I Sat Me Down To Write A Book

I sat me down to write a book,

For Kindle, Google, and the Nook.

My laptop propped between my jean-clad knees.

My spouse gave me the look,

My intentions she mistook.

I donned my grubby clothes for trimming trees.

The leaves and branches I did shook,

Knowing I’d not be off the hook.

My cuttings served to irritate some bees.

Thrice stung, I raced round yard and took,

Screaming words, all gobbledygook.

I’ll not mention them today, if you please.

My sweetie thought I was a crook,

Disrupting her while trying to cook.

Alas, she thought I attempted my best tease.

It would be a rare nor’ cold chinook,

Before she let me near my book.

She kept me outside like a rare disease.

Finally, her wrath forsook,

Mercy on her love she took.

Better writing than trimming, she agrees.

Five Book Manuscripts I’m Still Trying to Finish

               If you are anything like me, you probably have a number of unfinished novels simmering on the back burners of your creative efforts.  I have at least a dozen.  All were started with the best of intentions and self-imposed writing deadlines; all goals broken by the time I got to chapter four. 

               So, I’ve re-evaluated my priorities and have decided to back off from writing when I feel inspired; rather, I’ve decided to go through my list of ‘starts’ and choose five that I believe the world is just dying to have—

1)  I’m writing a cookbook.  Why not? Every Gordon, Rachel, and Wolfgang seems to have cookbooks in print; why not me?  But I’ve had to come up with a new angle; a new culinary shtick.  So, I’ve chosen to combine my love of cooking with my love of saving my own rear-end (and that of my family’s, of course) by authoring: ‘How to Eat Well During a Zombie Apocalypse’.   This is a must-have for any self-respecting survivalist.  To make it fun, yet practical, I’ll be covering how to get the most meals from a bucket of brains, how to cook Dutch oven biscuits while running from a zombie horde, and an extra chapter on which essential oils work best on zombie bites.

2)  For a while now, I’ve been kicking around the idea of a series of books (magic – fiction) about a boy who is invited to attend a wizarding school.  He has a bunch of adventures, yadda yadda, and eventually destroys the archetype devil, thereby saving the day.  I haven’t worked out all of the details, but it feels like a sure-fire winner; though, I worry that the story could go on and on for at least six books, maybe seven.

3)  I’m seeing a lot of hyphenated genres popping up everywhere for book categories.  It’s no longer just straight ‘Fantasy’ or ‘Romance’.  I used one myself in #2 above.  One of my books is going to combine numerous genres and sub-genres into one book to really broaden my possible reading base.  What do ya’ll (I live in Texas…I have to use ‘Ya’ll’) think about this:  Mystery-Magic-Dystopian-Self-Help-Graphic Novel?  Yes?  No?  Perhaps?

4)  My admiration for authors that can write a riveting Historical Fiction novel knows no bounds.  These authors have the ability to take a very common person walking down the street and make them come out sounding like a super-hero that lowered themselves like a common naïve to trod the sidewalk path towards their destiny of historical significance.   I’m working on a historical fiction piece about Marshall Gomez, my next door neighbor, and his decision to wash his pick-up truck one Saturday morning.  Hey,  Don’t knock it!  If an author can retell the story of Teddy R. charging up San Juan Hill and make it akin to Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon, then I think I can create something amazing with Marshall and his soapy sponge.

5)  My final book that I am working on is a ‘How to…’ book about writing books.  However, if I get too bogged down with this topic, I’ll probably just turn the whole experience into a blog post.  What?  Wait!

Saturday So What Makes A Good Personal Essay

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming of Betsy leaves the serious stuff to other people and focuses on writing.

This week I've been poring over the contest essays as well as penning a few of my own to publish in concurrence with my book coming out in January. (yes I still do the happy dance every time I say that) But that leads me to focus on the question: So What exactly makes a good personal essay?

First off, it's got to be non-fiction. Resist the temptation of making your life more dramatic than it really is. On the same token, you don't need to quote a conversation that happened ten years ago word for word. Recount the details as best you can and leave the alien abductions to the Sci-fi folks.

Next, the essay has to serve a purpose. It has to have a central conceit -- an emotional goal. Rambling is all good and well for self journaling and blogging, but if you want an essay to be published somewhere, it has to have a point. Preferably one that matches with where you are trying to publish. Once you know what you want the reader to walk away with at the end of your tale, make sure every word - every line - gets you closer to that. You can quickly lose your reader by giving too much info that serves no other purpose than to prove you are an excellent writer.

One thing to be wary of is being preachy. Often, in an essay, you'll want to show what you've learned. How an experience changed you. Try very hard not to use 2nd person narration. Let me give you an example of what to do vs what not to do.

