The Twelve Days of Editing

On the tweflth day of editing, my editor said to me:

Don't use 'feel' or 'believe',
Don't use 'short' or 'tall',
Get rid of every 'very',
Schedule speaking events.
Go promote your book.
Avoid infinitives,
Change your villains name.

Show. Do Not. Tell.

The cover art's not right.
The title doesn't work,
Too many 'to be' verbs,
And get rid of every single aaaaadverrrb!



I'll be sparsely posting until after the holidays! I hope you all have a very happy holiday, whatever you celebrate. And if you don't celebrate anything, I hope you have a very nice week.

Friday Favorite

www.thriftbooks.com

Just in time to use your post-holiday gift money! Thriftbooks.com has a huge selection of used books, many under $4, all with free shipping! So, my pretties, isn't it time to get a little something for yourself?

A look at my marketing calendar

My marketing datebook lists the deadlines and submittal dates for all sorts of publication milestones as well as journal articles, reviews and contests. There are still lots of dates to be added and a lot more marketing plans to be made. So far, I have:

JAN
15th: Must have all editing done to hit Sept. 15 release

FEB
15th: Final cover art must be done, approved and in-house.

MARCH
Small Press Month: Lots of Inde-Debut Activities

APRIL
Teach workshop at NJr.High on Fantsy and Mythology

MAY
1st: Submit Book Release Announcement to SCBWI Newsletter
15th: Send galley to Booklistonline.com for review

JUNE
15th: Send galley or ARC to Foreword for review
15th: Send galley or ARC to independentpublisher.com for review
30th: Guest Article for "There has to be a beginning" blog

JULY
1st: PM Moon to send 2 ARC's to School Library Journal

AUG
Interview at Inde-Debut with Mara Forsythe

SEPT: LAUNCH!!
Boise SCBWI Conference
Launch Party 1
Launch Party 2
Blog Tour

NOV
SLC SCBWI Conference

DEC
Teach workshop at NJH on Book Trailers
Submit IPPY Entry

Two Things on Tuesday

1. My prize package arrived!! Is there anything better than getting candy in the mail? In case you missed it, Tess had a big ole' blog party last week to celebrate the sale of her novel, With A Name Like Love, to Farrar, Straus & Giroux. And I won a snack pack! The Swedish Fish are long gone.

I also got a Christmas music CD with all Tess's favorite songs. Ironincally, they're the same songs I have on my iPod Christmas mix. No wonder we're friends!! :)

.

2. I have an appt. to get my hair cut and colored today. I don't think many of you were followers of my livejournal blog. If you were, you'd know that hair, specifially my diy hair, was often a topic of conversation. Thank goodness I work at home and most days I don't even have to brush it. Unfortunately, I'm at the point where I have to make a decision: start coloring or watch those little stray grays accumulate.

***

So I've decided to get (as my son says) stripes (highlights). I'm hoping those will camoflage the strays for a while. And, if the gods are with me, I won't end up with anything tramatic...like the time I cut my hair and ended up with a mullet like Leather Tuscadero.

Anyway, here's the before:

The 'after' to come tomorrow, assuming it's not horrific.




UPDATE AFTER THE 'CUT':
I don't know, peoples. There may not be a photo tomorrow after all. It's not great.

Friday Favorite: A Two-fer!

Our $5 Gift Exchange

My huband's family has a $5 limit on gifts. Each of us have all the 'stuff' we need and another $20 candle or pair of socks isn't going to make our life fulfilled. (Ok, well maybe the socks.) Plus, $5 makes for some impressive creativity...and hilarity. The best gift so far was when my sis-in-law froze a month's worth of left-over, homemade dinners for my mother-in-law, who can't cook anymore. So creative! And $5 covered the tupperware. This is also how my son got Jose, the oldest living Betta fish in the world (until this year. RIP Jose.) I'm excited to see what people come up with this year! I'll post the best gift after Christmas.

Snow Cream

We have a tradition in our house. When we wake up to snow, The Boy gets to have Snow Cream for breakfast. Yesterday, I promised to make it for he and his two buddies before they headed to Aikido. One of them loved it; the other, not so much. Do you make snow cream at your house? The real recipe calls for condensed milk, but The Boy prefers my version, with regular old 2%.

SNOW CREAM:

1 bowl of snow

enough milk to dampen the snow

3-6 T. vanilla (depending on taste and amount of snow)

1/2 - 1 cup sugar (depending on taste and amt. of snow)

Stir together and enjoy!

* *giggle* *

One of my critique partners just called me "Obi Wan ka Moron".

That makes me laugh.

