School Visit Fun

backdrop created by third graders at Odyssey Charter School



Librarian Linda Baker and parent/fellow writer June Brown with me

I had a great time visiting Odyssey Charter School in Palm Bay, FL today...did two presentations--one for grades 3 and 4, based on KNOWING JOSEPH, autism, and how to become a good writer, and one for grades K-2 based on IT'S TIME, also talking about writing as well as autism. There was only one little glitch, when the projector closed down because of a power surge, and I was told they probably would not be able to get it back up while I was talking. But then it fixed itself, so all's well that ends well.


The kids were great and had some wonderful questions. I was particularly impressed with the K-2 group, where the kids were sitting on the floor and were packed in to the media center like sardines in a can, but they were still attentive and asked good questions. Most of them thanked me or otherwise complimented me as they filed out...one little girl told me that she liked that I was 'fashionably dressed.' That's really something for me, who is totally unfashionable in just about anything I wear. My thanks to Linda Baker, who coordinated the visit, and especially to June Brown, who set up the visit with the school!

When I got home, I was thinking I was done with the special projects for May, but then remembered that I have a 3000 word 'letter to new grandparents' to write for inclusion in an upcoming book, and a six-hour class to prepare lessons for as an instructor at the Creative Writing Institute here in Melbourne from May 17-22. So off to work I go.

Happy Mothers' Day to all you mothers out there!

Sunday Snippets

I have been writing about caterpillars and chrysalises and butterflies in my current WIP mystery. Aaron, one of my MC's, is very involved with the process and can tell you anything you want to know about it. In looking for a photo for this post, I found this one, and am wondering what kind of caterpillar was nibbling on THESE leaves.

This weekend, my son and his family moved from one house to another about three miles down the road. That meant we got to have grandson O. for a sleepover. What a voracious reader he is! He read for the whole time we were here, except for about a half hour, when he played computer. He only stopped when we went out to piano lesson and dinner, and then was right back at it again.

On Thursday I went to our local police station to get fingerprinted so I can be a school volunteer at O's school this year. What a lovely experience...had to wait over an hour to get fingerprinted, and then had to PAY for it, all so I can volunteer. It is good that they check people out, but...

Have continued to write regularly on my WIP mystery. The kids ALMOST have the mystery solved now. Sent the first two chapters off to my son to critique, because I want to be sure my MC, who has autism, is authentic and not a stereotype. He gave me several good suggestions, so I have a direction when I get to editing. But that is good...and I will get to it as soon as I finish the story, which should be within a couple of weeks.

After several days of concern over the path of Ike, I think we are out of the woods here in Eastern Florida. We had a little rain from Hannah, so we have been lucky on two counts this week. Thoughts are with any of you who are in Ike's path, and who have had problems from Hannah, too.

Five for Friday

My goal is to post more often, and I thought of posting earlier in the week, but of course, you can see how THAT went...so now that it has been a full week, I'm doing it first thing in the morning to be sure it gets done.

1. I didn't get to play, but I rode around with my husband and six-year old grandson in a Father's Day golf tournament last Saturday. O really enjoyed it and they came in third (out of four). He was the youngest kid there by four years. Now I am waiting for them to have a adult-kid tournament I can play in. O probably won't be as happy with that, though, because I won't get as many pars as his papa and he did.
2. I have decided to try a new way (for me) of revising. I have been having trouble jumping from my first draft and finding what I want, then putting it into my revision draft, so I shrunk the whole story, put it into columns, and now will cut it apart and rearrange it. I have read about this several times, but most recently on Kate Messner's blog.

3. I have been busy with marketing activities this week, too. Had good news from the local paper and a national magazine, who are going to do reviews of KNOWING JOSEPH between now and September. Also I have followed up on a few suggestions that Cynthia Lord has given me about bookstores that deal with only books about special needs, among other things. Thanks, Cindy. In addition, I have connected to Joanna Keating-Velasco and Julie Shore to discuss marketing strategies for books about autism...both of them have excellent books about autism that have come out recently.

