Welcome Writing Uncertainty

By Bryan E. Robinson 

         

If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity. —Eckhart Tolle

“Welcome uncertainty?” you might ask with a grimace. I realize that’s a bitter pill to swallow. First of all let’s get one thing straight. I’m not on crack, and I haven’t been sniffing the furniture polish. Now that that’s out of the way, there is this thing that most of us writers carry to our writing desks.

Uncertainty.

When certainty is upended, it can feel as if the ground beneath us has opened up, threatening to swallow us. Like most people, we count on predictability. Our very survival depends on it. We want to know who, what, when, where, and how things will happen with our work. We never know if our days and months of blood, sweat, and tears will pay off. Whether we’re first timers or seasoned old timers, we wonder if we have it in us. Will the words come? And if they do, will it be good enough for the readers, editors, and publishers. Uncertainty is our constant companion, but that isn’t the problem. How we deal with it can either propel us to success or sabotage our writing efforts.

Uncertainty is baked into the writer’s life. It’s one of the few certainties we can count on in the topsy-turvy literary world. Resisting uncertainty doesn’t get rid of it, and it doesn’t give us anything to count on. If uncertainty is unacceptable to us, we only amplify our fear and end up at war with ourselves, arguing with the writer’s life rather than living it. Things won’t always go as planned. Our writing will go awry, unexpected events will blindside us, and we will experience disappointments and rejections.

There’s a payoff to accepting uncertainty before we sit down to write. When we can avoid grasping for certainty to cushion our fall, we won’t succumb to fear of the unknown. And we gain a peace of mind that reduces fear and contributes to our creative writing. This acceptance sustains us through the tumultuous literary world and frees us from the clutches of writing woes: a lousy review, an impossible deadline, a bludgeoning rejection, impassable writer’s block, sounds of crickets at book signings, and the seismic rumble of our own spewing torrent of self-doubt.

We have the choice to stew in the uncertainty of the writing life or change our perspective. Taking the risk of stepping into the arena of “maybe” grows us as authors. It loosens us up to the fact that for every possibility there are numerous ways a situation can resolve. It’s possible to live in serenity without always having things our way or knowing a definite outcome.

Instead of arguing with uncertainty and letting it hold us captive, why not accept the challenge to welcome it with all of its upsides and downsides? The writer Danielle Steel said, “Sometimes if you aren’t sure about something, you just have to jump off the bridge and grow your wings on the way down.” What edge can you go to in your writing today? What unpredictable bridge can you jump off to sprout your wings?

Take a few moments to contemplate the uncertainty in your writing life. Consider the risk of welcoming it with openheartedness and open arms as you might a lantern guiding you in the darkness. Then see if you’re able to accept unknown future writing outcomes no matter what, using them to grow fully into the writer you’ve always aspired to be.

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BRYAN E. ROBINSON is consulting editor for International Thriller Writers’ online magazine, The Big Thrill and past coordinator of their Debut Author Forum. His latest books are Daily Writing Resilience: 365 Meditations and Inspirations for Writers (Llewellyn Worldwide, January 2018), and the thriller, Bloody Bones (forthcoming). His debut novel, Limestone Gumption: A Brad Pope and Sisterfriends Mystery, was a multi-award winner for best psychological suspense. He maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Asheville, NC and resides in the Blue Ridge Mountains with his spouse, three dogs, and occasional bears at night. He is currently working on his third mystery/thriller, Michael Row the BODY Ashore and Crazy Papers: A Southern Memoir. His website link is http://www.bryanrobinsonnovels.com/

Writing With an Appalachian Twang

By Pepper Basham

Coming from a strong, southern Appalachian heritage of oral storytelling, stories not only fascinated me from an early age, but became a part of me. My Granny Spencer could recount genealogical tales from five to six generations back, and these amazing tales inspired my imagination.

I consider myself a southern girl, but within that southern-ness is a subset known as Appalachian, and there are some interesting differences between being a ‘flatlands’ southerner and a ‘mountain’ southerner which bring out some interesting cultural dynamics.

Generally speaking, although Appalachia is part of the south, geographically the mountains hemmed us in so that, in many respects, we were isolated from our southern neighbors and developed a unique sub-culture. Most of the deeper south southeners were influenced by English, African, and French, while many of the settlers in the mountains were Scots-Irish—hardy mountain people in their own right. Their influence brought blue grass-sounding music, storytelling, dialect differences, a fierce independence, and beautifully intricate lore.

