April Is Done

After insisting on Monday that I was blogging about Saving the Planet & Stuff until the very end of April, I am having to announced that today is the very end of April. We have a family event tomorrow with a seldom seen relative from the other side of the country, and I'll be at the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Conference on Saturday. Sunday will definitely be a day of rest.

When I'm back to blogging it will be May. I'll have conference news, and next month I'll have a lot to say about the reading I've been doing these last four or five weeks.

I'm off to enter conference parking garages into my GPS.

The Environmental Book Club

I'm writing about another adult book this month for the same reason I did a few weeks ago when I wrote about Due North. Do Not Resuscitate by Nicholas Ponticello is self-published, as is the eBook edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff, which I've been featuring here throughout April. Also, it's a very good self-published book. And, finally, it has a definite environmental aspect, and this is an environmental book club. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, as they say.

The Do Not Resuscitate Story

Jim Lorenzo Frost's daughter is pressuring him to have his mind downloaded onto a chip, something that can be done in the mid-twenty-first century world of the book. No one knows what to do with the download, but she's hopeful that will change some time in the future. Seventy-something Jim isn't enthusiastic about leaving anything of himself after he is done, kaput. This whole thing does inspire him to write his story, however.

His story, as he tells it, makes it clear that something big and dire has happened, something environmental. It's also clear that he had a part in bringing the world back from it. But how that happened is a bit of a mystery. He's not a scientist. He's not some kind of Bruce Willis character saving the day. He's kind of a slacker who falls into a messenger job after college, being sent here and there to pick up red coolers, an activity for which he receives a disturbing amount of money.

What Makes Do Not Resuscitate So Good

• First, this isn't a book with an obvious, unsubtle environmental lesson. The environmental aspects involve the setting and the book's world in which the main character functions.
• Second, voice. Jim has a great one.
• Third, there is a story here, one about an everyman kind of  guy who stumbles into the right place at the right time.
• There's a little mystery here about what is exactly going on, and that provides some nice narrative drive.

Soon after finishing this book, I was sitting in a coffeehouse, looking out the window facing the main street. A truck slowed down in front with a man behind a wheel and a child in the passenger seat. Between them? A red cooler! This weekend I passed some painters. Yeah. They had a red cooler. I'm going to be noticing red coolers for a while.

May Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar

I've noticed over the last few months that the Barnes & Noble chain seems to be upping the number of author events it sponsors. Almost half this month's appearances are at B&N stores.


Tues., May 3, Susan Hood, Fairfield Library, Fairfield  4:30 PM

Tues., May 3, Marty Kelley, Bank Square Books, Mystic 6:00 PM  

Sat., May 7, Anna Raff, R. J. Julia Booksellers, Madison  10:30 AM

 
Fri., May 13, Ida Siegal, Pequot Library, Southport 4:15 PM

Fri., May 13, Caragh O'Brien, Barnes & Noble, Manchester 6:00 PM

Fri., May 13, Jeanne Birdsall, Susan Hill Long, R. J. Julia Bookseller, Madison 5:00 PM 

Sat., May 14, Stephanie Robinson and Jessica Haight, Barnes & Noble, Milford 12:00 PM 

Sat., May 14, Sarita Rich, Barnes & Noble, North Haven 11:00 AM

Fri., May 20, Kimberly McCreight, Westport Library, Westport 4:00 PM

Fri., May 20, MarcyKate Connolly, Barnes & Noble, Milford 7:00 PM

Fri., May 20, Sean Fay Wolfe, Barnes & Noble, Westport 4:30 PM

Sat., May 21, Kimberly McCreight, Book Club Bookstore & More, Broad Brook 1:00 to 2:30 PM

Tues., May 31, Sara Hammel, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison 5:30 PM

Time Management Tuesday: Beginnings And Endings And The Change They Bring

I mentioned yesterday that I'm going to be staying on Saving the Planet & Stuff until the end of the month. As it turns out, the end of the month is only four days away. I'm getting kind of excited. On top of that, the Greg and Emma adult book revision that I started a few weeks ago is going way better than I expected, and that will be done the end of the month, too. Did I mention the end of the month is only four days away?

