Camping in Nano Land again

At Splash, Springfield

Garden Pirates

painting Desert Sunrise

Writing has been difficult for me.  Once upon a time it took me ten years to finish a novel, so the fact that I'm in another low energy slump isn't surprising.  I love telling stories to kids, and exploring them in my own mind, but the translating to a finished novel is WORK.

NaNoWriMo with its rigid timeline, helped me publish four novels but the last three Novembers have each been interrupted by the death of a parent or my spouse's parent, and writing ceased.

Recently I gave myself permission to doodle in paint.  Its something I never do, because I know I can paint well, not the best but far from the worst, but I chose other activities to make my life work and my dedicating 20 or more hours per painting was over.  Finally, I went to a painting party, a three hour limit, and a lot of that time spent visiting. I only went because my book club was all going, but I loved it.  Lately I've been dreaming of compositions for more complex paintings, but Ive also been doing half hour paintings with my five year old granddaughter.

I decided, after several failed attempts on the same novel, that perhaps my writing needed similar permission to just be, casual, wandering, short stints at the keyboard.  Camp Nano allows that flexibility and instead of a word count, I chose to aim for half an hour a day in July, writing mostly inspired by the objects I've carried with me through my life, in a jumble I've titled, "self-storage."

It's a simple, fun goal and still I've had to forgive myself some skip days. And it's working.

So I'm playing at writing, Playing at painting, and playing with Grandkids.

Tumbling class

I'm still dealing with my health, and no diagnosis, plus now high blood pressure, but Life is still good.

I hope you, too, are getting away from the news and making time for the activities that refresh you. If you have, I'd love to hear about it.

Being an Iron Writer

B Street Pier, Crescent City, CA

 Recently, I have been sick and sad and not writing, but a writer I met at the South Coast Writer's Conference a couple years ago, has started something he calls the Iron Writer's Challenge on facebook.  It seems like it will work for me. The idea is that we are each responsible for setting our own goals in four different areas, and then asking for what we need to help us get to where we want to be.  Its a long path, but we divide where we are going.

 We are supposed to encourage each other in these four areas;
1. Writing,
2. Health,
3. Relationships
 and
4. Finances

 I still most want to finish my Pompeii/Portland blended time tale so that is being broken down into steps, but I also need to find out why I'm aging prematurely and losing the ability to do some pretty basic movements. My family and friends and co-worker area is my strength, so I'm not changing that up, just celebrating. Financially, ugh!!!

So anyway, less facebook time, more talking to Dr.s and more research.  If you are interested in joining us, and can't find the closed group on facebook, let me know. Dixie Dawn Miller Goode

Why Writing is Right For Me.

 Sometimes I get overwhelmed and depressed, and trying to find a way to connect with other people seems impossible.  Lately it has been like that again. The whole world seems to be off its axis, tilting more and more away from being centered.  The people in my life who often steady me, suddenly seem to need steadied themselves and I stop feeling like I can draw on their strength, I don't want to add to the burden of their lives.

 That is when I look for ways to replenish my strength from something bigger than me.  I am lucky, because I only have to step outside to find reminders that there are things much bigger and more eternal and more beautiful than the mind of man can comprehend.

 I go to the world looking for beauty, and it is all around me, in the ocean, and redwood tree, yes.  But also in the tiny banana slug, and the feather in the wind, and the child sifting through the sand for a sun kissed agate.

 Then when I have to return to my home, and my family and the news of the day, I can do so with a well of quiet strength inside me.  I can share that beauty and warmth with my family and friends and then quietly sit at the computer, dreaming in words that hopefully bring strength and warmth to a wider world.  Yes, I'm an introvert, and sometimes I can't think quickly enough to get the words right in a conversation, and when I can, that interaction exhausts me, even though I also love it.  I love teaching and being in a crowd, especially a crowd of children, but I get drained there, and for me, the quiet thoughtful times when it is just me and a blank page, are when my battery is being recharged.

 When I look at the books I like to read, there are often underlying themes of violence and danger, but when I choose what I want to give back to the world, I find the beauty and love and celebrate the differences that make us able to be stronger together than any one of us will ever be alone.  The first book I published turns five years old this year, and It still makes me happy that I put the energy into writing it. People who have also learned to love Duffy Barkley tell me that his story has shown them a lot about accepting differences and finding joy together.  That is why I write.

Duffy Barkley: the Third Charm

It gives me a lot of happiness to finally be able to announce that the Third book in the Tales of Uhrlin is available. This has been one long process, and I had fun working on it, but for awhile I felt like I was telling too many stories and had lost the p;ace where they could intersect. Sometimes I plan the story I tell, but this one seemed to be running ahead of me, telling me I was much too slow in following after and jotting down my notes.  Even once the story was completed, I kept making strange things happen in the book formatting so that I was being told it would need a minimum price of $72 !!! 

