Ho ho ho and a jingle jangle morning to you!

My favorite song and dance man has put out a Christmas album!

Go out and purchase Christmas in the Heart pronto, because:

♥ you will help fight hunger in America -- 100% of the artist's royalties will go to Feeding America, the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity, which works through a network of member food banks.
 
♥ that's a guarantee of 4 million meals to 1.4 million people in need, including children and seniors.

♥ Dylan has also partnered with two international charities (Crisis and the World Food Programme) to provide meals during the holiday season for the needy in the U.K. and 80 developing nations around the world.

♥ all royalties will be donated to Feeding America and the international charities in perpetuity (foreverness)!

♥ this is one funky collection of holiday favorites: who'd have thought in a million years the self proclaimed Archbishop of Anarchy would go all traditional and adeste fidelis on us?

Dylan sounds like your favorite uncle on this CD, hitting hard on the eggnog and making merry, and comes across as surprisingly "normal." My favorite tracks: "Must Be Santa," "Christmas Island," "Winter Wonderland." Nothing weird or experimental here -- he does the standards in a straightforward way, serving up lots of festive energy, nostalgia, warmth and fuzziness. At 68, this is Dylan's 47th album, and it definitely endears him to me in a "I'm not Bing Crosby or Perry Como but I care a whole lot about feeding the hungry" kind of way.  

Check out this video of "Must Be Santa." LOVE when he sings, "Who's got a great big cherry nose?" Also his variety of hats! First video he's done of his own music since the late 90's. If this doesn't get you in the holiday spirit and dancing the polka there is something seriously wrong with you. 



P.S. If you purchase the CD through one of these independent music stores, you'll receive a bonus collectible limited edition 45 rpm vinyl record (while supplies last).

'Tis the season for lots of people to come in close contact with one another, crowding shopping aisles, waiting in check-out lines, and vying for the best parking spaces. It is a time where people are called to either be generous or selfish, gracious or vindictive, making a decision or taking an action that can color the rest of an otherwise normal day.* It's the domino effect of meaning-making happening a billion times a second.

Lesson herein for the wily writer? Nail your words.

How we relate to words is how we relate to our characters and how our characters relate to the world around them. Consider how might we treat the earth if it wasn't called "Earth" (aka "Dirt") but was "Mother" or "Heaven" (ala Terry Pratchett's Nac Mac Feegle) or named simply "Home"? How might we treat it differently? How might we see ourselves living there? Flip it to minutia: What if natural elimination was called "making water" and "making soil" – thinking of old Larry Niven, here – how would that connect people to their world? To their bodies? To the food chain? To embarrassment and potty training young? What would be considered "trash" in society? Why is the stuff circling our orbit called "space junk" instead of "planetary jewelry"? Who chose the words we use so casually in everyday conversation?

As the author, that's you.

Don't say the moon is full and the night is dark. What does that say? How does the moon look when seen through your character's eyes at that moment – think about what has just happened, what's about to happen, & what does s/he fervently pray will or won't happen next? Does the moon yawn? Glare? Linger? Welcome? Does the night beckon? Dare? Swallow? Condemn? Does it flip in an instant from romantic to icy? From promising to all-hope-is-lost? From sheltered to exposed? How will this affect the next person the character speaks to? The next action s/he takes? The next scene?

The dominoes fall and keep falling until a switch is flipped and that has to come from the character's changing perspective, given new information or a new attitude. The funny thing to remember is that the nouns themselves don't change – the moon is still the moon, the night is still dark – but how it occurs to the POV and the reader is all very subjective, reflected in an adjective, an adverb, or a well-chosen comparative phrase. Think about what colors the eyes of your world? Does your character wear rose-colored, sepia-colored, or one-way-mirrored sunglasses?

It only takes a moment to change your mood. A single act of kindness, a single act of anger, can turn a warm day into a dismal letdown, a cold night into a diamond-speckled stage set for two. Why should it be any different for our characters? Or for the world we've laid at their feet?

It's all in how you say it. Moment to moment. Bird by bird.**

You and a few well-chosen words.


* And just so you know, while I realize that the shopping craze can bring out the worst in people, I personally witnessed people being at their politest, most helpful, and kind to one another. It was rather uplifting...and kind of creepy. ;-)
** Not to be confused with this.

Another JoNoWriMo+1.5 comes to a close today. How did you do? Check in over here: jonowrimo and let me know!

This year was a really special one. Several people met up at our community page to write together, and now some are even forming critique groups! We had such a lovely, supportive group this year. Thanks to everyone who participated!

:-)

Click here for the big reveal: http://juliebowe.livejournal.com/74244.html?view=276740#t276740

Psst. Even if you are not kept awake at night wondering whywhywhy Tammi Sauer likes sock monkeys, click anyway. You can get some FREE groovy bookmarks for your local library/favorite classroom/book group.

