The Vermont Faction*

Last Saturday I attended the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' program Designing and Booking School Visits. I'll be discussing that sometime soon. Because I have my priorities straight, I'm going to write about people I met there first.

I arrived late and was seated at the back of the room. During a break or lunch (I don't remember which. Perhaps I was overexcited.), I overheard some people at the table in front of me talking about where they were from. One of them said she was from the town next to the town where I spent most of my childhood. So I shoved my way onto their table, interrupted their conversation, and said, "I grew up in Sudbury!"

Well, it turns out that Marilyn Taylor McDowell has only lived at her present Vermont location for three years. This is important, because I was afraid she was someone I'd gone to high school with and had forgotten. In fact, at one point Marilyn lived in southern Connecticut, she knows Connecticut writers, and she is a former Tassy Walden winner. Yes, that Tassy Walden.

Additionally, she is the author of Carolina Harmony.

So we talked about changes in the town she now lives in, where I went to high school and worked at the Five and Ten. (You used to see books about girls working in Five and Ten cent stores. Not so much anymore, primarily since there aren't any.)

I left those poor people alone and went back to my seat. What happens next? The woman sitting next to me says, "I'm from Milton." That's Milton, Vermont, where I did a school appearance maybe six to eight years ago. This was Jean Taft, whose first book, Worm Weather, will be published in October. She also doesn't live in Vermont anymore, which is why I'm telling you where she used to live, whereas I didn't tell you where Marilyn does live. Because I'm making an effort to be discreet.

Anyway, Jean has French Canadian family. I have French Canadian family. Jean went to UVM. I went to UVM. Jean lived in the Living/Learning Center. I lived in the Living/Learning Center. Jean noticed that large numbers of out-of-state students skied. I noticed that large numbers of out-of-state students skied. Jean's book is being published by a division of Penguin Random House. My books were published by a division of Penguin PreRandom House.

Jean and I got along like a house on fire.

For maybe ten or fifteen minutes out of the whole day, I was part of my own little faction in the back of the room. Except that we didn't have a dissenting political agenda or anything. You could say we were unified by a shared knowledge of place(s).



*The "Allen faction" is the term used by Michael A. Bellesiles in Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier to describe "Ethan Allen and his adherents" in pre-Vermont New Hampshire Grants.

The Environmental Book Club

I had an interesting experience reading What Happens to Our Trash? by D. J. Ward with illustrations by Paul Meisel. I read parts of it aloud at dinner, which I was eating with a civil engineer. He approved the descriptions of the clay and plastic layers in the landfill. When I read, "The trash gets covered with dirt each day," he called out, "Daily cover!" When I read, "When a landfill becomes full, workers carefully cover it," he exclaimed, "Final cover!" (Those terms may date him. It's been a while since he's done design work for a landfill.) The book discusses landfills at some length.

In our part of New England, they're uncommon. We had them, and they ran out of space, just as Ward describes. And, yes, they're often turned into parks after they're closed, again as Ward says. Though we think the solar farm we saw along a bike trail last month may have started out as a landfill. It was peppered with pipes like the one to your left, that may have been there to deal with the methane Ward tells his readers about.

Believe it or not, two adults discussed this picture book over dinner. For instance, in other parts of the country, we theorized, where there is more open land, there are probably far more landfills, whereas we've had to move on to incinerators. And guess what? Ward writes about incinerators, too.

I think What Happens to Our Trash? would work well as a read-aloud with kids, so they can discuss how the book relates to their lives the way we did. Though maybe their read-aloud shouldn't be done at meal time.

A Little Darling Of A Book

I've read a few hunting-for-grandparent books over the years, beginning with Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It by Sundee Frazier. I believe Penelope Crumb by Shawn K. Stout is the fourth. Years ago, some blogging buddy made a joke about three books meaning you had a new genre on your hands.

The other three books all involved children of mixed race, and the search for a grandparent involved identity. Penelope Crumb is a white child, and her search for her grandfather involves identity, too. Her father died before her birth, and she's never known his father. She becomes interested when she notices something about her appearance. She has a big nose. When her mother tells her she looks like the grandfather she's never known, she decides to hunt him down.

Penelope has a strong, well-defined personality. The book is written with subtlety and wit, particularly when you consider that it is marketed to students in the lower grades. Subtlety and wit are not often seen in books written for those kids. What do I mean by subtlety? Penelope is a first-person narrator who has a host of complaints about her older brother. Even so, we readers can see that the Alien has moments of almost caring for his little sister.

