I’m sure I’m not the only one this has happened to… I was going along just fine, then suddenly, some folks I hadn’t seen in 20 years popped up on my Facebook friend invite section. This is always a bit of a mixed blessing. Sure, it’s great to reconnect with those people I liked (mostly), but on the other hand, perhaps I’m not exactly the hottie I was in high school! (Trust me. Everyone is a hottie at 16. Youth makes up for a lot.)

And I’m also certain I’m not the only one who dreads the moment when that old acquaintance sees that avatar photo and thinks smugly, “Holy crap. She’s let herself go!” So here are some tips for how I created an avatar that my old friends would recognise but wouldn’t scare away potential new friends and followers with the sheer, dreaded normal-ness of my appearance.

By the way, this advice is also great for authors who feel the need to use a “real face” as their avatar. (Note the “scare quotes”—reality is relative.)If you’re like me: over 40 and not spending your days in the salon because you’re at home, sitting on your arse (in your jammies)writing books, well, these tricks may work as well for you as they did for me!

Now, I realise not all of you will need this advice. So, for those of you who are still young and/or gorgeous:

Yeah, okay, and for the other 99% of us ordinary people who look more and more like Margaret Thatcher every day, do what I did, and break out the photo editing software. It’s a helluva lot easier than going on a diet and cheaper than botox.

Once I mastered the squeeze tool to make myself roughly the same width I used to be, then it was time to get rid of the eye-bags brought on by staying up too late, worrying about mortgages, or typing just one more page of that manuscript. Tip: You can fix your hair and apply some eye shadow while you’re at it. It takes seconds and you don’t have to wash it off when you’re done!

And poof! Done! A perfectly made-up (in both senses of the word!), skinny version of myself, sans wrinkles, gray hairs, and with just a hint of youthful blush on my cheeks.

Considering that I don’t think even my husband recognises my 3 year old, heavily edited avatar, I’m seriously considering using the kitten in a teacup myself! (Of course, that Love’s Lusty Lumberjack cover comes a close second.)

So what’s your avatar secret? Do you show your natural face, warts and all, or are you using a 1990’s glamor shot? Edited or strictly reality?

Yep, it’s Thursday again, and today I have a special guest, Theresa Milstein. I met Theresa through social networking, which is probably one of the reasons I so loved her topic for today, the online writer’s community.

The community of writer-bloggers is the most diverse one I know.  And that’s saying a lot living in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the US.  We’re ethnically, religiously, and economically diverse.  Our schools even have a LGBTA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Association) for parents and students.  But the blogging community is even more diverse.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s my evidence.

All we know about one another is what we choose to provide.  Some of us post pictures of ourselves, while others only show cartoon representations or even symbols.  Most use real names, while others use pen names or something related to the names of our blogs.

Often we have a country of origin to go by, but sometimes not even that.

We don’t always know:

• Religion
• Marital status
• Children or childless
• Age
• And so on.

So, what do we know about one another?

Our words.

What we say in our blog posts and comments.  We bare our souls in our posts and comments, in whatever social media tool we use.  Some of our relationships have deepened into friendships, with e-mails, calls, and even live visits.

I’d argue we share more of ourselves to one another than we often do to most of our friends and family members.  For only writers really know what it’s like to be a writer.

A rejection arrives.  A harsh critique is endured.

Who else knows exactly what to say because… let’s face it… been there, done that.

We follow and “friend” one another.  We’re critique partners and beta readers.  When something bad happens in one of our lives, the rest of us reach out.  And when something wonderful happens, we can rejoice.  (Swallow that envy.  Our turn will come.)

Even better, we promote one another. We believe in each other.

All of this social media can be called a time waster, a poor substitute for “real” relationships, and so on.  But when you disappear from the blogosphere, I’ll notice.  Then I’ll contact you to make sure you’re okay.  And when I’ve been beside myself, the outpouring of support has lifted me out of some pretty dark places.

I still have my friends and my family.

But I also have my writer friends.  (Even if a few of my writer friends live nearby, most of our interaction is on-line.)

I share much of myself on my blog posts.  But it’s also the best of me.  If I’m in a bad mood, I don’t take it out on you.  It’s easier to be a better blogging friend.

