Time Management Tuesday: The 2019 Recapitulation Post

We're going to pause for a couple of weeks in our reading of Ultralearning by Scott Young to observe the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. This has become an annual event for me here at Original Content, one I look forward to. The end of a year and beginning of another are temporal landmarks. I love them.

We begin today with the recapitulation post, in which I go over my professional goals and objectives for the year, determining what worked and what didn't, what I want to continue doing, what I want to change. This will set me up for planning next year's goals and objectives next week. (Honestly, I'm doing this the second and third week of December. I'm not actually working Christmas Eve.)

Woe is Me. This was a year that should have gone very poorly professionally because of the usual family health problems we've had here for more than a dozen years now. In fact, in February I did only two blog posts because we had two elderly relatives with serious problems at the same time. We had a death in April and a protracted wait before we could have the funeral in May. I had Lyme Disease in July, which wasn't all that bad, though I did spend a lot of time watching Netflix on a couch in the afternoons and the whole Lyme and its treatment kept us from the short trips we were planning. We were planning short trips because we started house hunting at the end of March, and that has gone very poorly. Very, very poorly. I will not get started on that. Wait. I just did.

In spite of all that, I stayed on task pretty well with my goals and objectives. And that is why you should have them, people. When the going got tough, and I didn't feel up to a lot, I had objectives/tasks in mind that I could choose from. I didn't have to struggle to come up with all new projects. I will be doing a specific blog post on this next year.

How Did Gail Do In 2019?

Goal 1. Work on short-form writing, essays and short stories. I was aware that one of our family members was very ill and thought, under the circumstances, that short-form work would be easier to manage than a novel. I mention this because it will come up with a later goal.

Objectives:

• Revise "His Times Or Mine" essay Have made good progress on this.
  
• Start some eating essays. Started one.
  
• Choose an essay or short story from the files or journal to do a little work on every day. Nope. Never gave it a thought. I did, however, do a new essay at the end of the year and got it to the point of submission. It's seasonal, so I can spend 2020 looking for places to submit it next year. 
  
• Read an essay or short story every day.
  
  Did very well with this, missing only 22 days, to date. Most of these were in the two months I was recovering from the antibiotics for the Lyme. I don't feel I got much from this every day experience. I have a different plan for next year.
• Finish reading "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolf during retreat week (next week!), because it will make me feel accomplished and smart. Did finish this, though I don't know if I finished on schedule. I do feel accomplished and smart.
  
• Spend the last week of every month completing something. Anything. Yeah, forgot about this, too.

Goal 2. Concentrate on submitting completed book-length projects as well as short form work. I ended up concentrating on completing a novel instead. Nonetheless, I did 50 submissions this year, up from 37 last year. That includes taking part in Twitter pitches a few times. I had two agents ask for complete manuscripts for two different projects.

Objectives:

• Research agents at "Publishers Marketplace" Started with this late summer/early fall
  
• Research agents for adult books Same as above
  
• Pay more attention to agents on Twitter. Which is not stalking them. Not much
• Spend more time with essay Facebook group. Those people are publishing and share their work, exposing me to new markets. Which is not stalking them. Not much
  

Goal 3. Work on the YA thriller just enough so I'll have material to take to my SCBWI writers' group. I gave up writers' group for a big part of the year while we had sick family or I was sick. Got started with it, and this thriller, in the fall.

Objectives:

• Start by revising the material I've shown them. No one is going to remember that. Got great feedback when I went to them this fall.
• Work on blueprinting. Ah...But the "Ultralearning" read is going to help with this.
• Just work on scenes. Don't worry about connecting things. No.
• Read YA thrillers. Read several of these.
  
• Keep theme in mind. What?

Goal 4. Complete a second draft of Good Women by September. Completed it much earlier. Since a lot of it was a second draft with new material at the end, I found this much easier to work on during funeral planning/sickness periods than coming up with new short projects for an earlier goal. As I said earlier, next year I'm going to do a blog post about this experience.

