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I’m not sure I’ve ever been great at paying attention to the world around me. It has to be pretty spectacular for me to notice it.

When I was a college freshman, I headed off to an afternoon class, “Media and Society,” one fall day. After walking across campus and into the library, I saw a note on the door saying that class had been canceled. Hmm.

As I walked back toward my dorm, a security man drove up to me in a golf cart. He was an older, big man, and I remember how red his face was. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

I gaped at him. “Well, I’m trying to get to class. But it’s canceled.”

“Well it sure as hell is! Hurricane Hugo is coming through, young lady! Why do you think the campus is deserted? Do you hear that siren? And look at that sky. Do you think that’s normal?”

Oh. No, I didn’t think it was normal, now that he mentioned it. And the campus was sort of oddly deserted….like that movie The Day After. The siren? I don’t know what I thought that was all about. The outraged security guy dragged me into his golf cart and deposited me at my dorm with stern warnings. Everyone in my dorm had gathered into the commons area to watch the TV….a fact I’d been blissfully unaware of when I’d left my dorm room and trotted off to the canceled class.

Sometimes I don’t pay attention to minor details.

I skip over details when reading, too. I want to get to the main thrust of the story. Ordinarily, tedious setting descriptions, love scenes, and boring bits get a pass over from me.

What I do pay attention to as a reader:

First off: who is the protagonist? I want to know right off the bat who I need to pay most attention to.

Subtle clues to the season, time of day, and general location. Are people wearing sweaters? Coats? Sleeveless tops? Are leaves turning? Are crocuses blooming? Are the characters’ shadows stretching out on the pavement in front of them? I think I pay more attention to setting clues than if the writer comes right out and lays out the information for me.

What year is it? Am I reading something set in the present day? A retro piece? I read a book recently that dealt with World War II. But for the longest time, I couldn’t ascertain if the war was still ongoing, or set in its aftermath. I ignored everything else in the book until I tracked down that bit of information.

I want more details about the setting if I’m reading a tense scene between protagonist and antagonist. Can the protagonist escape? Is there anyone within earshot?

Who are important secondary characters? Which names do I need to learn and which are just bit players I don’t have to remember later?

What is the relationship between different characters? Friends? Lovers? Family? I may even need an additional reminder of their connection later on.

If you sometimes skim as a reader, are there parts that you’re actively looking for? Are there parts you always want to pay attention to or that you flip back in a book to find?

I was putting my daughter to bed the other night and she said, “I want to stay with you forever!”

Of course I told her she was sweet, and continued tucking her in. But she held onto my hand and said, “I really, really do, Mama. Can’t I always live here, even when I’m a grown-up?”

I smiled at her and gave her a hug. “I know you think that now. But you’ll be a teenager and won’t want to spend as much time with Mama. And then you’ll grow up and want to have a family and a house of your own.”

I kissed her goodnight.

The next night was a determined repeat of the last. “Can’t I always live here with you, Mama?”

I opened my mouth to give The Truth of the Matter, Part II, when it finally occurred to me that that was not the ending she wanted to hear. I wasn’t giving her what she wanted. She was going to keep trying for the alternate, better ending.

“You can always live here. Even when you’re a grown-up. You’ll always have a home here with Daddy and me, if you want it.”

Big smile and she was happily off to sleep.

Critics and movie goers frequently like different things. Critics see movies all the time and are bored stiff by formulaic movies. Movie goers are frequently happy with comfortable familiarity. Critics wouldn’t mind some really tragic endings to films. Movie goers are less tolerant of unhappy endings.

Are readers really any different?

What does a reader want? Frequently:

Unambiguous endings

Tied up sub-plots

No cliff-hanging endings

And….for many readers….happy endings.

I’ll admit that I try to plug into what readers want. I really want to make a career of this writing gig. I get emails from readers and read what readers have to say in comments on book blogs. I’m taking it all in. For me, satisfying a reader is priority #1. If I’ve satisfied readers, my editor is usually pretty happy, too.

I’ve gotten a couple of questions lately about using Facebook, so I thought I’d do a post on it. If y’all have any other questions, please feel free to comment or shoot me an email so I can answer them (or find out the answer if I don’t know it.) I’m including some really basic info here, but I’ve also got a few other things for more experienced users.

