It is beyond exciting to get to finally hold a book you have been working on for over a year. Then comes the realization that your work is not done. You have to figure out ways to get the word out about your book and hope to find opportunities to share it with the kids you wrote it for. One of the teaching standards we have for reading is learning the author's purpose of a book. There are three main purposes: to inform, to entertain, and to persuade. When I wrote I am Not a Pirate, my "author's purpose" was to inform. My target was kids that may have an eye issue or some other physical difficulty they have to overcome. I sent books to eye doctor's offices and spread the word on parent forums for families dealing with strabismus and amblyopia. My author's purpose for Nicken Chuggets though, is to entertain. This story is about two science-loving boys that cook up a plan to earn money to go to science camp. Cooper, the main character, often talks in spoonerisms. (Spoonerisms occur when you accidentally transpose the beginnings of two words.) I had a lot of fun playing with words when figuring out the things Cooper would say. My target audience is kids that like to read funny books that let you be silly. When I was trying to figure out a creative place to do a book signing, I figured most people would think of chicken nuggets when they hear the title, Nicken Chuggets. Where do you think of when you think of chicken nuggets? McDonalds of course! And what would fit my target audience better than one of the favorite eateries of kids in this age group? I had a lot of fun at the book signing and am so grateful that I got to get books into the hands of some really great kids.
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Encouragement is a recurring message for me lately. Maybe I am seeking encouragement opportunities more because I am reading the book, Treasures of Encouragment, by Sharon Betters. Maybe it is because I have been the recipient of heaping servings of encouragement from a conference I recently attended. Whatever the reason, I'm reminded of how important it is to encourage others. Sharon Betters says, "True encouragement pumps hope into the receiver and also into the giver." Motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, says, "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want." We sometimes need reminded of this in the competitive world we live in. It is easy to get on the treadmill of life, set a goal, and run toward it without taking note of anything happening around us. It is amazing how much we limit ourselves if we are only minding "our own business." Encouragement is a powerful tool that can change a life and energize you to do bigger and better things. Think of people that you truly admire and respect. You can probably think of many ways that person motivated or helped others. It is no coincidence. There are so many ways we can encourage others. We can help someone do a project, promote something he/she is doing to others, praise someone for a job well done, smile or give a compliment, provide a monetary or physical need for someone, pray for the person, or come up with a way to surprise someone with a good deed of some kind for no other reason than to make his/her day. It is awesome when someone takes the time to encourage you. It is a blessing when you take the opportunity to encourage others. "Those who are the happiest are those who do the most for others." - Booker T. Washington
My family and colleagues sometimes refer to me as the Conference Queen. I accept this title as I nestle into my newly upholstered "throne" in my writing room. (Isn't this a fun room? I LOVE it!) Attending conferences is a great way to learn more about strategies for writing, what kids are reading, and what publishers are looking for. I started out attending any SCBWI (Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) conference I could manage to swing. I have gone to the LA conference many summers, NY for the first time this year, and countless Indiana and regional SCBWI conferences. I can't tell you how many pages of notes I have and ideas swirling around in my head from all of them! But I learned to not stop there. The benefits from attending other conferences related to reading, writing, or education are hugely helpful too! One of my favorite things about my job as a literacy coach is that I get to attend some professional development conferences and come back and share with teachers. This is also a perk for being a member on the State Reading Council Executive Board and for being the Gifted Coordinator for my school corporation. This year I was fortunate enough to attend the Indiana State Reading Conference, the International Reading Conference, and the National Association for the Gifted Conference. It was at one of these conferences that I spoke with the Editor from Royal Fireworks Press about my manuscript for Maggot Man and he asked me to submit it to him. I ended up with a contract two weeks later. The NAGC conference is where I also met the editor from Free Spirit Publishing and ended up with a book deal for Penelope Perfect, with the option to make it into a series! You just never know who you will meet or what may spark an idea for another book. Lots of conferences equals lots of networking. Conferences I attend help me to be able to submit to publishers and to continue to keep up with what editors and kids want to read. Attending conferences can be