Monday Stuff

1. I should have captioned the photos yesterday:
a) Sparky the dog, who looks exactly like another family dog, named Amy (not named after me, but still confusing at times, especially when camping and Amy runs off into the woods after a ground squirrel and everyone starts screaming "AMY!!" and I freak out, thinking I'm on fire or something.)
b) My Boy. I found him perched on this cat climbing tower. He thought it was a meditation stand.
c) The three brothers, trying to figure out how to work the really old movie projector they found in a storage chest recently purchased from an estate sale which just happened to fit the old family movies. Serendipitous, yes?
d) Hubby, me and many extra holiday pounds. I am Chubb (note the 2 'b's).

2. The Inde-Debut Group is growing fast!! If you have a book being released in 2010 or 2011 by a small / independent publisher (including SOME POD's), you too can join. Inde-Debut is like the "Class of 2K10" (marketing group) for authors not published by houses listed in CWIM (Children's Writers & Illustrator's Market).

3. I'm doing workshops at the local jr. high on Friday, for two language arts classes. They just finished creating book trailers for novels they read and are now writing book reviews for autobiographies. We never did anything remotely that cool when I was in school!

4. Wednesday night is critique group. Yay! I also got back the first chapter of the 'book formerly known as my WIP' from my Beta Reader. Holy Cows! Beta Readers ROCK!! And I'm lucky, 'cause she doesn't hate it!

5. Today, I have to get a project submitted to the Historic Preservation Commission, which means I'll actually have to get dressed and brush my hair and leave the house. [shiver] I've gotten awfully hermit-ish in the past few weeks.

6. I CAN'T BELIEVE I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT THE LAST DAY OF NANO!! So, today's the day and I'm happy to report that I did finish the first draft of my book--which was my only goal. I wrote about 10,000 words in 20 days. Definitely not a NaNo winner, but I'm happy to have puked that book out. Now...to revisions!!

Thanksgiving

Calling All Small Press Authors!

Do you have a book coming out in 2010? If your press is not listed in Children's Writers & Illustrators Market, you won't be eligible for online marketing groups like Class of 2K10 or Authors Now! Many small presses aren't listed. Mine isn't.

So...I'm putting together a group for debut authors in this situation. The group is called:

Inde-Debut

and it's open to anyone who has a book coming out in 2K10 with a small or CWIM-unlisted press.

Publishers just need to be members of Independent Book Publishers of America, Small Publishers Association of North America or listed in the Small Press section on SCBWI's PAL application form.

We hope to gather about twenty to thirty authors to help each other with publicity in their areas, through blog tours, virtual book launches, tweets, Facebooks posts, etc. Plus, it never hurts to have new author friends!!

If you're interested, please email me with your publisher, title and release date. I'll send you an invitation to the group if your publisher meets the criteria listed above.

My addy is amyacook-at-live(dot)com . Thanks!!

Hey Cool!

A year ago, I did some artwork for a friend of mine. She has a graphic design business called Snickle Pickle Art for Kids. Today, I found out two of my pieces are for sale in Rod's Western Catalog.

http://www.rods.com/Western-and-Horse-Artwork-$5000-and-under.html

Groovy.

Question for the Readers

How would you classify a book where the MC is 13 or 14, and the book deals with edgy issues like child abuse (not to the MC) and racial issues (in the past) and death?

Is this upper MG? Or lower YA?

And how to swear words fit into that mix?

Friday Favorite

THIS IS SO COOL!

If you have books set in the TV-watching past, here you can look up the tv shows that were on during that time and even see what episode aired on a particular day!!

TV EPISODE LISTINGS

Monday Rambles

1. I worked my fingers off with emails the last two weeks, trying to organize the neighborhood Christmas Crawl (which I'm not even hosting). I found the hosts, coordinated the date, the time, the food stuffs. I was so patting myself on the back until I woke up at 3:40 last night and realized...I forgot to send out the invitations!! Guess I'll be doing that today, after I track down everyone's emails. I so don't have time for this.

2. I had an ah-ha moment (did you guys hear that Oprah is stopping her show in 2011?) this weekend. As I was b*tching about people who pay me lots of money for my educated and experienced architectural opinion and then IGNORE IT, I realized that's what I did with the bad SLC SCBWI crit. (Note: the 'lots of money' part in my case isn't all that much and in the case of the crit, substantially less than that.)

3. I've been doing EA Sports for two weeks now and still no injuries. :)

4. One of the chickens, Skrall, has finally started laying eggs. We're still waiting for One-Up Mushroom to kick out some goods.

