How I Kept A Commitment

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to participate in a blog tour. The woman who invited me was Monica Devine.   I have never met Monica, who I've since learned is a writer, poet and photographer and is the author of five books for children, but we shared a mutual connection in Suzi Banks Baum. I've known Suzi personally and professionally for a long time and contributed to her Anthology of Babes: 36 Women Give Motherhood a Voice.

It's hard for me to say no to Suzi so it was hard to say no to Monica. Which has everything to do with why I said yes. That and the idea that this "tagging" was an experiment in digital sharing and might increase my current following as well as help me to sell some seats in my new workshop series. Yes - I am admitting that some of my reasoning for accepting the invitation was purely mercenary.

Now here I am, the day before this post is scheduled to run and wondering what I was thinking!  I love the idea of writing about my writing process, but my to-do list these days resembles triage - and writing about my writing - well - it seems like a luxury for another time.

But I made a commitment. And I am not one to back out of a commitment. So I have set the timer and am getting down to the business of writing - which brings me to the first question I was given by our blog tour coordinators.

How does my writing process work?
The timer is at the core of my writing process and the subject of my book, It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide to Creating The Time For Your Life. Yes - I practice what I preach. Sometimes the muse hits me and I am drawn to sitting in front of my big iMac and letting the keys fly. Most times it is something that I make myself do. Something that given the option  I will avoid in lieu of cleaning my entire apartment or stalking people on Facebook. 

Setting the timer is part of my ritual. The gentle ticking sets the space and reminds me I am serious about getting some work done.

I'd like to tell you that I am disciplined enough that every morning I sit and write for a few hours before getting to the other stuff I do. But that would be a lie and at this point - something I only aspire to. 

While I write everyday, when it comes to my bigger projects I am still a binger at my core. It is how I started when I was still working a corporate job and penning my first novel. 

Reading all that you might be asking the next question.

Why do I write?
If it sounds like such torture and at times something I avoid, why on earth write at all?  I suppose my answer - because I have to and because I need to and because I love to - might sound like some fetish in which there is pleasure derived from pain. Maybe. But the answer that feels the most real is because this is how I make sense of life. Writing is how I find my answers to my questions. When I don't write, breathing becomes more difficult as does life. And when I do, it all flows easier.

What do I write?
I have no specific genre. Which as a marketer I will tell you is not the best way to develop a loyal, core following but as a creative entrepreneur in a digital age, I will tell you that it's okay to experiment with different genres and let the muse lead the way.

When I first got serious about writing I thought it would all be novels, like my first book, The Secrets They Kept. Then I started blogging. I found I had a lot of opinions on life and work and with that a readership.  My love of marketing was renewed when I immersed myself in digital and suddenly there was more to write about. And more ways in which I would write. Blogs. Books. Workshop curriculums. While I have a few big projects in the works, I expect the next book will be a version of this new workshop - Your Digital You. So stay tuned.

When I started writing this post I had no idea how I would be able to keep this commitment I made to Monica and indirectly to Suzi. I didn't know what I was going to write about, how this possibly fit in with anything else I did, much less who in the world I was going to find to be next on the tour in the eleventh hour.

Now that I am almost done it is clear. I did what I know works. I stopped procrastinating, I sat in my chair, I set the timer and I wrote - without judgment. I surrendered to the process and not only did a blog materialize but a writer to pass the baton to.

Next up -  Jami Kelmenson is a freelance writer and blogger living and loving in NYC. She's a contributing author to the “Flying Solo” chapter of the self-improvement book, "The 52 Weeks: Two Women and Their Quest to Get Unstuck…".  Her “single girl” essays have been published by Match.com’s Happen Magazine and The52weeks.com.  She also blogs about books for ShelfPleasure.com, a destination spot for women who love reading. Read of her ongoing “tales of travel, life, love and the pursuit of getting published in NYC” at her personal blog, “Two Men and a Lady (and an RV).


One more thing before I go...
Your Digital You - the blueprint - a workshop designed to improve your digital presence kicks off this May! Can you tell I'm excited?  First date available is May 8. Seating is limited - truly - so reserve early! I promise it will be informative, relevant and fun!

The BIG Countdown to Spring Sale!

