On “Going Commercial” – And Loving It.

I’ve just been invited by Amazon Canada to be an Amazon Influencer. This means that I get my own website at Amazon.ca to display all of my books (finally!) and I can recommend products to you there as well. As one reader put it, “You’re going commercial?”

You bet I am, but I’m not doing anything differently with my online presence than I have been for many years. It’s just that a large corporation finally noticed that what I have to say (of my own volition) to my followers may be useful to them. If that’s what some call “going commercial,” I say bring it on, bring it big or go home broke. I’m not doing anything I’m not proud of; in fact, I’m really excited about this, because I’d already been plugging books and products in my Instagram/ on Twitter and YouTube for two years without even realizing it. Now I’ll just be earning a small percentage per purchase when I point readers to books and products that I already use and love.

I’ve always been a writer for the love of writing, and if I can find ways to do what I’m passionate about every day, stick to my morals, and still make a decent living in the 21st century as an author? Then “going commercial” is something I’m darn proud of.

The best part is, this is one more way that I can prove to those of you who aspire to become authors that, yes, Virginia, we CAN be wealthy writers! Very few can make a living that will sustain a whole family simply by writing books (especially if you don’t have over ten published books out yet). We can, however, make a decent salary for ourselves as writers if we think outside the box and do more than just write books. We have to consider selling those books as ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks; selling the rights to adapt those books into films; speak about our lives as writers and get paid for that, and use social media to gain more interested readers, which gives us leverage in making business deals with corporations and organizations that we respect.

I started out as a poet, first published at age five, and decided to become a writer then and there. At the time, I didn’t realize I was headed into a profession that would pay me very little (even as a trained journalist) for coming up with fresh ideas and stories out of thin air. It didn’t make sense to me: why are writers so undervalued, when people who catch footballs and run with them earn $5-20M a year?

Reality sunk in quite quickly in my twenties when I began sending out story ideas to magazines and learned I’d be paid two to forty cents a word for my work ($1/word for the top magazines) and that the average author in Canada makes $6,000 a year. For some crazy reason, though, I kept on writing. I think the reason is called passion.

I’ve since made it my mission to be transparent with followers who tell me that they want to be authors, too. I try to remind you that it’s going to be challenging, but not impossible, to make a living doing this. I only started making a good profit at writing fiction two years ago. It started out as what I called “skate money” to buy my daughter skates, but soon my earnings became “vacation money,” and I was able to buy a $500 daybed for our backyard, several lovely vacations for our family and I paid many bills (or as my husband Bill likes to joke about it, “Pay Bill.”). While my book income continues to grow, I wouldn’t be able to handle the mortgage payments on my own, plus saving for University for our daughter, plus all of our yearly expenses, without the help of my spouse’s income. I can’t sustain my family in 2018 on my author earnings. Yet.

And that’s why I’m going commercial. Plus, I love online shopping. I love avoiding traffic and crowds and shopping in my luxurious grey robe. Now, when I’m not writing my next novel or working on getting the last one adapted into a movie, I get to buy dresses, purses and shoes and tell you what I think about them? Yes, please!

Check out my new Amazon Influencer Link and please use it whenever you want to buy one of my books or audio books. It will be much appreciated.

Thanks for taking this journey with me,
Heather

Shopping online is my second favourite way of doing it. I most love shopping at outdoor markets, buying flowers and hand-crafted decorations for our home.

Five Fast Tips for Writing Dialogue

Hey! This year, I’ve been doing weekly live Q&A videos Tuesdays at 2 on my Facebook Page, where you readers can interact and ask me questions (you can also throw out questions to me anytime on Twitter @hgracestewart and I’ll try to answer them within 24 hours). To help you narrow your questions to a topic, I’ve decided to offer mini-lectures whenever I can. Writing dialogue was my February 28th topic. You can watch the video (or videos, there are several archived at the top of the page) read the tips here, or both.

 

FIVE FAST TIPS FOR WRITING DIALOGUE

1. DON’T OVERTHINK IT. Just write, and let your thoughts flow. You can go back and edit later. The best dialogue is natural, not forced.
2. TALK IT OUT. Good dialogue reads like it would be spoken. So, after you have written at least a full page of dialogue, speak it out loud. You’ll find yourself editing lots once you realize just how many phrases don’t sound right when you speak them.
3. ACT IT OUT. Go on, no one is watching you, except maybe your pets. So, stand up and try to act out what you’ve written. Play both characters. Does your scene ring true to life? Does it flow naturally? The more you try acting out your dialogue, over time, the more you’ll find that writing dialogue becomes an easier task.
4. LOSE SOME WORDS, LOSE THE NAMES. When we speak to friends and family, we usually cut off a few words, like “went to the store,” instead of “I went to the store,” or if our spouse is calling us, we call back, “down in a sec!”  instead of “I will be there in a second.” Watch for this in the sentences you write so you can stay as true to real life speech as possible. You should also lose NAMES as much as possible in your speech. People don’t use eachother’s names very often in real speech. Have you ever thought about that? We usually only use names when we’re feeling very angry, very loving, or when we need to get a person’s attention and not very often in between.
5. AVOID ACCENTS. Dialects and accents, when done as part of a character’s entire speech, are confusing to readers and often break the flow of reading. Don’t try to chop and change English words to make someone sound Australian or German. Very few writers can do this well. Instead, drop in an actual French or Scottish or Japanese —whichever language you are trying to achieve—word or two into that person’s speech and italicize it. Be sure you fact-check several times and get it right. This is where good, professional, paid editors are vital.