Burning Questions

1. If I changed out of the yoga pants I wore to bed and into new yoga pants, does that count as getting dressed? Does it count as yoga?

2. Last night I dreamed I was Oscar the Grouch and I was beating Elmo in the head with a Maglite. Does this mean I have Christmas stress? Or that I'm grouchy and hate Elmo?

3. If it's been 40 days since I last received editing direction from my editor, does that mean we're done? Or that she's given up? Or that I can expect to see a dove carrying an olive branch sometime soon?

4. Lastly, if during my morning straightening, I went from this:

to this:

but now I have this on my dining room table...

...is it really an improvement?

Lotsa Links

Great blog post by Greg Pincus on "Alerts" and why to use them:
http://www.thehappyaccident.net/quick-tutorial-google-alerts-part-one-why-alerts/

Jill Corcoran blogged yesterday about bookstore real estate, it's costs and benefits:
http://jillcorcoran.blogspot.com/2009/12/bookstore-baksheesh-real-estate-deals.html

The Inde-Debut Facebook Page is up! One and all welcome to join. Show your support for indie presses and authors!
http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=220335795545

Guidelines on what to watch for in your first book contract at Inde-Debut:
http://indedebut2010.blogspot.com/2009/12/your-first-book-contract.html

And this is just damn funny:
http://www.tracyedwardwymer.com/2009/12/teaching-shakespeare-day-6.html

Let the Festivities Begin!

This weekend, we decorated for the holidays. Since my son hates being photographed, we let him take the pictures. "Great," I thought. "Maybe there'll be a decent picture of me to use for my back cover photo."

Fat chance. I think I need to go over the basic points of photography with The Boy before the big morning arrives. Things like...can you tell what the picture is of? (above)

Don't take a picture looking into a light source and...

wait until your subject is looking at the camera

(and try to get their head in the photo).

We did get the tree up with only two episodes of crying this year. A marked improvement over last year. Last year's crying was all my fault. This year, only half of it was brought on by my ridiculous expectations that the tree, lights and tinsel be symmetrical and the ornaments evenly placed. I was punished for my insistance on perfection, though. This morning, we woke up to this:

The snow gods sure know how to make me unhappy.

Friday Favorite: Nice Surprises

Yesterday afternoon, the doorbell rang. I expected UPS or the mail man. SURPRISE!! It was the flower lady. Delivering flowers. For me! From who? Er, whom? The WAD! After coordinating the sendation (yes, it's a word) of flowers to Tess, to celebrate the sale of her novel, they went behind my back, the little sneakies, and sent flowers to me too, to celebrate The Invisible Sister. So a big THANK YOU goes out to Diana, Heidi, Kimmee, Rhonda, Sharon, Susan, & Tess. (Blog links provided where available.) I <3 you guys.

The workshops went really well this morning. I had a great time at North Junior High, answered lots of fun questions and gave away some good chocolate. I hope to go back in the spring to talk about mythology and fantasy books!

Happy Weekend!!

Quick Note

I'm teaching two writing workshops at our local Jr. High this morning, but I should have time to get a post up this afternoon. A big post with lots of thanks and five links. There should be more links, but some people are L A Z Y. ;)

Inde-Debut: More than Marketing

Ta-da! Please visit the new Inde-Debut blogsite, filled with information of all kinds: writing tips, blog entries and the low down on all things small press! Our obvious goal is to give our authors a platform, but at the same time, we hope to give our readers the latest on small and independent press publishing.

Visit the 'About' page for a great quote from Business Week about how small publishers are creating unique ways to market their authors.

Simple Math

The Marketing Corner

More on Marketing Soon

1. Cover art update:

Artist + Swine Flu = 1, 0

(One very sick friend and a complete back burner for the cover. Feel better soon Heidi!! xoxo)

2. Boy + High Verbal IQ = 1

(One Christmas list written completely in secret code...again this year.)

3. Our Volleyball Team + Ringer = 0

(Zero matches lost so far, thanks last night to A.F. and the wickedest serve I've ever seen.)

4. PBS + 6 weeks = Finally understanding our cat!

(So funny I posted yesterday about our Freakcat. Last night, we saw a special on PBS that said if cats aren't exposed to humans within the first 4 or 5 weeks of life, it's unlikely they'll be anything but feral. We found our cat on the side of the road. The vet said she was about 6 weeks old. That explains a lot. She's not a freak; she's just feral!)

Tuesday in Five Pictures

The cat is a total freak, so we've been thinking about getting her a cat of her own.

Revisions: scene charting

Tonight: Tacos before Vball!

Command central. Shows me how much stuff I didn't get done.

One thing I did get done: Logos for the Inde-Debut Groups.