The warmer temperatures these last few days reminded that it really is true - no matter how dark and snowy a Winter can get Spring will return!

Just the thought of daffodils and birds singing makes me feel lighter and frivolous. So much so that I've decided to start counting down the days until the official first day of Spring on March 21  -  and to lower the price on the Kindle editions of my books to 99 Cents!

Yes - that's right - just ninety-nine pennies! 

Why?
Because I can.
Because it feels good to do so. 
And - because it was so much fun seeing It Takes An Egg Timer go over the 10,000 download mark when it was free I thought it would be a kick to see what will happen at $.99! 

Besides - who doesn't love a good sale? 

Wasting Time - Day 10

I hate wasting time. The older I get the more I hate it. I’m far too aware that I just don’t have as much of it left as I used to. So to waste it - to not to make the most of each and every moment - to me that’s worse than wasting money on that very expensive hand painted tuxedo shirt I bought in Aspen one winter twenty odd years ago and wore only once. Money you can always figure out a way to make more of. But time. You can’t get that back.

As the author of a book on the subject, It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide To Creating The Time For Your Life, you might think I never commit this crime. But I do. And when I think over the past five years I admit readily that I have most definitely wasted a bunch of time.

Like when I was waiting for The Book Deal. The one every writer dreams of - or at least used to dream of - back when you didn’t have to commit some obscenely outrageous act or become a reality star, to be deemed worthy of a coveted deal from a Big Six - I mean Big 5 Publisher.

I waited and waited. I was that sure it would happen. I just didn’t know where or when.

But as we know, it didn’t happen. When I knew I couldn’t waste one more minute waiting to get picked, I picked myself and self-published, The Secrets They Kept.

I think sometimes of how much further along I would have been if I had made that decision earlier. If I hadn’t been wasting time waiting for outside validation that I was a good enough writer to be read. 

But of course that is the biggest waste of time of all! 

The truth is alot of really great things happened because of that waiting. 

I would never have started to blog and learn about things like Twitter and Facebook. I wouldn't have self-published which really forced me to take a very deep dive into all things digital. I wouldn't have taken all those courses and attended conferences and discovered people like Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott who reminded me how much I love marketing and left me qualified to teach a class in digital marketing at NYU. I wouldn't be consulting and demystifying digital for individuals and organizations.

So I suppose I was never really wasting time at all. I was just getting prepared for what was next. I just didn't yet know what that was going to look like.


note: This is Day #10 of a 30 Day Experiment. Here are the details on how it all started.

3 Key Questions To Ask If You Want To Make Things Happen

Making things happen, especially the big and important stuff, isn't easy. The first thing that stops most of us is we are convinced we don't really have the time, which was the seed that inspired me to write It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide To Creating The Time For Your Life. I wanted to inspire and motivate by demonstrating that the time is really there if we want it to be. 

I try to walk the walk. I've made a lot of things happen in the last several years, serious changes in my life transitioning from corporate exec to writer and entrepreneur. I've created alot. This blog, The Secrets They Kept, It Takes An Egg Timer and a coaching practice that is about to evolve into a consulting practice. (More on that in another post.)

But let there be no mistake, there is a lot I have not made happen. Long lists of great ideas that float through my mind, some that even made it to paper but have since fallen away into the ether. 

Which leads me to this. Why is that? Why is it so easy to make some things happen and a seemingly monumental task for others? Is there some cutting edge new App I've missed that can help?

My experience is that it boils down to three key questions: 

• What do you desire?
• Do you think you are deserving of it?
• Are you disciplined enough to take the necessary steps?

Desire 

• What do you really and truly desire to make happen? 
• Do you want it because you want it or because someone else thinks you should?
• Can you put that desire into words, draw a picture of it in your mind or on paper? 
• Can you feel what life will be like when it's for real? 

If not, you've already embarked on an uphill battle instead of an adventurous journey.

Deserving 

• Do you think you deserve the promotion, new job or to grow your entrepreneurial business? 
• Do you believe you are good enough, smart enough, or have enough time to make it happen?

Whether you want to call it self-esteem, self-image or self-love, the level of worth you hold of yourself is as critical to making things happen as the picture of what that thing is. If you don't believe you deserve it, no one else will.

