Verla Kay's Blog

Christmas greetings

2011-12-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Christmas day! It came so very fast this year. (But then, I say that every year!) for all of you who celebrate this holiday, don't forget the true meaning of this day - the birth of Christ - and put Him into your day of celebration.

As for me, I am moving AGAIN, for the third time in three months. I'm not sure I'm going to survive this last move. (lol)

I wish for everyone to have a blessed day, no matter what your beliefs.

:-) Verla

Just One Life to Live

2011-12-05T07:11:00.001-07:00

Sometimes life becomes overwhelming and it's hard to feel happy and relaxed. Sometimes the work piled in front of you looms so large you feel crushed. At times life seems to be zooming by on a fast track that leaves you breathless and limp with frustration and regrets.

When that happens, it's time to slow down and smell the roses. Only YOU can make your life full, happy, relaxed and meaningful. Only YOU can determine if you will enjoy the journey of life or not. Each of us has many choices to make every day. If you choose the right ones, your life will be full and meaningful.

When you are lying on your deathbed, with only a week or two left to live, what will you wish you had done differently in your life? Would you have spent more time with your family and friends? Would you have simplified your life so you wouldn't have had to work so hard? Would you have said, "I love you," more often?

What dreams do you have that aren't being fulfilled? We only have one chance to live a wonderful life. That chance begins today, right now. Make sure you are living your life the way you want to. Don't let what other people want or need overpower your own wants and needs. This is YOUR life. Make it count for you.

Framed!

2011-11-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

After ten long years, I was finally able to afford to have the original piece of artwork framed that was given to me by Ted Rand (from our book, Homespun Sarah). I love how it looks, I just wish the "non-glare" glass that I paid for was really non-glare. It isn't. I was very disappointed in how much it glares in the light.

I'm REALLY happy with the frame my hubby and I picked out for it, and the colors of the mats, though. They did a great job of framing it, it's just the quality of that glass I'm disappointed about.

This picture certainly looks beautiful on my wall. It warms my heart to see it. I just wish Ted were still alive to celebrate with me. (He died in 2005.) He was a most amazing artist! His watercolors jumped right off the page and pulled you totally into the stories. Thank you, Ted. You were an amazing man and a fabulous artist. I'm so glad I got to meet you in person, and that you illustrated this book.

Ted and I together at a booksigning event, before our book, Homespun Sarah came out. We had a wonderful time that day and I treasure our time together.

Happy memories are a great thing to have. Here's hoping everyone reading this blog post remembers something wonderful from their past today, too. Let's make today a "happy memory" day!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T08:54:00.001-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the States that celebrates it. My husband and I have a lot to be thankful about this year. We are finally both well, after illnesses and injuries that spanned most of the summer. We sold our big house and got out from under the huge house payments that were crushing us financially. We are slowly getting settled into our little trailer in Arizona.

Our children are all alive and kicking, and for the most part, doing well. (Hey, there's always a few rocks in the road... that's the nature of life.) We love each of you dearly. Our grandchildren are all well, although they are scattered everywhere, now. We miss seeing and hugging them. We love you, too. Our great grandson is a delight! He's three now, and such a chatterbox and so much fun to talk to on the phone. (OH! How we love and miss him!) We even have a new great grandchild to look forward to in May when we return to the state of Washington for the summer months. Oh, JOY! (Take care of yourself, Mikayla.)

I have finished writing a new picture book, which I hope to send off to my agent next week. It's still "on ice" and until I look at again with a fresh eye, I won't know if it's good enough to send to her or not. The F&Gs (folded and gathered actual printed pages, not yet bound) of my next picture book are amazingly wonderful. THANK YOU, Larry Day. Your illustrations in "Civil War Drummer Boy" are FANTASTIC!

Yep. Life is darned good right now. Here's hoping each of you has a wonderful day today, whether or not you are celebrating Thanksgiving, and that the rest of your year is filled with health, love, and happiness.

Sincerely,

Verla Kay

Moved! The Evil Toilet Rears Up Once More... And Finally Writing Again!

2011-11-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's amazing how sometimes life will just take over and leave you lying in the street, a melted puddle of sludge. That's pretty much what has happened to me over the last seven months. It started in April, when I came down with severe bronchitis. Three months, one cracked rib (from coughing so hard) and four full doses of antibiotics later I finally started to get over that horrible attack. Which is when I slipped on the stairs, fell down and cracked my tailbone. OUCH! Talk about "not feeling well!" It was back to bed for me for another few weeks.... but six weeks later I was finally feeling almost normal again. Finally! HOORAY!

