Balancing Parenting, Publishing, and Dog Rescue! #TBSU

Today's post is an emotional check-in for me. Perhaps your feelings will resonate with mine.

Publishing Novels

Carole Remy is a writer, and I created this blog to sell her novels. Sometimes I feel like I really am Carole Remy, the alternate me. Other days I can write about her in the third person. Today is one of the 'other days.'

photo by Anita Peppers

Carole has repeated many steps of the writing process over the past several years. Here's her curve. (Skip the list if you want. It's here as an encouragement to hang in.)

write Beauty of the Beast

quick success with a well-known publisher

write Fantasy Impromptu 

get scared and wait a year to show anyone

more success with the same publisher

write Twelve Nights

do other stuff

write Who Is Candid?

live life

write Ophelie

write the sequel to Ophelie (as yet unpublished)

several years of other stuff

three novels published with indie publisher

ten year gap [meanwhile, Mary Carol Moran, the other me, is writing and studying poetry] 

many poems and two collections nicely published

along comes Kindle! wait several years...

Kaboom! five previously published novels now available on Kindle

What It Means...??

Though seven of my books (novels and poetry collections), have found generous and helpful publishers, mostly I've lived my life doing other things than writing. I'm a binge writer. Maybe some of you can relate. When the mood hits, I write a novel flat out, sometimes in as little as two weeks. Editing takes forever, but I'm one of those lucky writers who actually loves every step of the editing process. Maybe I should thank all those years of revising poems, word by word.

The past has given me enough confidence and life-cushion that, while I love and get excited by book sales, they don't define me. Separating your ego from your artistic creation is almost impossible; I'm nowhere near there! A benefit of having a pseudonym, perhaps, is that Carole Remy's success is a little bit separate from the joy of day to day life.

I figured out early on that writing wasn't likely to bring in a lot of money. [From a Law of Attraction perspective, I have a limiting belief that writing won't bring me the big bucks. Naughty me, but I can live with it. There are worse beliefs.] Over the years, I've made way more money teaching and coaching other writers than I've made from my own books. The fact that Amazon sends a sweet little check every month is a pure fun bonus.

The Power of Distraction

Maybe I'm not really a dedicated writer, or maybe I'm living a balanced life.

Me with my two amazing and lovely daughters!

Raising my children never slipped from being my top priority. As a single mom, that meant finding a job that I loved AND that paid enough to keep us going = teaching. Writing took a back seat. A nice big comfy armchair back seat, but still not in the front row.

For the last six months, I've put the Kindle novels not only in the front row, but in the driver's seat. I've lived, eaten, breathed Amazon, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, book blog tours, and every other method of building a social platform. It's fun and I love it. But a part of me still understands the value of diversity. My Mom always used to say, "Make sure you always have more than one string to your bow."

With a friend, Marissa Lepe Preciado, and lots of supporters, I'm moving more and more into the consuming realm of dog rescue. Just as dog rescue keeps me from focusing exclusively on book promotion, so the books keep me from submerging tooooo deeply into rescue. Either can easily become all-consuming to the point of burnout. As kids and writing did in years past, now dogs and writing will help me keep life in balance.

I love blogging!

The greatest lesson for me from the last six months is the realization that I truly love blogging! Thank you to every single reader for sharing my life, hopes, depressions, elations, and occasional aha moments. The immediacy of blogging offers satisfactions that even novel-writing lacks. Each genre has its seductions: the world-building of novels, the joy of expressing a precise emotion in poetry, and the back-and-forth instant readership/response of blogging.

by duane j

Yesterday I began a new blog, Friends of RCA Colima, to chronicle the building and ongoing operation of our dog shelter, Refugio Cachorros y Abuelitos (Safe Haven for Puppies and Good Old Dogs). I'll provide links here on this blog, as well as occasional direct updates.

My goal is still to publish at least ten articles a month here on Carole Remy. The focus will shift a little more toward writing, editing, publishing, and building a platform. If you are interested in animal rescue, I invite you to follow my blog Friends of RCA Colima. I'll try for ten posts a month there as well. Another four posts a month, focused mainly on emotional issues, appear every Saturday on Skelations. Lastly, if you prefer or want to brush up your Spanish, the Facebook page for all our animal activities is Amigos de Perros y Gatos Colima.

Thank you!!

Once again, thank you so much for including me in your world. Giant group hugs for everyone! Let me know your thoughts and feelings in the comments! What is your writing arc? Are you more a binge writer, or a steady writer? How do you balance different worlds? I look forward to a lively discussion.

Check out these related posts by gifted writers who share their perspectives on writing and life.

