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20 FREE Ways To Help Your Writer-Friend Survive the Writing Life

I have a lot of friends who genuinely want to help me succeed as a writer, and that’s a good feeling. They say they love what I write, and, being a self-conscious writer with low self-esteem, I choose to believe them. Whenever I see these friends, they say how much they enjoyed “that ____ blog post” or how late they stayed up reading one of my books. Writers need readers, and I’m overjoyed to have a few of you around.

But I’ve also noticed that a lot of readers don’t have much (read: any) knowledge of what a writer needs in order to succeed these days. Most of them don’t know what I mean by the word “platform.” Few know much about “unique visitors” or “number of page views” or “Amazon ranking.”

The good news for you, the reader, is this: you don’t have to know anything about that stuff. But there are still free things you can do to help us along in this writing life.

That’s right. Free. As in, no money required.

(I hope it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: these things should only be done if you genuinely enjoy the writing. If you don’t, for all of our sakes, don’t share it, Tweet it, or dishonestly review it. Ignore us long enough and eventually we’ll take the hint, go find jobs as professional plasma-donators or carpet-fiber-counters.)

But if you do like our writing, here you go:

20 FREE Ways To Help Your Writer-Friend Survive the Writing Life

Like her posts on Facebook. We’ll start simple. A lot of writers blog these days, and when they do, most of them share their blog posts on Facebook. There’s a little “Like” button all of you Facebookers are familiar with, so if you enjoyed the post, click “Like.” It’s a tiny gesture, but the fact that you liked the post will show up on some of your friends’ Facebook feeds, which might lead new readers to your writer-friend’s blog. This is one way writers get new readers, and it costs you nothing.

Have your book club read his book. If you already own a copy of the book, this is free for you! It also introduces more people to the book, and people in book clubs tend to talk a lot about the books they’re reading, so the word-of-mouth factor is huge. 

…and then invite your writer-friend to come and talk about it. Your writer-friend doesn’t get out much. She drinks too much coffee. She spends far too many evenings staring at words, long after everyone else is watching perfectly good television shows. She probably battles loneliness with the help of Baskin Robbins. Besides that, your writer-friend loves talking about her book. She probably spent at least a year thinking about it, writing it, revising it, editing it, and producing it. She is passionate about it, and she would love to dust off a nice outfit, take a shower, and pretend to be an extravert for one night.

If he blogs, write a comment. You know how when you tell a joke and no one laughs? That’s kind of how it feels to write a blog post and then have no one comment. Laugh at jokes. Comment on blogs. Any questions?

Share her blog posts on Facebook and Google+ (whatever that is). Sharing your friend’s blog on social media is similar to Liking it on Facebook, only a million times better. If Liking is the equivalent of giving your spouse a peck on the cheek, then sharing is…well, you know. Sharing is better.

High fives. Because who doesn’t feel better after a high five?

Retweet their posts on Twitter. If everyone who followed me on Twitter retweeted one of my Tweets, something like 4,207,451, 639 people would see it. That’s a lot of people. If for some reason you’re not on Twitter, or you don’t know what Twitter is, go back to sleep.

Pin their posts and images of their books to Pinterest. I have a Pinterest account but since setting it up I’ve never been there. I hear pinning things is helpful. Be helpful.

If your writer friends have a Facebook page, become a fan of it. In case you don’t know what a Facebook Fan page looks like, you can visit mine HERE. While you’re there, practice your like-clicking skills.

Go to their book signings. For the love of God, go to their book signings. Book signings are amazing, especially when loads of people show up and there’s a line waiting for you to sign their copy of your book and everyone else in the bookstore is looking over at your table, trying to figure out what kind of famous person you are. Many of the book-signings I have done have not turned out this way. There’s nothing worse than sitting at a table, alone, beside a pile of books and one of those laminated, blown-up photos of yourself. If your writer-friend has a book signing, please show up, and if you’re one of the few people there then pretend to be a stranger who is in love with their book.

Tell your friends about your writer-friend’s book. Brag about it. Talk about it. Weave it into conversation even when it doesn’t quite make sense. Because this costs you nothing except your reputation as someone who can carry on a sensible conversation.

