Tag: writing

Writing

What A Writer Can Do With Social Media

So I’ve been working at my new job in Westwood for about a week, and I’ve already started some awesome projects with social media. But the way I’ve been thinking about social media over the last couple of days is how it can affect a business’ bottom line. And don’t worry, I’m not here to talk about that. I want to begin to talk about how social media is one of the most important tools for a writer.

Earlier today, Joe Clifford — the writer of Choice Cuts — posted a transcript of his interview at Digital Book Today. Well, it’s a cool interview, and it’s a bad-ass piece, where I even get a shout out. We were in his kitchen talking about writing and how the worst thing about being a writer is that you lose the magic as you learn the craft. You start to learn all the tricks.

Choice Cuts

Well, this is true about social media, too. There are a ton of tricks writers can use — not only to build an audience and share work but work on your craft.

In that same conversation Joe and I had in his kitchen in San Francisco, he said something on the lines of this: “It’s impossible to be a writer today and not use social media.” And he’s absolutely right, and Joe might just use Facebook better than any other writer I know out there.

For example, how did I find out about his interview: he shared it on his wall, and people started commenting, and eventually when I came home, I read it. But then I shared it; and someone else shared it; and now, here I am talking about it on my blog and hopefully you clicked on his link and started reading it. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is how you build an audience: a piece gets shared. Plus, he shares great content and witty observations, and it functions as an extension of his narrative voice…in my opinion.

But the trick is how do you build that audience and how do you make it work for you?

Create a Community

Writers

What I admire the most about the way Clifford uses social media is that he’s social. It’s not always about him, and he always finds a way to help another writer out. For instance, when he shared the link to his interview, he posted it on my wall and another, highlighting the fact that we were referenced in the interview. Well, that community building must happen in order to create effective social media and identify oneself to others as a writer.

But this isn’t something new to the digital age. God, that would be a ridiculous statement. From talking to Joe, I know that he values the Beats — maybe not Kerouac’s craft completely — because they supported each other, promoted each other, and championed the work. That was what made the Beats’ so great; they were there to take on the world together. And they were obviously not the only literary community that used the tools of their time to help each other out. There are countless.

So use this in your posts, your tweets, your tidily winks. Give shout out to friends. Like other people posts. Comment on other people’s stories. And support. Unless you’re an asshole and don’t need anybody’s help.

Don’t Be Scared to Fail

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I can’t tell you how many times I have posted something on Facebook, trying to illicit a response, and not a single person responded. Yes, that might look pathetic, because now I’m sitting there in silence, but in reality, people are probably busy or just not interested. Don’t let that hold you back! Go out there and post again. If you stay persistent and confident, then people will begin to write back, and there you are again, building your audience.

But this is a larger issue with being a writer; you’re going to fail so many freaking times and fall flat on your face. So what? You’re going to write a shitty story, a clunker, and what are you going to do? Stop writing? Please, move on. Take lumps. Work on the craft.

I’ll never forgot one day I was testing out some social-media marketing tips I found online. It said that the best time to share a post was on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. So I posted at exactly that time, telling people this is the time everyone responds on social media — let me know if you’re out there.

Well, guess what? Yep, no one responded.

Until Joe Clifford saved me, and he made it into a joke by pretending I had thrown this big party and no one showed up but him. We were standing around the virtual chips, talking awkwardly and avoiding the obvious — no one showed up.

Fuck failing. You’re a writer. Get used to it.

Learn the Mediums

Two dogs

For some reason, I think that writers forget all of the lessons they’ve learned over the years and just start posting on social media as if they never thought about their audience or genre. Well, there are three things I used to tell my students to think about when they sat down to write a paper: audience, purpose, and genre. Think about those things and you will be golden.