If you’re from the US, I don’t need to know if you’re from a red or blue state. If you’re in another country, it’s not important if you’re a US ally or not.  I don’t care if it’s autumn where you are while spring where I live.  If there’s a time zone difference, that doesn’t bother me.  Your religious affiliation (or lack thereof) or sexual orientation is not my concern.  There’s no age requirement.

You are a writer who has reached out and maybe touched me in some way.  That’s all that matters.

Imagine if we could make the world like we’ve made our writing community.  How much less judging would we do?  How much more focus would we bring to the things that really count?  If we can accomplish it here, why can’t we move these relationships beyond the blog?

What did writers do before social networking?  Seriously.  We have a utopia here.  Let’s treasure it.

Question for you: What aspect of the blogging community is the most meaningful to you?

Today’s is a bit of a roundup post… just a few things I wanted to share with bloggy friends…

This week, L.J. Sellers wrote an article titled “Write What You Feel” over at her blog. She talks about something I’ve considered several times while writing… how the ups and downs of our own everyday lives affect our writing. She uses examples of how readers have responded to knowing about a writer’s life, and it made me think. Go read it!

Also I ran across something on Twitter called #1k1hr. That link gives a bit more detail, but basically it’s a self-challenge where you sit down and decide to write a thousand words in an hour. No big deal… I do that all the time. But the fun aspect of this is where Twitter comes in. It’s a twitter hashtag you can follow and see other people doing it, sometimes in groups. Like the #amwriting hashtag, I find it very inspirational to know there are all these people out there…writing…all the time… 24 hours a day without fail. It has this way of making me want to drop whatever I’m doing and go create something.

And lastly, I’m being interviewed today by the esteemed J.M. Strother of Mad Utopia, creator of #fridayflash and editor of the Best of Friday Flash collection. So come visit me over at the madhouse!

Happy Wednesday!

Today, over on L.M. Stull’s blog, Andrew Mocete is blogging about Twitter, specifically how to use it to market self-published books, but it’s actually good advice for anyone.

I’ve been loving Twitter for a while now. The first time I tried it, it didn’t take. I didn’t have any followers, I didn’t know how to find people I wanted to follow, and it seemed full of lingo that didn’t make sense to me. What the fuck was a hashtag? I made a second go when I saw a few friends from facebook say they just loved it, and this time I put some energy into filling up my list with other writers. When I didn’t get what something meant, I asked. That’s when I started to see how deep Twitter went and now I enjoy it every day.

But too many authors (and others) treat Twitter like a tool to be used. Okay it is. Sort of. But like with my second look at Twitter, it goes a lot deeper than that. Twitter is made up of people, not targets, not an ‘audience’, and not ‘customers’. It’s a cocktail party, not a networking conference. Sure you can pass out a few business cards when you meet someone, but if you stand there, bellowing about what you have for sale, you’re going to end up by yourself, or worse, surrounded only by people who also want you to buy something.

In Andrew’s post, he suggests using the hashtag #amwriting to find people to follow. That’s a great way to start. Besides my advice for treating folks on Twitter like, yanno, people, I’d also suggest:

1. Make your bio something interesting, but specify that you’re a writer. Avoid words like ‘guru’, ‘expert’, or ‘marketing’. I never follow people with these words. They’re usually Twitter “users” and just want to sell you confidence for the low, low price of $199. The bio is important, because it’s 1 of 2 factors I use when trying to decide if I’ll follow someone back who follows me. The second:

2. Retweet, @mention, @reply. If you are new to twitter and don’t know what those things mean yet, find out. It won’t take long. About 3 minutes. But if I go to a timeline and see that their posts are all adverts of their own blog, their writing, their books, or various links, but they don’t interact with others, I pass them by. Why would I follow someone who isn’t going to talk to me? Remember: cocktail party. Twitter is give and take. It’s full of PEOPLE.

3. There’s lots of advice out there about Twitter, so I won’t go on and on. You’ve probably heard the rest of what I could add already. I will just say this: be friendly, be honest, but most of all, be yourself. (Unless you’re one of those people I have yet to understand that tweets as a character in their book, or more strangely, as their dog. I love you all, but I don’t get that one.)

One interesting fact I’ve noticed… these days I visit more blogs that are recommended from my Twitter feed than my blog reader. And, most of my blog traffic comes from Twitter. More than facebook and much more than my regular subscribers.

