Tag Archives: writer’s life

Why I hate stupid amateur sleuths

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A couple of months ago, I was in a group of writers discussing our stories, when I got one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received. Fellow mystery writer, Mindy Quigley, said, “What I like about your heroines is that they aren’t stupid.”

She went on to clarify. “It’s not that they don’t ever make bad decisions, but they weigh those choices and consider the consequences before acting on them.”

It was all I could do not to beam like a fool when she said that. You see, I hate the willfully stupid amateur sleuth. Now, by definition, we have to cut the amateur sleuth a lot of slack because she has no business doing what she’s doing in the first place. (I say “she” because the vast majority of the time the amateur sleuth is female) We know she isn’t supposed to be sneaking around buildings after hours, or poking through suspect’s desks and filing cabinets or questioning everyone in town. She doesn’t have the authority to be where she is, doing what she’s doing, and any evidence she gathers is tainted–which is probably why so often she must rely on forcing the killer to confess. We go along with this because we love the vicarious thrill of the investigation. We like solving puzzles, we like seeing justice done.

But what I can’t stand is when the female amateur sleuth is willfully stupid.

For starters, I need to have more motivation for her involvement than just being a Nosey Parker. Sure, in long-running series, it can be challenging to come up with strong reasons for our heroine sleuth to get herself involved… we can’t threaten every member in an extended family (I’m looking at you, Jessica Fletcher) without someone eventually calling us out on that. But once an amateur sleuth gets a few murders under her belt, I can see where members of her community might ask her to get involved because they trust her more than the police. That works for me.

But when the police actively tell the amateur sleuth to butt out, maybe it’s not a good idea for her to respond back by telling the law enforcement official that he stinks at murder investigations. Or that she thinks he may be in on whatever corruption is happening in the small town of Picturesque (population: varies depending on author’s needs). Even better, maybe she shouldn’t say those things when she is alone with said LEO and no one knows where she is.

On the same thought, maybe our amateur sleuth shouldn’t decide to confront a murder suspect by herself at some lonely destination that Doordash couldn’t find without GPS and a bloodhound. This just happened recently in a story I had really been loving up to that point, and I nearly chucked the book across the room when I came to this scene.

If an amateur sleuth makes bad decisions–and sometimes this is necessary to move the story along–at the very least, they need to show us they realize they aren’t making a smart choice. Spare me the heroine supremely confident in her own ability to bring a killer to justice who goes around telling the police they are such bumbling idiots they couldn’t find a box of doughnuts placed in the middle of their desk. Or the heroine who gets involved in solving the crime without any personal stake in the matter whatsoever. Or the heroine who is repeatedly told by law enforcement to stay out of the case but persists anyway because they know best.

I feel strongly about this, and yet also feel I’ve painted myself into a corner with the Ginny Reese Mysteries. If you’re a fan of the series, you’re well aware of the slow burn romance between Ginny and Joe Donegan, the local sheriff. Joe’s tolerance for Ginny’s interference has been tempered by the fact they are still attracted to each other, but as their relationship deepens, so does this gap between Ginny’s actions and Joe’s acceptance of them–both on a personal and professional level. At some point, Joe either has to turn a blind eye to her activities or actively collaborate with them. If not, her amateur sleuthing may eventually destroy their relationship. Believe me, I’ve thought about the different ways to solve this problem. But my point is, if Ginny persists in her amateur investigations, she does so knowing what she is risking: the case, her life, and her future relationship with Joe.

So yeah, a perfect heroine would be boring–and no cases would be solved. But the heroine who effectively says, “I’m so sure I’m right, I’m going to insult the only people who can lock up this criminal and instead go confront said killer alone with nothing but the power of my persuasive argument for back up… ” Yeah, I’m going to lose all respect for her.

You can give me all the pretty little cozy towns, the quirky characters, furry sidekicks, and love interests in the world, but if I don’t respect the main character, you’ve lost me as a reader.

Why I’m done with free ebooks…

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Who doesn’t love free books? First, let me clarify: I’m not talking about when your favorite author runs a limited freebie on a series starter. Snap those deals up! You know the kind I mean… when 30 or so authors band together to offer ebook deals if you sign up for their newsletter, or follow them on social media, or whatever. These freebies are often short reader magnets meant to introduce you to the series character or tease you into trying the series by offering a short prequel. There’s nothing wrong with this type of promotional story as a concept, or using a free story to garner followers.

The problem comes when the story, instead of making you interested in more from the author, has you adding their name to a ‘do not bother’ list. When 27 of the 30 downloads are so unreadable, you regret filling up your e-reader with them.

