So…Thursday. And I said I’d do a review every Wednesday. I totally forgot about it until just now.
I do have the very good excuse of terrible allergies slash editing, but…
Anyway. I still have more editing to do, so I’m gonna have to just fail this week and come back with a bang next Wednesday. Right.
I’m sort of disappointed with my blogging lately. I’ve been busy, really, doing stuff for our local SCBWI chapter in anticipation of this weekend’s spring conference, and revising manuscripts and working on my newest novel.
But I really did want to read and review books by Oklahoma authors, and that has fallen more and more by the wayside.
And the hundred journal entries project? As if.
However, I seem to have lots of spare time to spend on tumblr. Research. Learning how teens interact. Riiiiiight.
So. First things first, I’m going to go back and see what Oklahoma authored books I’ve read and not got around to reviewing. Then I’m going to tackle them, one by one.
I think I’m forgetting some.
Also…literally sitting right next to me, ready to be read:
And on my Kindle:
So that’s…18 books already? And I know there’s more that I want to read. Several are by authors already listed above, but there’s others that I haven’t even gotten to yet. So…I’m thinking if I grow up and commit to doing one each week, I’ve got almost five months of blog posts on here. Of course, the ones that still have to be read are a little more work, but it’s not like it’s going to be hard work.
I used to have the newspaper done each week on Wednesdays, and that seemed to work well enough. So. Every Wednesday. I will have a Oklahoma book review on this blog each and every Wednesday. At least until I get done with the ones I’ve already read.
So now I need to figure out how to schedule blog posts. Good thing I have six days to do this.
I’ve been so busy lately. Good busy. Well, and some time-wasting busy, but we won’t dwell on that right now.
I’ve read a ton of books by Oklahoma authors – so many, in fact, that it’s become intimidating to write all of them. I suppose I need to be a grown-up and write one every day or something, then set them up to post automatically. That’d be cool. It’s funny how I used to write very regularly for the newspaper, but it’s a little different for a blog. I was the editor and reporter at the paper, so I would put everything in and then think, Okay, I’ve got a 40-inch news hole left to fill. So…my city council story needs to be 40 inches. Let’s do this thing! And I would make magic happen.
But this blog is a little more…infinite, isn’t it?
I’m also working as publicity chair for the Oklahoma Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ spring conference. It’s kind of fun to reconnect with people in the media. Hopefully we can get the word out about the conference and help open doors for others who want to write for children! Lots more information about that at the Oklahoma SCBWI website. Made a flyer to hang at libraries and bookstores too. I was a little nervous, because it looks suspiciously like it was made by a writer using Open Office, but our gracious regional advisor said it was just fine. So that was happiness.
Finally, I made a press release for a friend, for her to send out before school visits. That was fun too.
Two more things on my to-do list for today. One of those was write a blog post, ha ha. Check.
Now I need to get my pages ready for critique group tomorrow night.
I’ve still got almost an hour until midnight.
Let’s do this.
I think that the most interesting thing I’ve developed after getting seriously back into creative writing is my observational skills. I don’t know if I always saw things and forgot, or I didn’t even notice before.
Take today, for instance. I went to Walmart, yay. (No, really. Ugh.) So I bought some food and stuff, and found the best looking check-out line (almost…the shortest line was the tobacco check-out line, but I always feel vaguely guilty to be clogging that one up when the smokers only get that one if they’re buying) and I made small talk with Carol-the-cashier and moved my bags to the cart.
The cashier behind me (the cigarette line guy) said something to his customer about putting something in the buggy. I considered that, thinking about how I always say cart instead of buggy, and wondering if he was from a different part of the country. Swiped the credit card, got receipt (have a nice day-you too), smile, roll on.
Carefully steered the cart back toward the entrance. Almost had a traffic issue near the water fountains, when a man was squeezing past me on the left while a woman was trying to pass on the right. I stopped. Excuse me. Neither of them said anything in reply.
And then, I saw him. The guy. A young man. A stubbly dark brown beard – the kind of beard that is shaved on the top and the bottom, so it’s a narrow-ish line. Lighter stubble above and below the line, so he wasn’t religious about it or anything. Dressed casually. Jeans. Black hoodie. Hiking-style leather boots.
He was using one of those courtesy Walmart sanitizing wipes to clean the handle of his cart. Or buggy. The carts have this little ridge on them in the handlebar, on the plastic, and he was carefully using his thumb to clean the dip in the ridge.
I walked past, my eyes taking in everything as I turned toward the door.
Excuse me – my voice automatically said to the woman coming in the exit door, looking at me as if I was committing a crime to push my cart out the same way she was coming in. She said nothing in response.
