Tag Archives: Writers

The Thousand Dollar Physical

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

For the past five years I relied on individual health insurance plans with high deductibles. A minor, in-office surgical procedure cost about $2,300 including lab work. I paid all the cost out of my pocket. The annual physical was covered as preventative care except I asked a couple of questions and those were coded as diagnostic and resulted in billings that I paid. In 2017 it appeared that each question was worth about $130.

This year I am in a more generous healthcare insurance setting and was cautious about asking questions at the annual physical. The explanation of benefits arrived this afternoon with a cool $1,042 charge. Holy cow! I’m not responsible for paying that amount, but am blown away that just the physician component could be so costly. Lab fees haven’t been posted yet. We’re talking five minutes of rooming by a CNA and about twenty minutes of physician time in a regular clinic setting. No technology or specialty care.

When your doctor tells you what immunizations need updating and suggests you go to the drugstore or a drop in clinic because they charge about half of what the medical practice will bill, that’s uncomfortable.

For all who are self-employed, under-employed, or employed in a small company with no insurance, these stories can be game changers. Unfortunately this isn’t a new story unless you are one of the thousands who have decided to start your own business. About 30% of the U.S. workforce are self-employed or work for someone who is according to the Pew Institute.

Have leaders in the healthcare world lost connection to reality? What percent of annual after tax income should an individual, or family, be expected to commit to basic healthcare?

The integrated healthcare delivery systems that grew out of giant mergers and acquisitions of physician groups were supposed to provide improved quality with greater efficiency. I worked in that sector during the first decade of consolidation. The thousand dollar physical suggests the experiment didn’t work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revisionism III

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On a sunny, genuine Door County fall morning the house is filled with six writers on retreat. Outside trees are rustling in a definite breeze while inside the furnace and the dog provide the noise. It is a wonderful gift to be surrounded by writers and given two solid days to work.

Everyone in this group is in a committed relationship and our spouses or partners are supportive of our creative work. But here we can indulge in a twenty-minute discussion of word count without feeling kind of dorky. And we can be supportive of a writer who is so eager to finish a work that he started before six this morning. Sitting right in the middle of people making coffee, getting a little breakfast, watching an amazing sunrise, he kept his fingers on the keys and his eyes on the screen as the words flowed. Awesome.

There is a smooth energy under the quiet like the subtle chocolate hints in Door County Brewing’s Polka King Porter. One or two of those were consumed last night while watching The Packers beat the Bears. That’s rowdy behavior for a mature group of creative introverts.

I’ve put Inky aside this morning to concentrate on a final review of a short story bound for competition. In the arts rejection is the norm and one came in via email as I began working. A handful of successful writers I consider mentors have told me that they do over one hundred submissions a quarter for a handful of published stories. My counts are puny on that scale.

Today or tomorrow I’ll begin working my novel’s revision plan. Wednesday I shared the work’s graphic and background information produced in the first days of work to a person interested in starting his first novel. Being a part of Write On, Door County has opened the gates for these kind of discussions at the most unexpected times.

This is community. Six writers working on an unknown number of stories in the parts of a house made for this kind of gathering.

Book Award Season

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More than 900 people gathered April 16 for the 28th Annual Minnesota Book Awards. Writers, publishers, family, friends and lovers of books celebrated thirty-two authors whose work reached the finals of this prestigious competition.

While most of the winners were names well known in the book world, many of us hoped a writer friend would be the dark horse to take home one of this year’s eight awards. Regardless of results, they would always be a Minnesota Book Award Finalist, an affirmation of talent and skill earned by very few.

My friend Steve McEllistrem, author of The Devereaux Decision, now carries that status. Steve has been a host of KFAI’s Write On radio show for years and a wonderful sci fi writer.

Ames Sheldon, a member of my writing group, recently won the Independent Book Publishers Association’s 2016 Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal Award for Best New Voice in Fiction for her debut novel, Eleanor’s Wars. We have a gifted writing group with the current membership producing 17 published books and nine significant awards. We are thrilled for her success.

The High Cost of Flowers, my 2015 release, won two Midwest Book Awards—both Literary andContemporary Fiction.

The three of us chose a small publisher or self-publishing. Awards confirm that our works, rejected by

The High Cost of Flowers was the 2015 Midwest Book Awards winner in the Fiction and XXX Categories.

the larger publishing world, are quality. We earned affirmation, a little media coverage, a few speaking engagements.

