A Writer's Day

In learning my way around marketing gadgets, gimmicks and gurus, I've toyed around with a lot of infographic makers and presentation templates. There's a learning curve to be sure, but I think in this digital, visual age we live in, it's going to become an important part of a writer's career. That is, communicating with fans visually.

Here is my presentation about a Writer's Day.

One reason infographics are a good marketing tool is that if you include your URL on them, and they go viral (people re-post them),they can lead people back to your website.

 If you want to see more infographics and steal them from my blog, please do so! Click here.

 Karla Akins is author of the best-selling Jacques Cartier (that went #1 on Amazon in its category), O Canada! Her Story and  Sacagawea. Her debut novel The Pastor's Wife Wears Biker Boots  is due out August 9, 2013. When she's not writing she dreams of riding her motorcycle through the Smoky Mountains.

Ballroom Writing

our first showcase 

Who knew that waltzing could change your writing?

I certainly hadn’t anticipated a connection. Not I, the Point A to Point B mom of four busy sons. My initial goal was to maneuver around a wedding reception dance floor with my husband. After passing that milestone we set a new goal: to pursue a new venture—ballroom dancing--together. The romance stemming from that pursuit certainly hasn’t hurt the effort.

But as we’ve learned ballroom figures the goal has softened. Slow down. Draw out the seconds. Refuse to rush to a destination on the floor. Savor the music falling not only on but across the beats. Why? There is deep value in every tiny movement. There is treasure in a slow unfolding. And particularly in waltz there is powerful and purposeful rise and fall through the drawn out turns.

So how does waltzing influence writing?

It creates joy in progress. Goals are good. They provide purpose, direction and motivation. But we are impatient to arrive. If we rush at our goals we severely diminish the delight we might have savored in the movement toward those good goals.

It creates beauty. How? Every moment is committed to arcing progress. The beauty comes from the curving arc through a point, not a bee line to the point, a pause, and then a rush to the next point. Rather than writing nothing for days, then writing for hours—as I have today—give yourself a bit of time to write even in the over full days. Those moments will likely be lovely.

It creates a weightlessness because movement is balanced and well timed. Rushing creates extraneous movement, which leads to a greater rush to regain lost time, and that rush throws the whole dance out of balance. But if you and I continue in unhurried movement, our writing—and even daily demands—can feel less weighty.

So if the ballroom serves as writing classroom what might one glean from, say, a foxtrot?