Talking about the Writing Process with Peers

On October 28th I posted this on my facebook page

Why are peers so much more terrifying than anyone else? I've talked about my books to classes many times, talked at writers conferences, art fairs and libraries but tonight I'm going to talk to a book club of my friends and coworkers and I'm feeling so nervous I might as well be back in Jr. high facing the dreaded ninth grade speech and presentation. People were so intimidated by that someone called in a bomb threat. Of course that was back when bombs in school were pretty much guaranteed to be a false alarm.

and the next morning this was my report to the Backpacker.com site where I chat with friends

Last night I was really shaking in my shoes, too nervous to eat, feeling like I had in 9th grade with a huge class project on erosion to present to the whole 9th grade.  I've talked up my books at lots of places, but this time 11 woman teachers had bought and read the Oregon trail one, and asked me to talk to their book club.  The whole peer thing was way harder than talking in a class of kids or among other writers.

They loved it, and had a lot of questions about the research and kept asking me to write a sequel when the girls had grown up a few more hers, and saying, it would make a great movie, you need to write a script.

So, relieved. 



So I am going to share some of the things I showed them, that I also talked about with the classes I have visited as an author.  In fact a couple of them have now had me booked to come talk to their classes.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer, and when I go to give a talk about being an author, I share the first books I wrote, including one in pencil and crayon from when I was a ten year old. It is called "The Police Twins on Death Island" and includes lots of death and drama and is bound up with yellow yarn through the holes meant for the binder.

and I showed them the first, small font, cramped, and scribbled on manuscript that I printed out an read to some of my family after doing 50,000 words on it in my first NaNoWriMo,  (National Novel Writing Month) and putting it away until I was no longer sick of it, a year later, and then adding another 38,000 words

And then I explained that back in those olden days it cost me $109 to print out four copies of my finished manuscript an then began the expensive and lengthy and ultimately depressing process of mailing out copies to agents and editor who were already swamped with mountains of unasked for manuscripts.

but fortunately times change and it is easier now to attach a document in pdf form to email and get it where it is going cheaply and that same day.  Not any more likely to be a happy result, but quicker and cheaper.  Now that I am 50 and willing to take a chance as an Independent author, and now that it is easier and friendlier to be your own book publisher and marketer I have found that I delight in the experience.  I love designing a book and writing and editing it and sharing it with people around the world.

I love doodling and outlining and watching those simple beginnings grow into a finished book and then head out into the world.  I find it a lot like raising my children.  Once they leave my home, who they interact with and how they are received may reflect back on me at times, but much of it I will never know about, and the reactions that do find there way to me are surprising. The things I love may be overlooked while things I barely noticed are loved.  It is a discovery and an adventure every moment.

That is OK because the books I have loved and that have shaped me, were only faintly binding me to their authors but more about connecting me to the world as one filled with many people with different stories but all capable of being loved and hurt and worthy of compassion.

So now it is November, and another NaNoWriMo finds me digging into the history of two Volcanoes. The next Double Time book is growing this month, while the third Duffy Barkley takes a rest and waits for me to return with fresh eyes, and a rainbow book of colors is starting to take shape as my first picture book.

I am delighted that the students I met through a teacher in the bookclub are participating in a program called being a writer and are hoping I will guide them through the steps to publishing a class collection in the spring.  Life is filled with surprises and the next generation is discovering that as things change, there is still value in books

A NaNo-ing We Go

 I used to hate the fact that National Novel Writing Month, AKA NaNoWriMo happens in a Month theat is busy with holidays and travel. But now the fact that it has Thanksgiving in the same month seems very appropriate, as there are few on-line places which i am as Thankful for as NaNo

 http://nanowrimo.org/participants/echopandora/novels

Shows the fruition of the books which had sent down roots in my mind for years but may never have pushed through the darkness into the sun without the daily deadlines and encouragement of NaNo and the forums there 

 i also find the change in seasons here to be conducive to writing. The storm and bluster adds to my imagined drama as it also keeps me indoors and with less distracting me from the goal.

 Just like the giving tree that never stops having the right gift, November's NaNoWriMo never stops giving me affirmation of one of my favorite parts of myself.  I am a good storyteller and now I can say I am a writer too.

 If you are going to join the exhausted writers this month, stop by and become one of my writing buddies. I'm echopandora there.  I am writing about two boys helping each other escape giant volcanic eruptions 1901 years apart. Tell me about your story too.

