A Meme By Any Other Name Would Be As Confusing

There is a meme going around, and I was tagged for it by Eric Beetner, co-author of One Too Many Blows to the Head. Meme? Are you as confused by that term as I am? A meme is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another. Whatever that means. It certainly doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the meme I was tagged for, which directs one to tell six outrageous lies and one outrageous truth about oneself (or six truths and one lie if one prefers). An internet meme, however, is defined as a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet. Still don’t see what that has to do with lies, but in the end, that’s not the point. The point is, do I follow through since Eric asked so nicely, or do I ignore the whole situation as I normally do?

Two things work against my following through:

1) I’m not good at telling outrageous lies. If I were, I’d probably be a bestselling writer. As it is, my books are filled with truths, outrageous or not, thinly disguised as fiction. 

2) I’m not sure that posting outrageous lies on the eternal internet is such a good idea. Forever after, people will stumble across those lies and if they didn’t know the origin, they might consider them the truth.

So, I am going to compromise (cheat) and tell you two outrageous (okay, semi-outrageous) things. Both might be true, both might be lies, or one might be a lie and one might be a truth. You figure it out.

1) I don’t eat chocolate.

2) I was Cleopatra in a previous time.

I’ll let you know the answer in a couple of days. Until then . . .

Tag! You’re it!

Rules:

• Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth – or – switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.
• Nominate some more “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own.
• Post links to the blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them.

DEAD WITNESS IS WORTH EVERY PENNY by Joylene Nowell Butler

I have a very special guest today, the wonderful Joylene Nowell Butler, author of Dead Witness. Not only is Joylene an indefatiguable blogger and generous friend to published and unpublished writers alike, she is a talented writer with one book published and a second on its way next year. I am thrilled that she consented to be a guest here today! Joylene says:

Have you ever wondered why you put so much time and effort into writing that story — only to receive enough rejections to wallpaper a small room?

Some writers say they write because that’s who they are. Some say it’s not a choice but a destiny. Others say it’s for the simple joy of writing a good book. I say it’s all three.

But how do you know if you’ve written a good book?

I had a conversation at my first signing that went something like this…

He picked up a copy of my book, looked it over, then set it down. “Nice cover. Dead Witness, eh? What’s it about?”

“It’s the story of a Canadian woman kidnapped by the FBI. They fake her death, make her family believe she’s dead, and convince her that if she doesn’t stay dead, the killer will go after her children.”

 “Sounds interesting.”

“It is. But what makes this story different is Valerie finds the courage to defy the FBI and go after the killer herself.”

“Sounds a bit daffy.”

“Not at all. She’s willing to risk her life to save her daughters.”

“She still sounds crazy. How much is the book?”

“Twenty dollars.”

“That’s expensive for a novel.”

“That depends on what a few night’s entertainment is worth to you.”

He shrugged and bought a copy.

The next morning he emailed to say, “Joylene, I stayed up all night reading your book. I could not put it down. Thank you for writing such a good story. Yes, it was worth every penny.”

I’ve received many responses like this since publishing Dead Witness in July 2008, but that first one – well, it was my first. Yes, I wrote Dead Witness because it was a story inside of me fighting to get out. And yes, I write because that’s who I am; I can’t imagine not writing.

Marketers tell you that you must believe in your work to be successful. But until I heard from my readers, for years (24 to be exact), I never truly believed in my ability. Those responses were a validation. If they loved my book, then it must be good. They weren’t family and friends; they had nothing to gain by lying.

One day I received a bad review, and something very special happened. Instead of becoming an emotional cripple and folding like an accordion, I realized that everyone is entitled to an opinion. I know Dead Witness is a good book, and I know I can’t please everyone.

If you’re a writer, then write. Learn your craft. Know that if you doubt your ability, time and effort will diminish that doubt. One day you’ll be overwhelmed with the most powerful and beautiful feeling ever: My book is worth every penny.  

* * *

Joylene Nowell Butler was born in Manitoba and raised in British Columbia, Canada. She attended Douglas College and Simon Fraser University. In 1992, she and her husband retired to a community in central BC called Cluculz Lake. There, Joylene wrote 4 other books and is currently working on her sixth. Her novel Broken But Not Dead will be released in 2011 by Theytus Books.

See also: Dead Witness Excerpt by Joylene Nowell Butler
                Pat Bertram Introduces Valerie McCormick, Hero of Dead Witness by Joylene Nowell Butler

Surviving Facebook

Social networking is now touted as one of the best ways for authors to promote themselves, and perhaps it’s true. If most of us primarily sell books to friends, it makes sense, and sometimes even cents, that the more friends we have, the more books we will sell. So we sign up for MySpace and Goodreads, Twitter and Facebook and start collecting friends like so many stamps. If a thousand friends are good, then two thousand are even better. If two thousand are good, then let’s aim for ten thousand.

