"Some days I feel quite confident, but other days..." -Susannah Goodson

I'm borrowing Susannah's quote from our Facebook wall because it rings so true to the writing life. One of the universal truths of writing is that it is a solitary activity. No matter how involved you are with writing groups or online communities, it always comes down to you versus yourself. Stories are created in our brains and can only be shared with others when we find the right words to express them. Writing is a neverending search for the correct words to take abstract concepts--emotion, sensory input, philosophical musings--and make them understandable to a reader. The longer you're left alone with your words, the easier it becomes to lose confidence in your writing. The doubts creep in, the inner editor laughs at your attempts to string words together, and you start to wonder why you even bother to write. Add to that the anxiety of sending your words out into the world to an editor or agent and that second career as a burger flipper starts to look a lot more appealing.

We've all been there.

As the week winds to a close, I'd like to leave you with some horror writing resources. Also, don't forget that we're giving away a free Introductory Critique. Find the details in the first post of this series (linked below). Big thanks to RJ Cavender and Jane Ryder for their guest posts, and also to the many communities like shocklinesforum.yuku.com, horrorworld.org, merchantskeep.com who have carried on the conversation beyond this blog.

If you're looking for information on the nuts and bolts of horror writing, horror.org and fictionfactor.com house two of the internet's best compilations of horror-themed writing craft articles. I've selected a few to highlight here, but please browse their listings and find the ones that work best for your writing style and interest.

Susan Helen Gottfried is a woman with a healthy appreciation for loud music and larger than life characters. She's also a talented writer who has channeled her passion for heavy metal music into Trevor and Mitchell, front men of the band ShapeShifter. Set in the fictional town of Riverview (a kind of Anytown, USA) the rock 'n' roll lives of ShapeShifter and their fans are chronicled in the books THE DEMO TAPES (Years One and Two) and TREVOR'S SONG. After many positive comments, but no book deals, Susan decided to quit waiting on publishing trends and took the ShapeShifter gang to Smashwords (ebook) and Lulu (print) where their stories could finally reach an audience. Self-published authors are often perceived as not good enough for traditional publishing, but Susan defies that notion. Pulling double duty as both author/editor and publicist, Susan has seen the writing life from all sides, and her experience can help any author break out of obscurity.

In the last part of the How to Build Your Author's Platform series, I featured Dora Machado, a traditionally published author who came to platform building late in the game. For today's feature, I interviewed Georgia McBride, a YA author with a very different perspective. Georgia is not yet traditionally published, but she has an impressive social media presence, and is very active in both promoting her writing and mentoring and supporting up-and-coming authors. She also speaks to teens about writing, promoting within her target audience, and nurturing the next generation of writers. She has a background as a marketer and manager in the music industry, and has been a part of the launch of several teen and tween music brands including N'SYNC and Fall Out Boy. She's no stranger to promotion and branding, and her expertise can help both new and established authors refine their web presence.

TED: There are many ways to connect with potential readers and publishers. Which do you consider the most essential?

GM: You want both potential readers and publishers to recognize your name when the time comes. However, the attention span of a consumer (potential reader) is so short that spending lots of time trying to get their attention (and God forbid money) now, when there is no book/physical product to promote is like playing the boy who cried wolf. When you finally do have a book out they will be so tired of hearing about you, they may move right on past.

I've recently been bitten by the twitter bug and have found a wealth of writing-related resources there. From agents posting helpful advice, to detailed articles on writing craft, twitter has it all. What it also has is a rather steep learning curve, especially for people who weren't born with a computer mouse in hand. I spent most of my college years immersed in the precursors to today's social media sites (ISCA BBS, anyone?), but twitter threw me for a loop. Now that I've got my sea legs, I've put together a quick guide to the growing phenomenon of twitter chats: Why they matter, how to participate, and which ones are best for authors.

First, a quick overview of how to use twitter.

If you don't already have a twitter account, you will need to create one at twitter.com. Once you have an account, you can either read and post tweets from that site, or use one of the many third-party tools to access your information. I prefer tweetdeck, but hootsuite is also popular, as are many applications for mobile devices. Many tweets are labeled with the name of the software the author used, so use that as a guide and find the one that works best for you.