When the Muse Can't Be Called By Words

Every November since I discovered the wonderfully freeing and inspiring group of people participating  in NaNoWriMo, I have jumped in at the beginning of November with the plan to write a sloppy first draft and polish it up later when I could slow down and realize that I did have a Novel in my hands, I just needed to clean-it up and make it decent to go in public.

This November is approaching again and I have found a group of other WriMo fans who are still working on last years novel while planning for this one. It has been fun and yet I have bogged down as the end of the writing on this on nears.

That is OK.

I have found my way through the bog before and I have faith that I will again.

For me, when the creativity slows down and the inspiration won't come, then I know it produces stale, forced writing, so I have to entice the muse back.

That means getting creative in other mediums, dancing, playing with sculpting fimo, hiking new trails, singing and drawing.  To get focused back on the story I paint possible book cover and play with them on Ribbet and picmonkey photo editing sites

after the first "win" onNaNoWriMo when I finished the novel in 30 days, I won a free proof copy of the book from createspace. I had it figured out how to upload it, but I wasn't thinking of a cover, so I just took a picture of one I doodled and got that proof to give to my mom.

It was going to end there.

I swear it was

 but of course we all know better now.  Seeing that "Real book" even if there was only one existing in the world.  That was an instant blast of feel good endorphins and I had to keep going. So then I read the proof and edited more and designed a cover I thought Duffy himself might have painted. Then I began writing the Sequel, "Seek Well" the next NaNoWriMo. Painting that cover came easier because I wanted them unified in appearance.

So today, even though the third book still is a few chapters short of a conclusion. When the words were stuck, I decided to design the cover anyway

I painted

Trying to keep the dome shape to the upper right

the people to the lower right

the heavy use of blue

and the back with a clue of how the transport to Uhrlin happens this time

Then, I photographed the painting and edited in the titles and other wordy stuff

and I tried to think of how to present the information that this series was now an "award-winning  Tween series"

So I think I might go with this book cover for the Third book for people who already have book one and two.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm also thinking about putting out a combined volume with all three books included, and a different style cover, for those who want the paperback version but haven't yet invested in the first two.

 Anyway, the exercise works. I figured out the next step that the characters want to take, and they are chomping at the bit, for me to pick up my pad and pen and start following them around taking notes again.

Until next time, Happy Autumn to you, and may all your days have a creative spark.

Make Good Art, Neil Gaiman Said

I have been feeling Blue,
just a funky kind of,
"my life is perfect right now, but summer is ending, my kids are moving away, OH NO, CHANGE IS COMING!" feeling

and I am 60,000 words into the third book of my Duffy Barkley series, and loving what I wrote, but still avoiding writing any more because, well, because my energy is down.

Then Yesterday I got a 1 star review on Amazon, and to be honest a 4 Star review on another book on Amazon and a 5 star review on Goodreads too, but of course it is the 1 star review I obsess about.  So I reread the reviews I have posted, trying to find the good stuff, and I stick on the iffy stuff instead

The front of the first 2 books

See, I have hand painted watercolor pictures for the first two Duffy books, and some people don't like them at all, and I'm not sure about them myself

And I found this comment again, from an A. Stepaniak, in the reviews

The back of the same books.

"As a graphic designer, I was put-off by the cover design Dixie Miller Goode chose for 'Duffy Barkley Is not a Dog'. And, so the saying goes, I should have never judged a book by its cover. After reading, I love the cover design. It's clearly from the mind of Duffy, and it's fitting.'

And so instead of writing, I was on facebook, of course that did not help me feel less depressed. So I remembered that video of Neil Gaiman giving a graduation speech and saying, "make Good Art" all the time.  

You know the speech? 

“Remember, whatever discipline you’re in, whether you’re a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer — whatever you do, you have one thing that’s unique: You have the ability to make art. And for me, and for so many of the people I’ve known, that’s been a lifesaver, the ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times, and it gets you through … the other ones. Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong — in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too.”

– Neil Gaiman, in his commencement address to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he was bestowed with an honorary doctorate in fine arts 

Well, I used to take art classes and paint, sculpt, draw and weave, but then I became a teacher, a wife and a mom, and I stopped.

 But I dusted off my old lab coat that I used to use as a painting smock, and got out my paints, most of which were dried and worthless, but enough were there to start playing around

 Working on an idea of maybe going for a completely different look, in a book that combined the first three novels into one volume.  I'd still do a book 3 watercolor to match the first, and offer it as a single edition as well, for those who don't need to have both a 1, 2 and a 1,2,3

But this is the idea I am playing with for the multi volume.

 And after making art that may or may not be "Good art" but is for sure "Goode art" I feel better.  My mood is improved and I'm ready to write again