FB Webinars and Abolitionists

I took Shelley Hitz's free webinar on building a Facebook author page Wednesday night. It was like trying to take a drink from a fire hose full blast, so I'm glad she made the recording and an attendant PDF available. I will need those when I design my page. She advised on connecting your FB fan page to other social networking sites and apps, such as http://hootsuite.com// and http://socialbios.com/. She showed how to engage FB friends through use of FB's interactivity features. She's offering a 4-webinar subscription throughout July. I plunked down the cash,  because one thing the price includes is updated info as FB changes, so I figure it will remain a fresh resource for me. The link to her Self Publishing Coach blog is in the right column of this page.

Finished the webinar and thought to do a little writing so I'd have something to read to Sharon in Juicy Writing Thursday. I want to write a little scene between Charlotte and the Greeley sisters  that will show how close they are from body language and a few snippets of conversation. The ostensible purpose of the scene is to set up the Greeleys being at Eugenie's bedside when Malinde makes her final visit. But as abolitionists, the Greeleys are the moral conscience of the story, so even though their facetime is minimal, their impression of what's happening is important. And their presence in the story has big implications for Risa, my heroine's best friend and a fellow slave. The way I write, I have to know the setting -- what the room looks like. And then what the characters look like, their physical features and their clothing. Even though the truly important thing is their interaction (and I could write that first; it would be more productive) my inner comfort zone is that I need to walk past the scene and understand it a glance. Literally (mentally) I need to be an uninvolved spectator who just happens by and sees the people. What would I get from a glance? The tension in the room? Or the ease? Would I be impressed by their wealth? Moved to pity? Repulsed? I need that snapshot before plumbing the depths. Even when conversation comes to mind first, which happens during moments of relaxation, and I grab pen and paper to write it down, I have to write the setting and have appearance in mind before inputting the written conversation. so the upshot of Wednesday night was I went through The Bad Death to reacquaint myself with the Greeley girls' appearance and I looked through my photography books on Charleston's great houses to pick out the perfect setting for the scene. Found one, too. So tonight I'll start writing.

Last night in Juicy Writing, Sharon helped me organize a schedule for my writing/publishing tasks. She has a method of putting this to paper that is really visual and stress-reducing. Now I literally have it on paper, pinned to my bulletin board above my desk, that Saturday I will publish my three short stories to e-readers. Monday, I'll input Linda's edits to Bloodroom and I'll keep doing that till I'm done. I have been pinballing from one task to another, not finishing anything and getting wigged out. So this will help immensely.