abby « Robin Writes

We’ve all heard how you need to be careful on social media and watch your privacy; we’ve all heard the stories about celebs who say the wrong thing at the wrong time. But I’ll bet you rarely consider how the things YOU post affect your reputation as a writer.

It’s all well and good to have separate pages or accounts for your personal posts and your career posts, but do you really think people can’t connect the dots?

Now, if you’re as politically incorrect as I am, you might not care too much if your opinions are being sent around the Internet. Sure, I censor myself sometimes, but then again, look at my genre: dystopia. Government collapse, survival, etc. I can get away with a lot, but I really don’t want a convoy of black SUVs showing up at my door.

It was bad enough when two guys in camo stopped by one day, supposedly looking for a fellow soldier, and when the lady who worked for the US government wanted to talk to me about certain groups in the area. But I digress . . .

If you write in a certain genre, people, readers, expect you to say and do certain things. If you say or do something out of character, that could be detrimental to your sales. If you say or do something that’s offensive to the majority of your readers, that could also affect sales. Ditto for misinformation.

A fan once mentioned, to my husband, that a Glock didn’t have a safety—as I’d said in Reduced; without missing a beat, my husband said, “Well, the book IS set in the future . . .” Nice save! Always remember, if you’re writing fiction, you don’t have to be 100% accurate, but you better be pretty close.

Another reader complained about a character in Recycled; this reader thought Jules should have done more for the women in the story. I responded to her email, and she kept it up for a few more exchanges and ended saying, “I’ve wasted enough time on this.”

Okey dokey then—I’m not a feminist by the strictest definition, and I gave her a truthful explanation. You can’t please everyone all the time . . .

But.

Remember how I’ve talked about your target reader? The ONE? That’s who you should focus on when you’re posting online, regardless of platform. Yeah, sure, you can get away with personal posts, but you might have to employ that internal censor now and again.

For instance, if you write for children, you probably wouldn’t want to get involved in a discussion on spanking, particularly if you believe that sparing the rod spoils the child. You don’t have to compromise your personal belief, just don’t discuss it online.

Ever heard the old adage, “Don’t discuss money, religion, or politics in polite company?” Yeah, that. Not that the Internet is very polite, but you get my drift.

And finally, once again, don’t make stupid grammar and spelling mistakes on the Internet. There are edit buttons, you can delete and try again, whatever. Just fix them. They make you look stupid. For some reason, readers enjoy well-written books—they often think authors are smart, smart enough to write an entire book!—and if you slip up, well, you could lose readers. And sales.

If you don’t know that you’re making mistakes, take a remedial course or ask a friend for help. Everyone makes mistakes, no one is perfect, but if you constantly say things like “noone” for “no one” and “had ran” instead of “had run,” you have a problem. Admit it and fix it.

Wait a minute—you aren’t an author? Freelancers, all of this can apply to you too, particularly the grammar and spelling errors. Do you think companies who hire you to write aren’t going to check social media? Think again.

If you’re constantly confusing “your” with “you’re” and mixing up all the varieties of “there” and capitalizing random words, this could be the reason why your career has either stalled or hasn’t taken off in the first place. Check your words before you post—it can make a real difference.

Well. We set off Saturday morning with high hopes—would this be “the one?”

Sadly, no.

The description was perfect: gently rolling, stock pond, electric, well, ten acres in pasture. The photos were nice, but a bit perplexing. So, anyway, we drove a couple hours and finally arrived.

Even the gravel road that led into the immediate area was wide, level, fairly smooth. A couple neighbors stopped by while we were talking there with our agent and were very nice, very helpful. But that was after . . .

See, the darn place wasn’t marked. Our agent finally reached the listing agent, who was really snippy and kept telling poor C that “there’s a sign, and just follow the fence and the grapevines!”

No sign, no grapevines; not really much of a fence except for maybe 20 feet—we did finally discover the rest of the fence posts. Still no grapevines, no sign.

I walked all the way to the bottom and back up again; no mean feat, considering most of the property was vertical. The mobile home that was supposed to have been removed? Oh, quite a lot of it was still there, scattered all over the place. I did see the well, and there was electric.

But I’m pretty sure the stock pond and 10 acres of pasture was on the next property over, the one I walked to at the bottom of the hill. Oh, and the online photos we saw? At least three of them were taken THREE MILES AWAY!

Guess we know why it’s been on the market for 413 days . . .

C left for another appointment, and we started home. Then we reconsidered—there was another property we’d been interested in and it was just 45 minutes away, so I called the listing agent. He was very helpful, gave us exact directions, told us to walk around and see what there was to see.

So we’re zipping along, and suddenly up pops a 35 mph sign—what? Damn, hit the brakes! Here was a town . . . sort of. It had a bank. And an auto repair place. A couple homes. It also had two really awesomely cool old stone buildings—right on the edge of the road. I mean, RIGHT THERE. Hence the sign . . .

We got to a gravel road, turned, and kept going a few more miles. I’m guessing that during high rains and in the winter, we might be staying put. Easily found the property; it was kind of a wedge-shaped lot, 25 acres like the first one we saw.

The description said there was a garage, but I knew from the photos that it was more like a shed; that’s okay, no surprises. This, too, had had a mobile home on it that had burned down—and it was fairly well cleaned up. A lot of yuccas and quite a few decorative rocks, landscaping, still remained. Oh, and a deck overlooking the lower part of the property.

And I do mean “lower.” Decently level for a bit, then it dropped. Yikes. And beggar’s lice—oh, my. I was covered from boot to hip; my laces looked like dreadlocks! The worst part, though, was the neighbor. Not that we met them, I’m sure they’re perfectly nice, but we could HEAR them. Mower, power tools, whatever, all the way to the middle of the property, or close to that, we could still hear them. No, thanks.

Back to the drawing board!

However.

In a couple weeks, we’re heading out about three hours—a little farther than we’d planned. There’s this one property, the one I mentioned a while back, with a cave. THIS time, I’m studying topo maps! Besides this one, which, I’ll admit, I immediately thought “this is IT!” when I first found it, there are several others. So it’ll be a two-day jaunt.

Can’t wait!