My southerly neighbors used their land differently, which changed their commerce and livelihood. Whereas many places in the deeper south had large stretches of land to farm for crop development, the mountains didn’t lend themselves to large crop. People learned other means of commerce: moonshining, hunting, orchards, mining, but also craft-making (which may somewhat come from the influence of Native Americans—like the Cherokee—in our family histories). 

Also endemic in the Appalachian culture is an ‘isolationist’ ideal—both in a good and bad way. We are fiercely loyal to our families, culture, history, and land, but we’re also suspicious. (If you’ve ever read or seen Catherine Marshall’s Christy, you can definitely see how this plays out in our culture).

Hard work was often valued over education—and in some parts of Appalachia, still is.  But despite our suspicions and isolation, we are usually friendly, quick to help those in need, possess a deep-set sense of justice, and an equally strong distrust of new people who want to enlist change J (we’re a hard-headed lot)

So, how does THIS impact my writing?

When I write about Appalachian culture, in both historical and contemporary romance novels, I want to bring out the values I’ve learned and loved, but also show the insular nature of the culture. As a whole, we’re “closed off” from the outside world in such a way that when strangers visited Appalachia even fifty years ago, it was like stepping back an entire century. In some of the remotest parts of Appalachia, there is still a ‘language’ and ‘accent’ which resembles a sort of Scottish-influenced Elizabethan dialect. It’s really amazing to hear.

What you find in my novels is that fierce love for family, the struggle between stepping outside the safety net of the mountains or remaining ‘safely’ inside, the love of history, the celebration of music and Appalachian creativity, the hardiness, loyalty, determination, stubbornness, extreme independence, faith, and dedication in these folks…and, of course, the love of story.

Faith is a strong thread throughout the Appalachian culture—both in its wholesome sense and in the sense that some aspects of faith is sprinkled with the superstition of our forbearers—and once we Appalachians create a tradition, we’ll fight tooth-and-nail for it! J

All these elements add a complex dynamic to the novels I write, influencing the humor, joy, depth of story, and plots. Since the Appalachian culture stems from parts of Britain, my newest series takes the two cultures (with their shared histories) and clashes them together in the present in a fun match of similar loves, desires, and dreams. I call them Britallachian romances, and I can think of nothing quite as exciting as watching “cultural cousins” impact each other to find a happily-ever-after, because despite what people might think about us mountain folk…we really do love happily-ever-afters.

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Pepper Basham is an award-winning author of both historical and contemporary romance, and enjoys sprinkling her native Appalachian culture into her fiction whenever she can. Her Penned in Time World War 1 era series completed in December 2016 with three books. Her first contemporary romance arrived in April 2016 and her first britallachian romance debuts in April with a Top Pick 4 1/2 star review from Romantic Times. You can connect with Pepper on her website at www.pepperdbasham.com, Facebook-  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pepper-D-Basham or Twitter at https://twitter.com/pepperbasham and Instagram Pepper Basham (@pepperbasham) • Instagram photos and videos

Happy Birthday, Nancy Drew!

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine 

Admittedly, I'm a little late to the Nancy Drew birthday party. Eighty-Seven years ago in a time when girls had few book heroine role models the first Nancy Drew was released. Her first appearance in print on April 28, 1930, when original publisher Grosset & Dunlap released The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, and The Bungalow Mystery. The adventures of a privileged super-sleuth girl who lives with her attorney father an aunt in the small fictional town of River Heights. Nancy Drew faces her each challenge with her "chums." 

The classic mystery series by Carolyn Keene (sort of). Nancy Drew is the mystery fiction series created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Initially ghostwritten by Mildred Wirt Benson and revised by Harriet Stratemeyer Adams.

The Nancy Drew books were my favorites. They provided a distraction from a family move over the summer between3rd and 4th grade. I read those books endlessly. I never tired of the mysteries and feel it's why my favorite genre is mysteries and thrillers. 

As character, Kathleen Kelly says to Joe Fox, in the movie, You've Got Mail,  "It wasn't that she (Kathleen's mom) was just selling books, it was that she was helping people become whoever it was they were going to turn out to be. Because when you read a book as a child it becomes part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does..."

