The Extra and the Ordinary

The princess looked at her more closely. “Tell me,” she resumed, “are you of royal blood?”

“Better than that, ma’am,” said Dorothy. “I came from Kansas.”

(from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum)

A few weeks ago, during an author visit to a group of sixth through eighth graders, one boy raised his hand and asked me, “What’s it like to be rich and famous?” I had been warned by experienced authors that this is one of the standard questions, though it’s sometimes phrased, “How much money do you make?” Ah, kids get right to the point, don’t they?

So I suppressed my guffaw and answered as best I could, trying to convey the truth: the publisher makes most of the money on each book sold. (Publishers also have lots of expenses.) I’m neither rich nor famous. Most writers aren’t.

But the boy had seen the PR on my bookmark that says I had a bestseller at one time. Years ago, but still . . . Was I not rich and famous, he wanted to know. I tried to explain that those sales numbers accumulated over the years – and then I dodged further questioning by calling on someone else.

Thinking back on it later, I had to admit that the boy was partially right. I’ve touched the hem of “rich and famous,” and I know some of the downside. You can easily feel like a commodity, the cash cow, a product instead of a person. Often what gets lost in the shuffle is you. People relate to the you that they imagine you to be, and since they’ll never really know you . . . well, they’ll never really know you.

Rich is fleeting. So is famous. But while you’re carrying that backpack, it can get awfully heavy. It takes a good deal of grace to carry it well. Rich and famous is the extra. Sure, it means that people like your writing, and it gives publishers the confidence to offer you another book deal. But the real satisfaction comes from the ordinary: the actual writing, the working of the intellectual and emotional puzzle that becomes a book.

For those of you who are not writers, the concept still applies. In the everyday world we all inhabit, finding satisfaction and contentment in life depends on how we adjust the lens through which we view the world. True contentment is found not when the extraordinary becomes ordinary, but when we can see the ordinary as extraordinary.

The student looked at her closely. “Tell me,” he resumed, “are you rich and famous?”

“Better than that, young man,” said the guest speaker. “I’m a writer.”

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Finding the Platform

Platform.  When I began writing umpteen years ago, I never associated platform with my words and stories. But these days platform is crucial for writers. Not necessarily for the process of writing, but for pitching and selling what we’ve written. To an agent. To a publisher. And ultimately to readers.

A platform is something you stand on – literally or metaphorically. It’s the foundation. The support. Or for PR, it’s your handle, the hook. It’s what interests people, catches their attention, makes them sit up and take notice.

Writers of nonfiction have it easy when it comes to defining their platforms. The platform for a writer of health-based cookbooks is health-based cooking. The platform for writers of parenting books is their particular viewpoint on parenting. The problem for many writers of fiction, including me, is that we can’t see our platforms. What’s the angle that will interest interviewers and draw readers? I thought maybe writing was my platform. But no. Maybe the subject of my first three novels: angels? No. The historical setting of my novels? No. The craft of writing, or angels, or ancient history may interest a few people temporarily. But what happens when I write another novel, maybe contemporary and without angels. Or a picture book? Or . . . I couldn’t get my mind around my platform.

Then a few months ago, I attended a media-training workshop offered by my regional group of Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, or SCBWI. Mimi Bliss of Bliss Communications guided about twenty of us in the art of being interviewed. She challenged us to think about what our “angle” was, our platform. Mimi gave us tips on the art of being interviewed, and an interesting discovery came to light as we watched Mimi interview each volunteer. The rest of us found ourselves intensely interested primarily in who they were. After we became fascinated by the author and her life, we were interested in what she had written. The authors were their own platforms.

Most of us were surprised that everyone else thought our lives were interesting. I think we feel rather ordinary and dull. But believe me, the writers interviewed that day led very interesting lives. We all left realizing that other people find our lives interesting.

According to PR wisdom, a writer’s blog is supposed to highlight the writer’s platform. So, for better or worse, for the foreseeable future (sounds like a wedding vow!), on my blog you get me – my thoughts, my musings, and if we’re lucky, inspiration. Maybeso.

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Can Writer and Author Collide?

“Lots of people want to have written; they don’t want to write,” says Elizabeth George in Write Away. She says some people want to be authors, their name on the front of a book and their face on the back, while writers write whether or not they ever get published.

Author comes from Latin auctor, which means originator or promoter as well as writer of a literary work. Writer comes from Old English, meaning to scratch, draw or inscribe, often used as a synonym for author.

I’ve been playing author this week. My publisher sent a marketing plan and author questionnaire that asks questions that pertain to marketing and PR. I met with a friend who is a PR pro today in preliminary talks about getting her to help out with my PR. I’ll be talking by phone to the publisher’s marketing director tomorrow. There’s a ton of web-based marketing and PR to do. That’s author. (Marketing deals with advertising. PR is interviews and press kits and media.) Whew! When does an author find time to write?

With Breath of Angel making its way through production right now, I have a few weeks to spend as author. But the manuscript for the second book, Eye of the Sword, is due mid-November. Soon I’ll have to turn writer again. I wonder what happens when I’m working on revisions for Eye of the Sword at the same time I’m working PR for Breath of Angel. Do writer and author ever collide?

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