When the new month begins, I'll be starting a couple of new projects. The new month begins in just six days. I am rather excited about that, too.

I'm getting buzzy just anticipating an ending and beginning

Cannot Rerun Beginnings And Endings Too Often

 

In 2012 I first wrote about the significance of beginnings and endings for managing time. A portion of that post fits this week:

"We tend to get excited about our plans for "new" blocks of time. Oh, what we're going to do this Christmas season! NaNoWriMo! May Days! If we can perceive some upcoming time as something new, as something different, a change, it's far easier to believe that we can make a change in how we're going to behave in that new chunk of time than it is to believe we can just change what we're doing now in this ho-hum unit of time we've been living in.

If we think about the unit system I wrote about back in February and the research that suggests that people are productive for the first 45-minutes that they work, there may be some logic to our love of new beginnings. Experience has taught us that we're more productive when we start something new, and we like feeling productive. We like the surge of starting something new. I swear, we once got new living room furniture, and just that change led me to start a new plan to keep everyone from eating in the living room. That probably didn't even last 45-minutes, but I remember the rush I felt not because I had a new couch and two new chairs all at the same time, but because the new furniture changed something and I was going to do something different because of it."

Change is coming soon. And the prospect of change is a good thing.                                      

Humor And Mature Characters

I am sure some of you are thinking that with Earth Day over and the Earth Day Saving the Planet & Stuff promotion behind us, I will finally be off talking about STP&S. How little you know me. I planned to cover Saving the Planet for the month of April, and I will cover it for the month of April, if I have to finish on my hands and knees. I'm kind of strong on perseverance. Other things, not so much.

Books About YA

Over the years, I've seen books about children's books. It's not something I've made a study off, but have been aware of. I don't know if I've seen this type of thing in relation to adult books, but it may exist.

To be honest, I know about these directories/guides because I'm in a few of them. Well, no, the to-be-honest part is that I know I'm in a few of them because I ego-surf. I only do it every now and then, because who has time for that sort of thing? But the occasional ego surf can turn up some juicy stuff.

Saving the Planet & Stuff Made Two...Count 'em...Two Books

The original edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff was discussed in two of these books about books.

Thematic Guide to Young Adult Literature by Alice Trupe. (2006) Saving the Planet & Stuff was discussed in a chapter on Older People's Impact on Our Lives. STP&S is the story of Michael Racine's summer with Walter Marcello and Nora Blake, contemporaries of his grandparents, so I can see how it ended up in that section of the book.

Humor in Young Adult Literature: A Time to Laugh by Walter Hogan. (2005)  STP&S is included in a section on Employers and Landlords. Part of what Michael is doing with Walt and Nora is working for their environmental journal. Hogan says the office politics there are "fierce and often funny."

It's nice to be talked about. These books appear to be out-of-print, so it's nice to have been talked about once.

Now, seriously, how many of you are going to go right out and ego-surf to see if you can find something juicy about yourselves?

The End Of My Earth Day Celebration

Beginning of our task

So today I spent around 3 hours cleaning up one of our local trails as part of an Earth Day town-wide cleaning effort. We covered over 3 miles, round trip. Yes, that's really slow. But, remember, we were stopping to pick things up.

End of our task

We spent quite a bit of time around the parking lot at the trail access where I found a surprising number of small chardonnay boxes and bottles. I can only speculate what that was about. Just as I can only speculate about those two tires we had to haul off the trail and bring to the transfer station.

Another Earth Day Event

Because it is Earth Day weekend, my readers who are also Kindle people can get themselves a free copy of the Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook. Today is the last day of the three-day freebie promotion. You should have until midnight tonight to get your Kindle edition, though whether that is Eastern Time, Central Time, Martian Time, Future or Past Time, I cannot say. 