Forget Objectives. This Is What I Did:

• Gave manuscript to Beta Reader 1. Made revisions.
• Gave manuscript to Beta Reader 2. Made revisions.
• Began submitting.

 Goal 5. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding

Objectives: 

• Get started with writers' group again. That didn't start until fall.
• Continue with Original Content. Yes.
• Check out NESCBWI spring conference, with possibility of attending. Checked, didn't go.
• Check out NESCBWI-PAL offerings this year, with possibility of attending. Checked, didn't go.
• Be open to attending events for writers of adult literature. Attended a Connecticut Women Writers' meeting.
  
• Attend other authors' appearances. Attended at least 4.
• Continue with promoting Original Content at Google+, Facebook communities, Goodreads' blog, and Twitter. Google+ is gone. I was not as strong on this as I have been in the past, but kept it up, nonetheless.
• Provide social media support for writers/bloggers generating diversity material. Was very weak on this. Am planning to up this for January, since Multicultural Children's Book Day is the 31st.

Goal 6. Expect the end of the year to be a disaster. Don't fall behind on goals so that I have to struggle to catch up while dealing with the holidays. I also ended up planning to do short-term things in December, reading for instance. I've been doing agent research. I've been planning for next year. December has been great. (Well, it was great. A future blog post will deal with this.)

Checking In With Goals

For a year or two, I was creating a done list each Friday, with which I checked to make sure I'd worked on goals that week. I found it very helpful, but also a little time consuming. It was one of the first things I gave up last summer when that family member fell ill. This year I'm going to try to do it just once a month. I see I did this at the end of January. Totally forgot about it after that. If I had kept up with that, I would have been aware that I was slipping on some of the Goal 5 objectives and been able to pick up on them.

I mention this because, as I just said, it was helpful, especially with the social media goals. I would hustle Thursday night to get things done, because I knew I had to report the next day. You might want to try it.

In Conclusion

Now, yes, if you read this carefully you noticed that I didn't publish anything this year. And, yet, I feel good about maintaining a work life, at all. I am sure this is totally due to creating and using goals and objectives.

Like "Artemis Fowl" Without The Fairies

I picked up Spy School: British Invasion by Stuart Gibbs because it looked clever and witty, which it
is. I didn't notice "A Spy School Novel" at the bottom of the cover, or I would have realized this book is part of a series.

In fact, it's part of a serial. British Invasion begins with the end of one espionage operation as it sort of bleeds into another. The book ends with an escape that, while it does have some closure, leaves things up in the air. Literally.

For all that, the book is still readable and enjoyable. But it would have been even more so if I'd read the seven books that came before it and knew all the characters' back stories. Since it is the seventh book, it has great binge potential. In fact, there is a boxed set.

This book reminded me some of the Artemis Fowl books. It's an over-the-top thriller with humor. No fairies, though.

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 6 Feedback

Let's pause here to remind ourselves (myself) why we're (I'm) doing this read for Time Management Tuesday: Ultralearning by Scott Young describes a method of rapid learning. (Saving time, see?) Research/learning new material is frequently a necessity in all kinds of writing. I use it not only to  provide background info in fiction but to inspire plot and characterization. Saving time doing this could be huge for writers, particularly this one.

Refresher On Our Case Study: I am trying to plan an ultralearning project related to history, because I have a character who is a senior in college with a history major. I want his knowledge of history and, more importantly, how to do research to figure into the plot. The main issue I've decided I need to learn about is historical methodology

Check out the posts to date on Principles 1 through 5.

Now we're ready to start on Principle 6, Feedback.

Young says feedback  is a common tactic for ultralearners. "What often separated the ultralearning strategy from more conventional approaches was the immediacy, accuracy, and intensity of the feedback being provided."

Remember, the last principle was testing, which ultralearners use as a learning tool, not an evaluation tool. Testing is arguably how traditional students get feedback, though they aren't able to do much with it, because there are rarely opportunities to go back and learn what the test results indicate they don't know. So what do ultralearners use as feedback?

