Okay, so all week I’ve been talking about your online author platform and how to make it not suck with some easy steps…. but I am about to burst your bubble.

So, prepare yourself.

Are you prepared? No… I’ll give you a second.

Okay, I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again. Heck every agent, author, editor, etc. out there has said it several times–you just need to listen.

Don’t do it if you don’t like it.

Seriously, writing is already a tough gig, and if you’re spending your WRITING time tweeting about crap you don’t care about or playing facebook games because that’s what you think you should be doing (It’s not… just let those crops rot.) then you are wasting your time.

Only do what you like. If you love blogging- BLOG, but if you hate it– DON’T BLOG. Seriously, that’s the beauty of the internet these days. With such a focus on user based content, people are savvy and they can tell when you don’t love what you’re doing.

Elana Johnson hates twitter. So, she doesn’t really use it. To her I say KUDOS girl… don’t do anything you don’t want to!

So, today in the comments, we’re going to do something a little different. I want you to tell me your LEAST favorite networking site, and why… rant on people!

All this week here at Totally The Bomb and Co. we’re talking about your online platform. You guys should have fancy avatars that represent you all over the internet by now, but the question you’re probably asking is–

What sites are THE sites you should be a part of?

Okay, let me say something first. The thing about social networking and online presence is that it has to be genuine. If you aren’t enjoying it, people will know, and they won’t be interested in what you have to say.

So, never join a site just because everyone else is, and for crying out loud, don’t try to be someone you’re not.

You know, what? That could stand to be repeated.

Don’t try to be someone you’re not.

If you’re not chatty, then twitter probably isn’t the place for you. If you get really annoyed when people fill up your friend stream (hehe I said friend stream) with milking fake cows and making pretend pasta, then you might want to avoid facebook, and if you’re uncomfortable with everyone knowing you’re drinking espresso at the local coffee house, then you might want to skip out on 4square or GoWalla.

Now, that being said… if you’re trying to build an online platform worth anything at all, there is one site you have to have.

Your personal website.

You must have a personal website. If you’re not into the blogging thing, that’s fine. Don’t blog. Just make it a website about you. If you’re not into the ‘connecting’ thing then don’t add any of that crap to your site. I don’t care if it’s one page somewhere out there on the internet with a picture of a cute cat and an email address you can be contacted at. I just want you to have some sort of presence on the internet somewhere.

I have a feeling I’m preaching to the choir here though, so let’s talk about what a really great website looks like.

It’s okay to use a template to build your web presence. You don’t have to pay for a fancy designer to come in and make you a custom design. Um, you’re an unpublished author–just how much extra cash do you plan to spend on this? So, just do a quick google search for free website templates and see what pops up. Chances are, you’ll find something fairly unique and slap it up there.

Heck, give blogging a try–you’re a writer, it just might be something you really enjoy doing.

This week at the Totally the Bomb headquarters (aka my couch), we’re talking online platform. The plan is, by Friday, you’ll all be savvy internet marketers kickin’ butt and taking names.

Okay, so maybe you’ll like be kickin’ booty and taking drink orders, but still… you should learn something.

Yesterday we picked out our avatars. That one rock star picture that you’re going to use in every possible way. Do you have yours chosen?

Yes? Good… now let’s put it to work for us.

Have you ever seen a comments section of a blog that looked like this?

You see the problem, right? All those people could have their super awesome avatars out by their name totally identifying them and branding them, but instead they are stuck with the generic default. Today, we’re going to solve this problem.

You’re getting a gravatar.

Oh, Gravatar, that sounds complicated, right?

Wrong. All a gravatar is, is a globally recognized avatar. They basically just do all the work of making sure your picture is uploaded to just about anywhere it isn’t, and it’s super easy. If you can sign up for facebook, you can sign up for a gravatar.

Now, go to the Gravatar Website and sign up. Upload your avatar when it asks for it, and you’re all set.

A lot of authors, agents, editors, etc. have gone into some serious detail about the importance of an online platform. For those of you not in the know, that’s basically what sorts of social network sites, blogs, etc. you have on the internet.