kicked up a notch further if you participate in a bigger way. Presenting at conferences allows you to share your expertise or passion in an area and give back to others. I have presented at many conferences and have made several contacts for author visits and other events this way. I have recently gone even a step further by helping with the organizing end of conferences. I will be bringing an SCBWI event to Rensselaer on October 4th. The experience of putting this conference together and collaborating with other authors and speakers has been a great way to network and help other writers. (Registration for this conference will be open July 15th.) I hope to see many old and new faces at the conference! So what is next? I will be heading to LA in August to get another dose of creative knowledge and love from the members of the SCBWI tribe and faculty. I will present at the Indiana State Reading Conference in September, I will co-host the SCBWI non-fiction conference in October, and I am attending the Gifted Conference in Baltimore in November. That will wrap up 2014 for me. (I need to save December for family time.) I hope to kick off 2015 with the ALA (American Library Association) Conference in Chicago in January. This will be a new conference for me and not far from home. Many people ask me about how to get started in writing and publishing. A big step is to pick some conferences and squeeze all you can out of them! You don't have to try to go to a conference every month, but start with one and see if you like it. I recommend becoming an SCBWI member and seeking their conferences. You won't regret going if you are serious about writing for children. Maybe I will see you there! :) I saw this today and had to chuckle because it hits so close to home. Firstly, because I am always taking writing courses. (I am taking two on-line classes right now!) Secondly, because I find myself doing many of the topics on this list. Specifically, the workspace arrangement has been a biggie. I am obsessed with finding inspirational decorations, seating, and colors for the make-over of our office-space that I now refer to as MY writing room. :) My daughters even made a video to send to Nate Burkus, pleading him to help me create the perfect room so that I will stop talking about it. (I don't have the heart to tell them that his show went off the air.) It is easy to justify some of the things I do. Taking classes will definitely help me become a better writer, as will attending the many conferences I go to each year. Being a part of on-line writing forums helps me connect with other writers, as do the many social media sites I belong to. Reading books and magazines about writing inspires me to write better. Having the perfect chair to sit in with my laptop on my lap is going to make me more comfortable while I write, right? Blogging helps me keep an "on-line" presence and may help someone out in a similar situation. When it comes down to it, my forms of procrastination, though mostly well intended, do keep me from doing the writing that I need to do on a daily basis to become the writer I aspire to be. I LOVE writing. It isn't that I am trying to avoid an unpleasant experience. I think it is just one of those creative processes that I find hard to just settle into each day in little spaces of time. Sometimes I make myself think the conditions have to be just right for the creative juices to flow. Quiet house, satisfied tummy, water bottle, comfy chair, charged laptop, paper, pencil, comfy clothes, and TIME. Of course in real life having all of those conditions met is a rarity. Carving out writing time is more about the heart and determination to be a great writer than having the perfect conditions exist. A bigger example would be when you are deciding when to have a child. If you wait until you are completely emotionally, physically, and financially "ready" to have a child, it may never happen. There are no perfect conditions, but rather the heart and desire to be a great parent. The past few weeks have brought many opportunities to learn and share about writing. I was fortunate enough to attend the SCBWI conference in New York City, had a book signing at Barnes and Noble, presented at a teacher conference about writing strategies for kids, and had 2 more author visits at schools. These things have all been wonderful, but the best thing of all, is that I have met more kids that have to patch and have been able to help them feel a little better about it. I love the chance to connect with the kids that I wrote this book for. It has also been great talking to adults about my book that may not have heard of this condition. I now of one case where a man I spoke to ended up taking his child to the eye doctor and found out he caught the condition soon enough to begin treatment and reverse the affects. Amblyopia (lazy eye) is an eye condition that is caused when the brain favors one eye and stops relying on the other eye. The favored eye usually has normal vision and the "lazy" eye stops being used by the brain. As the weaker eye is used less and less, the vision continues to deteriorate. If this is still occurring when the child is between the ages of five and ten, the condition can become permanent. It is important to seek an eye doctor's care if you notice your child has an eye that turns in or out, that he or she seems to be having difficulty seeing out of one of his/her eyes, or if he or she seems to have some