I’d argue that your reader magnet should be some of your best work, not something thrown together without the benefit of a single read-through, let alone an editor.

Maybe this is me being a Miss Crankypants after struggling to find anything worth reading this morning, but here is my list of things I would NOT do in your reader magnet:

  1. Do not start your reader magnet with a flashback, only to jump to “12 hours earlier” on the next page. I get that you want to start off your (usually very short) story with a bang. But we have to care about Betty Bluebonnet as a person before we can care about why she almost got run over by a car.
  2. Can we PLEASE stop describing every scent as some weird combination of x plus y? “The room smelled of regret and old gym socks.” “He awoke on a couch that was stuffed with stress and nutmeg.” Honestly, the phrasing reeks of AI and  lavender. (Did you see what I did there?)
  3. I KNOW this is a really short reader magnet. No, you will not have time for great detail or backstory. But it is imperative that you don’t, I don’t know, SKIP INTRODUCTIONS. How can your protagonist go from being unconscious to discussing missing ledgers with someone she’s never met before? How does she know the other guy’s name? How does she know about the ledgers (or account books, or lost keys, or whatever)? Did she absorb that information via osmosis while she was out like a light on the stress-filled couch?
  4. Please for the love of God, don’t create a dramatic exit for a minor character in order to facilitate leaving the protagonist with a cat (or a dog) and then never explain why they don’t return for their furry friend. Telling us they are happy in their new petless life without explaining why they had to emergency relocate in the first place makes us wonder if they are in Witness Protection. Yes, I know this is a SHORT READER MAGNET and you don’t have time/space/energy for those pesky little details. Then don’t have the minor character leave under dramatic circumstances. If you need to save the word count for storytelling, eliminate the minor character altogether and skip straight to, “my cat, Murdermittens, whom I inherited when my friend Cindy Lu had to return to Whoville…” and move on.
  5. Yes, I KNOW IT IS A SHORT STORY but perhaps having the protagonist uncovering the identity of the killer by annoying the heck out of all the other characters with blunt, none-of-your-business questioning until the killer feels obligated to take a crack at her isn’t sustainable sleuthing. And why do these suspects spill their guts to her instead of telling her to take a hike? “Why, yes, the dead guy DID force me to sell the family home when I couldn’t come up with the back taxes, not that it’s any of your business and why am I telling you this in the first place?”

I know I’m being super picky here. Hey, you don’t see me writing short stories! Even my novellas are almost novel length. There’s an art to writing short stories that I don’t possess. But seriously, take a hard look at your reader magnet and see if it is helping or hurting you.

I, for one, am no longer willing to waste time on these freebies.

Reclaiming My Creativity, One Step at a Time

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Those of you who have been following me for a while know that I am a slow-but-steady writer. Since I began my publishing journey, I’ve written and published a book a year. When I mention this to my non-writing friends, they are astonished and never fail to ask “How do you find the time?” The truth of the matter is that time is not nearly as big a factor as finding the energy or bandwidth, particularly after an emotionally, mentally, or physically demanding day at work.

Truth be told, when it comes to being considered a successful writer these days, that kind of productivity is far too slow. There are people in the industry who produce a finished novel every 60 days. In order to gain traction with your audience, it seems like you have to write at least 3-4 books a year, something I will never do. If anything, my process is becoming even slower than before. There are a lot of reasons for this. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m 15 years older than when I started my publishing journey. I’ve worked very hard to make a name for myself as an author, and I’ve finally decided that I no longer have the energy to jump through all those hoops.

Not only do I no longer have the bandwidth to shake my little tambourine and chant my name for the masses, I barely have the energy or mental capacity to write. I’ve been working on my current WIP for a little over a year now, and I’m still nowhere close to finishing the first draft. Normally, I’d be ready to publish by now. Getting Covid this summer didn’t help. I kept a persistent low-grade fever for weeks, lost my sense of taste and smell, and worst of all, brain fog swept in to blanket every writing session with a gray mist of ‘what the heck were you thinking when you wrote this?’ each time I sat down at the keyboard. Fifteen years ago, blanking on words or struggling to capture the concept I had in mind was just a sign of fatigue and that it was time for a break. That I’d been running on fumes too long. Now I find myself wondering if my brain is turning to mush or is it the toll of the constant bombardment of daily bad news?

I’ve made a few decisions in this past year that I hope will help. I have stopped hoping that my writing pave the way for me to write full time. I’ve even stopped demanding it serve as a fallback retirement plan. It just needs to break even–to be an expensive hobby that (mostly) pays for itself. Accepting this level of “success” doesn’t mean I didn’t try hard enough or dream big enough. It simply means I can no longer keep trying to appease ever-changing algorithms, and dashing from platform to platform constantly spinning plates on sticks to keep entertaining my so-called audience.