I remember loving the first three books that kicked off the series that has outlived the creators and authors of the series. My favorite was # 45 in the series, "The Spider Sapphire Mystery." This is the book description, "Thrilling, dangerous adventures confront Nancy Drew while on a safari in East Africa with a group of American college students. Excitement runs high as the teen-age detective delves into the theft of a fabulous sapphire formed by nature millions of years ago. The mystery starts in Nancy’s home town. Her lawyer father’s client, Floyd Ramsay, who fashions beautiful and unusual synthetic gems, is accused of stealing the magnificent spider sapphire and exhibiting it as his own creation. Mr. Ramsay’s enemies blackmail him and by their vicious acts try to deter Nancy from going on the safari." Who wouldn't want to go on this adventure?

Nancy Drew took me on adventures all over the world. This girl was her own heroine /protagonist in an era when most women were keepers of the home. Her keen intellect was often underestimated by "the bad guys." She used this to her advantage. These books taught me to decipher clues and observe the world around me. All the time spent reading each and every book was not wasted time. 

Happy Birthday Nancy Drew!

What was your favorite Nancy Drew book and why?

Writing Mysteries

By Betty Jean Craige

Writing a mystery entails creating a puzzle and then enabling the reader to solve it with pleasure and satisfaction.

The reason I like writing mysteries is the reason I like reading them. Mysteries compel interaction between reader and story. When the mystery is good the reader does not passively absorb information but rather works to figure out what happened, who did it, how, and why. So the writer must play fair: develop the plot and the characters in such a way as to enable the reader to solve the crime, or at least to see the solution of the crime as logical and satisfying.

I write mysteries to entertain readers, to stimulate their imagination, to engage them intellectually, and to introduce them to ideas and situations which they may not have previously encountered. Along the way I hope to make them laugh, or at least smile. I want my readers to have fun.

I set my three Witherston Murder Mysteries—Downstream (2014), Fairfield's Auction (2016), and Dam Witherston (2017)—in a small town called Witherston in the north Georgia mountains to introduce readers to the charm of this part of the country.

In the novels I deal with issues and events I consider important: the pharmaceutical pollution of our natural environment; the seizure of Cherokee gold and land in the nineteenth century and Cherokee artifacts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; the historical interactions between the Cherokees who occupied the southern Appalachian mountains for a thousand years and the white settlers who drove them out; miscegenation and intercultural rape; the consequences of dam construction, and the relationships that DNA ancestry tests disclose.

To involve readers in the solution of the crime I give them information from multiple sources. An online newspaper carries breaking news, announcements, editorials, and letters to the editor, columns by local writers, the weather, police blotter, and occasionally a cartoon. All these items advance the story, provide historical context for the events of the present, and offer clues about the crime. So do official documents, such as wills, deeds, and DNA ancestry reports. And, of course, so does the narrative, in which a detective investigates the crime with the aid of her smart and funny teenage twin boys.

I write what I want to know about. And in the course of writing I do research on the web. That's how I learned about the Cherokee civilization, Georgia history, pharmaceutical pollutants, and DNA.

And that's the advice I would give to new writers: Write what you want to learn about and what you want your readers to learn about. Also, write what about you think is important. Write carefully, as well as you can. Words matter, every single one of them. And finally, write about something other than yourself. Your "self" will inhabit your novel anyway. You'll have more fun, and so will your readers, if you write about other people and how they can get into trouble.

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Dr. Betty Jean Craige is University Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia. She has lived in Athens, Georgia, since 1973. Betty Jean is a teacher, scholar, translator, humorist, and writer. Her first non-academic book was Conversations with Cosmo: At Home with anAfrican Grey Parrot (2010). After retiring in 2011, she published a column about animal behavior in the local paper titled "Cosmo Talks" and began writing fiction. Her Witherston Murder Mystery series, set in north Georgia, includes Downstream (2014), Fairfield's Auction (2016), and Dam Witherston (2017).

A Great Way to Promote Your Book . . . Or

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief for Southern Writers Magazine 

Many authors are not comfortable trying to influence people to buy their books. So, what does an author do?

Promote another author’s book. Yes, you heard right.

When having lunch with a friend or coffee–– visiting, getting up to date on each other, why not bring up the subject of a book you’ve just read. Tell them how much you enjoyed the book; point out tidbits of interest. Maybe share how you didn’t want to put it down. Perhaps you hated for it to end because you fell in love with the characters, the story. Your word of mouth can prompt your friend to buy another author’s book.