 Finally I got it to $15 for the paper book and $2.99 on kindle.  So this adventure begins without Duffy. He is 13 in this third book, and his sister Izzy and his Great-Aunt Peg go missing from Peg's farm. Many of the old friends show up again of course, and Uhrlin as always, has danger and adventure enough to make a tale worth telling, and worth reading.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BH38TWO?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

The paperback may not be live until February 8th, which is a good day for me, my Father-In-Law has been a second Father to me for 33 years now and it is his 87th birthday.

This map was the source of my pricing headaches, as trying to have a color map made the printer think the entire book needed to be priced as if the pages were all in full color. 

SeaBee meets a tiny Hippocampus

Winning My 8th NaNoWriMo (But still only have 5 books)

Success!  I am delighted to say that I have finished the first draft of the Third Book of the Tales of Uhrlin.  Duffy Barkley doesn't get to be the star of the show as much in this book, but I had so much fun when it finally started coming together.

trying to remain organized

 When I tried to finish this book in November of 2012, I had written the two earlier Duffy Barkley books. They were different though. In spite of being started in a NaNoWriMo push, they really had been developing over several years of playing with my sons and their friends. This third book was the first attempt when my boys were men, and I had lost the companionship of the children who inspired it. Having seen them graduate from High School, I was proud of them, but uninspired to keep developing this fantasy world without being able to bounce ideas of them and have them say, "What if, this happens?"  Plus those first two books are complicated.  There are two worlds, a timeline that moves back and forth through time, characters and more characters and as the years passed, my brain struggled to hold on to the little details that help with continuity.  I know there are programs to help writers build complicated worlds and keep track of the various threads, but what worked, finally for me, was keeping a word document with my notes, a draft post from this blog with every story line color coded so I could see who had been neglected too long, and an open office file to write the actual book.  So I tried to write this in 2012, and in summer and again. There was always something jangling in my brain, tangling the threads and making me have questions I didn't know the answer to, but this time, it was like all that time had been brewing the ingredients, and aging them and when I sat down this month, my fingers raced to get where they already knew they were going.  I have to edit, re-write, and edit again, so I'm not sure when the final product will be available. But I already love this book.  Finally.

Talking to book clubs about my book

I like to think of myself as a writer. Ever since I was a child that is one of the happier labels I have applied to myself.  When I was a child, a preschooler, I was a talker.  My Dad said I had been "vaccinated with a record needle and never stopped talking since."  Yet, as I started school, and learned that the other kids didn't like my non stop talking, and the fact that as an only child until just before I started school had created a child with no idea how to play well with others. I got slapped down hard, and rejected many times and it wasn't until the end of high school that I started to make friends and realize that I could both talk and listen.

So in school my best friends were the characters in books, and I have always considered myself an introvert.  It goes well with being the person who observes and records instead of interacting.  I curled up with my notebook, or hunched over a desk, and rarely made eye contact or had to speak.

Oddly enough though, when my brother was born with Down's syndrome and I learned to work with him, I also learned to be a teacher, and to work in front of large groups of children.  But that was separate.  I could talk to a class, and I could write - but I was too introverted to talk about my books out loud, so on-line I talked, in person I listened.  But Marketing books means you have to believe in them, AND you have to be their loudest, most vocal word of mouth advocate.  If I believed someone would love my story, nothing would happen until I would open my mouth and tell them why they would love my book.

Double Time On The Oregon Trail

So I wrote Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog, and very few people read it, even though I loved it, and the ones who did read it were positive.  Then I wrote Double Time on the Oregon Trail, and I started talking about it to 5th grade students who were studying the Oregon Trail, and then to a 5th grade teacher, who passed it to a School District Director of Curriculum who authorized the Instructional Media Center to order a class set of 38 copies. Then another 5th grade teacher convinced her book club to read it and asked me to come to their meeting and talk about it.  I was scared, but brought my handwritten draft, and some research, and some old storied I wrote in 5th grade myself and talked, and they listened and asked questions and it was fun.

 This year I am in a book club myself, and we read The Invention of Wings and ate dinner at one members house, and then read The Orphan Train and ate dinner at another members house, and it was my turn to be hostess, and I never invite people into my old house, decorated in Early American Yard Sale.  But I'm a good cook, so I said I can do it, and we chose my first book, Duffy Barkley and I cooked and they came over.

My old, chilly, very Green living room

 But what did I learn?  I learned you can't point out where the glasses and the garbage can are, and serve the food, and sit down and present about how you wrote a book, or ask the questions you want your readers to answer about what worked and where they loved, or hated my book.  Going into classes as an author presenter has been fun and satisfying.  Presenting in someone else's home as an author at their book club, I was focused and had planned ahead what to tell them and which questions to ask. In my home I kept wandering out of the conversation, and still missed a lot of what they said about my book

Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog

 So, when you want to market your book to book clubs, it is a good idea.  You do get a group of people willing to spend time and money on your book, but if you find yourself thinking about hosting the book club, find a partner, and focus for that evening, on being a speaker, speaking passionately about a book you really believe in.