That decision alone has meant I can spend less time on social media, which I hope will help with my regrettable tendency to doomscroll. The only reason I’m on social media is because everyone says I MUST maintain an author presence. Fine. I’ve decided that presence will be more of squatting on real estate than actually running a B&B at a financial loss. I’ve got better things to do with the short amount of time I have left on this planet than to make myself miserable because the things I’ve achieved aren’t “good enough.”

I’d been pushing myself to finish this current story by the end of this month. Today as a matter of fact. There are all kinds of theories as to the best time of year to publish–and if you only release one book a year, the final quarter isn’t it. January isn’t great either, unless you are writing a self-help or exercise book. But this story has gone from being something I thought was a cool idea to being a project I loathe working on. I don’t want to shelve it because I have too much time invested in it. I also fear if I quit at this point, I’m setting a bad precedent for myself–that I can just walk away whenever the going gets too hard. So now I’m looking at not publishing this WIP until maybe next spring, and the thought of missing my One Book A Year goal made me hyperventilate a bit.

But I’m unhappy with the story. It’s a new-to-me genre with a lot of worldbuilding and it stopped being fun a while ago. I’ll sit down to write a paragraph or two, writing and deleting the same sentence over and over again as I fail to put into words this big picture I have in my head.

The other day, I realized I no longer have to hold myself to a rigid schedule of write-publish-release. I’m allowed to publish whenever I want. The rules don’t matter.

I also realized what’s wrong with the story as it stands right now. I’ve erased all the real conflict and given the characters cartoon problems to deal with. I’ve softened the hero to the point of being ineffectual. I’ve strengthened the heroine to the point that she has no journey over the course of the story. I’ve diluted the relationships because I don’t want to deal with the emotions these character should be having. I’ve wrapped my story in a protective layer of cotton padding because I wish that my own elbows and knees were padded, and that I knew I always had a soft place to land in case of a fall.

I even gave the main character a mental block preventing her from experiencing her emotions because I must have subconsciously wished for the same. To be the strong, bad-ass heroine of my own story without doing any of the work to get there. This emotional shell around my characters–around the story as a whole–is self-preservation for me in a world I find depressing, discouraging, and terrifying right now.

But for the story to be its best, I need to take a nutcracker to that shell and break down to the meat of the characters. This little epiphany resulted in the first little spark of excitement I’ve had for this story in a while. So I will not publish before it is ready. I will take my time to make the story the best it can be. And I will put in the effort of making my characters work for their happiness.

It means there probably won’t be a McKenna/M.K. Dean release this year. But there will be one eventually. Because even though I am writing for me now, I’m also still writing for you. And I want you to enjoy the journey as well.

Maybe “Try” is Good Enough

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Train climbing the White Pass in Skagway, AlaskaIt’s no secret that I’ve been struggling for a while now to find some indication that I’m making progress with my life and not simply treading water. I’ve been on the planet long enough to know that even though it feels like I should have gotten my act together decades ago, the truth of the matter is most of us are just winging it on a day to day basis.

And yet we still have this notion that we must succeed at all costs. That every day should be productive, that every minute should count. As a slow writer who has been bogged down even further by the sheer onslaught of utterly horrific news on a daily basis–and who is also very much aware of the practical amount of writing time I have left on this planet–the fact that I sit spinning my wheels is frustrating on most days and downright depressing on others.

I’ve recently been forced to rethink why I write. Most of us become writers because we love reading and storytelling, and are happiest creating our own stories with our fictional friends. I started publishing because I wanted to share my stories, but also because a tiny part of me was hoping for some sort of retirement plan. I’ve written about why I am no longer willing to jump through the marketing hoops, but taking the pressure off myself from trying to appease the Algorithm Gods didn’t magically restore the joy of creating stories for me either.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s very difficult to be creative when your creative well is dry.

The other night I got into a conversation about how frustrated I was with my lack of progress in everything–how I might have 10 minutes a day to commit to something at best. How can anyone expect to make progress in ten minutes a day? The answer I got was “ten minutes a day is better than zero minutes.”

The conversation led to a series of thinky thoughts I posted on Bluesky, and I’ve decided to screencap and share them here.

I suspect many of us feel like we might as well smash the violin. But if we did, we’d never know the joy and satisfaction of what we might achieve some day.

Why I’m Quitting in 2025

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I’ve been publishing stories since 2010, when my first book was accepted by a small press. Since then, I’ve written 19 novels under various pen names.