The nice part of this, you are helping a fellow author. You’re not out on an island by yourself. And it is okay to promote other authors and their work.

One of the things authors could do, is to help each other. Try it. If you know an author, talk to them about being a partner with you. They promote your book and you will promote their book.

Here are some ways you can promote another author and they can promote you:

Each write a blog post about each other’s book. Tell your readers why you like the book. How you felt reading the book; about a character that stuck out in your mind and the qualities or traits that meant a lot to you. Use emotion to describe the characters, the book. Tell just enough to get their interest. “Don’t give away the ending.”

Invite each other to visit on your blogs, and ask questions about the writing of the book.

Put a copy of each other’s book on the websites and/or blogs, and link the books to the Amazon page.

Another thing you can do, each of you send emails to your friends, telling them about a book you just read. Why you thought it was great. Peak their interest in the author. Share enough emotion that will lead them to want to get the book.

If you know how, put the photo of the cover of the book, title, and link it to the Amazon page or the author’s website.

I would much rather have one of my friends tell me about a book they enjoyed and recommended, wouldn’t you? Then I feel it is worth my buying.

There is an old saying, the more you help people get what they want the more you will get what you want. The point––helping someone else first.

Now find an author friend and pair up helping each other promote each other’s books. Just think…when you get this working between just you two then you can add a third author to your group, then a fourth and, well you get the picture.

Happy Promoting!

My Writing Message

By Peggy Savage Baumgardner

As a child, I would write stories about people, animals and things. If I saw an airplane in the sky, I would make up stories about what I would see, if I were the person in the airplane, looking down at me.

If a dog or cat looked at me as though it wanted to tell me something, I would write a story about what they would tell me if they could speak. In my stories, I eventually became the only person in the whole world who could talk to a dog or a cat.

Now as an adult, I keep a journal. When someone says something that I like, I will write a short story about it in my journal or I will draw a picture of something similar.

My son has a wild imagination and some of my ideas for my books and artwork come from him. If he knows that I am writing a book, we will discuss each character. We discuss their personalities and eventuality I feel that I know the character well. It gives me a better perspective as to how they will react to an event that I want to write about in my book.

When I am writing, I try to put a face on my characters. Sometimes, there are people I know or have met, that have a personality that I want one of my characters to have. It makes it easier to develop a conversation between two characters.

I personally would not like to write all romance novels, even though in each book that I write, I will have some type of romantic story. I want each book to be different, even though I may someday choose to write sequels.

When writing a new book, I think about my story line. What type of message do I want send to my readers. To whom will it appeal? I would like my readers to develop a friendship or feel as though they have met or know my characters.

Many of my friends and family want me to use first names of their different family members. I like doing this because as they read the book, they feel that they are part of my books.

My sister and I went to the funeral of a family member. The husband of one of our cousins said something that was very comical. My sister told him to be careful about what he said because he might wind up being a character in one of my books. He said that he would love to be King Richard. My sister was right. In my last book, there was a judge with the nickname of “King Richard.” Everyone should be careful about what they say, especially when they are around authors.

We are always looking for new material.

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Peggy Savage Baumgardner lived in the small town of Lowell, North Carolina until graduating from business school. After graduation, she moved to Gastonia, North Carolina which to me was a large city compared to Lowell. She was employed with the City of Gastonia until retirement. She had two brothers and four sisters. Married to Frank Baumgardner, who is retired from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, they have two children and three grandchildren. She divides time between North Carolina and Florida. In North Carolina we enjoy spending time with my family. In Florida we enjoy playing golf and tennis. She loves to write and paint. Her fourth book released in April, 2017 and she was recently accepted into the Author’s Guild.She also paints and has now sold over 50 of my paintings. Life has been good.

           

The Art of Storytelling

By Phyllis f. McManus

As a little girl growing up in the country, our families lived only a stone throw away from one another.

My grandparents’ house was a daily adventure for me and all my cousins. Hot summer days were spent on grandmother’s front porch with Grandmother being the center of attention. All eyes would focus on her as she told another one of her ghost stories.

There is a difference in good storytelling and great story telling. My Grandmother was a great storyteller. It seemed to come natural.

