Chuck

The day started off moody and turned cranky after that. I am frustrated with people who JUST DON'T GET IT!! You know the people...no matter what 'it' might be, they're the ones who think you're way off base when in fact, YOU ARE THE ROCK GODDESS OF 'IT' and what they think is backwards and upside down.

Happily, one of my sisters from the Realm of Wad sent this yesterday. Just reading it makes me feel better.

1. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
2. Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.
3. Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
4. Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship.
5. Some kids wear Superman underwear. Superman wears Chuck Norris underwear.
6. When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Take on those wasters! Embrace your inner Chuck*.

(*Not to be confused with your up Chuck. Messy, that one.)

Random Updates

1. I am sad to announce the passing of Jose, the oldest living Betta fish on the planet. We had the pleasure of living with Jose for almost two years. He brightened his little corner of my son's room with his flashing blue fin. RIP Jose.

2. My son now wants a hamster. He plans to call it Jose.

3. We finally got rid of Corky, our hen who turned out to be a rooster. All hail the magic of Craig's List! Have a good life at your new home in Emmett, Corky.

4. Thursday, we're getting a new silver-laced wyandotte hen. My son wants to call her Corky.

5. Still no eggs from the flock.

6. In writing news, we're making some progress on edits for The Invisible Sister this week. I received three chapters with comments last night and sent back corrections this morning. Of the fifteen chapters in my book, we're working on seven, eight and nine.

7. I did actually make some progress on my WIP yesterday. My inspiration returned late in the afternoon and I wrote about four hundred words.

8. This week is banned book week. Read a banned book with your kid.

9. Syren is out--Book 5 in the Septimus Heap series. I loved Books 1 and 2, liked 3 and was 'enh' on 4. I'm not sure if I'll buy Book 5...I may wait to see if I like it before forking over the hardcover bucks. Has anyone else read this series?

10. Registration is now open for the Salt Lake City Annual SCBWI conference. November 13-14 at the beautiful City Library. Speakers include Elizabeth Law (Egmont USA), Kendra Marcus (Bookstop Literary Agency (my old agent)), Simon & Schuster Art Director Laurent Linn and author Terri Farley.

Happy Writing!

Today cancelled due to lack of enthusiasm

I finished my architecture stuff early. It's not even noon. I have a whole four hours to work on my WIP....and I'm totally uninspired. I don't want to write. I want to go shopping and eat junk food. I want to play tennis and then soccer, and then eat some more junk food.

Why is it when I'm inspired to write, I never have the time. And when I have the time, I'm so often not in a writing mood?

Who ever feels this way? Who wants junk food?

Friday Favorites

I meant to post (on Wednesday) my notes on humor from Lin Oliver's talk at the Boise Conference , but I didn't get around to it. Essentially, Lin says we have to define what's funny to us.

That being the case, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite jokes. Clearly, I have a high brow and sardonic sense of humor. ;)

Why don't cannibals eat clowns?

Because the taste funny.

Blonde 1: Which is farther away: Florida or the moon?

Blonde 2: Duh...can you see Florida? (thanks Tess!)

What do you get when you rip the wings off a fly?

A walk.

And finally, no collection of my favorite humor would be complete without this:

I feel happy. I feel happy!!

So--what makes YOU laugh?

Dropping Eaves

(This doesn't really count as eavesdropping since I was involved in the conversation, but it's still funny...er, nunny.)

...

As my son and I are watching The Golden Compasss.

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Son: When are they going to show the nuns again?

Me: Nuns?

Son: Yeah--those people that took her uncle captive.

Me: Those were Samoyard bandits.

Son: Yeah, but they looked like nuns.

Me: (puzzled look) Are you talking about the people dressed in furs with swords?

Son: Yeah, them.

Me: (puzzled, amused look) Honey, have you ever seen a nun?

Son: (puzzled, my-mom-is-so-dumb look) Yeah, in museums.

Me: (back to simply puzzled, then !) Oh. Are you sure you don't mean HUNS?

Son: (slaps forehead) Right -- huns.

:)

Boise Conference: Brian Farrey (Flux Editor) on Query Letters

Without getting into the whole #agentfail and #queryfail, it's still safe to say that a query letter provides a chance to capture an editor's eye. Here are Brian's tips on queries, followed by his guide to a concise four-sentence synopsis.

