I am gearing up for a summer of hard work! My 17yo son goes on a school trip next week and then will be out for the summer, so I’ll have time to concentrate.

Here’s a list of my current Works-in-Progress.

My Current Works-in-Progress

• Picturebook: Concrete Poems to go with illustrations from a friend. Usually this is a no-no. If you write a text, you do NOT need to find an illustrator. The editor and art director at a publishing house select the illustrator, deal with the contract with the illustrator and deal with the layout and design of the picturebook. All a writer does is the text.

  In this case, though, my friend (who has already illustrated several picturebooks and won several awards) and I did a manuscript critique together at our spring SCBWI conference. The editor indicated that she like the combination, but would like the project to go in a slightly different direction. In other words, we are solicited as a team. That is very different from sending in cold a manuscript with a dummy that’s done by your chum.

• Picturebooks. I’ll continue to develop picturebook ideas with Friday Ideas.
• Novel. I’ve started a new novel. So far, I’ve plotted the first act. In other words, I have an idea of the characters, situation, what’s at stake, and how I want it to open. I know what incident I want to use to send them into the second act. It’s a good start and plotting is going well. I’m hoping to have a decent outline by the end of this week or middle of next.

  Some things I’m paying attention to as I write this draft of the outline: emotional arc, narrative arc, where epiphanies might occur, the repetition and rhythm of certain setting occurring and recurring, making sure that conflicts have resolutions, etc.

• Teaching. I have a couple sessions this summer teaching from my new Paper Lightning book, a resource for teachers about prewriting activities for kids. And as a follow up to the Novel Revision Retreat, I’m planning to teach sessions this fall about voice and scenes. I’m reading and experimenting with activities for this.
• Marketing. I must continue to market other mss to editors.
• Marketing. I must continue to market/promote my books whenever possible. Remember that there are FREE pdf teacher lessons available for download for all my picturebooks.

A full summer! How does YOUR summer look?

Once again, I need to face the fear of failure and it’s difficult.

Fear of Failure

My schedule is free for about three months now and I need to use this time to turn out a new first draft of a novel. But I’m scared.

I’ve written five posts on the Psychology of Revision , most of which could be true of first drafts. I’ve read Art and Fear until I can quote parts of it, or at least turn to the exact page I need. It says that it’s not that people stop writing, it’s that they don’t begin again. The point in the process that is the most fragile is after a project is done (especially if it fulfills a particular goal for which you have struggled) and before a new one is begun. Artists stop making art by not beginning again.

So–I know all this. But I’m still scared to start again. Oh, I will. But it’s not easy.

Yesterday, I finished the last of my speaking engagements for a while and today I’m taking a deep breath and reminding myself–I’m supposed to be a writer. But there’s always that naggin question–am I a real writer?

10 Things That Mean You’re a Writer

Answer True or False. If at least half of these things are true of you, you’re a writer.

1. I live half in fantasy, half in reality.
2. I hear characters talking.
3. I dream of relationships and events that could only take place in a book.
4. I enjoy sitting before a computer, alone, for hours on end.
5. I love to play with words, the sounds of words.
6. Trying different combinations of words is fun to me.
7. I get grouchy when more than a day or so goes by without writing.
8. When I’m writing, time stops or slows and hours can pass without me realizing it.
9. If I’m not writing, I’m reading.
10. If I’m not reading, I’m writing.

A writer writes. And I’m a writer. I’m glad that speaking is done for a while and I can get back to my real love.

I’m still poking around for ideas for a new novel.

These are Crazy Days

• I’m avoiding writing, or I’m writing frantically about nothing or everything.
• I’m doing small chores which I’ve put off forever.

• Shameless Commerce Division: If one of those small chores YOU have put off is posting a review of Novel Metamorphosis on Amazon, please do that small chore.

  Thanks! I appreciate my friends.