Think of the platform as a place for your little writing career to jump off of. The more people know who you are, the springier your platform is.

The thing is, with facebook, twitter, formspring, foursquare, and every other trendy worded network out there, it can be more than just a little overwhelming. (Then shouldn’t I have just said overwhelming?) So, we’re going to start simple.

With your Avatar.

What’s an Avatar? It’s the cute little picture in all your online profiles, and (don’t freak out or anything) it needs to be fabulous.

You probably knew that already, but here’s something you might not know yet:

You should use the same Avatar on every network, blog comment, website, whatever.

Invisible person in my fake audience says: What? You mean I can’t express my individuality with my avatar by uploading a thousand different cute pictures of baby animals and changing them out whenever I want?

That’s what I’m saying, invisible person. Your avatar has to be the exact same on twitter as it is on facebook as it is on goodreads as it is on myspace. How the heck are you going to build your brand and make yourself recognizable if you look different everywhere you go?

Your avatar is like your logo. Heck, for some of you– it is your logo.

So, your assignment today is to come up with a really great avatar, go through all your social network sites and blogs and make it the same.

Here are a few that stuck out when I went through the last few tweets in my stream:

Stick a link to your new avatar below in the comments. I’ll pick a few and talk about why they were great choices!

Last week I did an interview over at Elana Johnson’s blog, and one of her questions was how often have I wanted to give up. I was pretty honest and admitted that there have been more than one or two times along y little writerly journey that I’ve really just wanted to say screw it and give up.

But something stopped me. I love this writing thing, and let’s be real–nothing awesome ever happened to people who just gave up when things got hard.

So, the thing here is this: No one said getting published was going to be easy. In fact, pretty much everyone told me it would be one of the hardest things I ever did. And, when it gets a big difficult, I have to remember that.

And so should you.

**If you’re visiting from the lovely Elana Johnson’s Blog today. Well, Howdy! Thanks for Stopping by. But, if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about then click here to read her interview with me. Thanks Elana!**

Okay, so you all know how perplexed I am about the love triangle.

(For those of you that don’t want to click, it’s basically that I’m stressed we call it a triangle when it is, in fact, a point.)

So, I got to thinking about it, and there is a way to make a triangle of sorts. In fact, there is a way to make two triangles… a bow tie, if you will.

Here’s the kicker: You need four players instead of just three.

(As always, you can click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Now, in order for the story to work, we need some attraction.

There’s the logical one, and usually where thing start out. The girls are both attracted to the Jock Hottie, and he has eyes for the Popular Girl, but the Geeky Cutie is hopessly in love with the Nerd Chick, and has been for–oh pretty much ever.

That’s a pretty typical start to a young adult story, but then it gets all muddled, and that’s where the fun starts. Jocks start falling for nerds, popular girls see geeks in a whole new light, and that drives the nerdy chick to realize how jealous it makes her–which makes the geek fall for the popular girl.

And we, of course, get the Bow Tie Of Love:

What I love about YA stories is, even looking at this–I have no idea how things are going to end, and that makes me happy. That’s the thing about high school–you never know what hormones are going to make you do or say, and we as writers have to remember that when we’re in our characters heads!

All I really know is, I love a man in a  bow tie…

I was talking to a friend about writing stories the other day. You see, I’m working on something right now and it just didn’t feel like it had enough oomph. I knew there was something missing, I just couldn’t put my finger on it–then we got to talking about the layers of a story.

Well, that quickly turned into layered food, because–dude I make a lot of food analogies. And so, Plotza was created.

The thing about pizza plotza is, all the pieces are good by themselves. Cheese is gooey, who doesn’t love pepperoni or sausage, the dough is yumtastic, and then there’s the sauce–mmmm.

That’s how your story should be. When you take it apart and look at the different elements, they should all be good, but when you put them together, they better be fantastic.

We start with the dough- This where the story happens, it’s the characters.. it’s what everything else sits on top of. Without it, your pizza will fall apart, and that’s just messy.

