5 Pieces Of Advice I Would Give New Writers

I've been trying to think about some advice I might give to new writers just starting out. Really, you don't need to hear me talk about writing tips, editing, or finding a good publisher. There are tons, and I mean tons, of good articles online that deal with this.

What I would prefer to do is to give some advice about navigating the pitfalls of the social networking world.

This is what I would say:

1. Be careful what you say on Twitter. If you talk about another person, writer, publisher, agent--there is every chance they are going to see it. This goes doubly when talking about reviews. The reviewer is going to see it and so are all the other writers and readers. Its possible no one would see the review if you didn't mention it.

2. Not everyone is who they say they are online. This may seem obvious. (Or maybe not, I'm not that good at this even in Real Life.) Just because a person claims to be something, does not mean they are actually that. Go watch the movie Catfish. The woman in that movie pretended to be hundreds of people. In my case, I know someone pretending to be at least four other people. It's not pretty. Protect yourself and your work from the crazies.

3. Watch out for the Egos. In general, I find that NYT bestselling authors are gracious, nice, kind, and generous. It's the people who have done NOTHING to speak of that love to talk about how fabulous both they and their writing are. A good friend suggested that the best way to handle Twitter, Facebook, etc is to act like the people you admire and not get stuck down in the mud with the mass that is complaining or behaving badly.

4. Find some good people--in a critique group or a forum--and hold onto them. We all need friends out there and I do believe you can find really good friends online. I have. But if you find someone who a lot of people seem to un-friend in one capacity or another, run away. I've had this happen a lot. See comment number 2. Not everyone is who they say they are. And some people have a lot of screen names or pseudonyms. Anyone can create a website. Check track records. Ask people you trust. It is how people behave when no one is watching that counts. (I believe this to be true in REAL life too.)

I do believe it is possible to actually cool off with another person and not to say another bad word about them. Relationships come and go. Good people don't take to Twitter to trash one another.

5. Attend conferences. You learn SO much.

Thats all. Best to all of you. For the record, I spoke in vague terms on purpose. If you don't know who the person is who is pretending to be four other people, I am not going to illuminate it. I don't want to gossip. I just want to encourage everyone to be CAREFUL out there.