TIPS ON QUERIES:

• Never start a query with a rhetorical question.
• Be professional. Including a little personal info is fine, if it relates to your ms.
• Absolutely find the submission guidelines for each editor you query. Do not send a snail mail sub to an editor who accepts only email.
• Personalize each query letter. The temptation is to write one query and send it to everyone. Be sure that you're following each individual agent/editor's submission guidelines.
• There is no need to say, "I'm looking for representation/publication." This is assumed by the fact that you're sending a query.

Brian also noted that all editors and agents view queries differently. Some read the query first. Some ignore it until after reading the first page of the submission. Some ignore it until after reading the entire submission. In any case, a strong query can only help you.

ANATOMY OF A FOUR SENTENCE SYNOPSIS:

1. Who is the protagonist and what do they want?
2. What's standing in their way?
3. How are they going to get around the obstacle?
4. What compliations arise from their course of action/promise of conflict?

Brian points out that the synopsis in the query letter should be short. It doesn't (in his opinion) need to give away the climax, but it does need to indicate some idea of what the climax might be. Lastly, he said it's important to remember rejection of a ms is highly subjective. The fact that you can pick up a published book and hate it is proof of that.

Example four-sentenct synopsis by Brian:

Jason Scott has one dream that will make his senior year complete: he wants to take a starred first for acting in the state high school one act play competition. But when Ms. DeRosa, the Lincoln High School drama coach, opts to do a play with an all-female cast, the curatin seems to fall on his hopes. Determined to win the acting award, he forms a student-run drama club and enters the competition with a different one act play that he's directing and starring in. With three rounds of competition to pass before the state finals, Jason must fend off mutinous divas, scheming stagehands, and an escalating war of sabotage between the rival casts that threaten to derail both productions.

FRIDAY FAVORITE

First, a moment of silence for the loss of one of my favorite words: alaRcity (to do something in a frightened or surprised manner.) I was informed by dictionary.com this morning that the actual word is alaCrity (to do something in a cheerful manner.) [sigh] To think I've been saying it wrong all my life. But I ask you, which word is more intriguing?

Did you know NaNoWriMo has a YOUNG WRITERS PROGRAM? Kids write a novel in a month, just like the adult NaNo, but they can set their own word goal. There are downloadable Young Novelist Workbooks that offer writing prompts and help with character, plot, setting, etc. They have different books for elementary, middle school and high school. Plus, kids get encouraging emails from authors like Jerry Spinelli and Phillip Pullman.

For teachers, they've created lesson plans, access to teachers-only forums and incentive kits for classrooms that include posters, progress charts, buttons and stickers. Not to mention, the chance to write a novel in a month, right along with their classroom.

And! For each event, they'll loan up to 25 AlphaSmart Neos to classrooms in need of word processors. Even the shipping is covered.

Kids can participate with their class or school, or in a small group or as an individual...or even with Mom or Dad. For more info, go here. Registration is already open, so make sure you head there with alacrity!

DANGIT!!

I missed my 100th post! Ok, so this is #102 and I'm using it to say:

STUPID BLOGSPOT!! STOP EATING MY COMMENTS ON OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOGS!!

Boise Conference: Keynote with Brian Farrey, editor with Flux

More from the Boise SCBWI Conference...

Brian started off with a quiz question.
What does the number 280,000 represent?

Anyone? It's the number of books printed in 2008. That's up from 100,000 in 1993. (FYI...A good part of that increase is due to self-published books.) Brian talked next about how much writing has changed in recent years. Mark Twain didn't have to worry about a Facebook account, and Madeline L'Engle didn't Twitter. But we should. Writers today can't just sit in a room and write. Because, of that 280,000 number, about 30,000 were juvenile books (picture books, middle grade and young adult). Considering that the vast majority of manuscripts are rejected, we can do the math and understand the staggering number of manuscripts writers are competing against. What do we do put ourselves ahead of the pack? Brian has three suggestions.

1. Be cognizant. Know the market.
Know what's on the shelf now: Jane Eyre is a classic, but it probably wouldn't be picked up today.
Know what each house specializes in: Don't send a PB ms to a YA house.
Know what the media is saying about kids' books.
Read Publisher's Marketplace to see who's buying what and how often.
READ, READ, READ.

