Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

I’ve had two interviews in the space of a week, and I’m headed to a conference next month to speak on a panel—so I thought that a post on interviews might be timely. :)

Radio—I’ve done a couple of radio interviews. I had a great interview with Sheila Redling from WKEE yesterday…and she’s a writer, herself, so all the better!

For some reason, I seem only to be able to do radio interviews when the children are home. :) Yesterday was a snow day because of icy conditions. Here’s a tip for parents who do interviews while the kids are home: explain everything. Explain that a radio interview means that the phone will ring and they don’t need to get it, that they only need to interrupt you if it’s a true emergency (and clarify what a true emergency is), and explain that if the dog starts unexpectedly barking, to put her outside in the back yard. Trust me. It’s better to be over-prepared. Put a sticky note on your closed door to remind them you’re on the radio/on the phone…they’ll forget. They were very good yesterday. I’ve had problems in the past, though. :)

Other tips for radio:

Emailed Interviews

Most of the interviews that I do are emailed interviews…which, of course, I love. Easy peasy for writers to do email interviews. And they turn out so well!

Telephone Interviews with Newspapers

I’ve done a couple of phone interviews for the newspaper and those make me a little anxious because they usually don’t submit the questions in advance…and because I don’t like being on the phone. And because sometimes news people (not all news people…maybe just the reporters that I happen to have dealt with) are a little more challenging to talk to. I’ve found, though, that you can be really thoughtful :) and, when you get the interview request from a newspaper, you can offer to provide them with questions or with ideas for questions. You’re only thinking of them, naturally. The reporters are frequently short on time and are grateful for the help…and I’m grateful to prepare in advance.

My radio interview is going to be playing Friday on WKEE 100.5 at 8:35 and 8:50 EST and as soon as it uploads on their website as a podcast, I’ll link to it. :)

My Skype interview for Joanna Penn’s new Mystery TV show is here and I talk about writing mysteries (and you can see a summary of the interview below the video player.) As a note to women writers out there—y’all, I wore a ton of makeup (enough for my husband to blink at me when he came in from work and wonder who the heck I was), but you can’t even tell. So definitely make up more.

I’ll add the proviso that it’s difficult for me to see and hear myself on video and audio, but I take comfort in the fact that so many of you said that you didn’t like to see or hear yourselves, either! There’s room for improvement for me, but thank goodness for video and audio editing.

Tomorrow I’ll post a little on panels and preparing for those. I lumped everything together in this one post and it was too long, so I’ll tackle that topic tomorrow. :)

Anyone with any additional tips for interviews? Which type of format do you like best?

I’ve recently gotten a couple of emails from writers asking for tips on starting out with blogging, and gaining blog followers.

I’m definitely not an expert, but I’ll share what I do know and offer some tips that might help with starting out.

There are definitely some elements that you’ll want on your blog. The design of the blog doesn’t matter very much (except that some of us have trouble reading white words on black backgrounds). But there are some widgets and elements you might want to think about including in your sidebar.

Blog roll: Not only is this a great way to direct traffic to your blogging friends’ sites, but it’s also helpful to writers who are looking for other writing blogs to follow.

RSS feed button: RSS is basically just an easy way for someone to add you to their blog reader by just a couple of clicks. If you put it near the top of your sidebar, it will help encourage folks to follow you.

A follower widget. This could be Networked Blogs (a 3rd party application of Facebook) or the Google follower widget. People like to feel like they belong…I know I look for a follower widget as soon as I visit a new blog.

Are you on Twitter or Facebook? You don’t have to be, but if you are, then add a button to your sidebar to increase interaction with your readers.

Besides blog widgets and buttons, there’s another important area to consider—readers. Be sure to visit others’ blogs and comment. Many will return the favor with a visit to your blog.

I know that folks who participate in blogfests and blog carnivals also find new readers. It’s boggling my mind right now, but I looked for an online dictionary definition of blogfest to link to…and I can’t find one. Bizarre! I’ll give it a go myself, then—a blogfest is a group of blogs who post on a particular topic (usually on one particular day, unless specified for longer) and link to each others’ blogs.

A quick tip—don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you won’t be able to post every day, then don’t. Better to post once a week on a particular day (that you note in your sidebar) or three times a week and be able to keep up with the pace.

I’d also recommend having a good number of blog posts in draft form that you can pull from if you need to. It would be fantastic if you could have an emergency supply of posts before you start your blog, but it’s easy to do a marathon blog-writing session and build up a backlog of them at any time.

I learned a lot from the Blog Book Tour class that Dani offers…and she’s just about to start another one in February, I see. Here’s the info on the class (I got a ton out of it when I took it in 2009): http://blogbooktours.blogspot.com/2011/01/in-with-new-class.html .

Most of y’all who comment here have been long-time bloggers yourselves. Got tips? Please share!