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? April 22 Edition

Goal 1. Adhere to Goals and Objectives. In spite of a family member visiting, which led to a sister road trip today and some stuff tomorrow, I did get some work done. That's what's known as approximating correct behavior.

Goal 3. Generate New Short Work/Programs. I believe I've found a new market for one of my essays. Haven't done anything with it yet.

Goal 4. Marketing Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook. This was the priority this week with three STP&-related blog posts. Once the post announcing that the eBook is free went up yesterday, I needed to do content marketing (see below) around that sister road trip I mentioned above. There will be more tweeting to do the next two days, as well as a few e-mails to go out.

Goal 5. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding. 

• Young Readers And eBooks post: Promoted to Google+, a Google+ community, and Twitter
• Time Management Tuesday post: Promoted to Facebook, Google+, Twitter
• STP&S Norwegian Publication post: Promoted to Facebook, Facebook communities, Google+, and Twitter.
• Saving the Planet & Stuff Free post: Promoted to Facebook, Facebook community, Google+, family, friends, Twitter, Goodreads. More groups and tweets for the next two days.
• Goodreads blog post: Republished yesterday's STP&S free post. 
• Submitted a middle grade novel to an agent.

Goal 6. Generate New Work. Spent some time on both the picture book manuscript and going over the revision of the adult version of Becoming Greg and Emma. I lined up a beta reader for that, too, even though I haven't had good luck with them in the past.

"Saving the Planet & Stuff" eBook Free On Kindle For Three Days

I've been writing about this off and on all month. Today I'm beginning my celebration of Earth Day, 2016, by offering the eBook edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff free for Kindle users. I'm celebrating for three-days, so the offer extends through Saturday, the 23rd.

This edition includes the original text with a new cover illustration by Eric Bloom, and, in the Bonus Material, the short story Three Weeks with Walt and Nora. It was written prior to the book and never published.

Some Reviewers' Thoughts

• "A new slant on ecological fiction." Booklist
• "Memorable, hilarious, and featuring a likable, unlikely hero." Kirkus Reviews
• "Gauthier incorporates spirited dialogue, wry asides from Michael and droll scenarios" Publishers Weekly

The above reviews refer to the original hardcover edition published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

And In Addition

In 2008, two years after it went out of print, the original edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff was included in the Book Links article The Text Generation: Fiction That Incorporates Digital Communication.

Last year, nine years after it went out of print, the original edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff was included on a reading list on the Scottish Book Trust's website.

And, of course, Gyldendal Unvervisning (Education) will be using an excerpt from Saving the Planet & Stuff later this year in a new textbook.

So Kindle users, here's your opportunity to add another volume to your e-reader for free. I love doing that, myself. 

Saving The Planet & Stuff Is Going To Norway

I am very happy to be able to announce that Gyldendal Undervisning (Education) (scroll down at the linked site) has purchased the rights to an excerpt from Saving the Planet & Stuff for a new textbook for Norwegian students studying English. Gyldendal Undervisning (Education) is the "leading Norwegian publisher of teaching material for all levels from preschool to upper-secondary school. "Hurray, Norway!

The request for rights from Gyldendal came out of the blue for a book that's ink- and-paper edition has been out of print for a while now. A family member once referred to my books to which I hold the rights as properties to be managed. I can republish, I can sell rights, etc.. The Gyldendal request was an opportunity to do some managing.

Managing feels good.


Oh, by the way, tomorrow the Kindle edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff will be free, for the first of three days. Those Norwegian kids will be reading part of Chapter 11. You Kindle readers can, too.

Time Management Tuesday: Manage Writing Time As If You're Training For A Race

Getting Started Managing Writing Time

Recently in one of my social media circles I saw some talk from writers about nonwriters who said they would write if they only had the time. Evidently, saying that to a writer doesn't go over well. Don't do that.

