Poetry Friday - Iguanas and Unicorns

It’s Friday! And you know what that means: Poetry! Want to know more about Poetry Friday? Click this link right here. And be sure to check out Bookseedstudio to see this week’s round up of wonderful poetry related posts, blogs and goodness. 

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Hello and Happy Friday! Today I am excited because I am heading down to Miami for a regional SCBWI writing conference this weekend. All. by. myself. This will be the first solo 'away' trip I have taken since having my daughter nearly 8 years ago. It will also be the longest I've been away from my 1-year-old son. I keep flipping back and forth between complete giddiness and a little guilt, but that's normal, right? 

Florida had a cold snap last week and it got so cold that frozen iguanas were falling out of the trees. Then, as the sun warmed them up, they'd scamper back up the trees again. We've got another cold front moving through this weekend. Here are two haikus dedicated to the poor cold-blooded iguanas.

Florida winter

Chilly green iguanas fall

On my patio

Florida sunshine

Chilly green iguanas thaw

Buttonwood awaits

Also, this past Tuesday was the first Animaloon Collective of the year. Mostly, it is an illustration prompt where people draw the given animal prompt as a balloon or some sort. The prompt for January was unicorns. Here's what I came up with:

My daughter and I

Sat quietly on our porch,

Listening to the pat-a-pat

Of rain on the roof.

Where do rainbows come from?

She asked.

I replied:

From Unicorn butts.

© 2018 Rebecca Herog

  

Why I'm Glad I Attended the SCBWI Mid-Year Workshop

So the SCBWI 46th Annual Summer Conference kicks off this weekend and I thought it would be a great time to recap the regional conference John and I went to last month.

Let’s just say that we had such a blast in Orlando that we’ve now set a goal to attend the big conference in LA next summer.

For those who don’t know, SCBWI is the largest children’s writing organization in the world. Basically, it is a nonprofit that facilitates networking for people (writers, illustrators, editors, publishers, booksellers etc) involved in creating children’s literature. In my opinion, it is an amazing organization.

Anyways, back to the Florida Mid-Year Workshop. John and I decided to attend the humor track for the day, which means we got to spend the whole day with author Bruce Hale and editor Francesco Sedita. It was great.

I took a bunch of notes, which I considered taking a picture of and sharing here, but let’s be honest. I can barely read my chicken scratch. There’s no way they’d be readable in a photo. So I’ll just touch on a few highlights.

One of the first things we talked about was “why am I funny?” The best answer I came up with is that I’ve dealt with some fairly rough stuff early on in my life. (Haven’t we all?) I could have chosen to be angry, to cry, or to laugh. Now I’ve done my fair share of all three. But, overall, I feel like I chose laughing and trying to make others laugh. I don’t think it was a conscience decision, but there you have it. I think a lot of my humor comes from trying to make dark times lighter.

We talked about writing comedy from the set up—not the punch line. We’ve all screwed up a joke by giving away the punch line too early or in some other similar fashion. Most jokes fall flat because the set up—how they are delivered—isn’t done properly. Something to remember.

The cool thing about the workshop was that it wasn’t really about delivering one line zingers and whatnot. But how to make your writing humorous as a whole. How to interject a bit of humor during a dark moment for your main character. How to release tension through humor. It really was great.

While I learned a ton during workshop, some of the best value came while talking face-to-face with some of the professionals. John and I had an few minutes afterwords to talk one on one with Bruce and Francesco. The encouragement, suggestions, and feedback that we received were invaluable. Like I said in a previous post, John and I are collaborating again, and Francesco is interested in reading my manuscript for my Madam Fang picture book.

Its always fun to leave somewhere feeling invigorated, inspired and motivated.  What’s even better, (warning: mushy gushy stuff incoming) is sharing that experience with your best friend and amazing husband. I can’t wait to see where it leads us.

Exciting Times + July Goals

OK. So I’m actually really excited about a few things.