 Amazon's Dixie Dawn Miller Goode Page - You can view it at:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

Twitter link: http://twitter.com/#!/pandorasecho

Twitter # 2;  http://twitter.com/#!/DuffyBarkley  

Author Blog:  http://duffybarkley.blogspot.com/

Blog # 2:      http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/

Book Genre:  Fantasy/Young Adult/children's picture books

Isn't it fun to Nano?

Many moons age, I think back in 2008, when I first discovered the concept of writing a novel in the 30 days of November, it sounded crazy.  But I did it, and then repeated it some more.  Now I love writing that quick and unedited 50,000 words. I know the book is a long way from finished by then. I know it has taken me at the very least, a year, to add enough more to the story, cut the things that don't work, check that I spell characters names the same all the way through, make sure my story actually follows the map, edit the spelling and punctuation and design a cover.  Still the freedom of just sitting down and telling a story, is what I love the most.

This month I am not starting from scratch, but starting at a point where I have two novels I've been working on, and adding a total of 50,000 new words to them.  I am hoping to find out why Duffy and his Aunt and sister have been thrown into the midst of storms and battles and a plague and why I have at least 7 threads going that don't seem to have a resolution yet.  I feel like my characters know more at this point than I do and are all standing around begging for my attention to their story.  Ay least seven voices in my head saying, "Pay attention, This is what happens next!"

That still isn't crazy.

Crazy are those people doing the novel in a day challenge.  50,000 words in 24 hours?

NEVER

but they keep doing it

I Am Writing Again

 Today being July First means that Camp NaNoWriMo is once again open and letting people explore the thrill of writing fast and intently without too much regard for the finished product.  This is after all, meant to be a quick and dirty rough draft of a novel.

 I'm not there.  I have been working on this novel for quite awhile and have 60,000 words which tell me not to ignore them just because it is camp time. So this year, I am not beginning fresh, and I am editing and writing and loving it.  Such a good feeling to open a manuscript i had closed months ago, and find things I no longer remember writing, and realizing it is better than I hold even though it is a long way from done.

The first draft of Duffy Barkley and my first completed "books", from when I was 10

 Because it is July, and I am not teaching (or unfortunately bringing in any income) I have time to write, and time to play as long as the play is cheap, so I have also been walking at the Redwoods near home. What a great place to look for something to spark my imagination.

 Nothing makes me feel smaller, or yet more a part of something beautiful, than the redwoods

 Also, I managed to capture a rainbow in my living room, if I can do that, surely I can capture the third adventure of Duffy Barkley on paper

Here is a brief sample from where I got to rereading this morning

Oh-oh-ing's eyes gave him sympathy, but no mercy. “Of course it is hard to be you Duffy, it is hard to be anyone. We all have our burdens and the times when the energy to make the effort seems impossible. Then we keep making the effort until we die and our children keep on in our place.”

“Oh, thanks a lot!” he muttered sarcastically.

“You are welcome.” She answered sincerely. He looked up in time to see her mouth twist into a smile that was part amused, part sympathetic but wholly without unkindness. Then she used both of her hands to push her mane back from the sides of her face and when she dropped her hands to his shoulders again her face was serious.

“I don't know what we do next,” Duffy said, with nevertheless, a bit more hope than before he had been reminded that he wasn't alone.

The gathering of Oorah were no longer looking directly at Duffy but had turned away, and now faced the forest. There was a movement in the crowd as it parted left and right and opened a clear path from the back to just in front of Duffy. Oh-oh-ing kept an arm around Duffy's shoulders and murmured low so that only he could hear, “You are not our only unexpected guests at the present time. You remember?”

Duffy's jaw dropped as he stared at the approaching trio. The spectacle their combined presence created would not have looked out of place in the Big Parades back on Earth. A large blue bear, not painted, not a teddy bear costume on a man, not a balloon, but a sky blue, lumbering, four legged predator came down the aisle the parted crowd had created.

He would have been spectacular alone.

He was not alone. Riding on his back was a vividly, orange, wildcat. She stood with her four paws in his fur and balanced gracefully as he swayed from side to side. She was not maned, but her pointed ears were echoed in little pointed feathers of fur at the sides of her mouth and long whiskers twitched there as well.

Walking at the bear's right side was a tall, slender girl who appeared whiter than milk. A spiky tuft of green rose from her forehead above a black, v shaped patch of skin descending from her brow to between her eyes and giving a heart shaped look to her face.

She was wearing a simple wrapped skirt and top of a glittering sequined blue cloth. Duffy had every reason to suspect that the beautiful wrapping was actually soft, supple leather made from fish skin with gleaming scales in place.

At one time Duffy had traveled with and befriended the girl. He had met the bear and wildcat before they helped him get home on his first time in Uhrlin, but the three of them looked so impressive that he froze, uncertain if he should bow or hug them, he did nothing.

The girl stopped and met his eyes and then laughed and twirled in place, skirt flaring wide as her arms swept in a circle that included everyone, “Oh, This is perfect! Duffy is here!” and she bounded toward him and hugged him quickly. As she dropped her arms and turned back to her companions, all Duffy could see was her obsidian black back and the green mane that reached down to between her shoulder blades.