'Tis the Season!

Hubby has started decorating the house and yard for the Christmas season...and LOOK! My maple tree has chosen NOW to turn red and be part of our Christmas scene!

In other news, I am happy to announce that I have a contract for my easy-reader/picture book, Ryan's Victory, with Jason and Nordic Press. The book is due out in the spring.

This is a busy month as far as my books go. Tomorrow I will be with a group of SCWG authors at the large craft fair in Cocoa Village, next Friday I am doing three sessions at Career Day for a school in Merritt Island, and next Saturday I will be at an SCWG Children's Book Fair at the Merritt Island Library. I don't usually sell a lot of books at these events, but I enjoy meeting all the people and often make some good connections with people who are connected to autism in some way, or to education, and sometimes, it's fun just talking to people who stop to look.

Hope you all have a happy and stress-free pre-holiday season.

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.

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.

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!

Fun Day

Little Grandson (LG)is out of school for a week or so before beginning the free summer school provided by the state for pre-kindergarteners next week, so we had the opportunity to have him for the day while his mom was at class.


This morning I golfed, but he had fun helping Papa wash the car, or more likely spraying him... and after LG helped me make lunch we had a variety of 'projects' to complete. Started by making puppets out of paint stirrers and plastic bags...which of course generated several puppet shows. AND we even wrote a script...he wrote his lines (definitely does not need pre-k, but he likes school) and I wrote mine.(Maybe he'll be a writer someday, too!) Then we put together the kite he got for his fifth birthday a couple of weeks ago, took it to the field down the road and flew it, and then went 'exploring' in the woods at the other side of the field. When we got home, he read me a story and then I read to him...a very good day. We get him again on Thursday, too.


I continue to work on marketing...thanks, Kate, for your suggestions. Also am working on a 'Meet the Author' kit for schools, and on editing the press release my publisher sent me. Found a site yesterday that has all the newspapers in the country listed, so I'll have plenty to choose from when mailing the release out...http://www.50states.com/news/ . Now all I have to do is to sit down and DO all this stuff...

More on the copy-edit

Made it through JOSEPH for the second time today, and have an additional whole page of edits... simple things like a missing word and and extra words, etc. Now I will wait until I get it home, print it out and go through it one more time. Sometimes I think it is easier to read the hard copy than to read things on the computer.

Working on a little marketing, too. I sent a couple of brochures to Matthew's teacher, and she seemed really excited about the books, saying they were really needed to make people more aware of autism. She thinks they need to be in classrooms and libraries...figured she knows the people around here, so sent her a whole bunch of the brochures to share with all those people she thinks need the books. Not all that many, in the overall scheme of things, but if I find enough enthusiastic people to share their thoughts about the books, it can only help get them out to where they will do some good.

Quiet day today, for the most part...took the kids to WalMart after we went out to dinner, to spend some of their own money, and miracle of miracles...WalMart HAD the computer game that Matthew has been obsessing about for the last three days. Jay was happy to find the one he wanted too, so things were REALLY quiet when we returned.

Golf was good today, in that it was good weather (not too hot) and the course was nice. A little different than most courses in Florida...it looked more like a ski field filled with hills and lots of moguls...not very many flat places at all. Scored poorly on the front, but at my handicap on the back