The most important (and frustrating) thing about twitter is that you are limited to 140 characters at a time. That includes spaces, hashtags, and anything else you might want to type. Hashtags are words or phrases preceded by the hash symbol - #. Hashtags act like a filter on twitter. You can click on a hashtag, or enter it into the search box, and only posts containing that hashtag will be displayed. This is how twitter chats work. Each chat has its own hashtag, and you need to know that tag--and to add that tag to your posts--to participate.

In part two of my series on Building an Author's Platform, I've asked a few authors to share their experiences. First up is Dora Machado, author of the Stonewiser series of award winning fantasy novels. Dora is a client of ours who has had great success with her debut novel, Stonewiser: The Heart of the Stone, and the sequels The Call of the Stone and The Lament of the Stone. All are published by Mermaid Press, a small press specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and historical novels. Like many authors, Dora poured all her energy and focus into achieving publication, and didn't give much thought to the need for a publicity platform. She was gracious enough to share her thoughts on publicity before and after the book deal.

What was your platform like before your first book was published? Did you have an online presence related to your writing?

I had no platform when my first book, Stonewiser: The Heart of the Stone was published. Zero. Zilch. Nothing. I'm embarrassed to say it, but it's true. I had been so busy writing that I had given little thought to the writing life away from the keyboard. In retrospect, I understand having an early platform may have helped me to publish earlier, but back then my mind was consumed by the idea of perfecting my manuscripts. I think writing can be such a demanding craft that sometimes it's hard to see beyond the end of a story.

Part two of this series is in the works, but I have so many great links and tips to share that I can't resist dropping in with a short post in between the meaty ones. Hopefully you've had a chance to read How to Build an Author's Platform: An Overview by now. If not, go ahead. I'll wait. All done?

The next thing I'd like to focus on is the art of crafting your pitch. It's all well and good to have an eye-catching web site and an engaging twitter presence, but what really matters is your ability to catch the interest of an agent or publisher.

In the past few weeks, there has been a surge of interest in the topic of building a platform. Agent and industry blogs are buzzing about the importance of having a platform, but few are pointing to resources for authors. To help fill the gap, I'm starting a short series on platform building. I'll begin with a round-up of helpful links, then share tips on maintaining your platform, and focus on a few authors who are doing it right.

First off, what is an author platform? In its simplest sense, a platform is a public presence. This means you have, at the very least, a web site and an account on any of the major social networking sites. It used to be that book publishers would handle a fair bit of a book's marketing and the author's publicity, but these days the publishers expect you to do the lion's share yourself. In fact, most expect you to have a presence before you approach them with your manuscript. Yes, you need to have a platform before you have a book to promote.

It's more than the numbers

It is fairly easy to create a Twitter account and amass hundreds of followers, but publishers don't care about the numbers.

When I heard that Leah Griesmann had been awarded the Steinbeck Fellowship, a residence fellowship for fiction authors, I immediately wanted to know more about her thoughts as an author than on the program itself. Fellowships are a fantastic way for aspiring authors to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads while allowing a dedicated block of time for writing. They also present a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in the writing process, and surround yourself with like-minded individuals. Fellowships aren't often mentioned outside an academic setting, so I wanted to dedicate a second blog post to the topic and hopefully inspire some of our readers to look into the possibility of a fellowship for their own writing. A quick internet search reveals several pages of writing fellowships available, and I encourage everyone to see if one out there might be a fit for your writing. Afterall, why would you pass up an opportunity to be paid to write before you have an agent or a book deal in hand? Here are Leah's thoughts on the Steinbeck Fellowship:

Everyone who knows me, or who reads this blog, knows I'm the poster child for National Novel Writing Month. I evangelize for NaNoWriMo in the off-season and am a bundle of nervous energy in the months leading up to the big November event. What many people don't know is that NaNoWriMo has a little sister, Script Frenzy. Realizing that there is a lot more to writing than fiction prose, the NaNo folks launched Script Frenzy in 2007, and over 3,000 writers have won the challenge since then. Unlike Nano, where the goal is words, Script Frenzy focuses on pages. Participants must create 100 pages of original Screenplay, stage play, TV show, short film, or graphic novel during the month of April. Frenziers are also allowed to have a partner-in-crime, and the page count goal is the same whether you're writing alone or with a partner.