Schmoozing for Dummies (like me)

According to Merriam-Webster:

The definition of schmooze (intransitive verb)

: to converse informally : chat; also : to chat in a friendly and persuasive manner especially so as to gain favor, business, or connections

Schmooze. The word sounds sleazy, doesn't it? In an onomatopoeia kind of way.

Me? I’m a terrible schmoozer, too busy trying not to hyperventilate to dig down for the Charm and Wit. See, here’s the thing about effective schmoozing. It requires exhibiting ooh-gobs of the aforementioned C&W. And talking. To strangers.

Some writers are plenty chatty, but I’m not one of them. Well, okay, that's not entirely true. I’ll talk your ear off if we’re pals (just ask Debra Mayhew, my friend and roomie at last weekend's WIK conference), but I’m circumspect if we share only acquaintance status.  My problems with schmoozing include shyness (my friends would never believe it), claustrophobia in crowds (a terrible malady if one wants to work a room), and general self-consciousness (“Holy cow, what if I have broccoli stuck in my teeth?!”).

So what is a non-schmoozer to do? Well, in a perfect circumstance, someone like me can still give out and collect a respectable number of business cards. Unfortunately, those perfect situations are hard to come by. But! Fortunately for me, this past weekend’s SCBWI/WIK (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators/Writing and Illustrating for Kids) conference was such an environment.

When I walked into the dessert party on Friday night, my shield was up. Oh, I smiled and nodded—and wondered how soon I could escape. But I’d forgotten a key factor.  Writers are, as a rule, a warm and friendly crowd.  And, hey, I'm a writer! I can do warm and friendly.

So, before Saturday’s keynote speech and workshops and manuscript critiques, before any of those things designed to teach me about the business of writing had even begun, I learned something important: One doesn’t have to be a born schmoozer to schmooze. 

To be a successful schmoozer you need only three things:

1. A sincere interest in learning about others.
2. A genuine desire to listen.
3. **An authentic smile.

(**If your fear of The Schmooze has your smile resembling the red lips from the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" posters, circa 1975, you need more help than you'll find on any blog. Good luck!)

As it turns out, buttercup, those three things will get you through, even if you’re not a schmoozer. In fact, they are a great substitute for that elusive C&W. Maybe even better.

So, are you a born schmoozer, or do you require a "Schmoozing for Dummies" manual? Do you enjoy "The Schmooze" or do you avoid it like anthrax? If you are a schmoozer, do you have any tips?

See you next for Book Blurb Friday!

Lisa

Book Blurb #33: Dorian

TGIBBF!

Welcome again to Book Blurb Friday.  If you're a newbie, here's the scoop so you understand what follows.  Please click HERE or click the tab under the blog header for details of the Book Blurb Friday meme.  This is the shortened, abridged version:

Write a book jacket blurb (150 words or less) so enticing that potential readers would feel compelled to buy the book.

Below is this week's "book cover," generously offered for our creative blurbs by Lynn Obermoeller at Present Letters. My blurb follows.

Dorian

(150 words)

Young archaeologist Bree Lightfoot is thrilled to participate in the exploration of an ancient pueblo site in the Chihuahuan Desert, and to work with the famed anthropologist, Dr. Evan Lachmann.

Work progresses uneventfully until an ancient grave site is discovered. Seven skeletons are uncovered, their bones estimated to be a millennium old. But testing reveals a shock: one skeleton is dated at a mere 50 years.

Dubbed “Dorian Gray” by the media, the bones are a mystery. How did a 50-year-old skeleton become buried in a grave that has not seen the light of day for centuries?

Lachmann handpicks a small group of archaeologists, including Bree, to remain at the remote desert site and gather evidence. But one by one they meet a gory death, until only Lachmann and Bree remain to solve the mystery . . . if they can survive the machinations of a creative, motivated killer.

Thanks for a great photo, Lynn!

To be sure that others can read your blurb, please put your name and link in Mr. Linky, below, if you are participating in Book Blurb Friday. If you have no blurb to share, please do not install a link. It will be treated as spam and removed. Thanks.

