Interview Your Author: Writing Prompt

For Writing Prompt Saturdays, today, interview your author…

Okay, I’ll explain. One of my favorite activities is journaling where I dialogue between various parts of me, like my editor and my writer, or my planner, and my muse. Sometimes I know who the parts are before I begin. Sometimes their identities emerge while I write. Either way, we work together in an inner conversation to solve whatever is the niggling problem.

Today I sat down to dialogue between Beth, the Writer, and Beth, Business Women/Entrepreneur.

I called the meeting to order, and immediately my inner writer freaked out.

An abbreviated version of our “talk:”

Beth the Writer: You’ll change me too much too fast.

Beth, Business Women/Entrepreneur: I only want what you want. What do you want?

Beth the Writer: To incorporate sales and marketing at my own pace, and for you to use my talents moving forward.

Beth, Business Women/Entrepreneur: I can do that, gladly.

And on it went, with more sharing and negotiation, until its happy conclusion: the agreement that I would share with you all that I’m a fiction writer who is a bit shy about marketing myself at this stage of my writing. Currently, I’m actively writing a young adult fantasy trilogy, and doing deep background research on a young adult contemporary paranormal novel. I write slowly, by hand, and haven’t submitted to agents in at least a year. I’d like to be more diligent in my writing and in my preparations for selling my work. But I’m not ready to do more than get my pages ready for the critique group meeting soon.

Yes, while Beth, Business Women/Entrepreneur has got marketing down, Beth, the Writer moves at a much slower pace, and requires patience, and understanding.

I’m called to help fiction authors because I am one.

Patience is key while I help my fiction side come into the public arena. Funny, actually. Now I really get how scared some of clients get when I broach the subject of marketing…

I hear you, my friends. We’ll go at this step by little step, gaining confidence along the way.

Writing Prompt

Interview your author.

How: We all have a part of ourselves that is masterful and directs our life. Then, in this case, you have your creative writer side, and all she wants is to write, right? As an experiment, have that masterful part of you that is in charge of your career (your whole life, really) interview your creative writerly self on these questions:

• What would you like?
• What would having that do for you?
• What are your current concerns?
• How can I help you?
• Can you help in in X way?

Share with us what the process was like, and what you learned that was wonderfully, or shockingly, surprising.

Go!

PS. Many of the concepts I mention in here, like parts of the self, were inspired by Writing the Natural Way: Using Right-Brain Techniques to Release Your Expressive Powers by Gabriele Lusser Rico (Tarcher, 1983), and further enhanced by my exposure to Neuro-Linguistic Patterning (NLP) from my trainers at JeffandKane.com. Who were in turned trained by the masterful, Carl Buchheit of NLP Marin.

PPS. This exercise was encouraged and suggested to me by my ever-graceful and impish business coach, Marcie Prohofsky.

PPPS. There are no hyperlinks in this post, on purpose. I want you to stay focused on the writing prompt, don’t you?!