Offer to babysit. Someone over at my Facebook Fan page (ahem) suggested this one. There are a lot of writing moms and dads out there, some stay-at-home types and some go-to-work types, and if you would watch their kids so that they could spend an hour writing in a coffee shop, they would love you forever.

Review their book on Amazon. This is a huge one. Very important. For every good review left on Amazon, it increases the chance that your writer-friend’s book will show up as a similar read when people are viewing other titles. So write a review. Preferably not a one-star review.

Invite them to come and speak at your church, library, or business. I can’t speak for your writer-friend, but I am happy to speak just about anywhere I’m asked to speak (within driving distance). Reminder: your writer-friend doesn’t get out much. They might be willing to speak free of charge, or for something just as enticing as money, like bacon, a batch of cookies, or a ticket to tour the inside of a candy factory.

Pray. Writers spend most of their time trying to turn ideas into words. They try to make the invisible visible. They attempt to create characters and settings – entire worlds – out of nothing. They write books that will change people’s minds, resurrect dead conversations, and in some cases offend a great number of people. Praying for them, no matter your religious affiliation, seems appropriate.

Relationship-Appropriate Back Rubs. I’ll let you be the judge. Personally, there aren’t too many people besides my wife who can give me a back rub without making me feel all…fidgety. But some writers love back rubs. You might want to ask first.

Get a bunch of people together to celebrate their book release at a coffee shop, library, or a bar. The arrival of a book is very much like the arrival of a baby, minus the diapers, the late-night feedings, the crying, the colic…okay, it’s not a lot like the arrival of a baby, but it still deserves a celebration. Send out a few invites. This can all be arranged for zero dollars.

Email blog posts to friends you think would enjoy them. I recently had a friend tell me she emailed my post to all of her brothers and sisters. This made me very happy. Do you want to make your writer-friends happy? Email their blog posts to your friends and family.

Face the book out at bookstores. I stole this one from Chuck Sambuchino, who has also compiled a great list about supporting your writer friends, but my list is slightly better (in my humble opinion) because most of his ideas cost money. Mine are all free. But this is a good one. Unless you are a bookseller – then it might be kind of annoying.

Ask them how their latest project is going. Did I mention we don’t get out much? Prepare yourself – we might launch into some extended summary of our latest sci-fi romance vampire novel, or go to great lengths to convince you that our most recent antagonist is NOT modeled after our father. But it means a lot, the asking.

Be sure to point out all the errors, missed commas, and misspellings in the book they recently released. Actually, don’t do this. It’s the moral equivalent of pointing out the flaws in someone’s newborn child. “Cute kid, but why is its head so pointy?” Or, “Wow, look at all those red spots!” Not cool. At some appropriate point in the future, when the newness of the book has died down and the next edition of the now-New York Times-bestselling book is about to go to print, then you can mail them a marked-up copy, and they’ll be thankful.

In the mean time, just keep clicking “Like” on their Facebook posts.

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Where We Found a Thing Called Hope

IMG_1503We picked the kids up from their classes and headed south, through a sky already growing dark even though it wasn’t yet 5:00. Winter days will do that here, especially cloudy ones. The van bulged at the seams, full of pillows and blankets and luggage for our annual trek to North Carolina for Thanksgiving.

We bought fast food so that we wouldn’t have to stop driving. Maile called out the orders and doled out the food. Last minute trades were bartered. Complaints were heard and mostly dismissed. Then we passed the milkshakes back.

“If anyone doesn’t finish theirs, pass it right back up to the front,” I called out, not getting my hopes up.

We continued south, two hours, three hours. We had decided to spend the night at a friend’s house in southern Virginia before driving the rest of the way on Friday morning. Four hours passed.

“Are we there yet?” Abra asked over and over again.

After four hours we got off of 81 and headed east, into the mountains, into the shadows. We missed the lane the first time, had to drive a mile up and turn around, then circle back. We called our friend. Her name is Andi.

“There’s a small sign by the driveway,” she said. “Just follow the lane and keep to the left.”

We pulled slowly into the lane, crossed a narrow, wooden bridge. We had arrived at God’s Whisper Farm.

