What Did You Do This Week, Gail? Nov. 13th Edition

Goal 1. The Mummy Hunters. I'm up to Chapter Nine in the revision! I met with my writers' group Monday to discuss the first scene.

Goal 4. Make Submissions. I haven't actually made submissions, but I'm prepping for a day-long meeting with agents and editors in a week. Yeah. Yikes.

Goal 5. Community Building. I attended Ellen Hopkins' local appearance Tuesday evening, blogged about it, and promoted that blog and her appearance. Then there was that writers' group meeting I mentioned above. That was a particularly good time, by the way.


I've also spent some time strategizing what I'm going to do on Sunday when I visit the Connecticut Children's Book Fair. Some writers and illustrators are speaking at some points and then they and others are signing at other times, and if I want to see Author A and Author B and Illustrator A and...Oh, my gosh. Countries have been invaded with less effort.

Goal 6. Marketing STP&S. I've heard again from the Norwegian publishing company interested in permission to use an STP&S excerpt in a textbook. Everything is up in the air. But it's like marketing.

Goal 7. General Marketing. Quite some time ago, I heard in a podcast about creating content strategy calendars. Essentially, for people like me, at least, it's planning how you can repurpose material over your social media platforms. I'd been doing this, anyway, but I'm trying to be a little bit more organized about it. I'm trying to get into a Monday planning habit. What have I written for the blog in the last few days or what am I planning to write this next week that I can republish at Goodreads, either as reviews or on my blog there? What can I link to at the various communities I belong to on Google+? What can I link to at my Facebook communities?  What can I use as Tweets? Using which hashtags? Then, of course, I have to try to do it over the course of the week.

The Environmental Book Club

The Horn Book Blog carried a review earlier this month of Water is Water: A Book About the Water Cycle by Miranda Paul with illustrations by Jason Chin. The reviewer says, "...Water Is Water feels like an engaging story about children who love being out in nature." That sounds right up my alley.

Jason Chin lives in Vermont. I'm quite certain I read about him in a Burlington area publication while I was up north sometime in the last couple of years.

Ellen Hopkins In Connecticut

Ellen Hopkins' pile of books.

Author Ellen Hopkins, who has written a pile of books, is touring to support her new YA book, Traffick, as well her adult book, Love Lies Beneath. Last night, she was touring here in Connecticut. She presented some intro material, did a reading, and answered questions.

I am not familiar with Ellen Hopkins' work. However, I found much of what she had to say interesting in terms of writing.

• Hopkins writes two books a year, spending 3 to 4 months on each book.
• She's been spending around 100 days a year on the road, but is trying to cut down. She's able to write while traveling. Yesterday she put in 4 hours of writing between a school visit and the store appearance.
• She receives around 200 messages a day from readers spread among various social media platforms.
• Her adult novel Triangles and her YA Tilt are companion books. They deal with the same situation from adult and YA points of view. As a writer, I think that's fascinating.

Hopkins attracted a nice crowd at our local Barnes & Noble, including a number of teenagers. Her YA book coming out next year: Chameleon.

She also had some writing advice that I'm save for a Weekend Writer post. 

Time Management Tuesday: Prepping For Those Rough Times

J. M. Levinton has quite an interesting post, Getting Prepared: How to Write When You Can't, at her blog. She describes how she managed to get some social media work done while she was sick. She had prepared for that eventuality. She had a file of tweets ready to go and another of blog topics, complete with rough drafts. During those times when personal life overwhelms, she could at least keep on keeping on with social media.

Work can overwhelm, as well. Having social media topics and drafts filed away can help out when you're dealing with deadline pressures or rushing to get ready for an appearance.

And how about planning smaller projects for squeezing in when traveling, during holidays, or while you're getting ready for those appearances I just mentioned? And then you can always have some light professional reading ready for those hours you spend in motel rooms without On Demand or your dvr. (It's like being sent back to the Dark Ages.)

Seems a little obsessive, doesn't it? But not working makes some of us anxious. This is a way to plan to take care of our anxiety.

