A Leap of Faith

 by Charlotte Hinger

I'm building on Johnny D. Boggs's blog this week. He wrote about a series of seemingly bad breaks that were catalysts to better developments. He's at the top of his game today and a multiple award winning author. In every conceivable genre. Except songwriting, I think. This man has awesome credentials.

He's where he is today because he didn't quit. I've read a number of articles he's written about writing and at no point have I read that he considered quitting. 

Once in a while when I give talks or presentations I come across a person who tells me they submitted a manuscript--either a book or a short story--once, and if they were rejected, they never sent it out again. 

That's fatal, of course. Writing is no arena for the faint-hearted. Yet, I remember, I remember, when I was beginning, when my heart was in my throat, and my anxiety increased every hour while I waited for the postman. This was in the days when manuscripts were always mailed. I printed my books on pristine white paper of a certain weight and mailed them off in a double box manufactured especially for manuscripts. My labels were perfectly typed.

I decided it was the secret to eternal life. I couldn't imagine dying when I had a manuscript off to a publishing house. The suspense would keep me alive forever. This of course, was a lifetime ago, when editors always responded to submissions. Usually, negatively, and with a form rejection. But it was a response, nevertheless. 

It was possible for editors to participate in this kind of courtesy because they were not inundated with the insane volume of submissions they deal with today. At the time my first novel was published, there were about 55,000 novels published a year in this country. With the invention of the internet and ebooks, self publishing has exploded and the annual tally of novels is close to four million. No wonder personal comments from editors are a thing of the past. 

Nevertheless, this truth will always remain: those who succeed never quit. 

The Perils of Blogging

I’m tired tonight. This blog will be very short. It’s not that I can’t think of anything at all to write. It’s that I’ve learned to be frightened of what I will write.

For me, writing is a morning function. That’s when words come easily and writing is a joyful experience. I’ve learned to do non-fiction writing in the afternoon because it’s a different process. It’s much more analytical, but even then it’s easy for me to become careless. When I blog, things can go wrong in a hurry.

Some time back, I completed a post for BlackPast, the premier go-to site for those interested in African American or African history. The editor, Dr. Quintard Taylor, who invented this site caught a really embarrassing error I had made regarding a date. Normally I would have caught it at once. This site is approaching 3 million readers!! During last year's Black History Month we had over 50,000 readers in a single day.

Because I am a morning person, whenever I have written a really sensitive email where the wording is important, I always always let it rest overnight. Often the wording could be altered or more explanatory. Occasionally, this kind of communication survives the cold scrutiny of daylight.

I’m convinced that social media can be one of the most dangerous trap of all. Twice now, in a state of fatigue, I’ve let some little zinger go. I can’t remember one, but the first had to do with stupid comment during the last presidential election. I do not hesitate to let people know I’m a Democrat, but it wasn’t necessary to incur the wrath of the whole Republican Party. Especially a particular niece. If I had had all my wits gathered around me it wouldn’t have happened.

I'm increasingly cautious in this rancorous political climate. I hear there are a number of groups working to find ways to heal the divisions in this country. That's a good thing and more power to them. 

A lot of writers just hate to blog. I don’t. I enjoy reading them and I love making friends with the reading public.

However, I have not made one whit of progress on one of my stern New Year’s Resolutions. That was/is to blog ahead of time and to have some other blogs saved back for emergencies. I need to discipline myself to have some blogs in reserve.

Working tired takes another toll. I’ve noticed that I’ve developed a inner scoldiness (yes Spellcheck I know that’s not a word) when I’m not working. A nagging inner voice that insists I shouldn’t be enjoying myself when I could be working.

Sourness expands!

The Next Big Thing

We writers are always getting hit on the head about the need for marketing. You can't turn around without tripping on yet another promotional idea that you must try. Fundamentally we want to reach new readers while keeping in touch with our stalwart fans. To that end, over the years different platforms and venues have come and gone. I cringe when I see my first promotional attempts on the Internet because they list my contact info on Myspace. How's that for dated? Back then, my agent was constantly browbeating me to find new fans on Myspace and get my titles and name out there. About the same time a group of urban fantasy writers that I belonged to, The League of Reluctant Adults, was all set to launch our blog. It was supposed to be a sophisticated operation with fan forums for every member. Then Facebook came along and Myspace sank faster than the Titanic. Few of our fans stuck with the League of Reluctant Adults and through an unspoken consensus, we contributors abandoned ship. The blog remains in cyberspace like a derelict Flying Dutchman.

Another promotional shtick was the infamous book trailer. I remember my agent and editor at the time breathing down my neck for a book trailer.  Since most book trailers were lucky to get a hundred views, I tried something different. My son Emil is a talented stop-motion animator and we collaborated on two Lego trailers, Vampire Lego Movie and Jailbait Zombie, the latter of which includes a cameo of me. Each accumulated over 150K views, which is far better than average for a book trailer. But did those views translate into sales? A tiny bit, perhaps.

Some of my writer friends tried engaging fans through video blogs but those didn't gain traction. Talking about writing and presenting book reviews in video format wasn't very appealing unless you had a compelling presence across many other interests.

Currently, Facebook is my primary means of reaching out to fans. I post my appearances at cons and pimp whatever new work I or fellow writers might have. When Twitter began I spent time there but didn't get much attention. Today I only visit Twitter about twice a week. My account on Instagram stalled because of the constant need for new visual constant and I couldn't keep up. Venues like Snapchat I haven't bothered with.

Ironically, some writer buddies have pulled back from their social media platforms. Online discussions have devolved into political flame wars about pretty much everything and those can suck the life out of your day. Plus, you can get tossed into Internet jail for violating "community standards," whatever those happen to be at the time. And sadly, many of my women writer friends have shut down their accounts because of stalkers and harassment.

So what will be the new thing? I knew you would ask. Here's my learned opinion. I dunno.