Summer Reading

With summer upon us, there is plenty of time for reading. Since this time last year, I kept tabs of what titles I read for the year. As would be expected, I read a lot of young adult and middle grade, but I do turn to adult books every now and then. Here are the titles, in no particular order.

For young people:

Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly
Rogue Wave by Jennifer Donnelly
Amber House by Kelly Moore, Tucker Reed and Larkin Reed
The Family Romanov by Candace Fleming
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner
Something Upstairs by Avi
Lily Dale Awakening by Wendy Corsi Staub
Lily Dale Believing by Wendy Corsi Staub
Lily Dale Connecting by Wendy Corsi Staub
Lily Dale Discovering by Wendy Corsi Staub
The Search for Wandla by Tony DeTerlizzi
The Battle for Wandla by Tony DeTerlizzi

A Hero for Wandla by Tony DiTerlizzi
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Gathering Blue  by Lois Lowry
House of Secrets by Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini
Chinese Cinderella: Secret Dragon Society by Adeline Yen Mah
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
Grace, Gold & Glory by Gabrielle Douglas
The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage
Shaking the Foundation: Charles Darwin and the Theory of       Evolution  by Sylvia Johnson
Messanger by Lois Lowry
Son by Lois Lowry
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

For Adults:

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Still Falling by Martin Wilsey

I am currently reading the sequel to Seraphina – Shadow Scale, and I am eagerly awaiting the third in the Jennifer Donnelly series, and the next Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) detective mystery.

It’s summer! Kick back and read a good tale. What is your favorite this season?

 

So Many Decisions

"It’s never too late to be what you might have been."

                                             -       George Eliot

 

I’m sorry that I haven’t been around, but remember my first job is teaching. The end of the year is a busy time.

I have squeezed in some time to play with the page layout of

Relic – just enough to make me anxious and excited to get rolling full speed. I’ve had time to play with font styles for chapter numbers, chapter titles, and possible drop caps.

I’ve realized my paragraph indents are too big for a small page. I’ll have to hand adjust each one unless I can find a quicker fail-safe way. I’ve also started to drop in photos at the beginning of each chapter, but that has only impressed upon me how many more photos I have to take.

Plus I have to find time to finalize the map of Willowbend and the floor plan of Hydrangea Hall. I’m spending a lot of mental time trying to figure out what style I want them to be. Should they look like a young person drew them? Should they be a pencil sketch? Marker and water color? Should they be child-like, or drawn by a person with some artistic talent?

So many decisions to be made….

I can’t wait!

Next Steps

Now that Relic is written, I fear the real work has begun!

I’m working on a final edit. After that I plan to read the entire manuscript aloud to check for any final tweeks. Then it’s all about laying out the inside pages with my photography at the start of each chapter. I’m going to use a marketing person to write a blurb for the back cover. I need to worry about ISBN numbers and Library of Congress numbers and dedications and acknowledgements.

While I work on preparing the inside of the book, I’ve engaged the services of graphic artist Aaron LaPorta to design the cover. I’ve sent him a summary and my author’s notes for an initial direction. He’s great at the work he does for the Buffalo Bills, so I’m sure he’ll do a terrific job. I’m really excited about how he’ll imagine my book for me.

I’d love Relic to hit the market by August, but I don’t know if that’s realistic!

 

The Quest Begins

I spent Friday on a quest – to begin compiling the art work for Relic. I knew what I needed. I’ve pictured this book in my head for a long time. I needed a photo for each chapter. Some I knew I could stage closer to home, but others needed the authenticity of a small village. I also needed a map of Samantha’s new village for the front inside cover and a floor plan of a house for the back inside cover.

Armed with my shot list, my camera, a sketch pad, a pencil and my manuscript, I headed out early for the village that inspired the setting of Relic. I started at the historian’s office – the one that actually inspired the historian’s office that Sam and Twyla visit. Historians have got to be some of the best people out there. A major shout out to local historians Doris Bannister and Doug Norton, who went out of their way to help me fill in gaps in my memory and may have even given me a idea for book number three!

After gathering information from Doris's files, I continued to the center of the village that inspired the setting of Relic. This is where the bulk of my work would have to be done. I drove through and sketched the village, took a couple photos of the village including the Middlebury Academy and some nice gingerbread houses.

Now, combined with some other photos in my files and a few more to be taken locally, I’m ready to start preparing the manuscript for publishing!

 

The Adventure Continues

Several months ago, author Wendy Corsi Staub advised me to independently publish Relic. Stubbornly, I continued to query agents. I had given myself an unofficial deadlne – summer. Now summer is a few weeks away, so I am mentally preparing. I think there is a lot of work ahead.

I have always imagined how I want Relic to look. I’ve always wanted small line drawings at the start of every chapter. I have prepared a shot list – photographs that I am going to turn into line drawings. And I’ve scheduled a day next week to go on an adventure and get the photos done. I plan to use the tools available to me in Word to turn the photos into line drawings.

Included in the adventure is also a quest to complete floor plans and a village map for the inside jackets – two things I’ve always imagined for my book.

I’m excited again!

Notebooks

Although I love writing on my computer, I always have at least one notebook on hand.

Writing Tip #2: I keep a medium-sized spiral at my bedside. I use it for a lot of things. Sometimes, I try out passages of description. I drafted a great description of my new character Ida, who had been giving me trouble until she finally took form one night before I fell asleep. I like drafting poetry in this notebook, too. Often I want to be able to see the multiple words I am considering as I write the poem. I want to see the evolution, be able to go back if I want. Sometimes, I’ll simply write lists of things I need to do or buy.

I have a wonderful tiny green notebook with an engraved tree on its leather cover. This notebook I save for short jottings. In it I gather thoughts. It is a repository for funny things I hear, websites or physical places that might help me with research, ideas for stories or poems, one-liners. I try to keep this one with me on a regular basis so that I can write in it as I hear things, but I find this difficult. My writing friend Paul carries his in his shirt pocket – men’s clothing is so much more efficient than women’s. And since I don’t carry any one bag all the time, my little green notebook is usually somewhere other than where I need it to be. Instead, more often than not, I am scrambling for a scrap of paper in the car console. Every so often, I gather up the scraps and add them to my green notebook.

Going Back is Hell!

Writing Tip #1:  Last month, Jeff S., one of my fellow writers in my writing group declared, “Going back is hell!”

He was going back through his project and changing the story. “Didn’t you go all the way back through yours, Roberta?” he asked.

Yes, I did. Relic was originally written in third person. I was very close to the end of the manuscript when I realized the view point had been wasted. I could see inside my protagonist’s head, but so what? If she was telling the story, we’d be able to see inside her thoughts, too. So why not just tell the story in first person?

It was a daunting task, but as soon as I started, I knew I had made the correct decision. With first person, Samantha could tell her story and her personality could come out. When I took those first revisions back to group, everyone agreed.

Even now, in the first draft of my new project, I had parallel time lines. By about 20 pages in, I realized getting to the good part seemed to be taking too long, and I was going to give too much away. I went back and revised. I think it sounds much better.

So yes, going back is hell. But is it worth it? Most of the time, I think so. Like I tell my students: Writing doesn't come out right the first time.