But, there’s a whole lot of post-award publicity and book sales left on the table for writers like Steve, Ames and me. Without resources of a large publisher, there’s no expertise to develop plans in advance or manage promotion after winning a significant book award. The honors promote a publisher’s brand, a writer’s brand and sales. Nothing that should be squandered.

Most royalties are paid to a small number of authors. Self-published authors earn between nothing and one thousand dollars per year on a book which isn’t a lot different than with small publishers according to Amazon data. Being a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award or winner of the Midwest Book Award should help build valuable readership. Prizes open doors to meet readers through book clubs, libraries, and flowers-cover-200schools. But book clubs, libraries and schools first need to know about a quality book by an unknown writer.

My advice: if you are writing the best book ever in your genre, include how a publisher can support promoting an award in your decision of how the book is published. And if you do win relish the affirmation. It is priceless.

Mix and Match Social Media

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Kindle topping pile of books

Some writers spend half the year driving to bookstores, church fairs, and events to sell very few books at each. They don’t cover expenses; much less earn enough to give up their day jobs. Some are aggressive with their social media management. They’ve been told they need to be on all social media sites, that the more titles they publish the more people will recognize their brands, and the closer they will be to the tipping point of success. Published by small publishers, they have almost no marketing support and run on dreams and trust.

This is a turbulent time for creators of artistic content. Writers once made a living selling short stories to magazines. Now many markets charge submission fees. The number of self-published book titles in 2013 increased 17 percent over 2012 and 437 percent over 2008. Like the music industry, the large publishing houses assume less risk by signing fewer unknown authors. Those published have weeks for their books to meet ambitious sales targets or lose support.

Calumet Editions, my publisher, has built an e-world marketing strategy that includes a website and an aggressive Twitter presence. Through a traditional distributor, it uses a print on demand approach with minimal inventory. It is a new marketing model that has empty spaces that are different than those of the very traditional small press that published my first four books without social media or ebook strategies. Indie flowers-cover-200bookstores would like to have The High Cost of Flowers, a Midwest Book Awards winner, on their shelves, but don’t always have the hours needed to add another distributor to their business.

What makes sense for my work to be discovered by readers? Here’s what I discovered:

Women over 45 account for 58% of all books purchased. They rely on personal recommendations and like to visit bookstores. More Americans own tablets, but still almost 70 percent read traditional books. That distinction doesn’t vary much by demographic group. Young people are more likely to read ebooks than older people, but they’re also likely to read paperbacks.

As of 2014, 74% of online adults use social networking sites. Highest networking use is in the 18 and 49 age categories where over 82% use networking sites. At age 50 networking sites use drops to 65%. About 71% of online adults use Facebook. Only 28% use Twitter.

Doing fancy calculations that means about 15 out of every 100 online adults over 49, and 19 out of those between 19 and 49, might see a tweet. BI Intelligence found Twitter use leans toward males with 22% of online men tweeting and 15% of online women.

Follow me on FacebookWhere are the women I hope to reach? Some are not online. Those who are find their way to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Pinterest is leader in online shopping because of food sites. Facebook still claims top of the heap for other sales. The challenge for me is to pinpoint a social networking strategy to connect me with a primary demographic of women in their 30s through 60s.

I’ll share how I intend to augment my publisher’s strategy to connect with that group in my next blog.

 

 

The Writer’s Mind

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Every dozen years or so the story circulates about women who live together finding their 011monthly cycles beginning to align. In the past few months I’ve begun to think some similar lunar phenomena is pulling the annual physicals of writing friends into a similar pattern, regardless of gender.

We work in fiction and memoir with deep minds that push the thought of blood tests and stethoscopes into personal zones that should not be explored until necessary. All of us are of a certain age and know of bad news that has been given to good friends. And we have written about grim events that required researching information we should not be thinking about the night before a physical.  But we can’t help ourselves.

This wasn’t the way being a writer was supposed to be according to the likes of Hemingway and Parker. Not one of us smokes or drinks (to excess). None of us are promiscuous or live in lands where diseases could be contracted in the water. We just think too much.