I made a decision to rebrand myself and self-publish in 2017, when two of the small presses I worked with stopped paying royalties to their authors. I re-branded again in 2022 when I realized that I wrote more mysteries than I did romances (though I’m stuck with this website domain name unless I want to start all over again from scratch).

Also in 2022 or thereabouts, I decided to spend less time on social media platforms I didn’t enjoy, and dove headfirst into TikTok. I didn’t abandon the other platforms–authors are expected to maintain a presence on a wide variety of sites–but I neglected them (and this website) in favor of my new shiny toy. 

I’ve never had as much fun on a social media platform as I have on TikTok. Something about the format brought out the frustrated actress in me, and I had a blast playing with wigs, filters, costumes, and lip syncing to funny sounds. If I could make it relevant to my writing, even better. But unlike people who managed to parlay their time on the app into real income, or at the very least, a decent side hustle, I never hit the big time. Not as an  influencer. Not as an author. But I met lots of wonderful people and I had FUN at a time when I needed it the most. I found an enjoyable community there, and I loved it.

It seems very likely that TikTok will be banned in the US shortly. Don’t get me started on that–that’s a whole other discussion by itself–but let’s just say that Google, Amazon, and Meta donated large sums of money to seeing the app got killed here in the US.

So, 2 years of work building a platform will be going down the drain. And I have to say, as much fun as I’ve had on TikTok, it’s been detrimental to my writing productivity. Every year I spend more and more time on marketing, promotion, and social media to the exclusion of writing. One of the nice things about TT was the algorithm was easier to master. But all SM platforms keep raising the bar on visibility, requiring you to spend either time or money there in order to be seen.

The bulk of my ideal readership is probably on Facebook, to a lesser degree, Instagram. The bulk of my sales are through Amazon. I’ve spoken at length about why I don’t have my books in KU, and only part of that is because once all other digital platforms for selling books is gone, Amazon can do whatever they like to authors. There are reasons why I can’t divorce myself from these platforms even though I have strong moral objections to how they do business. (Leaving Twitter was easy. Once Musk took over, it ceased to be a useful platform for authors. If you want to find me in a happier place, I’m on bluesky now)

And when I realized that the odds were high I was going to lose TikTok–and any traction I’ve worked to build as an indie author–something inside me just gave up.

No. I’m not going to quit writing.

But I’m going to take the pressure off of it.

I’m no longer going to jump through hoops to get noticed. I’m going to spend less time on social media period. I’m not going require my writing to fund my retirement, or make me a household name. I’m going to write because I have fun doing so, and stop trying so hard to make it a second (or third) job. I’m going to write the stories I want to read without worrying if they are marketable or not. If I pitch something to an agent, it will be for the fun of it, not because I’m hoping it will change my life. If I go to a convention, it will be to see friends, not to sell myself as an author. I’m not giving up on my dreams. I’m giving up on sacrificing joy for them. Honestly, at this point, the writing just has to break even and stop costing me money.

And while I’m conflicted about where I will spend my time as an author on social media, maybe the answer for right now is right here. Where I can release my thinky thoughts for people to read or not read as they see fit, without worrying about pleasing a demanding algorithm.

But I am going to miss you, TikTok.

 

 

It’s Bouchercon time!

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Tomorrow I’m flying to Nashville to join my good friends Claire Johnson and Anna Butler at the 55th annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention! I’m so excited! This is my first Bouchercon, as this is the first year that it’s been somewhat in my neck of the woods.

According to Bouchercon’s Mission statement:

Bouchercon’s mission is to introduce, attract, and promote readers and writers by producing outstanding, inclusive events to grow and sustain the mystery community.

Bouchercon® is the annual world mystery convention where every year readers, writers, publishers, editors, agents, booksellers and other lovers of crime fiction gather for a 4-day weekend of education, entertainment, and fun!


The first Bouchercon took place in 1970 in Santa Monica, California. Subsequent Bouchercons have been held in many cities across the United States, as well as in Toronto and the UK.

Wait, what? 1970 was 55 years ago?? I’m sure this must be a typo, right? 

At any rate, the event will be held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center and it looks to be a SMASHING conference! The venue is amazing! There are terrific panels on almost every subject imaginable, and the Anthony Awards will be announced as well. Not to mention, I just found out Laurie King will be celebrating the 30 year anniversary of the release of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice–which also doesn’t seem possible that this beginning to a terrific series was that long ago as well.

Planning to go? Look for me there! I’ll be doing speed-dating for authors (it’s exactly what it sounds like only you as the reader sit at tables while authors come by and for 2 minutes persuade you to read their book) as well as a panel on avoiding the pitfalls of indie publishing with moderator Fred Tippet II, and panelists R Weir, Winnie Frolik, and
Josh Pachter. Immediately after the panel, I’ll be signing books in the dealer’s room. Provided I can find it! Will GPS work inside the convention center? Better brush up on those map reading skills! Hope to see you there!