Please scroll past the Linky widget to see our "book cover" for next week. 

Here is our "book cover" for next week's Book Blurb Friday #34, graciously provided by the very talented Becky Povich.

I'm fortunate to be attending the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) Southern Breeze writers' conference (WIK - Writing and Illustrating for Kids), this weekend in Birmingham, Alabama, so I'll be off-line until Sunday. I promise to read and comment on your book blurbs then. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Lisa

Award Thank You and Synopsis Whining

A huge "Thank you!" to Madeleine at Scribble and Edit for honoring me with the "One to Follow" award. I'm proud to display this. Thank you for thinking of me, Madeleine! I appreciate your generosity.

In addition to fall leaves and cooler temperatures, October brings the wonderful Southern Breeze . . . conference, that is. Southern Breeze is the regional chapter of SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) to which I belong, and this year I'm attending the conference in Birmingham, Alabama.

During the course of the conference I will receive a formal, face-to-face manuscript critique. The rules decree 19 printed pages or less, plus a one page synopsis. Formatting the first two chapters of my WIP was no problem. Writing the synopsis was akin to being stripped naked, dunked in honey, and dropped spread-eagle in the middle of a burgeoning fire ant colony. In short, sticky and painful.

Sticky -- because while I know where my story is headed, it hasn't actually arrived. Much will happen between now and the end of the book. Editing, rewriting, brainstorms, and the usual "ah-ha" moments will occur when a writer (okay, this writer) realizes she bought a bus ticket for Sheboygan and somehow landed on the Starship Enterprise. Any synopsis I write before completion of the book is really more of a, you know, suggestion.

Pain -- because one page isn't enough. If the synopsis could waterfall onto a second page, that would be great. Because the genre is paranormal/fantasy, character explanations are required. For instance, if I don't tell you that the Gircir is a mischievous, morphological creature from the universe Wyyk, you'll be lost.  But those explanations, no matter how brief, usurp valuable space I would rather use to inform about plot points. Cutting important information to make room for necessary explanation hurts. Ouch.

In the end, I wrote a three page synopsis, then edited with all the finesse of a chimp wielding a machete, chopping out whole scenes like so much jungle foliage until the three reduced to one. I suppose that is part of the challenge -- to write an engaging synopsis within limited parameters. My love affair with microfiction came in handy here. Those Monday tales and Friday blurbs are skill building tools that helped me pick and choose my words with care.

It mailed yesterday.  The next time I see those 20 pages they will be marked up by a critiquer's pen. A scary thing, that. No matter how confident a writer I am, putting my work out there for a stranger to pick apart is daunting. And of course, there is always the niggling fear that the suggestion will be made that my talents might be better suited to something else. To wit:

"You know, Lisa, that Golden Retriever over there can't stop wagging his tail at you. Have you considered dog walking as a vocation, since this whole writing thing obviously won't work out?"

Yes, yes, that's the extreme. (Dear God in heaven, that is the extreme, isn't it?) And I have to believe that whoever critiques my work will be more diplomatic than that. But I've heard stories, you know . . . scary, scary stories about formal, face-to-face critiques. Did you know the whole horror genre actually developed as the result of a formal critique?  (Okay, I'm making that up, but critiques are spooky, buttercup. That's all I'm saying.)

The truth? Submitting for publication is easy-breezy compared to a formal critique.

So much for my skill with microfiction. Ha! This is one of the longest posts in blog history. If you've read this far without your eyes glazing over, thank you.  I don't always whine. I'm usually a cheerful person. But that synopsis kicked my butt. I'm exhausted and cranky.

I need chocolate. Dark. Godiva. Truffles would be good.

See you for Friday blurbs!
Lisa

Crunchy Gravel and Other Things to Avoid

The Jan/Feb 2011 SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators) bulletin with the nifty T-Rex on the cover is zooming toward my mailbox and I realized I had yet to finish reading the Nov/Dec 2010 issue.  Ergo, I suited up for some uninterrupted reading, which means I brewed a strong, steaming cup of Starbucks instant coffee (best instant java ever, y'all) and donned my reading glasses.

