Realizing Connectedness

In this cyber age, connectedness means something different than it did a decade or more ago. Definitions change to fit the culture, times, and influences of the day. I've lived long enough to have multiple definitions for the word that means having part/elements logically linked together.

One definition also relates family members as connected by blood or adoption. I have always lived by that definition. Connectedness within chemical compounds or atomic distribution is also applicable. 

Links through philosophical beliefs or theories could apply. Today we also have connectedness within the cyber world.

How connected are you? How many social networks do you belong to? How many do you believe you need to belong to as a writer for a successful brand/platform/name? Or, do you think you have to be connected at all?

The rule of thumb in the business world, whether on Wall Street, in Washington D.C., or in Hollywood, declares; you’re only as important/influential as those whom you know, whom you’re connected to. All things being equal, who do you know?

Writers are told each day that platform matters to our career paths and futures. We’re advised to join networks, make connections, so that the circle of our influence continues to move ever-outward with new contacts and their networks. (I wonder if there will come a time when everyone in the world will be connected directly to every other person on the planet, if only in name.

If that were the case, would there be any influence at all for anyone? Each person would have as much backing as everyone else. Where would that leave us?

You’re probably wondering why I began this thought path. In doing Robert Brewer’s Author Platform Challenge this month, I realized this morning how much of the process I’ve already gone through and completed.

I have my networks in place, my Facebook, and Twitter accounts active and gaining members. I have my blogs, obviously. The thing I’m waiting to learn is how I can get these networks to work for me with positive changes which continue to build each week. I’d also like to know how to use the blogs for creating my own  readership, which continues to grow. Along with growing blogs, I’d like to know how to make them as enjoyable as possible and how to get them to pay me.

I’m not thinking of huge amounts of money here. I am talking about payoffs in book sales, etc. I’m hoping the appropriate tasks come along soon. I suppose the most useful piece of info for me is how to do all I need to do without using massive amounts of time in the process. Right now, time is something in short supply around here.

While I get myself all squared away here with the platform development challenge, tell me how you handle your own platform. Do you have one? If so, what is it and how long have you been building it? What are your goals for your career and do you think your platform will help you achieve those goals?

Leave me a comment. Tell about how you’re working all of this modern writing business connectedness aspect. I’m interested in knowing what others are doing with their work and how their efforts are paying off for them.

Until later,

Claudsy

Sirens Aren’t Only For Emergencies

Whether you’re a blogger or novelist or merely jot down letters that go to Aunt Tilly, you’re answering a call of some kind. People listen with heads, hearts, and ears. The only thing that differs from one time to the next is what they’re listening to.

And if a writer listens hard enough, she might just come to special territories yet uncharted.

Self-Discovery

When I got serious about writing a few years ago, I thought I’d stick to one genre and deviate only by age group. Children’s writing allowed for that choice. Along the way to seriousness I discovered many things.

After working on short stories for children, ages second grade and younger, I realized that I don’t have the knack of writing for very young children. I like those stories and books written for the age bracket. It hurt to learn that writing for that age wasn’t my long suit. I can’t think in the same vein they do. I’m much better creating stories for older children.

Along the way, too, I learned that I liked working in non-fiction more than fiction, which scared me silly. There are many exciting ideas out there in the real world that could excite a child. I wanted to be one of those who excited and entertained them with such stories. At the time I had a marvelous editor, who had faith in me and told me that my strength was non-fiction.

Why is it that other writers recognize our strengths long before we can?

In addition to that, I began writing for adults, both non-fiction and fiction. Poetry came into the mix, as well. I was one of THOSE writers; I found true pleasure only when writing in multiple genres for many audiences at the same time.

Enter the Dabbler

My nemesis had returned. I was a true dabbler, with fingers and toes in mud pies everywhere, never satisfied any other way. I should have known. I’d dabbled in hundreds of things during my life. As soon as I mastered them, I was off and running toward something new and different.

Was my nomadic lifestyle trait going to take over every aspect of my life? It seemed so. Knowing my past, I could attempt a prediction of my future in writing.  I studied and wrote for children and young adults when I began. I moved on to study more and to write for other writers. I segued into poetry only to find a different type of joy and expression. From there, I jumped over to the journalistic side of the house with local interest pieces and travel.

What Now?

Now the most serious work begins. I can finish my journalistic studies and move onto my first book in that arena. While I work on that with my sister and photographer partner, I can split the rest of my time with work on poetry projects, plotting and preliminary work on a women’s novel. When time allows, I’ll dabble in two different fantasy worlds for YA. Odd moments will find me working on articles and short stories for magazines and Yahoo.

A couple of years may pass before I get all of those projects done. I’ve learned a few things from NaNoWriMo, though. Plotting doesn’t take forever any more, since I learned how to plot from a few experts.

Besides, every writer knows that the initial writing doesn’t have to take years for a book today. It’s the rewrites, tweaking, querying, grabbing an agent’s attention and contract, and then marketing it to publishers and readers. That’s where the time lays waiting. Unless, of course, you’re building major universes to live in like some of the greats have done.

I’m also realistic enough to know that some of those projects will fall by the wayside. I’m doubly blessed in that I have terrific writer friends who will give me a good swift boot where it counts if I don’t do the best job I can on any project. They’ll hold my hand when my characters turn traitor and abandon me in the midst of a crisis. Laughter will take me by surprise when I’m most in need of it.

A writer’s circumstances ebb and flow with the Moon’s cycles as do the tides. Procrastination wars with frantic productivity and creative exuberance. I’ve climbed into my baby writer’s rowboat and placed my hands on the oars. My only decision of the moment concerns which port-o-call holds the greatest allure. Muse sirens call to me.

I cast my glance toward a distant shoreline named Journey and begin with the first stroke. I have heard that the destination isn’t as important as steps taken to get there. Each stroke of the oars will move me ever closer, but what will each stroke reveal along the way? That’s a question that can only be answered as they happen.

Until we meet here again,

Claudsy