I obsessed about this issue, as I obsess about so many things. What compassionate and helpful suggestions would I offer to people who told me they would write, if only they had the time?  Then through Twitter I stumbled upon a blog post called Time Management Tips for Athletes and Gym Rats. The training plan described could just as easily be applied to writing, especially for people new to managing writing time.

Think Like An Athlete In Training

Flexible Training/Writing. Alter your training/writing schedule when you need to. That's situational time management. No, you do not have to write at the exact same time every day or every week or whatever you do. If something happens and you've lost your assigned writing time, just shift to another time for your work. The value in this? If you can't adapt to your new time situations, you tend to just give up because your "writing time" is gone.

Create Time. You don't create time by waving a magic wand and actually creating time. Before you start working, look at your calendar each week and actually work out how many hours you can use for writing. Yeah, that's sort of another way of saying "planning." But creating sounds more creative, doesn't it?

Prioritize. Usually when writers talk about prioritizing, they mean "make writing a priority." But in this case, we mean prioritize writing tasks. Go through the various things you need to do for a writing project--research, character development, outlining, if you're interested in outlining, prepping for writing group, I could go on and on--and determine which needs to be your top priority right now. That's what you'll work on first.

Be Realistic. Don't set yourself up for failure by believing you can spend more time writing than you can. If you can't be one of those writers who cranks out a book-length manuscript every three or four months, accept that and be the writer who cranks out a book in a year or two.

Be Open To New Experience. Or, In Other Words, Be A User

This next bit isn't part of the sports analogy I'm working on here, but I think it's important. Time Management Tips for Athletes and Gym Rats was posted at a site called The Pinkwell. The Pinkwell is some sort of women's clothing sales site that appears to have a specific demographic, the population that works out in gyms and runs triathalons, in fact. (Writers are more into bicycling, yoga, and martial arts, in my experience.)  Pinkwell is not a writing site or a business management site or an academic site, the kinds of places I usually find time management information. Pinkwell's time management post turned up in my Tweetdeck #timemanagement column because someone tweeted it with the hashtag #timemanagement.

I think of myself as a user. When I find ideas that I can relate to something going on in my life, I grab them and use them, wherever they come from. And that may be a time management technique that could be particularly useful for a new writer with little time.

Always be thinking about how you can make something work for you.

Young Readers And eBooks: How's That Working?

Earlier this month, I wrote about one of the benefits of eBook publishing. Digital books don't take up space in bookstores or warehouses and, presumably, will have a bigger window for finding a readership. Paper-and-ink books disappear in months, because they do take up space in bookstores and warehouses. Digital publishing looks attractive for that reason. It looks particularly attractive for republishing out-of-print books like Saving the Planet & Stuff. An eBook can remain available indefinitely no matter how well it sells. It can attract some sales, at any rate.

What About Digital Publishing And Children's Books?

About two and a half years ago, I took part in a New Media Day with the NESCBWI. The general feeling was that eBook publishing was coming in big time. We were told by a speaker in the morning that YA was the dominant child category in both self-publishing and eBooks because young kids were less likely to have e-readers and picture books can be more difficult to create digitally. I was part of an afternoon panel of authors who had republished out-of-print books. There was interest even though none of us were making much in the way of sales.

Children Aren't Reading eBooks. Middle-aged Women Are.

Evidently, there was a logical reason for what those of us who had republished our work ourselves as eBooks were experiencing. It wasn't just that children don't have e-readers and art work is hard to digitize. A study sponsored by Kobo, which publishes eBooks, "suggests that women represent 75% of the most active e-readers – defined as readers who spend at least 30 minutes a day using electronic books." What's more, a large percentage of those women are over 45. A 2015 UK study came up with similar findings.

In my personal experience, the young people I know (teens into thirties) read, but not eBooks. Middle aged women who are serious readers are the people I know who use e-readers. They want books fast, and they aren't interested in books as artifacts. Paper-and-ink books are just something to take care of.