Three particularly interesting points about this story:

• The nose. Penelope actually has a big nose, it's not just something she's concerned about as happens in many children's books. She's reasonably concerned about it, but at the same time, takes it in stride. Of course, she's in fourth grade, not eighth.
• Graveyard Dead. Penelope often refers to people who are "Graveyard Dead" versus, say, people you might think are dead (like her grandfather) but aren't. Her father, for instance, is Graveyard Dead. Her father being Graveyard Dead doesn't distress her. It's more a fact of life.
• Little Darling. Penelope is a well-loved child. Nonetheless, she has fantasies of loved ones saying things to her like, "Oh, little darling. Oh, my heart."  It's a fantasy that comes true.

Definitely my favorite hunting-for-grandparent book.

With illustrations by Valeria Docampo. 

Time Management Tuesday: Some Help From Academic Writing

The first article I read on Time Management back in 2012 was also the first time I saw material on what I call the unit system, managing time by breaking it into small units. Ellen Sussman was the author, and she referred to research done by Dorothy Duff Brown on using time while writing a graduate thesis. So you can understand why I stopped to look at Time Management for Writing  by Jan Allen at Graduate Mentor. Allen makes several points that could help all writers. A couple of them that we may not have addressed here:

• Create a checklist of  the steps you need to complete. Allen also suggests determining how much time you need for each step and creating a schedule. According to my varied reading, I suspect self-published writers who publish several books a year may do this. Plotting writers often commit time, sometimes months, even, to creating a plot before they start writing, which would certainly be the first item on their list. This organic writer has started doing formal character and setting development and scene lists before beginning to write a piece of fiction, simply to try to get at a real story idea. What does this have to do with managing writing time? The more you know about what you're going to write, the faster you can write. That's doing more with the time you have.
• Manage procrastination by having multiple projects you can work on. For traditional writers, this could simply mean really having more than one piece of writing you can shift back and forth between so you're managing to work on one writing goal or another. But this could also mean having multiple tasks within one project. For instance, if you have a scene list and you're procrastinating on working on the one that's next chronologically, you can jump ahead and work on another one. You are continuing to make some kind of progress toward goal. You are managing to keep your head in your project.

I'll take a look at more of what Allen suggests to graduate students to see if there's more help the academic world can offer us.

Since We Were Just Talking About Writng Conferences...

Yesterday as part of the Weekend Writer feature, I discussed getting the most from conferences, particularly writing conferences. This morning I heard about this list of multi-day (except for one) workshops/retreats/conferences at VonnaCarter.com. 

Isn't this what's known as perfect timing?

The Weekend Writer: How To Attend A Conference

You know that I'm into training. I train, therefore, I am. It's a rare writer who is going to make much progress without training. If, as a new, Weekend Writer, you're not actively studying writing in an academic program, you probably should look into finding training in some other way. Conferences and various types of workshops can do the trick. I've directed you to conference information in the past. Now I have some other thoughts to share on the subject.

In order to have the best experience at conferences, it helps if you approach them with a certain attitude.

Keep Your Expectations Realistic

Program quality varies at conferences, retreats, etc. just as the quality of everything else in life does. You can't expect every workshop offered at every conference to be the equivalent of a semester long course at the Iowa Writers Workshop. Or if you do, you're going to be very disappointed. You know how a cookbook usually has only a few really good recipes? Yeah, that's how a conference is. The trick is to try to get to some good conference recipes.

Many people believe program content isn't that significant. The real reason to go to a conference is the networking. Why, deals are made at conferences! Connections are made that lead to jobs! In writer world, conference goer fantasies involve meeting editors who ask you to submit a manuscript and then make an offer as soon as they read it. Or, at the very least, conferences are where you will meet the AWESOME agent who clicks with you and sells your manuscripts to top editors for the rest of your life and then gives the eulogy at your funeral.

Expectations like these are why you hear those stories about editors/agents being handed manuscripts under stall doors in ladies' rooms at conferences or being trapped in elevators with participants who do, indeed, pitch. Yes, that's where the term "elevator pitch" comes from. Once upon a time, it wasn't considered a classy thing to do.

