Advice for Writers by Kristen A. Kieffer of She's Novel

Welcome to #FriendFriday, an interview-style guest post series every 1st and 3rd Friday of the month. Want to be the next interviewee? Send me an email!

Welcome to the first #FriendFriday post on the Blots & Plots blog. How does it work exactly? I send questions to my new friends and post their answers here. I'm happy to host Kristen A. Kieffer of She's Novel as my first guest. Once you're finished reading, hop over to her blog for some amazing writing advice.

And now, without further adieu…

Here's your intro question. Tell me about yourself in less than 70 words. (It's tougher than it sounds.)

I’m just a girl that loves obliterating expectations. I’m a college-quitter, a do-it-yourself learner, and a pursuer of high-reaching dreams. My greatest passion in life is story-telling, followed swiftly by helping others to do the same. I’m also the biggest Lord of the Rings nerd there ever was (next to Stephen Colbert, of course!). I love Medieval Europe, black coffee, vintage dresses, and Oxford commas.

It's no secret that I've fallen in love with your blog. Tell us a big about how you got it started.

I had my first taste of blogging in high school, when I fell in love with fashion and lifestyle blogs. Over the next four years, I began and quit countless of my own, culminating in the creation of Book Jacket in summer 2014. Book Jacket was first a lifestyle blog with the tagline, ‘Style. Literature. Life.’, until I finally had my grand epiphany: I disliked blogging about myself, but I loved teaching others. 

I quickly rebranded Book Jacket as a creative writing blog, wrote some positively awful articles, and began to realize that I wanted to go bigger. I needed to do one final blog overhaul, and that’s where She’s Novel came in to play. 

After months of rebranding, I launched She’s Novel on January 31st, 2015, and it has been such a massive dream come true ever since.

Let's put you to the test. What's your best advice for writers trying to complete their first novel?

Don’t strive for perfection. Just write. 

I know this sounds like awful advice, but hear me out. Just like my first piano recital was riddled with mistakes and my first blog was more embarrassing than messing up the National Anthem at a baseball game, my first novel was positively cringe-worthy. 

And that was a good thing! As a writer, your first novel, or at least the first draft of it, is your baseline work. It reveals to you your strengths and weaknesses, becoming a springboard for far greater work. So let yourself make mistakes. Just get that novel down on paper, and never forget that your best work is yet to come!

If you could be the author of any novel in history, which novel would that be and why?

I spent days mulling over this question! I was tempted to go with more generic answers like Pride and Prejudice or The Hobbit, but they didn’t seem quite right. Finally, I settled on The Princess Bride by William Goldman. 

The Princess Bride is a fantasy novel that has it all: adventure, romance, political intrigue, and general hilarity. It was also made into a movie that quickly became a cult classic and one of my personal favorites. The book itself sweeps you up in its magic, pulling you along on a journey of friendship, sword fights, kidnapping, and true love. As a reader, I lost myself in that book, and that’s all I could ever hope to achieve with my own writing.

And finally, before we let you go, what's the best advice you've received and how did it get you here today?

I’m not sure if the best advice I’ve ever received was even meant to be advice. Nevertheless, it has given me confidence time and time again over the past several years.

In my senior year of high school, I took an advanced placement English class. I wrote countless essays and research papers on literature throughout that year but never a lick of creative writing. At the end of the year, I asked my teacher to sign my yearbook and was shocked by what she wrote. 

“To one of the best writers to ever come through my classroom-I will miss you dearly, and I look forward to reading your novels some day! I’m only half-kidding, you could do it!”

She had no idea that I was immensely interested in doing just that. To have her see that potential in me at a time when I was extremely private about my passion for novel writing has encouraged me in my lowest times and motivated me at my highest. Because of her, I will always remember that believing in my own potential is the first step towards achieving my dreams.

Before I go, I’d just like to give a HUGE thank you to Jenny for being my blogging soulmate, for encouraging and inspiring me in so many ways over the past month. I have had so much fun getting to know you, and I’m honored that you’d have me here today. Stay amazing! -Kristen

Thanks to Kristen for spending some time with us! To find out more, visit She's Novel. If you're interested in being interviewed for the next #FriendFriday, send me an email. 