Am I TikTok Famous Yet?

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Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

I first heard about TikTok in 2020. It seemed to be a place where people made short videos (not in my skill set) where they danced (so not me!) or make-up tutorials (interesting but how many can you watch?). I had ZERO interest to start an account or even watch more than one or two cute animal videos that friends sent to me.

I had a lot of concerns about the format:

  1. Did I REALLY need to be on yet another social media platform?? Especially one that seemed to rely heavily on putting your face out there? Sure there are accounts where people managed to make entertaining content while not showing their face, but did they get the same following? Probably not.
  2. Did you see the part about “entertaining content”? I’m a writer, not an actress, producer, or sound editor. There’s a reason I live mostly behind a keyboard.
  3. The format seemed to be similar to tumblr, which I hated. A constant flow of bite sized posts with little way of tracking the ones you liked (or so I thought). 
  4. I have a LOT of reasons for not wanting my face on social media. I’ve had a stalker. I’m concerned my place of employment would take exception to the fact I’ve written a few racy romances (even though most of mine are fairly tame).
  5. I kept hearing concerns about the security of your information, given that TT is a subsidiary of a Chinese-based company.
  6. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to come up with more than 1-2 videos before running out of ideas.
  7. Almost everyone I saw on TikTok was gorgeous, and I’m not. I’m old, frumpy, and at least 40 pounds overweight. I grew up hearing how homely I was, and that the worst thing a woman could do was show her age and gain weight, so naturally, I did both. I absolutely loathe looking in the mirror. I’m not kidding. 

So I resisted the urge to join. I kept hearing what a great place BookTok was, however, and the FOMO was strong. Then too, I kept seeing these hysterically funny videos by Alisha Rai showing up on my Twitter and Instagram feeds, where she depicts little conversations between Satan and one of his minions. They are utterly brilliant. Still, I held out. TikTok wasn’t for me.

But then authors kept saying what an AMAZING place TikTok was for discoverability, especially for smaller authors or your backlist. And I was mightily tempted. Maybe I could make some vids without showing my face? Mark Dawson did a five day challenge in his Self-Publishing Formula group, and I decided to create an account and make a few videos. Shabby efforts at first. I had no idea what I was doing.

But then I got snowed in for a 3-day weekend, and I watched a LOT of TikTok. I tried out recipes, started Tai Chi, laughed over cute animal vids, considered side hustles that would let me quit the day job, began watching makeup tutorials aimed at my age group (so frustrating that makeup tends to look TERRIBLE on me now), and got really, really frustrated with the poor quality of my videos. It reminded me of when I first joined livejournal and I didn’t know how to code or embed images and I wanted to play SO BADLY that I taught myself.

So I began watching a crap-ton of TT tutorials. And then I discovered that Canva had a mobile app that allowed you to upload your creations directly to TT! I learned out to change the font, color, and size of my text, and how to make it appear at exactly the right time in the video.

And then, God help me. I discovered the filters. I began playing with filters, wigs, makeup, and transitions  I saved sound clips to use, got ideas from watching others, and became the queen of lip-syncing. I learned how to do the clever transitions, and have had a blast making short vids. Me, who rarely took videos and hadn’t the foggiest idea how to edit ANYTHING before TT. I was doing something I haven’t done in a very long time–probably not since the beginning of the pandemic–I was having fun. Okay, so not TikTok famous, and haven’t make a single sale as far as I can tell. And my friends were quick to point out that the filters and wigs weren’t disguising me–anyone who knew me would recognize me. I discovered then that I’d truly run out of f*cks to give. I didn’t care. Might my coworkers run across my videos? Yeah. Could I get fired? Maybe. But the thought of that doesn’t terrify me as much as it used to. I used to believe I was trapped, that I didn’t have the skill set to do much of anything else if I lost my job and jobs in this area are few and far between. A few weeks on TikTok, and suddenly I’m not afraid of that anymore.

BUT….

 

I haven’t written more than 100 words in the last two weeks. I’ve drafted over 30 TikTok videos, however. Sounds good, right? Only that’s about 10 days worth of content, according to the algorithms for getting notice on TT. I had the day off yesterday, and instead of writing, I made TT videos all morning long. I wasn’t sleeping well before I joined TT, but I was at least attempting to go to bed at a reasonable time. Now I’m often up past 1 am when I have work the next day. I’m hearing 15 second sound clips in my head all the time. My ability to focus, a little shaky already, has gone in the GUTTER. I also find myself picking up my phone and checking TT every couple of minutes. It feels like an addiction, peeps.

