Today, I’m chillaxing (see Def. #1). I deserve it, I think you’ll agree. I finished the 3rd major revision of my novel yesterday. Wahoo!

Don’t worry, plot will be back on Monday.

My plan for today is to Chillax

So, here are the chillaxy things I plan to do today:

• Behind the scenes Blog Tweaks. Finish tweaking the newly installed Events plugin, which nicely produces an Events Page, listing my speaking engagements. This year, I’ll go to Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas, Upstate New York and Alabama. If you’re anywhere close, come! And be sure to introduce yourself!




• Read YOUR blogs-here are some gems I’ve recently bookmarked.
  • Alan Gratz on Reading Aloud to Adolescents. Dirty dog – he’s going to Japan for six weeks, and didn’t invite along his friends. I think I’ll research Samurais for MY next novel.
  • Roz, at Dirty White Candy, is having a dandy time trying to Avoid Exposition and making a mess with divinity.
  • Actually, I’m SO glad that Roz is NOT giving me an honest critique of my newly revised, totally wonderful novel. I don’t like honest critiques.
  • I love Laura Salas’ weekly poetry prompts. Only 15 words, or less, allowed. It really teaches you the value of each word.
  • Sara’s welcome to the new Ambassador of Children’s Literature, Katherine Paterson echoes my own heartfelt wonder at this woman’s work.
  • So, many more great posts – who can list them all? But be assured, I’m reading your posts today!
• Read my daughter’s new blog, Sticks, Rocks and Dirt. She’s a vegan. People often ask her–seriously unable to fathom this dietary lifestyle, “What do you eat?” Her standard answer is “Sticks, rocks and dirt.” Hence, the blog. She’s living now in Denver and loves the whole “eat locally” philosophy.
• Brainstorm. Work on my new Friday Ideas word: clumsy.
• Talk and listen, listen and talk. Meet a friend for coffee.
• Clean my office? Nah, I’ll do that next week.

Shameless Commerce Division – More Blog Tweaks

As the Car Talk guys always say, this is the Shameless Commerce Division. I now have several eBooks available. I’ll be tweaking the lousy thumbnail images, which I never seem to get right:

• Winter Writing with Kids – 5 Lessons. Based on Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer and other winter characters. Price: Free download.
• 
  I Wrote a Book – Now What? Based on a presentation at the 2009 Arkansas Library Association conferece, this ebook gives resources and advice to new writers. Price: Free download.
• 
  How To Write a Children’s Picture Book. Based on a picturebook retreat, this has 36 self-paced lessons to help you write, polish and sell your picture book. Price: $10. Download immediately.
• After the First Draft. 30 one-minute tips to get you through a fast second draft of your novel. Perfect for those who did NaNoWriMo. Price: $5. Download immediately.
• The Wayfinder. Middle grade novel, now available through Kindle or Mobipocket. Price: $6.99 Now on sale for $1.99

Revise with confidence.

As freelance writers, we often need to look for creative ways to generate income to pay those pesky bills. One solid way for me has been to teach professional development sessions in the summer, continuing education classes for teachers which are required for renewal of their certification.

Teaching Professional Development Classes for Teachers

In my area, this is the time of year to send out proposals to schools and to our state’s education service cooperative (or regional centers for professional development). Now is when they are planning and scheduling summer classes. I’m offering to custom tailor a session to their needs, but I’m also giving them these specific sessions which I could teach:

Paper Lightning: Prewriting Activities to Spark Creativity and Help Students Write Better.

Based on my book, Paper Lightning, this session covers prewriting activities for the full range of writing tasks including all essays and writing fiction, with special attention to activities that fulfill the prewriting portion of the writing standards in the English Language Arts Curriculum Standards. This includes moving from oral to written language, selecting a topic, narrowing a topic, how prewriting can help make essays longer and more in-depth, organizing information and ideas, and more. Drafting, editing, revising and publishing standards will be addressed as appropriate. (3 or 6 hours; K-8) Download sample pages from Paper Lightning.

Write a Picture Book

This session encourages a teacher’s own creative writing by developing a picture book idea into a finished manuscript. The session covers the genres of picture books, picture book standards, plot, characters, and language. Text is put into a dummy format to simulate a picture book format.
(3 or 6 hours; for any teacher)

What’s New in Children’s (or YA) Literature

I’m also current on new releases in children’s literature from kindergarten through young adult and would be glad to develop sessions for your teachers on any topic, any grade level.