Outcome Feedback

Outcome feedback tells you how you're doing but doesn't offer much about quality--whether you're doing better or worse. Traditional grades are outcome feedback or it can come from a group. Applause is outcome feedback. Book sales are outcome feedback. The feedback doesn't tell you why this is happening. Perhaps blog and website statistics are outcome feedback. You know the sites are or aren't successful, you don't know why.

This is often the only kind of feedback available.

Informational Feedback

Informational feedback can tell you what you're doing wrong but won't necessarily provide information on how to fix it. The examples Young gives--speaking a foreign language with a native speaker who doesn't understand you, getting applause, or not, from a performance--sounds similar to outcome feedback to me.

Corrective Feedback

Clearly, this is feedback that shows you what you're doing wrong and how to correct it. It's often only available through someone who knows more than you do. However, Young includes study materials like flash cards and solutions to problems as corrective feedback. You can use these to check your learning.

But that sounds like the last principle, testing. Unless you want to think of it as providing your own feedback.

Our Case Study: Remember, I am not trying to learn a skill like speaking a language or coding, two examples Young uses a lot in his book. I'm trying to acquire a basic knowledge of how a subject is studied. What kind of feedback do I need?

1. Have I comprehended this correctly?
2. Am I correct in applying it to the character and situation in my book?

How will I get this feedback? Once again, I will be using what I learn in a writing project. The classic ways for writers to get feedback are:

1. Writers' group
2. Beta readers
3. Response from agent
4. Working with editors
5. Response from reviewers/readers 

If writers can find beta readers who are knowledgeable in the field they studied to write their book, they can get some targeted, corrective feedback. The same is true if reviewers know the field. That feedback will be coming way too late, of course.

I can't think of anything new for providing myself with feedback as a result of reading Ultralearning.

However, I am now considering a story idea about a writer who goes mad doing research, continuing with it for years and years. And years. And a little longer. I'm pretty sure that's been done. Though I haven't researched the topic yet.

The Weekend Writer: Get Yourself Out To Hear Authors Speak

I am not a fan of new writers, whether they are fourteen or forty, rushing out to publish the first or second or maybe even the third thing they've written. They'd be better off, I think, first spending some nonwriting time reading widely, taking part in book discussions, joining the best writers' group they can find, and attending the public appearances of published writers. Appearances are opportunities to hear about the experiences of more established writers and, perhaps, to ask them questions.

All Writers Can Gain From Other Writers, Part I

Even experienced writers can gain from attending another writer's bookstore or library appearance. A case in point: My trip out last weekend to see Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo.

During her talk, Jeanne spoke about writing she did as a young student. This type of writing is known as juvenilia, by the way. I first heard of it years ago when Justine Larbalestier did a blog post about a juvenilia panel she was part of. She was considering posting some of hers at her website "to demonstrate that even the most talentless kid can grow up to be a writer." I have some kicking around my office and have thought of put some up at my website, too, primarily to store it.

Why does it need to be stored? Kept at all? Shouldn't Gail the Minimalist being ditching these things?

Jeanne's talk illustrated a very legitimate reason for holding on to juvenilia and for sharing/studying it. She held up a story she'd written as a child that included a cover she'd drawn. And on that cover was a house, similar to one that appears in her book, Ruby in the Sky. Juvenilia can illustrate that writers have been dealing with or interested in the same subjects or themes all their lives. It can show how an interest evolved over a lifetime.

I came away from meeting Jeanne with a renewed interest in a juvenilia section for my website. Maybe that will be an objective for next year.

All Writers Can Gain From Other Writers, Part II  

 

So, I get to this bookstore last weekend, introduce myself to Jeanne, and she thinks we've met before. She recalled that I was working on a project that involved a different story for every day of the year. Well, I was working on a project that was exactly that. (The 365 Story Project.) For her to have heard about it, though, we would have both had to have been at the Whispering Pines retreat together in 2010, because that was the only time I read from some of that material to a group.

