Welcome to week six of the #WritersQuick5 series - where we learn about writing from follow writers.

One of my biggest pet peeves about the word ‘writer’ is that it’s almost always associated with being published. But, so many people write every day - and are paid for it - and that writing will never been formally seen outside an office or a specific workplace setting. Does that mean they aren’t writers? My answer: no. We are all writers. Writers come in all shapes and forms. 

In fact, I’ve found that being formally published doesn’t necessarily mean that there are more eyes on your work either. Many of my positions in the workplace have revolved around writing, and in particularly in the case of website content, some of my projects have been seen by thousands upon thousands of people. If each webpage hit was a book download, I’d be a millionaire. 

And so, when I started doing these #WriterQuick5 interviews, I made a commitment to myself that I would feature people that are published sure, but also people that write for a living in other ways too. 

Today I’m honored to bring you the answers of my dear friend Margaret Hahn. I was privileged enough to work with Margaret for several years, and now that we are both in new positions, one of my only regrets is that I do not get to interact with her every day. Margaret’s field is Technology Change Management with a focus on Internal Communications. She writes every day. Her work goes to hundreds, if not thousands of people. So, I wanted to get her perspective. What is corporate writing really like? Let’s see what she has to say…

Question #1: Where do you write and why do you write there?
This question has two answers. 
1. I write mostly at my desk in the corporate office. I write here because it my assigned seat in my office. I am usually plugged into calming music on my phone so I am not lured by any distractions around me. 

2. If I am not writing for my day job, I typically write in bed or at my dining room table. When I am writing for pleasure, like personal storytelling or food writing, I like to find a cozy and comfortable space. I like to be comfortable and have few distractions. Since I don't have a dedicated office at home (which is shared with my partner and his three kids) I like to find a cozy space that is a little more private and away from the hustle and bustle of the house.  

Question #2: What is unique about writing for your particular genre?
My corporate writing is largely focused around communicating a change and is somewhat similar to sales or advertising. I often have to sell a change and hopefully people connect with what it happening, why, and understand how it impacts the day to day. Typically my writing has to do with encouraging a behavioral change, so I have to focus on the "WHY" for people; hopefully this helps create a connection to the change. My writing is often fraught with challenges because it must be engaging, but is often technical in nature. Also, it must embody the voice and values of the company. I must maintain a high level of professionalism and polish, but must have communications that grab the attention of people. 

Question #3: What are some of your grammar or punctuation pet peeves?
I love the Oxford Comma. I love it. However, the style at my company is anti-oxford comma. I have to always remember to take out my extra commas to align with our style here. 
I also have a letter press print in my house that I love: "Dear Punctuation, I want you inside me. Love, Quotation Marks." 
It also bugs me when people put a period at the end of a statement attached to a bullet point. 

Question #4: At what point in your writing process do you start to bring other people in to review your work?
I usually bring my work to people once I have gone through my first draft, stepped away, reread and revised as needed. I love getting feedback and having someone else take a peek at something I write; I'd hate to miss anything. Given my type of writing, I am rarely emotionally connected to it, so I welcome any and all feedback. I push back when I feel it is critical, but that rarely happens. 

Question #5: What advice would you give to a new writer about the writing process?
I think focusing on the goal is super important. What are trying to say? Why are you saying it? What is the point? Can you outline or bullet out the points? Do you connect to the why? I sometimes lean heavily on outlines, whether it is in professional writing or in storytelling. I like to know where my goal posts are and aim for those points. 

Thank you to Margaret for giving a voice to all the writers out there that are affecting change every day. Your answers prove that there is a personal touch to all writing, even at the corporate level. We appreciate what you do!  If you want to connect, you can find Margaret on LinkedIn or on Twitter.

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If you would like to be featured as a writer in the #WritersQuick5 series, please just reach out and let me know. I’d love to promote your work as well!

For updates on #WritersQuick5 and other info from me, please follow me on Twitter or check back with this blog for all the latest.

Welcome to week five of the #WritersQuick5 series - where we learn about writing from fellow writers. 