Create a Call to Action for Your Blog

Last week, I wrote about how to personalize your blog, and this week, I'm going to help you grow your readership. As writers, it's important that we connect with our readers, and a blog is the perfect way to do it. But how do we get them to come back? In particular, how do we give them what they want?

This weekend, I took some time tailoring my blog to my viewers. I replaced the "I's" with "You's" and even wrote a start here page, to give my new readers more of a direction. Then I hopped over the "Meet Jenny" page and added a bit of a more personal touch as well a call to action.

What exactly is a call to action? It's a challenge to your reader to make a specific move. Want them to sign up for your newsletter? Give them a reason. Want them to read another of your blog posts? Embed a link. Okay. Let's break down how to create a call to action:

Create a Call to Action for Your Blog Posts

There are three essential components to a good blog post. 1) It presents good content. 2) It links to other posts, from your blog and others. 3) It leaves the reader with something to go on. For me, I've been incorporating "Discussion Time" in each of my blog posts, to encourage comments.

Let's take this post on How to Set Goals and Keep Them, for example. After I shared my techniques, I left readers with the question, "How do you keep goals? What’s one writing goal you’d like to accomplish this year?" In order to engage with your audience at a post level, you have to loop them into the conversation. 

Create a Call to Action for Your Blog Pages

Pages on your blog are touchstones for your readers.Imagine you're a first time reader on your blog. You read a post and you like it, so you want to learn more about the blog itself. Pages are your opportunity to tell your readers what you are all about, and keep them coming back for more. 

On my "Start Here" page, I begin by telling readers how to use the blog, even breaking it down by category. I show my most popular posts, and then I encourage them to connect with me. I make sure to give three different ways for my readers to stay in touch. It's important to have options. So they can either join my team, follow me on social media or comment.

Create a Call to Action for Your Blog Home

Want the truth? It's hard to get readers coming back. Think of how many times a day you skim other bloggers' websites, and never go back to it. So how do we do this? There are a million ways, of course, and I'm still figuring them out myself. But so far for me, I keep readers coming back by being genuine, providing the best information that I can and putting in the time.

My biggest call to action on my blog home page is in the form of my social media plugs and my newsletter signup. Using the SumoMe plugin, I've added an "interrupting" newsletter suggestion. Then, I added an Instagram plugin, so that you can see my photos right there in the sidebar. The rest of my social media buttons can be found there too.

Discussion Time: Did you create a call to action for your blog? What strategies have you used to encourage readers to revisit your website?

Like what you see? Don't forget to sign up for #TeamTATM in the sidebar! (See what I did there? Call to action!)

New TATM Scene: Wendy's Blind Date

Happy almost Valentine's Day! On Monday, you voted from a choice of three new scenes and your voices were heard. Today, I give to you the Wendy blind date scene, in celebration of the novel being in my editor's hands.

This scene takes place in the present timeline, when Wendy's best friend Reese encourages her to try to find a date for their other friend's wedding. And without further adieu….

Wendy's Blind Date

Wendy didn’t know how to date someone she didn’t know. She realized this halfway to the restaurant, mid-lyric of a country song. She wasn’t quite sure where to put her hands. Clasped together in her lap made them sweat, crossed over her chest sent the I’m pissed off message and she had no idea how to make herself look like an actual human being. Since when were hands so awkward?

Everything about Gray Fulton screamed man. He smelled like aftershave; and in his hair, he wore a gel or a mousse, which made it Ken doll stiff and shiny. There was a slight lean in the way he drove his car, a kind of cool comfort.

He took her to Sander’s, a fancy steakhouse that Mom and Dad took the family to for special occasions. On cue, Dad would always say, “I really need to teach y’all how to make hollandaise,” which he promptly forgot by the drive home.

Gray Fulton did all of the gentlemanly things boys are supposed to do: door-opening, chair-pulling and jacket-taking. Wendy knew girls were supposed to want these things, but it always made her feel like a show horse, like something to parade around a group of judges. Look at her, isn’t she a byoot?

“Wine?” he asked her.

“Absolutely,” she said.