My take-away from that experience was that none of the very sophisticated readers in that group got what I was trying to do with that manuscript. They didn't understand the whole story-a-day concept. As a result, I dropped that project. I cannabalized it and used some of the material in a middle grade mystery that a few agents and editors have shown some interest in, but the original 365-story-project was dead.

But Jeanne said to me last week, "I liked that idea. I've been watching to see if it made it to publication."

What? (Or quoi? because I've been watching French TV shows and that's my big French learn from that.)

As a result of  Jeanne's comment about the reading she recalled, I've found my 365 Story Project material, cleaned up the files, and am planning to go back to work on it next year. In the last ten years, I've become interested in flash fiction. Treating this as flash fiction for kids could make a big, big difference in how it works out. And I had an idea last week about the whole project that could  change everything.

Yes, I am ashamed that Jeanne remembered me, and I didn't remember her. But, man, I will remember her now.

"Run for Your Life" Was A Batchelder Honor Book This Year, And I Missed It

I received a newsletter last week that let me know that Run for Your Life by Silvana Gandolfi, which I wrote about last January, was named a Batchelder Honor Book that same month by the American Library Association's Association for Library Service to Children. I was baking yesterday, when a two-year-old looked at the array of sweets his father and I produced and announced, "Too many cookies." There may be too many ALA/ALSC book award announcements for me at the beginning of the year. I get overwhelmed.

For those of you who didn't have the energy to follow that Batchelder Honor Book link in the above paragraph, "The Batchelder Award is awarded to a United States publisher for a children’s book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originating in a country other than the United States and in a language other than English and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States during the preceding year." (ALSC website)

The publisher, in this case, is Restless Books. It's Yonder Imprint publishes translations of children's books from around the world. 

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 5 Retrieval. Or Testing

Okay! This week our Ultralearning read (which we are doing to help us learn to learn/research faster) deals with retrieving what you've studied/learned. To cut to the chase, author Scott Young says research has determined that testing yourself is a stronger way of remembering material and being able to retrieve it, better than reviewing material before a test or creating a concept map. (writing out concepts in some kind of organized diagram) Putting aside testing's use in traditional education as a method of evaluation, it appears that the effort to retrieve information from the mind the way you do with a test is a learning tool, itself.

Difficulty plays a part, also. "Low-intensity learning strategies typically involve either less or easier retrieval. Pushing difficulty higher and opting for testing oneself well before you are 'ready' is more efficient."

Our Case Study: Something I can use! Don't avoid the hard stuff, Gail! Which, you know, I would.

Interesting point here--Testing ("practicing retrieval") before you've learned material can be helpful in retaining it once you do acquire the information, possibly because your mind has been sort of forewarned and will look for/recognize the information when it is exposed to it. However, you still have to decide what things you want/need to learn in the first place, and thus pre-test yourself on.

Our Case Study: While this makes sense to me, how can I make it work for me? I do not know.

I have finished reading this book, which means that I can make some progress trying to apply the techniques to my project, for future reports.

You might want to check out Scott Young's blog.

Meeting Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo

I've been seeing Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo's name coming up in Connecticut for quite some time because of her appearances. She made one this past Saturday at the River Bend Bookshop in Glastonbury that I was able to attend.

I have not yet read her middle grade novel, Ruby in the Sky, but a young woman in the audience who had described it as "awesome." That was significant, I thought. I put a lot more weight on the reactions of young readers of middle grade and YA books than I do on those of adult readers.

Writers planning appearances like this one, especially when they write for an older audience, are often at a loss for what to talk about. Jeanne had a well-thought out presentation, in which she focused on a character's interest (birds) both with the reading she chose and an activity she provided. (Making bird feeders.) Jeanne says she loves props. In the past, I haven't. But I will rethink that as a result of attending her presentation.

