Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Happy, Happy Holidays!

Here's a present from me to you...

My 14yo photographing "his mountain."

I took up skiing as an adult. It has been a struggle to conquer fear, to develop discipline and technique, to not give up. Remind you of anything...?

WRITE ON

Fearlessly
With focus and determination
Do not stop


Go head. Go sit at the computer today! You're welcome ;)

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Blogging from the ABYSS

Here we are at December again. The culminating month of the year and a time for both contemplation and celebration.

This year saw the publication of my second verse novel, THE SOUND OF LETTING GO, which has received some lovely critical notices including a star from PW and selection by the Junior Library Guild. Recently, I was delighted to learn that it's been shortlisted for the Pacific Northwest Book Awards. Can I take any credit for this? Well, I did write the book, of course but, in terms of promotion, I have done far less than I did for AUDITION.
This is a photo of salmon swimming upstream,
taken near my home this fall.
Read to the end of the post and you'll get it :)

Why?
1.  MOTHERHOOD. This year my youngest started at a new elementary school, my eight-grader has been applying to different high schools, my senior is applying to college and my eldest is a college sophomore. Can you say complex family logistics and massive needs for "mom time"? Yep, I've been busy with the kids.
2. FACING FACTS. After coordinating a cross-country bookstore tour AND an epic blog tour for AUDITION, I have concluded that as a fledgling author who is not also a reality television star, chef, or dog trainer, there is little I can do to push unit sales of my books in any cost-and-time-effective way. (CAVEAT: The AUDITION book tour, called Stages on Pages, regardless of organization, time and travel costs, was an opportunity to make amazing writer friends I have to this day so it was worth it all the same and I'd recommend authors try it at least once.)
3. LIMITS. Without massive effort, constant giveaways and the generation of a great deal of newly-written content, my blog, FB and Twitter follow stats have pretty well plateaued (sp?). At this point, I feel a strong need to conserve my writing energy for a number of fiction projects that are exciting me beyond belief. I AM WRITING STORIES. In support of this decision, you can search the webs for articles about blogger burnout, the pros and cons of social media for authors, and agents reminding writers to focus on producing their very best work.

Yet, I continue to blog, albeit less than before, because I love keeping this online account of my writing journey and occasionally celebrating the work of other writers. I hope some folks out there in the virtual abyss stumble onto my blog and find it useful. I suppose what I most want to convey here is the VALUE of this writing life, no matter the financial outcome, no matter that sometimes we hunch over the keyboard feeling like we're accomplishing little more than salmon struggling upstream. Readers, however you got here, please know that the stories you tell MATTER and that IN YOUR belief in the act of writing as a vital component of the act of living, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.


Friday, December 5, 2014

ALL I WANT...A HOLIDAY WISH LIST


Here's the post where I pimp the books of strangers and friends, plus a few non-bookish things I'd also like in case my husband reads this post ;)

These Mountain Hardwear incredibly fuzzy Pyxis fleece pants. Seriously. Beyond fuzzy! Size small, please!

These LL Bean suede driving moccasins. Yes, in RED (it's Christmas). Size 8, medium (and they're on sale)!
And a girl needs her jewels, right? (In support of public television, I'm opting for these glitzy Aurora Borealis earrings from the Signals catalog.

NOW FOR THE BOOKS...

The art of photography in a YA contemp
from Justina Chen. So...yes!
This just looks beautiful. Letters to lost artists--musicians and actors who died too young--are at the core of DellAira's glowingly reviewed debut.
The highly-lauded, less-read debut
How many people have to recommend a book
before you have to buy it? 



The follow-up to Zadoff's 
which I could not put down!
The threat of love separated by college
geography? Been there with my sons--
plus it's a Perkins romance, right?
 Can't seem to get any more pix to upload for this post, but just two more titles: Jenna Fox author Mary E. Pearson's KISS OF DECEPTION and SCBWI-maven extraordinaire Laurie Thompson's great nonfiction contribution to teen libraries, BE A CHANGEMAKER.

HOPE YOUR HOLIDAY SHOPPING INCLUDES TONS OF BOOKS!