Sunday Funday round-up

So not doing so good with the weekly blog posts even though I think of things to discuss, like shirtless hockey player controversies.

I made a video this week which took up some of my free time.  C2E2, a new Chicago Comic Con from the people behind New York Comic Con and Book Expo, asked its volunteer applicants to make a video application.  And that’s all they ask, no other guidelines.  So I took it and ran.  Super friend Angie gave me the idea to film downtown on Friday so I did.  And then I came back to my apartment, wrote a “script” as such, made props and used iMovie to record more video, edit and insert music and transitions.  I probably spent about 4+ hours monkeying with the controls and reading the help section but I now have a video.

Check out all its majesty.

There’s another, unauthorized version of that video with a cooler soundtrack.  Email me if you’d like to see it.  Warning you though, that’s all that’s different.

Started revising my NaNoWriMo novel.  After about two hours I have 10 pages done, and that’s straight copy editing and notations like, “OMG” and “WTF” and “really?” and my favorite “?”  Yep, working with quality material here.  Honest though, it’s going better than I thought and I’m getting ideas on what I want to build on, areas I’ll probably rework, vigorously and how to fix my pacing, because it is way off.  I also need to strengthen my conflict.  It doesn’t feel immediate enough.

Now I just need to get through the mountain of books I keep thinking I’ll read.  Ha.  I’m so delusional when it comes to reading.

The flames, the flames!

This started as a response to an article  my dear friend Katie(@katiecharland) sent from All Cities sent about how libraries can evolve to be ”3rd places.”  But why limit my humble opinions to just her and gmail?

Oh Seth Godin (he’s mentioned in the original and his article about the future or not future of public libraries, fun stuff), the flames being fanned in his general direction.

 

As for this article, we (librarians) mostly agree.  In fact many organizations do use our meeting rooms, small and large.  The problem now is demand.  Our rooms are so in demand we have to put in restrictions to offer a fair service to all community members.  And I would venture that if a library can afford it then they probably have wi-fi or want it.

But again that is the issue, money.  Much like school funding, the majority of funding is local taxes.  Live in a nice, high tax area that supports and funds the library, awesome places. Don’t and too bad.  Or tax revenues go down like in a recession and the library is first on the cutting block. We’re not seen as essential as police or fire.  And the states are cutting library funding left and right, Save Ohio Libraries campaign is just the latest.  And federal money is only for technology and only if you agree to filter computers for kids.

Skokie PL has an innovative Digital Media Lab that has video and web editing software along with Flips and digital cameras. One way they got support for the project was tying to an initiative to reach out to local and small business owners.

 

We’re trying, honestly.

Writing Wednesday has been moved to Sunday Funday

One of my many goals, not resolutions because resolutions sound so resolute while goals can be evaluated and modified if needed, for 2010 is to dedicate at least one day a week to writing.  After NaNoWriMo I was burned out on my novel but oddly missed the frenzied and terrifying exploration.  So here I am at Starbucks on Sunday evening trying to recapture that old spark.

As you can tell by the title I planned to start this Wednesday, I can’t resist alliteration, obvious or not.  Life, as it does, had other plans so I moved things back.  That and as much as I love snarky, British humor I couldn’t watch another episode of Black Books or Nevermind the Buzzcocks.

I’m starting off easy too, one blog post.  I haven’t posted on my personal blog since I started my new job, which involves writing for three separate blogs.  But I still feel like a hypocrite when a new colleague says how great my blog is.  Then I open the page and see Puppet Van Gogh staring at me, disapprovingly.  So a post to get things started with some other goal exploring.

One of my personal goals, maybe not this year, but in my general professional career is to develop my storytelling skills.  I loved my storytelling class during my last semester.  It was like jumping off a Jamaican cliff, exhilarating, terrifying and incomprehensible how I found myself flailing through the air.  To start off I’m reading Beastly by Donna Jo Napoli.  I read an article this week about feminist fairytales and her work was cited favorably.  Which struck me as interesting since I read a book of her’s and did not care for it.  But I’m willing to be wrong so I’m reading this and also a book by Jack Zipes, recommend in a very back-assward way by Melissa Marr.