5. I finished my WIP. I've gotten one set of revision notes back from a critique partner and after I tackle those, I'm hoping to send it to another. I have two critique groups. My local group reads a chapter or two a month. They look hard at the writing. My group from Chautauqua, The Wad, sometimes they'll read chapters, but they're also good about reading a whole ms. That helps so much with catching plot and pacing issues. How do your critique groups work? Or do you use a beta reader? I'm going to try a beta reader for the first time on this book...very soon. :)

No gloom, no doom

Sorry for the cyber-drizzle I've been pouring on everyone lately. I'm happy to have some good news to post for Friday.

OUR VOLLEYBALL TEAM WON ALL THREE GAMES LAST NIGHT. WE'RE NOW 3-0. THAT'S RIGHT. UH-HUH. WE'RE UNBEATEN!

Why the beer photo and not a volleyball photo? Our team name is "PLAYS 4 BEERS". And we do. Happy Weekend!

My book...kinda...and other stuff

I mentioned Tuesday that I wasn't inspired to try any revisions on my manuscript of doom. Truth is, I'm a little depressed (like clinically) about my manuscripts in general. Why? We send out mss. If we're lucky, we get comments. We revise per those comments; we send it out again. Wash, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.

My question:
At what point does the manuscript stop being mine? Major plot changes, POV changes, additions of subplots and layers, the list goes on. What I end up with might be a fantastic novel, but can I really take credit for it, when it took a village to get it there? Do all novels go through this? Does it really take a writer, a critique group or three, a beta reader, an agent and a/possibly several editor(s)?

On a more positive note, the MamaWad sent this to me and I thought I'd share it--just so I'm not a complete downer. It's a quote from Scott Hoffman, Folio Literary.

"If you're a writer who has received personal attention or an 'encouraging' rejection from even one reputable agent, this is a good indication that publishing has become a numbers game for you. It's now just a matter of finding the right agent or editor at the right time. I'd strongly encourage you not to get even a little bit discouraged until you've received 50 - maybe even 100 - rejections on the project in question".

After six years of querying and submitting, I still don't have 5o rejections. Not even if I combine all five books. How about you?

When Conferences Hurt

A couple years ago, I won a partial scholarship and paid the remaining two grand to attend the Highlights Writer's Workshop for Children at Chautauqua. I spent the week with Jerry Spinnelli, Patti Gauch and Rich Wallace. I listened to editors Tracy Gates (Viking), Randi Rivers (Charlesburg) and Clay Winters (Boyds Mill) explain what they liked and invite us to submit. Linda Sue Park talked about how her novel, A Single Shard, sold out of the slush pile on her first submission (hate her) and how she read 1,000 books before she wrote it. I ate three huge meals a day prepared by not me. And I came away from that...more depressed about my writing than I've ever been in my life (though I'm pretty depressed right now.)

Why? Because at conferences you see...

1. ...published authors who are struggling to get their second, third, fifth book published, proving that once you break into the 'published author' biz, the fight's not over.


2. ...that many unpublished authors have great agent's and still aren't getting contracts.


3. ...the actual numbers or percentages of what editors receive vs. what they accept.


4. ...people ten to twenty years younger than yourself who have already dedicated themselves to writing.


5. ...people smarter, better 'writing' educated, better looking and (in my case) nicer than you, who are competing for the same tiny slice of 'acceptances'.


6. And if you have a critique with a presenter, sometimes that can go wildly awry.

At the SLC SCBWI Conference, I had a terrible critique on a ms my faculty advisor at Chautauqua loved and said was ready to send out. The SLC critiquer said plot was thin, the voice (my usual strong point) was irritating, the subplot awkward and my main character "unrealistic". In fact, the only positive thing she had to say was that I attempted to tackle a lesson about tolerance. The rest of the critique went on to say I'd failed miserably.

I left feeling like an amatuer--a feeling which persisted the rest of the conference. And that, I think, is why this business is so hard on writers. Because after many years of writing and workshops and classes and HARD WORK, we can still get a form reject or a really bad critique. I've gotten to the point where I almost expect a request for a partial or a full when I send out queries. And when they don't come, it kinda hurts. Because I've worked at this for six years and getting a form rejection letter dismisses all those years of work.

I'm still depressed about the bad critique. It's been a very long time since I've had such negative feedback on a piece. My instinct is to say, "You know, she just didn't get it," but I hear those words and cringe. I don't want to be the person who dismisses everyone who doesn't agree with them. I've seen that, and it ain't pretty.

I should take Linda Sue Park's "Rules for Critiques" to heart:

1. Say "Ok."


2. Try it.

But the thought of that depresses me. Why? More on that tomorrow.

Alphabet Soup: SLC-SCBWI

Photo Highlights...

The super cool Salt Lake City Library.

