Yesterday, I paid a friend to shoot me. Fortunately, he used a camera.

Okay, so my photographer isn’t just a random friend. He happens to be Jaren Wilkey, the 2011 Photographer of the Year for the University Photographers’ Association of America. (Just in the 2011 UPAA print competition, six of his photos also won prizes/honorable mentions including two 1st place finishes.) I’ve seen him take lots of pictures before—and had him take some great pictures of my family—but after working with him yesterday, let me tell you, the man knows his stuff. I mean, just check me out (and these are just straight from the camera):

(okay, I photoshopped fixed my hair a little in this ^ one)

These are three of the just under 500 photos we shot in 90 minutes. I am now armed with reaction shots for any possible blog topic. For example, murderous rage:

I will say this a thousand times: if you have the money or the contacts, get a professional to shoot your author photos. (And the same thing goes a million times for your wedding photos. Still grumbling about mine.) There is no substitute for someone who understands how to really work a camera and use lighting and backgrounds and poses to make you look your best.

In case you’re wondering, taking your author photos is pretty cool and can be a lot of fun, but no, it doesn’t make you feel like the real deal (yet).

Any faves here? How do you want to do your author photos?

In case you missed it, photos by Jaren Wilkey

Over the month of January, I collected the stories I found on Twitter and in my feeds that were just too good to miss and put them together for you! Welcome to “Thinky Links“!

Author Janice Hardy offers some good advice on how to cut a scene without hurting your story

Kristen Lamb gives a really good example of how to start in medias res.

The Editors’ Blog looks at the use of coincidence in fiction, why it’s bad—and how to fix it.

I’ve been working hard on revising my Nano novel, so I’m really far behind on my feeds, but I did happen to see two good posts on EditTorrent recently, the kind that make me want to run around telling people “I’ve been vindicated” in an imaginary battle I was having with no one. The first covers showing versus telling in an interesting way (i.e. not writing 101), including that was is not always bad and is not the same thing as passive voice, and the role of telling in exposition.

The second is how to avoid that obnoxious “As you know, Bob” (or Alphonse) dialogue by slipping in backstory, characterization and other information through subtle cues. I LOVE working on this, and Alicia gives great examples!

Although I’m now with a traditional, regional publisher, I still find self-publishing very interesting. So for two different perspectives on that this month, Daniel J. Friedman takes a hard look at the numbers behind self publishing: what they make, what they’re worth, and what they’re selling. On the other hand, Joanna Penn interviewed Adam Croft on How To Sell 130,000 Books Without A Publisher. And for some perspective on both sides, Future Book looks at Why Amanda Hocking Switched, with some interesting notes on how her publishers are working for her.

And to close, here are a few of my favorite posts on this blog from Januaries past:

• A perennial favorite of mine, how to spot and avoid the most common (empty) gestures in writing
• Another one I still use extensively, creating and editing with a scene chart
• And a few from the series on tension, suspense and surprise:
  • Choosing whether plot elements should be set up strongly to create suspense, or should remain a surprise
  • One I should probably study a little more: creating suspense in Act I
  • What creates tension and suspense?

What’s the best writing/marketing/publishing advice you‘ve read lately?

Photo by Karola Riegler

Yes, I know, I’m ready for the new year, too. But I was curious: which writing series got the most visits here on my blog last year?

A quick dig through my analytics gave me the answer, and I wanted to share what I found with you! (Did you know I had more than ten series here? Yep, despite the fact that I haven’t made them into PDFs in forever and the Writing Guides page doesn’t have most of them.)

11. Dialogue
An overview of the mechanics and technique of writing good fictional dialogue.

10. Clues in non-mysteries
A new series in 2011, here we looked at how to balance foreshadowing—making sure it’s enough but not too much.

9. Character arcs
By request, we looked at character arcs in fiction, showing growth and change in our characters. I’ve actually used this series while I was preparing for Nano, and I have some new thoughts to bring to this series this year.

8. Bad advice
I have had (and currently have) some great critique partners—but I’ve also received my share of off-the-wall awful advice. Here’s how to tell the difference and take the bad in stride (more or less ).

7. Aspiring Author Websites
Setting up a website as an aspiring author: is it worth it? I think so! This series talks about how to do it, and what to put on your site. We’ll be seeing more of this with our new Marketing Mondays.

6. Emotion: it’s tough
Even when reading escapist fluff (which is okay!), people read to make emotional connections with characters. Fiction without emotion is flat—but emotion can be hard to write. Here are some ideas and tips in one of two series on this list from 2011. (They might be the only two series I wrote last year…)

5. Backstory
Another one I think about a lot still, and have some more posts in store this year. Backstory is vital, but it’s most interesting and useful to the author. In this series, I discuss why that is—and how to slip the backstory into the real story at the right place and in the right way.

