My Experience With Memoirs And Creative Non-fiction

During my undergrad degree I had to take a range of English courses. One class I took was titled “creative non-fiction.” The professor of this course ran us through a series of exercises, gave us examples to read, and gave us assignments for writing. I continually failed miserably at the assignments. I just couldn’t wrap my head around what she was asking for. I got my lowest grade in an English course in that class because it just didn’t click.

Years later, while pursuing my Master’s degree, I had to take another creative non-fiction class. This time things started to make a bit more sense, and I wrote at least one piece that I can say I’m proud of. So what happened between one class and the other? Was it a different teacher, a different approach, personal growth? Looking back, I think it had a lot to do with where I was at as a writer and as a person.

Growing up I was shy, I was reserved, and I didn’t really want to tell people about my life and the troubles I had endured. When I was 20, sitting in that first creative non-fiction class, I was still shy and reserved and was not ready to share my personal story with the world. I was still writing childish things, and my creative non-fiction felt extremely childish. It also felt fake because I wasn’t truly opening up. I wasn’t imbuing my thoughts and feelings into the work. I was hiding behind poorly written prose and silly attempts to make my creative non-fiction funny instead of honest.

By the time I was pursuing my second degree, I was more open and more honest. I wrote a short piece about my relationship with my father and it actually touched some people. I gave it the emotion it deserved and didn’t hide the truth behind humor.

Recently, I’ve been writing more and more non-fiction from my own life. It feels like this is the right time to finally open up. The beauty of non-fiction is that it can be relatable to readers, and it can touch them through a variety of emotions.

I think creative non-fiction is a wonderful genre that every writer should explore. Just remember though, that if you’re going to start telling your own story you have to be ready to be honest, and to be open. If you’re not ready to tell your own story with all the truth and emotion it requires, give it a few years until it feels right.

Gabby & Chewie Comic Strip #7

There's no such thing as a restful night's sleep
when Gabby and Chewie are involved...

How To Kickstarter Pt. 3

Content is key. Yes the video is important, and the prizes are too, but what you put on your Kickstarter in both the original page content and in your updates is potentially the most important. Not everyone is going to watch your video, but they might skim the page. Not everything you put on the page is going to be read but people might look over your project updates. The content you put up has to showcase your project and the reasons why other people should get excited and get on board!

With our Kickstarter we began with something catchy:

Whit Clayborne accidentally dates a soul eater and unwittingly falls for a vampire - and it's only his first week demon hunting...

This single sentence tells you about the project and hopefully draws you in with interest. Saying something like "I wrote a book and you might like it." won't get you very many backers. Think of something eye catching, something different, what makes your project unique and interesting? 

Since we are promoting a novel, we used our content to explore a couple of different things.

We discussed the book in a section called “book summary.” While we didn’t describe the book in its entirety, we did try to list things that would interest potential backers.

We also talked about “us” (my co-author and I) because people want to connect with the individuals who made the product. The video can be used to do this as well, but we explored our background and our interest a little further in the written content.

We discussed the prizes and shared some graphics related to this topic. 

We also shared our stretch goals (if you make more than your initial goal amount what else will you be doing with backer’s funds?) and I tried to make these related to what we are doing but also interesting so people would be excited about reaching them.

Lastly, I shared where people could keep in touch with us and our future projects. Your connection with potential backers doesn’t end with Kickstarter. Let people connect with you across the Web and maybe they’ll buy future books/CDs/artwork – whatever you’re working on.

My first update was a video, my second was a link to the first chapter of the book, and my third were the cute bitstip comics I shared in a previous post on here. These were all employed to hopefully get new people interested in the project and to keep backers interested in what’s to come. 

Don’t use updates to tell people what you had for breakfast. These shouldn’t be a nuisance and should only be used to thank backers and to get backers excited. By making updates open to the public you can potentially hook new people but if you have content you only want your backers to see then make sure the update is not public. 

Ultimately, keep your content appealing both with the text you use and the variety of media available to you to promote your project.

Want to see our content in action? Check out our Kickstarter at:
 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2121709675/the-beginning-of-whit-a-laugh-out-loud-urban-fanta

By the Power of Bitstrips

I thought it would be nice to break up the monotony of the Kickstarter campaign and instead share something I've been working on to promote the book. If you're on Facebook or have a smart phone you may have seen the Bitstrip app. This is a program that allows you to create a character for yourself and your friends and to put them into one frame comics. I decided it would be cool to do a couple of these with Whit and his roommate/bestie Brooks from the Full of Whit series. Enjoy!

The deep bond and hilarious misadventures of Whit and Brooks continues in book one of our series "The Beginning of Whit" on Kickstarter now! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2121709675/the-beginning-of-whit-a-laugh-out-loud-urban-fanta