• Encouraging Words from Aubrianna Hunter 
• Encouraging Words from Nathalie Thompson
• Encouraging Words from Kevin Hanrahan
• Encouraging Words from Seumas Gallacher
• Encouraging Words from Ronnie L. Smith of Writer's Relief
• Encouraging Words from William Ogden Haynes

• Rescue K911 (Alabama, USA)
• For the Love of Louie *Michigan Lost Pet Lookers* (Michigan, USA)
• Save a Mexican Mutt (English language dog rescue page based in San Miguel de Allende, MX)
• Puppy Rescue Mission (rescues soldiers' companion dogs, mainly from Afghanistan)

Live in Joy, Today! #TBSU

This past week, I've lived in a different world, immersed in the animal rescue sub genre of spay/neuter. The campaign lasted five days. We spay/neutered about 150 cats and dogs; the camaraderie was joyful; the connection to the four-legged beasts was intense; and the physical exhaustion is still with me.

Why does such an experience come into a person's life? The Law of Attraction states that we attract experiences into our lives through our vibration. Feel joy, get more joy. Feel frustration, get more frustration. I'll go a step further and posit that what happened for me this time is that some interior subconscious nerve center sent out a message that I was ready to learn something more about myself, to peel back another layer of the never finished onion.

Six Months of Bliss

Moving to Mexico in January 2011, where I can't work because of my visa, forced/allowed me to relax from wanting to achieve anything.

I lived happily in the moment, with enough money to live what felt like really well. My pension didn't quite make it through the month in the US (and didn't leave any room to buy health insurance). Suddenly I had plenty to rent a nice house, eat out whenever I wanted, learn salsa dancing and wood sculpture, and hire a wonderful woman to clean. Free top quality health care was an incredible bonus and anxiety reducer!

The Seeds of Wanting More

Then about two years ago, I spent an interval in the lap of big time luxury. Anything I wanted was bought for me. I was taken on a lovely trip, all expenses paid. Returning to Mexico, the seeds of discontent awoke. My beautiful life was exactly the same, but it didn't feel like plenty any more. I began to want the money to start an extensive animal shelter. I began to want, period. An old internal barrier to happiness reawoke.

With the benefit of two years hindsight, I see now that I had already begun to be attracted to seductive friends, ambitious wonderful people who wanted and were attracting fame and fortune. Exactly the people to eventually bring me to my present day awareness.

Putting my Novels on Amazon Kindle

In January 2013, I made the decision to put my backlist novels on Amazon. It was something I'd been thinking about for years, and suddenly the time seemed right. Two of the novels had been quite successful in print, and I saw Kindle as a way to bring in passive income to run an animal shelter.

I threw myself into action, setting up a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and this blog. Formatting the novels for Kindle, and contracting beautiful covers. Dipping my toe in the deep waters of Goodreads (which I still haven't figured out). I loved it. I still love it!

Working is seductive. Anyone who has tried retirement knows this. The temptation to find your identity in what you do, in external monitors of success, is overwhelming.

But...

The harder I pushed, the more elusive external success became. With zero expectations, my first novel shot to #1 on its initial KDP free days. Woohoo! Few sales, but my name was getting out there. Then the KDP free day promotion for the second novel, with high expectations, was a flop. Six months of ten hour days, seven days a week produced only a small check from Amazon every month.

Slowly social networking became a bit of a chore, still fun, but whew! A lot of work. The impulse to push, push, push, began to feel a little off. Then with a huge aha, I realized that I don't need to fund an animal shelter myself. Colima is doing GREAT on the animal rights front, with eleven protection associations and new legislation criminalizing animal abuse. From exactly where I am right now, I can help all I want. Without the financial impulse, the promotion began to feel even more like work.

Ambition is Not Present-Centered

When we focus on future success, we project wanting. From the Law of Attraction, we know that wanting can only bring more wanting. The deeper truth is that even when we get exactly what we prescribe, the Amazon ranking, the agent, the publisher, we will only want more. The movie deal, better promotion of our masterpiece, the billion dollar success of J. K. Rowling. Several well-known authors are good friends. Only one of them, Anne George, was truly happy with her publisher, and Anne was already about the happiest person I knew, surprised and pleased by every publishing success, small or huge.

So why did I attract someone who indulged my unacknowledged desire for wealth? Why have I surrounded myself with dear ambitious friends? Why have I put my novels on Kindle and worked my butt off for six months?

We can only feel JOY right now 

I did all these things because in some corner of my heart, I hadn't completely accepted that living right now is the only joy. A piece of me still believed in the IF-ONLY scenario. If only I had LOTS of money, I'd be happy. If only my novels would sell a boatload of copies, I could help animals. Last week was the final piece of that jigsaw puzzle, when I was neck deep in helping the four-legs, without needing anything other than my presence.