I'm learning how to be an author--something entirely different from being the writer who sits alone, sipping tea, wearing sweatpants, and making stuff up on my laptop day after day.

Authors get to do book signings! The event coordinator for my first official signing forgot to order my novel. So I sat between Shannon Hale and Brandon Mull, watching their long, steady lines of fans. I've since learned that even when my books are ordered, I shouldn't expect big crowds at book signings, but I usually find at least one new reader--and I always enjoy getting to know the book sellers!

Authors visit schools! Before My Big Nose And Other Natural Disasters came out I was invited to speak to some middle-school students. Oh, was I nervous. Until a cheerleader made fun of my shoes. Oh, right, I said to myself, I'm in middle-school. And I instantly relaxed. But then I was invited to speak to 200 5th and 6th graders--at the same time! Oh, was I nervous. Until I realized how much kids love learning about Mayans and seeing photos of my Mexican adventures that inspired Jungle Crossing. School visits are probably my favorite part of being an author.

Authors are social networking experts! Okay, me? Not so much. I have figured out that I enjoy blogging--although it still freaks me out to think that I have photos and videos of myself on the Internet. I've also found many old and new friends on Facebook. And I love talking books on Goodreads. But Twitter? What's up with that? I don't care if you're making a ham sandwich. I realized that Twitter was not for me when I had to resist making a snarky comment about something naive Miley Cyrus tweeted.

Authors are friends with other authors! Thanks to the Class of 2k9 I've made wonderful author friends. Having just finished reading my last 2k9 book, I can truly say that I'm incredibly honored to be a member of this group of talented writers and knowledgeable, generous authors.

But for me, it will always be about the next book. I can't wait to read my classmates' sophomore efforts. And I can't wait to finish writing my own next book (hopefully this week!). Because while I'm learning how to be an author, I will always be a writer first.

I love being a writer.

OMG, this is fantastic!!!





Want to win a hardcover of MAGIC UNDER GLASS by Jaclyn Dolamore plus more prizes? See http://fabulousfrock.livejournal.com for details!

Okay, I've been working on my website for a week or so now. The lovely people at Verla's helped me by making suggestions on looks and function (there are still a few of their suggestions I need to follow, but it is mostly there). My dad helped me by getting it to work with my domain name (it might be another day or two before it officially goes over to my regular domain name, but at least it's in the process). Mostly, I have been tweaking and tweaking and taking photos and editing them and deleting them and taking more and writing this and fixing that and wondering how the heck am I going to make this not silly looking.

As of this afternoon, I officially love it! There are still two blank pages to be filled, but all the rest is up and running. I loved adding my own photos for the elements. The wooden desk-looking background of each page is from my kitchen table. The buttons in the border background are the buttons I made a few months ago--thanks to Tami at Verla's for the idea. I put little pieces of art and writing I did as a kid to make it accessible to my MG audience.

I wanted to make a website that has the feel of opening an old box a person might find hiding in an attic, and seeing what's inside. But not have it be so old fashion, it wouldn't be appealing. I hope it appeals to MG girls and their parents--and their librarians. ;) I don't know anything about computers or web design so I had to use moonfruit.com and do the cut and past, template thing, but I think it worked out very nicely.

Here is the photo I used for the border background of some of my handmade buttons:


I'm told if you don't have Flash, all the elements will be lost so I hope you all have Flash (whatever the heck that is).

To see the site:

the current temporary address is: sarahdefordwilliams.moonfruit.com

The permanent address (that should work in a day or two) is: sarahdefordwilliams.com

yeah, it's still a month early. but i hope you'll be at our new year's eve party. on new year's eve-evening. because it'll be pretty fun, and stuff.

details to come!

Another debut2009 launch announcement! Out now: Jon Skovron's Struts & Frets, a YA novel from Amulet. Synopsis: A high school kid tries to start an indie rock band while coping with his grandfather's Alzheimer's.

(My editorial comment about the title: Don't you love the double meaning--words that can be nouns or verbs?)

Today Jennifer Jabaley, author of Lipstick Apology, has more info about the book, and a brief interview with Jon Skovron, up on her blog. It's worth checking out, and not just because the main character's band may remind you of your own musical days of yore ("his front man is a jerk who can't sing, his bassist is a burn-out who can't remember the songs, and his drummer is just out to lunch"). I also like that Jon's bio refers to him as an "insatiable music geek."

I think that about covers it. I have typed all my words out for today. Feels good to reach the goals I set for myself this year.

With Christmas around the corner and a book release coming shortly after that, I have a to-do list that makes my head hurt just looking at it.