1. John and I are collaborating again
2. An editor is interested in seeing the completed manuscript for one of my picture books
3. I got 3 more rejections (totaling 8 for the year)
4. I’ve decided to do a semi-regular book giveaway (starting this month)

1. A few weeks ago, John and I attended an SCBWI workshop. It was great to get out together for the day sans children. Thank you in-laws! I will be writing a separate post specifically about the conference, but we learned a lot and were inspired. It’s been awhile since John and I have tried to work together on a project, but we received some positive feedback, and so we’re going to give it another go. Hooray!

2. At the conference, attendees had the option of having the 1st page of their manuscripts anonymously critiqued in front of the group. While there were a few things mentioned that could make my manuscript stronger, overall the feedback was good.

Afterwords, John and I were speaking with an editor and John mentioned that my manuscript was the dinosaur one. The editor said he thought it was great and to go ahead and send it his way. Now, I honestly do not think anything will come of it—the editor is mostly looking for chapter books, not picture books--but it was flattering all the same.

3. I got 3 more for the rejection pile. While it is always a tiny bit disappointing, I also take a lot of encouragement from them. I now have 8 rejections under my belt this year. That’s over 1 a month! And you know what that means? It means I am writing and I am submitting my work. I can’t control when something will be accepted, but by writing, submitting, and receiving feedback, I will get better.

4. I am a devout library patron. I love books, but I do not buy many books for two main reasons. 1. I read so much that I would be broke if I bought every book I read. 2. I rarely reread books so they would just line my walls. But I would love to show more support for the authors and books I enjoy. So, I have decided that I would like to do a regular book giveaway. I’ll pick a book that I have recently enjoyed, and then I’ll send it off to whoever wins the giveaway. Look for more details in the coming days. The inaugural book is a great one. I can’t wait to share it.

June Goals Review:

• Go to writing conference
• Get draft of picture book done before conference
• Have final draft done by end of month (nope)
• Write 3 poems for an instagram poetry competition (not even close)
• Get caught up on my reading goal (still happy-I read 6 books, taking the deficit from 4 to 2)

July Goals:

• Finish final draft of Madam Fang and submit it
• Write 2 instagram poems
• Write book review
• Run book giveaway
• Daydream more about potential story ideas
• Finish 5 books

Reset Refresh Rebound

2 months without a post. What have I been up to, you may ask?

Read 5 books. All were good. Really enjoyed What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by  Randall Munroe. It is basically the book version of Randall’s blog and is hilariously informative. I also enjoyed reading with my daughter Yours Sincerely, Giraffe by Megumi Iwasa. I picked up Bird Box by Josh Malerman because I was nominated for a Bram Stoker award. It was entertaining and a bit creepy. I am actually excited that this one is being made into a movie because the book is very streamlined and adaptable, in my opinion.

I also went and saw Alien: Covenant. I know a lot of people are not happy with the direction that Ridley Scott has taken the prequels, but I am loving them. Watched Boss Baby with the family too. Enjoyable and funny.

Writing over the past few months has been hit or miss. I’ve submitted 4 pieces to various magazines over the past few weeks. And I have a writing conference coming up that I am excited about. I failed abysmally at my poem a day goal back in April and I don’t have any final book drafts completed. But at least I’ve been working.

Here are my June goals:

• Go to writing conference
• Get draft of picture book done before conference
• Have final draft done by end of month
• Write 3 poems for an instagram poetry competition
• Get caught up on my reading goal

John's on a Jet

My amazing husband, John, flew up to the SCBWI Winter Conference in NYC this weekend. I am super excited for him. Yeah, and maybe a little bit jealous. He loves NYC in the winter and seeing how they just got dumped on, I am sure that he is happily freezing his butt off.

I've watched John over the last few months work so hard to hone is illustrating craft and to prep for the conference. I hope that all his prep pays off and he is able to have an enjoyable time and make some good contacts. I can’t wait to hear about all the things he learns. Perhaps when he gets back and settled, I can convince him to do a guest post here on the blog about the conference.

Until then, you should check out his newly updated pages below.

Website: www.wizardofzog.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/wizardofzog/

Shannon Associates: www.shannonassociates.com/kidshannon/artists.php?artist=johnherzog

LtUE: Day 3 + Final Thoughts

I hope that you have enjoyed my recap of LtUE thus far. Today I'm going to wrap up the final day and my overall impressions of the conference.