• I’m messing around with a speech for the Arkansas Association of Instructional Media on Monday.
• I’m getting handouts ready for that speech.
• I’m wondering if I’ll ever find a new story, new characters to commit to.
• I”m wishing I had characters to talk to and to follow around. Well, there is one, but he’s mighty strange, even if he is handsome, in a foreign sort of way. And he wants something about himself in the title of the book. But if he’s the protag, then who is the antag? So, maybe, he’s the antag?
• I’m even avoiding writing anything helpful here on the blog. Sigh. Someone kick me!

I have finished a big project. I’ve done lots of small housekeeping and bookkeeping chores. And I have to face it. The decision of what novel to write next.

Deciding What to Write Next

This is the hardest thing to me: what to commit to. I’m playing with ideas, but nothing has struck me yet as worthy of a year’s commitment. I like the ideas–sorta. I like the beginnings of a characters, but I don’t love them yet. For me, these are the drudge days of writing, not knowing if anything will come of the day’s work. No progress on a real draft, no real character development because that was a dead end trail, or this is interesting, but I can’t find a setting that works.

• I’m looking at novels I like to see why the worked.
• I’m listening to books on tape while driving.
• I’m trolling for characters.
• I’m searching maps and old maps and drawing maps for settings.
• I’m re-reading how to create character conflict.
• I’m working, but it seems like I’m going nowhere.

How do you start a totally new novel?

Life has been interesting this week!

I was in Nebraska teaching a Novel Revision retreat when the tornadoes hit Little Rock last week. Fortunately, no one I knew had major housing problems. Just lots of trees down. And the switch near our office blew; which blew modems in nearly every computer; even today, four days later, we are still struggling to get everything back up to speed.

The retreat was fabulous! Thanks to Nancy, Elaine and every one who attended–great fun!

Other life issues going on at the same time, with family and projects and taxes due next week!

But–I’m back and should be almot back to normal by tomorrow.

Online Class

Since I missed you in Nebraska this week at the Novel Revision retreat, I wanted to remind you that you can take the same retreat online now!

This month, I’m working in a notebook more than ever before, just playing with ideas.

While I continue to work on Friday Ideas, I also bought a brand new Moleskin notebook and intend to play with ideas. For my new novel project, I want to attempt something new, different, big. I have some nebulous ideas, some bits of imagery, but no real characters yet, no plot, no theme. Just a title, or a series of titles for a trilogy. Well, I guess that means I’ve made one decision, to write something very long.

I’m taking random prompts from a couple books and scribbling away, always keeping in mind the title. But otherwise, letting words go where they will.

Here are a couple places I’m finding prompts:
Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir Dori Butler wrote about seeing Goldberg in Iowa, which prompted me to look at the book. I’m not a big Goldberg fan (I know–I’m the only one who doesn’t love Bones), but this looked intriguing. And I’m using some of her prompts.

At the same time, I’m also using To Be Told Workbook by Dan Allender, a Christian look at memoir. I enjoyed his book by the same title as a Christmas gift from my daughter now studying for her MA in Counseling. When I realized I wanted to explore new ideas by looking backward, I thought I’d pick up the workbook.

It’s an interesting juxtaposition of two books which ask you to write memoir type material. My purpose isn’t to write a memoir, but to dredge up images and ideas that I haven’t written about yet. At the least, it will be a playful notebook. Who knows what will come of it?

I’m looking this week at some teacher resource books that suggest teachers photocopy texts for their students to study, in preparation for writing their own work. The Copyright Office offers help in sorting out the Fair Use in Circular 21: Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians. Please, if you plan to use texts to study in a classroom, read pp. 7-8, the “Agreement on Guidelines for Classroom Copying in Not-for-Profit Educational Institutions with Respect to Books and Periodicals.”

IN particular, if a teacher wants to make mulitple copies for a class to use in studying a topic, s/he should do the following:
Contact the copyright holder and ask permission to use the material in the classroom. In today’s world, you should at least try to email the copyright holder.

If the education project is urgent and there’s no time to ask permission, then Fair Use guidelines apply.