Whatever. Still thinking about the guy.
He was young, cute, casual. What’s his story?
I don’t even use those wipes most of the time. They’re such a smart idea – don’t pick up everyone else’s germs along with the stuff you actually want to get – but I’m pretty lazy, and stopping to get a wipe is kind of a big deal. Plus you might have someone behind you, and holding up the line is a no-no. And what do you do with the wipe when you’re done? Usually the trash can is all full. I’ve dropped them in the bottom of the cart before, but that’s also less than an ideal situation.
So. The GUY. In my experience, guys aren’t even that concerned about germs, or being more than relatively clean. Wiping a cart seems like such a fastidious thing for a casually dressed guy to do.
I’m putting the bags in my car, sniffing to keep my nose from running in the bitter wind, when I think about what a fantastic tiny character trait wiping a cart would be in a novel. What an ideal way to show a little something about somebody – and the things it could mean! Is he a germaphobe? Just getting over being sick? Maybe he’s OCD. Maybe someone he loved died from some sort of communicable disease.
Maybe none of those. Maybe the handle just felt sticky. But if so, why not just get another cart? That opens up a whole new realm of ideas.
I think that before, I might have noticed this guy, but I wouldn’t have ended up dragging the idea of him home with me, obsessing over him, and tucking him into my mental file of things that are definitely going to end up in one of my stories.
I freaking love this.
This month I got to enjoy my first SCBWI Agent Day, in Chandler, Oklahoma.
I had such a great time, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since, wondering how I’d like best to recap it. In the meantime, two of my friends beat me to it, writing wonderful blog posts about the day. I read both of those and thought, these are good. Maybe I shouldn’t write one. I probably can’t say anything that hasn’t already been said.
But then I remembered that I spent a decade working for a weekly newspaper. Lots of times big news happened in our little town right after the paper came out. Little stories would be all mine, but the big stuff would be covered by the big daily papers. I’d still have to write about it, five or six days later. It would just be that local perspective.
So I can at least do that. Even if I can’t be first, and I probably can’t be best, it can still be my perspective. My newbie thoughts on Agent Day. That’s something, I think.
I’ve got my notes from the day, and my outline, so I think I’m going to go over it kind of lazy-style and just start at the beginning. If you wanted the inverted pyramid, I’m sure you’d pick up a newspaper anyway.
It was held in Chandler since that’s in between Tulsa and OKC and it’s where our Regional Advisor, Anna Myers, lives. Our Agent Day is held at the First Baptist Church there. The church doesn’t charge us anything, so it’s less expensive than the spring conference. That’s nice. I drove up with friends and got to use my new Pikepass for the first time, so that was fun and fancy.
The first speaker was Hannah Harrison, who is an incredible author/illustrator and has four books currently in various stages of publication. 
(She read Extraordinary Jane at the OKC Schmooze in September and it was fantastic and I love it.) She is also extremely super adorable – like almost overly so – but somehow it works for her and you don’t want to maim her or anything for it.
My notes are sketchy from Hannah’s talk, and it’s entirely all her fault because it was too entertaining and fun. The main point she wanted to pass on to all of us was to not waste your opportunities for advancement. Make the most of your chances to further your career, and don’t procrastinate if this is what you want to do. It’s good advice.
Other things I got from her speech (besides smiles) included:
* Interest in her childhood artwork. It caused me to look at my six-year-old’s work with new eyes. I have noticed that my littlest girl seems to have a different gift for art than the older children, but I haven’t done much about it. I’m now trying to focus on that more now, and encourage her, the way Hannah’s parents and educators did. Whether my daughter will continue with art or not, I need to be better aware of it.
* Don’t shut doors that are open for you, just because you think there is a “right” way to do something. Explore different options that lead to the result you want.
I sure am looking forward to getting my hands on Hannah’s books and maybe getting to review them right here on this blog. Why not, right?
The agents were next.
Anna got three super agents for us, and I was excited to hear from each of them. We had Natalie Fischer Lakosil, Bradford Literary Agency; Emily Mitchell, Wernick & Pratt Literary Agency; and Danielle Smith, Foreword Literary.
Ugh. How distressing. I wrote all of this in October. OCTOBER.
And then I didn’t get around to finishing. I saved the draft, and thought I’d get around to it later. Later didn’t come.
Instead, I got busy writing my new novel, which I’m pretty excited about. I’m 35,000 words into it. That’s awesome.
But this blog post is hanging over my head. I haven’t even posted anything else (except for the one NaNo post) because I knew I needed to finish this first.