I only went to one panel on Saturday and it was on the Pros and Cons of Self-publishing. My thoughts and views on self-publishing have come a long way in the last year thanks to last February's LtUE. You can read about just how big of a 180 I made in this post. Basically, self-publishing can be pretty awesome. There are definite drawbacks, but some pretty sweet payoffs as well. For me, the amount of control over every aspect of the book and the marketing that self-publishing affords is exciting. I also like how flexible it is. I set my own deadlines. But that also means that I need to be way more intrinsically motivated. No one will come breathing down my neck if I don't write.

So, if you haven't figured it out, I had a blast at Life, the Universe and Everything. I will definitely go again next year if we are still in the area. Last year, I kind of felt like a deer in the headlights and absorbing everything that I had learned was a bit overwhelming, albeit inspiring. This year I feel inspired in a different--hit the ground running--sort of way.

 I will have my first novel roughly outlined by the end of this week with hopes of starting to write by next week. Is just nice to feel like I can accomplish something. I know its a long, uphill process, but I think I can do it! And I will keep updating here with my progress, so make sure to check back soon.

LtUE: Day 2

So hopefully I can take a few more minutes on this post as I was running between workshops during the Thursday recap which can be seen here. Hence it was a bit rushed.

LtUE  wrapped up yesterday. I will be doing a recap of yesterday's workshops in th next few days as well as an overall LtUE review. Look for that soon.

Friday was Valentine's Day and my loving husband worked from home so that I could go to a full day of workshops and panels. I learned all sorts of things, but below are a few of my favorite panels/workshops.

Sandra Taylor did a workshop on building a community among your readers. I think the biggest thing I learned is that it takes awhile to get a following--years even--and that that is ok. I'd rather build slowly and have a real community of people actually interested in my work than just a bunch of likes on facebook/ followers on twitter that really aren't interested.

Next I went to an awesome panel on how to see your short stories. This was fantastic! I have a few short stories in various stages of completion, but I have always found it difficult to figure out where to submit my work. This panel helped me tremendously. The (Submission) Grinder just by itself is going to be amazing to use. It allows you to search a beta database of places that are currently accepting submissions. For example, I plugged in that I have a horror short story of 1500 words and it gave me a list of 136 potential places I could submit. Of course, I'll have to go and whittle that list down, but at lease it gives me a starting point. It also allows you to keep track of your submissions. Pretty cool. They also mentioned another site (ray[something].com) but I didn't get the spelling. I wish that I would have spoken up and had them spell it. Ah well. Live and learn.

After lunch, I went to a panel about using Folklore in your writing. Super duper cool and helpful. It was just neat to listen to how the authors have taken elements of both popular and obscure folklore and woven them into some very original and awesome stories. One of the panelists, S.A. Butler, talked about one her books that looks amazing. Its on my Kindle now and I can't wait to read it.

Another great panel was all about Edgar Allen Poe. It was super duper small, which was a bummer because the topic was great. But the smaller crowd made for a more intimate discussion. I was obsessed with Poe when I was in about 5th grade. It was cool to hear form other people that were and are just as obsessive as I am. Did you know that he self-published his first two books? Pretty cool.

The last panel that I attended was about learning from you mistakes. It was another great one. One of the things that one of the panelists said was this: "Writing is crazy--you take the worlds inside your head and put them down on paper in order to try to create a world inside someone else's head." And another: "Writing is crazy--so embrace the mad scientist inside and accept that it is a crazy thing to do." Super good stuff.

After all the workshops, there was a mass book signing. I got to meet all kinds of great people and do some networking. A few of the people that I met and that I'd recommend checking out are Fiona Ostler, Christy Dorrity, Mikey Brooks, Jenniffer Wardell, and Ariadne Kane.

All in all, my experience on Friday was great. Look for my final recap and review of LtUE coming in the next few days. Anyone else out there attend? Let me know in the comments.

LTUE: Day 1

LTUE is here again! Last year was a blast, and this year is going great so far. There are still 2 more days to go, so if you have some time, stop on by. Below is a quick recap of the first day.