So I started applying those lessons to Facebook and Twitter. They both have different make-ups, and the craft is different. The way I think about Twitter is that it’s kind of like flirting, where Facebook is kind of like a full-on relationship. Twitter, you have favorites, retweets, and follows. You’ve got to play coy and not seem desperate. Use these tools to attract complete strangers. Facebook is harder; you’re mostly speaking to people you know or met. Learn how to craft genre appropriate writing by looking at some of the best twitter writers out there. Two people I recommend are Bomani Jones and Roxane Gay.

Don’t Forget the Story

essay draft

Remember, most readers care about story; they care about struggle; they care about a narrative. Start thinking about your larger narrative — are you going to school to become a firefighter? are you trying to land a literary agent? are you trying to bike to work through traffic in the city? — and craft pieces off of that story. Let us fall into a larger thread, know your voice, and what you’re trying to accomplish. This way, we’ll stay with you beyond your wit.

Well, in the end, this is really only the beginning of my thoughts on social media. It can improve your career, your brand, or your audience, but there are tricks, just like there are in writing. And be forewarned, if you like just casually browsing through social media, then don’t try to learn the tricks behind the magic. It’s all a bunch of disguised bullshit — but so are stories in general.

Writing

Nothing I Can Do About It — Four Months Later

The last couple days I’ve been taking stock of this freelance writing journey.  It’s been almost four months since I quit my job at the treatment center, said goodbye to the awful commute from Long Beach to Woodland Hills, and committed myself to writing.  And I think I’m coming to peace, to a sense of serenity, at this moment.  I’m not making a lot of money.  In fact, it’s still a struggle, and I just started picking up tutoring.  But so far, it’s been worth it.

When I first started trying to get bylines, I was so pumped to have calendar pitches accepted at the LA and OC Weekly — listings for events in the area.  I remember I must have spent five hours on 200 words, thinking that someone might see my work and want me to write more.  Well, that was my start, and I’m forever grateful for  those pieces (which I still write sometimes), but now I’m publishing more, and as Heron pointed out to me last night, I’ve come a long way.  I am happy with the progress of my writing.

But I miss many aspects of the full-time job.  I miss being able to go dinner.  I miss be able to pay parking tickets without it ruining my week.  I miss being able to walk down to E.J. Malloys on Broadway and buy a few beers, a cheeseburger and fries, and talk shit about a sport I didn’t care about with a stranger I would never talk to again.  I miss being able to bring home flowers to Heron whenever I felt like it.  I miss being able to take flights home to see my friends in Massachusetts.  I miss seeing my family and buying a steak every once in a while.  Though I have come to terms with all that.

I have a dream.  I have a goal.  I want to make writing my life.  And I’m not entirely sure where that’s going to take me yet.  I’m not exactly sure when I’ll go back to working full time, because if there is an opportunity out there that I can’t refuse, I’ll probably take it.  But one thing is for sure — I will find a way to write.

So this was all running through my mind tonight.  And earlier, I was talking to my Uncle in Pennsylvania.   He was always a man I admired.  Very successful.  A guy who could probably do anything in the world and be successful at it.   Then he was asking me how I was doing.  I was telling him how I was getting hitched in February and that I was a freelance writer.  I was telling him there were ups and downs.  I was telling him that I was actually being paid to write.  I was telling him about living in Long Beach, California all the way from Clinton, Mass.

He was impressed.  Then I said to him, but you know, sometimes I wish I chose another path.  Sometimes I wish I chose a job that paid better right away.  Sometimes I wish that I picked a career with a more definite career track.  Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to pay my dues without knowing what the dues were going to get me.  But then I realized, in the middle of talking to him, that I didn’t have a choice.  This way of life, well, it had chosen me.  There’s nothing I can do about it.

Creative Inspiration, Writing

What Writing Creatively Really Needs: Hope

The last week was great, because I was able to take some time away from pitching and writing and step back a bit.  I’ve been freelancing, now, for four months, and it’s time to take stock of where I am at.  It’s a difficult journey, but I have great support.  Over the last two weeks, I have had work appear at the LA Weekly, OC Weekly, and Salon.com, but when I look back on the last four months, my creative work has suffered a bit.  I’ve been so focused on trying to write for projects that will help me survive that I’ve forgotten, to some extent, about poetry, about short stories, about my memoir.