This week I’m thrilled to feature filmmaker J.C. Reifenberg. I’ve known J.C. for a long time, so long in fact I don’t even remember when we met. I will spare you the photos from our high school prom group, but suffice it to say, I have long thought the world a better place for J.C. being in it. Our day-to-day paths do not cross often, but I have watched J.C.’s projects with a great sense of hometown pride, especially his epic short film, Hughes the Force (Spoiler Alert: he talks more about his film below in Question #5). 

​When The Force Awakens came out, J.C. also created the amazing short called Summer ‘78 which I have watched too many times to count. It’s hard to describe the short without spoiling the ending, so I’ll just quote the synopsis, “Watch as a young boy during the late 70's plays with his favorite Star Wars toys and learns how his simple, but elaborate, front yard adventures inspire his future.” 

These are just two J.C’s incredible projects. I could list many more. For example, he has also had characters from his feature screenplays licensed and used in the movie Yoga Hosers. How cool is that? Okay, I’m officially gushing now, so let’s just see what he has to say…

Question #1: Where do you write and why do you write there?
I think mostly I write in my office. The office is decked out with toys, action figures, artwork, and memories. Everything has a story or memory attached, it's all stuff that inspires me or inspired me at some point in the past. Sometimes though if inspiration strikes I've written on the notepad on my phone on airplanes, in bed, even at a red light while driving.

Question #2: What is unique about writing for your particular genre?
Writing screenplays is different than most types of writing because you can't write what you can't see. Meaning, you can't say a character 'feels' a certain way, because you can't film what is in a person's head. It's a fun challenge because you need to create situations for your characters to demonstrate what they are feeling. The audience learns about the characters only through the choices that you have them make, there is no voice of God that can convey the emotion and situation you're trying to get across like in a novel - unless you use a voice over, which I consider cheating. You're also not supposed to call out camera shots unless they are completely essential to the story. If you see a scene as one long camera shot sweeping across a room, you need to style the way you write using punctuation, formatting and language to make the reader infer the shot you see without blatantly saying it. A great example is the opening shot in Back to the Future. The camera pans across a room of clocks, uneaten dog food, uranium canisters, and a TV report. But you can't really write "The camera floats through the room." A screenwriter needs to use language such that when the director or cinematographer reads it, they see it as a camera that floats through the room. Basically I feel that a lot of the art to screenwriting is being able to make the reader or audience understand your intent and characters, without ever actually blatantly saying what you're trying to achieve.

Question #3: What are some of your grammar or punctuation pet peeves?
To, Two, Too. Your, You're. We're, Were, Where, Wear.

Question #4: At what point in your writing process do you start to bring other people in to review your work?
Most times I'll actually work with a co-writer. But if I'm going solo, I'll bring people in almost from the get go. I'll pitch my idea around to people. Talk to them about the characters, plot line, themes that I'm trying to hit on. A lot of times they have some great ideas that I can incorporate into my outline before I even really start typing. Screenplays are typically around 90-120 pages. If I'm struggling I'll start showing people stuff after the first 30 pages to start a discussion about what parts they liked and didn't like, and where they think it would be fun to take the story, then I'll go back to the drawing board, do another 30 pages and show it off again at page 60. But, if i'm really cruising, (usually on a short film) I'll write the whole thing and then show it off at the end.

Question #5: What advice would you give to a new writer about the writing process?
I actually don't love writing. I love storytelling, but the most cost effective way to tell a story is with writing. It's way cheaper than a movie, video game, TV show, play, etc. There are no limits to what you can write, no boundaries, but I think that's also the challenge, limitless freedom, where do you start? My advice to that is what they always say, pick something from your experience that is special to you. The first kinda real thing I ever wrote was called Hughes The Force. It’s a comedy that mashes up Weird Science and Star Wars. I've loved Star Wars my whole life and know it back and forth. I also literally grew up in the same town the John Hughes based all his movies around. I knew both genres and subjects inside and out. I loved Star Wars and lived the John Hughes movies. Find something you've experienced and something you love. Write about those things. Also, I think the hardest part about writing is the self-discipline to do it. Sit down, write, even if it’s terrible just write. You don't get better at writing by thinking about writing. You only get better by writing, reading, sharing, re-writing. Another thing, don't quit. The only way you can fail is by quitting.

