wHooligan feature! Elsie Amata

Hello and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Elsie's favorite beach -
isn't it lovely?

It's time for another wHooligan feature! Joining us today is Elsie Amata. She also has an active Facebook account here.

Elsie has been an assistant for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. That alone is enough cred to know she's amazing! But there's more! This woman writes extremely honest posts from time to time that will make you catch your breath. Her self-reflection and honesty is just.. great. Definitely check her out.

Each of my wHooligans has answered a few of the questions that participants posed to the co-hosts over on the A-Z blog, and here are Elsie's answers:

You're on a crowded train, and the person across the way from you (who is probably 20 years your senior) finishes a bag of chips, and throws his trash on the floor. Do you speak up and tell him to pick up his trash, or just let him go?

The teenage me wouldn’t have even noticed.  The impatient me would have said, “Dude, really?” accompanied by an exaggerated eye roll. Today, I would pick up the garbage myself, and refrain from comment.

What makes you cry? (Emotional reasons. Onions don't count.)

Military homecomings.  Doesn’t matter if it’s a news story or some blasted dog food commercial (you know the one!).  I tear up every time.  Of course, it may have something to do with being married to veteran.  Just my guess.

Where do you go to "Get away from it all"?

My go to place is the beach.  If I’m stressed, I visit the coast.  If I want to spend quality family time with the kids, we play in the sun and sand.

If you could sing any song with the artist who wrote/performed it, what would it be and with whom?

I know I should pick someone cool, like, I don’t know, Jimi Hendrix.  But, the moment I read this question, I thought of Prince.  Before he turned his name into a symbol then back again.  Any song from Purple Rain will do, as long as he’s wearing those high-heeled boots!  //whew//

Make sure you stop by to say hello to Elsie today!

Anyone do anything fun for St. Patty's Day?

wHooligan feature! Shilpa Garg

Today is our first wHooligan feature, with the lovely Shilpa Garg! Check her out on Twitter, too!

Shilpa joins me from India! The design of her site is so poetic and lovely :) Also she says she likes written words, sweets and beautiful conversations that happen over a mug of tea - totally my kind of lady! Excited to have her on the team :)

Each of my wHooligans has answered a few of the questions that participants posed to the co-hosts over on the A-Z blog, and here are Shilpa's answers:

Is there an ideal length for a blog post? Is 500 words too many? 
For challenges like A to Z where our focus is on networking and building relationships by visiting and reading other bloggers. And since each one is keen to read more, reading long posts can be a bit of a concern. So, anything less than 500 words is acceptable. I believe we must KISS our posts, Keep It Short and Simple, I
mean! ;)

Name three frustrating aspects of being a co-host participants might not know. NO, CAN’T ANSWER WORD VERIFICATIONS, THAT ONE’S TOO EASY! 
• Real long posts on blogs!! Agree, one may have a lot to share, but can that be
divided in parts? Or can the post be concise and crisp?
• Painful layout and fonts: White text on black background or multi-coloured
text in between or the curvy cursive writing kind of fonts are so hard to read.
Such layouts and fonts are a big strain on the eyes and sometimes you have to
squint too!! And in this process, even the brain (of course, I am talking about
my brain!) fails to register the written text!
• Selective engagement: On some blogs, I find that only a few comments are
replied to and others are ignored. I find this discrimination pretty weird.
Of course, we understand that paucity of time may lead to the blogger not
responding to the comments at all, but replying to select few, is simply rude.

How far in advance do you prepare your theme and complete your A-Z 
before the Challenge begins? 
Last year, it was my first A to Z challenge, so took each day as it came and
wrote on random subjects from A to Z. But this year, I am working on a theme
and the plan is to write all posts in advance. So, I am giving myself the entire
March to finish writing for this April's A to Z!

How do you comment - if someone posts 5,6,7 times a week .. once - or 3 
times .. then each time or once or twice .. then each time I can't keep up .. 
but hate not supporting everyone.. 
In case, I am writing everyday too, then I visit my circle of blogs everyday too. But in
case, I am MIA from the blogosphere, then I take time to visit the blogs and read and
comment on all the missed blog posts for that blogger. So, I usually aim to not miss
any blog posts from my Reader!