Jeanne's going to figure in a Weekend Writer post sometime soon on the value of writers attending other writers' presentations. I came home pretty pumped up. 

Running Into Maurice Sendak

We're doing a couple of days of winter day trips this week, and yesterday I found myself on the Maurice Sendak Memorial Highway in Ridgefield, Connecticut. I'd forgotten that for many years he'd lived there.

It turns out his home and archive will be open to the public next year, though only by appointment. I don't know what will be in the archive, since last year the Maurice Sendak Foundation and UConn announced that a large number of his materials would be "hosted" at the Northeast Children's Literature Collection at UConn, though the Foundation would continue to own them. For what it's worth, I think this is an entirely logical arrangement, since the Children's Literature Collection has the resources to store materials in climate controlled surroundings best suited to preserving them and the staff to provide access to them to scholars and students.

If I'd realized Sendak's house was in Ridgefield, I would have driven by.

Humor AND Story

I am certain I've complained pointed out here before that I find that a lot of so-called humorous children's books just aren't. They are written as if kids are from another culture and this is their humor. Of course, it's not actually going to be anything adult culture would recognize as funny. The jokes are forced. They aren't integrated into the story. Sometimes there isn't much of a story to begin with.

In I'm An Alien and I Want to Go Home Jo Franklin does a much better job with both humor and humor that's integrated into story. This is one of those  child outsider stories, in this case taken to an extreme. And, yet, for an "alien" story, it is very grounded in reality. The resolution here is one that makes sense and is reached in a logical way.

The book has many illustrations by Marty Kelley. With both subject matter, humor, and packaging, this could be a fun read for younger children.

 I saw Marty Kelly at a NESCBWI event a number of years ago, about, I believe, author appearances at schools. He does a lot of those.

Interesting factoid. Kelley is an American writer located here in New England. Franklin is British. I had a British cover artist for the hardcover edition of one of my books, so I shouldn't be all "They're from different countries!" about that situation. Nonetheless, I am.

Children's publishing is probably a small world. 

Time Management Tuesday: An Ultralearning Case Study, Principle 4 Drills

In this section of our Ultralearning read author Scott Young is talking about using drills to attack your weakest point. I didn't foresee this being useful for writers or for researching a concept like history, versus skills like language, coding, or woodworking. (Someone's doing that at our house.) However, he starts with another long case study, this one about Benjamin Franklin, how writing had a big impact on many things he did, and how he consciously worked to improve it as a young person.

The idea that "one component of a complex skill determines your overall level of performance" is the reasoning behind using drills. Don't spread your energy over all the skills needed for the task until you've got this one down. That will make the learning faster in the long run.

Our Case Study: My feeling is that I need to get the history issue down and that will make things fall into place for the plot of the project I'm working on. So you could say history is the skill I need to drill. However, it isn't a skill, it's a knowledge base, and I'm struggling with coming up with a way to drill history. Especially since Young says drills should "simplify a skill enough that you can focus your cognitive resources on a single aspect." (Did my high school math and French teachers know that?)

Young's strategy behind drills: Determine the weakest step in what you need to do, analyze it, and deliberately practice it. It should be something  that "governs the overall competence you have with that skill, by improving  it you will improve faster than if you try to practice every aspect of the skill at once."

Our Case Study: History is the weak step in my writing project, so I have been analyzing it and collecting material to learn about it. Maybe drill ideas will come up after I get to that.

Drills for ultralearners shouldn't be as mind-numbing as they are in traditional education because we have identified what we need to know, ourselves. "...carefully designed drills elicit creativity and imagination as you strive to solve a more complex learning challenge by breaking it into specific parts."

Our Case Study: That last part sounds wonderful. I'm just not seeing how I can come up with drills around learning methodologies for studying history.

I'm not even halfway through this book. Other projects and holidays have put this on a back burner. I'm also feeling that the time I'm using reading this thing could be better used reading the materials I've collected on my subject and looking for more.