Another goal, revise.  I hate revising.  As a former language teacher I know that is blasphemous but I do.  I got through lots of college and grad school without revising.  Sure I would read through for typos or glaring grammar issues but for the most part true revision was something I avoided, or only after a teacher looked it over.  I don’t see the issues until they’re pointed out to me.  Which is paradoxical because I can easily spot mistakes in other’s work.  Not that I have this crazy hubris and think my writing is fantastic and perfect the first time around.  My first drafts are crap, just like 95-99% of all people.  So committing to revise my novel is almost as difficult as committing to writing one in the first place.  I have my story, mostly, well minus an ending.  What I don’t have right now is the why.  Why are these characters in this story anyway exciting? Interesting?  What about this story is fresh or captivating?  One of my crazy out there goals is to publish a novel one day.  You hear about all these first time writers getting books published.  Sure you also don’t hear about the thousands that don’t even get rejection letters but I’m delusional enough to believe that I could do it.  I’m rational, not insane and have some level of taste (sometimes).  So I think I might be entering this revision thing from the wrong angle.  So I started my year of writing off easy, one blog post and then maybe writing an ending to this novel thing.  Oh wait, there’s life calling, wanting to go to Kuma’s.  And sorry novel, you can’t pass up pass Kuma’s.  Tomorrow my pet.

State of the novel part next…

While I’m at a break in tonight’s WriMo’ing I thought it would be a good time to record my thoughts on the writing since last week.

First off, holy interfering characters.  I have a some secondary characters that a few days ago were just names floating around, popping in and out, mostly when I needed a crowd or someone to bounce dialogue off.  But no, one, cute artistic Joe, keeps showing up and doing some interesting things, while slim and mysterious Bethany ended up being the voice of reason and I so want her around more.  It’s like the more control I give up over the story, the more I like what happens.  It’s a weird, unconscious act.

Also I’m getting excited for revision.  There are already areas I’m itching to go back and rework.  I’m not yet because I’m terrified of doing anything to my word count.  I feel frustrated with how fast I can’t write.  Especially when I get going I just want to jump from event to event, sequence to sequence and I can’t keep up.

I am ahead of the prescribed word count so that’s good, in case I get distracted, which could easily happen.  Lots going on this week in the evenings, my preferred WriMo’ing time.   Dinner with friends, Adler After Dark, Baby Showers.  Crazy times ahead.  Crazy awesome.

 

Inspiration and setting of my NaNo novel

 

 

A dream within a dream…

I sort of touched on this yesterday and it had me thinking, far more than usual yes, about dreams.  They’re ethereal things, both the night ones and the day one.  They seem impossible dreams, yet they inspire such yearning and hope.  I take dreaming seriously, I really do.  No I don’t believe dreaming about a duck means calamity is ahead or whatever interpretation nonsense says (I totally made up the duck thing).  But I believe our dreams tell us something very honest about ourselves.  Something that maybe can’t be said out loud or to another person yet.  But at what point do dreams become goals?  And does that make dreams vulnerable?

A blog I read, Editorial Anonymous, had a post recently where a reader wrote in asking, “Do children’s book editors know that they hold children’s book author’s dreams in their hands?” and the anonymous children’s editor gave a suprising but accurate answer.  Editors don’t hold dreams, they hold works.  Editors don’t crush dreams with rejection, they reject the work.  We crush our own dreams, not the other way around.  And how true it that, for so many things in life?  Yes, we live in a society and not on a deserted island.  People reject us, professionally, personally, emotionally, intellectually.  But rejection should not be a crushing defeat.  I’ve learned that lesson so many time, yet it’s times like now I need be reminded.  Hard work does not always pay off every time.  But does that mean stop working?  Stop trying or never start? 

I’m reminded of a poem, William Bulter Yeats’ He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I believe our dreams have power but also have limits and this is coming from someone who lives by her dreams and lives for dreaming.  It’s my secret world that feeds my real world.  And comments like Editorial’s doesn’t endanger that, it makes it stronger.  These are my dreams, I believe in them and where they will take me.  And I believe I’m strong enough to keep them going in the face of rejection.  So dream on, dreamers.  But please, don’t crush your dreams.  Because no one can dream for you.

State of the Novel…

I meant to do this on Sunday, Day 7 of NaNoWriMo to create a nice symmetry.  An update every week on how the writing went, what I discovered about my story, the characters and maybe myself along the way.  And then life over road that plan, like many others. 

As of today, Day 12 I’m at 23,102.  It’s a big number but the higher it gets the more I’m less worried about it.  After I hit 10K which seemed impossible two weeks ago, I’m driven less by the number (and also check it less than every ten minutes and despair) and more by my story.  Driven so much that I’m worried I’ll be able to finish by November.  Sure I’m on pace to hit 50,000 and win but for me the real win will be completing the story.  Not to get all sappy and personal but I need this right now really bad.  I need to validate that I can do this, write a novel that has at least some redeeming qualities. 

