Planning for 2008

I’m planning to take off blogging until January 3. It’s family time and I hope a time for me to plan for next year.

I’ve been blogging now for about a year and in that time, I’ve had about 50,000 visits to the sites, first on livejournal and now on my own domain. That’s pretty incredible. But I hope that next year will be even more fun.

2008 Topics

• Series.
  January–30 Days to a Stronger Character.
  A series on writing with scenes
  A series on prewriting strategies
• When I asked people to vote, the second most requested thing was writing that first draft. Mostly what I talk about is revision; but I’m thinking about this request. As I’ve focused on revision, I’ve learned a lot about what goes wrong in a first draft and what that process looks like. You’re making me think and that’s good.

2008 Extras

• Plus, I’m planning at least two ways to bring more people into the site:
  More revision stories from you. I’m planning to post a list of questions about your revision process to help people write a guest posting. I learn so much by hearing how others revise and hope to feature more of this.
• Another great way to get people involved is______________. Well, I’m not ready to explain it yet. But it’s going to be fun.

2008 Books about Writing

• Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise (Mims House), by Darcy Pattison
  At last, the Novel Revision Retreat Workbook will be in a bookstore near you. Well, just a click away on Amazon, anyway. Scheduled for an April release, you’ll hear lots more about this in January.
• Paper Lightning: Prewriting Activities to Spark Creativity and Help Students Write Better (Cottonwood Press), by Darcy Pattison.
  For about 20 years, I’ve done teacher professional development and this book distills those sessions into easy, fun, simple activities to get students writing better. Also scheduled for an April release, you’ll hear lots more about this as the spring progresses.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

As Always, It’s Easy to Stay Connected

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Jennifer at The Arts, Words, Life Blog has tagged me for a meme that requires me to tell 7 things about myself, then tag 7 others.

Thanks, Jennifer!

Rules of the Meme:

1) Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2) Share 7 facts about yourself.
3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4) Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Seven Things About Me

1) I’m a very private person, so this is hard to do.

2) I never wear nail polish.

3) I love my new comfort bike.

4) I love to wear lapel pins and hate that they are so hard to find this year.

5) Our family has hosted six exchange high school students from Estonia, Poland, France, Venezuela, Finland and Mongolia. We’ve gone to weddings in Poland and Estonia, but had to miss the Venezuela wedding.

6) I am married to a former accordion player. (I meant to put a picture here, but I forgot the cords to download from my digital camera.)

7) I had a busy year. This year, I’ve done Friday Ideas and written eight picturebooks; given a wedding; survived my DH’s total hip replacement surgery; floated the Grand Canyon; spent a week exploring the beaches of Hawaii; started this blog; spoken all over the state and several places around the country; received the 2007 Arkansas Governor’s Arts Award for Individual Artist for my work in children’s literature; submitted many manuscript; received many rejections; and, I’m currently working on a major revision of a novel.

Tag, you’re it! And thanks for commenting on this blog in the past!

Rebecca Talley
Jean Reidy
Candie Moonshower
Janni Simner
Alan Gratz
Dori Butler
Kaelyn Porter

Excaliber is only the 18th favorite fictional weapon of all time? How could that be?
What about Luke Skywalker’s light saber–how did it fare? OK, what do you think is number 1? I would never have guessed.

See what weapon earned the number one spot.

Don’t you love things like this? Is this a list to which you aspire? Do you wish one of the weapons you created was on this list?

Someone recently asked, “What is flap copy?”

Flap copy is the blurb that appears on the flap of the dust jacket for a book. It’s written like a “hook,” trying to persuade the reader that they will enjoy reading this book, so go buy it!

Sometimes, it’s referred to as jacket copy. Basically, writers don’t have to worry about this, because the publisher will write it, with an eye toward their market. Sometimes, though, writers play around writing flap copy as a way to help focus a story. It’s also good to think about marketability before you send the mss off to an editor.

The last Harry Potter book, as published in the US, was remarkable for the absence of any flap copy. They didn’t need to persuade the reader to read the book with teases about the story. Those who would read Harry Potter were going to do it anyway.

Some interesting links:

Alice Pope suggests provides links to information about agents for children’s literature.

Janni Simner looks at drafts of a first paragraph.

Have you seen the Google Earth Flight Simulator? Awesome.

Make up a word and win!

The Writer Unboxed blog, a blod dedicated to genre fiction, is having a Make Up a Word and Win contest.  The winner a set of writers market guides.

Included in the set will be one copy of each of these newly updated guides:

1. Writer’s Market Deluxe Edition 2008, which comes with a ONE-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION to WritersMarket.com
2. Guide to Literary Agents 2008
3. Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market 2008
4. Poet’s Market 2008
5. Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market 2008

It’s easy to enter. Just make up a word. Here’s their example:
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Make up a word, post it and win! Sounds easy. I think I’ll try to play. How about you?

Take Anastasia Suen’s Poll on how you compose your first draft. Do you plan ahead, or just let the characters lead you?

An interesting look at some of the book covers this year.

Barbie gets an MP3 player!

I keep looking at this online backpack and wondering if it would help me stay organized or if it would just add to the clutter.

Marines fighting over the chance to read? Oh, yes.

Teaching poetry to kids.

Children’s Book Week moves to May–dates for the next five years.

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The Harry Potter 7 book has no flap copy!

Flap copy is the stuff written on the inside and back flap of the dust jacket and traditionally serves as an advertisement, a teaser, to the reader. HP7 has nothing on the back flap. On the front flap is a simple statement: Here we present the seventh installment of the HP story.

No flap copy. Not needed for HP7.

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Have you seen the Children’s Book Market Mall?

I don’t know if they are good or bad. But what they are doing is making banners for many of the children’s literature blogs. Here’s what they made for my blog. They took my author’s photo, a cover of my books and made this banner. If you have a blog, you might check and see what they’d done with YOUR blog!

Is is what you WANT done with your blog’s identity?

(I know. I’ve giving them publicity by posting this, but it’s just weird to see this.)

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