* * * * *

The house was cozy and warm. There were books everywhere, even on the stairs where Andi’s husband had painted the kickboards of the steps to match the spines of particular books. The Hatchet. Paradise. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Their dog, Meander, was pleased to see the children, and she wrestled with them until she was completely tired out, lying on her side and panting. Andi gave out bowls of chili, supper at 9:30pm, followed by hot apple pie. Then I took the kids upstairs and wrapped them in their blankets. They were tired from the drive, and they fell asleep while listening to us through the vent in the floor.

We spent the rest of the evening talking, just the four of us, the heater lulling me to sleep. It was one of those nights when you wish it was possible to purchase extra hours, an evening when you want to keep talking but eventually your eyelids grow too heavy.

We went to bed, and for some reason I dreamed about hobbits.

* * * * *

The next morning we woke up, ate bacon, eggs and toast, then put on our boots and walked the trails through the woods that skirted the mountains. Meander ran past us, then back again, and the kids took turns racing her, falling hopelessly behind. Lucy and Sam scaled a small cliff leading up from a creek bed.

Andi showed us where they hope to build a lodge and then walked us over to the place her father plans to build a small cabin. There was the chicken coop, in progress, and the sloping field where the goats will live. A flat expanse had already been planed out for a barn.

As we walked the acres of the farm, and the three younger kids climbed on the tractor, and Cade wrestled with Meander, I realized what I felt there. I realized what was so appealing about that little valley.

Hope.

Andi and her husband have plans for that place, and they don’t seem too caught up in the concern that some of those plans might not come to pass. They’ve staked little signs into the ground with names that designate what they hope the future holds for each parcel of land: “Lodge” and “Cabin”. There is an overwhelming sense that things are not finished, that what you see is not what you get, that there is a story in the making. A beautiful story. A compelling story.

This, I think, is what the Gospel is all about. This is the Kingdom that Jesus invited us to take part in: an ongoing, compelling story, one full of hope. One where we take the time to place handmade signposts into the earth. Not signs that we anchor with cement or mortar, but signs that can be moved, signs that speak of a beautiful hope.

* * * * *

We walked back towards the van and the remaining four hours on the road to Charlotte. Lucy looked up at us with hope in her eyes.

“Mama,” she said to Maile, “when I grow up and leave our house, I want to live on a farm just like this one.”

This is the beautiful thing about hope. It’s contagious.

* * * * *

Please check out Andi’s new book, The Slaves Have Names: Ancestors of My Home.

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“I Don’t Believe in God” and Other Engaging Posts From the Web This Week

2051842109Some of the good stuff I enjoyed on the internet this week:

* * * * *

I’m not blind to the hubris of comparing ourselves to Abraham and Sarah, but isn’t this in a sense, what scripture asks us to do; to enter into our own adventure, our own “wild dancing” with our untamed God, taking solace and courage in these ancients who are at once both our guides and companions?

* * * * *

I awoke in the middle of the night last week, restless after another trip down the hall to a child’s bedroom, my body rhythms out of sync for most of this year. I wasn’t thinking about anything coherent, was probably loosely formulating the next day’s schedule or replaying an earlier moment, when a thought dropped heavily as if from the roof and down through the ceiling fan:

I don’t believe in God.

* * * * *
It’s strange, how this all came at me. It came out of nowhere, like usual. And I’m just saying, it was strange, the whole thing. It happened at work, the place where so much of life does. And I wasn’t looking for it at all. I can’t tell you how much I wasn’t looking for it. I’ve been pretty comfortable all around, lately, telling you how free I am. And how free it all felt, what I’ve found.

* * * * *

When I got the email that she was gone, that the brain tumor she’d lived with for the past ten years had finally taken her, I was walking to the coffee shop where I write on Thursdays, my little boys dressed in their Halloween costumes, safe with their babysitter in my apartment. And I walked right past the coffee shop, straight to the park. I didn’t even think of climbing the tree. I just sat for two hours. I just sat in the rare San Franciscan sunshine and I thought about my friend. God, I prayed, open up the Great Hope to her. Right now. And I imagined what mystery my friend Elissa may have entered into. The sun shining down on me, the day before All Saints Day. The day we celebrate the ones who have already gone away from us, I sat in the sunshine and prayed for light.