Every one of her stories had its beginning, something happened and then the ending. It had foundation and structure, but I’m sure she didn’t plan it that way. She was old school; living in a time that story telling was made for fun. Her audience was always a group of kids sitting at her feet as she rocked in her rocker. She could tell us a ghost story and draw us into her adventure like a catfish on a rusty hook. Yes, she was a master of storytelling. She could take us on a journey of haunted houses, ghostly graveyards, headless horsemen and dark stormy nights with just a few words with anticipation in her voice. She used her gentle way of storytelling to teach us how to plant a garden, get alone with others and how to make good decisions. Of course at our age, we had no idea she was molding our young brains. We just knew we were having the time of our lives enjoying Grandmother spin tales of spooky characters.

I’m sure Grandmother planted a seed of storytelling in me. I have used several of her characters in my books. As a writer you absorb information in an abundance of ways. Mine came while sitting either at the feet of my grandmother or on her lap.

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Phyllis f. McManus is an author of eight books. She writes Southern fiction with a touch of mystery and suspense. Her most treasured work is her two award winning non-fiction short stories that appear in her latest book, “Southern Patchwork Quilt.”    “The Southern Belle Breakfast Club” series is causing a stir in the reader’s world. She brings life to a group of older Southern women who treasure their bond of friendship. She started writing for therapy when she lost both parents in a car accident. She soon discovered writing was a journey for her recovery. Phyllis and her husband, Don, live in North Carolina. When she isn’t busy writing and public speaking, they enjoy traveling. They cherish life with their son and grandson who lives on six acres of land they call McManus Hill.

      

                                                                       

                       

OnStar!

By Doyne Phillips, Managing Editor for Southern Writers Magazine

I have no doubt that OnStar services not only empower you but keep you safe, but a recent encounter that a customer shared with me was more than a concern. A long-time customer had locked their keys in the trunk of their car. They quickly called the OnStar service, which they have faithfully used for years and had been truly satisfied with, to have their doors unlocked. After being told, "Don't touch your car, it would be only 8 to 10 minutes," they patiently waited for the locks to click open. It never happened. 

OnStar called back and said the system had not been updated so the operation did not perform as had been expected. The truth was the update had been done only a month earlier and it should have work as was explained to the OnStar person on the phone. The OnStar CSR came back and said that it needed to be reset and asked the customer to get in the car and press the OnStar button so it could do so. There was silence… The customer soon realized the CSR was serious and had not given any thought as to why the customer had called in the first place which was their keys were locked in the trunk and they couldn't get in the car.

Even the greatest of systems has to figure in human error. Extensive training, mental focus and problem solving may not come when following a script when a customer calls. No doubt the CSR bounced from one problem solving page for unlocking the car by remote to another that was for resetting the system. Each problem on its own was easily handled. But apparently the author of the manual had yet to connect the two should one precede the other and prevent the other from happening. This is a novel idea that was yet to be thought of.

Believe it or not we as writers sometimes fall into the same pattern. We have events lined up in our story but may fail to think about the order in which they occur. Not that we may have them in the wrong order but a different order may cause an event which is more interesting, dangerous or memorable. As memorable as the OnStar customer's event was due to the order of resetting the system it was not a pleasant memory.

Once your story is complete ask yourself is there anything I could do to make this series of events, if placed in a different order, more impactive on the story. Think how uneventful this OnStar encounter would have been if the doors had unlocked, the key was retrieved and the customer drove away, only later to reset the system as suggested. Not much of a story here.

           

Those Voices in Your Head

By Kay Chandler

Could mean you’re having a nervous breakdown . . . or it could simply mean you’re a writer. A few years ago, I attended the American Christian Fiction Writers Conference in a large hotel, and one of the announcements went something like this: “Please stay on 3rd Floor. People on other floors won’t understand if they see you chatting with the characters in your book.”

No further explanation was needed. We got it. As novelists we have all these invisible people mumbling in our heads. Like a mother knows her own child’s voice, a writer sitting at the computer should easily recognize not only the tone, but the personality of each character speaking. One of the greatest compliments I received from my agent was when he wrote, “You have the voice for Historical Fiction.”

However, if I’d been writing Historical Fiction set in Australia in 1930, I would never have been awarded a contract, and he wouldn’t have penned those words. Why? Because as much as I adore the Australian accent, my characters, regardless of their station in life, would all come across sounding the same. I can do an extensive study of the variations in Australian accents but if I have to stop and think about each character’s voice before I type the dialogue, it will come across as stilted.