Tess and I after our yummy lunch at Squatter's. (Yes, I AM that much shorter than she is. She's like a freaking goddess.) It was so great to see her. Hard to believe it's been a year and a half since Chautauqua! We talked about writing the. whole. time. It was wonderful.




Debut Author's Panel ~ L to R:

Bobbie Pyron, Sydney Salter Hussman, Bree Despain (doesn't she have the coolest name EVER?), and Jean Reagan



Sydney and I at the conference. (I wore my green scarf a LOT. It was cold.)



And here I am with my new BFF, Emily Wing-Smith. She is such a darling, you would all love her, except that she wouldn't like you nearly as much as she likes me, because I am her BFF.

Highlights:

"The story is the thing. I'd buy a ms written on a cocktail napkin from a man oozing sores who sleeps in a closet if the story was good."

-Elizabeth Law, Egmont USA.

Fantastic mediterranean food with Terri Farley (Phantom Stallion Series), Royce Buckingham (Demonkeeper series) and Laurent Linn (art director for Simon & Schuster).

Meeting Kendra Marcus, BookStop Literary Agency, who was my agent for two years but we never met in person.

Tune in tomorrow for why conferences depress me.

W I N N E R S ! ! !

W I N N E R S ! ! !

Here is The Boy drawing the winners for The Invisible Sister Spell Card and Amazon Gift Card Giveaway.

Thanks to everyone to joined The Invisible Sister Fanpage and to my newest blog follower, PJ Hoover. (Hi PJ!) And now, the results:

Winners of a The Invisible Sister Spell Card #1 (links provided where available):

Lynn K.

Tammy A.

Jen S.

Lana K.

Miriam

Judy Cox

Corey Schwartz

Donna McDine

PJ Hoover

David B.

And the winner of the $20 Amazon Gift Card is:

Scott Heydt

Yay winners!!

Tune in tomorrow for a review of the Salt Lake City SCBWI Conference.

Things on Thursday

1. I did the 20-minute Wii EA Sports "Hard Workout" and it kicked my butt. And my thighs. And some parts of my back. Stupid running kickbacks.

2. My son watched while I did the workout. Yesterday, he asked when I was going to do it again (as I hobbled around making his breakfast while trying not to move anything). "Probably not for a while. Why?" "Because I think I could do it better than you." Well, duh.

3. This afternoon, I'm leaving for SLC with my friends, the Jensen Girls to attend the Utah SCBWI Conference. I love their blog--you should check it out! Well-written teen viewpoints interspersed with their mom's witty observations.

4. And while in SLC, I'm going to have lunch with my friend TESS! Maybe we'll have a photo to post next week. I think most of you already follow her blog, but if you don't, you should. She rocks.

5. Don't forget to enter the giveaway for:

10 Invisible Sister Spell Cards and
a $20 GIFT CARD TO AMAZON.COM

To enter the raffle, just join my Facebook Fan Page or follow this blog. Contest ends Sunday Nov. 15th at noon, EST.
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Thanks to everyone who's entered!! If you're already a follower, you can still enter. Just post a spell you'd most like to know in the comments below! Or post a link to this contest on your blog.

Contest, Spell Cards, Dreams & Sports

Yesterday, Sharon told me I should explain what a spell card is. Since The Invisible Sister is a fantasy / alternate-universe book about witches, it has a fair number of spells. My publisher and I decided to create collectible cards, each with a fun magickal spell. Once the contest is over, I will post the example of spell card #1 so you can see it. The next round will have the cover of the book on the back, but these first ones have my huge face. Hm. Bonus.

So--keep the dreams coming to enter your name for a spell card. Or join my Facebook fan page. It's super easy, and I don't email updates very often, so you won't be inundated with Facebook emails. And of course, if you become a follower of my blog, I'll enter you too.

TO MAKE THINGS MORE EXCITING: For new blog followers or folks who join my fanpage, I'll enter you in a raffle for a $20 gift certificate to Amazon.com. If you're already a follower, you can enter the gift certificate drawing by posting a link to the contest on your blog. (Just let me know you did, so I can add your name.)

The contest will run through 10 am mountain time on Sunday (that's noon East Coast), with winners announced Monday. Winners names will be pulled out of a hat by either my son or his triplet friends. I think I originally posted Friday as the end of the contest, but I'm going to be in Salt Lake on Friday at the SCBWI Conference and having lunch with TESS!!

You guys commented some wacky dreams yesterday! :) My last weird dream was that I forgot to go to my college architecture studio all semester long and that my final project was due the next day. I worked all night on the model and when I put it up for critique, I realized it was not a good idea to make it a spaceship...of Legos. :\

FITNESS: I did my first round of EA Sports this morning and I'm happy to report: NO BLOOD! And I played soccer yesterday. Also no blood. I'm 2 for 2.