While frantically collecting friends, we forget two things. First, social networking is about being social. It does no good to have connections if, to them, we are merely a nameless face, or worse, a faceless name. Too many people use their book cover for an icon, though it seems to me it defeats the purpose. How does one make friends with a book cover? You are, or should be, aiming for long-term relationships. You don’t have to waste your time playing games with your connections, but you can comment on their status updates and photos, you can post interesting links and notes on your profile, you can participate in discussions.

Second, we forget that these online sites, especially Facebook and Goodreads, were set up for real-life friends to interact. They were not set up for promotion.

Goodreads automatically limits your activity, so it’s hard to abuse their system, but Facebook is a different matter. Several of my friends have had their Facebook accounts disabled because of “abusive” behavior, though they were doing what we all do — making connections with strangers. I have become good friends with many of the strangers to whom I sent friend requests, so by limiting myself to people I know would have greatly limited my Facebook experience. Still, Facebook says they aspire to be an environment where people can interact safely with their friends and people they know. Accordingly, they expect accounts to reflect mainly “real-world contacts.” They do not endorse contacting strangers through unsolicited friend requests as such requests may be considered annoying or abusive.

To prevent this type of behavior, Facebook has limits in place that restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site. Your account can be disabled if Facebook determines that you were going too fast when sending friend requests despite being warned to slow down, or because your friend requests were being rejected at a high rate. Your account can be disabled if you send too many of the same message, post too often to other people’s profile, or indulge in repetitive, promotional activities.

The problem is that Facebook does not tell you ahead of time what their limits are, so it’s a matter of guessing.

So far, I have survived Facebook. I have over 4, 000 friends. I administer one group and co-administer three others. I send weekly group messages informing people of the featured discussion. I have a fan page. I post daily status updates, feed my blog into my profile page, post links to sites where I am a guest.

So, how did I do it?

Every day, I added ten to fifteen friends — no more. When I reached 2500 friends, I stopped sending requests. The rest of the connections came from my accepting others’ requests. At the beginning, I accepted everyone, but now that I am nearing the limit Facebook allows, I am a bit more careful whom I accept. For example, I won’t accept requests from icon-less people unless I know them personally. (Here is the dichotomy of Facebook. You are allowed 5,000 friends, who are supposed to be people you know personally, but who in the offline world has that many friends and connections?)

Although it’s one of the things marketing coaches recommend, I never thanked people for accepting my friend request. Besides emphasizing that you’re not friends, the comment can trigger a warning from Facebook, especially if you post too many similar comments in one day. You can post almost anything you want on your own profile, but you are constrained by Facebook’s unwritten rules as to what you can post on other people’s profiles.

The best thing I can tell you about surviving Facebook is this: if you get a warning, stop. Do not use Facebook for at least a week. If you don’t heed this advice, and you get another warning within that time, your account will be disabled, and all your work will be wasted.

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Even Comment Spam Can Sometimes be Tasty

Spammers have discovered one of my more obscure blogs, but some of the spammers got wise — instead of the usual gibberish (which I was going to post here to show you how totally giberishy it is, but decided I’d better not attract their attention) these spammers post quotes, and it works! I don’t delete them. Just goes to show that not everything is all bad, not even comment spam. So, here are a few of the quotes left on the blog, author unknown (at least to me):

I’m all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let’s start with typewriters.

The ‘Net is a waste of time, and that’s exactly what’s right about it.

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

Memory feeds imagination.

To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.

Get pleasure out of life…as much as you can. Nobody ever died from pleasure.

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Temptation rarely comes in working hours. It is in their leisure time that men are made or marred.

I write because I’m afraid to say some things out loud.

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.

Part of being creative is learning how to protect your freedom. That includes freedom from avarice.

Prolific Blogger Times Three

The blogosphere has spoken. For two years I have kept up this blog to little acclaim, and now that I’ve taken a step back for a short while, barely blogging once a week, I have won not one, not two, but three prolific blogger awards! So now that the blogosphere has spoken, what is it saying, that I’m more interesting when I don’t blog? That I should hurry back and refocus my energies on blogging again? I hope it’s the second. Perhaps by the end of this month I will be able to return to a more regular blogging schedule, but until then, you should check out the blogs of those who gave me the awards. They really are prolific and terrific bloggers!

 A.F. Stewart’s Blog

JaxPop, Haunted City Writer

Joylene Nowell Butler, One Moment at a time on Cluculz Lake

Congratulations are especially in order since blogging on a regular basis is giving way to microblogging on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Friendster, particularly among young people. Apparently, the long form of blogging, which tends to be 300-500 words, is way too involved and time-consuming for the younger set. Those of us over thirty are still plogging away.

And while I have your attention: are you a romantic who loves baseball? Be sure to enter J. Conrad Guest’s contest, and you might win a signed copy of his novel Backstop and a signed baseball. All you have to do is write 200 words about a romantic baseball date, either real or imagined. 200 words? Not much for all you prolific bloggers out there! Send your entry to secondwindpublishing@gmail.com.  I’ll put in a good word for you. (Now you only have to write 199 words!)