Merry Christmas from a noob blogger – with video!

Posted: December 25, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: On parenting | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

Merry Christmas, gentle reader. Even if you’re not at all religious, it’s still a great time of year to cuddle your children (if they’ll let you) and spend some time with your nearest and dearest.

My son is three. I’m almost as excited to see his reaction on Christmas morning as he is about the idea of Santa coming. Christmas doesn’t get any better than this.

Mr Minchin said it best – with song. And epic hair!

Self-promotion on Twitter.

Posted: December 23, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: On social media | Tags: , , , | 15 Comments

There are a ton of good blog posts out there about how to promote yourself on Twitter. I read them out of interest—I don’t have anything to promote yet but one day I will: either a traditionally published book (a girl can dream!) or an indie book. So I know how to spot bad advice when I see it.

I tend to follow back on Twitter. For those of you that don’t participate in the twitosphere, that is when if someone follows you, you follow them back. That’s one of the ways people use to build their following. Some of them, the naughty sods, will then go on to unfollow you and hope you don’t notice. (I always notice; I check Just Unfollow a few times a week.)

By the way, Twitter and Facebook have a lot to answer for: the words “unfollow” and “unfriend” are two of them…

Anyway, yesterday a new writer followed me. I quickly checked their tweets to see if they were a real person, and then followed them back. And this morning when I was checking my timeline, I saw somewhere between ten and fifteen tweets by this person, commenting with link after to link to good reviews of their book. Not only that, but they’d put all the hashtags in #ALLCAPS so it was like being stabbed in the eye. I hadn’t even had my coffee yet!

I’m happy that they got good reviews. I am. But pick your favourites and just tweet those! Or maybe use something like Tweetdeck so you can schedule those posts over the space of a day, instead of all at once. I know marketing sites recommend tweeting good reviews, but show a little restraint!

So anyway, I unfollowed this person. First thing in the morning is too early for eye-stabbing.

But the real kicker was that after I did it, I saw that they’d also tweeted this helpful advice: “Writers, don’t be afraid to tweet good news about your book. Your followers want to know all about you!”

Maybe that’s true. But be a little classy about it. Nobody likes spammy, overt self-promotion.

Here endeth the lesson. 😉

Edit: If you don’t want the lesson to end here—if you’re all, no, we need more lesson!—then check out this blog post from Bad Redhead Media.

The secret writer.

Posted: December 23, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: On me, On social media, On writing | Tags: , , , , | 7 Comments
The secret writer: an artist's impression

The secret writer: an artist’s impression

I’ve always been a bit cagey about my writing. When I’m drafting something, I don’t let anyone read my work, mostly because all first drafts suck. At least, this is what other writers tell me, and I’m clinging to it as a basic fact of the universe. Like atoms and dark matter and the fact you can’t get a car park at the mall two days before Christmas.

At first I wouldn’t even talk to my loved ones about my novel, so sure was I the whole thing was going to be an abject failure—although I’m starting to get over that now. Several of my nearest and dearest have now read my (edited) manuscript and given me excellent feedback. And recently—because you should never trust your nearest and dearest to be honest with you, even though I think (hope!) mine were—I also sent it to a lovely girl named Blue, who I met on Twitter. She’s giving it a beta read for me. (If you have Twitter, you should follow her: @jordonchynna).

All this feedback—especially from people who don’t love you—is important for a healthy manuscript that doesn’t make you want to throw up into your mouth. But remember, I’m a secret writer. I only gave myself permission to call myself a writer after I’d finished my first manuscript. Before that I was just a girl with a weird, reclusive habit that her boyfriend was kind enough to support.

So what is the point of this ramble? When I created my blog and put up that first post, I went to link it on my personal Facebook page, so that all my friends could read it if they wanted to. It’s the sensible thing to do, right? I’ve read marketing blogs and stuff; it was reading Bad Redhead Media that got me onto Twitter in the first place. It’s all about the non-spammy promotion and cross-promotion, and blahblahblah.

So I dutifully pasted the link onto my Facebook status, and wrote some words to go with it … and then I fiddled with the privacy settings so that only those who already know I’ve been writing could see it. I chickened out. Feel free to make clucking chicken noises at me.

Ok, you can stop now…

Sharing that I’ve written a novel with all those old friends and colleagues feels a bit like the idea of a high school reunion: the only way I want to go to that badly decorated function hall and eat lukewarm buffet food is if I can hold my head high and  show everyone what a massive success I am. With my fancy car and diamonds on the souls of my shoes or whatever. Except that in this case I have no excuse because the people I’m friends with on Facebook are not the bitchy girls that picked on me in school.

It could be because I am an introvert, or it could just be that I’ve always been a secret writer and old habits die hard. I know I need to get over it. It’s on my list of things to do. Maybe as a new year’s resolution. At the end of 2013. Maybe.

Are you a secret writer or is your writing something you’re open about? And if you’re a secret writer but got over it, how did you do it?

First post! First post! …oh, shut up.

Posted: December 20, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: On me | Tags: , , , , | 13 Comments

My name is Cassandra Page, and this is my blog. I was contemplating giving it a truly awful pun name, like “Cassandra, Page Turner”, just because it makes me groan. But I’m not sure whether a blog name that reads like a joke out of a Christmas cracker is such a good idea, even if it is that time of year.

Anyway. I’m generally not very good at small talk (you noticed, huh?), so I’ll just launch straight in with the introductions, shall I? For any souls, lost on the internet, who happen to wander by.

I am a writer of young adult urban fantasy. I have one completed novel, called ISLA’S INHERITANCE. The main character, Isla, has the misfortune to live in the same, very beautiful city as I do: Canberra, the capital of Australia. I say misfortune, because when you’re seventeen, beauty isn’t generally your number one criterion for things you’d like in a city. As someone in their mid-thirties, I’m actually rather fond of the place, but I grew up here so I know how she feels.

Fortunately for Isla (it’s pronounced eye-la—blame the Scottish), she was lucky enough to have a writer who was looking out for her. I did my very best to make her life “interesting”, as per that old Chinese curse. I’m so generous. But don’t worry; I did give her a bestie and a boyfriend. I’m not totally mean.

Canberra: a very pretty city. We have lakes!

Canberra: a very pretty city. We have lakes!

ISLA’S INHERITANCE is currently doing the agent submission world tour. I’m also working on a sequel, which is as yet unnamed. It’s about seven-eighths done, though, which is very exciting.

When I’m not torturing my hapless imaginary friends, I am of course a public servant (I do live in Canberra, after all). I actually edit in my day job, which is great because I get to torture real people with words instead. But I have to be nice while I do it, because they are public servants too.

I’m also a single mum to the most charming, adorable and bright three-year-old boy in the world. Not that I’m biased or anything. He likes to swing on my computer chair while I’m trying to write—so, you know, he’s part of my creative process. Which is nice.

What do I envisage for this blog? I could give you some professional-sounding spiel, I suppose: writing about the process and the mechanics of writing, and my search for the Holy Grail of agented publication. All of which is kind of true. But the real truth is that I plan to make it up as I go along.

Don’t tell anybody.

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