I love making lists. I make lists of things to do, things to get at the store, and things I want to accomplish for the year.

And, as I mentioned in this post in September, I frequently use lists while writing, too. To recap that post, I’ve found that making lists can help me advance my plot when I don’t have much time (I can list all the ways I can think of…from zany to useful…to approach the next scene), or to make my setting come alive (a list of one particular setting, using each of the five senses to describe it), or to develop my character or my understanding of a character (top 5 things my character cares about, top 5 things that keeps my protagonist up at night.)

My writing friend Jemi Fraser of the Just Jemi blog posted recently on her frustration with her lack of writing time lately. She’s frequently getting only twenty minutes a day or fewer to work on her book.

The nice thing about lists is that you can keep a small notebook with you and even if you only have 5 minutes to write, you can make some short lists of things like your character’s traits, ways the character can grow during the course of the book, possible subplots, etc.

I’ve also found that making lists has made me a less-tentative writer. I used to obsess a little over my book’s beginning and ending. I would write several different options for the first chapter and the closing chapter of the book, then choose which I liked best.

When you make lists of your possibilities instead, I’ve found that somehow it puts my anxiety to rest—and I can more quickly explore the different options and see which is better.

You can also curb your desire to stop writing and research part of your book by listing the different things you need to look up. Not happy with a character name or the name of your fictitious town? You don’t have to fix it right then…just start a list called “names” and add to it when you come across them. You can always call a character A or B and fill the names in later.

Making lists also comes in handy when you have plot holes. My editor emailed me last week and pointed out a problem area with the third Memphis Barbeque book. Somehow I hadn’t noticed it during my revisions, but it was definitely something that needed to be fixed.

I made a list of all the different ways I could think of to work my way out of the mess. When I thought I’d come up with all of them, I kept on going and found some additional solutions. It was easy to come up with the strongest solution when I saw the possibilities together.

Are you a list-maker, too? Have you tried using lists to help write your story?

I’ve never thought of myself as a good book reviewer. I’m definitely not a good critiquer—my technique is really just an overwhelming desire to rewrite a problem area in someone’s manuscript. I can tell when something isn’t working…I have a hard time pinpointing why it’s not working. I just want to fix it. (No, I’m not in any crit groups now.) :)

My son was working on a literary criticism project for his English class. He’s a competent writer, although he’s usually not enthusiastic about doing it.

This time, he handed me his paper. “Take a look at this!” he said, smiling.

He’d written a good thesis. He’d come up with several pages to support it…except there were two paragraphs that didn’t tie into his thesis at all. The paragraphs were on how the author’s word choice created a certain mood.

Well….the author’s word choice did create a somber mood. He was right about that. But he hadn’t tied the examples into his thesis at all.

I was about to say, “Hey, it looks great. But you might want to look at these paragraphs here and see if you can find a problem…” But then I stopped.

He was excited about writing. He hadn’t finished his essay yet. Right now he was enthusiastic and productive. Why mess with momentum?

So I brought it up after he was finished writing the paper. He was glad I’d pointed out that he should make sure that everything tied into his thesis, but he’d rather have fixed the problem as he’d gone along—and he’d continued making the same error a couple more times after he’d finished writing the essay.

Pros to biting your tongue–
The writer might continue writing with confidence and enthusiasm.

Editing can happen just as well in the second draft.

Pros to pointing out a potential problem with a manuscript–
The writer has an opportunity to decide if it is a problem…and correct it before they go on any farther.

Does the critique you give depend on the writer looking for advice? And how do you feel about constructive criticism…would you rather have it during your first draft, or after?

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week.

If you’re looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand corner of the blog (on the black header right above my blog name…next to the Blogger symbol…the small search window is next to the magnifying glass) and the roundup with your subject will come up. To narrow your search down on the page, do a CTRL+F, type your subject, and hit enter.

I’m also archiving these posts in what I hope is an easily searchable format—if you look at the Twitterific tabs under the blog’s heading, I’m posting the links there, too.

Why complications and setbacks are good for police procedurals and other crime fiction: http://dld.bz/EJtv @mkinberg

The importance of context: http://dld.bz/EEEV

Changing Format to Increase Impact: http://dld.bz/EHTK

Pronoun peeves: http://dld.bz/EEEA

A bit on emotional structure: http://dld.bz/EHTu

Choose-Your-Own-Illustrator! or Don’t. No, Really, Don’t. : http://dld.bz/EEE2

How to speak publisher – B is for Bologna: http://dld.bz/EEEu

To be a better writer, you’ve got to write…a lot: http://dld.bz/EJqp @camillelaguire

Writing Memoir: Art vs. Confessional: http://dld.bz/EEEq

Want to keep your book timeless? Avoid these areas that might date it: http://dld.bz/EJs7 @mkinberg