That same amount of overthinking is wonderful when crafting a scene. For example, I once crawled the length of our house dragging a thick book tied to one ankle to be sure a scene was accurate. I’ve watched an odd exercise show over and over to capture the intonation of the leader. I’ve researched the Mayo website a health condition that might kill a character.

My life is absolutely normal. Today I did laundry, dusted a few rooms and went to a baseball game. I also drew pictures of the farmstead where my next novel takes place, verified the tree species that make up a windbreak and researched high blood pressure during pregnancy. Farms, tree stands and pregnancy won’t be discussed at the doctor’s office. High blood pressure remains on my mind tonight.

Midwest Book Award Seal

That worry isn’t groundless. My mother dealt with high blood pressure from her thirties until she died fifty years later. My brother took medication for high blood pressure in his early fifties and died before his sixtieth birthday. My father had wonderful, steady, low blood pressure.

Time to calm down. Think I’ll read something by Jennifer Weiner before bed.

 

What Writers Look Like (at AWP)

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Roughly fourteen thousand people connected to the writing world gather each year for an amazing conference organized by AWP. Big names, wannabes, teachers who never published a word, agents, publicists, publishers, editors, illustrators, students all sort themselves into attending five hundred sessions over three days and circle through the book fair, a gigantic assortment of booths hawking books, dreams, courses and services.

cynthia_kraack_headshotIf available sessions don’t meet your needs, people watching will fill the seventy-five minutes. Young and middle-age flesh in Lycra, baggy tunics and barely there shirts, tats, piercing and orthopedic shoes march up and down halls in pursuit of becoming better writers or associated professionals. Lots of black clothes, a good helping of interesting hats, messenger sacks, backpacks, miniscule purses and a few corporate bags file pass by. Individuals on the brink of completing graduate degree programs practice interview greetings in quiet hallways. Academic jobs are almost as scarce as generous advance payments. Writers whisper their way through paragraphs in preparation for the enviable opportunity of reading on the many stages of AWP official and offsite events.

The fifty-something sitting on the aisle could be a published bestseller, or a creative director at an ad agency with a manuscript in their home office and big dreams, or a community creative writing teacher hoping to re-invigorate lesson plans. The thin young woman with wonderful wild hair might be story editor for a literary publication, or marketing herself as a social media specialist, or a graduate student beginning the process of finding her place in this world. She might be working for a community college next year, or for an insurance company, or writing her first collection of poems while caring for her first child.

That’s what writers look like—teachers, fathers, the kid next door, the person sitting next to you on the bus. Everyone at AWP has a story to tell or skills to make that story better, more widely known, sent back for another revision. Pace yourselves these next few days at the conference. Sip that trendy Thai-style tea and find your next story’s character talking to a short, but handsome, man across the room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hostage’s Mother

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Diane Foley’s son was killed as a horrific political statement by extremists who would do the same to my child or yours. And even though he died a hero, telling the world what was happening in Syria and Iraq, the man so brutally treated was first Diane’s son, her boy. A man she raised to be strong, compassionate, loving. While coping so gracefully with their loss, Diane and John Foley became America’s faces of the pain of thousands of families whose lives have been damaged by the savagery of the Islamic State militants.

IMG_0505 As a family grieves for their loved one, the bigger world goes about living in the most ordinary way. While those grieving stand in church or at a graveside or in the sudden quiet of their home, other people are experiencing wonderful things or a day when nothing more difficult happens than toast burning at breakfast. Because of ISIS, the media brought Diane Foley’s grief to millions of homes where so many women, whose sons or daughters are trying to make a difference in a very difficult world, feel her loss.

Perhaps James Foley’s death is more than television news to me because we share the Marquette University Jesuit experience. And I am humbled by what he managed to contribute to the world as a writer. His death assures his life work will not be forgotten. Perhaps that is the best comfort for Diane Foley.

Blog Touring

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Writers are told to build their brand through social media. On top of finishing a book, they should create a website, start a blog, be present on Facebook, tweet multiple times each day. While losing popularity, blogs remain one place where writers can reveal their personality and talents. Blog tours help spread writers’ names through using our time and talents versus costing lots of money. I thank Carolyn Boehlke for inviting me to join this tour. You can find her at http://carolynkboehlke.weebly.com/blog. We share a publisher.

