What Did You Do This Week, Gail? Dec. 12 Edition

Began the week with personal work and ended it with family and holiday work.

Goal 5. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding

• Gender post. Promoted to Google+, a Google+ community, a Facebook community, and Twitter. Posted reviews of books involved to Goodreads.
• Time Management Tuesday post. Promoted to Google+, Facebook, and Twitter
• Shirley Jackson post. Promoted to Google+ and Twitter.
• Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge post. Promoted to Google+, a Google+ community, and Twitter
• Began the January Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar.
• Post to Goodreads blog. 
• Discussed taking on a Cybils judging position next month

Goal 6. Generate New Work. Worked on Chapter Two of my NaNoWriMo project. That didn't go well, but I believe I came up with a solution while riding in the car yesterday or this morning. Next week is the week before Christmas. I will be very happy if I can get a chunk of that chapter done.

Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge For 2017

Katie Fitzgerald at Read-at-Home Mom plans to run an Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge next year. For her purposes, "old school" will be defined as books "published in the decade of your birth or before." The challenge will have a different focus each month.

What's my interest here? Do I have a nostalgic thing for nineteenth century improving juvenile fiction? Ah, noooo. But I do feel everyone should know about the history of their field. Writers are no different. 

I don't plan to take part every month, but by following #oldschoolkidlit2017 on Twitter, I'll be able to benefit from the reading and reviewing of  other participants. So that's happening next year.

Happy Birthday, Shirley

I like to take Wednesdays off from blogging. But while on Twitter I learned that today is Shirley Jackson's birthday. My obsession with Shirl is well documented. I had to observe this day.

Hmm. Sounds to me like an opportunity to send readers to my Shirley Jackson in Bennington Pinterest Board.

Jackson Articles You Could Find on Twitter Today

Happy 100th Birthday, Shirley Jackson! at Literary Hub.

Hearts of Darkness: The Short Fiction of Shirley Jackson at Tor.Com

Shirley Jackson's Haunted Houses and Haunted Psyches also at Tor.Com

Shirley Jackson and the Female Gothic at JStor Daily


How many people will be tweeting about us on our hundredth birthdays?

 

Time Management Tuesday: Thinking About Failures In A Time Efficient Way

The end of the year is here, meaning I'm thinking about recapitulating. Yeah, I'll be explaining what that is later this month. What I will say now is that when people look back at what they've been doing with their time, they're not always going to be pleased. Is being miserable about what happened in the past the best use of time in the present?

You don't have to be very Zenny to know the answer to that is "no."

While on vacation in September, I came upon How to Fail Up (called 5 Steps to Cope with Failure on-line) in a back issue of Yoga Journal. (I mention the date because I want credit for having held on to this thing for three months.) It describes steps to take to make the best use of failure. Remember, failure can bring you closer to success because it narrows the number of things to try. What you don't want to do is just take the attitude that you failed, and it's over.

If you were unsuccessful with a goal, the Yoga Journal suggestions you might want to consider:

• "Sit with the misery." Or, to put it another way, wait. “We don’t make our best decisions when we are reactive,” says Ashley Good, founder and CEO of Fail Forward, a Canadian company that helps people and organizations learn to “fail up.” You want to start getting over your disappointment before you decide what to do next. Personally, I like to get past it and pumped up (delusional?) again before I do anything.
• "Decouple your ego from your action." It's not you, it's what you did. Or didn't do. Focus on action and not what's wrong with you. 
• "...crystalize what you've learned and...formulate your next plan of action."  Focusing on the failure, itself, and not the failer means you really ought to do something about that failed action. The YJ article has a couple of steps at this point involving talking to others about your failure that I was going to blow-off because they were a little touchy feely for my taste, dealing with making people feel better about themselves instead of what they could be doing for that failed project.  However, for writers whose failed goals involve rejected submissions, talking with others about the failure can have a big part in formulating that next plan of action.
• Did the agents/editors provide any feedback for their decision to pass on your submission? Beyond, you know, this isn't right for me? If so, consider how many of their comments could be valid and what changes you can make to address their issues. Consider this even if the agent didn't show any interest in seeing your project again. The next agent you submit to can have the benefit of the first agent's assessment.
• If you're in a writers' group, address the issue at a meeting. What could you do differently? If you have feedback from agents/editors, discuss with your group colleagues what these people could possibly be talking about and whether or not it's worth taking their comments seriously. 
• "Take risks." I would put this another way. "Try again." But try again after you've done some assessment and, possibly, correction.

Taking some time now to assess this year's goal failures will help you plan goals for next year.