In my humble opinion, don't ever go to a conference just for the networking. That's putting a big burden on you and your ability to interact with others. Go because there really are some programs that look as if they might be useful for you. Networking is what happens between sessions and during lunch. It's the gravy of your conference experience, not the meat and potatoes.

Once Again, Maintain The Mind Of A Beginner

You have a much better chance of finding, or perhaps I should say, accepting, the good bits at a conference, if you're not focused on how much you know. If you believe there's always something you can learn from any situation, in all likelihood you will. Remember the story of how Computer Guy attended a NESCBWI conference so he could hit a workshop on making digital books? It was a two-hour event, but he got his moment within five minutes. What he got from that workshop was the knowledge that he could make an eBook. To paraphrase him, it was huge.

Gotta get a bigger book.

More recently I was at a plotting workshop at a conference, about which I don't remember much now. But in the course of the workshop, we did a little writers' group exercise. I was part of another group at a writers' retreat maybe a year later. Those two program experiences led me to seek out a writers' group last year. A very odd bit I acquired at a content marketing workshop earlier this year? I noticed a woman taking notes in a nice journal. Now, taking notes at programs has been a problem for me. I bring a pad of paper, take my notes, then what do I do with them? I've been copying them over into my digital journal, but that's time consuming, and for the most part, they get lost in there. But I started using a book for workshop/conference notes and just leave them there. It's been fantastic. I don't spend any time copying over notes, and browsing them is easy.

I could give you a lengthy list of these odd little things I've picked up at conferences and workshops that have made a difference in my day-to-day work life. But I had to recognize that nothing that happened around me was too minor to be useful.

But The Money And People Issues

The expense involved with attending conferences and the discomfort introverts feel with unstructured people time add to conference pressure for many. Regular conference/retreat goers can go through a lot of money, sometimes a family's money, and they can become frustrated over not seeing a quick return on that investment. Extroverts love this stuff, but introverted personalities  can end up spending a lot of time at meals and evening "extras" that are tedious for them and, speaking from experience, not very productive because we just don't roll that way.

Looking for shorter events closer to home can help manage both those problems. One-day programs run by local colleges, museums, libraries, or professional organizations are less expensive than the ones that last a weekend or longer. They also won't require extensive travel and housing expenses. Bored to death at the pre-event coffee? Sleep in and skip it. A day program means you can head home at the end of the day, no motel rooms and meals to pay for, no hours watching others chat each other up.

For introverts attending multi-day events, you just don't have to go to everything. You can spend time in your room so you can decompress. I've brought yoga mats to retreats. Hell, I brought a DVD to a retreat to watch on my laptop in the evenings.

Be realistic, be open, manage your issues...There's your best chance at getting the most from a conference.

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? June 5th Edition

First off, I think I'm going to add a new goal for this year. I have mixed feelings about this. Goal work is a good thing. It's adapting to situations, to what is going on, right? But in this case, I feel I need to create a goal to meet work I've been doing that doesn't fit into my other goals. Should I just be working for those other goals? Am I creating a new goal to justify this nongoal work I've been doing this week and a few other weeks, too?

Well, we'll see.

Goal 1. Generate New Work, Mummy Book. Did well on this one this week. I finished a chapter from last week and got well into another one. Hopeful for next week.

Goal 2. Generate New Work, Short Pieces. I didn't actually generate anything new. Instead I started reading this material for market research.

Goal 5. Community Building. Some prep for my attendance at tomorrow's workshop on school visits.

Goal 7. The Newbie. General Marketing/Branding. Submitted two workshop proposals for next spring's NESCBWI Conference. Took part in yesterday's Twitter PitchMadness. Tomorrow's conference would fall under this goal, since it involves finding better ways to market my own workshops.

The worry with the new goal isn't so much that it's a new goal as that it's a goal about marketing. The danger for writers with marketing goals is that they can become black holes sucking up time and putting an end to producing new writing. On the other hand, marketing is a legitimate thing to be doing, so why not give it its own goal?

I just hope it's not going to be showing up a lot here on Fridays.

The Environmental Book Club

 Not Your Grandfather's Nature Writing: The New "Nature" Journals by Andrea J. Nolan at Fiction Writers Review deals with contemporary nature writing in general. Something  jumped out at me relating to environmental fiction.

