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| Create a Memorable Author Brand starts in 1 hour! Free Event -- {Find Your Readers summit}
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And: What is a Working Writer? |
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| | | Short and skinny:
My talk "Create a Memorable Author Brand" starts in just an under an hour 4 pm Pacific / 7pm Eastern.
Sign up here:
(An affiliate link)
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| | And in case you missed it...
What is a Working Writer?
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| I’m writing to you from Romeo’s Cafe on the corner of Dwight and Telegraph in Berkeley, CA, only 3 blocks away from UC Berkeley, my alma mater.
When I was a student here in the late 80s, this cafe was Shakespeare’s, a used bookstore, where I spent many hours browsing looking for myself in new discoveries.
Long before I knew how to be a working writer.
All I had then was the longing to be a writer.
Ah... The winding path that brought me here... sitting in a cafe that used to be a bookstore beside my alma mater.
Now I have some answers on how to be a working writer and I have lots of mileage under my belt.
What does it mean to be a working writer?
I think about this all the time.
Under that is the question: Am I on course?
Which assumes there is a course.
A path from here to there. From then to now.
Where I am now — that’s easy. Pop music playing on my bone conduction headset. A nice breeze. Cars rumbling past on the street. Taste and smell of my macchiato lingers. Thoughts of lunchtime invade.
Where am I going?
What is the course I’m on?
It’s time to define what I mean by "working writer."
A working writer takes action to get to their desired goal.
I know that my actions today form the foundation of what I want for my tomorrows.
What I want is to be a successful novelist.
That means I want sales.
Sales represent to me happy readers. Readers who love my stories and want more. So they buy my books and will buy my books because they love my stories and my characters. They love the experiences they get to be immersed in when they read my novels.
I know from experience that focusing on sales spirals me into a dark, desperate place. I do not want to live my day-to-day with that feeling.
So the feeling I want is expansive, creative, exciting, focused, and energized.
So I focus on my reader’s desired experience.
I create for my readers. I create for them to have the experiences I want them to have and the experiences they want to have.
It’s a relationship, a partnership. I create, they consume.
Like a chef preparing a meal, I’m thinking of the combinations of flavors and the visual presentation of the food.
The look and feel.
Our job as story tellers is to create the look and feel for our readers to have the experience they desire and that we desire to create for them.
To be a working writer every day I focus on creating that reader experience.
And because I was a reader long before I was a writer, I love having that focus.
My childhood was full of that experience: flying on magic carpets, wind whipping through my hair; scampering up beanstalks, breathless, running from the giant; singing and dancing with all the animals; creeping through the dark forests on a quest, attentive to every sound that could be danger.
Circling back…
My goal of selling books to readers is really about being a working writer, focused day-to-day on my reader experience and doing the work in each sitting to bring me closer to the moment my reader can buy my book and hold it in their hands.
Your turn:
Describe your own reader experiences. What do you experience as you read? Focus on pictures and sounds that evoke emotion for you.
Now focus on your work-in-progress. What emotions do you want to evoke in your reader? What pictures and sounds jump out as key for that experience.
HIT REPLY: Let me know what you uncovered! I’m curious.
This reflection on being a working writer leads me to the talk and hands-on exercise that I shared with Daniel David Wallace for his Find Your Readers summit that starts tomorrow.
I walked him through his one-sentence Author Branding statement.
You'll also get a worksheet so you can create your own Author Branding Statement.
If you buy the summit pass, you’ll also get access to the Author Branding Statement video course ($47 value), where I walk you through the 4 modules to create this powerful sentence that focuses on the reader experience and attracting your right reader.
You'll also be entered to win a pass to my Branding for Novelists course, plus a 30-minute social media assessment ($300 value). |
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Have a happy and creative week!
All my best,
Beth |
| PS. I’m finishing up my passion project — a TV pilot based on my Henrietta The Dragon Slayer series — and have also started doing the final edits for Book 4 in my Janey McCallister space station mystery series, due out this November.
I’m also consulting with a publisher on some awesome projects. To be revealed later!
What are you working on? Hit reply and let me know. |
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♥
60-Day Novel... Coming in October! We’re getting ready behind the scenes to launch our 60-day novel course, in time for NaNoWriMo.
Our course starts Oct. 1, so you can plan your novel with us. Then write together during National over Writing month in November, with hands-on support.
Great for writers who have always wanted to write a novel, and for writers stuck in the middle and would like to reach The End this year!
Stay tuned for more details!
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CREATIVE WRITING In person: October 2021
Ithra Center, Al Dhahran, Saudi Arabia |
| | | I was thrilled to be interviewed by Emma Dhesi on how to plan your novel like a pro on her podcast, "Turning Readers Into Writers."
Go here to listen:
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| | | Top Posts on the Writer's Fun Zone Blog
Want to Write for Writer's Fun Zone? Check out our guidelines here: |
| | | | You have been reading the Creativity Sparks Newsletter!
Now in its 15th year, this newsletter is a service of my coaching and consulting business, helping genre fiction writers write, market, and publish their books through courses, coaching & consulting, NLP sessions, a 12-month group program, and books to the delight of their readers.
You may share this content intact and with no changes with this attribution:
c. 2006-2021 Beth Barany, Creativity Coach for Writers, www.BethBarany.com
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| ABOUT BETH BARANY
Beth Barany is creativity coach for writers, a teacher, workshop facilitator, and speaker, who helps fiction writers experience clarity, so that they can write and polish their novels, and proudly publish them to the delight of their readers.
Owner of the Barany School of Fiction, an online training hub, Beth takes great interest in how humans learn, create, and grow, and includes all her students’ life experiences, including the ancestors, into the moment.
Want a course to help you prepare to write your novel? Discover the comprehensive Plan Your Novel course here, I teach alongside with award-winning, bestselling thriller author, Ezra Barany.
She's also an award-winning novelist and writes magical tales of romance, adventure, and mystery to empower women and girls to be the heroes in their own lives.
Uncover her Henrietta series here (YA Fantasy) and her Touchstone series here (Fantasy/Paranormal Romance). And her new Sci-fi Mystery here.
beth@bethbarany.com
Barany School of Fiction
Writer's Fun Zone blog
Photo Credit: by c. 2018 Ezra Barany
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| | | Here be the legalese: In connection with the operation of this newsletter and business, Creativity Sparks includes affiliate links, including links to Amazon.com (“Affiliate Links”). Barany Consulting earns a commission from the Affiliate Links which commission is based on the number of sales that are made as a result of users of the Newsletter clicking over to the Affiliate Link and purchasing from the Affiliate Link a product and/or service. Thus endth the legalese. |
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