Thank you to J.C. for these thoughtful answers! Makes me love you even more! My favorite line has to be the last one, “The only way you can fail is by quitting.” SO TRUE. 

To learn more about J.C., visit his IMDB page or follow him on Twitter @Reifenberg. 

Thanks again J.C. - it means the world to me that we are still supporting each other after all these years. 
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If you would like to be featured as a writer in the #WritersQuick5 series, please just reach out and let me know. I’d love to promote your work as well!

For updates on #WritersQuick5 and other info from me, please follow me on Twitter or check back with this blog for all the latest.

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​Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to announce that my new book series, Amache’s America, is now up on Channillo.com. 

Amache's America follows three-generations of Japanese-American women, centering around Angela. On the same day Angela finds out her grandmother has died, she also finds out she is pregnant. Conflicted over whether or not she actually wants to have children, she attends her grandmother's funeral and is unexpectedly gifted a box of old journals and audio recordings. Over the coming days and weeks, she immerses herself in them, learning about what it was like for her mother to marry a white man in the 1960's/70's and what it was like for her grandmother in the Japanese Internment camps. As she grapples with her own biracial identity, and what the cultural identity of her baby will be, she ultimately takes comfort and strength in the stories of the women in her life and rediscovers the importance of her family's rich heritage in this country.

So, why is it a book series and not a book? Well, I will be posting a new chapter every two weeks (usually on Tuesdays) for the foreseeable. I have a lot of stories about this family I’d like to tell and I thought this would be a cool, on-going way to do that. 

So, how can you read the chapters? Channillo.com is a subscription based website. You can create your profile and then you pay a monthly fee to read stories on the site. There are different membership levels. For example, the “bronze plan” costs $5 a month and you can subscribe to up to 10 stories at any given time. So, if you decide to subscribe, you can read Amache’s America and then check out 9 other indie authors. 

How does your subscription help me? For every Channillo user that subscribes to my story, I get a cut of the subscription fee, so yes, this will be a way for me to bring in some income. Do expect it will bring me in a lot? No, I don’t. 

So, why am I doing this then.? The answer is: 

• To keep writing! That’s the ultimate goal here, right? 
• I like that this site gives me a deadline (even if it is an internal one), and moreover a feeling of commitment to anyone who subscribes.
• To meet other authors and the readers. There are communication tools built into the platform so anyone who is a member can leave notes for the other person, either to the person directly or on the book’s profile (I need to do more of this).
• To read what others are doing. So many indie authors out there. Amazon is literally that - an amazon. This is so much smaller, I can get a sense of who the authors are. I like it so far, and I know there’s a lot more exploring for me to do. 
• And yes, the small amount that may come my way will feel like a piece of legitimacy in this big scary leap of faith I’m taking this year. 

So, if you’d like to read Amache’s America, please do sign-up. One good tip is that you can go in and change your notification preferences and get notified every time something new is posted to one of your subscriptions. I like to do this, a good reminder that a series I’m subscribed to has something new. Another tip is that after you pay for membership, you can technically read a series without subscribing, but this won’t help any of the authors. Only a subscription will give them a cut. 

A final FYI… as a part of the terms of agreement for publishing on this site, I can’t post the content to my website or my blog, but I can tell you this… although not an autobiographical story, it is one of the more personal things I’ve written. Very different from the rest of the science-fiction work I typically do. I hope that one day, when the series is done, I may find a way to share it out more broadly. For now, I’m looking forward to having a platform, and some external motivation, to write and finish the story in a unique way. I’m loving the story so far. I hope you will too.

We will see how this goes together. Thank you for continuing to come along with me on my journey. I am excited to be moving forward in one of the avenues I’ve been pursuing. 

If you decide to take a look, let me know what you think. 

XOXO

​Let’s see what he has to say…

Question #1: Where do you write and why do you write there?
I write at home because I would get too distracted people watching if I did it elsewhere.

Question #2: What is unique about writing for your particular genre?
One of the great aspects of writing sci-fi is the world building. You want to make sure your genre hits many of the well worn tropes that people enjoy but also introduce them to completely new worlds and aliens. Plus, its making your characters, no matter how alien, relatable.

Question #3: What are some of your grammar or punctuation pet peeves?
When someone only uses 'she said' 'he said' but doesn't convey a character's emotion outside of that.