Author Heather Grace Stewart with her poetry anthology CAGED during her Feb. 28, 2017 Live Q&A on Facebook. Heather will see you Tuesdays at 2 EST to discuss writing techniques and answer your questions.

I have a lot of writing to get done for my next novel, so I’m going to take a break from the social networking/videos, but I promise that I’ll be back discussing “How to find and develop your idea” on Tuesday, March 21st. I’ll be there at 2 EST, and it will be archived on the page, so if you miss it live, you can still  watch it later that day or that week. Of course, I’ll write a summary here for you, too.

Happy dialogue writing!
Love,
Heather

 

A Face and a Name

My new business cards from Moo.com are so much fun! Love how they and their lovely card holders (which come free with the cards) are sourced from paper from sustainable forests and recycled pulp. Even the four, red order reference cards aren’t wasted. Instead, they have fun sayings on them like “I like your shoes.” I passed one on to our daughter (“You’re delightful.” ) and will give the other three to readers who want them at my next book signing: Indigo Books, Pointe Claire, Quebec, Saturday, October 4th! I’ll also be the guest author reading & signing books at Pincourt Library, QC, on Tuesday, November 4th.

I’ve put a photo of myself on my business cards for the past two years and have noticed it’s made a big difference in people finding my web sites and buying my books. Some people forget names – so a biz card with just a name on it doesn’t always jog their memory about, “who the heck handed me this card again?”

Think about it for your business cards!

By the way, I love your shoes!

Heather 🙂

 

An Interview with Heather Grace Stewart

Leap, from the author of Where the Butterflies Go, is available for purchase at Lulu.com and Amazon stores worldwide. It’s also available on Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, and where all fine ebooks are sold. You can also order an autographed copy via Paypal. Contact the author at writer@hgrace.com. Half the proceeds from sales go to Hearts for Change – an Educational Project for orphaned children in Kenya.

Here’s an interview with the author from 2010:

Questions for a Poet, As Put to Seamus Heaney

Q: Some years ago, Seamus Heaney told an English journalist: “My notion was always that, if the poems were good, they would force their way through.” Is this now your experience?

HGS: Absolutely. Sometimes it comes through in a matter of minutes; other times, I write down a few lines, and the rest follows maybe a day or a few weeks later. But if it’s good, it all ends up on the page…and then typed into a document in my “Poetry in the works” file on my computer, and then, if I still like it after I’ve lived with it a couple weeks, I put it into a “Poetry to publish” file.

Q: Over the years, Heaney often quoted Keats’s observation, “If poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.” Is that just a young poet’s perspective?

HGS: I think so. It doesn’t always come naturally to me. Sometimes I just need to sit down and force myself to write. Stop listening to the whining voice; shut it out, and just “do it.”

Q: Does this mean that a poem essentially begins for you when you find a form?

HGS: A poem essentially begins for me when I’ve found my voice for it; the form takes shape with the voice.

Q: Is there a poetry time of day and a prose time of day?

HGS: Used to be I used my early mornings for poetry and at sunset, and prose anytime, but now that I am a mother, it’s when I have a notepad, pen, and that spare minute when I’m not being asked to wipe a bum or put Barbie’s head back on.

Q: I remember Anne Yeats saying that her father mumbled to himself when he started to write. Would the Stewart household know that a poem was coming on?

HGS: In my household my hubby can usually tell a poem (for kids or adults) is being born if he comes home at 6:30 p.m. and DD is beside me doing a puzzle; a grilled cheese or rice is burning on the stove, and I’m soaking wet; just out of the shower in a towel with a focused look on my face, typing at the computer, “Just a minute, honey I have this idea…” And he’s so cool about that. He’s used to me by now. Now my daughter’s getting in on it, too. She looks at my face sometimes and says, “Mommy, what? Do you have an idea? Tell me, tell me, what is it? ” I try hard to be in the moment with her as often as I can, but the kid is smart, she’s onto me…so I usually end up spilling, because I don’t like to talk down to her, and sometimes, just by explaining it to her, she helps me better formulate the idea. Just wait, you guys are going to love our kids poem, ‘Cats Can’t Cook!’

Q: Do you ever feel burdened by the sheer amount of work you know it will require to do justice to a particular inspiration?