1. Brevity:
   • Text is limited to 1000 words or 10% of text; or limited to a single 2500 word article.
   • One poem may be used or an excerpt of not more than 250 words.
   • For picturebooks, it is limited to two published pages.
2. Spontaneity:
   “The inspiration and decision to use the work and the moment of its use for maximum teaching effectiveness are so close in time that it would be unreasonable to expect a timely reply to a request for permission.” (With email, I wonder if this test can really be met.)
3. Cumulative Effect:
   • Only used for one course per year.
   • No more than one short poem, article, story, essay, OR two excerpts from the same author during one class term.
   • No more than three copyings from the same collective work or periodical volume during one class term.
   • No more than 9 instances of multiply copyings per course per class term.
4. Other Prohibitions:
   • Copying is not a substitute for purchasing anthologies, compilations, etc.
   • No copying from consumable materials such as workbooks.
   • Copying is not a substitute for purchasing books; can’t be directed by a higher authority; be repeated with respect to the same item by the same teacher from term to term.
   • Students can’t be charged anything except for the cost of copying.

For any other particulars, please read the circular!

This is an odd, busy month for me.

While Dori was riding around in a police car as part of a citizen’s police academy experience, I was watching a policeman enter my house with weapon drawn.

Got home Friday afternoon to find the back door had been forced open. I called the police and got out; because I had not been through the whole house, they went it to search and clear it before I went back in. Essentially, my son’s game system was stolen and nothing else. Probably a kid who had heard through the grapevine that he had a new system. Sigh. ARGH! Sigh.

The worst part is, well, there are two worst parts: first, my son took it personally and second, the door is incredibly hard to repair. It is old and the threshold needed to be replaced anyway, but not the wood above the door. It’s an old house, so kicking in the door skewed the frame and it was out of square. All in all, it’s a royal pain for my DH to repair.

Sure wish I’d been watching it like Dori, instead, of being on the calling end of that phone call.

Besides that–I”ll be in and out a lot for spring break, school visits, family stuff, etc. the next two weeks.

10 things to do while waiting 8 months to hear from an editor on a requested revision

Waiting

What would you add to this list?

1. Check your email every 15 minutes. Alternately, leave your email program on and the volume set to high, so that it bellows at you, “You’ve got mail,” and you can run delete the spam.
2. Daily, write anguished letters to the editor about how you know you should have fixed that lazy verb in paragraph 11 of page 121, but you just didn’t notice it until seventeen days after you sent it. Let the letters stack up in the fireplace for the weekly ritual of burning them.
3. Make a large X through the day on each of the 21 calendars in your house. When husband asks if he’s forgotten an important day, just sigh and walk away. Enjoy the flowers he brings home.
4. Haunt online forums for any mention of the editor’s activity on other manuscripts. When you discover other activity, cry all night long.
5. Pick up the phone to call the editor and put it down undialed at least a dozen-dozen times a day. When you develop repetitive stress disorders in your hands and arms, purchase a Blue-tooth.
6. Swear to your best friend that you will absolutely die if you don’t hear today. Cough violently to convince her this is true.
7. Write an essay comparing this waiting period to sitting in a corner of a rattlesnake pit waiting for one of them to warm up, uncoil and notice you. Anything, any scrap of notice is better than this utter silence. Rejoice when the essay is published in the Artic Writers and Snakelover’s Newsletter, and spend the $1 payment on breath mints.
8. Read an editor’s blog about how busy she is and feel the sympathy of a statue of rock salt. However, link to the editor’s blog from your blog and make sure your public sympathy is evident.
9. Wait with every fiber of your being to see if Scheherazade’s curse will strike you: if there is no acceptable story, you are dead. Read and re-read every story of the Arabian Nights that you can.
10. At the end of 7 months, 29 days, start a new project that fascinates you and captures your heart. In fact, it captures your heart so much that when the editor calls two days later, you don’t even recognize her name.

What is YOUR favorite way to wait?

If you like this tongue-in-cheek list, you might also like this one about honest critiques.