Normandie Fischer, my wonderful cyber-friend, can wear many "hats", literally and figuratively, if she so chooses. She's a sailor of oceans, a sculptor, a writer, an editor and self-proclaimed Grammar Nazi, and the Executive Editor at Wayside Press (www.wayside-press.com). She's represented by Agent Terry Burns and her first novel Becalmed (working title) has recently received a contract. Visit Normandie's lovely website here: http://normandiefischer.com/. This is a recent post she wrote on a topic we writers are forced to address.
Tribes: Who Needs Them?
That fellow’s pointing at me. He’s a marketing guru (I’m sure), and he says that my next job is to make scads of social media friends. I must blog, tweet, speak, call, make myself heard somewhere, by someone. By enough someones that my book will sell. I’m supposed to have a tribe.
As an idea, a tribe sounds welcoming. But if your school years were anything like mine, tribes and posses meant exclusion for those on the outside looking in. Too bad the lonely couldn’t form their own clique, but outsiders are usually outside because they’re either too shy or too introverted, too tall or too fat, or, as I often felt, too bored by the trivia of it all.
Now, being on the outside isn’t always a bad thing. Isolation and loneliness often propel one to creativity. It forced me into books and art and writing and made me the person I am today.
Who, frankly, would much rather write another story than try to sell anything.
Have I told you about my friend, Ray? Ray worked in another department back when I was editing in the DC area. Evenings, I’d return to my apartment and sculpt big bodies to hang on walls — big, life-sized bodies using friends as models. One night a week, I taught aspiring artists what I’d learned in school and in the doing of my art. When Ray and his family came into my life, I’d just finished a pair – John and Sue — and moved on to the next sculpture, this time a torso only. Ray showed up at my office door and asked if I’d let him submit my work to a contest to be judged by none other than the sculpture curator of the National Gallery of Art. I shrugged, secretly delighted, especially when the pair won First Place. All because of Ray, who’d invited me into his tribe and done for me what I couldn’t do for myself.
I love people. I like to talk to people and make new friends, but I’m the one who’ll want to get to know you, not just your name or your place in the hierarchy. At the cocktail party, I don’t want to flit. I want conversation.
Here’s the deal. I don’t have a clue how to create a tribe or to beat my chest. But I’d like to know you. And if together we end up in a club together, it won’t be an exclusive one. You hear?
I’m in. How about you? Are you coming with me? I’ll help you up and you can help me?
(Perhaps there’s even a Ray out there for my writing who wants to show me how and pave the way.)
Father, you know the blessings I pray over Normandie. I also pray your divine protection over her and her family. As she delights in you, I pray the desires of her heart will be given to her in your abundance. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.