4. There are a couple of rhyming poetry contests going on right now...one over at Dori Chaconis's blog about cheese, and another at Kay Pluta's blog about rabbits. Would LOVE the prizes of both, but first I need to write the poems.

5. Just found out that my daughter-in-law and two grandkids will be coming next Thursday for a week. They are here for the summer from Germany, but spending most of their time in Georgia...my son could not make the trip...he is in Iraq.

Hope you all have a good week.

Moving forward...

Summer is definitely here in Florida...in the 90's daily, with little or no rain...and supposedly the 'rainy season' begins in May. Nice to be warm, though...sometimes I have to go outside to warm up, with all the air conditioning down here...don't dare to go into a store or restaurant without a sweater.

Recently I attended the WALK FOR AUTISM in Orlando as a vendor. It was fun. I enjoyed talking to all the people who stopped by, handed out a bunch of promotional materials, and even sold a few books.













I have moved forward with my writing, too...got a couple more chapters revised in my WIP, and hope to have it completed by the end of June. Other than that, and some promoting...have been working with my cousin, who is going to make a presentation on KJ to a school she used to work at as a librarian in Vermont, and doing some emailing, etc...I have been staying busy with day-to-day stuff. Am looking forward to having my grandson for five days next week, and to my other two visiting from Germany later in the summer.

I HAVE BOOKS!

I have BOOKS! KNOWING JOSEPH books! A couple of weeks ago, two boxes arrived at my door from the FedEx guy and when I opened them, there were my beautiful books, just waiting for me to reach in and pick up.






I've been having fun ever since. I went to the Autism Awareness festival where I met lots of great people interested in both autism and my book as well as writing--Space Coast Writers Guild sponsored the table--and it was amazing how many people there were who wanted info on the organization, because THEY were working on a book.


I took my books to my aerobics class, where one lady announced to the whole class that she was going to buy one, read it, and then donate it to her local library up north when she went home, and that everyone else should consider the same thing, because she felt it was an important book to get into the hands of kids.


I took the books to golf, and several people in my league thought their grandchildren should have a copy. And so it goes...THIS is FUN!

It has also served as a motivator for me to get busy and finish the revisions on my WIP, and to write another easy reader that my editor from Jason and Nordic (It's Time) has requested.Am not sure if there is an OFFICIAL release date...Amazon says one thing, and Barnes and Noble says another, but I DO know that my editor at Blooming Tree Press assures me the books are in the warehouse and ready to go. And that is enough for me. The long wait is over, and it was worth it.

This and that...

Guess I'll stick with the plan and list five for Friday, although not much has been going on.

1.The weather is finally 'cool' in Florida...down in the forties last night, and only into the sixties today. Very nice for outside activities during the day. I know that is nothing like much of the rest of the country has, but for me, who is cold if it goes below 80, it is cold enough.

2. I have scrapped several chapters of my WIP and am rewriting a whole section of the book. I think it is going well, and will test it out on my crit group in a few days.

3. I have been enjoying the Robert's Snow Cure for Cancer artist interviews on several websites. Check out the artists' snowflakes for the upcoming auction.

4. Plans for the Space Coast Writers' Guild annual Pen-to-Print V conference are progressing nicely. This week I have been following up with the agents, editors and authors who will be presenting to take care of any final details. I have enjoyed setting the conference up with so many great presenters.

5. I started my Christmas shopping today by ordering a magazine subscription for my grandson with autism. He really loves non-fiction, so the Kids Discover magazine seemed like the perfect gift for a kid who doesn't really like or use many things. Am hoping I can find a good magazine for my 12-year old grandson, too. Any suggestions?

Progress

Have been working on the marketing over the last few days, sending emails with my press release to a number of Autism Societies across the country, and generating an address labels page for others. It's amazing how many there are; I am up to only page six of more than twenty pages in a google search. I figure if I do ten a day, I might finish in a month or two.

The good thing is that I have had a few responses, too, and have sent out a few books for review.