Boys who bought her wine received high marks in her book. She loved wine. Red, mostly. But even though she loved wine, she still felt strange ordering it, like she was breaking some kind of rule. She wasn’t, she reminded herself. She had an ID to prove it.

What did one talk about on a date? Did you start with light conversation about your job or did you start even simpler with a nice weather type of comment?

The waiter brought the wine. Good, Wendy thought, Something to hold.

“So tell me about yourself,” Gray asked her.

This was most likely the hardest question he could have drawn from the question hat. She laughed uncomfortably and countered with, “What do you want to know?”

He didn’t know what to do with this response. He straightened his tie. Oh yeah, he was wearing a tie. “The basics, I suppose.”

That’s when Wendy realized that Gray Fulton, despite his gentlemanly check marks and quaffed hair, lacked an essential component to any and all Wendy contenders: a personality. Namely, a sense of humor/an awareness of social cues.

“Well, I work at a law firm,” she started. Basics only. Simplistic personality traits. “I graduated with a double major in art and business. I live with my parents.”

He kept pulling at his tie, like a dog with a collar. He coughed a little. “Cool.”

One word. No elaboration. Another observation about Gray Fulton: he had no propensity for conversations with females. Or maybe conversations at all.

“How about you?” she asked.

He muttered something about being in IT, then something else about living in New Orleans. He said all of this while biting on his bottom lip, nay, chewing, and the words had to maneuver themselves around this impediment, making them sound more like grunts than actual syllables.

Wendy nodded, gulping down her wine. “That’s great.”

She had no idea what was great, but the silence was a jarring. She was dating silence, and it just sat there sprawled out on the table in front of them, naked and awkward.

“So, I’m a painter. Watercolors, mostly.”

Once Wendy opened her mouth, she couldn’t close it again. She started talking about work, about Donald, about the storyline of the most recent series she’d started watching. Gray nodded along with her, playing with his fork, swishing the wine around in his glass, whatever it took to lose himself in her jabbering, to distract himself from the fact that he was out, on a date, with a very chatty girl.

So, this was how it was going to be. Wendy: the egotistical, self-obsessed loudmouth.

And all before 8:30.

“Can I just say something?” Gray interjected, finally allowing Wendy to catch a breath. “When Reese set us up, I had no idea how attractive you would be. You are seriously a beautiful woman.”

Gag me, Wendy thought. His words actually sounded sincere, but maybe that just made it worse.

This statement freaked her out more than anything else. A beautiful woman. Were they allowed to say that? She would never tell her friends, “I went on a date with a gorgeous man last night.” She wasn’t a woman. Women had rents and suits and titles like Mrs. or Dr. or Ms.

Women did not watch Saturday cartoons and drink their coffee out of Disney princess mugs.

She excused herself to go to the bathroom. She didn’t say she had to powder her nose or wash her hands. She straight up told him she needed to use the restroom.

“I’m not cut out for dating,” she said hurriedly when Claudia picked up. She wasn’t sure why she called Claudia.

“Oh no, are your teeth all stained like they always get when you drink red wine?”

Wendy gritted her teeth at the mirror. Purplish. “Add that to the list. He called me a beautiful woman. After I talked his ear off for a straight forty minutes. And he wears hair gel. And he bites his lip. And I hate this so much, please please bail me out.”

“I think you should stay,” Claudia said, “If you bail now, you’re just going to keep making excuses not to go on dates.”

“I’m not…”

“However,” Claudia continued, reveling in her power, “I’ll bail you out this one time. Because of all your recent emotional turmoil and whatnot. You owe me, though.”

“I owe you big time,” Wendy said.

At home, supposedly caring for her sick sister, Wendy set herself up to paint. She ran her palm over the paper, and dipped the brush into the water. When she closed her eyes, she could almost smell the air bouncing off the pond water. She could see the field of swaying grasses. She could picture herself there, her hand through his, standing in the wind.

She would date, eventually. Just not now.

For now, she would paint, and she did just that.

Greetings from the #TATMtent

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Good morning, jitterbugs. At this moment, I'm hanging out in the #TATMtent, and if you don't know what that is, you haven't been following me on Twitter and now I'm sad. Kidding. You could never make me sad. The #TATMtent is a magical place where all things #TATM are born. I set up camp last weekend, finishing the final touches on the book before sending it off to beta readers and my life-saver editor, Tanya Gold.