I got to meet and chat with some great artists and authors. Jess Smart Smiley has some exciting things that he is working on, and Michaelbrent Collings is nominated for a few Bram Stoker awards. Winning a Bram Stoker is one of my dreams, so I was cool to meet him.

I also went to some great panels and workshops. Most of the ones I went to focused on writing for youth. I feel like I got some great insight that will help me as I continue to write my current book. One workshop in particular by J. Scott Savage (author of the Farworld series) was really beneficial. He discussed how motives determine whether your book will be an easy ready, middle grade or YA. Good stuff.

Today I've got some great panels to attend as well. As a matter of fact, I need to head off to a panel called "Selling Your Short Story." Check back tomorrow for a recap of today!

A Bit on Self-Publishing

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to attend an awesome writing symposium. I wasn't sure what to expect as it was my first venture into any sort of writing conference. As stated in the last few posts, I had a great time and I learned a ton. I think the thing that stuck in my ribs the most was the information on self-publishing. For me, self-publishing went from being something to be snubbed and looked down upon to something to be enthusiastically excited about possibly trying.

I wholeheartedly and sincerely apologize and repent of my former feelings.

Now, I am not saying that I will definitely go the self-publishing route in the future. There are pros and cons to both sides of the coin. I just thought that I would outline a few of the things that I learned about why self-publishing isn't just for those who can't get published the traditional route. 

First off, I was amazed at the ease of self-publishing. Now by ease I do not mean one click of a button and you will be a bestseller. But there are so many options and you really can get your work out there quickly. If you want a good product, you obviously would want to spend some time making sure your product looks good, but there are plenty of ways to get your product out there.

 And you don't have to pay a dime out of pocket! I always thought that self-publishing entailed forking out a bunch of money to get your books printed and then storing them in your garage until you could get someone to buy a copy. I'm sure that there are those who still go this route, but there are other options!

For starters, you can do a Kindle version of your book through amazon.com. There is also CreateSpace, amazon's partner company. They do have some paid-for services, like formatting your book, or designing a cover, which can be helpful. But if you are savvy and can do these things yourself, it costs $0 to get your book out there. They are a print on demand site, so when someone orders your book on amazon, they print it and ship it. They then take a cut (and that is how they get paid) but then your get your percentage of the cut--and it is nothing to sniff at.

This leads me to one of the other perks of self-publishing. If you go the traditional route, after the publisher and your agent get their cut, you'll probably get around a 7-9% royalty. So on a $10 book, that's about 80 cents. Not too bad if you can sell lots of books. With the Kindle books, you can make as much as a 70% royalty (if the book falls within a certain price range). So on a $5 dollar kindle book, you would make $3.50. That's pretty great! The royalty is not as large on CreateSpace, but it can still be pretty good (it depends on the length of the book)--a 300 page book set at $10 would give you $1.55 in royalties. That is almost double the traditional publisher.

So there are definite pros to self-publishing, but there can be a few drawbacks. For one, if you self-publish, you have to do all the marketing of your book by yourself. This can take a big chunk of your time. At the writing symposium that I attended, traditionally published authors said that they spend about 15-20% of their time working on marketing. Those who were self-published said they spent around 50-60%. That's huge. So if marketing isn't your thing, self-publishing may not be the way to go. I did learn, however, that even when a publisher wants to publish your book, they expect you to have your own marketing plan of how to get your book out there. So you wouldn't completely escape marketing either way.

Personally, I like the control that self-publishing offers. I also like the indie culture. Although in many ways more difficult, the idea of pushing through the crowd to be successful has appeal. 

Crowd funding has also caught on as a way to get your writing (and other cool projects) out there. If you haven't had a chance to check out Kickstarter, I highly recommend it. Basically, you have a creative idea, and others help fund the endeavor and are rewarded with things that you will give them for helping you out. For example, one of the people I met at the symposium is trying to make a monster look-and-find book. He has various rewards for those who help fund his project, like copies of the book and original art work. Kickstarter has a whole section just for publishing. Its a great tool to potentially utilize. 