That's when we sold our house. Now this is the BIG house we've been renovating for the past eight years and it was full, and I do mean FULL, of stuff. We had stuff packed into every single room, the basement, the 40' x 42' garage/shop/lean-to and the 20' x 30' room above the garage. The house we moved into is 800 square feet with no garage and a damp basement. (We do have a rented storage space to put some of our things in... like my out-of-print books. Those I could NOT get rid of!)

Oh, yeah. That was an easy move.

NOT!

It would have been a bit easier if I hadn't tripped over a pile of stuff while sorting and packing. My poor right knee blew up to four times its normal size and my entire leg turned black, blue and green from the injury. Doc said it's not broken (thank heavens!) but it will be six months before it totally stops hurting and is back to normal.

Is there a normal for me? I'm beginning to wonder...LOL!

We no sooner got our stuff out of the big house and into our little one (boxes are EVERYWHERE!) than we turned around, packed up again, and headed for Arizona for the winter months. I left the bulk of the unpacking at the little house for when we return. Mwahahahahaha! (Well, until we return, that is. Then it won't be so funny, I'm sure.)

So here we are, in Arizona again, and what does my hubby decide to do? To once again tackle The Evil Toilet in our little trailer! (See my March 25th Blog for the full story on this toilet that did not want to be replaced!) Hubby bought another new toilet (the third one) and pulled The Evil Toilet out once again. Of COURSE the new toilet wouldn't fit in the space after he got The Evil Toilet out. The back stuck out too far, making the bolt holes not line up with the bolts in the floor. So... The Evil Toilet was reinstalled in the trailer for the fifth time, while hubby gnashed his teeth, screamed obscenities at The Evil Toilet, and generally made a nuisance of himself for a few hours.

We contemplated returning the toilet to the store, but it was EXACTLY the toilet we wanted in the space. Instead of all those bumps and ridges like most toilets have on the outsides, making them a nightmare to clean, this new one has perfectly smooth, straight sides with all those tube-like ridges hidden inside. It also has an elongated seat, is slightly higher than a normal seat, and has a very narrow (just 14 inches across) tank, so it won't stick out into the doorway to our bedroom like The Evil Toilet does.

So we put on our thinking caps and came up with a slightly unorthodox, but clever solution. Hubby ripped out the inside of the wall behind The Evil Toilet, the one that backs against our bedroom, and we recessed the back part of the tank into the opening of the wall. IT FIT! It worked! And we only had to pull out that Evil Toilet a total of SIX TIMES to finally get it replaced! (Snork!) HOORAY!

I immediately put a notice up on the RV park's bulletin board that we had a flush toilet for sale, cheap! ($50) It sold in one day. Now someone ELSE can deal with that EVIL TOILET! Mwahahahahahahaha!

And now we can finally move on to other projects. Like WRITING for me. Yeah. I've finally finished a new story. It's been sitting "on ice" for the past couple of weeks so I can hopefully look at it with eyes not fuzzy with the excitement of a new story and see if it's good enough yet to send to my agent. I hope it is. I will most likely look at it again this week to see. Actually, I'm AFRAID to look at it again for fear it won't be as good as I first thought it was. LOL! Writing is such an interesting journey, as anyone who has ever written for publication certainly knows. It's filled with ups and downs (mostly downs) and is never, ever boring. I can't imagine doing anything else!

A few weeks ago I got the F&G's for my next book coming out - Civil War Drummer Boy. What a fabulous book this is going to be! Here's a sneak peak at the cover of it (the interior is even more spectacular and wonderful than the cover!) and I'm so happy with it.

It feels great to finally be writing again, to know that the huge house payments of that big house are gone forever, and to be down here in Arizona, where the weather is in the 70's, instead of up in Washington state (near Idaho) where it's snowing and the weather gets down in the 20's at night. I'm running around in shorts and Tshirts, enjoying the sunshine a LOT.

I have so much to be thankful for! This is going to be a very happy Thanksgiving for hubby and I. (And NO Evil Toilet in the house to mess up our happiness, either!) Yep. It's definitely going to be a Happy Thanksgiving on Thursday.

Moving!