Another impulse toward living in this moment, right now, is my elderly dog. Gemma is twelve, and my desire to travel, to plan fun trips to see relatives and/or exotic places, has been put on hold. Gemma no longer does well when I leave, so I'm not leaving. Simple. Equally disastrous for me is the future scenario of her death. I refuse to spend our last months unhappily anticipating the future without her. Not. Happening. Every hug, every walk, every snore in the middle of the night is pure joy!

What does it all mean?

Last Saturday (July 6, 2013) my guest post on living in the present was published by Skelations. Another take on the same topic will be published there on July 27. I've taken a week off promoting and proven to myself yet again that the sky did not fall. Relaxing now with the physical aches of a sore hip and the remnants of overall exhaustion, a couple of layers of the emotional onion have peeled back.

One realization for me is that I want my novels to be available. I want them out there in the public marketplace. Selling or not selling is nowhere near as relevant as availability. So thank you, Amazon Kindle. Huge thank you! The people who like my novels REALLY like my novels. That's what matters. One reader who writes me because they 'get it' is a lifelong connection that I would miss out on if the novels weren't for sale worldwide.

Another realization is that I can do exactly as much or as little as feels enjoyable in the moment. If I don't post for a few days, so be it. Without pressure, the fun comes back. I really do love tweeting! Thank you to my generous, funny, and loving Twitter friends! Even Facebook is mostly awesome, and I love keeping in touch with people's lives through their photos and updates.

Yet another reminder recently is that I LOVE the intellectual side of writing, reading, and discussing novels. James McAllister and I have started a correspondence about his amazing and complex novel iNation, and I'm loving it! Molly Ann Wishlade and I share ideas and encouragement on our novels all the time. I love reading the thoughtful posts of  Thomas Rydder (My Road to Better Writing), Cassandra Page (Writing), Kristen Lamb (everything!), James McAllister (iNation), and many, many more wonderful writer bloggers!

Anyone who would like to talk novels, contact me! Huge advance hugs!

I don't want anything!

The final layer for me is to say happily and openly, I don't want anything!! Woohoo! Repeat after me, I don't want anything! I don't want ANYTHING! Life right this instant, this very second, is complete and amazing and plenty.

link to the recipe on The Furious Pear Pie blog

“I got the blues thinking about the future, 

so I left off and made some marmalade. 

It’s amazing how it cheers one up 
to shred oranges and scrub the floor.” 

D. H. Lawrence

Please join me for a lively discussion of all things writing and publishing, or whatever else you'd like to talk about! I look forward to your comments.

Check out these related posts on writing and publishing:

• Publish or Perish vs the Law of Attraction
• Wait! Change! It's the Law of Attraction!

• Synopsis Day at the Novel Writers Workshop #TBSU

• Creating Guidelines for Writers' Critique Groups #TBSU
• Developing Your Voice: Novel Writers Workshop #TBSU

Please click on the embedded links to several amazing blogs, today's contribution to The Blog Scratchers Union!

Let's Not Be Twits on Twitter! #TBSU

Three friends recently and separately have mentioned that they don't get the point of Twitter, or that they aren't sure how to make the most of it. I've ended up emailing my approach to tweeting to them, and they've tried it and liked it. So here's the Handy Dandy Carole Remy Twitter Plan! Tested and approved by three (count 'em three!) non-empirical, non-scientist friends!

Warning, this takes a bit of time. I don't use any paid services, only TweetDeck to schedule tweets. I love doing it all myself! The people I meet are awesome and often turn into friends over time.

To Get New Followers

We all want Twitter friends who follow back, and who Retweet us every once in awhile. The best way to find them is to Retweet and follow them yourself first! BTW, 'retweet' looks strange, even with unlimited characters, so I'll switch to RT.

• Go to 'Home' on your Twitter tab and start browsing. Or go to the profile of someone you know and find people who have RTed them. 

• When you see someone interesting, click on the person until you get to their Profile page.

• Check that they have recent tweets, and that they RT other people, not just send out tons of self-promotion.

• Find something you want to RT of theirs, preferably one of their direct tweets and not just something they retweeted.

• RT it and follow them. 

• Send them a message (not a DM) that you just RTed and followed them. Add a personal note if you can. "I love your blog," if it's true. "Cute Dog!" if there's a dog! I always add, 'Nice to meet you!'

• You now have about a 90% chance that they will follow you back. 

It does take awhile, but it's worth it. If I do this for 30 minutes a day, I can pick up 10-15 new followers, and they stick! They are real people, because I picked them carefully in the first place! Also, I try to find people from all over the world, and not only writers.

