Learning from Jason Wright

I reviewed Recovering Charles by Jason Wright on my blog yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised, and impressed, to see that Jason Wright left a comment.

He's a busy man. A NY Times bestselling author. A husband. A dad. He has plenty to do, but he took the time to read a review by some unknown blogger and then went a step further and left a comment.

What does that say to me? He cares about his readers. He's willing to take the time to contact readers even though he's a popular author. He's putting forth an effort to connect with his audience.

As we seek to build a readership for our books, we can learn from Jason Wright. We can put forth the effort to connect with readers. We should be diligent in supporting those who read and review our books. We should listen to what our readers say and apply what we learn from them to our works in progress. And, even when we're on the NY Times bestselling list, we should always be humble enough to realize that it's our readers who put us there.

Two Ladies in Red

by Shirley Bahlmann
It was with great anticipation that I hurried to get ready for our author visit last Tuesday in Ephraim, Utah. I flung my "Eeyore University" t-shirt on the bed and pulled on a classic black t-shirt and festive red cotton vest. I thought Christmas colors would be appropriate for greeting the author of "The Santa Letters."
When Stacy Gooch Anderson popped out of her car, I saw that she wore a beautiful shimmering red blouse. I love sparkles. She looked gorgeous. I had to have my picture taken with her! (I know it's blurry, but you don't see any wrinkles on me, do you? DO YOU? That's what I thought. Boy, am I ever tall... I hope I remembered my 24-hour deodorant.)
It was delightful to have Stacy speak to my writing group first, and then to the community who gathered in the conference room. (I didn't get to hear that one, since I was rescuing my son from his locked car at work twelve miles away.) Stacy sold 35 books to grateful attendees, and handed out door prizes she brought with special messages on each one, putting us all in the Christmas spirit even though it was before Halloween!
Lastly, she and her husband, Brad, insisted on helping me carry things to my car, even though it was 9:00 p.m. before they left for home. Ho, ho, ho. They live what's in Stacy's book. And I was privileged to meet them both.

Kill Your Darlings

Kill Your Darlings

By Kimberly Jensen

"Kill Your Darlings" is a piece of writing advice given by horror writer Stephen King in his book "On Writing-a memoir of the craft." I devoured this book and found it as entertaining as I did useful. I have read many books "on writing" that give sound advice on sentence structure, adjectives, character development and such, but none have the "in your face truth" that Stephen King gives on the craft. He says he has never once written a word with the intention of making money. That's easy for a guy to say who recieved over $600,000 for his first novel. But he does give good and entertaining advice, morbid as it may sound. By "Killing Your Darlings" he means you may love your work, be passionate about your story, but it really is a sticker, if you look close enough at it and from an objective point of view. You can still love your "darling" (story) but it's time to kill it and move on. Do you have any darlings?