2011-10-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Our house has sold, the inspection has been done and we came to an agreement with the buyers about what we would repair/fix and what they would be responsible for doing, the appraisal came in at just the right amount for their loan to go through (and they have been pre-qualified for the loan) so now there's nothing left to do but pack, move, clean the entire house and sign final paperwork so the sale can be completed on the target date of October 26th.

It's the packing and moving everything out that is the problem for us. YOIKS! I am a true packrat and I have EVERYTHING from EVERYBODY that ever lived in my family. I'm the oldest surviving member... so I am the "keeper" of everyone's memorabilia. Everyone's! It's been extremely painful, but I have been totally ruthless in getting rid of everything I absolutely do not HAVE to keep. It's been necessary, since we are moving from a huge house with almost unlimited storage area into a teensy 800 square foot house with no garage and a basement that gets damp. We have one storage shed we rent to put important things in (like old tax records, my out of print books, etc.) but that's it for storage space for us. So yeah... it's going to be the toughest move we ever made.

The good news is... once we have moved and the sale has been completed, we will be able to immediately go down to Arizona with our cats and spend the winter in our nice trailer down there. (Which will be overflowing with all the stuff we are moving down there! LOL! I'll probably need to get a storage unit down there, too, in order to have enough room for everything.)

Meantime, my writing activities are almost nil, and I feel very frustrated. I just keep telling myself, "This is TEMPORARY and once you have finished this big move, your life will be simpler and better." I have to keep repeating this over and over. It's keeping me sane. (Well, SORT of sane. LOL!) I do have to admit, though, that I feel kind of like I've been sucked down into a never-ending vortex at the moment. But there WILL be an end... and I (hope I) WILL survive this move.

Sigh.
Thanks for letting me complain a bit. I feel a lot better already. :-)

And now... on to the packing!

SOLD?

2011-09-10T06:53:00.001-07:00

Our house is under contract at long last. We put it on the market last year and it didn't get more than a couple of showings and no offers. We took it off the market in April when I got too sick to keep it clean for showings, and just relisted it for a lower price three weeks ago. Thursday night we got a great offer on it and it's now under contract!

IF all goes well with the home inspection on Tuesday (crossing fingers - we've totally gutted and rebuilt the entire inside of the house over the past 8 years, but it WAS, after all, built in 1903) then we will only have six short weeks to empty the entire place for the new owners!

We are on "fast track" right now to get our 2010 tax papers all together for our tax guy so we can concentrate on somehow getting rid of all the things that won't fit in our super tiny (800+ sq ft) rental house and single storage unit. Since we will be moving from a 2500 sq ft house with a huge basement plus a 40'x30' garage/shop with a 20'x30' extra room above it and a three-sided attached 40'x12' lean-to -- all of which are PACKED with stuff... This is NOT going to be an easy move for us!

I hope I survive....

Buried Alive

2011-08-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

I think I am being buried alive today. I'm trying to find the papers needed to file 2010 taxes. We filed an extension in April, because we were still in Arizona and didn't have all the paperwork we needed to do the taxes at that point. Here are "some" of the papers that need to be sorted in order to find the ones we need for the taxes.

As you can see, there are a lot of papers to sort through. And I HATE finding the tax papers. It's my worst nightmare of the year, every year.

I don't know why I even bother. If I were lucky, I could stop doing taxes and by the time the government caught up with me, I'd be dead and I wouldn't have to deal with it at all. Except we are talking about me, not someone else. With my luck, I'll live to be 100 and the government would be on me about the taxes in just one year.

Wherever you are on this wonderful, warm, sunny summer day, please send good thoughts my way. I will need them as I dig through the mounds and boxes of papers trying to find all the ones I need for the taxes.

Hopefully, I can come up for air sometime soon.

SCBWI 2011 Summer International Conference in LA

2011-08-10T16:44:00.002-07:00

Wow. Pretty much all I can say is... "Wow!"

The conference was absolutely wonderful and for all of you who weren't able to come, I highly recommend starting right now to save a tiny bit every week so that you can attend one of the upcoming ones.

As everyone can see, I made it home safely and in one piece. My website and the Blueboard didn't fare so well. This morning, my entire website and the message board went down... and apparently it is still down, many hours later. The entire server had a major power outage (I am calling it a meltdown, until I hear a better term for it) and over half their clients lost their websites. Mine was just one tiny one in the entire explosion. I'm glad I'm not on the other end of that outage! They have a lot of clients screaming and yelling at them. (Like THAT is going to help them fix the problem faster?)