I suspect it’s like anything else when I first discover it–I dive in headfirst and become completely absorbed until I master the skills I want to use, and then my obsession will settle down. Moving forward, I’ll have to practice a little self-control. I’m doing a lot of things wrong, too. My posts don’t have any call to action, and I’m not staying in my niche/lane. I probably have more writers following me than readers. I’ve gained over 700 followers in 2 weeks, but at least half (if not more) of those are bots or men looking for a good time (seriously, you think TT is a dating app??). And sadly, I am not TikTok famous. Yet.

But that’s okay because, for now, I’m having fun.

 

Holiday Gift Guide for the Writer in Your Life

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Photo by Monstera from Pexels

It’s that time of year again–when we start thinking about holiday shopping and what the writer in our lives might want as a gift. Okay, that writer is me. Just kidding! Okay, maybe I’m only kidding a little.

See, most non-writers don’t have a clue what kind of gift to give to the authors in their lives. They want to show their support! They want to give something useful. But if you’re not a writer yourself, it’s hard to know what to get. That’s why I’m going to recommend a few things myself but I’m also opening the door for YOUR suggestions. Tell me what you’ve been longing for, what you have on your wish list, what you’d dearly love the most. I want to know about it! Who knows, someone you love might stumble across this list and get you the one thing YOU’VE been hoping for!

Let’s start with the easiest kinds of gifts to shop for: books on craft! There are SO many out there, and many are targeted to genre as well. I know a lot of people who recommend Anne Lamont’s Bird by Bird and Stephen King’s On Writing. For romance writers, many consider Romancing the Beat an invaluable tool. I’m also a big fan of The Emotion Thesaurus (and the other books in that line).

But as a mystery writer, I also love books on forensics and police procedure, as well toxicology, poisons and the other means by which you can kill someone. Keep in mind, books on craft aren’t necessarily about writing per se; they can also include books and courses on marketing, advertising, and so on. 

What about planners? I would be lost without my Author’s Planner by Audrey Hughey!

It’s more than just another notebook or calendar. SO MUCH MORE. You can track your daily and weekly goals, your expenditures (to make doing your taxes so much easier!), plan your marketing and social media campaigns, newsletters, you name it! What I love about it is it’s large enough for me to work in without cramming tiny notes everywhere, and the coil-bound cover allows it to lay flat while you’re working on it. It’s a bit like having an organizer, an accountability partner, a cheerleader, and a coach all rolled up into one.
 
The 2021 Author’s Planner is designed to be your all-in-one day planner and writing-career coach, helping you organize your writing life and get on a clear path to reach your goals.
 
Have you thought about editing software? I bet you haven’t! But there are some great programs out there. I like ProWritingAid the best, but there are lots of services out there. Right now, PWA is having a Black Friday sale until 11/30/21 so you can get a year’s subscription up to 50% off!
 
Online courses are also wonderful! There are all kinds of courses on mastering Amazon ads, writing blurbs, or just writing in general. I got a lot out of Inkers Con last year, and the best part is you have access to the materials for three years after the conference! I’m toying with attending live versus digital in 2022, but to be honest, it’s FAR more economic for me to attend digitally–no airfare, no hotel, no boarding the dogs… and I can attend in my PJs if I want! You can still get access to the 2021 Conference if you want to start there. I believe it’s discounted right now!
 
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been toying with looking into such software as Scrivener, Vellum, and Atticus for formatting to take my self-published books to the next level. Unfortunately, Vellum is for Macs, but sometimes I’m tempted. I’m very tempted…. 
 
Likewise, the author in your life might be jonesing for some graphics programs, such as the premium services offered by Canva or Bookbrush. Sure, we can use the free versions, but the paid services allow us to take our publications and social media graphics to that coveted next level of professional design.
 
If all else fails, offer to gift your writer the funds to cover the purchase of cover art or professional editing! Those two items right there represent a huge chunk of investment, and something most indie authors would love a little help with.
 
So what about you? What’s on your wish list? What have you been eyeing for yourself or someone else?

Compassion Fatigue: or Why I Didn’t Share Your Post

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TW/CW for sad things tugging on your heartstrings.

 

 

 

The other day during work I got an email from an acquaintance. A shelter in the neighboring county had posted an urgent notice: they’d been inundated with puppies during the past week and if they didn’t find homes for them by the end of business hours that day, they would have to euthanize them.

Did I know of anyone who wanted a puppy? Like right now? Immediately.

I wracked my brains but couldn’t come up with anyone on the fly.