Then you have the sauce- The thing about the sauce is, it’s in every part of the pizza, but it doesn’t overpower the whole thing. It’s there in the background, moving things along–making them yummy.

We can’t forget the cheese- Sure, you can have pizza without cheese, but dude–why would you want to? That’s what the romance is all about for me.

Without the toppings, it’s just Cheese Pizza- When you’re little, cheeze pizza is where it’s at. You want things simple, no need to over complicate them toppings and such, but we’re not writing early learner books here–we need some toppings to spice things up and make it more interesting. That’s just what the little mini conflicts throughout the story do.

So, how do you take your Plotza?

Today, I’m going to do something special*… I’m going to let you in on how I put together a blog post.

This isn’t the way I always do it, but this is what usually works for me. This is what gets comments and retweets on twitter. And, if we’re being completely honest, isn’t that what we’re all going for here with the whole blogging thing? For just a few people to read it and love the things we have to say?

• So, I start out with something random witty. It doesn’t have to be a whole lot of words, we’re talking like a sentence here. Maybe add in a bold word or an italicized one, just for coolness.

• Then comes the graphic. I either draw it myself, or find some really great free clip art on the internet somewhere and jazz it up with Picnik.

Admittedly some days my graphics are better than others. What I love about picnik is that you can make a plain ‘ol picture tie perfect into your blog post, and I’ve got to where I can navigate it all pretty fast and know what I’m doing with it. In the beginning it took me a while, but now it’s quick and easy. I’m all about the quick and easy.**

• Now we get to the meat of the blog post. And by meat, we’re not talking like five paragraphs. Two, maybe three, if I really have a point I want to make. But, keep it quick. People have like 99 blogs in their feed readers, if you want them to read yours, then keep it under 500 words.

Anonymous sideline person: Did she just say 500 words? But we’re WRITERS? How can we do that.

You can do it anonymous sideline person. I promise. This is a classic case of less is more.

• Then, you need to wrap it up. You can do this a couple of different ways. One of my favorite ways is with a question to my readers. This gives them something to DO in the comments. (Which makes them more likely to LEAVE comments.) Or if I’m feeling particularly avant garde, then I finish it off with a witticism, a thought to ponder, a tidbit of knowledge, you know–something dorky.

• When you feel like you’ve built a great blog post, go back and make it better by adding some formatting. Nothing fancy, just a few bullet points, the occasional highlighted word, etc. People like things that catch their eye–hook them up.

• And finally, before you hit that publish button PREVIEW it. It takes two seconds, and can save you from going out to RSS feeds looking all craptastic.

Because, dude… nobody likes a craptastic blog…

*Okay, by special I mean not really all THAT special. Shut up.

**There’s no joke here, I just wanted to make you think I had one.

I read a lot of books, but I read a WHOLE lot of young adult books, and I’ve noticed a few repeats here and there.

Here’s the thing… there are a lot of words in books, and there are a lot of different emotions, actions, looks, and such. So, I am cool with the repeats. Heck- I’ve kind of embraced some of the repeats and even tried to make them my own from time to time.*

• Blushing- Man oh man do those teenagers blush. Their cheeks flush, their faces burn, the blood rushes. We’re all about a good blush. I don’t know about you–but when I was a teenager, I was like the queen of the blush around the cute boys, so I am in for this one.
• Trembling Hands- Oh those crazy hands. They tremble, they shake, they sweat. Our hands do all sortsa stuff in YA, it’s like the hands are our key to the kiss scene emotions the main character is feeling.
• Washboard Abs- All the boys have a great six pack. I don’t know what they do to get that way, but damn boys of YA Land have a seriously amazing workout regimen.
• Eye Rolling- She rolled her eyes, Her eyes went to the heavens, Moms tell them not to roll their eyes. If ever there was an overused facial expression its this one. But, I have to admit that pretty much every time I’m in the presence of a teen, there’s some eye rolling going on.
• Butterflies- What is up with those fluttering tummies? I think they make an ointment for that, or um– maybe a bug spray?

*Notice how I said repeat several times in a row. That was me embracing them.

