Seeking Information

My husband recently sent me a New Yorker article titled Suffering Souls: The Search for the Roots of Psychopathy because he knows I've been interested in this form of mental illness and its origins.

While we writers know now how to search for information regarding the projects we're working on — whether articles, essays, fictional characters, etc. — we should take the next step and as a matter of habit put out a call for information we need. The request could be simple, such as, "I'm looking for anyone with experience showing dogs in dog shows," or more specific, like "I'm working on a novel that takes place in Chicago in the late 1970s and want to include a scene at Wrigley Field, but I only went there a few times and don't remember much. Are any of you Cubs fans and if so, did you attend games at the stadium? What do you remember about those experience?"

The advantages to putting out a call for information are numerous:

• The array of networking sites now available allows us to reach a lot of friends and acquaintances quickly. Where before we might have had to email people individually or post "seeking information on the following subjects" on our websites and hope people happened upon the requests and responded, we can now shoot one email to a lot of people. A few of these networking options include Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and GoodReads. You can also create an author webpage with a corresponding bulletin board — perfect for posting information requests and connecting with your readers — through such services as WritersSpace.

• Humans love to help one another, especially if they know their expertise is sought and will be appreciated.

• When you draw in other people, they feel they have a stake in what you're doing and are likely to follow your progress, offer encouragement and form the beginning of an audience for the finished product.

• Why do all the work yourself in an isolated way when you can call others to your cause?

Here are a few more ideas for where you can post information requests:

• the print and/or online version of your local newspaper (or professional journal, hobby newsletter, etc.). Here's an example.

• the bulletin board of an organization that pertains to the type of information you seek. Here's an example.

• a forum visited by the age/gender/educational background of the people you think may have the experience you want and who may be intrigued by your inquiries.

Do you have more suggestions? Let me know.

Happy writing!

Writing Opps

The more I talk to people, the more I learn and the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. So I ask more questions and the cycle continues.

For example, here are a variety of writing opportunities — either craft or marketing related or both — contributed by writing friends in the past week alone:

Literary Discussion of International Fiction

Thriller writer David Corbett, Finding Nouf author Zoe Ferraris and My Half of the Sky author Jana McBurney-Lin will explore the cultures of El Salvador, Saudi Arabia and China through a "Reading Round the World" discussion of their writings at 1 p.m. Sat., Nov. 22, at the South San Francisco Public Library, 840 West Orange Ave., South San Francisco (an actual city south of the San Francisco).

Contest

Narrative Magazine, a prestigious online journal, has announced its fall fiction contest, in which the prizes for first, second and third place are $3,000, $1,500 and $750, respectively. The entry deadline for the submission of short stories, short shorts and novel excerpts is Nov. 30.

Networking

Women's National Book Association, established in 1917, is a "national organization of women and men who work with and value books," by which WNBA means it promotes reading and supports "the role of women in the community of books." For example, best-selling author Amy Tan was the featured speaker at last week's WNBA Award ceremony in San Francisco to honor Kathi Kamen Goldmark. She founded The Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of literary superstars like Stephen King and Dave Barry who get together to play music and raise money for projects related to books and reading.

While we authors are often heavily focused on getting our work published, we also need to realize that part of the equation is to keep expanding our future reading public so there will be people to buy and read our books. So take a look.

Happy writing!