Same Situation, Different Genders

Recently I stumbled upon an interesting combination of books at one of my local libraries. The Only Girl in School by Natalie Standiford is about, you guessed it, the only girl in a school. The Last Boy at St. Edith's by Lee Gjertsen Malone is about the same thing, but with a boy. Both books were published this year. Hey, I know an opportunity when I see one.

Both books were classified as juvenile fiction at the library where I found them, though Girl in School involves a younger protagonist and reads younger. Claire finds herself the only girl in her school at the beginning of fifth grade. Evidently no one in her town had daughters for years or else they moved out of town. That seemed improbable. The opening scenes in which boys are giving Claire a difficult time and adults are ignoring it were a little disturbing, too.

Last Boy was more believable. Jeremy is the last boy at a private girls' school, one of a small group who had enrolled during the short period when the place was coed. He's at the beginning of seventh grade and wants out. But his mother refuses to consider him leaving, because she can't afford to send him to another private school. He's at St. Edith's because she works there. His only other option is the local public school, which has a bad reputation.

Both Claire and Jeremy are experiencing some aging issues apart from their situations. The tight friendships they'd had with members of the opposite sex when they were younger are becoming awkward now that they're older.

Here's the big difference between the books: The Only Girl in School is pretty much an account of things that happen to Claire. In The Last Boy at St. Edith's Jeremy tries to do something about his situation. Okay, trying to get kicked out of school isn't a very logical or practical plan, but he is doing something while Claire is mainly receiving whatever action Fate sends her way.

So...that's interesting in a traditional sort of way.

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? Dec. 5 Edition

December is a rough month. Christmas is trouble, trouble...Oh, stop your whining, Gail, about the epitome of First World problems.

Okay. So what did I do this week that didn't involve whining?

Goal 2. Prepare Mummy Hunters For Submission. I stumbled upon an opportunity to submit this manuscript somewhere and took it. Submissions are good.

Goal 5. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding.

• Horn Book post. Promoted to Google+, 2 Google+ communities, and Twitter. I actually could be tweeting this some more.
• Time Management Tuesday Meditation post. Promoted to Google+ and Twitter. Again, I could be tweeting this more. 
• #Readukkah Goodreads post. Finished reading The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro for #Readukkah, posted a review at Goodreads,  and tweeted it.
• Joined Netgalley. I hope this will make it possible for me to support some new authors/books. 

Goal 6. Generate New Work. I was going to do blueprinting of chapters of my NaNoWriMo project. But instead I got excited about the voice I'm using, and I wrote the first chapter. In three days, which is stellar for me. Been feeling very satisfied for the last 24-hours over this.

Time Management Tuesday: Adventures In Meditating

Okay, you all recall, I'm sure, that meditation relates to time management because it is supposed to improve concentration. You make better use of your time, if you can stay focused on a task. That's why I keep coming back to meditation. I'm not a born focuser.

The Workshop

In October I attended another workshop (my first was in 2014) run by Dharma Drum Mountain USA,

Not that much soy sauce in real Chinese food.

Hartford, CT Branch. Forgive the lousy pictures, but I don't have the nerve to go up to a Buddhist monk and ask if I can take a selfie with him. As it is, I shocked one this time when he overheard me asking the woman running lunch if there was chicken in one of the dishes. His eyes kind of popped, and he shook his head. He couldn't bring himself to speak.

Getting ready to sit.

Both this workshop and the one in 2014 began with a lengthy discussion of options for sitting. I was more tolerant of this the second time around, because between workshops I read an article indicating that posture while meditating is important because it will impact breathing. Nonetheless, I have yet to find a posture that works well.

Both this workshop and the one in 2014 covered a formal walking meditation that involved a particular foot placement at a very slow pace, moving in a circle. I'm not a fan. It requires so much effort that I can't not think. Instead, I do the meditative walk described in Chi Walking by Danny Dreyer and Katherine Dreyer, though probably in a loosey-goosey sort of way.

New for this workshop was the section on counting breaths. This I can actually get into. You just have to count to ten without thinking about anything else. If you think of something else, you have to start over. You're just focusing on numbers. If you can't focus on the numbers, you have to focus on the numbers, anyway. (No, that sentence isn't a mistake.)

I had already heard of this.

The App

In September I started using Stop, Breathe & Think a guided meditation app. Here's the thing with guided meditation...someone is actually telling you what to do. One of the things this app told me to do is the counting breath thing I just mentioned above.

You may recall I was on vacation in September. I got this app so I could use it in the car, while someone else was driving. I swear. I got my traveling companion into it because...you earn "stickers" for achieving certain things. He'll do anything for a sticker or a patch.