Discipline 
This is the hardest part for most of us. The discipline to commit to a promise to ourselves.

• Being courageous enough to set that silly egg timer and hold ourselves accountable. 
• Understanding that it is not enough to just hold that desire in our hands but to take the steps to move towards that thing we want to make happen.

I wanted to be a writer all my life. But until I got serious about sitting myself in a chair and writing pages every day, it wasn't going to happen.

Disclaimer: This is not a magical formula. 
When I think back to all I have created these last few years, all three of these keys was present, every time. And those ideas that slipped away into the ether.... in every case one of them was missing. No magic formula. No clever new App or beautifully designed digital download. Just what I have found to be a necessary foundation if you are really serious about making something happen.

Hugh MacLeod                               GapingVoid.com

That Thing You Have To Do

I'm the first to admit it. I didn't buy the tickets because of her music. I bought them because I have had a desire since I first published, The Secrets They Kept for Rita Wilson to read and love my story of a Greek-American family and make it into a movie. My expectation was not that my $12 bar stool seats at Joe's Pub would afford me a face to face moment in which to pitch away. Rather that I was getting closer. I knew a copy of my book had made it to her office. And then there was that twist of fate in which my cousin who produces the Mark and Brian show in LA met her the day she was on their show. So it seemed like the energetically right thing to do.

What I didn't expect was how good she would be. Really good. This is not a vanity act, although I am sure many reviews will want to tell you that. She really does have a great singing voice, not to mention a great stage presence. And the songs that she sang from her new release,  AM/FM took me on a trip down memory lane that at times brought tears to my eyes.

You see, not only are Rita and I both of Greek heritage, we are almost the same age. Which made the music she grew up with, the music I grew up with.  Granted in those days there were geographic differences. New music did not necessarily break nationally. Disc jockeys on the radio stations had the ability to play what they liked and occasionally "break" new songs. They were not beholden to the computer generated list provided by their program director. Unlike today.

Nevertheless, she was spot on with some of my all time favorites. It was hard not to sing along with her. So I mouthed the words I knew by heart from years of practice. Better anyway as singing is not one of my talents.

I was moved. The music and her performance transported me in that way the music of one's younger days has the ability to. To another time and place. I listened as my own personal series of film clips of first loves, broken hearts, dreams, possibility, laughter, right turns and wrong turns flashed by. Of a time when  doing nothing but getting lost in the lyrics of a song was an activity that did not include a mobile device and headset.

There was something else that also moved me.  Rita Wilson demonstrated on stage what happens when you figure out a way to do that thing you always wanted to. That passion that you kept locked away for whatever your reasons until you couldn't anymore. Until you had to figure out a way to make that happen. She exuded happiness. The kind that makes you look younger than your years. The kind that grounds you.

I know that feeling. For me it has been writing.

Singing apparently was the one thing she always wanted to do, but never thought she was good enough to do. Until now.

Lucky for us.

On The Radio

One of my most favorite parts of the journey I've taken in the last several years is all the great new people I've gotten to meet, on-line and off-line, who share similar interests.

One of those people is Lori Randall Stradtman who I heard speak last year at BlogWorld. Lori is an expert on social media and is currently writing a book entitled, Online Reputation Management for Dummies. Who won't want to read that?

I was honored when Lori invited me to be on her radio show, Literary Social.  Which is where I am today. So stop over and listen for a bit. I get to dish with Lori about self-publishing, selling, The Secrets They Kept and going for what makes you happy.

p.s  I dare you to be able to figure out which voice is from New York City and which from Georgia!

http://literallysocial.net/2012/02/28/author-joanne-tombrakos-dishes-on-the-secrets-they-kept/

My First Birthday Published

It was around the time this picture was taken I wrote my first story. It was published in the school paper, The Castlewood Times. It wasn’t very long, a few sentences strung together but I was quite proud of my accomplishment.

The little girl in that picture looked at the world with fresh eyes, wanting to know everything about everything, anxious to discover and bursting at the seams with anticipation. She believed there would come a day when she would know everything there was to know. There would be nothing left to learn. She would be that wise. No one told her that wasn’t going to happen. And even if they had, she wouldn’t have believed them.  

