Archive for November, 2009

This Year in Pictures – Bar Harbor Book Fest

November 30th, 2009

I finally found my camera feed cable, so I’m going to upload some pictures this week. First up, the Bar Harbor Book Festival I attended. I only took two pictures (I get distracted and forget to take pictures). But these lovely authors (Judy Phillips, Susan Vaughan, Michelle Libby, Bethany Hegedus, Kekla Magoon) did a fabulous [...]

The DVR World

November 27th, 2009

I spent the holiday cooking, baking, chopping, peeling, cleaning, talking, Wiiing…and watching TV. The Macy’s Day Parade, of course, and a Mythbusters, and some episodes of Modern Family, Lie to Me and The Middle that were clogging up the DVR. Holidays tend to be a bridge from past to present to future for me. I [...]

My, How This Business Has Not Changed — Crunching Numbers on Self/Vanity Publishing

November 26th, 2009

Truth in advertising. No one believes it exists, and we all get sucked in by it now and again. I set my remote to skip all the home shopping channels, but every so often I’ll deliberately watch one to remind myself what it takes to sell a product — energy, enthusiasm and a good pretense [...]

Happy Turkey Day!!

November 26th, 2009

I am going to try not to over eat. But if I do, I’ll work it off during the family Wii championships. May everyone enjoy the day in the way that suits them best. For me, dh, and ds2, that would be turkey. For ds1? Salmon. Yes. Really. His sister will be so proud. I [...]

About a Book — Catching Fire

November 24th, 2009

I heart Suzanne Collins (despite the fact that her name is similar to my state’s not-so-heartish junior Senator). When I heard the plot of Hunger Games, I had to read it. I loved it. But then I heard that Catching Fire had a cliffhanger ending, so I wasn’t going to read it. Until it jumped [...]

My How This Business Has…Not…Changed – Self/Vanity Publishing

November 20th, 2009

I’m still getting my blog legs, trying to decide how to entertain my diverse audience of writers, readers, and family members looking for things they can use to make fun of me. So when the recent furor over a major publisher deciding to get into the vanity press business, I wondered if I should blog [...]

To Kindle or Not to Kindle

November 16th, 2009

I downloaded the information from Amazon about self-Kindling (that sounds a little dirty, doesn’t it?). My books will have to be scanned in or re-edited, which is work, but otherwise everything sounds do-able. And yet, I hesitate to pull the trigger on this enterprise, despite how much like easy money Joe Konrath and Lee Goldberg [...]

Beautiful Writing vs the Quick and Dirty Draft

November 13th, 2009

As it is November, and time for NaNowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), I thought I might talk about the inner conflict between getting something on the page, and getting something beautiful on the page. There are a few lucky writers who do not suffer from this inner conflict. Writers who write fast and love every [...]

Full Plate

November 11th, 2009

So, last week I dreamed I was holding a full plate and my arms were tired and I just wanted to sleep, but I was afraid to let my guard down, for fear something would slip off the plate. Hmmm. Wonder what that means? Today was a catch up day. I met two deadlines, barely. [...]