When writing, do you prefer to compose your first-draft by hand, on your 
computer, or using Morse Code? 
It is my life line, my laptop. Usually I write from start to finish. But sometimes, the
drafts keep lying as drafts for long, but they are always on my laptop. I do use the
notes on my smart phone or a small notebook in my bag, for jotting down ideas.

Thanks so much for stopping by, Shilpa!

About Me at #atozchallenge blog!

Just a quick post to let y'all know that my co-author About Me post is up at the April A-Z Challenge blog today! Check it out!

And welcome to everyone who is visiting from thataway :)

Have you signed up for the A-Z Challenge? You've heard me talk about it before.. It's pretty much the coolest thing on the blogging block. Join us!

Six Word Saturday- Spring Break!

Spring Break! Snowshoeing, camping, shivering, ROMO!

Yup, we've decided to go snowshoeing and camping up at Rocky Mountain National Park for the weekend :) It's a very rare weekend that I am not on call, and since this is one of them, we're peacing out for a couple days. Not to worry - it's car camping so there will be lots of down blankets in our tent, and I'll come back with pictures, I promise!

This post is part of the Six Word Saturday blog hop. Stop by showmyface.com to join the fun!

IWSG - March

Between writing and doing my 'real' job, I've been reading. I know, crazy right? A writer who reads. You'd never think! My focus the last couple of weeks, has been reading about social media and how to maximize our presence for building a 'platform' and hopefully selling books.

The most interesting thing I've found is Kristen Lamb's We Are Not Alone method of connecting with people. I've been reading her book, Rise of the Machines -- Human Authors in a Digital World. It's a bit basic at moments - like when she, for example, defines a Tweet - but some of the concepts she talks about hit on truths that I'd been intuiting but hadn't quite solidified as a concept. One of those is that writers on social media seem to primarily socialize with other writers, which is not a particularly effective way to sell books. Now, I recognize the irony of talking about this on IWSG day, I do. But bear with me! She says that it's good to do some socializing with writers, because of course fellow writers are the only ones who understand this particular brand of craziness and we need to have people on our side (hence, IWSG).

But in order to build a true base of supporters that will sell books, it is necessary to connect with people who are NOT writers, or even necessarily "avid readers". Think about all those people on Twitter who claim to have a huge base of "avid readers" as followers. Have you looked at the list? It's mostly all our writing friends!

The goal is to connect on social media with everyone else, in hopes that they will share the awesome'ness of your book with their friends, and help you go viral. A great example of this is Alex J Cavanaugh's recent success with his book CassaFire. The man is everywhere in the blogosphere and is a super nice guy, so when he asked for help promoting, people stepped up. And he sold TONS of books. Success!

Part of how to accomplish this is to let people see you as a person, not just as a writer. You also have to show that you appreciate them as people, in return. It makes sense, right? When blogging or tweeting, if we're only posting about writing all the time, most folks aren't going to connect with that. But if we share our thoughts on the big game, or our favorite recipes, or cat pictures, or the beautiful places we've been, that is what captures the attention of the general population. It hits them in their heart, which is most likely what we aim to do with our books as well. We are storytellers, so we must tell stories to connect with our audience.

All this to say that in the midst of trying to finish book number two, I've also been considering a pretty major redirection in how I use social media. First things first, we need to finish Sky Pirates, but it's a lot to think about! Very interesting to think about, but a lot nonetheless.

How do you use social media? Are most of your friends/followers writers, or everyone else? Any success (or fail) stories to share?

This post brought to you by the Insecure Writer's Support Group - a bunch of lovely writers who help each other 'rock the neurotic writing world.'

Kon Tiki

We are watching the movie Kon Tiki (well, I'm half-watching while I write) and Chris says that the next time I've had a really rough day at work, I need to think about that movie and be thankful that I wasn't covered in blood and swimming in the ocean surrounded by sharks. Reassuring!