Is E-book Lending Bad News for Authors and Publishers? http://dld.bz/EEEd

New Worlds: Stranger than Fiction: http://dld.bz/EHTg

The 15 Best Speculative Fiction Books of 2010: http://dld.bz/EEEb

Huckleberry Finn: The problem of that word (Globe and Mail): http://dld.bz/EEDZ

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: WHAT COLOR IS SWEET? http://bit.ly/foahKi @CleoCoyle

11 Free Resources About Creativity: http://dld.bz/E7RR

4 steps to turn a writing dream into reality: http://dld.bz/E7Rv

The essence of attraction: http://dld.bz/ECCH

The Writer as multi-tasker? http://dld.bz/EC9t

Suturing: Making Our Readers One With the Story: http://dld.bz/EC8R

Outlining the first draft: http://dld.bz/EC8y

Creating tension in your novel: http://dld.bz/EC8q

Taking on the Procrastination Pixies by…Eating Frogs? http://dld.bz/EC5D @KristenLambTX

Impressive, organized link roundup of writing craft links (including POV and syntax): http://dld.bz/EC5d @4kidlit

How Authors Can Use Facebook Pages for Their Book Marketing: http://dld.bz/E7UV

Publishers losing confidence in Borders’ survival: http://dld.bz/E7UP

Friends, Romans, Librarians: Lend Me Your E-books (Part 2): http://dld.bz/E7U8

The importance of subplots: http://dld.bz/E7Uy

3 ways writers evolve over time: http://dld.bz/E7Uq

Interested in writing or illustrating graphic novels? A little on the process: http://dld.bz/E7TR

Criminal forensics resources for writers: http://dld.bz/E7T3

How To Create A Book Trailer: http://dld.bz/E7QW @thecreativepenn

Huck Finn Expurgated And Other Censored Books (Photo essay–Huff Post): http://dld.bz/EzFg

How to Write a Good Blog Comment: http://dld.bz/EyHN

One writer’s 7 point plan for a better writing year: http://dld.bz/EzHb @charmaineclancy

Symbolism Thesaurus Entry: Evil: http://dld.bz/EyHE

4 free data tools for journalists (and snoops): http://dld.bz/EyH7

Getting Defensive Over Your Work Isn’t Always Bad: http://dld.bz/EyHv

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Cheese Slices (Dessert!) and a Contest! http://bit.ly/fl6ZTe @CleoCoyle

Perspective, Opinion, and Point Of View — Distinctions That Matter To Writers And Readers: http://dld.bz/Exv4

8 Sentences to Immediately Cut From Your Twitter Bio: http://dld.bz/EyB3

How to Get More Mobile Visitors Onto Your Email List: http://dld.bz/EyBs

Outlining and series: http://dld.bz/EyBe

Who is That Guy? Discovering Your Characters: http://dld.bz/EyA8

Friends, Romans, Librarians: Lend Me Your E-book (Part 1): http://dld.bz/EyAm

Skype interviews for writers: http://dld.bz/Ey9Z

13 Reasons Why You Didn’t Get Followed Back: http://dld.bz/Ey9J

How to punctuate quotations: http://dld.bz/Ey9F

2010 Tax Rules Freelancers Should Know: http://dld.bz/Exwf

Nice agent interview, covering market trends in publishing and thoughts on author platform: http://dld.bz/EzDk @ChuckSambuchino

Making books do things e-books can’t — and vice versa (LA Times): http://dld.bz/Exvm

Have you backed up recently? http://dld.bz/Exur

Slow and steady wins the race: http://dld.bz/Exna

The Creative Road to a Great Book Title: http://dld.bz/Esvh

Interviewing characters? Interview yourself: http://dld.bz/EsuX

Should agents stop taking emailed submissions? http://dld.bz/ExtK @RachelleGardner

10 Rules for a Literary Feud: http://dld.bz/EsuS

Tips for proofing your own work: http://t.co/gT6KYdF @camillelaguire

11 New Year’s Resolutions for Writers in 2011: http://dld.bz/Esu6 @victoriamixon

Two Authors Talk About Virtual Book Tours (Huff Post): http://dld.bz/Esux

The balancing act of pacing: http://dld.bz/Esum

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Football Frenzy – Potato Salad http://bit.ly/dJtiTi @CleoCoyle

Name your fictional character: http://dld.bz/EstZ

A writer’s top 10 New Year’s Resolutions: http://dld.bz/EstV

A Thought From A Reformed Pantser: http://dld.bz/Est7

2010: The Year Self-Publishing Lost Its Stigma (PBS): http://dld.bz/Estr

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: A Sweet Start to the Year–Chocolate Pecan Bark http://bit.ly/fklrma @CleoCoyle