When blogs were sizzling, Technorati served as the place to find topbook pile 100 listings of blogs by subject matter. In June, Technorati stopped providing that information to the public and reconfigured as a slightly different business.

The top 100 list of writing-related blogs was my information shopping destination with new sites always replacing those that fell off in readers or shut down. Spending about a half hour today researching top blogs by subject matter produced lots of ads for services willing to build my blog traffic or apply analytics to a market. Access is now commercial and no longer free.

Business Week announced Technorati’s change in business model with a broad statement about blogging “… the inhabitants of the blogosphere started emptying out, lured away by the new crop of social media networks. Somewhere between the rise of Friendster and MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, people stopped updating their blogs and then abandoned them altogether en masse.” Many writers have adopted Tumblr preferring the microblogging approach.

In July Leaving Ashwood, my fourth speculative fiction novel, was leaving-ashwood-fb-200released by North Star Press. I’ve been blogging off and on since Minnesota Cold, my first novel, was released in 2009 and enjoy writing in a more immediate and informal format.

Because I’ve participated in other blogs about my writing process, I thought I’d talk about my blogging process. There are two ways my blogs develop. I keep a list of topics to provide prompts. That’s my planned self. The second approach relies on spontaneous entries sparked in places like airports, hospital rooms, or the back deck.

Once I decide to write on a topic I develop an opening and an ending. I spend time researching the topic to find links that might be of interest to a reader. Then I start writing. Often I’ll finish, print the entry, come back in an hour, read the text and revise. I read the text out loud once it is in WordPress. When the writing is finished, I find a graphic to lure a reader’s eye.

I’d like to hand you next to Ellen Shriner who produces WordSisters with Elizabeth di Grazia. They are two strong bloggers who work together to produce http://wordsisters.wordpress.com , a blog about their writing, families and the world in general. Ellen writes creative nonfiction and has received recognition for her work as marketing communications professional.

#MyWritingProcess

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A funny thing happens when your new book is released—suddenly there is no time to write. This Fourth of July weekend my family found other sources of entertainment and I divided my hours into segments for writing, book release activities and relaxation. Overall, the decision was right.

Ellen Shriner (wordsisters.wordpress.com) invited me to become part of the #MyWriting Process blog tour. Ellen is serious about writing. Her main work is creative nonfiction. Her professional work is in communications. She has taught writing. She and Elizabeth de Grazia explore a wide variety of topics.

If you’re interested in how other writers manage their creativity, or just curious about writers, click on #MyWritingProcess and enjoy reading.

My published books are speculative fiction. I also write contemporary fiction. Leaving Ashwood completed the Ashwood trilogy that follows a family for 25 years after a global economic collapse. My first novel, Minnesota Cold, won the 2009 NEMBA in Fiction. I have had a number of short stories published as well. In 2010 I completed a M.F.A. at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Program in Creative Writing.

What is my writing process? Here are today’s best answers to the four questions.

#1: What am I working on?   Aside from marketing Leaving Ashwood, I am revising a contemporary novel for an indie press. Unfortunately we don’t have a working title to share. I wish I were revising a second contemporary novel. When I am short on time, I write small inserts for that novel. Some of the text will remain backstory; some might be included in the next version.

At any time I am also producing new short stories. I usually have one new story in development. In the past year I assembled a submission calendar and send out a handful of stories each month. I am working on pulling together a short story collection. Last, I have a memoir project about my great-grandmother in an early research stage. Like many writers I teach and do presentations.

#2: How does my work differ from others of its genre? Most speculative fiction has a strong socio-political bend. The genre has also developed a taste for thriller pacing and action. My writing also explores relationship challenges in a future world—what makes a family, gender roles in times of change, the fate of vulnerable populations. The Ashwood trilogy is a family saga as well as all those things speculative fiction must be. I create strong female protagonists whose influence is often intellectual and emotional.

#3: Why do I write what I do? I write fiction because I love fiction. I’ve been a newspaper reporter, a corporate communications professional and a freelancer. While many writers talk about their work being cathartic, my writing may be a way for me to push through concerns about the future. Both of my contemporary novels are about losing a parent. Both were started while my parents were alive. My speculative fiction deals with surviving in a time of infrastructure collapse, about a global depression, about staying relevant regardless of age.

#4: How does your writing process work?  “Where do you get your ideas?” and “Do you write every day?” are the two most common questions I am asked. Truthfully, my stories are often spontaneous.