SCBWI packed all kinds of must-know stuff about writing for kids into this magazine.  One article grabbed me: "The New Red-Haired Best Friend" by Joelle Anthony. In it, she offers a list of the 20 most overused things in middle grade and young adult fiction, things like "mean cheerleaders" and "tomboys who can't sew or cook."

We all have words, phrases or situations we tend to overuse, don't we? Mine is "the crunch of gravel" when a character is walking. My writers' group pointed out this overuse.  It is my go-to phrase when people are walking up a rural driveway. (If you read my story, "Fireflies", in the newest Writers' Journal you'll find it there, much to my horrified chagrin.) Henceforth, I will go to great lengths to prevent doing so, possibly rigging a self-destruct code on my laptop whenever the words "crunch" and "gravel" appear in the same sentence.

No matter our profession---writer, baker, or row boat salesman---our voice should be unique. That means avoiding the trite and blazing new ground. For me that apparently means laying concrete on every character's driveway lest they fall prey to the dreaded crunch of . . .well, you know . . .that word that means rock fragments or pebbles.

What are some of the most blatant bits of overuse you have encountered, either of your own making or in the media? What phrases or circumstances in novels/movies do you consider the most trite?

Off to concrete and tar new ground --
Lisa

Thanks, Welcome, News, Surprise, Woo-Hoo and First Time!

Hey, buttercup! I have a few things to share.  Here goes:

**THANK YOU! To each of my followers, and WELCOME! To my newest followers. My blog buddy Becky Povich started the trend of recognizing new joiners, and I'm jumping on the bandwagon.  As someone who embraces Southern hospitality (I am a Georgia girl, after all) I am frankly appalled that I didn't think of it myself. So to Jane, Katie, Laraine, Shakira, and Tammy I say welcome, thanks for finding me, reading my blog, and deciding to take up permanent residence on my sidebar. I'll look forward to learning more about you!

**THANK YOU! To all the folks who comment on my blog posts and Microfiction Monday offerings.  I do read every comment and truly appreciate the time you spend to visit my blog, read, and offer your thoughts. When I say "thanks", please be assured that I mean it sincerely.

**WOO-HOO! And congratulations to my writing Yoda, the scathingly brilliant Cathy C. Hall.  Cathy won a contest hosted by Southern Breeze SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators) in the category of  "Fiction for Middle Grade and Teen".  I'm thrilled for my friend! This is a great honor for Cathy and a testament to her soaring talent and general awesomeness.  Shoot on over to her blog to see what all the fuss is about.  Way to go, Cathy!

**NEWS! My short story Angel will be in the anthology book 50 Stories for Pakistan, published by Big Bad Media.  (Thanks to my blog buddy Ellie Garratt for the head's up on that call-out.) The book will be available soon in paperback and e-book, and the proceeds will go to the Red Cross for flood relief.  I'll be blogging more about this in a week or so after the book becomes available for purchase.

**SURPRISE! I love a surprise and that is what I received in my mailbox yesterday. The latest issue of Writer's Journal arrived and while thumbing through it this morning I encountered a familiar author. . .me! My short story, Dusk, which earned honorable mention in the 2009 Writer's Journal Romance Contest was published in this issue. I'm tickled my little fiction romance made it to print. Getting a free copy of the magazine was pretty nice, too.

**FIRST TIME!  In honor of the just-around-the-bend Thanksgiving holiday I'll be hosting my first ever blog contest. I'll announce the details at the beginning of November (it is only polite to let Halloween take center stage until the end of the October).  I'll do my best to make the contest prize(s) something to be thankful for, 'cuz, you know, Thanksgiving.

Whew! That was a lot of shouting out in bold italics. Be grateful I decided not to use the underline feature, too.

Thanks again to everyone who reads and comments. I appreciate the encouragement!

Til next time -
Lisa