To Fan-Letter or Not to Fan-Letter?

"I admire Shakespeare enormously. But since I can't be him, I'm glad that his marriage was unhappy and that he's dead."

-Bauvard

Our internet is not working. I know you can comprehend how utterly incomprehensive that is. Internet not working? Like, what the blazes? I don’t mean that we are having any large problems. It’s just that I’m sitting here waiting for the Blogger page to load so I can actually blog and instead I’m having to type all of this into a blank Word document. Amazon is loading the super slow html version of the page as I try to check on Five Glass Slippersreviews and it is taking me back to the 90’s and I’m once again overwhelmed with gratefulness that I was not an 80’s kid.

Random asides wrapped up, I wanted to write today on the subject of fan-mail. I’ve always rather scoffed at the practice of fan-mail because I have a mortal dread of seeming like One of Those People. I don’t know how many of you have Instagram accounts and follow celebrities (my celebrity follows are left at Owl City and Broadway stars) but if you do, you will probably relate to a certain sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach when you inadvertently read the latest comment of the queue of four-hundred twenty-seven such worthless things: “SO hey, I love you sosososososossososososososos much and you’re like the best thing ever and I like would scream and cry and absolutely DIE of joy and tears if you followed me back. LOVE YOUR MUSIC. Xoxoxoxxx.”

Cringe-worthy.

So for years and years I thought of all fan-mail as that sort of saccharine thing and I figured I would always always hold myself to a snobbier standard that scoffed at such things. Then I began to write and when I was a writer, I noticed how good it felt to have my hard work acknowledged and appreciated. It is a truth universally acknowledged that most people don’t do things for praise (At least … I thought it was. Ahem.), but praise is a wonderful thing in its place. That place, dear reader of mine, is among the responsible, coherent public.

Intelligent fan art, fan mail, and fan other things (I still cringe at fan-fic but that is just my opinion) are the public’s way of letting a person know they place worth on what you do and that they think it worth their while to tell you about it.

The more I looked at fan-mail this way, the less I despised it and before too long I found myself trekking to our mailbox with a letter in hand. This letter was for historical romance author Sarah Sundin and upon its reception Sarah took a photo and put in on her Facebook page. She enjoyed my calm, coherent, congratulatory letter. I was not dying of shame in my corner over a letter I had (not) written in glitter gel-pens and decorated with an unseemly quantity of rainbow Lisa Frank stickers. I wrote a letter with my real (quiet and commonplace) feelings of admiration for her novel and I sent that letter and it was received gladly.

I’ve only written one other fan-letter after this, (though my sister, Leah, wrote to Broadway star Laura Osnes and actually got a reply.) With the publishing of Five Glass Slippers, I have been thinking a lot about what blessing it is to know someone appreciates your work and has taken the time to tell you about it. In the final line-editing copy stages of the pre-publishing work, one of my “Slipper Sisters” emailed to tell me her mother had read The Windy Side of Care and adored it.  That email is going down in history as one that made me happiest of all. It was a simple thing of a few lines and it gave me the boost I needed to finish up the work I had to do. In the same way, last week I received an email from a total stranger who had read Fly Away Home on the recommendation of a friend and very much enjoyed it. Again, none of the fan-girlish (or fan-boyish, which is almost creepier because guys tend to be blessedly understated) effluence that makes one discount the praise immediately.

Because we do.

We do get horrible shivers up our spines (and famous people get them worse) when we open an email or read a letter or what-have-you that is nothing but sugar mixed with that fake maple syrup spread over doughnuts stuffed with caramel frosting and pitted dates that have been chopped up into a compote with children’s ibuprofen and treacle.

The best kind of praise is intelligent praise. I was set to thinking after a comment left by one of my readers on my post about taking criticism. In this comment, the lady said that low-ratings are actually good for the health of public opinion because they make it obvious that you haven’t rigged the votes in your favor. I quite agree. I love to know that a reader loved my book. I’m sure actors or athletes enjoy the sensation too. But if I open an email that says, in essence, “This is the best book ever written and you are a modern-day Dickens. Period.” I am amused and happy but I can’t resist a sort of Miss Taylor To Emma Woodhouse Smile-Across-The-Table. (Dear reader, I have never received an email like that, never fear.)

How much would I rather an email like that I received last week: a simple congratulation of a job well done, quite understanding that many people do jobs equally well done!

In the end, I suppose this is a post of release, as if you needed my sanction on things you wished to do: write fan-letters.

Write them calmly, honestly, and with your natural tone. None of this stiff formality that has no personality but go easy on hyperbole.

Send those letters to people you admire (Even people you actually know. They deserve fan-mail too).

Wait patiently. Maybe they’ll write back. Maybe they won’t. Why did you write? If it was simply to congratulate them, you’ll not want to be another letter to gain a reply sitting in their slush pile.

Do it again. (To a different person or at least for a different occasion.)

And that, dear reader, is how I’d recommend writing fan-mail.

Please let it be understood that I’m not fishing for you to write me fan-mail by creating this post. It was more of a, “Oh, I wonder if my fan-mail (to a celebrity this time) will actually get read. Probably not. Oh well. Hey! Blog-post fodder.”

Skeletons, Blog Design, and A British Holiday

(By the time some of you read this post, you will be looking at a new blog design. I thought you might like to know. It's pretty fabulous, isn't it? I think so. And now there's a button you can take! Hrar-hrar.)

Once upon a time, I was a young and naive writer and my brain was full of stories. By stories, I mean little, episodic pieces of stories that I was fond of mincing up and packing together into an odd sort of SPAM that I was also fond of calling a novel. Then I began to learn about plotting and how you can't exactly write episodic hash and call it literature.