4. Creating Sympathetic Characters
One of our first series, we looked at how to get readers to identify with your characters—even when they’re unlikeable.

3. Deep POV (x3)
Deep POV is the most popular narration mode today. Here’s how to get into your characters’ heads and write through their eyes.

To find ten unique series listed in here, I had to sift through more than ten lines of data. Deep POV was so popular that it had three pages in the top 20 or so series pages!

2. Tension, Suspense and Surprise (x3!)
Tension is vital in fiction. I’ve learned this the hard way and now I look for ways to get it in every scene, in every page. Here are some of the best ways I’ve found to do this.

1. Plot Thickens (x5!!)
A look at several methods of creating and structuring plots—the top series on this site for three years in a row!

I think this year I’ll try to work to get more of these top series compiled into PDFs.

What’s your favorite series? What subjects would you like covered, or re-covered this year?

Reaching goals on autopilot

I’m so excited for the new year! But obviously resolutions really aren’t my thing anymore. Goals, however, are a different story. I set goals all the time—and I want to try to achieve my goals on autopilot this year.

That doesn’t mean coasting through the year, or setting absurdly low goals so I can achieve them, though. I kind of beasted Nano 2011, and—especially the first week—I managed to do this without the world falling down around the ears. I’m the mom, of course, and I set the pace of the household. I do most of the housework. So how did I write 5000-6000 words a day (hours and hours of work) without running out of meals and clean underwear for the family?

Planning.

I was already used to one very useful phone alarm: a 15 minute warning to the time we need leave for Hayden’s school. So I decided to expand on that and use the phone alarm to remind me to do laundry (and switch it, fold it, and hand it off to the kids to put away), work with the kids to empty the dishwasher, read with the kids, start dinner and go to bed on time.

Dinners were also planned: I took the calendar for the month and planned out our meals. Since I knew I’d be working hard, I focused on quick meals, slow cooker meals, meals I’ve squirreled away in the freezer, and family favorites. Themed nights were also big helps. It took a couple hours to write it out, but then for the rest of the month, meal planning was handled and I could just look at the calendar to make out my shopping list.

Even blog posts (on four blogs!) were planned the month in advance. Topics and dates went on the calendar. I made up post drafts for each of those days with the topics all ready to go. I stockpiled topics and full posts. On weekends, I filled in the remaining posts and scheduled them to go.

It actually went really well—until I finished my novel. And then I let a lot of it fall apart. But all that advanced planning helped me to maintain a good routine, be productive and run the house better than I usually did.

So how can that apply to other goals?

Schedule them now.

If you want to write 1000 words a day, pick a time and put it in your schedule. (Doing it at the same time each day can help, too.) Unplug from the Internet. Schedule a time with the fewest kids distractions around. I’ve used a handy plugin that would block certain time-wasting websites during certain times of the day—another helper.

If you want to read a certain number of books next year, start collecting recommendations. Figure out whether you prefer reading on an eReader/mobile device (if you have one) or paper book. I like library books since they come with built-in deadlines—and, oh yeah, they’re free.

If you’re trying to research a project, make a list of resources, get them and give yourself a timeline to read them.

If you want to lose weight, schedule your exercise sessions with yourself. Make up healthy meal plans in advance. Buy and prepare healthy snacks.

We all know that goals should to be broken down into steps to be achievable. But what it really comes down to is to just do it, to quote Nike. Little reminders and baby steps help me.

What does it take to help you just do it?

Photo by Kent Wein

Wherein we review gloss over last year

So as last year drew to a close, I saw a lot of friends posting reviews of their 2011 Resolutions: accomplished this, failed that, oops forgot this, etc. I dug through my archives to see if I should do the same.

The answer was a resounding no. And not because I failed all my goals—but apparently I didn’t make any public resolutions last year. Which kind of explained why I couldn’t remember a single one.

(Except my goal to read 50 books, which I hit after a read-fest the first four days of last week.)

I like that I won’t be starting the new year with the baggage of “oh, I failed at such-and-such.” I love new beginnings—as a child, I actually had toys I never played with because I didn’t want to ruin their pristine state. (Sadly, they were not valuable collectors’ items. We’re talking a rock tumbler and a pottery wheel. Fun, right?)

2011 had some great highs and . . . some nots. I mired myself so badly in edits that I lost all joy in writing, and had to walk away for several months. And soon thereafter, we had a death in my family.

But on the other hand, I had my first book accepted by a publisher! I wrote another book and had so much fun! Hooray!

But I’m ready for a new start. A year without failure and baggage in it yet. A year that’s still mine for the making.

Now to figure out what we’ll make of it.

What do you think? How was your 2011? What do you want to make of 2012?