A Professional Account and a Personal One:

I started out with a personal Facebook page first. I had a lot of friends using it and sharing pictures, etc, on it—and I had some curiosity about people I’d graduated from high school and college with.

But then I quickly realized that I needed a separate Facebook account for my writing friends. I was wincing far too much as old pictures from sorority formals or icky yearbook pictures were getting scanned in and uploaded to Facebook from old friends.

I decided to open a second Facebook account under Elizabeth Spann Craig, Author. So far, I’ve only had a few friend requests where a personal friend tried to befriend me on my author account and vice versa. I always send a message to them if they do that says, “Hey, I think you’ll like it better on this account….that one’s for work,” or else “Could you be my friend on this account? This is the one with all the writers.”

Some people will recommend that you get a ‘fan’ page instead of 2 separate Facebook accounts. But I like the 2 accounts, myself. I don’t like asking someone to ‘be my fan,’ but I don’t mind asking someone to be my friend. But there are benefits to having a fan page: they are accessible to anyone, even if someone doesn’t have a Facebook account. The argument for having a fan page is here. There’s also, I think, not a cap for having friends. Regular Facebook pages cap at 5,000 friends. But….frankly, I can’t imagine having that many FB friends. I’m at over 600 and I just don’t see me getting anywhere close to that number.

Setting up Facebook is really easy. I think it’s probably one of the easier social media out there.

• Step 1

  Start at the homepage for Facebook.com. You’ll see a screen where you can click on ‘sign up’.

• Step 2

  On the sign up screen, you fill out your name (full name…you’ll be surprised how many people across the world share your name), email address, password, and some other personal info. If you are setting up 2 different Facebook accounts, you’ll need to have 2 different email addresses to use for setting up the accounts (somebody correct me if I’m wrong…it was like that when I was doing it, but might have changed.) This is still easy, since you can get a Gmail account, Hotmail account, or Yahoo account for free. You’ll have a word verification form and an “I accept” agreement to click. Then you click the ‘sign up now.’

• Step 3

• Facebook will send a confirmation email to you to the account you used while setting it up. When you get the email, click the link and you’ll be logged into Facebook..

• Step 4

  I’d be careful when it asks you if you want to search for friends because Facebook will search your email address books. I didn’t use that feature—I just searched for friends in the search boxes. For your personal account, you can search by university and graduating year, which is fun. You can also search by company, if you want to find old coworkers.

• Step 5
  Set your privacy settings. There’s a toolbar at the very top of each page that has ‘settings.’ That’s where you can set up who sees your information and how your info is shared.

• Step 6
  Upload pictures for your profile. Add personal information on your info tab.

How does Facebook work?

You can’t really look up someone’s information unless you’re their friend. It’s limited, for their privacy. You send a friend request to the person and on their end, they get a little notice in the top, right-hand corner of their screen, telling them they’ve got a request. They can click on it and see your picture and name and decide if they want to befriend you (I know this sounds a little like junior high.) If they accept, you can see their info and they can see yours.

Status Updates: This is where you can start a conversation by bringing up a question or making a statement. You can see your friends’ status updates and can respond to them by clicking ‘comment.’

Pull your blog feed onto Facebook:

Set up Facebook to pull your blog feed automatically onto your profile page. This frequently will generate comments: (I’m cutting and pasting Facebook’s instructions on doing so:)

1. On the Notes page (you get there by clicking on Notes on the bottom left hand side of the window), click the Import a blog link on the right side of the page.
2. Enter the URL (web address) of your blog into the text box, and check the box underneath that states that you agree to our Terms of Use.
3. To complete the process, click on “Save Settings.” Once you do this, your previous posts will appear as notes and any new posts you make will automatically display.

Making friends:

Look up writers you admire who write in your genre. Become their friend. Facebook friends are different from real friends—no one is going to wonder who you are and why you’re asking to be their friend, so don’t feel self-conscious about it. It’s a different culture. Once you’re friends with the author you targeted, click on their friend list and ask those people to be your friends. Those people will get a friend request from you stating that you share a mutual friend (the author you originally targeted.) Twitter works the same way. Look up an author or industry professional (agent, editor) that you respect. Then follow them. Then you can raid their followers list.

I accept almost everyone as a friend. Unless they’re currently serving time or something.

