Sunday, November 28, 2010

New

I've been dying to tell you all about my library visits. Unfortunately my computer has not been cooperating. It took a while to figure out the problem, but my husband finally figured out that the hard drive was broken. The new one took FOR-EV-ER to get here. It had a nice little week's vacation in Florida on it's way. (Yes, that almost makes me jealous. It's been freezing around here lately!)

What was on the old hard drive that broke? Well, everything, but most importantly, my writing. No, like a big dork, I did not have it backed up. I do have lots of hard copies. I have a lot of typing to do. I did lose some current drafts but I'm okay with that. Drafts are always changing and I'm taking the opportunity to make things better as I go. Am I happy that I will be re-typing the 120 handwritten pages of my YA novel? Not really. I'm still holding out hope that I have it on a memory stick around here somewhere.

There's something exciting about having a squeaky clean computer though. I feel so organized. The draft I put up of a manuscript will be the only one. I am going to make sure I don't junk it up with different drafts with poorly thought out titles such as (Manuscript name) current or new or use this one. Brilliant huh? Well no more of that. This time I'm going to keep it clean. I'm going to find a way to keep my writing more organized. Starting now.

Friday, November 5, 2010

A Review! (and stuff)

Booklist reviewed Bedtime Monster, and it's a nice one. Yay! It's my first review so I'm excited! You can read it at booklistonline.com if you're interested.

Fun things have been happening with my little book and me lately. Yesterday eight copies of Bedtime Monster arrived at the library while I was working and I got to check them in. I put one on the shelf and one in a bedtime display to go along with my release party tomorrow. I've got my tail and monster tattoos ready to go. I have a create-a-monster craft all together. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get my monster origami craft finished up. It's been a little tricky getting the dotted folding lines in just the right place. I also got a nice write up in the local paper with a big photo of my book cover and a little photo of me. Just the way I like it. Ha! Tomorrow is definitely going to test the depths of my outgoingness. I'll be sure to tell you how it all goes.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Weeding

I've been doing a lot of weeding at the library lately--pulling books off the shelves and packing them up to send to the library system's distribution center. I thought it would be hard for me to take any books off the shelves, especially in the children's section. Funny enough, that was the easiest place for me to pull books from. I know that section best and have read most all of the books in it(don't be too impressed, my library isn't that big). I definitely have opinions on which books are great and which aren't. I know which books are checked out a lot and which ones sit. I was a little sad about having to get rid of some oldies but goodies that were worn, but I have a feeling there are newer copies in the library system I can order in if I want to. So yeah, it was kind of fun weeding the children's section. It's definitely going to be easier for the kids to pull out books, the shelves were getting a little tight. And now I can order in a bunch of new books and freshen things up. Of course, I'll have to read them too!

I had thought that weeding the adult fiction would be easy. I was so wrong. I don't know a whole lot about those books. I know the popular authors like Catherine Coulter and Danielle Steele because I check their books in and out constantly, but I felt squeamish about pulling anything off the shelf lest someone want to check it out. I really don't know what has been sitting unread. So, I went the easy route and pulled books that looked worn. Then if an author had a slew of books on the shelves I pulled some of those. If a book was number 2 or 3 in a series and the first book wasn't there, I pulled them.

That system seemed to work pretty good until I got to the large print books. They all looked new! I noticed that I was pulling a lot of romance and westerns at first, so I started reading back copy and tried to make guesses on what people might want to check out. Large prints are so popular that I'm sure lots more will be flowing back in so I tried not to worry.

As I boxed up a heaping table full of books today I realized that it doesn't matter how popular an author you are, how famous, or how great your book is, sometimes it's going to get pulled off the shelf because there isn't enough room. I know I'll be happy to share a spot on the shelf at all. I hear that my library's copies of Bedtime Monster will be arriving on Thursday. I wonder whose books they'll be sitting next to on the shelf.