Which is the shock in all this.  How much I’ve come to rely on my writing time.  In the past I have tried to set aside time each day to simply write, but I never sustained it.  Sure I hem and haw and whine that I have to write, but by 30 minutes I’m flying, lost again.  And I like what I’m writing.  Yeah, my novel’s genre, yeah it’s filled with typos and really bad grammar and far too many adverbs and uneven balance between dialogue and events. 

So it leads me to today, where I’m being very mopey and critical of my life so far and wondering what now?  When this is done and I have a finished product then what?  I plan to revise, of course.  I really like what I’ve written and I feel I owe it to Al and Jen, and Lis and Mellie to give them the best I have.  But then…can I take the next step? Publish?  It seems like a pipe dream.  It seems I’m unworthy to even say the word, to even think it.  But can I really not try? 

So onward and upward…to higher word counts. 

 

Is it November yet?

Yes, oh yes, it is almost November.  In 5 short days I’ll be kicking off NaNoWriMo 2009, my first attempt to write a novel.  To prepare I’m being conscious on my personal pitfalls.  I’ll be starting early and hard, knocking out Act One by the end of Week One.  I have no ideas how long Act One will be or how many words I really can write in a day with my other commitments, you know feeding myself, my job.  I’m preparing for next week to be eye-opening.  I plan on doing something NaNo related everyday rewarding myself on Sundays with a Write-In in Lincoln Square. 

Although it feels like I’m diving in head first I actually have a rough plan, basic character sketches and some random notes.   So to that end I’m going to write out my outline, probably leaving out the ending with the super suprising twist you all will probably see coming.  Also because I’ve yet to figure what that will be.  So here it is, the rough, so rough, outline of Cumberland.

Act One opens with the main character, Allison Roberts or Ally, being woken at 5 am by her phone.   Her best friend Lis Davis is on the other hand freaking out because it is the first day of high school for both.  Ally gets ready for school early and meets Lis so they can walk to school together.  Ally has to walk through Cumberland Cemetery to meet at Lis’ house.  Typical first day school antics ensue, more so because Ally and Lis are 15 and have previously been home schooled by their parents.  The are starting at Varna High(could change) so they can take Drivers Ed and have a normal high school experience.  Their other home schooled friend Jensen Marshall was supposed to join them but he is mysteriously absent.  On the walk home from school Ally and Lis run into Jensen and find out he will not be joining them at school.  Ally is pissed.  (Okay so that was way detailed for a rough outline but it’s the first part I’ll be righting so I’ve thought about it, in the car, overcome by the urge to write it down now.)

Act Two is when we’re introduced to Ally’s family at dinner, Mom Joan an organic farmer/orchard and Dad Greg a Short Haul Truck Driver.  This is when we also learn Ally’s Big Secret.  She can see and talk to ghosts.  She knows she shouldn’t, that it only encourages them but it’s her crutch when she gets upset with the living (Jensen).  She goes to Cumberland to talk to her friend Georgie Darnell, son of the founder of the settlement that grew to become the town (none of which named Cumberland, internal debate on whether to use the names of real places or make em up.)

Act Three involves various school shenanigans like class elections, a cat fight at the Friday Football game, continued fighting/bickering/flirting between Ally and Jensen.  Also creepy things start happening to Ally at home and she thinks a ghost is trying to scare her/send a message.  Ally meets a new ghost Dawn after an ill-advised senance and works with Lis to find how she came to be at Cumberland so she can be at peace and leave Ally alone.

Act Four will probably include a Fall Ball to continue with the school whatnots.  Ally and Jensen will makeup and probably some PG-13 making out only to have an even bigger fight over Ally’s abilities.  Things also escalate with Dawn and Ally finds out new things about Georgie.

Act Five will tie everything together and there’ll be a Big Showdown with the Big Bad where good will win, Ally and Jensen finally make up (and maybe some more of that PG-13 making out) and all will be well again in Cumberland. The End

Oddly enough my Word of the Day email has been giving some great quotes in the last week for an epigraph or chapter openings.

“The first symptom of love in a young man is shyness; the first symptom in a woman, it’s boldness.” Victor Hugo

“Death must be so beautiful.  To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head and listen to silence.  To have no yesterday and no tomorrow.  To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.” Oscar Wilde.  I haven’t verified these yet so proceed with caution.

I may have been wrong…

I don’t always say it but it does happen and I’ll freely admit it here.  I may have been wrong about Book Trailers. 

The first few I saw were uninspiring.  They were filled with strange voiceovers narrating a synopsis with shadowy figures and bland tracking music.  I also did not get how these would work.  How would people see them?  Find them?  Are they suppose to build anticipation with established fan bases or introduce new works to new audiences?   All around it was a head-scratching, no thank you on my part.