"But then how do you define environmental, or place-based, fiction?" First, defining environmental fiction has been an issue here at the Environmental Book Club. But the answer to Nolan's particular version of the question appears to be there in the question. It's place-based fiction. It's fiction that's strong fictional element (character, plot, voice, setting, point of view) is setting.

This makes sense to me, especially when you consider that setting includes time as well as, well, place. Futuristic post-environmental disaster worlds like you see in The Uglies series are about setting. A big part of the reason Carl Hiaason's books are considered environmental is the strong sense of place that is created with his Florida settings. What kept The Carbon Diaries 2015 from being just another whiney teenage story was the...wait for it...setting.

Nolan suggests that "we should use John Gardner’s definition of great fiction as our benchmark. He said that the hallmark of successful writing is the creation of  “a vivid, continuous dream.”" That dream could be the experience I look for in an environmental book. Setting is a a big part of that continuous "dream" experience.

Time Management Tuesday: A Change In Process During May Days

Another May has come and gone, and so has  May Days, what I call a set-aside time, meaning it's a unit of time I commit to working on one project. I did better with working every day then I think I've ever done before. 

In order to do that, though, I had to work around a lot of family stuff on weekends and sometimes on week days. (There is family stuff here all the time.) I was working in bits and pieces, I had to work in a motel room a couple of days, and I was frequently working at the kitchen counter while something was cooking. What I found was that I was having breakout experiences all over the place. So I started running with the bits and pieces plan.

The last few weeks instead of getting my usual life activities out of the way and then getting into my four or five hours of work time, I took a look at my manuscript first thing in the morning and then did something else. I went back to the manuscript, then went back to something else. Over and over again while I was at the "something else," I worked out problems with the manuscript or came up with new idea.

This is a first draft. I have trouble with first drafts. Generating new material is not my favorite thing to do. I'm wondering if maybe when I'm in a first draft situation this is how I should be managing my time. Maybe this should be first draft process for me.

I'm sticking with this method for the time being, hoping to get an entire rough draft done in the next couple of months.

And, yes, I know there are lots of people these days who do a rough draft in six weeks, who do an entire book in a few months. Zen tells me that desiring what others have or are able to do will only lead to unhappiness.

Well, I've Had A Good Experience With Google+

Last night I read an article on Slate suggesting that Google+'s days may be numbered. Wouldn't you know it, I'd prepared a blog post last week all about how satisfied I've been with that platform. I'm not wasting it.

Last month I discussed (at length) Google+ with a friend on Facebook, convincing her to give it a try. I thought some of that material could be repurposed as a blog post, and that's what you're seeing here, repurposed Facebook material.

Google+ Basics

Google+ is simple to use once you've figured it out, which is true, of course, of most things in life. You collect people into circles there. Circles are like classifications. You can have a librarian circle, a writer circle, a self-pubbed writer circle. You can access your circles easily in the event that you want to see just what your librarian people have to say.  You have a profile page that is all your posts and a homepage that is similar to a Facebook wall in that you can see posts from the people in your circles there. 

Google+ Communities

The big thing you can do at Google+ is join communities. I'm a member of a couple of writer/blogger communities, an eco-fiction community, and a community interested in children's books. It could be argued that those are similar to private Facebook pages. (I'm a member of a few of those, too.) However, when I post links to my blog in one of those communities, I see a boost in my blog statistics. I don't when I post in private Facebook pages. 

I post all my blog posts at my general spot at Google+. I post specific blog posts to specific communities there. The Environmental Book Club posts go to the eco-fiction community and the childen's lit community. Marketing and writing posts go to a couple of the writers' communities.

Engagement On Google+

Also, if someone Googles you, your recent posts at Google+ turn up. It gives you more of a presence on the Internet. The other good thing about Google+--If people like your content, they can + it, meaning share it with their circles. Presumably sharing can happen on Facebook, but I rarely see it. Almost every week a couple of my things get shared on Google+, especially if I've posted to a couple of the communities.

In short, I see engagement at Google+. Engagement is important with social media. 

Google+'s Big Drawback

I think the worst thing about Google+ is its reputation. People think no one uses it. As Slate's article stated, "...it has in fact caught on with swaths of professionals and hobbyists who enjoy talking shop on a social network that isn’t full of friends and cats and wedding announcements." But maybe not enough people want that. 

I have things set up with Google+ right now so that this post will automatically go up there when I publish it. This particular post I will also post at writer communities. I'm off to do that while Google+ is still around so I can.