Networked Blogs:

Networked blogs is my favorite Facebook application (it’s a 3rd party one, but very popular.) Basically, you’re bringing your blog to the Facebook community—they can access it via Facebook’s blog reader. And your blog will automatically post to your profile page. The only thing is it’s sort of a pain in the neck to figure out and set up. The best online guide that I’ve found for how to set it up is this one. It uses screenshots as illustration, which really helps.

Helpful Tips for Facebook:

Twenty Facebook Tips You Might Not Know.

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know.

What I’ve gotten out of Facebook professionally:

I’ve gotten interview requests, etc. in my Facebook inbox. I think that’s because, if I’m Googled, Facebook comes up quicker than my email or blog as a contact.

I really enjoy networking with the writing community in real-time on Facebook.

Dangers of Facebook:

Could you spend your entire day on Facebook? Oh, sure, without even thinking about it. But I think the best thing to do is to set a timer to remind us to get off of it after we’ve visited. Otherwise you can lose large chunks of time there without even thinking about it.

My daughter would balance on the slippery edge of the bathtub for what seemed like an eternity before stepping out onto the mat. No holding on to the side for her.

“Oh my goodness, you are scaring me to death!” I’d say.

“Why?” Very curiously.

“You’ll get hurt!”

A couple of days later–

“You’re scaring me just looking at you! I told you not to stand there!”

“Why?”

“Because I said so!”

Finally, when the same scenario of the bathtub balancing act played out a third time, I said in my best ghost story voice:

“I once knew a boy when we lived in Birmingham. He was just a little guy. But one day, he stood up on the edge of that slippery bathtub. He was just weaving and wobbling around, and WHAM! He busted out both of his front teeth. Oh the blood and the crying–you just wouldn’t believe it! His mama had to put his teeth in a glass of milk so they wouldn’t go rotten on the way to the dentist. And the dentist had to stick the little boy’s front teeth back in!”

She never stood up on the edge of the bathtub again.

What’s the lesson? Other than the fact that I finally succumbed to the grand tradition of parent warnings (including the granddaddy of them all “Your face will freeze like that!” I liked to cross my eyes at people when I was a kid…)?

That when you paint a good, concrete image in someone’s head with words, it’s powerful.

How to make it vivid? I think it depends on the book and the genre.

I usually like reading vigorous language with strong verbs, spot-on metaphors, and sensory details that are quick but evocative.

Fancy adjectives don’t hurt. And I’m not adverse to adverbs if they’re not overdone.

A good storytelling style, or voice, helps too. Even if an author’s word choices aren’t wonderful, if his voice is strong, it’ll grab me. I can see everything through the narrator’s eyes and it pulls me into the story.

What makes a vivid story for you?

Sometimes it’s a challenge to act like you’re a professional person when you write.

People don’t really get writing, sometimes. They know we’re at home, but they really don’t know what we’re doing there.

And children can make it difficult to be professional.

When I upgraded my cell phone and gave my son the old phone, I had no idea that the contact list would still be there, even though we’d gotten a new phone number assigned to the phone. He was busily thumbing through, adding contacts to his directory (all 7th graders) and said, “Hey. Who’s Ellen?”

“Ellen? Ellen is my agent. Hey…give me that phone!”

And then my 3rd grade daughter, who tried to make me change my profile picture on my Gmail account so it would have kittens on it.

I’ve no problem with kittens. I love cats, actually. But a book cover would be a better choice for my particular books.

Then, of course, there was the radio interview where my daughter knocked on my locked bedroom door for 20 minutes.

Still, I’m trying hard to portray myself as a serious professional.

Things that help:

• Business cards.
• A snappy, interesting one or two sentence summary of your book, if someone asks what it’s about. (Think of it like a pitch.)
• Introducing yourself as a writer (this is a tough one. I’m working on it.)
• A professional-sounding email, Twitter, Facebook account. My email is my name, and so is my Twitter account and Facebook. I have two Facebook accounts—one professional and one personal. This keeps me from feeling irritated when old sorority sisters post pictures of me from 1989.
• My voice mail message sounds professional.
• A website. This is important, even if your book isn’t out yet. Make sure your contact info isn’t buried on there.
• Respecting our writing time and asking others to do so, too.
• Making sure our children know when we’re about to be on an important phone call.

Alan Orloff had a wonderful idea for keeping children away when you need to work. He puts a sign on his office door that says: Please come in so we can get started on chores.

Brilliant!