Monday Marketing Giveaway!

FREE STUFF!!!

Join my Facebook fan club ~ Win something cool!

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My publisher has authorized the giveaway of ten copies of The Invisible Sister Spell Card #1. These cards will be released, one per month, until The Invisible Sister comes out in September 2010. Each card has a cool spell...this first one tells how to chase away nightmares.

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Once The Invisible Sister comes out, the spell cards will be available for purchase in full sets. But if you're a consistant blog reader (and kind of lucky) you might end up with a whole set for free!! Winners will be drawn at random from all entrants.

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~To join... go here, join the club, then leave a comment to let me know you've joined.

~If you're not a Facebook user, you can follow my blog instead.

~If you're already a follower, leave a comment about your weirdest dream and I'll enter you into the drawing.

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Happy Monday!

...oh yeah! Giveaway winners will be chosen Friday!!

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Friday Favorite--TWOFER

I know it's late! whatever.

FRIDAY FAVORITES!!

1. Meyer's Clean Day CANDLES!! Makes my house smell clean even when it isn't.

2. Pencil Full of Lead -- Paolo Nutini: This song is to me now, what As The Days Go By (Talking Heads) was in college. Rock on Nanowriters!

Total word count for this Nano week: 4,997.

Lastly, thanks to Scott, I went out and bought EA Sports Personal Trainer for Wii. I'm waiting 'til Monday to break it in. Stay tuned for more exciting injury photos!!

Egads!

Behold, the cartoon me!

I am so behind on EVERYTHING, yet I spent the entire morning at school working the Book Fair. Then I took The Boy and His Friend out for pizza lunch where we spent an extra half hour drawing silly cartoons. Now I'm back at my desk...even further behind. I haven't looked at my Blog dashboard in what seems like days; I haven't attempted any Wiiing since Monday, and I've been trying to get the stuff below posted since last week.

SO! without further ado...

NOTES ON THE TELECLASS: GETTING BOOK REVIEWS

1. There are two kinds of reviews: Pre-publication and Post-publication.


2. Lots of people are jockeying for the same reviewers, so use a creative approach.


3. Don't forget about local media: regional journals, local newspapers, free community publications, etc.

PRE-PUBLICATION REVIEWS:

1. For these reviews, you submit galleys or ARC's.


2. Typically, 3-6 months before your publication date.


3. These reviewers are normally magazines, including but not limited to: Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal.


4. Also focus on niche magazines--kids' magazines, obv.


5. Follow blogs of reviewers. Comment on their blogs and build a relationship before you submit your galley.


6. Use Technorati to search the market for book reviewer's blogs.


7. There are submittal guidelines. USE them!

POST-PUBLICATION REVIEWS:

1. Send post-publication review requests out like candy.


2. Mid-West Book Review is a bigee.


3. Check into Mommy-Bloggers for kids' books. They sometimes have a huge following and a blog review can reach a lot of people.


4. Use Twitter. Post: 'If you're a reviewer and you want a free copy of my book, tweet me!'

Those are all the notes I took. Most of this is obvious stuff, but there were a couple good nuggets in there. Now, I'm off to Nano and hope to make up for yesterday goose egg.

Twofer

1. See that? That's my knii. That's right, my knii. A knii is what you get when you buy a Wii. I'm no longer me; I'm a Mii. And I no longer have knees; I have kniis. Well, in this case I have hamburger thanks to the Wii Fit pushup/plank exercise***. Because of the five month headache, I missed the summer, in all it's calorie burning glory. Now, I'm poised on the brink of turkey/mashed potato season five pounds heavier than advisable. I had to do something--join a gym (expensive), get outside (too cold) or...Wii. As you can see, so far so good NOT. I'll keep you updated.

2. NANO!! I'm 2,400+ words into NaNo and wondering...if I have to scrap what I wrote yesterday and go in a different direction, do I have to subtract yesterday's progress from my word count?

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***In fairness, if I could do a boy-style pushup, my kniis would have been spared. However, that Wii Board is so narrow, it's like trying to do a pushup with your hands together.

Weekend Wrap-up

I went as a fairly well-known politician for Halloween. The hubby went as the Grim Reaper. We made lots of campaign buttons with funny sayings that made us laugh but would probably not be too funny to other people. Still, we are what we are--liberals in a neighborhood of liberals, so we were pretty safe. The person who was NOT safe, was my son. Seen here, happy to have overcome the flu and looking forward to a night of trick-or-treating and fun:

And seen here after being hit in the eye with the Grim Reaper's scythe.

And here we are, in all our loveliness. Note the holster on my hip. I, as the well-known politician, never travel without my .44 magnum.

So--what did YOU go as for Halloween?