Cheryl Strayed at the UO and My Intro for her Event

-->

Sometimes life as a writer can't be topped. 

This past week, I was fortunate to be asked by Laura White from the University of Oregon Duckstore to introduce Cheryl Strayed at her event in Eugene last Wednesday night. I've known Cheryl since 2006 and, in an earlier post that you can read here, Cheryl gave me the courage to dig to the deepest part of my writer's heart. Once I was there, I was able to write another post, "The Day My Dad Died," that started a memoir.

So I have a lot to be thankful for.

Cheryl's event Wednesday night showed her ability to captivate an audience, swinging them from laughter to tears and back. She read from both books, her memoir Wild and a collection of her favorite Sugar columns, Tiny Beautiful Things. 

It's taken a week to post because I had one day after the event to prepare and pack for a week away from home: the weekend to attend Wordstock, Portland's brilliant book festival, and a week of writing at Colonyhouse with three of my posse. All I can say is, "I'm in heaven."

Me and best pal Jan Eliot

Jan talking with Cheryl

I decided to share the introduction I gave Wednesday night for three reasons: 1) to let you know that, even though the event sold out, the UO Library has a video recording of the evening, 2) I felt the intro would be encouraging to writers, and 3) readers will learn a few things about Cheryl that I'm pretty sure aren't out there on the internet.

A special thanks to Kirsten Steen for taking the photos and to Laura White who did, and always does, a superb job at organizing author events and does it with infectious enthusiasm.

(Bonus: If you read to the end, I give an inside detail about Cheryl's fashion for the evening.)

Introduction for Cheryl Strayed

UO Bookstore Event

7:00 pm, Oct. 10, 2012

When Laura asked me to introduced Cheryl, I thought, What an honor. And this will be easy.

An honor, yes. The easy part? Not so much. How do you introduce a literary rock star, especially Cheryl, who really needs no introduction?

Do I focus on the theme of grief, how Cheryl was a perfect example of the dual nature of grief where one wants to feel nothing because one feels too much. And what do you do to get past that? Or do I focus on her anonymous life as Sugar on The Rumpus, an unpaid gig, btw? How she used private stories to help others, showered her advice seekers with love, empathy, “honey buns” and “sweet peas?”

No, I didn’t need to tackle either of those because all you have to do is read Wild or Tiny Beautiful Things to immerse yourself in her overarching theme.

She’ll tell you this: “The unifying theme is resilience and faith. The unifying theme is being a warrior and a motherfucker. It’s not fragility. It’s strength. It’s nerve.”

Yes, that’s all there. But to me, her work, her life’s theme, is love. It takes strength and nerve to keep love as a theme. It takes resilience and faith to champion love. In her work, I see love as the motivation, conflict, struggle, journey, epiphany, and resolution, whether it’s love for a dead mom, love for herself, or love for those poor struggling, terrified, advice seekers.

So what do I say about Cheryl, especially now that she’s a literary super star and you know everything about her? When she’s in the phase of her life where she’s known as “Sugar,” “Oprah’s Pick,” or “a New York Times bestseller?” Amazing, the distance she’s traveled, both literally and figuratively.

In fact, when I met her in 2006 when she and a close friend of mine Randy Sue Coburn appeared at UO bookstore for a reading from their novels, approximately 25 people attended.

Oh, how some things have changed.

Many of you have probably followed Cheryl since Wild was published, what with the accompanying media blitz of articles, appearances, and interviews. The media has treated her as a literary darling and delved into the minutiae of her life as all celebrities are treated. We want to know what Cheryl eats for breakfast or how she copes with fame or, for example, what she packs around now. Is she still a Monster-carrying traveler in all her trips for promoting her books? We love our authors. We love our celebrities. We want to know them on a personal level.

Unfortunately, the media also likes to create buzz by sensationalizing stories. We are not naïve. We know they do this. But as writers we are sensitive to word choice, and that gave me my moment, the answer to how to introduce Cheryl.

Oh, yes, how some things have changed for her.

According to some media, Cheryl’s an “overnight sensation.” She’s also been referred to as “an unknown writer” who “came out of nowhere.”

Well, let’s clear this up right now. Many of you are UO students, some with dreams of becoming an author. Don’t fall for the idea that you can become an overnight sensation by being a writer. I know that our microwave culture sells us on the idea of now, fast, riches, fame, celebrity. But that isn’t the heart and soul of being a writer. We all come from a place where we seed ourselves in the soil of a literary community, grow with nourishment from other writers, and are tended by our families. We produce—a book, an essay, an article, a blog, a chapbook—and we keep steadily growing.