Evidently so will I, since I've racked up 28 stickers and have meditated with the app 68 days in a row. I went even longer, but missed a day and had to start over. I should be trying other kinds of meditation, but I can't face breaking my 60+ day run. I'm hoping that when I hit 70, I'll get a sticker.

So You Must Be Getting Good At This Meditation Stuff, Huh, Gail?

 

Au contraire, mes amis. I'm remarkably unbothered by my lack of progress, too. Why? Because Kelly McGonigal writes in The Willpower Extinct that the effort those of us who suffer from a wandering mind have to make to get back to the breath actually develops our brains and builds the discipline/willpower we're looking for. I'm working on the theory that being bad at meditation will eventually get me the result I'm looking for.

Fortunately, I'm a journey person, not a destination person. So far, I'm not minding how long it's taking to get me that result.

In Case You Need Some Encouragement To Read The Latest "Horn Book"

I have Facebook/NESCBWI friends all over the November/December issue of the Horn Book.

Articles

Saving Sisters: Little Women, The Hunger Games, and Frozen by Jeannine Atkins.

Reviews

Truth or Dare by Barbara Dee 

Shy by Deborah Feedman

Wish by Barbara O'Connor

Hundred Percent by Karen Romano Young  

A Kids' Guide to America's Bill of Rights: Revised and Updated Edition by Kathleen Krull

Interesting Bits By People I Don't Know

Decolonizing Nostalgia: When Historical Fiction Betrays Readers of Color by Sarah Hannah Gomez. 

Mommy, Do I Have White Skin?: Skin Color, Family, and Picture Books by Julie Hakim Azzam 

Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell Review. An interesting twist on Red Riding Hood.

Sleep Tight Farm: A Farm Prepares for Winter by Eugenie Doyle with illustrations by Becca Stadtlander. This sounds like Ox-Cart Man to me. I love Ox-Cart Man.

Nanette's Baguette by Mo Willems. Willems does another book set in France. 

To Stay Alive: Mary Ann Graves and the Tragic Journey of the Donner Party by Skila Brown.Donner Party! I'm sorry. That was in bad taste. Donner Party! 

Cloud and Wallfish by Anne Nesbet. No one really knows their parents, but when they drag you off to East Germany before the Iron Curtain falls, you may not want to know them. This definitely doesn't sound like formulaic YA. By the way, the review was written by another Facebook friend.





 

What Did You Do This Week, Gail? Nov. 28 Edition

Goal 3. Generate New Short Work/Programs. Planning an essay submission. At breakfast yesterday came up with a revision for it.
 
Goal 5. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding.

• December Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar Post. Promoted to Facebook, Facebook communities, Google+, and Twitter.
• Time Management Tuesday Post. Promoted to Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
• Don't Get Caught Post. Promoted to Google+, Twitter, and Goodreads
• Sent out the December CCLC newsletter edition.

Goal 6. Generate New Work. This is where my big work went this week, thank goodness. I now have ideas for fifteen chapters, some more developed than others. Had a couple of brilliant ideas this morning while on a walk and even got them written up. Had another idea while I was sewing. Seriously, if you can get deeply enough into a project, the ideas keep coming.

Everyman...Or Boy...Comes Through Again

Max, our main character in Don't Get Caught by Kurt Dinan, perceives himself as extremely unexceptional. Yet when he becomes the victim of a group prank pulled by the secret Chaos Club, he calls on his extensive knowledge of  caper movies and uses it to pull together a team to uncover the identities of those who victimized him.

Don't Get Caught reminded me of The Lottery by Beth Goobie, another book with a secret high school group holding characters hostage. But while The Lottery is dark and grim, Don't Get Caught is a clever, witty, caper story. Reading the two of them one after the other would be a good exercise in how the same material can be handled in different ways.

Interesting bit of contrast between Don't Get Caught and a number of other YA books that involve some kind of adversity teens are dealing with, bullying, say, a librarian from hell, or being victimized by pranksters. The adults in many of these books are invisible. All of them. Teachers, parents, everybody. They are either conveniently out of the way, uncaring, or clueless. This is done, no doubt, to get rid of grown-ups, so the teenagers can become the actors in the story. However, it doesn't seem realistic.

In Don't Get Caught, we have a different situation. The adults show up. They're caring. They are just unable to do anything to help their kids with bullies, librarians from hell, and pranksters. I think that's probably very realistic. The truth is adults are powerless to help their kids in many situations. That's actually a much harsher reality than taking Mom and Dad out of the picture because of marital problems or work.

Don't Get Caught's ending hints at the possibility of a sequel. I would read that.