* * * * *

Pastors, preachers, bloggers, professors, students, random questions from the audience, interviewers, friends, readers, reporters, podcasters, they want to know: how can I – me, who knows better! who hears the truth every day! who is the target of a lot of vitriol and push-back at times! –  possibly still be hopeful?

* * * * *

Finally, this: A lot of our churches, like Italy, aren’t growing. That is, they are not getting numerically larger. That’s a cause for some hand-wringing on our side of the ocean as well. But maybe, just maybe, we can learn a little something from the Italians about life at a slower pace and about accepting the hand we’ve been dealt.

* * * * *

You are nearing the light now, Nora.
Barely a woman when you brought
my father into this world. I wonder if
you wonder where oh where did my life
go? How did we all grow up so fast?
 
* * * * *
Anything get your attention on the internet this week?
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A Friendly Reminder: No One Has Any Idea How This Will Turn Out

IMG_1069It’s been in vogue for quite some time now, the whole notion of giving yourself permission to fail. Various gurus and motivational types have been saying it for years. Fail forward. Fail fast. Fail repeatedly.

I get that, and I admit that failing quickly can be an important part of growth and finding direction in life. But you know what? I’m less afraid of failure than I am of living a life of endless mediocrity. Most failures are a flash in the pan – that’s what makes them failures. If people would keep talking about it, then it wouldn’t be a failure. It would be popular. It would be worth talking about.

What are you afraid of? What keeps you from creating, from trying something new?

* * * * *

There will always be voices, murmurs in the back of your mind. There will always be prognosticators. People who know how your next story will turn out, how your next book will fare. How your next business will go.

But no one knows. Not even you.

Consider when the original iPhone was released. Here are just a few of the predictions made by experts in the field regarding the future of this new and fascinating piece of technology:

“That virtual keyboard will be about as useful for tapping out emails and text messages as a rotary phone. Don’t be surprised if a sizable contingent of iPhone buyers express some remorse at ditching their BlackBerry when they spend an extra hour each day pumping out emails on the road.” — Seth Porges, CrunchGear

“Apple will sell a few to its fans, but the iPhone won’t make a long-term mark on the industry.” — Matthew Lynn, columnist at Bloomberg

That makes me smile. And it makes me happy, because no one knows how well your next book will sell. No one knows how incredible your next short story will turn out. No one knows how many people will be reading your blog in a year. No one.

Might as well keep writing. Keep preaching. Keep creating.

* * * * *

In the recent edition of Poets and Writers, there’s a story about author Andre Dubus III and how difficult it was finding a publisher for his novel, House of Sand and Fog.

When House of Sand and Fog began making the rounds in the late 1990s, it was no easier to place than Dubus’s first two books. The manuscript was roundly rejected by twenty-four publishers…There are now somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million copies of the novel in print.

No one knows where this creativity will take you, this story-telling. Not even you.

What’s stopping you right now?

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The Problem With Hard Work

IMG_1293Where I grew up few things are more admirable than hard work. Calluses, blisters, and sore muscles are signs of worship to God. Short grass, clean cars, and weedless gardens are the result of extreme holiness. Waking up before the sun or working long after dark are indications of piety.

* * * * *

There’s a legend that circulates here in Lancaster County. It says Amish women have an unspoken competition with each other on Monday mornings to see who can get their laundry on the line first. I don’t know if the legend is true or not, but I’ve driven in a car with friends past those orderly stretches of clothes waving on a long line between a house and a barn, and the feelings of guilt experienced by those of us in the vehicle have been palpable.

“I have so much to do around the house,” my friends mutter under their breath. “Look at all that laundry that woman has already done today, by hand.”

I think about how I I slept in until 7:30 that morning, and the remorse is so heavy that in that moment I am certain my eternal fate has just been sealed.

* * * * *

When I was a kid, there were only two reasons you ever sat down: to eat supper, or to adhere to the Sabbath. Even on Sunday the sitting was only acceptable if it was on a hard bench, or the floor. During the week you could start breakfast at the table but the last few bites must be eaten on the fly as you’re walking out the door, an illustration of how sorry you were that you hadn’t started working as soon as you stood up out of bed that morning.

Armchair recliners were clearly of the devil, as were pillows and cleaning ladies. Of course you could be a cleaning lady, but you couldn’t pay one to come clean your house. Pay someone else to scrub your toilets or wash your windows? What were you, some kind of lazy city-slicker?

