfits! Just last week, it hit me again in a networking group I’m in on Facebook. I’d signed up for an activity offered by one of my peeps, yet when the schedule came out, I wasn’t on the list. This lady’s a class act, someone I’d interacted with plenty of times before, and she’d scheduled peeps whose credentials were as unimpressive as mine, so I figured it had to be a mistake, and posted.

It turned out, it was a mistake – mine! Yes, I’d signed up, but I hadn’t seen the instructions to provide her with my email address – d’oh!

Sometimes when we get Left Out, it’s our own fault!

So speak up, jump in… and who knows, you may be Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and end up doing something very special!

What about you – were you Left Out as a kid? What about now? Do you still get that Left Out Feeling, even when you know it’s unintentional? I’d love to hear from you! Let me know I’m not alone – or if I’m just too neurotic!

by Jennette, October 8, 2012

As an author, every time I put a book down, I try to learn from the experience. By analyzing why didn’t that book work for me, I can hopefully pick up some tips on what not to do in my own books in the future.

It’s also something fun to discuss with readers (again, to learn) and useful to discuss with authors. Not the author who wrote the book in question, although that’s exactly what ended up happening last time I wrote a post like this. No, it’s honestly just for my own learning. I don’t want to call anyone out – last time, the author recognized her book, and she was a top-notch, class act, but the next one might not be. So with that in mind, I’m going to leave out the details, and focus on the problems.

I’d run across this book a few times and it looked like something I might enjoy, so I downloaded the sample. And boy am I glad I just got the sample, because I couldn’t even get through that. Actually, I caught myself starting to skim by page 2.

I can’t dig a book with too much dumping – of background information and baggage, that is

It wasn’t badly written. The author has a firm command of language, and I didn’t notice any problems with grammar, spelling, typos, or bad formatting (and note that some of the worst formatting problems come from the big publishers). S/he also had a good grasp on point-of-view, and evoking sympathy for the characters. But it just wasn’t enough to draw me in. It took a couple chapters for me to figure out why, but once I did, it was face-palmingly obvious: those two chapters were full of backstory dumps, repetition, and cliche situations.

Quite a bit of information was repeated, sometimes twice, as if the author wasn’t confident enough in the reader and had to give us a nudge, nudge, get it? There were also repeated words and phrases to the point that I once saw the echo phrase three times on one page – and that’s on my Android phone. It was so bad it got a song stuck in my head. It had some other problems too, but the repetition and infodumps were the main reason I stopped reading.

Who knows, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just pickier, being a writer myself, and one who’s been at this thing for years (I’ve been writing seriously since 1999, and messing around with writing since I was a kid). Romance novels are especially prone to backstory dumps – big, long explanations or flashbacks into a character’s past – given that the main conflict in a romance novel is between the female and male lead, and it’s often this kind of emotional baggage that keeps the characters apart for most of the book. And since it’s such a common issue, it’s one that many romance-specific craft workshops and articles touch on. So maybe I’m more sensitive to it because of this.

In the author’s defense, my early efforts had these problems too, so maybe it’s just early work (it may or may not be – OTOH, some people never learn). Either way, eliminating repetition and the other issues are all skills that can be developed.

What do you think? Have you put any books down recently? Have you ever put a book down because it was too cliched, repetitious, or had too much backstory or worldbuilding infodumps that stop the forward action? If you’re a writer, did your early work have these problems?

by Jennette, September 24, 2012

My daughter spends a lot of time on the Internet. In fact, it’s one of her favorite ways to relax and take a break between homework assignments and school projects. Her favorite place online is Tumblr, and she follows many bloggers there. She also hangs out in the Loli fashion community, is a devoted fan of Homestuck, and keeps up on Facebook, where she occasionally posts a status update or shares a funny picture.

Yet for all the time she spends on the Loli forums and on Tumblr, she never comments. Ever.

Anyone who runs a blog or other online community knows that out of the people who visit a site, only a fraction leave a comment. Talking with my daughter solidified why.

Fear.

Yep, pure and simple fear. Of saying something stupid. Of inadvertently offending someone. Of Liking something you might honestly like, but don’t want associated with your online presence, like the political posts that are all that is on Facebook lately, it seems. Sometimes it’s the simple worry that “I don’t have anything to contribute to this conversation,” so we don’t comment, out of fear that someone will call us out for that. (And in some less-friendly venues, they will.) It’s sort of like a reverse social anxiety – instead of being afraid to go out lest someone make fun of us to our face, we’re afraid of looking stupid while we’re sitting alone in our own homes.

I totally get this. Because you see, I used to be a lurker. For all of the above reasons. And yes, I’ve posted stuff online that didn’t come out right – although hopefully that hasn’t happened in a long time. Then I read Kristen Lamb’s We Are Not Alone and took her class, where she convinced authors of the need to be accessible to readers by having good content online… and the need to connect with each other. And you know what? It’s fun! And so far, I don’t think I’ve made too much an idiot of myself.

That’s not to say it’s been easy. The urge to just lurk is a temptation I still fight daily. I’m not an outgoing person offline – I’m much more likely to hang on the fringe of a group and just listen. Online, I’m pretty much the same. So it’s taken effort, and is a work in progress.

What about you? Are you a reformed lurker, or has participating always come easily to you? What are some of the things you’ve done to make it easier to get out there and participate in conversation? Have you ever said something stupid online? If you lurk for some other reason, what is it?

And to all you lurkers, this is an invitation to pop in- no need to worry about if you’re “contributing” to the conversation – just say hi, if you want. As long as what you post isn’t rude, disrespectful or spammy, I’ll approve it. Whether you’re a lurker or not, I’d love to hear from you!