I used to pride myself on not having to edit so terribly much between versions of a given book. Let that sink in for a moment. I'm not exactly certain what sort of book I thought I had written, or what sort of genius I considered myself. Probably a cross between a child protege and Mark Twain. Suffice it to say, most versions of my books (plot-wise) looked exactly the same from one to the next, and I was quite happy with that. Perhaps I was dealing with such simple plots that they didn't need much work. Or maybe I just had that joyful assurance born of never having experience writer's block.

Now, though, I've realized that the first draft is a skeleton. Dear mercy me, it's just a bag of bones. Halfway through writing Anon, Sir, Anon, I had a slight moment of panic as I realized that I would not ace this book on the first draft. I know for most of you, that's a silly admittance. Of course you can't win laurels on the first draft of the first novel you've written in a given genre. I've never written a mystery before and I could tell that there were gaps in the plot that will need to be filled in. Usually, this would cause me to panic and decide this story was terrible. But just about this halfway point, I began to look at my story like a skeleton and I knew it was perfectly normal to slightly freak out, and that I could go on:

The first draft is the frame of the thing. When you build a house, you begin with the footer and build up to the framing. Eventually you sheath the house, and at that point you've got a house, all right. It just doesn't look like much but a cardboard pop-up of a gingerbread cottage. The first draft of a story is just like a gingerbread cottage. In subsequent rounds, you'll need to add siding, and flashing, and shingles and porches to the outside. You'll have to run electricity and plumbing and then insulation and sheet-rock and then paint and put in all your appliances and cabinets and tile and carpet and wood-flooring and hang all your doors and put in all your windows and build a deck and cut vent holes and install all the lighting apparatuses. If you're really good, you'll even install hose-bibs, outdoor electricity, and landscaping. Do you know how many doorknobs there are to install in a house? Until you've built a house, you won't realize all that goes into it after it already looks like a house from the road.

In the first draft of any book, we've built that house on the road that looks finished. But as the author, we can give ourselves room to realize that there will be several more months of work to fix plumbing, install electricity, and make the place livable.

This the great joy of multiple drafts. I have given myself license to write a skeleton this time, rather than a full-fleshed novel. That being said, I'm nearing the end of the first draft of Anon, Sir, Anon. My goal for this week is going to be to finish that first draft. Starting Monday, I'll be doing a March Madness challenge to finish it up and count it "finished" (from the road). That may or may not leave room for much blogging, but it will certainly be fun for me! I will endeavor to keep you updated with my word-counts, snippets from scenes, and my progress. I am looking forward eagerly to the second draft in which I'll add more description, refine dialogue, expand characters, etc. This is a different method than that I've used before, but it feels like a good fit. Since I tend to be a "pantser" and not so much of a plotter, I can get panicked over not knowing what is next in my book. Writing a skeletal first draft means that I have the plot tacked down, the characters mostly developed, and I know a start, a middle, and an end. I'm eager to begin to deepen shadows, bring out highlights, and work this story till it's completely different than its skeleton. But first things first: I've got to see the first draft through to the end.

For those of you who have purchased/won and read Fly Away Home, I would love to hear what your favorite quotes/parts were. If you so desire, you can email your favorite parts to me at theinkpenauthoress@gmail.com, or add them to the Goodreads page! I love quotes and have always enjoyed hearing what lines/turns of phrase capture other people. Also, I wanted to tell you about a fabulous reader of mine, Ness Kingsley. Ness is a fairly new blogging friend, but she knows me well enough to know that I adore all things English. She is also aware of my mania for the Lake District. Well. Ness, being the clever, sweet thing that she is, knew she was headed to the Peaks District (not quite the Lakes, but still gorgeous) and decided to bring Fly Away Home along with her so that a part of me would have been to the place to which I feel such a deep connection. She photographed it with herself, some goats, and even on a lovely old stone wall:

I probably needn't even tell you how much this made my day. Ness, thanks a mil for your thoughtfulness, and for obliging my silly whims by carting a piece of me all through your lovely Isle. <3

Well. Le Brother is here for the weekend and I am supposed to be helping to organize a fundraiser for our Romanian Missions Trip (read more about it here) for tonight so ciao! I shall keep you updated on my Mad Marchishness later on in the fresh, new week!

My Very First Fan Mail :)

Well, that's not exactly true. I got my first piece of fan mail during the Autumn poetry contest. However, that was accidentally deleted, and this one, from the self-same Miss Petunia, came during the Spring Has Sprung Poetry Contest along with her entry. :) Tell me, what do you think of it? ;)

"I am sure you remember me?!?!? Miss Petunia???? Only like, YOUR BIGGEST FAN EVERRRRR? (Please tell me if you think it bad form to end words with multiple repetitions of the last letter and I promise to NEVER do it again!) I have so much to tell you Miss Inkpen! So many "more wonderful things have happened" (there! I quoted Emma! I am not "so uneducated compared to Jane Fairfax"! There! I did it again! Did you notice????) since I last wrote to you in the autumn! (On that we will be silent; I know how it must pain you to remember how my entry slipped into the Lake of Shining Waters and you couldn't find it again when it came time to announce the winners of your last contest and so you had to choose one of the other entries instead of mine although mine was the one you really wanted to choose and yes even though I don't know for sure this is what happened I think it must have happened because I FEEL IT IN MY SOUL! Here, is my newest work for your judgement!!!!

"Spring-ring spring-bring spring-thing spring-king spring-sing spring-sauerkraut."

Yours truly,

Miss Petunia"

Very strange, is it not? If I continue to get such mail I'm in a fair way to have my head turned! Although methinks Miss Petunia is rather reminiscent of a female Mr. Collins! ;)