This post was written weeks ago. It's being posted today because I'm trying to finish a manuscript revision before the twenty-first and am going to be out several evenings this week.

Remember That Photo Problem With The Short Story?

Four months ago, I wrote here about another author's photo being used in the author bio connected to a short story I'd written. I let that issue sit for quite some time before I finally contacted the publication, Alimentum, to bring the error to the editors' attention. Someone got back to me in just two days to say they would take care of it.

And they did.

Weekend Motel Reading

We did an overnight in New York, where we spent Saturday afternoon walking around the Storm King Art Center (a sculpture park) and part of Sunday letter boxing. Saturday night we spent in a motel room where I caught up on some bookmarked reading and watched reruns of Archer, which never gets old.

The Yearning to Learn From Our Lives. The essay linked to in this post cannot be accessed. However, the excerpt quoted includes the following: "We all yearn to learn from our lives so we do not stumble like Sisyphus up the same hill over and over but, instead, discover the art of living well." Good opportunity to mention that I'm reading How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell.

Do Book Tours Sell Books? Maybe Not, But That Shouldn't Stop You From Having A Good Time. Good opportunity to mention that I'm blowing off tai chi class Tuesday evening to go hear an author at a local Barnes & Noble.

That's Too Much: The Problem With Prolific Authors. And he never mentions the self-published writers who publish every year, sometimes multiple books every year.

Dear Advice Person Lady: Advice for Writers. Honestly, I read this earlier.

Founding Father Fails  I've read a couple of Vowell's books. 

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? Nov. 6 Edition

Goal 1. The Mummy Book. Wailly, wailly! I need this next draft done in two weeks for a writer event I'm attending. This revision is really deep, though. I have a working name now, at least. From now on, Goal 1 will be called The Mummy Hunters.

Goal 6. Marketing the Saving the Planet & Stuff eBook. This doesn't specifically relate to the eBook. I received an inquiry from a Norwegian publishing company regarding permission to use an excerpt in a textbook for teaching English. I responded. There may be negotiations.

Goal 7. General Marketing. Goodreads. Twitter. Google+.

I Feel Bad About Why I Liked "Bamboo People"

I have this feeling that I should have liked Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins because it dealt with young people from a culture unfamiliar to me who overcome dire problems. I should be sensitive to all that.

Instead, I liked Bamboo People because the first half is a mash-up of a young people from a culture unfamiliar to me with dire problems story and a traditional prison camp tale. Okay, technically the characters are in the Burmese military. But their training site is like a prison camp. You've got your evil commandant, your friendly guard, your inmates who suck up to those in power, your clever, street-smart guy who often saves situations. Anyone else hear the theme music to Hogan's Heroes? On top of that, the young Burmese men being trained in their military's camp were, shall we say, impressed into service, similar to the way the British impressed male citizens into serving in their navy before the nineteenth century. Chiko, our main character, certainly seemed imprisoned.

I was disappointed at the mid-point when bookish, educated young Chiko gets out of the prison--I mean, training--camp. At that point, Bamboo People became a mash-up of a young people from a culture unfamiliar to me in dire circumstances story and a traditional war story. Chiko is still there, but he's now a secondary character in a new guy's account of his war experience.

You could say that the two parts of the book are two sides of the same story about conflict in Burma, with the young main characters not having a lot of control over their parts in what is happening.

Bamboo People would be a good book to offer students as a reading option for world studies classes, because young readers may find themselves hooked by the same aspects of the book that hooked me.

As an aside, last week I discussed in my NaNoWriMo workshop how creating friends for a main character can help a writer develop plot. I used Chiko's two friends in Bamboo People as an example.

Another aside: I feel so worldly after reading this book, because I now know that Burma and Myanmar are the same place. Also, since reading this book, I've been seeing references to Myanmar or Burma over and over again. It looks as if one of my Facebook friends is there now.