Have a Nice Day and Watch out for the Big Yellow Chicken.

Well, Well… I told you guys that you could ask me anything, and you did not disappoint!

Now I have piles and miles (See, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to say miles and miles or piles and piles so I just decided to do a combo thing–did it work? Yeah, I don’t really think so, either) of wondiferous questions to answer.

So, without further adue– I give you:

Your Questions: Answered!

So, my dear friend Chantal Kirkland over at Eternally Confused went a little nuts with the questions. She had several… but, since I love her (and because I didn’t limit it to just one question per)–I am going to answer them all.

Question: Which is your favorite: Desperado or Once Upon a Time in Mexico? Inquiring minds are starved to know.

Answer: What are those? Westerns? Man, I don’t watch WESTERNS. Let me put it this way… does it have a Disney Channel star in it? No, then I probably haven’t seen it.

Question: Was this really the right time to do “ask me anything”, or perhaps should you have done a ‘regular’ post? ROFL

Answer: Sheesh, lady–read the whole post. I said I’d answer them any way I wanted. I kid, I kid. Seriously, though–she’s kind of right that the question post is a bit of a cop out post because I get two blog posts out of it, and really I don’t have to come up with anything on my own. Maybe I shouldn’t do any more?

Question: (Yes, still from Chantal) Can I refer to a certain Mystery-Gang of meddling kids in my manuscript? Is that cheezy? Or generally accepted as an ok thing to do? Would you?

Answer: Well, I think this has been done a lot. The way I see it is, if they did it in Wayne’s World, then you probably shouldn’t do it in your book. I think it’s time for a quick Wayne’s World Clip, don’t you?

I used to head bang to that song so hard my neck hurt the next day. I’m sure that was super safe.

Well, now that we’ve got Chantal’s eleven million and seven questions out of the way (seriously, guys–Chantal is like my favorite human on the planet that isn’t four or my husband, so I can give her hell) I can move on to some of the other questions everyone asked me!

Aimee Bartis over at Sunny in the Middle wants to know:

Since we know StorySaurus is not extinct, is he/she all alone in the world? Is there a SS family? If so, what did they have for dinner last night?

Oh Aimee, that’s a good question. We all know how much I care for that little storysaurus, but fear not–every time another story is written, another storysaurus is born! (Wow, it’s even dorkier typed out than it was in my mind…) And, as far as his dinner? Well, Storysaurus is an herbivore, he eats the pages of our manuscripts that we delete… so don’t worry because he has plenty to munch on.

Lupin Bebop wants to know: Pirates or ninjas?

Oh I did ask that question here. (Complete with informative graphic, I might add.) But, I didn’t answer it myself! The truth is, as much as I’d like to think I was a sneaky ninja, I am more a pilfer and pillage kind of girl… so I’m all Pirate.

He also wants to know if I know the Muffin Man.

Why, yes. Yes, I know the Muffin Man. He lives down on Drury Lane. You need directions?

Jeanie wants to know:

Do Tim Burton movies scare you as much as they scare me? Oh, oh, and if you could have Johnny Depp for a day, would you take him if it was in the Mad Hatter costume only?

Why yes, yes they do scare that bajeezus out of me. I still have nightmares about the Nightmare before Christmas. And Holy Crapoly, reading this made me do a youtube search for that MAKING CHRISTMAS song, and I found this: (WARNING: IT IS SCARY!!!!)

YECH!!! That gave me the heeby jeebies. I could only watch about half of it. Now as far as Johnny Depp, but only in the Hatter Costume… well, I have a soft spot for the Mad Hatter… sooooo yeah I’d take it

And finally, Mendi wants to know what the worst piece of parenting advice I ever got was.

Pretty much everything that told me to try to get my kid on some sort of schedule. You see, I am the kind of person that doesn’t really do schedules–so trying to put my kid on one just made me even more stressed out. When I finally just chilled out and started playing it by ear, being a mommy was a just SO much easier.

Now, a few of you asked about the big yellow chicken. Sorry guys–that’s a secret.