So yeah, those are a few of the things that I learned. I was amazed to find out that there are authors that make a living--pay a mortgage and raise a family--just by being a writer and self-publishing. How awesome is that. 

There were a few authors in particular at the writing symposium that helped expand my views on self-publishing. You can find links to their websites below. You should definitely check out their work.

Michaelbrent Collings

Tracy Hickman --yeah, THE Tracy Hickman, co-author of the Dragonlance series

Jess Smart Smiley

Aaron Patterson

LtUE Symposium: In Review (part 2)

Hello again! This post will be the second part of my review of the Life, the Universe & Everything Symposium. The first part of the review can be found here. So as I stated in the previous post, this part of the review will focus on some of the stuff that I learned at the symposium--and boy, was there a lot!

It was the first writing symposium/conference that I have ever been to. I am grateful that I remembered to bring my writing notebook and pen because there is no way that I would have remembered all of the wonderful things from the conference otherwise. There was just so much information! All in all, I went to 12 lectures. I will try to summarize some of the things that I learned below.

I actually had a HUGE paradigm shift during the conference about the world of publishing. I will admit that before the conference, I sort of rolled my eyes and looked down my nose at self-publishing. Someone who self-publishes clearly was inferior to those who were published through a traditional publishing house. In my mind, the self-publisher was someone who had written a mediocre book and then had a bunch of copies printed which are now collecting dust in their garage. To learn otherwise was a complete revelation! I have since repented for my narrow-minded snootiness.

A few of the panels discussed self-publishing and then a few other panels just happened to have some self-published authors presenting. I learned a lot of tips on how self-publishing can be very successful. Now, I am not saying that those mediocre-sit-in-the-garage-and-collect-dust book publishers aren't out there. I am sure there are quite a few. But there are also a lot of successful authors who make enough money to support a home and family. Pretty amazing! I'm not saying that I will definitely go the rout of self-publishing, but it has opened my mind to the idea. I plan on writing a post in the near future specifically discussing more about this topic. Watch for it!

I also attended a few panels about writing good horror. They focused a lot on writing effective horror without being gratuitous or gory and disgusting without a purpose. They also commented on how the horror genre can be very cathartic and actually be the most redeeming genre because there is such contrast between good and evil. I liked that idea a lot.

Another valuable panel I attended was one that talked about making time for creativity with Sandra Taylor. This woman seems like Super Woman with all she is able to fit into her life. But she gave us 10 steps that made it seem possible to fit in some writing time:

1. Identify your support group
2. Have a physical space for your creative endeavor
3. Understand your bio rhythms (when during the day is best for you to write)
4. When setting up a schedule, build supports into it (ie what will trigger me to know its time to write)
5. Master the small stretch--willpower is a limited resource--don't try to bite off more than you can chew
6. Learn to work in fragments--especially true if you have young children
7. Ponder the tortoise and the hare
8. Health and spoon theory (at the beginning of the day, we're only given a certain amount of spoons [energy]--some people get 20, while others only get 2 [maybe because of health issues]--work with what  you have)
9. Get outside your box
10. Your system will break--its not because the system sucks, but because life changes so we have to adjust our system

Number 5 is the most important for me right now. I like to tell myself crazy things: "OK self, on Monday, we're getting up at 5:30am, writing for an hour, then exercising for 45 minutes, showering and eating breakfast all before 8am!" Yeah, today I rolled out of bed at 9am when my daughter woke up. How likely will it be for me to magically start getting up at 5:30am, let alone get the other stuff done? HA! Learning to implement small changes until you have your creative system tweaked is valuable info.

Alright, well, this post ended up being longer than I had expected. I could keep going on all the great stuff I learned, but these were the most impactful things. Keep on the lookout for a post about self-publishing in the near future!

LtUE Symposium: in Review (part 1)

This past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I had the fantastic opportunity to attend the Life, the Universe, & Everything Sci-Fi and Fantasy symposium. The symposium was chock-full of panels, workshops and presentations by authors, publishers and sci-fi/fantasy gurus. According to their site, LTUE is the longest, student run symposium of its nature in the nation. Pretty cool, huh?