2. Be present physically.
Get to know your local booksellers and librarians!
Book Tours are mostly a thing of the past. They're expensive and often result in an author sitting at a table alone, not selling a single book.
Capitalize on library or book store associations, like YALSA or Indiebound. Your local librarian or book seller can put your book in the hands and minds of others across the country, but you have to make that first contact.
Book events you do should be selective and special. A book launch party is a great example. But if you're in Pittsburgh, don't schedule a book signing with every store in town. Most likely, you'll get just a couple people at each one.
If you do want to get a bookstore to schedule a signing for you, do the work for them. Say "I have 200 friends in the XYZ metropolitan area who would love to buy a book from me."
Meet other writers! Networking in the writing community is a great way to create a presence and promote your book.

3. Be present spiritually. ie, Maintain an online presence.
These days, writers need Facebook/Myspace/Twitter accounts.
Get a professional email address! Don't use your 'hot-blond-mama@ hotmail. com' address to correspond with editors and agents. Email addresses are free at yahoo.com, live.com and others.
It is essential to have a webpage. It's better to have one that involves your name, instead of one that involves your book title. 1: If the book is picked up, the publisher could change the title. 2: You'll have to create a second webpage for your next book.
Start a blog. Write regularly, once a week at a minimum.
Leave great, pithy comments on other authors' blogs. They'll read it, then click over to your blog to see what you're about. Some will become followers.
Networking is very important. Conferences, chat boards, blogs, etc. Participate in them to make friends and influence people.
Purchase www. yournamehere. com
Social networking: Do it.
On-line behavior: Be professional. Don't write about personal problems or how much wine you drank last night. And don't bad-mouth other writers or books.
Editors and agents google you. Yes. They do. What do you want them to see?
Find innovative ways to promote yourself. For example, the funny video letters on youtube created by John Greene (An Abundance of Katherines)
Book trailers are becoming popular.
Check into Backspace. com
Check into publicity groups, like 2K9 and 2K10.

Finally, every writer should have a copy of The Savvy Author's Guide to Book Publicity.

......

That's it for today. I have two more Boise Conference posts for next week: Lin Oliver on Humor and Brian Farrey's Four-Step Guide to the perfect query synopsis.

Be sure to check back on Friday for my Friday Favorite. I found a fantastic one for this week!

Cover Art

A couple months ago, my publisher said it was time to start thinking about cover art. Early on, I recommended Heidi Schmidt, an artist and friend of mine to produce the cover. At this point, we're still hammering out the basic concept but it has been interesting to see how things work.

I've heard with larger houses, writers (even writers with agents) have no control at all over the cover. PM Moon Publishers, LLC is a small house that puts out 6-8 books a year. That means the managing editor is just an email away and things work in a more 'family-oriented' manner. And as she put it, "As long as we don't dislike the cover, you can have anything you want." Sweet!

Of course, it has to be salable, and I've learned already that what I like and think best (like my original title) isn't necessarily the best choice, sales-wise. So Heidi and I have been chatting a lot, and emailing images and ideas. I hope to see another sketch soon. I wish I could post them, so you could see the process, but the release of a cover image is big doins (as my Grandma used to say).

We're shooting for a September 2010 release. To hit that date, we'll need a final draft of the cover by Feb. 15th. Which means, we need a preliminary draft sometime in the next month or two. Final edits to the text will have to be complete by Jan. 15th. Hitting these dates will set up a pre-press date of May 15th, which only means we'll have the first proof of the book. If we miss any of those dates, it pushes publication back 30 days. If we find any errors, that too pushes publication back 30 days.

Dates and deadlines...it's all like a house of cards.

Boise Conference: Lin Oliver's 13 Best Pieces of Writing Advice

I want to start by saying this year's Boise conference was IMO the best we've ever had. Since we held it in conjunction with BSU (Go Broncos!), we got the added benefit of speakers linked to their literacy department, including author David Ward and professor Stan Steiner. They were wonderful.

Our first presenter was Lin Oliver, executive director and founding member (38 years ago) of SCBWI. If you ever get the chance to meet her, do. She's a lovely, warm, witty, riotously funny person. She shared with us the thirteen best pieces of writing advice she's ever heard.

1. Define yourself as a professional. Call yourself a writer, give yourself a place for your writing to occur and do other things representative of your new job.

2. Find your own voice. Judy Bloom's advice for finding your voice: Write the kind of book you like to read.

3. Write from empathy--not an urge to teach, preach, reminisce or be sentimental. Kids don't want to read a story about how cute kids are.