Cheryl recently posted about being referred to as a writer who “came out of nowhere”:

I bristle at this narrative not so much on my own behalf, but rather on behalf of the many writers I love, admire, respect and read. There is a strong and vibrant literary culture that exists and thrives in this nation and it does not exist in a place called nowhere, whether you know about it or not. It's the place where the writers work.

She may not bristle at this on her own behalf, but I do. Cheryl is sensational, but no overnight sensation. She’s never been an unknown writer. Just ask her lifelong friends, her writing group, her husband, Brian. The “nowhere” where she lives is a thriving little town called Portland.

The reality is, she started early and worked her tail off—or should I say toenails.

She didn’t just walk the Pacific Crest Trail, stop at a bridge, eat an ice cream cone, and write a book. She’s been on the long arduous, amazing, eye-opening, toe-bleeding writer’s trail since she was a kid.

As Cheryl says, her success is built on a million smaller successes. Cheryl began writing stories at age seven and never stopped. Her first real short story was called “Murder on the Midnight Express” and featured a talking parrot named Poncho.

She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English and women’s studies from the U of Minnesota, and afterwards worked various jobs and wrote on the side. She earned her MFA in fiction writing at Syracuse University in 2002. In 2003 her short story “Good” was selected by Joyce Carol Oates for inclusion in The Best American Voices 2003. Her personal essays, “Heroin/e” and “The Love of My Life,” were both selected for inclusion in the prestigious Best American Essays collections in 2000 and 2003 respectively. Other short works were published in The Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, The Missouri Review, New York Times Magazine, Allure, and The Sun.

She won a Pushcart Prize for her essay “Munro Country.”

Her first novel Torch was published in 2006. That was the year I met Cheryl here at the UO bookstore.

Her unpaid career as Sugar, the anonymous Rumpus advice columnist, began in March 2010. Cheryl came out as Sugar this year on Valentine’s Day.

In June of this year, Wild was chosen as the inaugural selection for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. Reese Witherspoon optioned Wild for her company Pacific Standard. Lisa Cholodenko is slated to write and direct the film with Witherspoon to star.

On Sept. 17, Cheryl’s 44^th birthday, she finally paid off her student loan debt.

Please welcome Cheryl Strayed.

 

If you've been patient (or cheated and skipped ahead), I'll tell you what Cheryl was wearing on her feet that night:

Black Harley Davidson boots. Yup. The girl keeps her edge.

And my favorite photo taken by Jan Eliot. How can I not love this.

Be brave! Stay adventurous!

Hugs,

Val

COMING UP:

Wordstock Fun

Where I Work: a photographic peek into my writing spaces

A Confession: What happened after my six readers responded to the Beta version of my novel

  

Save Your Writing Life: How NOT to Let Social Media Take Over—Part II

Part II --  Asking for help and making my biggest mistake,

sort of 

As you know from my last blog post, I was drunk with social media.

You know. Picture any Western where the cowgirl is stumbling from the saloon, looking happy as hell, yelling “Yippee!” and shooting off her gun. Too many saloons, too many drinks, too much time playing poker and having fun.

We all know what happens to her. She takes a header and lands face first in the dirt.

That’s what I did.

I felt foolish, stupid, out of control. Social Media was running my life, not vice versa. Kind of like when I was a smoker. The cigarettes controlled me, not the other way around.

More important, my writing suffered. I was writing maybe half the amount of time I had before, and I was finding it harder and harder to focus. I felt out of control. I felt like a failure.

But I don’t stay down long. I dusted myself off, sobered up and asked myself, “What do I need? How am I going to get out of all these saloons and get to work? What had other writers done?”

Asking for Help

I decided to call on members of my posse. They had to have made decisions about social media, hadn’t they? They had to have a plan? Or even if they didn’t have a plan, they had to have figured it out by now, right?

And it wasn’t as if I could drop it altogether. To have a career as an author, a writer has to have a presence on the web to build a readership and connect with those who will love the work. After landing a major agent, one of my critique group members was told by the agent she had to be at least on Facebook, Twitter, and have a website. She was told she needed to make herself known online—and that was before the agent went out with the novel. The agent even assigned an intern to help.

This is not a choice unless you want your book to die right after publication.

My Posse

I emailed four members of my posse for their advice:  Cheryl Strayed, Christina Katz, L.J. Sellers and Jennie Shortridge.