What Does This Mean For Children's Authors?

It may be too soon to embrace eBooks for child readers. There just may not be child readers out there for eBooks now. I own the rights to four more of my books. I'm not rushing to republish them as eBooks.


Hey, doesn't this sound like a great time to remind my blog readers that Saving the Planet & Stuff will be free for Kindle users this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday? It will be a great opportunity for all you women readers of a certain age to get it. And if you're a Kindle user who is not a woman of a certain age, you're welcome to a copy, too.

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? April 11 Edition

Goal 1. Adhere to Goals and Objectives. This week actually went better.

Goal 3. Generate New Short Work/Programs. I made a submission! I wish I'd also...No. No. No negativity.

Goal 4. Marketing Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook. Four STP&S- or environmental-related blog posts. Did some minimal work on posts for next week. Also realized I could use some hashtags for Twitter marketing of the eBook being offered free for three days next week. That's also Content Marketing so...Multiplier!

Goal 5. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding.

• The Weekend Writer Theme & Climax post. Promoted to Google+, Google+ communities, and Twitter
• STP&S Charlotte's Library Review post. Promoted to Google+ and Twitter
• Gina Barecca Writing Secret No. 1 post. Promoted to Google+, Google+ communities, Twitter & sent to writers' group
• Self-publishing/Due North post. Promoted to Google+, community, Twitter, reviewed Due North at Goodreads.
• Environmental Book Club Roosevelt post. Promoted to Google+, Google+ communities, and Twitter
• Goodreads blog post  The Gina Barecca Writing Secret No. 1 post.
• Collecting twitter handles for STP&S freebook promotion Mulitiplier!
• Attended writers' group. I didn't read, myself, but got an idea for the picture book I'm working on.

Goal 6. Generate New Work. Spent some time on that picture book manuscript I just mentioned. I also made stops at two libraries to pick up picture books to research picture book world. Additionally did some work on the revision of the adult version of Becoming Greg and Emma.

The Environmental Book Club

A little over a year and a half ago, I covered The Camping Trip That Changed  America by Barb Rosenstock for The Environmental Book Club. The book deals with Theodore Roosevelt, considered to be our leading conservationist president, and John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club's, camping trip in Yosemite in 1903. Last month I stumbled upon There Must Be Something to Shoot Teddy Roosevelt's Boone and Crockett Club and the aristocratic tradition of American conservation by Ben Jackson at The Awl. According to Carter, Roosevelt's interest in conserving land began over his concern that big game in America was disappearing, and, to put it bluntly, he liked to hunt big game. Conserving land for game to live on served the needs of privileged hunters like himself.

Well, results are more important than motivation, I always say. Roosevelt set aside a lot of land for the public's use, and while it's certainly interesting to consider why he did it, it doesn't matter in the end.

The childlit connection? At the end of the article, Carter refers to the Roosevelt/Muir camping trip, which is the subject of Rosenstock's book. He says Roosevelt got to talking about his hunting exploits. Muir's response? "He asked Roosevelt if he had not yet gone beyond "the boyishness of killing things...Are you not getting far enough along to leave that off?" Roosevelt, looking over the campfire, had a moment's pause. Then he said, "Muir, I guess you are right.""

But was he? Read the article.

What Self-publishing May Be Good At

Why am I writing about Due North, an adult mystery by Melanie Jackson? Three reasons, people.

• It's self-published, as is the eBook edition of Saving the Planet & Stuff, which I am featuring here this month. (See how I just managed to mention Saving the Planet again?) From time to time, I try reading a self-pubbed book, in an attempt to provide a little support for authors doing what I've done myself.
• Due North is the best self-published book I've read to date. 
• And, finally, it's an excellent example of the importance of world-building in a realistic, nonfantasy/scifi story.