Question #4: At what point in your writing process do you start to bring other people in to review your work?
I bring editors or beta readers in only after I have finished my first draft and given it my own editing pass.

Question #5: What advice would you give to a new writer about the writing process?
1.) Write everyday so it becomes habitual. Even if you only get a few hundred words down, it’s something.
2.) Make sure your story structure is solid before writing a word of your novel. You can start writing without an outline but not without a sound and airtight story structure in place.
3.) Whatever genre you choose to write, make sure your story is something you would want to read.
4.) Your book should get at least 1-2 passes from professional editors (not your parents or best friend mind you) before release. Typos and spelling errors can be a surefire way to tank a book's sales. No matter how good of a sell-editor you are, you will miss more errors than you realize.
5.) Make sure your cover art looks professional and hits all the right notes in your chosen genre. Check out the cover art for bestsellers in your genre on Amazon as well as the artists who did the work.
6.) Connect with other authors in your chosen genre and learn as much as you can. Networking with other writers who have the same goals or are in the place you want to be is a great motivator.
7.) Read not only books in your chosen genre, but also books that are not in your chosen genre. See why certain books are bestsellers as well as what inspiration you can draw from outside what you write.


Thank you to C.C. for these amazing answers, particularly the advice to new writers - words we should all live by. To keep in touch with C.C. please subscribe for announcements or contact him via his website & social media platforms. And please be sure to check out all of his latest work - easily purchased on Amazon, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play and Smashwords. 

Thanks again C.C. - as a fellow science fiction writer, I am thrilled to have your work featured this week!
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If you would like to be featured as a writer in the #WritersQuick5 series, please just reach out and let me know. I’d love to promote your work as well!

For updates on #WritersQuick5 and other info from me, please follow me on Twitter or check back with this blog for all the latest.

In case you didn't know it already, starting a writing career is a lot of ‘hurry up and wait.’ Get your book to the editor you hired and then wait (this is the hardest wait, since you can’t send out query letters - and then wait - until your book is done). Send in a submission to a competition and then wait. Pitch an idea to a magazine or news outlet and then wait. Ask writers to participate in your writing series and then wait. I could spend all my time hustling to meet deadlines and feeling like the busiest person in the world and then have absolutely nothing to do but wait. 

And all of this work is bursting with optimism and potential that, in reality, could pretty much go nowhere. There's no way to know. Maybe that's why I cried with empathy through most of La La Land, the hardship of aspiring artists hitting a little too close to home to my new found creative experiences (even if my goals aren’t quite as lofty as theirs).  

As a part of my journey I've been trying to network, learn from all kinds of writers (hello #writersquick5), and really listen to their advice. Many people have said that any downtime away from my novel should still be spent writing, and that short stories are a great way to continue to hone the craft. If I can sum up a whole story in 700-1,500 words, I will get better at writing pitches and query letters. If I write a story that grabs someone, I can gain some following. If I write a short story that grabs me more that I thought it would, I may have my next book. 

So I have been working on writing short stories. This is fairly new to me, and fortunately, I was recently inspired by My True Love Gave To Me, a collection of YA short stories that are all holiday themed. Damn, there were so many amazing stories in that collection! 

As for what I’ve been writing, some have turned out pretty well, some are clearly just for me. The good ones I've started to submit to short story competitions. Time will tell if this is a good use of my time, but my initial reaction to competitions is mixed. Some have entry fees - causing my bank account to go in the opposite of my desired direction. Almost all have non-compete clauses so I can't post the material on my website or blog while it's under consideration. (That was new to me - I never considered something on my own website as being published before. Does that even count?) And so what really bums me out is that for those of you who are kind enough to check in with me, I can't share some of my recent work with you, at least not yet. (But trust me, if I don't win some of these competitions, I will post, post, post away.)

The good part about them is that I’m learning more about what’s out there. It is forcing me to keep writing, and the best bit is that I have fallen in love with some new characters I’ve created that I would have never met before had I just moved onto my next book.  

Which leads me to my next consideration - should I have two separate piles of short stories - some that I submit to competitions and some that I share out? The answer is probably yes. Because, as supportive as you all have been, aside from these blog entries, you haven't seen any of my actual storytelling yet. 