There are times in our lives when we stagnate, as though we have reached the pinnacle my little girl self thought she would attain. Then we try something new, stretch out of our comfort zone and we are in awe of how young and alive we feel again. And though we may look in the mirror and not see our younger self, that aura surrounds our being.

That about sums up how I feel on my first birthday as a published author.

My learning curve has been steeper than steep these last months as I dove head first into the world of self-publishing. Every day has served up something new.

So far I have learned:

• A review or personal note from someone who liked your story, loved your characters and thinks you are a talented writer can set one floating on air for the rest of the day. 
• Readers discover aspects of your storytelling that will surprise you.
• People find it very inspiring when you actually do what you have said you were going to do.
• Some people want you to fail and will continue to point out all the ways success, as an independent author is more difficult than if you were published by a legacy house.
• More people want you to succeed.
• Walking the walk of creating change instead of just talking about it makes me a better coach for my clients.
• I really like being interviewed on the radio!
• Traditional publishing is trying desperately to hold on to its “elitist” attitude. It trickles down to unexpected places like non-corporate blogs that won’t review your book because it is “too hard to vet self-published books.”
• Everyone is quick to point out all the not great indie stuff being put out into the world, but not so quick to point out all the not great traditional stuff sitting next to it.
• People on the “inside” of the traditional world know very little about what is happening in the world of self-publishing. I attended one event where a panelist from inside this bubble announced with 100% certainty that if you published on Kindle you gave them your rights and couldn’t publish anywhere else. (Note: This is SO NOT true.)
• People adore their Kindles but they are still buying print copies too.
• Having a sales and marketing background makes this much easier to navigate.
• Staring at my revenue data trying to wish a higher number reminds me of my ad sales day. (Note: this practice does not sell more books)
• Amazon and Barnes and Noble reviews, Tweets, Facebook recommendations, PR pitches, and connections do.
• That just about everyone says they always wanted to write a book and want to know how I did it. (Hint: First thing is you have to write, every day.)
• That help and support comes from unexpected places.

Do I feel differently, on this, my first birthday officially published?

Yes. Remarkably younger, yet as accomplished as I did that day The Castlewood Times published my story. Maybe even a tad more.

And please, no gifts...okay if you must, then buy a book, or two or three. They make great holiday gifts for your friends and co-workers. Reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble are good too, as are Facebook posts and Tweets to your tribe! 

The Secrets They Kept is now available for sale on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes and other on-line booksellers.

Afterbirth

Having never had children I don't know from personal experience what happens in those first weeks after giving birth. But I'd think there are some similarities to what I've been feeling since The Secrets They Kept was published. This book after all, was my baby. Instead of nine months, it took seven years.  Seven years of attachment in some form to this story and these characters I had invented, fed and nurtured, breathed life into, let rest for awhile and nurtured some more. And then with a press of a button on a keyboard the placenta is broken and I am detached.

But not really. What mother gives birth to a child and stays separated? 

And then there are all those questions crowding my mind and vying for attention.  Like what do I do now?  I can't leave this thing sitting on a web page on Amazon by itself and think it will survive?   Is it going to be a healthy child or sickly? Why has it taken so long for Smashwords to send files to Barnes and Noble and iTunes? Will it live to a good old age or die young? And then the really big question, am I actually ready to be a mother, I mean published author? No matter. It's too late now to debate. There is a newborn book who needs me.

The book needs press and reviews that will translate into sales. It needs me to guest post and be interviewed to spread the news of its arrival. There is no nanny in the form of a Big Six marketing budget, just me, the birth mother, with a little  help from Facebook,Twitter and her friends, trying to wash away the afterbirth and get on with the business of making sure this baby book lives a healthy, happy and long life.

After all, that's all any mother wants for her child.

Check out  my first Amazon review in which The Secrets They Kept was called an "Excellent Debut Novel!"

On The Radio

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Kelley Connors, host of  Real Women on Health on BlogTalk Radio today. If you missed the show and would like to listen in on what we talked about, just press play for the podcast. The topics ranged from my eclectic media consumption to how I came to write The Secrets They Kept. Thanks to Kelley for the invitation!