In addition, I have joined some listserves and introduced myself, which has generated a good deal of traffic on my website.

And from one of the listserves, I received the inspiration to write an article about grandparenting a child with autism, in response to a question asked about how to do that. So I have started working on that.

Then, I was reading my new SCBWI Bulletin yesterday, and found a publisher looking for books with the same criteria as the first one I wrote, which does not yet have a home...so of course, I sat right down and submitted it.

The weather here is warm, windy and wet. Barry is passing through...don't know the name of the first storm...I seemed to have missed that one. But the rain is what we need, so welcome, Barry.

Working on good press

So for the last few days, I have been looking at newspapers and trying to develop a list of places to send the press release my publisher sent. Problem is, I can find plenty of places, but it takes SOOO long, because I always find something I just HAVE to read on each page... I'm getting there, though. Have sent out a few by email where there was no addresses, and have started a labels sheet for other addresses.

And while I was doing that, I decided to check the contents of my marketing folder and came across Marti Leimbach's website and blog...she wrote Daniel Isn't Talking about her experience of discovering her son had autism and all that went with it. I enjoyed reading her blog, including a post about the difficulty of attending church when one has a child with autism. Sounds familiar...have heard similar stories from my daughter-in-law and son, too. It is a difficult thing to do. In fact, one minister told my son he and his family were an inspiration to other parishioners...because of all they have to go through to attend church with M. (Must say it is not as difficult as it used to be, now that he is getting older.) Anyway, it was interesting reading.

Hope you all had a good holiday!

Editing...and editing again

Moving right along here...grandkids were in school all day, so had time to spend on the computer. I've already gone through my KNOWING JOSEPH MS once and made some corrections...nothing major--mostly commas and such. Then I decided I should go through it again, so that is what I am working on now.

It's amazing on how easy it is to miss something when reading the same thing for the umteenth time. This time I found a missing period at the end of a sentence. I wonder how many times I have proof-read that MS and missed it. Have found many more things the second time, too. Whenever I am reading a book, I tend to find one or two errors in it, and wonder how people can publish books with such obvious errors...now I know.

Of course, there are whole sections of the book I would like to change/improve, but I guess we are beyond that now. I wonder...when we write, are we EVER finished with revisions?

Everything else is going along relatively smoothly...it was an 'at home' day today because we were waiting for the movers to come and get some of the stuff that needs to be shipped to Germany first (my son is in the military), and then shopping for birthday cake and a few other incidentals for Matthew's birthday, then off to Karate for Jay and Speech for Matthew. Only a couple of meltdowns, which we all survived.

Tomorrow is a golf day again...and hopefully the end of the editing for the second time.

Away from Home

Here we are, somewhere in Florida about eight long hours from home, beginning our week of taking care of the grandkids. This morning Matthew, who has autism, and I decided to go for a bike ride...Jay would not go with us because he was afraid one of his friends would seeing him wearing a bike helmet, which apparently would not be acceptable.

Matthew, on the other hand, has no problem with that...it is part of his routine. We discovered awhile back that he was quite enthusiastic about riding my three-wheeler when he visited...up until that point he had not been able to ride a bike. So now he has his own...something I highly recommend if you happen to have a child with autism who has trouble managing a two wheeler. Anyway, last fall I 'graduated' to a three-wheeler after I injured my knee and had replacement knee surgery, and have stuck with it since then. So when I tried to get on a really modern mountain bike, the kind with the straight across handlebars and hand brakes on TOP of the handle bars, it was somewhat of a challenge...as long as I didn't have to stop suddenly.

So we peddled around the neighborhood, taking our time and checking out a few things on the way...good experience, but it has convinced me to stay with my three-wheeler once we are home again.

GOOD NEWS--things are progressing! Last night I got the first copyedit for KNOWING JOSEPH. I have started going through it, and so far, so good...only a couple of minor changes...except for the parts I REALLY would like to rewrite...but I think we are past that point...amazing how our perspective changes, the more we write...maybe I really am improving my skills.

Onward and upward!