Maybe that was a part of the plan.  Maybe I needed some distance.  And when Thanksgiving “break” came, I found myself writing a new story, and it was my first true science fiction story.  It’s set in a Los Angeles in the future, and while I feel somewhat nerdy writing the story, it’s been a pleasure to allow my imagination to wander — to envision a new world.  And this has helped rev up the creative process.

This would have never happened four years ago.  I would never have even given science fiction a chance.

When I was in graduate school, I started out only interested in literary pieces.  I was (and still am) a huge fan of Tobias Wolff, Denis Johnson, Stuart Dybek, Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and Junot Diaz, and I only cared about one story — the lyrical, literary story.  I actually had a teacher in undergrad, after much pleading to tell me where I needed to grow as a writer, tell me that I only valued the realistic story.

But when I got to FIU, I met a teacher who started to introduce me to genre — especially Noir and horror.  I was resistant at first.  I thought genre was for hacks who wanted to make money.  Then I started to read Raymond Chandler, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville.  One of the best anthologies this teacher suggested was the American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny From Poe to the Pulps.  I suddenly became aware of the tremendous possibilities of genre and the infinite combinations — even surrealism, abstraction, the philosophically stirring existed within the forms.  Yes, I was ignorant and stubborn, but I was learning.  So I read everything from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Island of Dr. Moreau to Borges, and I saw similarities and possibilities.

Now, this isn’t any new revelation.  Just look at Michael Chabon and many other writers experimenting with genre.  But I was suddenly freed from the reality that all writing had to be real and true.  Truth is a word, anyway, that has nothing to do with facts or even reality.

So I wrote my first horror story at FIU, and at first, it was torn apart, somewhat, in the workshops.  I had a tendency, then, and a tendency, now, to go over the top.  So I revised and worked on it.  And about two weeks ago, it was accepted into a future anthology by Sirens Call Publications.  The story is called: “The Castle on the Hill.”  The anthology is a haunted mental-ward theme.

My point is this: sometimes in order to feel free again, to be reminded of the infinite  possibilities of this world, of art, of writing, it’s important to live within a form, a genre, a guiding principle.  Sometimes it’s not.  Sometimes it’s better to be free and without direction.  Right now, I feel somewhat stuck in between both ideas.

I’ll wake up tomorrow, and I won’t truly know what the day will bring. I’ll sit down to write a pitch, and I might find a better idea.  I’ll sit down to finish a story, and I might end up writing a poem.  And maybe it’s only in this searching, in this lost wandering do we come to direction, to guidance, to form.  Well, the most important commodity, when it comes to writing, has to be hope.  Hope that you will find a thread.  Hope that your character will come alive.  Hope that you will finish.  Hope that you will be appreciated.  Hope that you will find the words to say what is pulling at your heart-strings.  Hope is what gets us through the feeling of being lost.

And so now, I must come to a stopping point.  I didn’t really know where this blog was going to take me.  I didn’t know really what was even on my mind.

Writing

Well, another day, another nickel

So, I thought I was going to get to a post tonight, but I’ve been working hard pretty much all day.  Sometimes the days go by slow; sometimes you can’t even get in a second.  Today was a long day, and I wish there were a lot more of them.  Well, short post tonight.  Tomorrow, I will have a brand-new poetry recoding, and then later this week, I’ll be dropping the truth.  Thanks for reading.  Very tired.  Must eat brains…I mean, must sleep.

Writing

Five Musicians I’m Listening to this Week

So I love to listen to music and write.  It’s something that just makes sense for me.  It makes the process work.  I’ll be writing a piece later this week about music to listen to while you study, but here’s just some songs that I’ve been enjoying the last couple days.

Continue reading “Five Musicians I’m Listening to this Week” →