Listen to internet radio with kelleyconnors on Blog Talk Radio

On Sale Today, For Your Reading Pleasure

I am not a woman of few words, although Twitter has helped me in learning how to write in 140 characters or less. But today this will be brief. After countless hours, days, months and yes, years, of writing, dreaming, thinking, editing, trying it the traditional way, throwing that aside and editing again, this novel is out in the world. Technically it was available for sale yesterday, but for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is today's new Moon, I selected September 27 as my official launch date.

I like new Moons. I like ritual. I like superstition. Maybe it is the Greek in me. In any case, a new Moon is said to be a magical time of new beginnings when you can recharge intentions or set new ones out into the world. My intention to become a published author has been on many my new Moon lists over the years. It took a while and it certainly did not unfold the way I expected it to, but then what was I thinking? I'm really not a conventional kind of girl. Why would I have followed the established route? 

The print edition and the Kindle edition of The Secrets They Kept are available today on Amazon.com.  There, I said it and I admit it feels a bit surreal. 


If you read fiction, I invite you to buy a copy.
If you like it, I invite you to give it a Like on Amazon.
If you really like it, recommend it to a friend. Tweet it. Facebook it.
If you really, really like it, write a review on Amazon.

Having not gone the traditional route there is no Big Six Marketing budget to drive attention to my novel. Just me and my intentions.

Which, by the way, is to spread the word as far as our viral, interconnected world will allow. 

 

Humbled

When you've been doing the same thing for a long time, you think you know a lot. Sometimes you think you know it all. Until that moment you decide to do something different. And you discover there is an awful lot you have yet to learn. That is the moment you become humbled.

Witness what happens on my guilty pleasure, Dancing With The Stars. Accomplished athletes are my favorite example. They excel in their particular sport. Now asked to move their body in a new manner and it doesn't look like they are as accomplished as they were. Or take the models. Stunningly beautiful when standing still, but asked to stretch their arms and legs while moving in rhythm to music and their image alters. They are beginners again,  faced with a new challenge, and if they are like me, humbled at all they didn't know.

I spent years selling and marketing other people's stuff. I  can make that look easy.  I always knew I could write, I just avoided it. But when I set my mind to really creating story, it came naturally. Yes, I was challenging myself but it was not borne of humility but of the fear of letting my voice be heard to more than my circle of friends.

But now, as I have learned the mechanics and pitfalls of digital files, upload my novel to the various outlets where The Secrets They Kept will be sold, try and figure out when it will be available in all places at the same time, as I start to tackle these new frontiers of letting people know it is there, I am humbled.
There is no other word. Humbled. Like a first grader who knows they are ready for more, but can't help but reflect back how easy Kindergarten was. I am in virgin territory.  And from that new humility I am challenged in a way that is at once terrifying and as alive as one can feel.

Do you think you know it all?
Or are you taking on new challenges that humble you, yet push you forward?

Ready Or Not

Yesterday morning it was summer. Hot, humid, air-conditioning weather. By late afternoon, it was fall. Temperatures dropped severely on the island I call Manhattan and a jacket was needed.

I thought I was ready for fall until I found myself shivering on a street corner last night while thinking gloves and a scarf might have been a good idea. Suddenly I wanted to push the stop button, plead, no, not yet, just a few more weeks of warm weather, please. At least a few more days.

But that isn't how it works. Once things change, there is no going back. Yes, there will be another summer, but it won't look like, taste like, feel like this one. Now we move forward, writing the chapter called fall.

We live so much of our lives looking for things to change, wanting them to change, trying to make them change, waiting for them to change. And then when the change happens it's a big Uh Oh! Did I really think I was ready for this? I'm not so sure!

In the space of a week I will be pushing a series of buttons and my novel will be for sale. Just like that it will go from a work in progress to a work completed.  I will go from a writer to a published author. Whether I am ready or not,  I will be standing in a brand new place and just like this summer, there is no going back.

The Secrets They Kept will be available soon on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, iBookstore, and other select on line booksellers.

Pushing My Own Buttons

People pay me to push their buttons. That's why people hire a coach. So that someone else will make them do what they stop themselves from doing. Reaching higher. Stretching farther. Shaking things up. Refusing to settle for anything less than what they deserve. Pointing out what they already know but weren't willing to look at. Those things that make their insides turn upside down. 

