Saturday, April 16, 2011

A to Z Challenge Day 14: Novel writing and networking

I have to say, I'm glad today is Saturday.  Probably not for the reason most of you are glad it's Saturday since I work from home and the weekends don't generally make much difference to me, but because it's Saturday, that means I get a break from blogging tomorrow for the A to Z Blog Challenge.  I'm loving it and having a lot of fun, but things have been so crazy the past few days that I haven't had time to visit blogs and I'm getting behind, so tomorrow I can (hopefully) take some time to catch up with visiting and comment, and plan next week's entries, too.

Novel writing - I wrote my first novel when I was 18/19, my second when I was 20 and my third when I was about 24.  I've started a few others over the years but have abandoned them along the way.  The second novel I wrote was one that I love.  I was really proud of it and thought it had a lot of potential, I just knew it needed to be better, and also much longer before I did anything with it.  Last month, I finally went back to it and started working on it again and I'm having a lot of fun with it.  I had originally written it as an adult romance but almost from the beginning of revisions, I realized it would be better as a young adult romance.  Luckily I don't have to change much about the characters themselves, I just have to catch all the places I mentioned their ages, change their occupations, a few of the facts about their pasts, etc.

Not only does the young adult genre work for the characters and the story, I've discovered that there are a lot of young adult book readers, reviewers and bloggers out there, which made the decision to change the book a lot simpler.  I know that even as an adult, I love reading young adult books, and I know many other adults who read them too.  In fact, I know more adults who have read series like Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games than I know teens who have.  Not that my book is anything like those - there's no paranormal aspect whatsoever - those just happen to be three of my favorite YA series.  So I think young adult novels have almost a wider audience than just straight adult romances because both teens and adults read them.

Which brings me to networking.  I didn't know much about networking until late last year when I started writing articles online and learned that networking is at least half the job.  You can write the best articles in the world and if no one reads them, it doesn't get you anywhere.  So I've learned to use Facebook, Twitter, my blog and all kinds of other social media and bookmarking sites to help direct people to my articles.  I'm learning something new every day and it's good because once I'm finished with my book, especially if I decide to go the route of e-publishing, I'm going to have to know how to network.  Again, you can write the best book in the world, and if no one knows about it, they're not going to buy it.  I'm hoping I'll be able to recruit some help along the way - I already have a few friends who have told me they'll help me promote my book - but I'm hoping I can make friends with some of the gazillion book bloggers out there so I can do book tours, guests posts, giveaways, contests, things like that.  It's an exciting and terrifying prospect, but I can't wait!

Since I talked about my brother Jamie and my nephew Logan in my J and L posts, I want to take a minute to talk about my older nephew Noah.  I can clearly remember the first time I saw him almost 9 years ago - it was love at first sight.  We weren't able to be at the hospital when he was born (I was in the delivery room for Logan's birth), so they brought him to our apartment and I remember just sitting on the floor in front of his carrier and staring at him for an hour.  He was asleep, and so tiny and fragile-looking that I was afraid to pick him up.  He was - and is - such a joy to our entire family.  He came over last Saturday and I took him to the park - we rarely have time just the two of us, so it was great.  We played on the swings and slides, kicked a ball around, and took a bunch of pictures and videos of each other before coming home for a pj and movie night.


Today's N band...no laughing...is New Kids on the Block.  Yesterday, I said I'd been a fan of Meat Loaf since I was about 6 and that's about the age I started liking New Kids, too.  I was heartbroken when they broke up, and ecstatic when they got back together.  I'd never gotten the chance to see them live because I was too young, but a friend who knew and understood my love for them managed to get us tickets to see them.  It was a dream come true for me, and one of the best nights of my life, especially since we were in the second row, almost close enough to touch them.

Classic New Kids on the Block - Step by Step

What do you do to network?  Do you think you're good at it or that you could find ways to improve?  What's your favorite social media site?  As always, all comments are welcome and appreciated and I promise I'll start visiting blogs again this weekend!

3 comments:

  1. I'm getting behind in my reading for A-Z too! Is there any way to keep up and not go insane ? :D

    Followed you here via twitter...we've hit the halfway mark, all the best for the rest of the challenge!

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  2. I feel you. It's been quite the challenge keeping up with writing blogs, commenting, following. And then there's the day job, the family, the other stuff. It's amazing any of us find time to write!

    I use facebook and blogging to network. I can't seem to get into Twitter. I'm on it, but I just can't seem to keep up. I have aspirations of tweeting more over the summer (I'm a teacher), but that's a lofty goal. :)

    New Kids - smile.

    Your nephew is adorable. My son is about to be seven and I treasure every moment with him. They grow up TOO fast.

    Hopping over from A-Z. Nice to meet you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I tweet and blog - that's it for social media. Maybe I'd put in even more effort later on, like if I had a book coming out, but right now the writing still comes first.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting Ramblings of a Daydreamer! I love hearing what you have to say, and I appreciate every single comment. I hope to see you here again soon! ♥
~Marie

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