My ARCs will arrive at my doorstep soon–all 20! I will actually be able to hold onto my “almost-final” book, and guess what? I get to read it again. This has to be the last time. I wonder if F. Scott Fitzgerald read Gatsby as many times as I’ve read Sliding on the Edge? Wish I could ask him.
ARCs
Marketing
I now realize all those English classes might have been good, but what I really needed was a course in marketing. Little did I suspect there was so much involved in post-writing a novel and post-selling a novel. Learning all the vocabulary alone is killing me!
Dream
So last night this dream happened. The reason it’s sticking with me is that I’ve never dreamed this kind of dream before. I have some regulars: flying, getting stuck so I can’t move even when I try, searching for something in the dark. This one is waaay odd.
I’ve just shopped. That alone is weird for me. I’m not a shopper. So I have these packages and they are inside slick plastic and they slide around. I put them down on a fence, try to climb over the fence, knock the packages off into a . . . canal (where that came from I’ll never know.) filled with passing open boats. These packages land in a boat. I race to another boat and beg the guy to take me back to the boat with my packages. He can’t understand me. Why? He’s Chinese and doesn’t speak English. Still I wave my arms a lot and he gets the idea, so off we go to find my packages. We pull up alongside a boat, but it’s the wrong one. In fact, (wait for it) it’s a funeral boat. There’s a body laid out with beautiful flowers, lots of people standing along the canal crying. Now this is interesting, right? I may have a plot going here. So what does my brain do? It wakes up.
NCTE San Antonio
Thanksgiving Books
Before I don my chef’s hat and pull out the mixer from the back of the cupboard I have to share a couple of things in an about the world of writing for young readers.
Jen Robinson has a great post about The True Story of Thanksgiving, an upper middle grade non-fiction book that would be a wonderful addition to anyone’s T’day celebration. Just from the description you can tell how much richer the history of our special day really is. I’m off to the bookstore this afternoon, so I can share this around our table tomorrow.
Laurie Halse Anderson’s book, “Thank you Sarah:The Woman who Saved Thanksgiving,” is another source to begin reading about the true background to our national holiday. It made me want to know more about this woman, so after the holiday flurry I plan to do a bit more digging into Sarah Hale.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
SCBWISF Asilomar
I’m heading to Asilomar in February to actually “talk” to people who write. In preparation for socializing I’ve begun leaving the safety of my writing environment and going to events that require face-to-face verbal exchanges.
Note to self: articulate slowly so as to give your brain sufficient time to “edit” or just listen and nod. Always look interesting and interested.:)
Part of good socializing often involves food–tiny pieces that have a tendency to slip through fingers or off plates.
Note to self: eat before event, avoid rumaki, avoid accidental spitting, especially when talking to an editor.
I’m sure there are more skills I should polish, but I’m taking this challenge on in manageable bytes.
More later.
The Photo
Back in October I blogged about this:
“Since I’m still in twist about this picture on my book thing, I was trying to remember how I used to look at pictures of writers on books when I was young. Did their age or lack of it have any bearing on my choosing to read their writing? I can’t remember.
Then I went to my book shelves and studied the pictures of authors. Stephen King always looks eerie, so that fits. Wallace Stegner looks old and authorly. Robert Penn Warren looks like he just came out of a cave. Carl Sagan looks international which is good even though he probably should look more universal. And I loved Nora Ephron’s picture on the back of her book, I Feel Bad About My Neck. She has pulled up a turtle neck to just below her eyes!! I’m wondering if I can do that? It would certainly save on air-brushing!”
Now I’ve actually found a photographer who will work on making me look unlike Stephen King or Wallace Stegner . . . even Robert Penn Warren. He says that’s easy. But when I pushed a bit and asked if maybe I could have more of an Anglie Jolie smile, he raised the price. I immediately screamed, “Joking!”
By the end of December I will have a photo. I will no longer be twisting in the wind over this part of the journey. I will either be very happy and broke or very unhappy and broke. I’m praying for the former.
Wish me luck.
Oh, and for Nan, I am planning on using make-up. Maybe even a lot of it. I’m pulling all the stops.
Why Do You Write ?
I asked myself that question today while I was thumping my head on my desktop, trying to wake up my writing-brain. Here’s what I came up with:
I love it.
No.
I hate it.
No.
It keeps me sane.
No.
It drives me crazy.
No.
I do it for the big bucks 🙂 Ah! Of course.
But you write a lot of stuff for free.
Well, that’s because I like the people who publish what I write even if they don’t pay me?
Ah! Of course.
I mean it’s important to keep kids reading and if small presses and e-zines can do that . . .
Ah! Of course.
Oh, stop with the Ah! business.
You haven’t really answered your question, have you?
No.
Well, it’s complicated.
New Look
When I’m not writing I’m fiddling with something, like this blog AKA glob (see my old post: My Blog is a Glob). So now by making a change I appear to have made progress. I hope President Obama’s “change” means something very different.
ARCs
So you get these things called ARCs; then what? Carry them under your arm like you’re going door-to-door selling encyclopedias? Stand on the corner and hope someone will stop and ask, “What are those?”
I should have taken Marketing 101 instead of Intro to Shakespeare.