I'm a professional when it comes to button pushing. But trust me, that does not make it any easier when I am pushing my own. In fact it may make it harder.

With the imminent release of The Secrets They Kept, my first novel, my buttons are being pushed. All those things I have worked on and worked through in my life are making cameo appearances on a daily basis. There are moments when I am literally shaking in my shoes. ( albeit as a member of my very large Greek family recently pointed out, some "styling shoes")

In fact some days it feels like it is 1989 and I am back in Rehoboth Beach on the boardwalk playing a game of Whac-a Mole. As soon as I have squashed one of those moles with that rubber mallet, another pops up. And it is only the prize at the end that keeps me playing.

But what I keep noticing through this process are those moments when I want to stop the train. Push the brake pedal to the floor and turn off the engine. In the back of my brain I hear this little voice that says to get out while you still can. You don't have to do this. Writing is exposing oneself for all the world to see. While my words may be fiction they are wrapped up in my truth, in how I see the world, the sorts of things that my everyday friends and acquaintances may not be privy to. You don't have to let them see.

You are choosing to self-publish. To self-publish is me taking a stand that my story is worth telling based on my standards, sans the "approval" of one of the big Six publishing houses.  You can go back to the safety of your old life. You can go and beg someone somewhere to give you a job selling advertising space again. You can go back to living with your biggest fear being of getting downsized. You can focus soley on your coaching practice. Or you can choose your fear, in my case of  being exposed and dare I say becoming an author with readers willing to pay for what I write.

As I said, I am a professional button pusher who believes you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. So I know what to say to myself and to do to get past this delightful combination of excitement and anxiety. Most days I listen. Some days I am a bad client.

Today I am listening. I asked myself how would it feel if I did literally stop the presses. The answer is awful.  And that is when I know I am doing what I am supposed to be doing, what I have to do. Pushing the right buttons.

Are you pushing your buttons or is someone else?
Are they the right buttons?

Giuseppe's Getting Ready

Most of us spend our lives trying not to be seen. Slipping just far enough under the radar so we can call ourselves a success without getting too much attention. We play by the rules someone else created for us, our family, our culture, our religions. Not being seen fully allows us to keep our secrets, perhaps hide our flaws, avoid being judged more harshly than we can tolerate. We think we are in control of who sees what part of us when.


In this age of Twitter, FB and Google searches we have lost that control. Sound bites and news clips take the every day citizen into a spotlight they may despise or secretly crave. I tell people that I believe you need to live your life online as though you were on Candid Camera. For those not old enough to remember,  Candid Camera was a kinder, gentler, more humane version of TMZ.


As a writer, I cannot fully function without words. I lose my ability to breathe when I am not constructing sentences into story. It is who I am.


I wrote just for me for a very long time. This blog was the beginning of me putting those words out there in the world, to be shared, to be enjoyed, at times to be criticized. And now in a month's time if all goes to schedule I will release my first novel to the world. While the story is fiction, any writer will tell you what we write involves baring ours souls. It is our art. No matter how made up the characters are they stem from some truth in the way the writer sees the world and human interaction. I will be seen. Ready or not.


I have been busy preparing. Choosing my cover design. Debating whether to format the text myself or hire someone. Reading and rereading passages that need polishing. Guessing timelines. Compiling my lists of how and where I will promote The Secrets They Kept.


It's an effort to keep the worries and the fears at bay and to trust that the Universe will provide. Walking helps. This morning it also offered up  one of those delicious winks that I can't stop smiling from. 


There is a bronze bust on a pillar in Central Park that I pass every time I take my walk. I have my friend Giuseppe in several scenes in the novel. Today as I was coming close I noticed some tape and plastic at the spot where the bust meets the stand and then a man on a crane lowering himself close. I asked what he was doing. He told me he was repatinizing it. A green and brown film is produced on bronze due to oxidation over a long period of time. Giuseppe hadn't had a sprucing up since 1994.


Giuseppe, I am guessing is anticipating more visitors. He is getting ready as I am to be seen in a fresh light.

The Secrets They Kept will be released in September 2011. For more details and to be added to my mailing list please click through this link.