The key is to write what you know. I write Southern Fiction. In my Switched Series, I have an elderly attorney, a snobbish wealthy woman, her daughter Harper, servants George and Beulah, a crass, uneducated young woman, a country preacher and a medical doctor. No two sound alike. I grew up with all these characters. I write the dialogue in their words, their tone and in their vernacular as I listen to them speak.

I come from a line of prim and proper church goers and also a line of redneck moonshiners from South Alabama. My kinfolk didn’t all sound the same and neither should our characters. If they express themselves in our voice and not their own, then our writing will be dull and boring, regardless of how well we craft a story. The voices should be so distinct that the reader doesn’t even need a tagline to know who’s speaking. Getting the voice right is as important as getting the plot right.

Excuse me, I think I hear Beulah calling. 

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South Alabama native and award-winning author, Kay Chandler, is quickly becoming the new voice of Southern fiction.  After winning multiple first place awards for her novels and short stories, Kay was awarded the coveted “Best Overall Writer Award” at the Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference.  It was only 3 years ago this inspirational 73 year old grandmother of 23 published her first 2 novels, Lunacy and Unwed, both receiving a “Reader’s Choice Award” their inaugural year.  Kay Chandler has since published 8 more titles - all 10 works maintain 5 star reviews on Amazon.  Kay’s work has been described as dark but redemptive, familiar but unpredictable; and most of all, addictive and impossible to put down.  “The South has a history of injustices. I know them well. I was born and reared in lower Alabama. Our history is tainted with ugliness. But there's an old saying that 'nothing has ever been sliced so thin that it doesn't have two sides.' I come from a long line of good, Christian church goers--and also from a line of backwoodsy, redneck moonshiners. The haves. And the have-nots. My two grandmothers had very different views of life during the Depression years. Both have shaped my life, and the seeds passed down have helped shape my novels. My mother was a city girl who in 1935 fell in love with the son of a tenant farmer--a man who retold the same stories countless times and yet I never tired of hearing them. The seeds fell on fertile soil. They've taken root and I'm now seeing them spring forth in the lives of my characters.” –Kay Chandler

Kay Chandler’s books can be found in digital and print format wherever books are sold.  Kay is an inspirational speaker and welcomes any opportunity to share her story and her books with your church, group, or club. My website link is www.kaychandler.info. My FB account is www.facebook.com/kay.m.chandler and Twitter link is @AlabamaKay and I have an Amazon author page.

Immediate Opportunities for Writers

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine

Whenever a new edition of Southern Writers hits the proverbial stands, I enjoy doing the math and totaling how many different writers we have promoted during our six years of publication. As of the new May/June 2017 issue which debuted yesterday, that number comes to 1100.

What each of these writers have in common is the street savvy to self-promote.  Whether they share their writing experience with other writers via an interview or by contributing an instructional article, we are proud to provide promotional opportunities for veterans and virgins alike.  With that in mind, I'm going to clue you in on some brand new promotional opportunities you can take advantage of right now.

Multi-author articles in the magazine are a crowd favorite with our readers. One of the upcoming special features below would be an entertaining way to promote your latest book.

TITLE WAVE
Sometimes your original book title doesn't make it past the cutting room floor. Got an interesting story about one of your books and how the title changed? Maybe ALL of your books had different titles to start with!  Whether you changed them or your publisher threw you a curveball, tell us all about it (and the philosophy behind the change, if known) in a paragraph or two. Be sure to include a high-res JPG of the relevant cover. This will be a fun article and you should be part of it!
​(Deadline for September 2017 issue: July 17th.) 
http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/promos-2017.html

WHERE WRITERS WRITE
You spend endless hours there every week, slaving over a hot keyboard, creating brilliant sentences. You're probably there right now, reading this. We want to see it!  Writers (and readers) love to see where authors do their thing. Grab your camera or smartphone and send us a high-quality photo of your office, writing nook, picnic table, wherever you spend the most time writing your masterpieces. If you're in the photo, even better! (And if there's a copy of Southern Writers in the photo, even better!) We'll show your latest book cover next to the photo.  Please include a paragraph about why your favored spot works for your writing.
(July feature is full. Deadline for the September 2017 issue: July 17th.)​ 

http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/promos-2017.html

SIGNINGS AND SELF-PROMOTION
This photo op is your chance to show off your mad self-promotion skills when it comes to book signings. Have a high-quality photo of your table or booth at a bookstore or writers conference? Tell us about your strategy in designing the display, or share an interesting story related to that signing. (Yes, we'd love to see you in the photo, too! 

