Saturday, September 04, 2010

Media

Radio Interviews

Hear Marj on Blog Talk Radio

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/abundancealley/2008/07/29/Magick-Body-Magick-Mind-Understanding-the-Law-of-Creation

Following is the text of Marj’s talk to aspiring writers and patrons of the Oceanside, CA, library on National Authors Day. Saturday, Nov. 7th.

Good morning! Before I talk about the writing and publication of my book, I’d like to tell you a little about the book itself. Its target readership are those people who discover, as so many of us do sometime in life, that we’re suffering from a discontent, often vague and unfocused, and have lost the zest we once had for life. Frequently, we try to ignore this and go on—partly because we don’t really know what brought it on and, just as importantly, don’t know what to do about it. The book is designed to help readers work their way through this dilemma.

As soon as I started writing, I realized that, in order to accomplish what I hoped to, I needed to provide opportunities for readers to stop and think about what they were reading and how it applied to their own lives. In order to do this, I included in each chapter a section called “Time to Introspect.”

Most of these sections are fill-in-the-blank, sentence completion, multiple choice, or true/false items. My goal was to make them as user-friendly and quickly accessible as possible, and they work well for that purpose. However, I unwittingly created a problem, which I’ll explain a little later.

I like to say I began working on this book when I was 13 years old. Actually, that’s when I first realized—in what was for me a fairly startling way—that there was a difference between who I thought I was and who some of the rest of the world expected me to be. I write about the incident in Chapter 2 of the book—“Then the Trucker Whistled.”

There I was—the tomboy, one of a small number of girls in a neighborhood full of boys, where I’d learned to survive by becoming just as rough and tumble as they were—and now when I walked home from school on the busy street that truckers took through town in those pre-interstate days, those truckers were whistling at me. Some of my girlfriends seemed to find it flattering when that happened to them, but I found it thoroughly insulting! –And, frankly, a bit puzzling since I wasn’t (and never would be) terribly well endowed. But the point is . . . the whistling felt like an invasion of my personal space. . . and I knew I was much more than that female body the truckers saw. . . and I resented their intrusion.

As time wore on, of course, I learned to ignore the truckers. But—like everyone else—I experienced pressure from parents and peers and the world I lived in to “fit in,” to mold myself into the kind of person they thought I was—or should be, anyway. As I became a wife and mother and pursued a teaching career, I took on the necessary personas those endeavors demand. Life was busy and good, and it was quite some time before I realized, after a series of personal crises, that I had lost track of who I really was.

This eventually led me to return to school to pursue a counseling degree and become a marriage and family therapist. The more I worked with clients, the more I realized many of their relationship problems stemmed from their estrangement from themselves. There were a lot of books about relationships—how to find a mate, choose a mate, repair a marriage, etc.—but not many that dealt well with figuring out who you really were at the core and uncovering the genuine you. When you lose that connection, you lose a sense of authenticity and wholeness that I believe is a key to long-term mental health and happiness. And—bottom line—before you can establish and maintain healthy relationships with other people, you need to establish a healthy relationship with yourself.

Hence . . . the inspiration for the book.

At the time I started writing, I was still working as a school counselor in addition to maintaining a part-time private practice. Ideas for the book had been churning around in my head for quite awhile, but I told myself I’d actually write the thing after I retired—sometime in the indeterminate future.

Then came 9/11. I had been at the top of one of the Twin Towers just a few months before so the impact of that event was huge. I realized in a way I never had before how unpredictable and random life is. I thought: “I better get to work on that book.”

To make a long story short, the actual writing took several years. There were long periods of time when I barely thought about the book, much less worked on it in the press of work and family issues.

When I finally finished the first draft, I knew that, after writing it over such a long period of time, major revisions would probably be needed. However, having been a journalist, editor, and teacher of writing myself, I fancied that I didn’t really need an editor. Boy, was I wrong!

I worried, frankly, about possible repetition—or omission of points I thought I had covered but had really only thought about—and finally decided the book really needed another set of eyes. I was blessed to have an excellent editor who also is a close personal friend.

I was appalled at what she found! I think maybe she was, too.

When I first gave her the manuscript, I told her to be ruthless—and she was. The result was a much improved final product.

It’s true. No matter how good you are, you need an editor!

As it turned out, for me, the writing was the easy part—or, at least, the part I enjoyed the most.

I had been researching publishing options along the way and had managed to become thoroughly confused about what direction I should go. I knew that most new writers “self-publish,” but I soon learned that that term means different things to different people—and that there were many companies out there eager to take your money and print your book.

Finally, I stumbled across a group called Publishers and Writers of San Diego ( PWSD) and went to one of their meetings. There I discovered an eclectic mix of people with varied interests, backgrounds, and experience. After the meeting, I went up to the speaker (Andrew Chapman, whom some of you may know), told him about my confusion, and asked whether there were any companies he would recommend. He gave me two names; I went home and studied their websites and chose to go with Infinity.

The point is . . . there’s no substitute for personal contact as you’re finding your way through the maze that can lead to a published manuscript. Some writers groups focus on the art and craft of writing. Others, like PWSD, focus more specifically on the business of publishing and marketing your work.

I’ve since connected with a small, informal group of other local writers who have published with Infinity. Every time we get together I learn something new. For instance: Remember . . . I said earlier that the way I structured the “Introspection” sections of my book may have created a problem? When I was meeting with the Infinity group just last week, one of the members asked whether I had offered the book to local libraries. I admitted that, being a laggard in promotional matters, I had not. She then suggested I do that. Another member spoke up, however, and said, “You know libraries don’t like to handle books that have space for readers to write in.” (And that, of course, was exactly what I had created in my “reader-friendly” introspection sections.)

Oops! As I said, there’s no substitute for personal contact with others in the field. Had I known this earlier, I might have structured these sections another way. (I had actually thought of the problems that might be created by readers writing responses they don’t want others to read and my solution had been to have Infinity publish a version that included a CD with reproducible sections in 8½ x 11 format. But that doesn’t solve the library problem. I’m still thinking about that.

NOW TO MARKETING: The final frontier! Once you’ve written your book, had it published, and are now ready to sell, how do you do that?

For me, this has been the biggest hurdle. I’m not a natural promoter. I have a website, but haven’t yet figured out how to drive traffic to it effectively. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by all the “help” out there. Every day my e-mail box is stuffed with info on webinars, conferences, workshops, and phone-in presentations, many of which seem to want to entice me only to sign up for other, often expensive advanced presentations. It can get quite frustrating.

Events like this one are the fun part of marketing, as far as I’m concerned. Here I get to meet and talk to people, see and hear what others are doing, and connect to the real world.

Mastering the Internet is a whole different endeavor and very solitary. Researching there can literally devour whole days. I’m still a novice and this is about the only thing I’ve learned so far: In order to market my book and still maintain a balance in other things I do—writing, contributing to groups I’ve joined, and having a personal life (what a concept!), I’ve got to establish a schedule . . . Maybe I’ll start tomorrow.