Tips on Developing Professional Development Classes

• Talk to your teacher-friends to see how many hours of professional development are required, where they usually take these hours and what are their favorite classes to take.
• Find contact information for those in charge of professional development. This might be at a local school district, it might be a school principal, or the state department of education might have this information on its website.
• Study your state’s language arts curriculum standards with an eye toward what you could teach. I focus on the writing standards, but you may prefer to focus on the reading standards.
• Evaluate your strengths/weaknesses in areas covered by the curriculum standards. What could you effectively teach? What would you like teaching? Can you tie this into one of your books, for example, teaching history teachers about Hitler’s Germany?
• Develop a solid proposal that fills a need in the teaching community.
  • Emphasize the curriculum. Usually by tying your proposal into curriculum standards, you’ll hit a sweet spot.
  • Provide teaching level targeted. Is this class for K or 8th grade teachers? If not already evident, also specify the subject matter.
  • How long will the class last? In our area, classes are usually half day or all day.
• Send out the proposal in a timely manner. Find out when educators in your area are ready to schedule professional development sessions and send it out at that time. Be ready to discuss fees, travel reimbursement, overnight stays if needed, handouts, equipment needs, etc.

Some years, I seek out many extra opportunities for income through teaching professional development; other years, I just take what comes. Either way, it’s been a great way to meet people in my state who love children and children’s literature.

Do you do this in your area?

Revise with confidence.

My novel, The Wayfinder, is now available in two different digital versions. You can still find used copies of the book on Amazon, Abebooks and other online stores. In addition, you can download the novel from Amazon’s Kindle store and from Mobipocket’s Ebook store.

Amazon’s version requires the Kindle, Amazon’s exclusive ebook reader. Mobipocket can be read on almost every ebook reader or on a free desktop reader (a fast download).

The Wayfinder, print edition

The Wayfinder, Kindle edition

The Wayfinder, Mobipocket edition

Revise with confidence.

Are Ebooks finally ready for Prime Time?

I hated it when, about ten years ago, my local library went to the online digital version of the reference book, Books in Print. I tried to look up something about quilts. There were about 5-600 entries beginning with Quilt in the title, and in the paper version, I’d just flip a couple pages and Voila! 2 seconds to find what I needed. In the online version, I had to go through about 30-40 screens before I came to the end of the Quilt titles. Wasted time. Are digital versions or ebooks still a waste of time? Maybe.

Are Ebooks Viable? Yes.

When are ebooks used the most? When traveling.
Friends report that they love to load up several ebooks and keep the weight down in their luggage. Ebooks are used in schools, when textbooks are changed often, as a way to reduce costs to the student. Ebooks are here to stay and will probably co-exist with paper versions for a long time.

We’re going to read ebooks, that battle has been won. The next question is this: are dedicated ebook readers the best option for reading ebooks? Should you buy a Kindle or Sony ebook reader (or some other brand) as a Christmas gift?

Dedicated Readers, iPods and Screens. The biggest problem with reading ebooks has traditionally been the inferior quality of screens and the eye-strain of reading from a screen. In some ways, this is a McGuffin, because, well, we all read online right now, and many of us read many hours a day from a computer screen.

Enter e-ink. It is supposed to be a higher quality, less eye-strain and should be available in color in another year or so. So, let’s agree that the screen-quality problem is about to be solved, or else call it a moot point.

What Happened While You Were So Self-Absorbed. But there’s a complication when deciding on how to read ebooks: technology hasn’t stood still while e-ink has been developing. We now have the iPhone and other smart phones. Here’s where I think the current discussion of ebooks goes wrong. I mean, how many pieces of technology do I want to carry around? The answer for most of us is, not many. Which is why the Apps market for smart phones is so dynamic right now. If I’m carrying around this smart phone, which is always hooked up to the net, then why not do everything on this one piece of equipment.

Optimal Screen Size for Multiple Tasks. Which changes the problem from screen quality to screen size. What is the optimal size screen for multiple tasks? For me, most smart phones fail this test. I want huge, 18″ or bigger, flat-screen, best-quality-I-can-afford monitors. But you can’t carry THAT around with you. And now, we’re down to this question: what size screen is the best compromise for portability, flexibility and easy viewing? What’s the best compromise of features and quality?

Do you see what has changed? My requirements for an ebook reader has been changed by the advent of smart phones. I now want one piece of electronics that has instant, almost-everywhere access to the internet; the screen must be large enough to read comfortably (very important), so I have flexibility in choosing what tasks I’ll do on this device; it wouldn’t hurt either, if it also included a keyboard in a usable size, instead of the teensy-tiny Blackberry and other smart phone keyboards.