So, question for you: What unexpected things or people have you found on Twitter? For those who haven’t started tweeting yet, why the heck not?

A bit of a mash-up post today!

First, a bit about blogs and commenting…

Yesterday, Techcrunch rolled out a new way to comment on blogs via Facebook. I have to admit, I loved the look of it. I think it would be pretty awesome to be able to comment on a blog via my Facebook ID, and have it automatically (if I wanted) post that article and my comment to my FB wall.

There was a time it would have bothered me to not be commenting with a link to my own website, but you could probably always add that at the bottom if you really wanted. Besides, I’ve discovered that although I get a comment-back from the poster, I don’t really get much in the way of traffic from comments I’ve left on other blogs. And, truth be told, I’m a lot less concerned with the number of comments I get anymore. I used to be  a real comment-counter. I wanted to do anything I could to get as many as I could. But then I realised I was spending two hours a day chasing blog comments. That was two hours I could have spent writing books.

So, question for you: Would you leave a comment on a blog that used your Facebook ID rather than having you log in?

Second: If you want to find out about my miserable road to being published, check out my interview on Scribbles and Steam this week. And in an interview with Glynis Smy, I reveal the craziest thing I’ve ever done.

And Lastly: As I mentioned on my Author Page on Facebook, I’ve started sending out Advance Review Copies of Ordinary Angels to reviewers. I’ll keep doing that this entire month as a part of the big release. (Oh how I wish that was as dirty as it sounded.) Well, I got my first response. Goddess of Blah Book Reviews posted a ‘spotlight’ about the book, but she’s saving the actual review for when the amazon/goodreads links are available. But… she posted this on my Facebook profile today:

This will be rated 5 out of 5 from us on amazon! I’ve not really read this stuff much – but wowza my boyfriend is gonna love the stuff I’ve learnt Thank you! I loved Zoe and Alex – a wonderful read!

– Goddess of Blah Book Reviews

I can’t tell you how excited I am!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

I’ve added two (well, actually three) new pages to the site this week. So, see, I haven’t forgotten my dear bloggy friends! I’ve just gotten a bit caught up in all the bazilliondy things that I have on my to-do list. With the launch of Ordinary Angels coming out in just two short months, I have more to do than I have time for, but it’s gotta be done anyway! (The good news is, the book is FINALISED with the publisher! Yay!) Unlike some authors, I really don’t mind the promotional stuff. Not that I like talking about myself (that’s the worst part), but I do love meeting new people and making connections on the net.

Oh! But before I forget, I did write a guest blog post for my friend Ziggy Kinsella over at The Feckless Goblin. He put out a call for authors to write about publishing topics, so I whipped something up that I called “The Super Secret Cure for Writer’s Block“. It’s mostly snark, but hey, you guys love the snark.

Right, back to the new pages on the site this week. One is a place for me to thank people who are helping me promote Ordinary Angels. I called the page “Friends of Ordinary Angels” and it’s a list of reviewers, bloggers, and networkers (social networkers? spacebookers? tweeps? socialites?) and a few special folks that I owe a huge THANK YOU to.

I have been just overwhelmed by how many people have offered to do blog posts, interview me, tweet, share stuff on the social networks, and generally just get the word out. But I also get people writing asking what they can do. So I created this page: Become a Friend of Ordinary Angels. It’s things, ranging from big to small, that would be a huge help. And if you want to tweet, share, or blog about the book release, you will earn my undying gratitude. As I say on that page, it’s “gratitude that NEVER dies. It’s like… zombie gratitude, but without the rotting limbs, vampire gratitude without the blood and gore (but all of the sparkles), and angel gratitude with a totally awesome backup choir.”

Oh, and the third new page? This is a bit embarrassing. It’s a press kit. Shhh. Yes, I feel like a dork having a press kit. It’s nothing that interesting for my regular readers, but people have asked me for some of the same information over and over, and it’s just easier to have it all in one place. I’m only mentioning it to preempt some of the mockage I know a few of my friends will give me as soon as they notice it. And they always do, at least anytime there’s anything remotely embarrassing to notice. I’m not linking to it here though. No point in making their jobs easier. If you wanna mock me, I’m gonna make you do your own homework.