I now give Exhibits A, B, and C that prove how wrong I was.

Exhibit A

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/28931

Created by one of my favorite blogger, Ransom Riggs over at Mental Floss, it was on point.  It captured the book’s appeal, the charm of Austen mixed with crazy B-movie monster action.  How better to explain that than in video format.  Sure that’s the point of the book trailer but this is the first time I saw how well it could work.

Exhibit B

This one came out a few months back and I was floored.  Not only did it include great graphics and animation (yeah steampunk!) but the voiceover worked!  There is a real sense of drama and urgency about the story being described.  It fits the time period as well as the new world Westerfeld created.  I already loved him for the Uglies series but now my esteem has been taken to a higher level which is another result of a well made Book Trailer.

Exhibit C

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/friday-videos-know-whats-next/

Let me introduce you to another author who is now on my must-always-read-list, Maggie Stiefvater.  I read Shiver and enjoyed it (thank you ALA!) but after this video I have to check out her other book.  I liked Shiver but I was always saying  because “werewolves are the new vampires.”  I put it in the Twilight category of YA supernatural romance.  Quick read, impossible love, mythological creature.  Well written for sure but that’s where I put it in my mental file folder.  Talk about being put in my place.  The Holly Hobbyness of the production, the gentle mocking of the genre, the animation… I cried with laughter.  People thought I was having a fit for trying to hold it in.  I love how the author is promoting her material in a unique and engaging way. 

As better products come out I’m willing to change my opinion on Book Trailers but I still have to wonder, besides sitting around and admiring them for their cleverness, does this work?  Where are they placed to be viewed for maximum exposure?  And bringing it all back to me, how can libraries use this model to promote their services and programs?  Are we clever and engaging with our promotion material?  Where can we place ourselves to be seen and enjoyed by our community?

This is happening…

I’m doing it.  I’ve thought about it since my good friend Rachel suggested it back in July.  I signed up, I have some plot ideas, I’m buying a book tonight, I’m probably crazy but… I’m writing a novel next month.

As of today I’m an official participant in NaNoWriMo aka National Novel Writing Month.  The purpose, since 1999 is to write a complete novel, whether it be crap or not, of 50,000 words by November 30th and win.  Win what?  The Grand Prize?  Vacation for Two?  Toaster Oven?  No you win what I like to call at life.  Writing a novel has been a crazy pipe dream of mine since high school and I wanted to move on from angsty poetry.  And NaNoWriMo’s mission fits with my needs, dedicating time to simply writing.  As they say quantity, not quality counts.  I need to do this, I need to break the mantra down that I could do this if I…blah blah blah.  No excuses I’m telling myself.  I’m doing this.  I might start believing myself soon but I’m writing a novel next month.  It will be crap and I will share with you all, and I might throw up and chicken out of the whole thing but it’s happening. 

Not sure how this is going to effect my 100 books in a year challenge.  I just hit 77 so I’ll be in good shape if I take a month off.  I’ll just end the year strong with a string of kids and romance novels. 

If you would like to join me in madness my id is akmargie.  We’ll be writing buddies.  In insanity.

Reflections on time well spent…

My friend, the one I introduced last week, is thinking about grad school.  Not MLIS so I still have yet to find a convert, but still grad school.  We talked this weekend about the pros, the cons and all the in betweens.  Her bottom line quickly became, why wouldn’t I go back to school?  I’m blessed to have wonderful people as friends who value education as much as I do and celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day with me.

  The whole conversation made me think back to the few days I took to consider going back to school.  For me too, it was a no-brainer.  I didn’t discuss my decision with anyone until I actually applied because it felt right.  Few things in life have felt that good.  I’m still surprised at how quickly I  moved forward because usually I sit back and debate with myself for spell.  I like certainty and grad school was always that, certain.

I also spent time telling my friend how different grad school is from undergrad.  Maybe it was my program specifically (which is all-round fabulous) but there was a real sense of community I didn’t feel in undergrad.  Even though everyone’s backgrounds were diverse, our connection through our commitment to the course and the program was evident.  Sure, things weren’t always kittens and roses but for the most part the hard work was always balanced by great discussions and experiences. 

People ask me if I’m going to pursue my PhD now.  I chuckle and say absolutely not but I’m starting to wonder.  Certainly not right away.  I want and need to get more experience but one day I think I would like to take that challenge on.  I think I miss school. 

Image source: Internation Talk Like A Pirate Day