 

The Story

Due North is set in the remote Canadian town of McIntyre's Gulch. We're talking remote in a not- everybody-has-a-phone-or-even-a-radio-connection-to-the-outside-world remote. In a you-might-not- see-your-neighbors-for-a-few-days-during-a-snowstorm remote. In a there-are-only-two-church- services-a-month-when-a-person-of-the-cloth-comes-by remote. The red-headed residents of McIntyre's Gulch come in two varieties--McIntyres, who are related to one another, and "self-selected Joneses...transplants from the outside: refugees, outcasts, and sometimes actual outlaws." The McIntyres come by their red hair naturally. Some of the Joneses "owe a debt to L'Oreal and Clairol." Which I assume they must have to have flown in. I can't recall why the outsiders choose to go red, unless they're trying to blend in with the natives and thus not draw attention to themselves.Which they all have reasons to want to do.

This is a rough crowd choosing to live in a rough climate, because they need to get away from it all. A disturbance comes their very well-drawn world when a plane falls out of the sky. It's not so much the plane that's disturbing as what's in it. The McIntyres and the Joneses respond about the way you'd expect them to. And the owner of the plane's contents responds about the way you'd expect him to.

I have to say, it is often a chore to read self-published books, something I do to try to make myself feel as if I'm doing good. That was not the case with Due North at all. It was an enjoyable read.

The Traditional Publishing Problem

I can understand, though, why traditional publishers would have a problem with a book like this. It's described as being part of the Butterscotch Jones Mystery Series, though it's not really all that mysterious. It's also described as representing "a new genre of cozy thrillers." I don't know if thriller readers are looking for cozy. This book and its sequels are on the short side, too. In its paperback edition, Due North is only 123 pages. Some of the other books are even shorter. Maybe it would be better to call this a short, eccentric, caper story.

My point being that traditional publishers would probably have a problem fitting this book into a marketing niche. They wouldn't know how to sell it. Publishers are in the business of selling books. If they don't know how to sell one, it logically follows that they wouldn't see much point in publishing it.

What Self-publishing May Be Able To Do

When self-publishing works well, with good writing, editing, and production, it may be able to provide a home for books like Due North. I'm talking books that are square pegs that won't fit into round holes and can't be sold with a tried-and-true marketing plan that everyone's comfortable with. In this best of all possible self-publishing scenarios, the reading public would be offered more options, options they can't find in traditional publishing.

You'd need a self-pub reading market that knows these kind of quirky books exist, of course, and how to find them. I believe I stumbled upon Due North in my Twitter feed. Someone tweeted that the eBook was only 99 cents, so I took a chance on it. It was worth the gamble.

Time Management Tuesday: Sometimes You Have To Adapt

There's no Time Management Tuesday today, because I was at writers' group last night, Monday night being prime Time Management Tuesday blogging time. I did have a couple of TMT posts in mind for this week, but I didn't get far enough ahead with them to make them work for today.

But I am adaptable. So I am going to offer you a link to an article we discussed last night, Writing Secret No. 1 Is Keep Your Day Job by Gina Barreca. Barreca has written or edited or co-written sixteen books. She's been published in many major publications and received a lot of press. This is some of what she has to say about writing/publishing, annotated by moi:

• "About 17 people make enough money from writing to purchase both a coffee and a bagel every day." A bagel with cream cheese is $3.69 at Dunkin' Donuts. I am told that a cup of coffee there is $2.12. Let's say we're talking $5.70 a day. Multiply it by 365 days, and you come up with $2,080. That's real money for a lot of writers.
• "I still carry books to sell out of the trunk of my car. If you've ever met me, you know I'm not kidding." I've never done that. I should have. I'm not kidding.
• "Bookstores can only afford to keep a limited number of titles on their shelves and, except for classic or best selling authors, they only keep those titles for a few months at a time. What happens to books after that?" You don't want to know. It's like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie.
• "Writing and publishing are blood sports." This actually made me feel pretty good. Tough, in fact. I engage in blood sports. How cool is that? 