If you want to help even more than you already do (just by sharing your time and comments with me–which is awesome, by the way), you can help me get the word out about getting the word out. Heh. You could put out a tweet saying something like: “Earn @indiadrummond ‘s undying zombie gratitude by checking out this page: http://bit.ly/i5L4ai #OrdinaryAngels” or whatever you want to say. You can also share that link to your FB friends. Hey, just consider it revenge for all the virtual farm requests THEY send YOU. ♥

If you want to get involved, I’ve given lots of ‘contact me’ links in the post, but if you’ll say so in reply to this post, I’ll go ahead and put you down. I know you guys aren’t as lazy as I am, but I might as well make it easy for you. Besides, it might distract you from mocking me about the press kit nonsense.

I hope you all have had as productive a start to 2011 as I have! (But maybe more restful. With more pie. Everyone could use more pie.)

This has been a real week of ups and downs with my writing. The wordcount on Wildings is going steadily up, and its taking shape, but my characters are giving me hell and even though the plot is outlined, I am not entirely certain how I’m going to get them there from here.

I have added a page to the blog for My Fiction, where you can see what my current projects are and where I am. Will update as I develop workable blurbs for the new stuff. If you have any comments or suggestions about what you see there, please do let me know! I’m always open to feedback.

And… a bit about Twitter. If you follow me on Twitter, you know I love it. One thing I’m not so wild about though: #followfriday. I do like to recommend folks I follow, but A. every freaking week I forget it’s friday, so I have to scramble to put names together, and B. I hate feeling like I’m leaving people out and C. I hate it when people I follow post 20 tweets in a row with names they’re recommending. It’s eye-spammy. I’ve hovered my fingers over the ‘unfollow’ button on a few people who do this, and I don’t want to tempt my followers to do the same to me. I figure I’m on thin ice with them most of the time anyway.

So what I’ve done is create a follow-friday twitter list.  If you’re looking for fun, interactive tweeps, then follow them. Most of them are writers, all of them are active, and some of them regularly cause me to guffaw and make other unladylike noises.

I also have received some blog awards recently, which makes me feel all warm and squishy, but slightly awkward (which I usually feel when people are saying nice things about me to other people) and I wanted to note my thanks. My new friend and crit partner Sangu Mandanna gave me a Prolific Blogger award, Crystal Cook gave me a Sweet Blogger award (yes, really… shut up), and Talli Rolland gave me a Soulmates award. Thank you!

So this was my week! How was yours?

This week I noticed that the flash pieces I wrote on my ND140 Twitter account were much darker than is usual for me. Odd, considering that I’ve been pretty happy this week. (Still basking in the afterglow of the new laptop.) I can’t really explain it… I suppose I’ve always thought a writer should be able to go to the dark, scary places just as easily and comfortably as the happy places if they wanted to be able to connect to a reader on any real level.

Not sure if my “flashes” are really very good. I certainly don’t agonise over them the way I do some things. But it’s been a fun exercise and so I’ll keep sharing.

So here are the latest:

The music twanged her nerves and clusters clenched her temples before she had even pushed the door open. Resentment precluded reason.

The scurrying footfalls of humans did not hold her interest, nor did the seeping ruby blood that spread over the grey paving stones.

She kept the pills in an empty film container in her sock drawer. She didn’t plan to kill herself but she liked knowing that she could.

Do you write flash fiction on Twitter? Let me know, and I’ll add you to my Twitter List!

I had planned to blog yesterday and then today about more flash fiction on Twitter. After the list I made last week on my blog, I’ve found 20 more Twitter micro-fiction authors.

But… yesterday around noon I got a shiny new Dell Studio in the post. You see, I’ve finally acknowledged that my wishful thinking (about my disability disappearing overnight like one of Nanny McPhee’s warts) is getting me nowhere. So, if I wanna push past it, I need to make life (and work) easier for myself. Hence the laptop. Plus, it’s always so freakin cool to have a new gadget.

So, sorry, but the ubercoolocity of having a new toy takes precedence over blogging. Yes, I could blog from my new laptop. (Shh, quit with the logic. I’m not having any of it!)

Anyway, if you still want to keep up with some awesome Twiction authors, you can check out this list and follow these folks. I’m in awe of their ability to keep it coming every day, in bite-sized pieces no less.

I’ll be good next week. Really. I will. I’m sure the shiny will have worn off my new toy by then and I’ll be all self-disciplined and focused. (Shut up, I will.)