So, my new years resolution is that within the next few weeks I will not only have something up on channillo.com (Amache's America, coming your way), but I will also have a new ‘short stories section’ on this website where you can really get to know my storytelling style. I'll probably put it in blog format so it's easy to share out. Or maybe just add it to this blog and tag them so everything is in one place. (Ah! what is the best way to do this? If any of you have any advice, please let me know.) 

For now I’ll just keep on keepin’ on and embrace this new wave of short stories in my life just as I’ve tried to embrace everything else new these last few months. If you know of any great short story collections for me to read for inspiration, please send them my way! 

As always, thanks and XOXO. 

Welcome to week three of the series #WritersQuick5 - where we learn about writing from fellow writers. 

This week I am absolutely thrilled to bring you a Q&A with author Martha Carr, whose Wallis Jones thriller/conspiracy series is rapidly climbing the ranks on Amazon. Her fourth installment The Circle Rises drops today! 

The Circle Rises is the fourth book in a six part series. The entire series is/will be available on Amazon and in KDP. The Wallis Jones book series is just the latest chapter in Martha's long writing career. She's written a weekly, nationally-syndicated column on world affairs and life that has run on such political hotspots as The Moderate Voice and Politicus. She's also been published in The Washington Post, The New York Time, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. 

She infuses her latest book series with her own behind-the-scenes political insights, bringing her life-long love of politics and literary thrillers together. Let's see what she has to say. 

Question #1: Where do you write and why do you write there?
I write in my office at the front of the house where the sun shines in. It's quiet and there's space to leave out a lot of notes about plot points for a twisty, turny conspiracy like Wallis Jones.

Question #2: What is unique about writing for your particular genre?
Conspiracy thrillers are giant puzzles that should make your heart race and feel like a really good roller coaster ride but with some twists you just don't see coming.

Question #3: What are some of your grammar or punctuation pet peeves?
I can't say that I have any - in other books I love to read I want the sentence structure overall to be smooth so that I notice the story and not the individual words.

Question #4: At what point in your writing process do you start to bring other people in to review your work?
I've been writing for a long time so I wait till the end of the first draft and turn it over to an editor.

Question #5: What advice would you give to a new writer about the writing process?
Just keep going is the best advice I was ever given. It's a journey that gets better and better. And find your own tribe of writers who can share marketing, writing and other type of info as well as cheering each other on for every single morsel of success. It makes everything that much sweeter.

Thank you to Martha for these lovely and insightful answers. To keep in touch with Martha, please sign-up for her newsletter. Her newsletter will bring you giveaways, information about new books, and great updates. She's also working on a new short story app, so stay tuned. After you read her Wallis Jones books, please leave reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, or send her a note directly. She loves hearing from her readers! 

If you would like to be featured as a writer in the #WritersQuick5 series, please just reach out and let me know. I'd love to promote your work as well. 

For updates on #WritersQuick5 and other info from me, please follow me on Twitter or check back in with this blog for all the latest. 

Thanks again to Martha... and remember to follow Martha Carr on Twitter too!

I left my job at the end of August 2016 for several reasons. 

The main one was that I was burned out. Six years in and I couldn’t take another step forward. I was up for a big promotion and I knew in my gut I didn’t want it. I was exhausted by the mere idea of it. I knew that if I took it, I’d be there for at least another two years, which seemed gut-wrenchingly unfathomable to me at the time. 

So I needed to think of what the alternative was.

The problem with being burned out is that you don’t have much energy to think (let alone job search).

But, as often happens when there is a major fork-in-the-road, I made the time to soul search. And I knew that if I was going to leave my job - one that I did love, but just couldn’t do anymore - then I had to leave it for something that fed my whole being. Top to bottom. That got me up in the morning. That replenished me. 

The only answer that came to me was to write. Because, the root of all of my jobs has been writing. I love books. I love stories. I love writing. I love it when words flow. I knew that the only thing I really wanted to do was to finally finish the book I’ve been on-and-off serious about since 2011. To learn about the industry. To figure out if I could make it a career. To have a schedule flexible enough that I could network, learn, expand. 

So, with whatever energy I had, I leapt. 