Do: In my heart, I knew I had to wait until he came to the truth himself. My beliefs, no matter how well-intentioned, couldn't make him find God until he was ready to look.

Don't: You can't force your beliefs on other people. You've got to let them find the Lord all on their own.

See the difference? 2nd person is used in teaching, or a blog post such as this. But in a personal essay, you want your audience to learn the lesson through your eyes. They don't want to have a finger wagged at them.

Which leads me to my last point. Trust yourself and trust your reader. You can get out the emotion of a story without over dramatic phrases like: Grief crashed over me like waves, threatening to pull me under until I had no breath in my lungs. Sometimes over doing it can ruin the moment as much as under doing it. I was sad. Don't hit the audience over the head "you will feel this gosh darnit." Instead of relying on heavy handed or cliched expressions, trust in your narrative voice to convey what you're going through. Losing him made me want to run and bury myself under a thousand blankets. Maybe if I hid long enough, I could forget he was really gone.

On a final note, I wanted to say what a pleasure it's been reading through your submissions. Thank you for sharing your stories with us. We should get the results and notes back to the participants shortly.


Next week, I will be working with my editor on the final proofs of Finished being Fat. I'm sure I will have much to share on the process.  Maybe she'll even teach me how to use a comma correctly.


Until then, come "like" my new fan page for the book. Or visit the blog.

Saturday So What: What to expect when you're expecting... a book

Whenever I read other author's refer to their books as though they were children, well, I just thought they were weird. I figured maybe those writers were the same kind of people that dress up their chihuahuas in little fluffy outfits.

Now I get it.

There's the inception. The dream before the first word ever hits the page. The hoping and wishing and wondering exactly what your book will look like.

There are false starts. You get partway in and for what ever reason, this time, it just wasn't meant to be.

Then, you've finally created a book. You are so excited that you want to scream it from the rooftops. But you have to find someone to 'deliver' it. And then you have to wait.

Publishing book gestation time can be a year or longer. You tell your friends and family and everyone anxiously awaits the event. And waits some more. By 7 or so months in, everyone's pretty sick of hearing about it.

If I'm sticking with the pregnancy theme, I'm at the point where my belly is big and I'm waddling to get around. I'm ready for this thing to be here!

But am I really? Have I done all the groundwork? As a first time author, I have no idea what I'll need. I hear other expectant authors talking and I'm still clueless.
What's a blog tour and when do you have one?
What should you do at a launch party? Do you play pin the bookmark on the book?
How do you get the word out once it's here? Should I hand make little birth announcements like I did with my two girls?

Just under 4 months until the big moment and I'm not sure I have everything in order. I could sure use some advice from anyone who's been here before. Or if you haven't, maybe you have some cool ideas to share?

Horror stories welcome too.

Saturday So What: Revisions

Today, I am searching for the vision in revisions. I'm currently working on three different books, each of them in a different stage of the the revision process.


Finished being Fat, is in the line edit stage. No thought required. Just fix the grammatic mistakes, a few word choices here and there.. and voila. Done.

Trouble's on the Menu, is in the editorial revision stage. That's where my editor has read through the manuscript, accepted it, but has a list of changes she wants before it goes to press. These can get really nit picky or broad. Most notes are content based. One in particular has me eliminating an entire character from the book.  I'm not gonna lie, it hurts, and it's a lot of work. There's an element of pride involved. Finding out some of the things you thought were clever turned out to be lame. But I have to change it anyway. Why? Because they're paying me to and my contract says I have to. LOL

House of Emerald is so much trickier. It's still in the pre-submittal phase. I'm working on it with my critique groups and a beta reader or two. This is where I need to find the vision. My vision, because everyone else has one as well. I have notes that say I need more description, I have notes that say I am using too much description. If I followed every single critique I've gotten, my book would be a mess. It's easy to take everyone's advice as law. But it's not. It's an opinion. And in the end, I need to weigh them and then trust my gut and incorporate some of the suggestions.

Revisions can be tough. It's really easy to get lost, but the best advice I can give is to remember one thing. It's your book. You make all the decisions until you sign that puppy over to someone else.  And even then if you really believe something, there's a bit of wiggle room. Trust yourself and your vision. At the same time, realize that sometimes you have to let a few favorite lines go for the good of the book.  Make a separate word file and cut and paste them over there. Never know when they might come in handy.

Thanks for reading. You can pick up a few pointers on character voicing on my blog post Tut, tut, looks like rain. Or read about the post marathon let down in ... now what?  See you next week.

Saturday So What: How Do You Write a Book?