“Send me the link and I’ll share it when I can,” I offered as a stopgap before delving back into work.

But ultimately, I didn’t share the link. Let me tell you why.

You see, something about that urgent request to spend compassion currency that I have in dwindling supply broke me just a little.

I have to reiterate: it was puppies. Puppies that needed homes right away or they would die. But for the first time ever, getting hit with such a request rang the resentment buzzer instead of the compassion bell.

Whoa. Hold up there. Resenting an impassioned plea to help save at least one or two puppies? Doesn’t that make me some kind of Cruella de Vil?

Sure, I couldn’t do anything directly to save the puppies. But I could share the link, right? How much energy could that possibly take? How could I refuse to put out the word?

Well, there are a couple of reasons. For starters, there was the link itself, which felt very “click-baity” when I read it. “Help us! Puppies will die if you don’t come TODAY!”

Believe me, I know there is probably someone on the other end of that post, hoping against hope that they don’t have to perform the soul-destroying task of euthanizing healthy puppies because some irresponsible person let their dog have them without any intention of raising them and finding homes for them. And my heart breaks for that shelter worker. I know their pain is real, even if they couched their request like so many other posts begging for help.

But practically speaking, by the time I’d put out the half-a dozen or so fires at my job, which also requires a great deal of compassion, it was so late in the day that my sharing the post would have been too late for that litter of puppies. Perhaps it could have raised awareness for someone else out there looking for a puppy that they should check out the shelter, but the puppies in question? Too late.

And that’s when I realized that my compassion bank account was dangerously low.

Because every day we’re hit up with thousands of similar requests. GoFundMe accounts for medical or funeral expenses shared by our friends. Political organizations playing off our justifiable outrage over some restrictive measure that’s just been enacted, and if we don’t donate NOW, warning of the Bad Things coming our way. Just causes demanding we take action. Global catastrophes begging for our financial support. Legal funds for kids in cages, ripped from their families. Egregious acts of racism that deserve investigation and some kind of response. Missing children on milk cartons needing to be identified. And so on.

And yes, I realize that I’m speaking from a place of great privilege because I’m not the one begging for help paying my bills or needing someone to rescue me from having to perform a heartbreaking task.

I think of myself as a compassionate person. Professions that demand compassion tend to attract empathetic people, and I chose my career path years ago because I had compassion to spare. I donate generously to things I believe in because I usually don’t have the time to volunteer in person. I spent years serving as a caretaker to my father because it was my mother’s wish that he be able to stay at home rather than enter an advanced care facility. I trap, neuter, and vaccinate the stray cats that show up around my house on my own dime, finding homes for those that can be tamed and going to ridiculous lengths to take care of the remaining ones (see the expensive catio that I built for these furry freeloaders). I cried when the annoying trash panda, whom I caught three times before trapping the mean tom (who hisses and spits at me every day, despite being nursed back to health), got hit by a car.

I share things. The post about the homeless trans teen who needs help. The post from an internet acquaintance who needs help paying for her cat’s surgery. The posts about fundraisers, many of which I contribute to myself. The posts about organizations raising money to deal with the aftermaths of flooding, fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes. The posts where some mother is asking for likes to show her son or daughter how beautiful they are. I comment with sympathy on the posts of total strangers who have experienced a great loss.

My lack of willingness to share the post about the puppies, and the resentment the request generated, tells me I must draw the line somewhere. None of us are designed with endless wells of compassion. To mix metaphors, we can’t keep overdrawing our compassion accounts to spend on things out of our control. The constant withdrawal of coins to spend on people we don’t know will bankrupt us.

I’m not Cruella de Vil.

I have compassion fatigue.

Put another way, if I’d found a box of puppies myself, I would have taken them into my home. I would have had them vaccinated and dewormed, and tried my best to find homes for them all, while at the same time, trying to socialize them and instill some manners in order to make them the best possible candidates for adoption.

If the local shelter had a fundraiser, I’d volunteer my time, donate some money, and if I couldn’t do either of the above, I’d share the post about it. I’d probably share the post regardless, but in terms of doing something, sharing is the last on the list. I’ve said it before, but sharing posts without taking action is little more than virtue-signaling. It might make you feel good, but for the most part it accomplishes very little.

I wrote a bit about my struggles with social media in general a few weeks ago, and how I think SM breaks are necessary for our mental health. In that post, I mentioned this metafilter thread that my husband had shared with me: What’s Mine to care about and what’s NOT MINE to care about. The original post cited, as well as the discussion thread it generated, is well-worth reading. In the OP, If You Can’t Take In Anymore, There’s a Reason, the poster refers to the need for an emotional circuit breaker because our minds and hearts aren’t wired to care about everything that’s on fire all over the world at the same time, and if we don’t flip that breaker, our whole house will burn down.