Today I decided I was just going to delete it and go on from here. And then I actually got on here and read it, and saw that it wasn’t that terrible. Deleting it might not be the best idea after all.
I cannot write that much more about Agent Day, which stinks, because it was a great day. But it’s too far in the past now. I’m not going to wax on and on about the agents, even though they were seriously awesome. Anyone who gets the opportunity to visit with them or hear them speak should.
I do, however, have to mention the other Oklahoma speaker, local author Gwendolyn Hooks. I love Gwen. I am so lucky because she’s one of my critique partners.
Her first book, Can I Have a Pet?, just happens to be my six year old daughter’s favorite book. I did not coerce the child to love the book; it just happened that way. It’s also the first book that she read on her own. I think that it’s sort of wonderful that her first book was written by a friend.
So Gwendolyn told the story that led her to publication, and it was warm, and funny, and perfect, just like she is. She made each of us feel like she was sitting down and chatting with a friend.
Gwen’s upcoming book is Vivien Thomas – The Man Who Saved the Blue Babies. This picture book biography tells the story of a young African American man who, without a medical degree or a college education, designed the surgical technique that showed doctors how to operate on children born with Tetralogy of Fallot, or ‘Blue Babies.” It will be published by Lee and Low in spring 2015.
And…when I went looking for the links for this post, I noticed that she’s completely redone her website! Go see! Maybe that’s why I put off publishing this post for so long.
Even though it’s been weeks and weeks, one thing has stuck with me since listening to Gwen’s speech. She told us that if you love an idea, never give up on it. This resonated with me. One of my novels has aspects that sometimes seem so different that I wonder if I’ll ever be able to interest anyone in it. I love it. I think that it’s amazing. But I don’t know if I’ll ever find the person who’ll be willing to give it a chance. When Gwen said what she did, she reminded me to not give up on it. I can keep working on other, more marketable projects, but I can’t let go of that book that I love so much. I’ll keep trying to get it where it should be, and someday I’ll find the person who understands it as much as I do!
It’s National Novel Writing Month!
I’m writing a novel!
I’m not taking part in National Novel Writing Month. Not this year.
I think NaNoWriMo is awesome. It’s a really cool way for people to get it going, and get that novel done. It’s great for perfectionists to stop editing their pages to death and get that rough draft on paper. It’s great for people who don’t think they can actually write a novel to see how a couple thousand words a day can really make a whole novel in just 30 days.
I tried it last year. I wrote Pairs in less than a month in July 2012, so I figured I could do it, no sweat. I wanted to try something new, so I went with a third person middle grade novel. It turned out to be The Clarinet Clique.
It went all right. About two-thirds of the way through I realized I had two characters I really didn’t need, and I had to make that deadline, so I just combined them in with the others and went on from there. I figured I’d go back and cut them out later. I finished NaNo…sort of. I guess I didn’t actually “win,” because the novel didn’t quite reach 50K, even though I finished it. I could have stretched it, but that seemed stupid, since it was complete to me.
Now that novel is the only one I haven’t shared with anyone. I haven’t gone back and made those changes. It’s not that I don’t think I can do it – I know I can. I’ve read it again, and it’s a pretty good little book, in my oh-so-valuable opinion. I just don’t know if I really want to have a middle grade novel. I’m starting to understand the value in focusing on the type of writing you enjoy the most. I truly enjoy young adult the most. I tried my hand at middle grade because a lot of agents were mentioning how much they wanted to see more middle grade. I just like young adult better. So…I’m just waiting on this book to see what I really want to do with my writing as a whole. If I’d rather rewrite it into a young adult, I’d rather do it all at once, instead of writing it into a better middle grade and then tearing it into a whole new young adult.
Wait. This was about NaNo.
Yeah. I’m writing this awesome new young adult contemporary that’s about these star crossed lovers / teen kids of modern political candidates. I’m in love with it. Thinking about the characters every waking moment…making up extra dialogue and scenes for them when I’m not actually writing things down…that sort of thing. Everybody around me seems to be doing NaNo, but I’m not. NaNo seemed too stressful for perfectionist me last year. If I didn’t get my 1,667 every day, I was all down on myself and trying to catch up. It stunk. Instead, I just outlined until I was bored with outlining, and then I started, around the last week of October. Now I’m almost 20,000 words in. That’s hooray times for me.
And…if I keep it up, I might not have to write 1,667 words when I want to be sleeping off Thanksgiving dinner later this month, bonus!
Most of my local writer adventures come courtesy of the Oklahoma chapter of SCBWI (the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). I love this group! I try to not miss any of their events, and I find myself looking forward to each activity.