And I’m so glad I did. 

Like a new parent does with a baby, I’ve been tracking things week-by-week. And I’ve been cataloguing accomplishments, big and small. Since August, I’ve devoted 16 weeks to my new writing career. Some days I’ve felt it in my bones that I made the right decision. Some days I have felt soul-crushing futility and have found myself searching the job boards again. 

Most of the time though, I’ve just been taking it day by day. 

I won’t outline all my detailed notes here, but I thought it would be good to start 2017 off with a brief list of what I’ve accomplished so far, and a list of what I hope is to come. Thank you for tolerating this self-indulgent post, aimed at inspiring me more than anyone else to keep going, but I do hope others will find it motivating as well. 

So, here we go…

In 16 weeks I…

• Wrote, and rewrote, the outline of my book, The Cube, four times. Getting confirmation from my editor that I’d finally gotten the basic plot outline down right was such a high.
• Wrote character back-stories, added new characters, and said goodbye to others
• Re-wrote The Cube, start to finish. It transformed before my eyes into an entirely different story. New characters emerged, new arcs, a new ending. Saying goodbye to my original ending was really hard, but I’m glad that I did.
• Sent the new version of The Cube to my editor at Thanksgiving. And learned the meaning of patience as I (still) wait for it to come back.
• Wrote a book synopsis/summary, a book hook, and several other shorter summations of The Cube.
• Wrote a short story for a Writer’s Digest story prompt competition with no aspirations other than to keep writing.
• Created this website. (I’m still continually tweaking it)
• Onboarded more collaborators to help with graphics. (and soon to come photography, stay tuned!)
• Started this blog to write about my writing experience - thanks to everyone who has been reading it. :)
• Started the  #writersquick5 where I interview writers so we can all learn about writing.  I have to say, I’m SO excited for the authors lined up for you all to meet in the upcoming weeks!
• Joined several in-person and online writing groups.
• Watched writing webinars and read up on the industry and the field.
• Began my research into agents.
• Curated my social media accounts. (@kellyfweiss on Twitter & Instagram)
• Decided to write a new story called Amache’s America on the website channillo.com which will start at the end of this month.
• Flushed out some old writings and research and to create a new outline the channillo.com book series.
• Began writing outlines for two additional books - trying to capture the ideas as they come. This has given me great hope for the future that I’m not just in this for one book. Not at all. 

And on a personal note, I’ve…

• Made it to the gym 5-6 a week, getting my body back in order after years of a sedentary desk job.
• Travelled all around the local region, checking out everything from state parks and nature reserves to amazing coffee shops, libraries, and local architecture.
• Gotten my home life in order, channeling one of my favorite versions of myself - the stay-at-home-mom version (I was home with my daughter for almost two years after she was born) - to get my household back in order again.
• Made more time for friends and family - I can’t tell you how many people have told me how much happier I look and seem now that I’m doing this.

All of this is to say - I’ve been giving it my all. And even on the days when I feel like nothing has happened, I have to fight my self-deprecating instincts to admit that so much has. 

Am I a published author yet? No. But, my editor has my book and that’s pretty great.

Do I know if I’ll be able to make this my career yet? No. But it won’t be for lack of trying.

Do I know what 2017 will bring? No. But, whatever it is, it will be based on informed choices, and you can’t ask for more than that. 

So, what are my 2017 goals?

• To get The Cube to a place where I am comfortable sending out agent query letters and to send to as many agents as I can and hope that someone bites (someone will, claiming it!)
• To work on other books and stories so that I can continue to hone my craft and to get other writing out there. I’m probably going to start posting other kinds of stories to this blog as well, so stay tune for that. 
• To have a new writer for #writersquick5 every week of the year.
• To continue to learn more about the industry and to meet more and more writers.
• To start writing short stories and enter more story competitions.
• To take every opportunity that comes my way.

I honestly do not know where 2017 will go. Maybe I’ll be back at a traditional job by spring. If that happens, will I be disappointed? Absolutely not. Why? Because, no matter what my day job is, I am a writer. I’m a writer and there’s no changing that. It’s in me. It’s in my blood. I have story upon story that I want to tell. I can’t wait for you all to read them!

Thank you for all your love and support. XOXO.