Cheryl writes novels and memoir, and if I have to tell you who she is, you’ve probably been living in the woods with Bigfoot.

Christina does just about everything and publishes helpful books for writers and mama-writers.

L.J. is a self-published mystery writer with amazing marketing chutzpah (and now has a big publishing deal with Amazon).

Jennie is a four-time novelist, queen of marketing (one of brains who created the Seattle7Writers), and her next novel will be out in 2013 in hardback, a triumph in the publishing world.

I asked them, What do you do online to give yourself a presence and why? Here’s what they emailed back:

Photo by Mr. Sugar

Cheryl Strayed, author of the novel Torch, her memoir and Oprah pick Wild, and Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Life and Love from Dear Sugar

            Here's what I do: I work the hell out of my Facebook page. It takes very little time to post links, comments, little bits of stuff here and there. I get tons of traffic on my page. I'm guessing most of those people, like me, have little time to read blogs or email newsletters. I think having a solid, active Facebook page does more for me than a blog or newsletter would.

Cristina Katz, author of Writer Mama, Get Known Before the Book Deal, and The Writer’s Workout.

            I do pretty much everything and update/upgrade every six months to keep up.

            I recommend creating a Wordpress.org blog that can serve as blog and a website. Go Daddy offers hosting for them.

            Typepad also can work as a blog/wesbite and would be simpler but I didn't care for their interface.

            I've posted a list on my blog of the things authors can do:  http://christinakatz.com/publishers-online-tools-every-author-can-should-master/

Jennie Shortridge, author of Riding with the Queen, Eating Heaven, Love and Biology and When She Flew

            With any kind of marketing, it's really helpful to see what other authors do, and decide which things you like or don't like. You'll only be successful doing those things you like doing, so choose for your own personality. Most marketing these days happens online, so check out authors' websites, Facebook pages, etc. With websites, you need a few key elements: about the author, about the book, order the book, events, contact/join mailing list, and of course links to social media and blogs. Readers really like having more detailed information, too, a "behind the scenes" look at the author and/or book they can't get anywhere else. I try to include some kind of background information about each book, and/or things inspired by it, like music or recipes. A lot of authors do contests and things like that to get repeat visitors, but I don't like doing that. To make my site more “sticky,” I put news and my blog on the home page, so that the content changes frequently.

           I use Maddee at Xuni.com to design and update my website. I provide her with the raw material: copy, photos, whatever. She works with my input, and I choose imagery from dreamstime.com, where you can download free images in the public domain. It's a great resource. I now send images I find there to my publisher to “show” my ideas for each new cover.  

            In addition to Facebook and (begrudgingly, Twitter) I have a presence on Red Room (which is really great) and to a lesser extent, Good Reads. I do more when I'm in promotion mode than when I’m between cycles, of course, but I try to keep somewhat current, just by posting something here and there or commenting on others’ posts. There is an old adage that if someone gets seven impressions of, say, a book (1. a review, 2. see it in store, 3. hear about from friend, 4. see author on TV, etc.) they will be more likely to want/purchase that thing. So it can’t hurt if they see you on Facebook here and there, or a review you wrote on Good Reads, or a blog you posted to Red Room. Speaking of blogging, book blog tours are wonderful. One good company doing that (among many) is TLC Tours.

            The other promotional methods that work well for me are reading events (not only the reading itself, necessarily, but also the promotion that goes into it, the stack of books that sits at the front of the store for an extra couple of weeks, and getting to know the bookseller personally), occasional email newsletters, and attending regional bookseller trade shows to meet lots of booksellers. Throw in a little radio here and there, a few reviews and profiles, some fundraiser appearances or writing conferences . . . it’s just really a big mix, and I’m always trying to think up new things, inside and outside the box.

L.J. Sellers

Author of provocative mysteries and thrillers and her latest Detective Jackson mystery Liars, Cheaters and Thieves.

When she started:

            The great thing about blogs now is that they’re so easy to set up, and both Blogger and WordPress let you create pages on your blog so that it has some depth like a website. And with sidebars you can create a newsletter look.

            I do e-zines only when I have a new release. But a lot of writers do them more frequently.

            Blogger is a good (easy) place to start if you just want to have a website presence and a place to express yourself and draw readers. Then see how it goes. Have fun with it.

Now:

            I’m on my third website design and I paid different designers for each version, spending more each time. But as my readership grew, so did the importance of looking professional and making a good impression. My website is set up in Wordpress and incorporates my blog, which is pretty common now. It’s so easy to update.