Netbooks. For me, the answer is a NetBook.
Can you read ebooks on a netbook? Yes.
Is the netbook dedicated to one and only one task of reading an ebook? No. It’s versatile.
What about travel, is a netbook just as easy as, say, a Kindle? No. But it’s close. The weight is close to that of a hardcover book, making a netbook a good compromise because I gain the flexibility of tasks.
What about letting me choose my brand/style of equipment, instead of a proprietary device like Kindle? Yep, I can choose from a very wide assortment of netbooks, with all sorts of options.
With any dedicated reader except Kindle, I also gain that wi-fi access. (That will likely change in the next few years, with more ebook readers adding internet access.)

So, what’s the best way to read on a Netbook? For those companies using e-pub standards, there are several “desk-top” applications that make ebooks easy to read. The Mobipocket reader is the one I currently use.

Bottom line: I won’t buy a dedicated ebook reader any time soon. Instead, at about the same price, I have a netbook.

Why I Choose a Netbook over a Dedicated Ebook Reader

Advantages

• Small, weighs about the same as a hardcover book.
• Wi-fi enabled
• Flexible computing for multiple tasks
• Good compromise for screen size and keyboard size

Disadvantages

• I can’t download from Amazon, because their Kindle format is proprietary and doesn’t fit with ePub standards. However, Mobipocket, Smashwords, Fictionwise and similar sites all have formats that I can read on my netbook.
• So far, netbooks can’t double as a phone. But neither do I have to get the smartest phone I can find, either, because the netbook can take over some of those tasks.

The Wayfinder, my fantasy novel is now available is now available as an ebook on Mobipocket.com

Revise with confidence.

School Visit Focuses on State Projects

A Celebration of States. Last week, right before Thanksgiving, I visited the El Dorado, AR school for a celebration of the states. The GT classes had been studying the US states: each student made a “suitcase” using a cardboard box the size of a boot box. They painted, collaged, and decorated it with images about and from their assigned state. Inside, they put pictures of famous people, flags, state bird, state flowers, selected items and puppets. In addition, each student had a short oral presentation on their state.

To support their hard work, I was there to talk about The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman, my story about a wooden man who crossed the US to connect a family. It was great fun to talk to these students because they knew the US map so intimately.

Congratulations to all the students who worked so hard on their state boxes!

Revise with confidence.

I just finished a great school visit. Driving home, I realized there were some keys to making it great.

Communication.

It’s essential to communicate with the venue effectively right from the first contact through the actual event. I try to respond within 24 hours to requests for school visits, weekend retreats, speaking at conferences, or any other speaking requests.

I’m often asked how many times a year I do events. Basically, I try accommodate requests as often as I can. So, if I’m asked, I usually go.

During the Initial communication, I try to find out these things:

What type of event is being planned?
How can my participation add to, complement or enhance the event?
Dates?
Type, length and content of presentation?
Type of audience (grade levels, reading levels, adult, etc.)?
Preferred date and alternate dates?
Compensation rates?

Clear expectations result from clear communication and is the backbone of a great event.

Providing materials for advance preparation.

School author visits are most successful when students are prepared. I provide a free downloadable pdf file of lesson plans for all my books, which helps teachers introduce my books. For adult presentations, it’s often necessary to send bios, descriptions of presentations, and suggested copy to advertise the event when appropriate.

Oliver is available to visit your school.

Another area of preparation is providing order forms, so books can be purchased at the event. I have a pdf file that I modify to fit the needs of the event. For example, I often give discounts to books bought when I speak and I adjust this as needed.

Speaking is great fun. I’ve had whirlwind events! And I’ve met fascinating people in CA, LA (Louisiana, not Los Angeles), WA (Washington state, not D.C.), and many other places around the US.

Being Prepared Myself!

The day before my school visit this week, I checked my bag to make sure everything was there. Well, let me back up. I keep a bag packed with things I’ll likely need at a school event: foldable wire frame to hold a book upright; copy of book inter-leaved with overhead projector sheets for each page (back-up only these days); CD burned with Powerpoints of each of my books (MOST useful); a miniature Oliver K. Woodman, samples of each of my books to show while I talk; a snack bar just in case I get hungry; common medicines I might need in case I get a headache or something. I usually add bottled water the morning when I leave.

OK, I go overboard. But I’ve been places where I got a headache and didn’t have medicine and I don’t like it. I go prepared!

This time, I checked my bag and the Powerpoint CD was missing. I searched, but ultimately had to burn a new CD. Had I not checked, the school visit would have been disastrous.

I also do MapQuest or Google Maps and PRINT IT OUT. I’m direction-challenged and follow these type maps to the letter, so it’s essential when I’m driving to have this.

If I’m flying somewhere, I double check reservations a week ahead. I try to have contact numbers while traveling; a school number isn’t enough, since travel may be after or before hours. I usually like a cell phone number of the person in charge of the event; likewise, I give them my number, so they can contact me for any reason.