problems with depth perception. The younger you can start treating amblyopia, the greater your chances are for correcting the problem. Amblyopia can be treated by patching the stronger eye for a prescribed amount of time each day. This causes the weaker eye to use its central vision in conjunction with the proper brain stimulation. Vision therapy should be done along with eye patching for optimal results. It is best to take your child for their first eye exam by the age of 3 1/2 to check for this condition. My daughter, Maddie, started patching at 3 years old and has been able to restore most of her vision. We still go to eye therapy and have some at-home eye exercises as well. I wrote the book, I am Not a Pirate, about her experiences with patching to help other kids see the positive side of patching. I had the opportunity to go to Evansville and spend some time with Dave Burgess, author of Teach Like a Pirate, Chris Evans, principal in Gary, Indiana, and a room full of wonderful teachers. The event was Pirate - themed, so I even got the chance to do a short presentation about my book, I am Not a Pirate. Dave Burgess is amazing when it comes to teaching and inspiring teachers to get excited about the potential they hold to make a difference in their classrooms. Dave encouraged teachers to give students experiences instead of lessons. He shared strategies to motivate students and showed us how to make learning an adventure. Teachers need to teach with passion, have good rapport with their students, be enthusiastic, and focus more on kids than test scores. We know all of these things, but it is always great to see someone that is walking the walk and able to model some great examples of lessons that will be memorable for students. I think we all left feeling empowered and inspired. One of the big take-aways is that it is not easy and it is not just creative people that can do this. It all starts with figuring out what you need to teach and asking yourself how you can make the learning an experience: How can I create a setting within my classroom? How can I dress up or bring in a guest speaker to make it come alive? How can I get kids out of their seats doing something related to the content? How can I create a hook to make them want to learn this? How can I use props to make it more fun and memorable? Once you have brainstormed many of these questions, you should have a start for planning your experience for the kids. Taking the extra time to do these things is worth it when you see your students excited and you find yourself eager to get to school to teach each day. It is a win-win situation for sure. Dave Burgess is an incredible, engaging presenter. If you have the opportunity to see him speak, you should. As the weekend draws to a close, I have been reflecting on the things I am grateful for already in 2014.
I am thankful for so many things…
In all seriousness though, I do have a lot to be thankful for and count my blessings every day. I have recently been participating in a lot of helpful writing forums. The Picture Book Idea Month was a helpful way to motivate writers to come up with 30 ideas for books in 30 days. (Tara Lazar hosts this event in November each year.) I am also participating in a year-long forum called the 12x12 Picture Book Challenge. In this challenge, Julie Hedlund encourages writers to complete an entire picture book manuscript each month for a year.
You probably see where this is going! My plan is to take my 30 ideas from November and choose the 12 ideas I am most excited about to develop into full manuscripts. I already have my January story close to completion. It is a daunting task to begin a fresh story from scratch. Multiply that by 12 months and add in being a mom and having a full time job. Now sprinkle in the New York SCBWI conference, the International Reading Conference in New Orleans, a couple Indiana SCBWI conferences, and some author visits, and you have one very excited, but time-deprived lady. I had an ah-ha moment today when reading some posts and blogs of other writers. Every story needs to have an essential or dramatic question. This question guides your whole story. This question is why the reader keeps reading. How you get the reader to the answer of this question is where your storytelling magic comes in. You are way ahead of the game if you already know the essential question for your story when you begin writing it. I am going to go through my 12 favorite story ideas and come up with my big question for each before beginning another draft. It seems obvious, but I did not start some of my past stories this way. I look back on some stories I have abandoned and now see that I got stuck because there wasn't a question guiding me through to the end. So for Project: Write All Year, I am making a promise to myself to be ready to face each new month with a story already asking a question. All I have to do is come up with an interesting and entertaining way to answer it! Best wishes to the rest of you that are a part of the Picture Book Challenge this year. On my morning run this morning, I was thinking about what I would write for my blog. I know it is only January, but so far I have stuck with my goal to blog each weekend! ;)
So, I started thinking about how similar two of my favorite things are…running and writing.
So really, running and writing are almost exactly the same thing I guess. :) |
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