I came home pumped up!

"...A Good Story, With Lots Of Humor"

What you see above is a quote from a review at Charlotte's Library of  Saving the Planet & Stuff. It appeared just about a year ago. The above quote continues "and neither the book nor its characters are annoyingly didactic." This is hugely important to me. I so don't want to be didactic. And annoyingly didactic? That's my worst nightmare.

Well, one of them.

The Weekend Writer: Theme And Climax

Last month I did a Weekend Writer post on theme, directing you to material on the difference between subject and theme and theme being about meaning. 

Today I’m directing you to K.M. Weiland’s post What Is the Role of Theme in a Story’s Climax? at Helping Writers Become Authors. This is something I’ve never thought about. Not for a moment. I’m probably the only writer in the English-speaking world who didn’t get much from Robert McKee’s Story, which Weiland refers to. However, she raises some interesting and potentially helpful points.

• Theme makes a story more important than just what happens in it. 
• “If your theme is a question, then the climax is the answer.” Sometimes theme is a question. Is there such a thing as a just war? for instance. Is there any hope that we can do our jobs and connect with other human beings? (I’m thinking Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad  books with that one.) How should we live our lives? (Saving thePlanet & Stuff) If your theme is a question and you want to make the climax answer that, it seems as if that would be extremely helpful.
• It would be helpful because, Weiland says, “Creating a thematically sound climax involves much more than the climax itself. In order to create a climax that resonantly answers your story’s thematic question, you first have to build an entire story that asks the right question.”  Meaning, I think, that if you know your theme, and you have a climax in mind that will support that theme, you can build the rest of the story upon that. 

This is dependent, though, on knowing your theme. Many times I’ve read about writers who said they don’t know their themes until the book is done. I certainly didn’t give any thought to theme with my early books.

Theme can’t help you during the writing process, if you don’t know it at that point.

 

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? April 8th Edition

Goal 1. Adhere to Goals and Objectives. Oh, woe. And the rest of the month will be worse.

Goal 3. Generate New Short Work/Programs. I've got to give up hunting for markets and just do some submissions. I want to have masses of markets. Give it up, Gail, and go with what you've got. Oh. Except I have less than I thought I did. I was going to make a submission this morning and found that the publication closed to unsolicited submissions, choosing to publish work brought to them by "consulting editors." This kind of thing happens frequently. Publications will stop considering unsolicited submissions or just shut down altogether. When I get frustrated enough with trying to market short work, I go write another book.

Goal 4. Marketing Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook. A lot of time this week went to finalizing details for the Norwegian textbook excerpt. And I've been staying on task pretty well with this month's blog promotion

Goal 5. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding.

• Landforms list post--Promoted to Google+ and Twitter.
• TMT ego depletion post--Promoted to Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.
• Writer's Digest Self-published eBooks post--Promoted to Google+ and Google+communities and Twitter.
• Environmental Book Club clifi book club post--Promoted to Google+ and communities and Twitter.
• Goodreads post. Repub of the Writer's Digest self-published books post.
• Goodreads review of The Influencing Machine. 

Goal 6. Generate New Work. Spent some time on that picture book manuscript. I'll want to bring it to writers' group next week.

The Environmental Book Club

Dan Bloom at 2016 2016  reports that the first climate fiction book club began in February as part of a lead in to the 2016 Big Read in the St. Croix Valley in Minnesota. This definitely sounds like an adult club with the first two month’s titles being I’m With the Bears: Short Stories from a Damaged Planet, various authors, and Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver. April’s book is The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the area’s Big Read. A May book will be selected by individual area cli-fi book clubs. The Cli-Fi Book Club was created by ArtReach St. Croix.

Scroll down at the 2016 2016 post  to see material from Joe Follansbee  (whom I kind of know in a we’ve-interacted-at-Google+-sort-of way--he has great material there) on reading The Grapes of Wrath as climate fiction.