Or perhaps you've come up with a creative giveaway item for your next appearance or online promotion. Bring it on!
(Scheduled for the September 2017 issue: deadline July 17th.)​
http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/promos-2017.html

SUITE T
If you're reading this, you're probably already aware that this very blog features guest authors every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (with staffers on Tuesday and Thursday).  Much like the magazine, posts run the gamut of writing information and inspiration. More than 3 million visitors have visited Suite T, and that number grows by the day. Get your two cents in by writing a guest post. Submission guidelines for Suite T are at http://southernwritersmagazine.blogspot.com/p/guest-posting.html

SHORT STORY CONTEST
Tired from typing your latest tome?  Get short with us!  Our annual Short Story Fiction Contest is a chance to win $250 plus other perks including being on the cover of our special short story publication this summer.  The deadline in June 15th, 2017. Entry details can be found at http://www.southernwritersmagazine.com/shorts.html

There you have it: five things you can get in on today to get the word out. So grab your camera or start burning up that keyboard now.  You know you want to!

How to Write What You Don’t Know

By Becky Muth

One bit of advice every author hears in his or her lifetime is write what you know. That’s great, but what happens when you feel inspired to write about something you don’t know? What happens when characters take us to the places we’ve never been and situations we’ve yet to experience? You don’t have to be a science fiction or fantasy writer to build new worlds or put your characters in unfamiliar situations.

Authors write what they don’t know every day. Cozy mystery author Susan Boyer, unlike the main character in her Liz Talbot series, isn’t a private investigator who carries her Sig 9 in her Kate Spade handbag. Elizabeth Spann Craig isn’t an octogenarian retired schoolteacher, but the titular character of her Myrtle Clover Series is. And unlike Vanessa, one of the main characters in my novelette, Screaming Jenny, I’m not a history buff with a dislike for technology.

The more I write, the more I learn to sit back and enjoy the ride when my characters drag me into the great unknown. In the beginning, I fought the characters of my work in progress (WIP) on this to the point where I would stop writing for weeks at a time. Having learned my lesson, now learning new things is one of my favorite parts of the writing process.

When writing what I don’t know, I like to follow my imagination as far as I can. I’ve never run through the woods while clutching a human heart, been buried alive, or hired the Pinkertons. This didn’t stop me from writing about those situations. When I reached the part I didn’t know, then I did the research.

Here are some tips to help you write what you don’t know:

Go to the library. American comic book writer Stan Lee says the library card is the most important card in his wallet. It should be the most important card in every writer’s wallet. Although Google and Wikipedia offer endless amounts of information, for me there’s nothing like cracking open a book and jotting notes down in a journal within the hushed confines of my local library.

Talk to experts who have the information you need. Talking to an expert will often give you more than enough information to add realistic details to your WIP. At the 2015 Mid-Atlantic Fiction Writers Institute conference, keynote speaker Tess Gerritsen spoke about researching her novel, GRAVITY, which included talking with NASA scientists.

Read random Wikipedia articles. Have you ever used the “Random article” feature on Wikipedia? I’m a little A.D.D. so for me, this feature is good and bad. The good news is, you can learn all sorts of things you don’t know. On the downside, you can waste hours learning all sorts of things that are useless for enhancing your current WIP, but that may inspire future plots.

A final word of advice is that if you don’t know something and are unable to research it, don’t lie about it. Authors often walk a fine line between fiction and falsehood. It’s better to omit something you don’t know than to mislead your readers. After all, a reader who loves your book will tell others about it. Word-of-mouth is always more genuine than any type of social media advertisement.

The next time a character drags you into a situation you don’t know, strap into your seat because you’re in for roller coaster ride of twists and turns into new literary territory. What you learn along the way could mean the difference between a mediocre plot and a blockbuster storyline.

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Becky Muth lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband and their two sons. She loves attending events where she can interact with other writers and readers. When she's not writing or reading, Becky enjoys spending time with her family, knitting, and drawing pet portraits. You can visit her blog at beckymuth.com or follow her on most social media networks under Author Becky Muth. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorbeckymuth/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/authorbeckymuth/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorbeckymuth/ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/authorbeckymuth/