I’ve met a few other writers in different ways. One in particular is Regina Jennings, author of SIXTY ACRES AND A BRIDE and LOVE IN THE BALANCE.
I first came across Regina because of a twitter post from Writer’s Digest, pointing to an article in the ongoing series, “How I Got My Agent.” I usually click on those stories, and since we share a first name, Regina’s story in particular caught my eye, so I read it.
That was where I found her bio, and started making comparisons.
Regina Jennings is a homeschooling mother of four from Oklahoma. Really? I’m a homeschooling mom of three from Oklahoma. That’s interesting. She enjoys watching musicals with her kids, traveling with her husband and reading by herself. Well, yeah, who doesn’t like those things?
I went on and found out that she’d worked at the Mustang News and the Baptist church there. I’ve worked at the Tuttle Times and I haven’t been employed at my Baptist church, but I’ve volunteered there for years. And she lives in Mustang? That’s the next town over. We’re practically neighbors.
And she writes. And she’s published. Well…I’m working on that one.
And she’s awesome. We follow each other on Facebook and Twitter now. I ran into her outside of the Mustang library, and even though she seemed as cool and collected as she appears in the above photo and I believe I looked about as frazzled and frumpy as I could possibly get, she did not run shrieking to her car, or call security after I fangirled a little. She was nice. It was comfortable. Not awkward.
She was passing out information to the librarians about her upcoming release of LOVE IN THE BALANCE. I about passed out. (Inside. I played it cool on the outside. I think.) A real author doing real author things. My kids were there. They weren’t impressed. They never are.
Anyway. This amazingly long introduction of Regina Jennings is leading up to the fact that I got another chance to meet her this week, at a presentation at the Mabel C. Fry Library in Yukon. I don’t frequent this library, but Regina mentioned it on her Facebook page, so I got signed up. The topic was Getting Published: How to Sell Your Book to a Publisher. Sounded good to me!
It was fun. My mom helped with the younger kids; they came along and enjoyed a different library setting during the session. The turnout wasn’t bad, but I was surprised that not many had finished books.
It was funny at the beginning, when the librarian was introducing Regina. When she was saying how Regina was a wonderful writer, and somehow finds time to squeeze in her writing while homeschooling her children, I just kind of leaned back and pretended it was me. Someday.
Many of the things she spoke about were topics I had already learned through the Internet and through the SCBWI and OWFI (Oklahoma Writer’s Federation, Inc.) conferences. The others in the room were scribbling furiously, so it was good info – I’ve just obsessively researched it already. That was okay. Still good to refresh.
I really enjoyed the “behind the scenes” look at what happens at the conference sponsored by her writer’s group, ACFW, (American Christian Fiction Writers) and the steps her books go through prior to publication. I also liked hearing about what she’s working on now, and what’s currently being developed.
I also plan to look into a book she mentioned that was written by her friend and convention roommate, Stephanie Landsem, called THE WELL. She told us how the protagonist in the book was originally a certain age, but the author had to eventually change that age to get the book published, even though it was hard for her. That is something that I have been curious about, due to an issue in one of my novels. I am not at a point where I feel like I need to make a drastic change in age, but I am interested in reading a book by another person who faced something similar.
And…I badly need to read LOVE IN THE BALANCE! I enjoyed SIXTY ACRES AND A BRIDE very much (see my brief review with other Oklahoma authors here) but I’ve been focusing on young adult lately.
I’m currently in Tara Hudson’s HEREAFTER series, and I have two Anna Myers books sitting on the table next to me that I really need to return to the friend who lent them to me… (and my own writing…don’t forget my own writing) but soon!
Too many good Oklahoma authors!
So I can’t stop obsessing about this amazing spider I found in our chain link fence today.
She’s fantastic, right? Right?
And she made that egg sac last night. That thing was not there yesterday. None of that was there yesterday. Last night, empty fence. Today, giant spider and super-enormous egg sac.
She looks tired. She wasn’t moving, but somehow she seemed stressed-out that me (and the kids, and my niece) were hovering around her, snapping pictures from both sides of the fence and exclaiming over her.
And I know that Charlotte was just a grey spider, and this spider is obviously not, but I can’t help but feel a kinship between this lady and the fictional arachnid who saved a pig named Wilbur.
I have already set my mind to make sure those eggs hatch out in the spring, even if the Internet says there are probably about a thousand spiders in there.
Oh! And the Internet also says that this kind of spider is actually called an Argiope Writing Spider. If that isn’t some kind of lovely coincidence, I don’t know what is. I needed another writer around here.