So What am I doing today? This morning, on June 9th, I am running a marathon. It's my second. I still think I'm crazy.
So What am I doing tomorrow? If I'm still alive, I'm writing a book. It's my third. I still think I'm crazy.

Every once and awhile I get really overwhelmed and think What the heck am I doing? The massiveness of the tasks I'm about to do freak me out. Running for 5 + hours straight? Who does that? How is it even possible? And writing a whole book? Making up worlds, characters, plots?  Who the heck do I think I'm kidding here?

Sometimes I'm at the beginning, looking ahead, and the end seems so impossibly far away. Other times I get lost in the middle, tired and weary of the journey. When I finally cross that finish line, I look back in disbelief and ask how I got here.

How do you run a marathon? By moving forward, one step at a time.
How do you write a book? By moving forward, one step at a time.

It's the same principle. If I look entirely at a project with macro vision, it looks too big and I want to run away screaming.  If I break it up into sections, a mile here, a chapter there... it's doable. Marathons have training schedules, so should books.


Start small with just a concept. A central conceit. Then build on it. Add your characters, build your world around them. Give them problems, tensions, peril. Now that you have a basic concept of where you are going... go. Take it one chapter at a time. Don't worry about the 25 chapters (miles) ahead of you. Focus on the one you're in. Then move onto the next one... and the next. Before you know it, you're at the end.

So when people ask me for advice on running a marathon or writing a book, the advice is the exact same.
Start at the beginning and keep working towards the end. Pace yourself and never give up. You'll get there eventually, I promise.


Come visit my blogs to learn about Facebook Faux Pas, and more about my marathon

Saturday So What Spotlight: Chrisy Ross

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 In fiction, our characters often have to skirt around some delicate issues. Non-Fiction is no different. Today's guest is Chrisy Ross, regular contributor to LDSLiving magazine, and the author of To Mormons, with LOVE (a little somethingfrom the new girl in Utah). Chrisy's book explores her introduction to Mormon culture through a non-member’s eyes.

Betsy: So first of all, what made you decide, "I need to write a book about this"?

Chrisy: When people discover we’re not members in a 99% member community, they’re interested to know how we ended up there and almost always ask, “What’s it really like?” Most of these people happen to be LDS and are curious about our family’s experience. I toyed with the idea of a full memoir, but niche nonfiction was a publishable idea per the all-knowing Internet, and I felt sincere about the project idea. After years of ambling through culture shock, finding my social footing, seeking to understand the foundation of a misunderstood religion, and recognizing my own biases—I wanted to share, entertain, and ultimately express love to my community.

Betsy: Religion, in general, is a very sensitive subject. Were you worried at all about stepping on toes?

Chrisy: Yes. I knew that the spirit and intent of my words weren’t harmful or radically polarizing, but it was important that I chose those words carefully to minimize any unnecessary bristling. Thankfully, I had wonderful critiquers. I didn’t expect everyone to like my book or to corroborate my perceptions, but I didn’t want anyone—particularly my friends and neighbors—to feel like I’d been exploitative.

Betsy: In your book, you really put yourself out there. You are very open and honest about your feelings and reactions to our little world of "knee shorts" and "oddly good-looking children". What would you say the Mormon reaction has been?

Chrisy: Overwhelmingly positive, supportive and generous. If there are any true haters (something I doubt), they’re hiding in the bushes. And apathetic people are always quiet. Mormon readers have taken the time to write lengthy emails, sharing stories—both funny and moving—about their experiences with cultural issues. I’ve heard from men, women, stake presidents, teenagers, people of all ages and from all over the United States. I’m thankful and touched by those who’ve enjoyed my book—their openness (in every sense of the word) and willingness to lovingly share details of their lives.

Betsy: One of the general rules of writing is "Know thy audience". A big part of that audience would be Latter-day-saints. A group that you, admittedly are not a part of. How do you approach that hurdle?

Chrisy: I live in Mayberry, Betsy. I “know thy audience.” Wasn’t much of a hurdle at all. Plus, the more I fretted over “thy audience,” the more my friends and critiquers (all LDS) reminded me…we’re all just people. “What’s funny to you is funny to Mormons, too.” They were right.

Betsy: Thanks again for dropping by, Chrisy. Tell our computer audience where they can pick up your funny and fabulous read.

Chrisy: I’m honored and humbled to chat with you here. Much gratitude to you and your readers, Betsy.

My website http://chrisyross.com has links to booksellers’ sites for paperback as well as digital copies. You can also find the book in regional Deseret Book and Barnes & Noble stores, BYU Bookstore, and other independent LDS book stores.

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Articles on LDSLiving.com:

Is shunning something we still do in 2012?

What's Mine Is Yours . . . Sometimes

To Mormons, With Love from Your Non-LDS Neighbor