Trip

When I left Seattle it was raining. I pushed my way through the hills and valleys admiring their beauty. Wishing I could go into the forest and mingle with the trees. Afraid I'll be forever stuck inside watching them pass me by. Not even noticing.

Craigslist and Coldplay

My husband listed our house for sale today on craigslist, "just to see what happens". I know we need to sell our house. Need to move closer to town so the kids can do more things. But that doesn't make me happy about it.

He proudly showed me the listing as Coldplay played in the background, "For you, I'd wait 'til kingdom come, Until my days, my days are done. Say you'll come and set me free, Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me. ..."

Well it wasn't a good combination. That song gets me anyway, and it was quite difficult for me to hide the tears in my eyes so the kids couldn't see as I looked it over. Hard to steady my voice. And the tears are welling up now. If you know me I am not much of a cryer darn it.

I guess it's just that we've sacrificed alot for that place. Built it with our own hands investing years into it. Our children have lived there their entire lives barring our recent "winter vacations". Where we live is beautiful and peaceful. I don't know if I will ever have another place like it and that scares me. I'm fine living in town knowing that I can go up there anytime. I don't know if I can live here knowing that I can't go back.

Next Project Please ...

For some unknown reason I've decided to take on another project. Why? I keep asking myself. Why can't I just sit back and "relax" a while? Maybe because my project has to do with books.

I single-handedly talked my librarian into having another author fair this year. How did I do it, you ask, when she said it was too much work? I said I would do it all myself, of course. I've had a couple offers of "help", but it seems that means that they'll bring cookies. Which is good, I like cookies. I just thought they meant they would do something that wouldn't take me five minutes or less to do at the store. Well, I hope their cookies are at least homemade.

I've had this project for a week now. So far I have two authors commited, one doing a reading and one doing a power point presentation/workshop. Very cool. I've invited an award winning picture book author(through her sister, who I know). Still haven't heard from her. I also invited her publisher and they said they "love the idea". It felt like an acceptance I was so excited. Now I have two publishers coming. I've invited one other author who I haven't heard from either and have a list of prospects I need to get in touch with asap. Did I mention this is scheduled for May 31st? Not enough time imo, but scheduling was tricky with the Booksale, Summer Reading Program, and Storytelling Festival coming up, all of which I am also helping with. All book stuff that I can't resist. I'm such a sucker!

The pressure is on now. With two publishers coming and who knows how many writers(we have room for up to 21, but last year we had eight) I really feel the need to promote this event better than I've ever promoted anything. I need articles, radio interviews, flyers, event info be placed in every local newsletter, and whatever else I can think of. And it has to be free. There's very little money for this event and I want a good turnout. All failures lead to me. It should be fun!

Newspaper Surprise

I opened up the local paper today to see if they ran my library news article. They didn't. But, to my surprise, there I was sitting with my fellow authors at our booksigning the week before(It's a small weekly paper so week before stuff is newsworthyish). There wasn't even a reporter at the signing so I suppose my friend at the Corner Shelf is a good promoter. She took the pictures, called the reporter and gave her an interview. I think I could take a lesson here and stop writing all the library's promotional articles and just call the reporter. Of course, then things that are "happening" will have already happened by the time they get in the paper.

I was on the cover of the paper last week with my daughter at kite flying day. Here's a link just for fun.

A Writer's Husband's Wisdom

Me: I need a good ending to this story.

Him: A period is a good way.

Thanks honey.

Writer times in review

It was a strange week last week. I was applauded by a room full of librarians, had people ooh and ahh over me signing my book for them, and talked to a room full of fourth graders and got them to have fun writing. Big things for this quiet little writer.

I learned alot at the summer reading program workshop. So much work goes into putting on this free program and the librarians are so enthusiastic about it. Everyone came up with crafts and skits and they wrote tons of book talks to go read to the kids at school to get them interested in coming to the library. And we sang kids songs. I wondered what the two guys were thinking when they came into a room full of a bunch of women singing, "there ain't no bugs on me". They certainly looked confused.

It's easy to see how having the support of even one librarian can help a writer immensely. And it was just so fun to see people so excited about children's books, and not because they write them. I hope I get to go again next year, except I'll probably be expected to get up and give a book talk since I'm a writer and all. And now they all know it since my boss had to brag about me to everyone. There's no being anonymous with her around.

My book signing went pretty well. I remembered a pen, talked to alot of nice people, and even sold some books. Not too bad.

I was a little nervous about going to talk to the fourth graders, but now it seems silly that I was. Except for right at the beginning when the teacher told the kids I was there to talk to them about being a writer then walked to the back of the room followed by an eerie silence and a moments panic, it went pretty well. It seems I do have quite a bit to say about being a writer. I should, but I'm not much of a monologuer in person.

The kids had an inordinate amount of fun creating characters. I had cut faces out of magazines and pasted them onto index cards(thanks to the blue board for that idea). I couldn't help but pick the extraordinary sorts of pictures(Spin magazine was great for that). I think it made it more fun anyway. The kids made up crazy names and occupations and cracked themselves(and me!) up. It was great fun. And I've been told some of the kids are hoping I'll come back again. Don't know if I can top that though. Oh, and one of the coolest things was when I showed them the cover for Bedtime Monster. One boy blurted out, "that is sooooo cool!". I think so too.

Alas, the glory is short lived(thank goodness)and now I must wallow in the waiting of an overdue deadline. When will the torture end!