Of course, like Charlotte, this spider’s days are numbered. After somehow creating something in one night that is larger than her entire body, she is just about finished here. Internet believes she will hang around, protecting her magnum opus the best she can until the first hard frost, and then she’ll die.
Then it will be up to me.
I’ve been on twitter for a while, even though I didn’t use it much for a long time. I don’t have a smart phone, so I’m not really into texting, and that made twitter less fun, I think.
Anyway. I wanted to see how long I’ve been on there. I tried a couple of online tools, and they all said I was typing in my username incorrectly, which I most certainly was not, thank you very much. Finally I found How Long on Twitter at TWOP Charts, which was nice enough to work, yay.
So here’s what I got.
Yes. I have been on twitter since May 2009.
I started learning about twitter to help my sister publicize her acting group for children, and to help spread news about my church. Now I don’t do the church info. My sister died in November of 2009, but I am still involved with the children’s acting group. My niece runs it now. It is just notable how much life can change. I went back to working at the newspaper after that, and did a twitter for the paper as well. Then the paper sold to another company and I ended up writing my novels.
That’s why I started getting into twitter. The Internet says that twitter’s where the action is, in the publishing business. I think they’re right. I’m following lots of agents and editors and writers on there. I’ve learned quite a bit and made some contacts, and I feel like I’m closer to that world than I would be without it. So I keep reading, and posting, even when I’m not really sure it’s the most comfortable place for me to be.
And this isn’t even what I was planning on writing about when I started today. I wanted to write about the thousandth tweet.
You might have noticed on the above chart that I am currently sitting at 999 tweets. This is monumental for me. I also have 123 followers, which is pretty mind-blowing. Everyone else on twitter seems to say such witty, fantastic things and I feel like the village idiot, blathering to myself in a corner and trying to fit in.
But the 999 tweets.
It seems like 1,000 tweets is kind of a big deal. How did I get to 1,000 tweets? I have a hard time coming up with anything to say on there. It’s hard being slick and fun in 144 characters or less, and I’m more of a “best left unsaid” type of person anyway. Well, mostly.
So when I saw that I was at 999 this morning, I froze. I tweeted last night a couple of times – no big deal – but I didn’t know how close I was.
I wish I had just gone over 1,000 and not noticed. But I did. This morning I noticed. Nine hundred and ninety-nine. And now it seems like it must not only be noticed, it must be commemorated.
But how?
Oh, sure. I could blow it off. Ha ha, one thousandth tweet. Or, wasting my life, 1,000 tweets. Or, celebrate! One thousand tweets! But it doesn’t feel right.
I’d like it to be more poignant. Something better. Something deeper.
But then that feels silly. It’s not really a milestone. it’s just a thousand tweets. That’s not really anything. It’s like rolling over to all zeros on a car odometer. It’s not a real thing. It’s only a thing because we make it a thing in our heads.
And still, I can’t stop sitting here with a little smile on my face. Because anything could happen today. It’s my thousandth tweet. Something fantastic could happen today, and I could give tweet about it.
And maybe not.
It’s almost exciting.
Almost.
What will be my one thousandth tweet?
What would you tweet about?
Today I mixed business with pleasure when I visited a library in the next town over and listened to three Young Adult authors talk about their books and careers.
Oklahoma authors Sonia Gensler and Tara Hudson were in attendance, along with Tessa Gratton, who lives in Kansas. That’s pretty close.
My homeschooled trio came with me, along with my mom, who lives in Blanchard. We picked her up on the way and headed for the library in our van ‘o fun.
A class of high schoolers were already there, and they were joined by a pack of kids from the middle school. My oldest daughter is 13, and she was really interested by the whole thing. She loves reading but has never been into writing, but after the talk, she said she might try writing some short stories and see what happens.
All three of the authors talked about their books and the paths they traveled to publication. They were asked numerous questions by an audience that was a lot more attentive than I thought they would be – the speakers were that good.
We stuck around for a few minutes after and said hi, but I didn’t want to keep them, and we had to get back home for dance lessons and things like that, so with thoughts of short stories and autographed bookmarks, we filed back to the car.
It was good. I’m glad we went.
This was one stop on a big tour they did with all of the Pioneer Library system. They’ve been all over – to schools and libraries in Norman, Moore, OKC, Shawnee, etc. Sonia’s blog says they’ll be at Noble tomorrow night, and that’s the last one. It’s worth it if you’re in the area. Check out the details here.
And now I’m ready to get busy on a new Oklahoma author review for this blog – I just added Tara Hudson’s trilogy to my Kindle!
My darling daughter with authors Tessa Gratton, Sonia Gensler and Tara Hudson.