I thought about signing off until January, but a blank blog is sad! So, I've decided to go through my archives and repost some of my blog posts from days past. I started blogging on livejournal way back in 2005!

To put it in perspective, I wrote I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME in 2006 and sold it in 2007. So...maybe it will be fun to go back and read some of those posts before, during and after my first novel sale. Of course, it'll be new material to many of you. And those of you have known me since I started blogging, well, I luv ya, and maybe it'll be kinda fun going down memory lane? Maybe?

I guess I figure all my favorite shows are doing it the month of December, so if they can, I can too!

Besides, come January, do I have something FANTASTIC for you!? Wait 'til you see what I've lined up!!!

Happy December!

Happy Rerun month!

The Class of 2k10 doesn't OFFICIALLY launch until tomorrow, but I wanted to give a heads up to my blog readers.

First order of business: Our website is up a little early! Check it out and let me know what you think!

Secondly, I'll give you a little advance notice on a HUGE contest we will be having. Starting tomorrow, you can check out Our Blog for the exact details, but here's a hint...we will be giving away A LOT of recently released books, and since our blog and website are so new to launch, I'd say you would have a pretty good chance of winning something! And it's super-easy to enter. Again, here's the blog link - http://community.livejournal.com/classof2k10 and if you click on "Watch Community" up near the top, our blog will automatically display on your Friends Page.

And lastly, I'll leave you once again with our new book trailer. It's just a short taste of who Class of 2k10 is, but it's already gotten the attention of some AWESOME booksellers and librarians. Enjoy!

“You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.”
- Mark Twain

I've been doing a lot of this lately. For me, it's the best form of procrastination :-) I'm about nine chapters into a WIP and I'm not feeling it. I want to feel it. I *really* want to. But I just don't. Grrrr.

So, instead, I'm reading other people's words.

I started to read Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence:




I was enjoying it (not as much as Ethan Frome, but still a good story), until my friend gave me Sara Donati's Into the Wilderness to read:




And now of course, I've been sucked into this sweeping historical romance that is a sequel to James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. It's shamelessly romantic but still, the historic elements are just too good to ignore. Too bad it's like 800 pages. Ugh.

And then today what do I find in my mailbox? An ARC of Captivate by Carrie Jones, mailed to me by my bud Robin MacCready. Yay!!!




I need to get more disciplined with my own writing...but only after I've finished with Captivate :-)

What are you reading?

Ahhh, it's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry for not writing over the weekend. I pretty much entered into a state of non-writing bliss, where I thought about blogging and finishing revisions on a story and then thought better. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I passed out in front of a day-long marathon of Cake Boss (I also watched the day-long marathons of Say Yes to the Dress and What Not To Wear--I was weak, very weak). I feel guilty about not finishing my writing, but... I think it's better not to force it sometimes. Plus, the reworked ending of this story took some considerable thought and research, so there!

On Saturday I had the absolute pleasure of eating a late lunch with Sarah Maas, who is even more gorgeous and witty in person! I had so much fun chatting about the biz and fantasy. She is, admittedly, at least 10000000x better read in the genre than I am, so it was fun to get her recs since I'm trying to expand my Fantasy reading so I can talk about my genre in a semi-coherent fashion. I'm realizing now that my introduction to Fantasy came more from reading manga than reading novels... which is kind of weird, right?

Anyway, today I had the pleasure of having lunch at Egmont! It was my first time visiting their office, and it was basically an explosion of happiness and amazing books. (I got a final copy of The Dark Divine and Scones and Sensibility--and they're even more beautiful in person. The purple on The Dark Divine is SO vivid! I also got to see the covers-in-progress for some of the Summer 2010 titles, including the sure to be wonderful Raised by Wolves!) Okay, and beside the sandwich I ate being absurdly delicious (It was ridiculous, I wanted to inhale it), my company was absolutely stellar and I'm so happy to finally have met everyone in the office. Thanks so much again for having me, guys!

(In other Brightly Woven-related news: it's been getting some great feedback over on Goodreads and Twitter. I'm really surprised and flattered that it's getting such passionate responses!)

I also had a doctor's appointment today, so I took the rest of the work day off and am now bumming around at home, squinting at things with my wonky eyes. Once they clear up, I'm going to do some work reading and actually tackle the last two chapters of the story I'm working on. Not that there's any rush since the holidays are coming up, but I did promise my agent I would send her a draft... uh, two weeks ago.

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving! We did. On Thanksgiving day we had dinner at Tyler's dad's house. It was a pleasant, low-key evening--just the way I like it.

The next day my parents and one of my brothers came to visit. It was a lot of fun! I don't get to see them very often so we squeezed a lot into our short visit. I had a great time.