If I’m speaking at a conference, I try to have handouts ready a couple weeks early. Which means my presentations are ready ahead of time and I can go over it. Often I read mss from writers attending. I read these carefully, make notes, and often re-read on the plane to an event, as well as referring to them privately in-between sessions. I want to be helpful to the writers and that means I need to be familiar with their work.

Most events go well because I try to communicate early, often and clearly, I try to help the organizers to prepare the audience ahead of the event, and I try to be prepared myself. I love to travel and speak.

Revise with confidence.

Time to Re-Plot my Novel

I’ve been chugging along on my novel revision, enjoying how the scenes are coming together. But it’s time to stop and take a wider look at the structure of the novel. Sigh. I’m not pleased. I was enjoying the pace of revisions and starting to enjoy the rhythm I had established of reading and marking up a scene at night and re-writing it the next day. But the scene I was reading last night has that major plot point that I’ve got to solve before moving on.

It’s time to pull out Novel Metamorphosis and go back to the basics: Write down the basic plot points for this subplot, pinpoint where it changes from the last draft and re-plot. It must be done now, before the plot begins to spaghetti out of control–if it hasn’t already.

Placeholders in a First Draft

My plot problems are caused by a complication which my readers found unbelievable. Even when writing that first draft of the novel, I probably knew I’d face this in the revision. But I didn’t know what else to put there. I like the idea of placeholders, ideas or chunks of writing or simply a phrase which hold a place in the story until I can come back and spend time replacing it

When I come back to re-evaluate the place holder, here’s my criteria:

Unique, fresh, unusual. I’m looking for something to “stand out in today’s crowded marketplace.” I’m thinking about how to push in some direction that is unexpected, different. (How many ways can you even say, unique, fresh, unusual, different? Even THAT expression is tired.)

Appropriate and fits story. I’m lazy, too. I want something that fits the current story with the least amount of change involved. I go for unique first and do huge revisions if necessary. But really, why would I wish extra work on myself? Sometimes, just a bit more brainstorming will unearth an alternative that works and involves the least revising.

So, that’s my plan for today: fire up the ol’ brain cells and try to find my way out of the maze of novel plotting.

Revise with confidence.

For an inside glimpse of the Novel Revision Retreat, here’s a short video podcast or trailer from the recent San Rafael, California retreat.

Read more from Lisa Gottfried of DigitalWeavers.com, who edited this video for me.

Revise with confidence.

Transitions

I’m going through a couple of transitions right now.

• I’m moving my office up to the third floor of our Victorian house that serves as office for myself and my DH’s business. In relation to that, I note that Art Slade, Canadian author extraordinaire, has a treadmill desk. Why am I mentioning this?
  
  Because I’m going walking, too. I bought a used treadmill that is very quiet and have set it up as a computer desk. I’m trying it!

  I’m looking at mapping programs to find one that will let me set up my own route across the US or somewhere else.

• Second, my youngest son starts college next week. He moves into the dorm next Sunday; oddly, that also means he moves out of our house that day. I never thought of it that way when I went off to college, but it’s true. I’ve no idea of what that will mean overall, but it will change.
• Third, I’ve started a second Facebook. Thanks to ALL of you who asked me to be your Friend. The first Facebook account will be just local friends and family. The second is for all of you! If you want to friend-me, look for the one that has a picture of Oliver K. Woodman as the profile picture. That also means that if you’re on my friends/family account, I’ll ask you to move to the other one. Please don’t be offended by this: I want to see pictures from my kids and their friends and I want to be freer in what I share with them. I’ll still share all my good news with you!

Revise with confidence.

Halversons Take Oliver to Portugal, Spain, France and London, England

One of the nicest things about working on the Oliver K. Woodman books were my editors at Harcourt. They were smart, efficient and experts in making a picture book’s text and images come together.

Deborah Halverson did most of the editing work on Searching for Oliver K. Woodman. Then — well, her life took an interesting turn: she had triplets. Yes, three sons.

Add to that, she sold two YA novels of her own!
Add to that, she decided to stay home with her sons and enjoy them and write.
Add to that, her DH decided to do a year as an exchange teacher in England.

And you get her fascinating blog about the “Thrills, Chills and Spills of Being a Triplet Mom and Writer. . .” The stay in England has been fascinating to watch through her eyes and through the antics of her boys.

Deborah was kind enough to take Oliver on their recent family trip to Portugal, Spain, France and London. They have posted some photos on Deborah’s blog and uploaded the rest to the Oliver K. Woodman Map Project.

By the way, she also does freelance editing – when the triplets are asleep – so check out her website. Read her books. Read her blog!

Revise with confidence.