I often found myself sitting around on Sundays listening to the adults humble-brag about how hard they had worked that week, how many hours they had put in, how many fingers they had lost.

Yes, that’s right. How many fingers they had lost. One particular man I remember had a hand missing at least six digits.

“It’s a pity about all those missing fingers,” someone said after he left.

“Yeah, but he sure is a hard worker,” their neighbor replied, getting up and walking around the room just to keep the feeling of relaxation from settling in too deep.

* * * * *

“The Lord helps those who help themselves” was a regular saying in these parts, although it can be kind of a silly thing to say if you think about it, as if God’s willingness to act is somehow tied to my ability to put in a 16-hour day. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against hard work. I’ve inherited my share of Anabaptist genes. I still get a kick out of sweating, of working the earth, of maintaining order.

But I’ve also seen how this little idol of hard work saturates the minds of those who worship it. Many a father went before the idol of hard work and laid his family on the altar. Many a judgment was made about those in poverty, that they don’t work hard enough, that the answer to all of their problems is a little dirt under their nails, a little ache in their shoulders. Many a beautiful moment was missed, because the enjoyment of that moment would have required a pause in the action or an “unproductive” minute.

We still joke about it, though, how much we love to work. We laugh at ourselves, because we know that we often take it to the extreme. But after the jokes settle, we still whisper in admiration, “That guy sure knows how to work,” or “I don’t know how she does it all.”

* * * * *

“I don’t know how to live in this county,” someone from the west once told me, “because all people ever talk about here is work. It seems like no one has any hobbies. It seems like no one does anything just for the fun of it.”

I’m learning how to rest. In fact, just the other day I sat in my arm chair for no apparent reason. On a Thursday. At 2:00 in the afternoon. I’m pretty sure I felt the rumbling of my grandfathers rolling over in their graves, but that’s okay.

They’ll get over it.

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Five Things I Learned During My One-Year Blogging Break

Last December I decided to stop blogging. The final decision to stop caught me by surprise, although it was something I had been considering off and on for quite some time. Here are five things I learned during my year away from the blogosphere:

Silence is important. One of the most powerful things that happened to me in the last year was that I had an encounter with silence. I was hired to write a book for a man in Istanbul who was dying of cancer, an amazing, strong man with an incredible story, and while I was there I came face to face with silence.

After I got back from Istanbul, I started reading more about silence, making time for it. The practice of silence changed my life, and I look forward to writing more about that here soon.

Basically, when you’re blogging every day of the week, it’s difficult to make time for silence. It’s hard to dwell on things for any amount of time without talking about them right away. This is the challenge ahead of me. Blogging out of a space of silence.

Platform isn’t everything. I was so obsessed with numbers before I stopped blogging. How many visits today? This hour? This minute? How many likes? How many shares? A year away from the blog was a tangible step that forced me to focus on getting better at writing instead of getting better at drawing attention to myself.

There is value in secrecy. You know how in the story the angels told Mary she would give birth to the Messiah, then she Instagrammed it right away? Then shared it on Facebook (which was linked to her Twitter account)?

Nah. She treasured it in her heart. There’s power in letting things simmer, just thinking about them.

I am fascinated by the blog as a form of writing. As a lover of novels and short stories, I used to short-change the blog as a form. I tended to think of it as a platform-building tool, a means to an end. But during my time away I paid attention to the bloggers who were still forging ahead. I watched the interaction they had with their readers and the conversations going on.

The blog isn’t dead.

Jealousy sucks – Celebration is better. Anne Lamott talks about Jealousy in her book, Bird By Bird, and for the first month or two after I stopped blogging I sometimes got sideswiped by Jealousy. It’s hard to take a step back out of the limelight and watch other writers write amazing stuff and get huge numbers and continue to build an audience. But it was good for me. It was good for me to stay silent. It was good for me to wait.

And in the process I learned that one of the best ways to quell Jealousy is by supporting the folks you’re feeling jealous towards. Instead of stewing, get on board and help. Celebrate the small things with people. It’s possible to take joy in other people’s successes. It’s actually kind of fun.

So there you have it. Five of the many things I’ve learned during the last year. Any questions?