The second part of that question is thorny. For many years I wrote about six days a week. If nothing flowed, I would use Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way Morning Pages Journal and write three pages. Because of significant family events, that time has shrunk to about four mornings and a few afternoons including time working on my blog, marketing activities and true writing. My typical working times have always been early morning or late evening.

I wrote Minnesota Cold without any planning. I knew the main character and had written a short story about her life. Then I wrote until the book was done. Then I rewrote the book in a different voice. Then I got serious. It was a tremendously inefficient way to write a book. For the Ashwood trilogy I created the dramatic arc of the three books then wrote a few paragraphs for each book about the main character, the family and the world in which the story would happen. I outlined one of the books and found that didn’t work for me. I created a storyboard for the other two books with a few paragraphs about critical events or changes and found this approach clicked. I’ve used the storyboard technique for my second contemporary novel.

It is critical for me to be able to create a “What is this story about” page which will hopefully be distilled to a one sentence description later. A writing group of established writers continues to be important. Their input often drives significant rewriting or subtle changes.

When a large piece is complete I like to set it aside for a few months then read it from start to finish with a highlighter and colored paper flags nearby. From this read I draft questions, study characters, develop revision direction. I also assemble a set of fact sheets at this time to keep track of simple facts and plot points. Then I tackle rewriting. And tackle it again. And again. When I feel the project is nearly complete I ask a very small group of readers to read the manuscript. Then I rewrite.

The process is always a work in change. I learn with each project what worked or needs improvement.

Next Writer: Gary Lindberg has agreed to grab the baton and join the #MyWritingProcess blog tour.

I’ll use his own words to introduce Gary: “I am a recovering filmmaker with over 100 national and international awards, including writing and producing “That Was Then, This Is Now”, starring Morgan Freeman and Emilio Estevez, for Paramount. Since turning to writing novels, chiefly thrillers and historical fiction, I have published an unbroken string of four bestsellers, the first of which was The Shekinah Legacy, which was the #1 bestselling thriller on Amazon in 2012. In late 2012 I founded a publishing company called Calumet Editions, which has now published about a dozen talented authors in many genres—mostly fiction, but also non-fiction.”

Gary is a fascinating person…and writer. It’s hard to believe that this gentle soul manages to kill off so many characters in every thriller. His writing process description must be interesting.

Thanks for reading. Please come back to visit. My posts are always much shorter.

Two Priests, A Pregnant Woman and a Guy with a Big Hat

Cynthia Kraack Posted on by

It could have been a good joke. Did you hear the one about two priests, a pregnant woman and a guy in big hat? Wait for the punch line.

Another Tuesday morning at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. Two young priests in full-length cassocks stand with arms outstretched as a TSA agent runs a wand over their bodies. The pregnant woman in front of me is called aside to remove lotion bottles from her carry on bag. A tall man with a tall ten gallon cowboy hat asks the agents to hand carry his new purchase through security. The security folks agree.

My ticket has “TSA PRECHK” on the top. I don’t have to remove my shoes. I’ve flown enough this year on one airline to earn this small special dispensation. The pregnant woman isn’t happy with differential treatment and grumbles as she eases out of her heels. On the other side we redress, reshuffle the things we carry, check our tickets and id are easily available, and disperse into the early business morning crowd.

There was a moment when we were a spontaneous community. Then the common experience is over and we are merely strangers who have successfully navigated a small challenge at seven thirty in the morning.

For some reason I need to write about these four people. On the tram to the concourse I consider taking out my laptop. I pass a collection of tables and think about stopping. Seasoned traveler, I get to the gate area and claim an end seat. The words haven’t disappeared, the sensation is still fresh, nothing else has distracted my thoughts.

Perhaps this small group stands out because each person so clearly carried unique identifiers into the homogenized crowd of dark-suited business travelers. The young priests proclaimed their faith, the pregnant woman could be called a mother, Mr. Cowboy carried his self-identity high above most of us. In a busy world where blending in is a valued skill, they were exceptional. Somehow they’ll find their way, as one grouping, into some future writing.

As for my Green Bay Packer logo jacket, well the insignia is tastefully embroidered on the left chest. Not really noticeable unless someone is looking closely at strangers in a crowd.