It was an intense week of cleaning, followed by an intense couple days of visiting, now to be followed by an intense month of Christmas and revisions.

This past week and a half there have been so many things to attend to, I haven't worked on my revision. I think it is good for me to have a very productive couple of writing weeks, then a week or so off to let things stew and to get my mind unhooked so it can process things. I just picked it up again today and it felt good. I'm behind, though. I hope I can have a really good couple of writing weeks starting with what I just wrote today.

The kids come home from school soon and I promised to take them to the dollar store. We started a tradition last year that on the day we put up our tree (which is always Nov. 30) we have a dollar store Christmas party where we each buy everyone a dollar present and we put them under the tree and open them. We will probably also have treats and watch that old musical "Scrooge" that is dumb but somehow compelling and was my favorite when I was little.

Also, I used some of my Kindle Cover money and bought this for Charlotte and I:


She and I have always wanted to build a dollhouse together and I thought it might be a nice diversion for the Christmas season so I don't drown in revisions, extra holiday duties, concerts, practices, parties, etc, etc, etc. I guess I needed a kind of zen introversion project and that was purely for fun and not practical or useful in any way. By the way, if any of you are looking for great dollhouse kits, Overstock.com sells them for half the price of anywhere else for the exact same items. And they only charge like a dollar for shipping even though our kit weighs 35 pounds and is enormous. Just a note.

Well, I better get a bit of rest before our party tonight and the shopping that needs to happen before it. I feel like there should be 48 hours to each day in December to fit everything in.

I hope you are all having a lovely day and a good start to the holiday season.

NaNoWriMo ends today!

I am not a winner, however. I really didn't write much at all this month. I've been sick, and something had to give. So, my total word count this month hovers somewhere between non-existent and really, really low. I'm not sure. I stopped keeping track when it became abundantly clear I wasn't going to be able to participate like I wanted to.

But congrats to all those who did win! And congrats to all those who participated!

Kathy Stevens, Youth Services Librarian for Baxter Memorial Library in Gorham, Maine sent this entry to the debut library- somebody is catching up on their leaf collection AND a copy of Kate Messner's THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. Once you finish that leaf collection, it'll be time for snow- and you're in luck! SUGAR ON SNOW, Kate's next MG book, comes out in December 2010!

Are you a library professional? You can enter to win 46 brand new YA & MG novels for YOUR collection! See this entry for details.

As all good things must, football is at an end. The boys fought like heroes, and it was a great game. We only lost by one touchdown. It was a wonderful season, for so many reasons. The parents and kids came together like family. I'll miss it as much as Boy.

But there's always next year. Boy found something that he loves to do, and I'm glad it doesn't involve sitting on the couch playing video games. He made new friends, and he had so much fun. The coaches really took to him, and all of them told me that he's got real potential, that he's going to be really good someday. The one coach said he saw so much improvement in Boy it was amazing. That made me feel really good. I don't care if he plays in HS, or in college, as long as he's enjoying it. I'm so proud of Boy, he never once complained that he had to practice in the heat or freezing cold, or in the rain and the mud. He didn't mind being last when they ran, and by the end of the season, he wasn't always last. He made tackles and recovered a couple of fumbles. He got pushed down by bigger kids, and got back up to try again.

There's always next season, but it won't be the same. Some of the boys are moving up, and the parent coaches with them. Some boys are moving up, and I'm betting there are some who won't return, for whatever reason.

So we have to bid a bittersweet goodbye to one almost perfect, golden season of childhood. We sent it out with a bang at the post-game party last night :)

There's only four months until baseball starts.

So, the Captivate contest (to win a copy) continues THROUGH today. That means you can still post and try to win, or go visit the site and make my publishers happy people! To enter check out my last blog entry. ;)

In the meantime, I've been thinking about how crazy lucky I am to live here in Maine.

Why?

Let me show you:



Do you know what this is? I would make you guess, but I am afraid of the possible answers. So, I will tell you! This is a BED RACE! Yes, a BED RACE through the strets of Bar Harbor, Maine. And those men in gray are actually Bar Harbor Police Officers racing a bed with Bar Harbor dispatcher in it.

Hold on... I have envy....

I totally want to be riding on that bed!

The lights flashed and everything!

The police did not win. The lights weighed down the bed, but the cool thing was that they entered (and involved their dispatcher). The town's waste water department and fire department entered too. So did stores, the hospital and the Jackson Lab, which is a research facility.



She was delivering a baby. They were yelling, "PUSH!"

Now, my point here is that sometimes people read my books and they are all, "Dude, you characters are so quirky. The weirdest things happen to them."

And all I can say is that I live in MAINE! It is quirky here and quirky is so good. ;)