            I’m also part of a group blog, Crime Fiction Collective. And of course, I have several Facebook pages, and I’m on Twitter and Google+.

My Take on All of This

That was a lot to chew on. I liked what Cheryl did and would love to just work the heck out of Facebook. She went stratospheric with Wild so entered entirely different territory. But I didn’t have a novel to push, so I needed more of a presence online to show my chops as a writer.

Christina had great ideas, too, because she’s a writer’s writer, trying to help other writers with their marketing and management. She, however, markets non-fiction to writers, and that’s a specific niche. I read one of her books, Get Known Before the Book Deal, and used a few of her ideas, but I can't do them all, so I need to make choices based on my needs.

Jennie reminded me to do what I thought I’d like to do, not what I’m supposed to do. I loved all her advice. Jennie’s a wrangler; she could move a whole town from one place to another. I’m not like that. I need eight hours sleep, and I’m a slow writer. Her specific, helpful ideas made me think seriously about a blog.

L.J.’s another marketing maven and her best advice was “Have fun with it.” Her enthusiasm for a blog made me see how a blog would really help me as a writer of fiction.

My Analysis

These four authors were doing everything they could to connect with their readers. That meant they were doing everything I was doing and much more.

With their input and what I knew, I analyzed my situation:

·      First, why was I doing social media at all if I didn’t have a novel out?

o   To begin building my readership and get known online.

·      I had very good pieces in two anthologies, so could I direct readers there?

o   Yes, I needed a place to talk about them and start attracting readers.

·      I was on too many social media sites that were repetitive with business related info about publishing, agents, e-publishing, etc. Could I drop one or two of those?

o   Yes. There are only so many articles I need to read about those subjects.

·      If I wanted to reach readers, where could I go that would be better than just the blogs and groups that dealt with the craft of writing or how to get published?

o   I needed to be more focused on being active in reader communities such as Goodreads and Shelfari.

·      What overwhelms me?

o   My email inbox. Three of my social media sites have groups specific to a subject.

o   Much of my email was coming from those. I needed to unsubscribe.

·      What is the most important thing I should be doing?

o   Finishing a novel and getting it to my agent. Writing.

·      What would be most beneficial right now for me as an unpublished novelist?

o   Creating readers. Giving them a taste of my writing. Giving them stories.

·      What could create readers? How could I give readers a sample of my writing?

o   A blog.

That sounded like the best choice. And, because I was editing and revising two novels, the idea of writing something new and short excited me. Okay. All I needed was an idea for a blog and a focus, a blog name, and a schedule.

Soon I had my blog up and running.

My Mistake

Call me a nitwit. Call me dunderhead. Call me whatever.

I had added yet another social media item to maintain, and this one demanded not only daily maintenance, but creativity. (See Why I Haven’t Blogged in Over Two Months)

I did give myself credit for not working LinkedIn, dropping group emails, reducing my email inbox, and establishing a writing schedule, never mind restraining myself from reading everyone else’s blog and following every cool site they posted.

But now what? What could I do? I couldn’t just drop my blog. I enjoyed hearing from my readers. I enjoyed writing the blog posts most of the time. Plus, once I publish a novel, I’ll already be up and running and won’t have that to do.

But, everything goes back to that: finishing a novel and getting it published.

Again, the trick is to do the most important thing first—write.

The best way I can help myself do that is to keep social media sane and manage it. And I have found a way. I’ve developed a strategy.

For the next post, I’ll tell you what that strategy is and it's not necessarily about fixing my use of social media. Intrigued? Stop in for Part III.

How about you? Have you made mistakes and how did you fix them? Or if you haven’t fixed them, want some ideas on how to fix them? Do you have a social media strategy?

Leave me a comment, and I’ll even do a little counseling on your particular problem. Or if you prefer, we can brainstorm privately. I would love to hear outrageous ideas for managing social media. We’re creative aren’t we? Let’s blue sky!

Thanks for being there!

Val

Special thanks to my posse, Cheryl, Jennie, Christina and L.J. Plus, a big howdy do and thanks to Becky Green Aaronson who likened social media to The Wild West in a comment on Part I.

A few links to other good posts about this topic:

My Love / Hate Relationship with Social Media by Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner

Do Unpublished Writers Have to Blog? By Mary Kole of kidlit.com & Movable Type Management

COMING UP AFTER Part III:

Where I work. A photographic peek into my writing spaces.

A confession: What happened after my six readers responded to my novel.