I couldn’t agree more. So like the OP, I recommend you pick one fire to put out at a time, and you concentrate on the fire that threatens the things you care about the most. Battle that fire with all your heart and resources. Fight the fire you think you have the best chance of helping to contain, or the one that is the most pressing to you because it’s in your backyard. You can help fight a fire halfway across the world, if that’s the fire that’s important to you, but you can’t squander your limited resources on trying to fight them all.

Because if 101 Dalmatians show up at your doorstep looking for a ride home, you want to have enough compassion in the bank to get them there.

And perhaps if I wasn’t staring down at a compassion overdraft notice, I would have shared the post about the puppies after all. Because that is the sort of thing I care about.

Is it Time to kiss Social Media Goodbye?

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Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

More and more people I know are discussing leaving social media altogether. Divorcing themselves from Facebook, Twitter, and even the relatively happy place, Instagram.

I’m not surprised, to be honest. Social media has become a toxic swamp, weaponized by those forces wishing to polarize populations and bring countries to their knees. Think I’m exaggerating? Remember the huge hate the latest trilogy of Star Wars movies received from supposed fanboys who hated the fact none of the leads were young, white men?

Welp, a post by Wired in 2018 revealed that as much as half the negative tweets about the film were politically motivated or generated by bots (a storyline worthy of the franchise itself, if you ask me).

It’s not just polarizing people over issues such as diversity and inclusiveness. Social media has become the place most people get their information these days, and the amount of disinformation out there, aimed at creating divisiveness at best and destroying nations at worst, is scary. I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but when I see well-educated people in the medical profession or education supporting unverified, crazy theories over statistically-backed scientific reports, I’m concerned, let me tell you.

On a personal level, I find the damage it causes something else altogether. We’ve become addicted to doomscrolling, and because clicks are king, media outlets are creating provocative headlines designed to keep us in a perpetual state of outrage. My husband and I had a conversation about this the other day, and I think for many of us, we share these anger-inducing posts because it’s the bare minimum we can do. Most of us don’t have the time, energy, or resources to do anything other than share the outrage because we think people should be angry and upset over these important issues.

(Don’t get me started on the data mining these platforms do… how creepy is it that my husband and I talk about buying a new mattress and shortly thereafter, our feeds get flooded with mattress adverts??)

But the truth of the matter is not only is sharing bad news (and OMG, there’s SO much of it these days) completely worthless in terms of doing something about it, there may be great harm in doing so as well. It fosters a sense of hopelessness about our ability to change anything: from the impending climate disasters, to voter suppression and the march to invalidate any election results the opposition doesn’t like, from politicians who get vaccinated themselves, but tell their constituents Covid-19 is nothing to worry about, so don’t bother with vaccines and oh, by the way, get back to work, please. And when we get sucked into a state of despair and cynicism, then we stop trying to make a difference where we can.

My husband shared this great metafilter discussion thread with me, and I’m sharing it here with you: What’s MINE to care about and what’s NOT MINE to care about. It has some great things to say about limiting your anxiety over the things for which you have no control and what to do about the things you can affect. That you can’t fight all the battles in the world, but you can’t opt out of fighting any. And if all you’re doing is sharing outrage posts, how is that different from virtue signaling? The metafilter discussion was in reference to this post here, which points out we are not designed to handle all the suffering in the world, and that circuit breakers exist for a reason: to prevent electrical systems from overloading.

My friends, the majority of whom I met online, are moving off social media and onto other, smaller platforms, such as WhatsApp and Discord. The main reason? To keep up with each other during the day but avoid getting sucked into the mire of disinformation and ugly rhetoric out there. I can’t say as I blame them. I’ve taken Facebook off my phone. I’m considering eliminating Twitter next. Some of my friends have taken things one step further: they’ve deleted their accounts.

I confess, the idea of doing that fills me with a sense of dread. I’m a writer. I’ve been told over and over again that I must have a presence on social media. And without the backing of a Big Name Publisher, I suspect this is true. I need to keep hustling to remind people my stories exist, to build a newsletter following, to manage groups, to post regularly to all my platforms, to stand on the deck of the Ark amidst limitless seas, releasing doves again and again in the hopes of one of them eventually bringing back signs of dry land out there.

To consider eliminating my social media presence feels a bit like giving up. Like accepting that I’ll never be more than a small potatoes writer releasing a handful of French fries once a year. So maybe I won’t delete my accounts.

But I can be a better steward of them.

You want fries with that?

Photo by Dzenina Lukac from Pexels