D. Hart St. Martin

I make female heroes badass AND believable

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Ramblings on What It All Means

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A cat picture to lure readers in, not my cat

I fell into deep despair about the followers of this blog this week. I strive to communicate—with my books, with my social media postings and with this blog. But this week I hit a funk. The worst of my better nature told me my blog clearly fails to pique people’s interest at all. Nor does my web site. It’s very disappointing to have worked so hard to create interest-piquing content and then come to the realization that you’ve failed utterly at that task.

We writers are an awkward lot. Many of us, as I’ve discovered on Twitter in the #WritingCommunity, are introverts who’d rather stay at home and write than get out and actually commune with people. We prefer sticking our noses in books to reveling at parties. We’d rather burn our eyes out staring at a computer screen calling up action and plot and characters than wander around a shopping mall. Thus, putting ourselves out, even on the interweb, can be tiresome and even frightening to many of us wordsmith types. Promotion? Are you kidding? And what is a blog but self-promotion?

Let’s get this clear. I write my books for myself. If I manage to draw someone into my world, I’m thrilled, but my books are my refuge, my peace place (despite the death and mayhem I often visit on my characters). But my blog represents my effort to represent me to the world. If I have few subscribers, that world is small indeed.

And what’s the trick? What’s the trick to kicking the meter up a bit and gaining followers? Self-promotion. But I thought that’s what the blog was supposed to do—promote me and my work. If I have to promote it in order to then promote that other stuff, what is the f#%$ing point?

So there you are, this writer whining about her failures and, in truth, hoping my defeat will blackmail new readers into following me. Am I a horrible person? I’ve always thought so. Hence, the self-promotion thing being such a bust. But I’ve now written the post I swore I wasn’t going to write this week. I guess that’s success, right?

Thanking

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Just a few miles away from my destination—the Ovitt Library in Ontario, California—I found myself thinking about what a friend had reminded me to do in approaching the presentation I was about to give. I blogged just a couple of days ago about my fears as I neared this moment. My friend, who knew she’d be out of the country and unable to come, had called me before leaving to wish me luck. I mentioned that I’d given a whole slew of speeches in my teen years in my church and had even competed and won an award. She said, “Find the girl. Remember the girl.” I knew that girl still lived on somewhere inside me, so I wrote my friend’s words down and kept them close.

I drove past Chaffey High School.  It’s a very large campus on Euclid Avenue, the main drag through Ontario and Upland. I never attended school there; my alma mater is in Pomona, a couple of cities away. But Chaffey remains an important part of my personal story. At the age of five, I appeared as one of the kids in Finian’s Rainbow at the Gardiner W. Spring Auditorium on the campus. I have few memories of those moments, but I have been told that one night a piece of scenery either fell on me or knocked me over.  I ran off the stage crying with many commiserating mumblings following from the audience. I recovered quickly and returned for my final scene, and the audience applauded my spunk.

So, as I drove, I remembered the girl—the girl who gave speeches, the girl who played the secondary lead in the high school musical, the girl who walked back out onto a stage at the age of five after an unpleasant encounter with scenery—and I knew I would do well this day when I was about to test that public person.

And I did. There were at least 30 people in the room, a room with bad acoustics, and I connected with many, if not all, of them. They laughed in all the right places. They smiled and I smiled back. I made eye contact. I spoke clearly and relatively succinctly about a 37-year journey making Lisen of Solsta happen. I spoke mostly about self-publishing, something I’ve done through three incarnations and 20 years.

I ate lunch with several of the club members afterwards and enjoyed the company. Being an introvert, it’s hard for me to spend much time out with other people, but I managed to stay for nearly an hour, and that’s pretty damn good for me.

I only sold four books, gave out many bookmarks, lost all four pens I’d brought for people to sign a mail sheet, but three of the pens mysteriously returned before I left. But the fact that I, the zaftig writer, got up in front of people, without a podium, stood for nearly an hour as I talked in clear and ringing tones about a subject both near and dear is where I claim my success. Next time I won’t fret, at least not anywhere near as much as I did this time.

Oh, and did I mention my posse? Several members of my writing workshop who’ve provided valuable critique of everything I write (except for most of what I post here) showed up to cheer me on. My sister came as well. At this time of giving thanks, I give thanks for this day in which I proved to myself I could do it and thanks for the people who helped make it happen.