That's right people, Operation Self-Publish is in full swing. And let me tell you a little secret: this ish is hard. Okay, not like climbing-Mount-Everest-hard, but definitely stranded-on-a-lifeboat-hard. Thankfully, I have cool friends like Ashley R. Carlson to answer my 'help, I don't know what I'm doing' emails. That girl's the best.

And now, a little about the future:

What I Know for Sure

Keep in mind, I'm learning this as I go along. So the list of things I don't know is drastically more involved than this one, but I'll spare you. I know that the book will go to developmental editing on February 11th. I know that I will receive this back after a couple of weeks — around the same time I get my beta's responses — and have scheduled two weeks for more revisions on my part.

Then, it's off to the proofreader and cover designer. I'm still kind of hashing these details out. I also know that I will be publishing using CreateSpace and KDP, but I'm definitely open to exploring other avenues, if y'all request it!

What I Don't Know for Sure (an abbreviated list)

I do not know what the release date will be, but I have a fairly good idea. I'm not telling! It's more fun this way. Promise. There are definitely small details I'm not 100% sure about yet such as the print copy size or the fonts or the pricing. However, I do at least have an idea of what I want. I'm ahead of the game, I swear! Famous last words. 

In the next couple of months, I plan to gear the majority of my posts toward self-publishing: what I'm getting wrong and tricks I learn from people who are much smarter than I am. If you have any specific questions, please let me know. I'll be happy to help/bond over a shared crying session!

Now, back to the #TATMtent. Five of my favorite people are about to read my book. Eeeeeek! 

The Top Ten Best Things about Being a Writer

This is post #15 in a fifteen post series, entitled “15 Days to Writerly Awesome in 2015,” posting on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday of January.

And the series comes to a close. We've learned so much already, haven't we? From scheduling our writing time to creating our own writing spaces, this has been a month of serious content. Someone pour me a cocktail, please. Kidding! You know I'm a wine kind of girl.

With all of this information swimming around in your head, you might be a bit overloaded. So for our last post in the series, I decided it would be a good idea to reflect on why we are who we are. Being a Writer and all that comes with the territory. We all have our own journeys, but we are all here together, and I don't know about you, but I'm a better writer for it. Okay, cue the sappy nostalgia song, because it's list time:

*In no particular order, I should point out…

1. The fun, inspiration rush you get when you have a new idea. You know that feeling? When you're struck by the muse in a grocery store and you whip out your phone and type up a jumbled set of words because you can't afford to lose this stroke of brilliance? That's the one.
2. The pretty notebooks. I mean, just peruse some of my blog posts, people. I'm a notebook hoarder. S/O to TJ Maxx.
3. All of the awesome people who become your instant best friends. I love the random twitter mentions and emails and blog comments. People saying things like, "I'm a coffee addict too" or "I can't stop watching Frozen either!" This is friendship, people.
4. The books, oh goodness, the books. Non-writers expect us to have a heck of a lot of books lying around the house. We are more than happy to oblige.
5. The perfectly legitimate reason to drink your weight in coffee/tea. I drink approximately five cups of green tea a day now, and I make no apologies.
6. The a-ha moments, when you actually like something you wrote. I don't think this needs much explanation.
7. That whirring sound your brain makes when you can't sleep, because you're idea-crazy. This is usually ten minutes after you tried to fall asleep, so you grab hold of the pen and start writing down all of your ideas on the nearest notebook. Ignore the whirring sound. It'll go away.
8. The deep, deep thoughts. We're just so darn smart. I mean, am I right? We are the thinkers, the questioners, the wordsmiths. We also hate pants.
9. The couch potato days. I'm working, okay? Our job requires us to sit behind a laptop. This typically happens on a couch, in pajamas. How lazy/awesome can you get?
10. The fact that even if there was no money, no readers, and no "fame," we'd write anyway. Because it's what we do. I'm lucky enough to have readers on this blog, and I'm so thankful for each and every one of you. May an outpouring of confetti greet you in your travels.

And there you have it, folks! Thoughts on the series? Comment below!