HGS: All the time. All the time. Right now, I’m trying to write a poem that’s going to do justice to this amazing group of people I’ve met online, and become close to over a year and a bit. Some might guffaw that you can make special friendships online. I beg to differ. I don’t know how I’m going to write something that truly speaks to this experience I’ve had. I think maybe they’ll help me somehow, because a lot of them are writers…actually, I’ve dedicated LEAP in part to them.

Q: How can you tell a poem is finished?

When it stops shouting at me. 😉

Q: Do you keep a notebook of phrases and images for later use?

HGS: I have several notebooks, with penned poems/ ideas to type out later, and my images are saved on the computer by date.

Q: Does the poem come more quickly if there is a form? Would you be offended to be called a formalist?

HGS: I don’t think anyone would call me a formalist, but I definitely use techniques. Just not formally. Okay, seriously now, I’ve written haiku, tanka,
and Villanelles, using proper form. I just don’t like being weighed down by form. As Frank sang, I’ll do it my way 😉

Q: Do you have a preference for pararhymes and half rhymes over full rhymes?

HGS: I only use rhyme when it will only come to me that way, and even then, I hesitate to use it. I have to think about it first. I ask myself, is this form going to help the message or hinder it?

Q: Are you a poet for whom the sound the words make is crucial?

HGS: It’s all about sound for me. I love alliteration. Sometimes a poem starts out with words that sound great together; they just come to me and I have to write them down. For instance, I was walking to a Queen’s University class at 8 a.m. one rainy spring day in Kingston, and couldn’t get this line out of my head: ‘These are the days, quickly melting away,” (from the poem EQUINOX). The poem took off from there.

Q: Would you accept Eliot’s contention that the subject matter is simply a device to keep the reader distracted while the poem performs its real work subliminally?

HGS: To some extent. But I don’t do it on purpose. It must be subliminal. 😉

Q: What role does humor play in your poetry?

HGS: I don’t try to be funny. I don’t try to be anything. I just write the way I think, and I think people find my honesty refreshing and humorous.

Q: What are your thoughts about accessibility and obscurity in poetry?

HGS: Accessibility is probably my trademark: something I’m proud of and at the same time it’s my tragic flaw, if you will, because I’m so accessible, many journals wouldn’t be interested. I’ve managed to get several respected online journals interested, and printed ones in the UK, and even a Canadian textbook company sought me out. I’ve been published in international anthologies, including a very special one memorializing 911–Babylon Burning, edited by the great Canadian poet Todd Swift–and in a few print journals in Canada, but not the most “elite” ones–the ones that have been around almost 100 years. I’ve kind of given up trying because I don’t think it’s that important to me any more. I want to touch real people’s lives; not just the academics. I want to write something that might comfort a stay-at-home mom or a couple struggling with their love/ marriage or a depressed person looking for a glimmer of hope in a fast-paced world. I think the people I’m trying to reach are more likely to happen upon my poetry on the Net, not so much in the special collections rooms of their libraries. I know that people can understand my poetry without having to go look in some reference book (except for the odd references I make to items in the news, and even then I try not to be obscure) and that’s quite odd. But I can’t change the way I write. I guess I’m destined to be a Fridge Poet – the one that makes it to everyone’s fridge beside their kids’ finger paintings. And at the same time, to help a few children in third-world countries get the education they wouldn’t otherwise get. That’s just fine with me.

Q: And the avant-garde?

HGS: I’d love to be avant-garde. I’d love to be Avant anything. Ahead by a Century. That’s cool. I think some of my poems are there (for instance, my collection Leap features the concept of the Status Update as poetry), others, not so much, and I guess we’ll see which ones stand the test of time in 100 years. Well, no, unless I live to be 137, I guess I won’t see that. But whether they’re set in a classic or innovative style, as long as my words can touch a few people’s hearts along the way…for me, that’s really all that matters.

Thanks for reading! —Heather Grace Stewart

Another Five Star Review for Three Spaces!

THREE SPACES
5.0 out of 5 stars

A self-contained trilogy of insight in microcosm and macro-wisdom January 16, 2014
By Carl J Dubois

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The concept of “Three Spaces” is more genius than appears at first glance. Public Space and Personal Space are prelude and context for Cyberspace, and they set up beautifully the expression of the mixed emotions inspired by the new connectivity we find ourselves navigating in this changing world.

“Dances With My Daughter,” in the Personal Space section, reveals — perhaps more than anywhere else — the poet, the woman, the mother, the wife, the person — the author and thinker coming to terms with all of life’s demands, and the juggling act required by them, but mostly the liver of life who knows where the real stuff resides, and why we juggle.

It is instructive, accessible reflection from someone who finds the time to observe in a briefly detached way before rushing back into all of life’s entanglements, commitments and momentum. So wonderful too how often it feels communal, as if she is expressing what we feel but struggle to say.

Open it to any page and enjoy the simple wisdom and honest revelations of self from a soul whose writing feels like her balancing act — beauty found in the spaces between all of our appointments, and like gifts rather than some obligation we have to read it so we can move on to the next thing on our list. You will want to keep it close by, to see what gifts it reveals next time.