Motivation and writing: http://dld.bz/EnrR

Thanks to Joanna @thecreativepenn for a great interview this afternoon. Looking forward to tweeting the link. :)

Top Ten List of Advice for Aspiring Writers: http://dld.bz/EnrF

PR Success – PR Failure: http://dld.bz/Enr2

Writing teen angst: http://dld.bz/EnqV

The Counter-intuitive Nature of Social Media Influence. Sometimes Up is Down & Down is Up: http://dld.bz/Enq8

Don’t get bogged down in research…write your book: http://dld.bz/EnnU

16 Must Have Elements For a Successful Novel: http://dld.bz/Ennm

Ten Surprising Ways to Thrive as a Freelance Writer (Huff Post): http://dld.bz/Enmw

Does your pitch make sense? http://dld.bz/EnkB

Revisionist Attitude: Mentally Preparing for Revisions: http://dld.bz/Enqb

Getting published–goals vs. strategies: http://dld.bz/EmRq

Best Literary Magazines of 2010: http://dld.bz/Ennv

Selling readers short–why we shouldn’t state the obvious: http://dld.bz/EmPQ @hartjohnson

Digital Lending: How it works and who allows it: http://dld.bz/EdF9

Momming and Writing: http://dld.bz/EdFw

Mystery writer’s guide to forensic science–poisons: http://dld.bz/EdFe @clarissadraper

Researching Your Novel: Setting: http://dld.bz/EdEX

Thoughts on the Unreal, Part 1: Anticipation: http://dld.bz/EdE4

How to avoid getting an agent: http://dld.bz/EdDV

What matters to our characters: http://dld.bz/EdhS

Creating Unforgettable Settings: http://dld.bz/Edhy

11 Tips for Getting the Most out of “Writer’s Market”: http://dld.bz/Edhv

Resources for Authors Traveling To Book Clubs & Schools: http://dld.bz/Ec9Z

Creating An Author Brand: Why It’s Not Really About the Book: http://dld.bz/EaBf

How To Start 2011 Off Right: http://dld.bz/EaAf

Struggling Borders to Meet With Publishers (NY Times): http://dld.bz/Ec8W

20 people who rocked science fiction and fantasy in 2010: http://dld.bz/Ea9B

The Changing Role of Libraries in the Digital Age (Huff Post): http://dld.bz/Ea95

A Writer’s Plot Board: Getting organized: http://dld.bz/Ea55 @4kidlit

Master This Skill Before Setting New Writing Goals: http://dld.bz/Ea5w

Eight Writing Lessons from Larsson: http://dld.bz/Ea4Y @jammer0501

How to Bring Sexy Back to Book Signings: http://dld.bz/DRyZ

Writing sins that scupper a story Part 3: Salt: http://dld.bz/DQKN

Putting Life Back Into Overly Revised Novels: http://dld.bz/DQK5

How To Be The Person You Want To Be: http://dld.bz/DQKv

7 Ways to Kick Start Your Day: http://dld.bz/DQKa

You might be a writer if… http://dld.bz/DQJ6

Kindle kicks Harry Potter out of top-selling spot on Amazon: http://dld.bz/DKdj

Real authors writing fake books (Globe and Mail): http://dld.bz/DQHP

The Borders death spiral: http://dld.bz/DQHE

Blogging–the future is now: http://dld.bz/DQHc

10 Writing Resolutions You Can Fulfill: http://dld.bz/DQGQ

Writing sins that scupper a story–part 2 (Dr. Who, Runaway Bride): http://dld.bz/DQG2 @dirtywhitecandy

Plotting From the Antag’s POV: http://dld.bz/DQGj

Finish It! 5 Simple Tips to Make More Time for Writing: http://dld.bz/DRyA @matthewschulz

How to Create an Engaging and Effective Bio Page for Your Blog or Website: http://dld.bz/DQGd

3 Tactics for Battling Procrastination: http://dld.bz/DK9g

Writing sins that scupper a story–part 1: http://dld.bz/DK8M @dirtywhitecandy

How to Set Goals That Make Sense: A Writer’s Perspective: http://dld.bz/DK8v

Brainstorming: Give the People What They Want: http://dld.bz/DK8t

What first lines *should* do: http://dld.bz/DK8r

See you at the goal line: http://dld.bz/DKev

How A Spreadsheet Can Save Your Manuscript: http://dld.bz/DQTN @matthewschulz

Can Authors Now Do It Digitally Themselves? http://dld.bz/DKed

Are We Being a Responsible Novel Parent or a Deadbeat Book-Daddy? http://dld.bz/DKeb

Writer’s Laryngitis – Getting Your Voice Back Again: http://dld.bz/DKdX

Deadlines are meant to be broken: http://dld.bz/DKds

Cooking up a character: http://dld.bz/DKdf