Click here to follow me, if you want. I'll follow back!

Woohoo! Have fun! I actually love doing this! I've met so many people who feel real to me, even if we only communicate on Twitter.


You Have Followers! What Now?


Now you get busy RTing. I have various Lists on Twitter. The Go To List for me is Frequent RTers! These are the 100 or so people who RT me consistently, and they get the royal treatment. At least once a day, I run down the list and RT everything that looks interesting. Yes, I do RT advertising of authors' books, but sparingly. I try to RT something from at least half of the people on the list every day. This part is pretty quick, maybe 20 minutes.

I'm also part of The Blog Scratchers Union, a group of bloggers who support each other. At least once a day, I search #TBSU on Twitter, and RT most of the tweets. You are welcome to join the group! Seumas Gallacher started it, and gives a full explanation here on his blog.


What to Tweet?

I have a simple rule for this. Tweet what you like to read.

• I like quotes, so I look for fun quotes in Bartlett's and I tweet them. 

• I appreciate when people give me a heads up for an interesting post they wrote awhile ago, that maybe I didn't catch at the time, so I tweet the posts from my archives that have enduring interest.

• I appreciate hearing about free books on Kindle, so I RT and tweet those notices, though I try to check out the Amazon page first to make sure the book is a good read.

• I LOVE it when someone spontaneously tweets one of my blog posts, so I try to find and tweet a few new blog posts every day.

• When someone writes a post I really enjoy, it goes onto the list along with my own archives, for rotational tweeting.

• Here's my sneaky way of slipping in a bit of advertising. When I send out an archive that relates to one of my books, I tack on the Amazon link. That's it. NO direct, "Buy this amazing book!" Just a little link added to something of general interest.

Organize It All Efficiently

All this could be a ton of work, so it pays to be super-organized. I keep a Google Drive document of "Tweets to Use Again" open all the time on my desktop. If I see something to put in rotation, boom, it gets copied into the document immediately. The document generally has 100-200 available tweets, including quotes, my archives, and other people's archives.

On to Tweetdeck... I schedule one tweet per hour, 24/7. Sometimes I don't schedule for a few hours or a day, and that's fine too. I just go to the Drive file of available tweets and copy and paste whatever strikes my fancy, an hour at a time, changing the wording just a bit each time. After I use a tweet, I highlight the background so I won't use it again too soon. If a tweet hasn't appealed to me for awhile, I bump it out of the rotation.

That's it. It's really pretty easy, and doesn't take more than a few minutes a day to schedule something for once an hour. Then I relax and only tweet stuff occasionally that appeals to me in the moment, usually something interesting that I've read or an RT from someone else.

Say Thank You!

This is the part that still bogs me down! I often get 20 or so new followers to thank every day, and another 40 or 50 RTs and mentions. Whew! I make lists, but haven't figured out a way to do that except by hand. I batch up the actual thank you tweets, but hand check each person's profile before I add their name. Sometimes I need to follow someone who has RTed me, or someone who has followed me first. Unfortunately, I can't remember all the names, so I always check!

My latest innovation is to print up an A to Z page with lines, to add @names of RTers and mentioners in alpha order. My hope is that I can keep track and thank people once or twice a week, and won't need to make a new list every day! Today with #FollowFriday is the first try for this. I'll let you know how it works.

If you have ideas about how to thank people personally, that don't involve being tied to the keyboard 24/7 or handing over control of following and unfollowing to a third party, PLEASE let me know!

Plea for Help!

That's the end of the Twitter post, folks! And the end of my limited social media tips, such as they are... Now, I'm asking for your help! I do NOT understand Goodreads—HELP! I kind of like Google+, but clearly haven't gotten the hang of using it—HELP!

My Facebook fan page, sigh...—HELP! There's a new Like-My-FB-Page button you can click on this page, right below the Skelat badge on the top right. Or, better yet,

LIKE my Facebook page right now, 

please and THANK YOU!

Maybe if we all stick together, we can get the hang of this social media thing! What's your favorite medium? Have you written a blog post about it? Feel free to share links to your social-media-tips posts in the comments. Whew! And thank you again, both for reading this blog so faithfully, and for helping me figure out what the heck to do with the other media!

Check out these related posts:

• Banish the Anxiety — Focus on the Fun! 
• One Global Twee, One Earth

• Blogging, the Law of Attraction, a Union, and Bats! What??? #TBSU #BAT

Three excellent blogs, presented here in the grand tradition of The Blog Scratchers' Union! #TBSU

• Seumas Gallacher 

• Thomas Rydder 

• Sapphyria's Steamy Book Reviews (for adults, please!)