I was fortunate to hear about the symposium on Twitter a little over a week before it started. I hopped onto the site and found out that, as a student, I could attend for free! I had no idea what the conference really was, just that some cool authors would be there (Tracy Hickman, co-author of the Dragonlance series for one) and some of the panels seemed interesting. Sign me up!

John, my encouraging, amazing husband, graciously said that he would watch Samantha every moment that he wasn't in class (he even had a few big projects to work on) so that I could go to as many panels as possible. All in all, i was able to attend 13-one hour sessions and a ginormous mass author signing event over the course of the three days. Pretty amazing. My head hurt by the end of it all, but it a totally good way, if that makes any sense.

This was my first time going to any type of writing conference, but I figured I would give my two cents on my overall experience. First, I thought the location was a good fit. It was held at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Provo (just 2 miles from my apartment) and the layout of the hotel made finding the rooms easy. It was also nice to have a very roomy lounge area with many comfy-looking couches and chairs for breaks in between panels. Unfortunately, because I was running back and forth between home, class, and the symposium, I didn't actually get to do much lounging! But it was cool to see fellow participants sitting, chatting, and networking.

I also thought that the symposium was very well organized. I was able to get right in and get my badge and program (note: I did not get to the conference until about noon on the first day, so I do not know what kind of chaos ensued at the registration table when the doors first opened.) Almost all of the panels that I attended started on time and stayed on topic. The moderators were fantastic as well. There were a few times, however, that technical difficulties (mostly projectors now being set up) made the start of a panel lag a bit)

The symposium was a great place to network. I felt like everyone was very approachable and open to chatting. People from all walks of life were in attendance.

It was especially fun to rub shoulders with the authors. The mass author signing was great in that I met tons of authors, but I wish they would have held it in a larger room. It was just so crowded and loud that I went home a little hoarse from having to nearly shout to be heard. I did have a really neat experience, however, when I had an author ask if I was working on anything at the moment. I gave him a 2 sentence summary of my current project, and he asked to know more! He said that it sounded like a great idea and he then bounced one of his ideas off of me. It was pretty neat, and, I'll admit, a bit of a confidence booster.

All in all, I had a wonderful time I would definitely attend the symposium again. I would especially recommend attending if you are in the area next year.

I'll post part 2 of this review soon where I'll talk about some of the great things that I learned during the symposium--I learned a lot and this post is long enough already!

Quick Update

Life has taken over again, and thus I have fallen off the writing bandwagon. But its time to get up and dust myself off.

A quick update as to my writings: I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time last November. I decided that I would try something totally different and not plan out my novel. I started with a germ of an idea and on November 1st, I just started writing! This exercise taught me that I just do not work that way! I only clocked about 1,500 words. Abysmal, I know, but it was 1,500 more than I had on October 31st!

I am planning on participating in Camp NaNoWriMo in April and then again in July. My hope is that I will have enough of a story loosely outlined to be successful.

I really like the idea of not having every detail of my story figured out ahead of time. I think that there would be some fun in finding stuff out as I write. But I do like some bit of an outline, just to keep me on track.

I am super stoked for the Life, the Universe & Everything: The Marion K. ‘Doc’ Smith Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy next week! I have never been and this will be my last chance to get in for free. I am excited for all the workshops they will be having, and I am especially excited that Tracy Hickman, co-author of the Drangonlance series will be there! I will make sure to update here with a recap.

As far as New Years writing goals, I came up with one: I want to have 7 working manuscripts by the end of the year. I once read on Jane Yolen's site that she tries to have at least 7 working pieces at a time. that way the always has something to work on and to submit. I think its a worthy goal.

I have also received 5 rejection letters for Sam the Bedlamite.  There are still 7 more out there, but I just heard back from the Shadow Mountain publisher and I felt that they were my best shot. Ah well. Like I have said in previous posts, the mere fact that I submitted the story at all has empowered me. Onward and Upward!

My writing group has started meeting again and they are a great bunch of gals. It is great to get together and toss ideas off one another. Our next meeting is next week. It should be fun. Lots of great writing stuff next week!