The ANWA Founder & Friends Blog

It's been Eleven Years!

I refer to the ANWA Founder & Friends Blog, which has been running for that length of time.

I'm Marsha Ward, the Founder of ANWA and the host of this blog. The original purpose, to illuminate ANWA and its authors, has been met. The additional goal to help other writers is now served in other, better ways. Therefore, it's time to end the blog and move onward to new adventures.

We've had many members on our Blog Team through the years. I want to acknowledge all these women and their wonderful blog posts, as well as our current Team. Included are two current Team Members who have been blogging along with me for the entire time: Kari Pike and Terri Wagner. Susan Cady Allred, Deb Graham, and Cindy R. Williams fill out the team. Thank you! Thank you all!

Now we're all moving on. We all have a lot to do in our lives as well as our writing careers, so I'm pretty sure the prick of losing this opportunity will not last long.

I will leave the blog up so that you can return and read your favorite posts from years gone by.

May you all have a wonderful New Year, full of joy and good cheer.


~Marsha Ward

I'm back!

by Marsha Ward  @MarshaWard marshaward.com

Month after month I've been forgetting my turn to post. That's a crying shame, because, yanno, the blog is named after me, sorta, kinda. I'm the founder of ANWA, and I blog with a few of my friends.

Maybe I'm burning out. I've been writing a white-hot streak of fiction for several months, and often find myself with no words of wisdom to share at the end of the day.

I've produced ten (10!!!) projects this year, including a brand new short story that was released last Friday. Scandalous: An Owen Family Story is my first venture into the exclusive program at Kindle called Select.

You can find Scandalous on Amazon for purchase, or read it free if you subscribe to KindleUnlimited.

Here's the blurb:
Young Julianna Owen didn’t think flirting with Parley Morgan at the barn raising would lead him to put his hands where they ought not to be. But worse yet, her sister discovers them and Parley abandons her, running off into the woods.
 
Julianna’s strict father has found where she is hiding, and her world on the Colorado frontier is crashing down around her ears. She thought love and romance was only about going on picnics and holding hands, not rough kisses and hurtful pawing.

Now the consequences of her actions might be beyond what she can bear.

In the 1860s Owen Family universe, Scandalous shines a light on teen hormones run amok during a trying time in the family’s story, as it ties up a loose thread from the novel, Spinster’s Folly.

This edition contains bonus material at the end, an excerpt from the Shenandoah Neighbors story, Bloodied Leather.
~~~

I've also been going-going-going this year and I have three more places to go before year's end: The ANWA Writers Conference, where I'm doing a two-hour presentation; an epic road trip to the Northwest, and the Mesa Book Festival. Maybe I can relax during the Christmas holiday?

That's not likely.

I'm just hanging on and hoping to be more consistent with my blogging turn here. So, I certainly will try to be here in two weeks.

Happy reading!

Anger and Rage From a Writer's Perspective

For those of you who don't know, I have a son with Down syndrome. I've been blogging about him  from the moment I discovered he'd have Trisomy 21. I've discussed Jacob-related miracles, stories from the three months he's spent in the hospital, his open-heart surgery, and numerous milestones that make up his life. As a result, I probably love Jacob more fiercely than my other children because I've had to fight so hard to keep him in our family.

In addition to blogging, Jacob has his own Instagram Account so I can share him with others also touched by people with disabilities. Not only can I share and rejoice with family and loved ones who had a hand in Jake's development, but there are people whose lives are similar to mine. Together, we rejoice in the triumphs, mourn the lows, and pray for miracles as needed.

Today, I experience my first troll on Jacob's account.

Last week Jacob's big sister had a pirate themed birthday party. So, I took a picture of Jake with a patch over his eye, looking fierce. The caption was, "Arrrr! I'm a pirate!" and posted it on his Instagram account along with a couple of Down syndrome related hashtags.

The troll, someone who doesn't follow my account, then proceeded to say something nasty about Jacob, and tag one of his friends to come look at Jake's picture.

Arrr! I'm a pirate!!

In that split second, when I realized what had happened, my blood boiled, ears burned, jaw pulsed, stomach roiled, and heart surged with adrenaline. My fists balled into fists and lips pursed into a tight line. I'm pretty sure I may have suppressed a growl too.  This was an honest-to-goodness fight-or-flight reflex, and Mamma Bear was ready to rumble.

I resisted the urge to hunt that troll to the ends of the earth and inflict unimaginable amounts of misery on them. How dare they say such mean and hurtful things about a child who cannot stand up for himself.  Instead, I blocked the troll and immediately made Jacob's Instagram private.

And then I spent the next several minutes, from a writer's perspective of course, examining that instantaneous reaction I'd experienced. In essence, I dissected my emotional reaction, noting each physical and emotional reaction I'd felt.

It's been decades since I've felt rage. I hope never to feel it again. But, should I have a character in one of my stories who needs to show and feel rage, I now have first hand documentation of what that emotion feels like.

Building My Writer's Platform

Unleashed! is written, and I'm submitting to Literary Agents.  However, as many of you know, this part of the process is slow going.

It can take upwards of a month or two or six before I'll get a response on my book, if I get one at all. So, in order to keep from going crazy, I'm building my writer's platform. Ugh.

This means, building and maintaining my website, working on my blog, building a mailing list, and increasing my reach on social media.  I don't have 11K followers on Twitter, like Brandon Mull.  I don't have thousands of people on my e-mail list. Technically, I don't even have one. Yet. But I do have almost five thousand followers on my Pinterest account. Does that account for something?
I hope so, because what I learned from building followers on Pinterest is this: The first thousand followers are the hardest. After that, the ball begins to pick up momentum on it's own. Any work a person puts in after that, only increases the momentum.

It took a month of hard work - hours upon hours pinning and following others until they started finding me on their own.  Now, I average a few hundred new followers per month, putting in minimal work. If only I can translate that effort into an e-mail list.

At the ANWA Northwest Writer's Retreat last Fall, Leah M. Berry presented her book, Story Marketing: How to Have Fun Marketing Your Fiction Book. I was fascinated, enthralled, and excited by all the ideas she presented. Marketing has always been the hardest part of running a business for me. But she presented it in a beautiful little package that sang to my introverted soul!

I bought the book then went home and drafted a list of ways I could use her ideas for my book. Now I have 110 blogs, and a year's worth of tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram ideas.

I know what you're thinking: "That's a lot of work!" But Seriously? If you're like me, you already spend hours in front of a computer editing, writing stories, and building entire new worlds. You've already done the work.  Why not use some of the material that didn't make it between the cover of your book to draw more potential buyers?

Right now, I'm in the throws of website creation and integrating the mailing list to the website.  I'll keep you posted on my progress.  Hopefully it will be good news!

Until Next time...