 

Time Management Tuesday: The October Purge Results Post

Oct. 31st

We did, indeed, each find an item a day in October to get out of this house. That's sixty material possessions we don't need to spend time dealing with. That's more than 22 cubic feet of belongings that won't cause disorder in our lives, leading to self-regulatory failure. Seriously, someone (not mentioning any names, Civil Guy) measured the heap, did some calculations, and came up with 22+ cubic feet. Evidently that's not much when you're talking loads of gravel or concrete. But we're talking stuff.

Oct. 1st

Now, why does anyone need a specific unit of time in which to clear out? Why not just do it on a regular basis? I think we're pretty good at that, and we've become quite good at not bringing unnecessary material things into the house in the first place. But I noticed something happening last month that suggests providing yourself with a dedicated Toss Time makes sense.

It's All About Mindfulness

22 cubic feet from another angle

What I noticed was that I was noticing things. The misshapen work gloves I haven't worn in years, for instance. I'd just been dumping other gloves on top of them. I've known for a long time that I can't do a thing with the ravioli attachment for my pasta machine, but I've hardly been aware of its existence. That didn't mean it wasn't taking up space in the pantry. Every year when I pull out winter clothes in the fall and put them away again in the spring, I've seen but haven't seen, if you know what I mean, a pair of black pants that are two sizes too large for me. They looked very good on me when I was 25 pounds heavier than I am now, so I've been holding on to them in case I gain back that weight. I've had them for, maybe, fifteen years. Well, if I gain that weight now, I'll have to buy some new pants.

My point is that somewhere along the line we stop being affected by a lot of our possessions. We can't make a decision to keep or ditch them because we're barely aware of their existence. But exist they do. You could compare living with unnecessary junk to living with mild chronic pain. You've become accustomed to it. It's become a norm in your life. But it still impairs your function.

A dedicated time for cleaning house requires mindfulness of us.When we're done, some of the things that have been lying on the raised hearth and the dresser will be gone. We won't have to spend time moving them around looking for things. They won't have a negative impact on our willpower, wrecking our ability to stay on task with work.

Ha-Ha, Gail. Now What Are You Going To Do With That Pile Of Junk?

Fortunately, the last day of October was a Saturday. While I was busy baking cookies with my leftover Halloween candy Sunday afternoon, someone else cleared off the entire worktable. Some things were thrown away. Some were placed in the church tag sale area of our cellar. A couple  of books are going to family members, the others will be going to a library book sale later this month. There's a large pile of clothes waiting to be bagged for the Salvation Army. But that's an easy task. Getting to that point is what is difficult.

And, no, I have not yet read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I ordered it on Interlibrary Loan, and it came in while I was on vacation. I'll try to read it before next year's purge.

Podcasts In The Kitchen

This afternoon I had what I refer to on Facebook as a manic cooking episode. I had hopes of making two more things, but I wore myself out on those Halloween cookies. They're called Halloween cookies because they're made with leftover Halloween candy. I am the only person I know who hopes littlies won't come to her door so she can bake with her candy.

I bookmark podcasts to save for these times when I'm in the kitchen for hours at a time. I am aware that multi-tasking is no longer considered a thing, but listening to someone talk while I'm browning chicken or shaping cookies is close.

Of course, I have notes floating around my kitchen that I took maybe a couple months ago while bopping between listening to a podcast and cooking something. Sad to say, I didn't jot down what podcast I was listening to, so I can't share. A few insights stuck with me.

Today, though, I can actually provide my playlist.

• How to Write a Story with John Dufresne. Kind of a downer at first. No happy ending! Everybody dies! Made up for it at the end, though. The muse doesn't go to football games and parties.
• Chimamanda Adiche: What Are The Dangers Of A Single Story?  I'm into story as a sort of mystical thing, and I thought this was excellent.
• Write The Book Interview with Laurie Calkhoven. I've listened to podcasts of Write The Book interviews before. It's a very nice radio show out of Burlington, Vermont. I chose the Laurie Calkhoven interview because we're Facebook friends. We sort of met in the hall at a NESCBWI Conference (maybe the one the interviewer mentions at the end of the program). We both ran workshops in the same room. Hers was just before mine. 

Listening to podcasts while I'm cooking makes me feel as if I'm doing a lot.