My Facebook Page has Moved

Dear Readers,

You probably didn't know I have a Facebook page. I do -- and not only that, I have a Twitter and an Instagram account. I'm trying to up my social media game in case I self-publish, and even if I don't, so I can promote my work (which is hard for me to do).

Feel free to add me:

Twitter: lleachsteffens
Instagram: laurenleachsteffens
Find my page on facebook: @laurenleachsteffens

If you're interested in hanging out on my Facebook page, especially if you want to read shorter posts and interact, you can find and like my page at: Laurenwriter

Facebook, Stories, and Getting to Know You

On Facebook, getting to know someone looks like this:

Have you ever been arrested? Y/N
Had a parent die?  Y/N
Traveled overseas? Y/N
Gotten married? Y/N
(My answers are, in order, N, Y, Y, Y).

I don't think that's getting to know someone. Getting to know someone involves listening to the stories behind the answers above. In doing so, one can detect the feelings and thoughts of the person who's telling the story.

It's hard to do this on Facebook. People don't tell their stories when they don't think the other is listening, and it's hard to look like one's listening behind a screen. Nuances are lost. Emotions are lost.

That's not to say that I don't feel connected to people on Facebook. I feel connected to the people I'm friends with in real life. They're the ones who have my stories.

Alpha males.

I'm beginning to hate the phrase.

This morning I got a friend request on Facebook from someone who is most certainly an Internet scammer. Tipoffs: He's pictured in military uniform with a military background. He lists his home as three different places in Africa so he's apparently doing something dangerous, and to sweeten the deal, he's widowed.

In other words, he's the perfect romance novel hero.

I once got rejected by Harlequin because my story needed a hero who was 

1. older than the heroine; 
2. richer than the heroine and 
3. more powerful than the heroine.

In other words, an alpha male, and the female protagonist is his dazzled (and subservient) woman.

Is this what I, a female, am supposed to fall for? If this supposed to be my fantasy? As a highly educated female, and one who lives in voluntary simplicity, my male won't be alpha, but egalitarian. He might be dark and brooding, but smart enough to learn how to manage his own feelings. He might be an entrepreneur or a college professor or a social worker, but what he contributes is complementary skills.

It's not sexy enough, where sexy is defined as a female so desirable the lone wolf tears off her clothes and pledges to change (but not enough to get a social work job). The female is thrilled to find her needs will be taken care of and she won't have to be challenged at work anymore.

I probably will never write a romance novel again.

And I rejected Alpha Military Man for the third time. Who falls for these guys anyhow?

Using Facebook to Sharpen Writing Skills

Before I had a blog, I had Facebook. Strangely, Facebook helped me with my writing a great deal.

There are rules for writing in Facebook: conciseness is the number one rule. You might never have seen a conciseness rule written as such on Facebook, but you have seen the condensed version: tl;dr. Too long; didn't read. Messages have to be short and to the point.

Second, grammar and spelling. There's a lot of misspelling, all caps, no caps, and errant punctuation, but at the same time, people get ridiculed for it (unless they speak a foreign language, in which case all is forgiven.) If the misspelling or punctuation is humorous, it will become a joke, as is evidenced by this exchange in the pre-Internet system called PLATO:

F. Ortony: You can't win Wessing.
E. Wessing: How does one 'wess'?

The third rule is: Use your words wisely. One is less likely to tl;dr if one avoids repetition and uses more evocative words like action verbs, descriptive adjectives, and concise nouns.

The fourth rule is: make them care. Facebook can be overwhelming, and vague arguments and insults either don't interest people or get their attention in the wrong way. What gets attention the right way: Sound arguments, sharp humor, language that evokes the writer's emotions and leaves room for the others' emotions.

It doesn't hurt to insert all of these in regular writing as well. Poetry puts the most meaning in the least number of words; the writer can't get as descriptive as in a novel, but conciseness really matters in poetry. Grammar and spelling and logical setup benefit all forms, but especially prose. For those non-fiction writers, these skills are equally crucial.

And to think I can practice these skills every day while critiquing cat videos!

OMG Motivation

I've just finished with my spring semester grading and -- I'm having trouble motivating on my editing.
I start a chapter of one of the books, and so many things seem much more interesting -- Facebook. Instagram. My blog -- oh, wait. I'm in my blog, aren't I?
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Oh, sorry. I just checked Facebook again. Nothing happened. Isn't that always the case?

Why do people procrastinate? Sometimes they're afraid they're not up to the challenge. Sometimes they have very low attention spans. Sometimes they're bored -- ding ding ding!

Editing isn't sexy like writing is. In writing, I meet (and fall in love with) my characters, they talk to me, their actions and beliefs and feelings flesh out the direction of my outlined plot, I get to know them. I create a world that's more diverse (but perhaps no more tolerant) as the one I grew up in, one where a dying elderly woman can fall in love with a faun.
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I've checked Instagram twice and Facebook once. Just saying.

How to do a boring task like editing and do it well? Break it up into little pieces. Start it and promise yourself you'll quit if you haven't warmed up to it in ten minutes. PUT AWAY THE iPHONE.

Or maybe I just need a break. Where's my iPhone?