4. Paula Danziger's three rules for a solid plot:
A. Come up with a character you LOVE.
B. Decide what they want MOST in the world.
C. Decide what's keeping them from it.

5. It's not a children's book if the kid doesn't solve the problem.

6. Susan Patron's advice: Start the book on the day that's different.

7. Write in scenes. A scene starts the moment something new happens in the story.

8. Bruce Coville's advice: Follow your weirdness. (I very much cotton to this.)

9. Mine your embarrassment.

10. Eavesdrop. Listening is the most important skill of a writer. We are students of humanity.

11. Read your work aloud!

12. Do your market research. Don't send your picture book manuscript to a YA only publisher. You waste your time and money, the editor's time and you brand yourself as a non-professional. See item #1. There are many tools available for us to use:
A. SCBWI Market Report--lists agents, houses & submission guidelines, plus more.
B. SCBWI Monthly Bulletin--gives info about which editor is moving where
C. Read books! If your manuscript is a MG fantasy, find MG fantasys you like and see
who published them.
D. There is an "edited by" section on the SCBWI website to see who edited those books
that match your manuscript.
E. They also have a calendar of contests, awards, grants, and conferences--all of which a
professional author will be interested in!

13. Enjoy your creative life. Revel in the things that make you creative. Don't stare at the cursor blinking on your blank word doc. Take a walk, take a nap, take a shower, read a book...do whatever it is that inspires you. Inspiration has to happen before word one hits the page. And when you get to a stubborn point in your manuscript, the brainstorm that solves it will more likely happen in the shower than in your computer chair. As Sid Fleischman said, "In writing, nothing is wasted except the paper." Finally, spend a lot of time hanging out with other writers. They're the best inspiration of all. (To that I can attest!)

Friday Favorite

Regional SCBWI Conferences

The Utah/Southern Idaho SCBWI Conference starts tonight! Squee!! We'll have Lin Oliver, executive director of SCBWI and Brian Farrey, editor at FLUX, and eight other splendiforous authors. Our conferences have always been stellar! We've seen Miriam Hees, managing editor at Blooming Tree Press, Ellen Hopkins (yes, THE Ellen Hopkins), and so many other greats that I can't mention them all.

.

But looking over the other regions conference lists, I realize we're not the only ones. Salt Lake City will have reps from Egmont USA and Simon & Schuster, Texas has Kirby Larson (author of Hattie Big Sky) and agents from McVeigh, Curtis Brown and Transatlantic, and Kansas has (i'm breathing into a bag here) Bruce Coville.

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So check your region at the SCBWI Events page. In fact, check all the regions near you. In addition to the great workshops, most conferences offer critiques with their keynote speakers. And almost always, the editors will invite attendees to send in one manuscript, which is one of the few ways to get your book into a closed house (unless you have an agent like SOME people.) ;)

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Especially exciting for me this year: I'll be one of the presenters! I've been invited to participate in a debut author panel...and I bought five new dresses.

.

Husband=not happy.

Dodeedoo deedoo...

Just sitting here waiting. Anybody else waiting?

I'm waiting on doctors, editors, labs, radiologists, agents, other editors, lovely artists, my son to finish his homework, and six o'clock so I can go play soccer for the first time in two months.

Waiting on good things. Waiting on bad things. How many things are YOU waiting on?

Tuesday Kindness

Last year, I had the pleasure of having my novel critiqued by Hank Phillipi Ryan, author of Prime Time, Face Time and the newly released Air Time. (If you're a lover of suspense, you should read them.)

Hank liked my novel and asked that I keep in touch with her about the status of it. Recently, I had some monumental bad news on it, which I shared with her.

She sent me an email -- both commisurating and encouraging.

I emailed back to assure her I wouldn't be disheartened; that I heartily believed in my favorite quote from Winston Churchill:
Never give up. Never, never, never give up.
(You have to read it in that bull-dog English accent for the full effect.)

Hank wrote back and said she was sending me something that was tacked up on her bulletin board right that very second!

She did, and it was this magnet, which now lives on my filing cabinet. Isn't that funny?
.

Sorry sorry sorry!!

I'm having an unexpected blog break. Sometimes life just turns ugly and demands your full attention. See you next week... depending...

Mini whatever

I'm having a seriously crappy day, so I'll leave you with this post I loved from MS Forster. Especially helpful for anyone building platform!

Let's talk social networks!