But I digress. Getting back to the subject at hand, there's something very special about this particular conference. It's unique in that it's so intense and so very gynormous. (Yeah, I know. That's not a real word. But I love it so I'm saying it anyway.) People were there from all around the world and someone was there from all of the US states except one. (South Dakotans, where were you?)

Massive amounts of love and friendship literally dripped and radiated from everyone the entire time of the conference. Not one person ran over anyone else (that I saw) or climbed on top of anyone else to get a little higher on the ladder of success. Instead, people everywhere were sharing ideas and hints and suggestions to help each other reach higher pinnacles of success. My heart warmed and beat faster as I felt all the love and caring people around me reaching out to their fellow writers and illustrators.

I've always personally had a very dedicated goal: When I finally reach the top of that ladder of success someday, I want to have all my friends there to celebrate with me. What a cold, lonely place it would be if one were up there all alone! Apparently most of the people at the conference felt the same way, if one can judge from the love and sharing that went on during those four days.

The Keynote speakers were all amazing. Each one brought something different to the attendees. There were dozens of breakout sessions. Two of them I taught (thank you, everyone who attended and let me know how helpful they were!) and the rest I had to pick and choose just one from a big handful that I wanted to attend. Some were very informative, others incredibly inspiring, but all were well worth the time (and tuition cost) it took to be there.

When I went to the conference, I was pretty much depressed and discouraged with my own life and lack of success. (Yes, it doesn't matter where you are in your writing/illustrating career, you can still feel that way.) I came away inspired, rejuvenated, and ready to WRITE and SUBMIT. "Rejections, beware! I will persevere over you, no matter what." (That's ONE thing I WILL ramrod over and stomp on to get higher up the ladder of success - rejections.)

I saw new books of people I care about. I saw Blueboarders books, too. What talented people we have on the message board! (Which is DOWN at the moment, by the way. The server had a major meltdown and it took over half its clients' websites and email with it. I'm still waiting for it to come back up. Perhaps in another hour or so? I hope!)

During the conference I got to talk to some of my favorite people - Judy Blume (what a lovely woman she is!), Bruce Coville, Bruce Hale, Linda Joy Singleton (I got to room with her!) Dianne De LaCasas, Katie Davis, (she did a podcast interview of me about the Blueboard... watch for it to be online sometime in the next week or so!) Melody de Leon, Molly Blaisdell, and my two "almost" roomies, Linda Whalen and Danna Smith, Harold Underdown, (no, Harold was NOT almost my roomie!) Emma Dryden, Rukhsana Khan, Steven Malk, and so many Blueboarders I thought at least half the people in attendance must have been members of the message board! What a privilege and joy it was to spend time with each of you during the conference. Thank you so much for sharing yourselves with me. I loved every minute of it.

To whoever it was that accidentally took the first page of my upcoming book, Civil War Drummer Boy, mechanicals during my promotion workshop, I'd very much like to have it back, since it's the only copy I had of it! It was my fault for putting all the freebie handouts on the same table with it and I know you didn't realize it wasn't there to take home with you... but it's the ONLY copy I had of it and I had gotten it just three days before the conference. I still need to check it out thoroughly and let my editor know if I see any historical inaccuracies in it. Please let me know who you are and I'll send you my mailing address.

Some of my favorite quotes from the conference are:

Donna Jo Napoli - "Writing terrible things makes readers better people."

And from one of the workshop session leaders, Michael Kripalani - "Be prepared to enter a competitive market ... (and)... know exactly what you want to accomplish."

Richard Peck gave us my favorite quote, though. "Had I been limited to writing what I know, I would have produced in forty years a total of ONE unpublishable haiku."

The most embarrassing moment and biggest thrill of the conference for me, personally? When a Blueboarder (who ARE you?) called across the luncheon table to me, "YOU are Verla Kay? Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for the Blueboards!" And then she started bowing down to me with her arms over her head. LOL! What a moment that was for someone who has always felt like she was on the outside of the window, with her nose pressed up against the glass, watching all the love and wonderful things happening on the other side of that window. Suddenly, I was transported to the loving side of that window and it was one of the most memorable and happy moments of my life. Thank you.

And thank you, too, to all the rest of you Blueboarders - there were so MANY of you! - that came up to me and introduced yourselves. The love radiating from all of you was so special to me. I bow down low to each of you in thanks for your support and continued sharing with others on the message board. YOU are what makes that message board such a special place. It would be nothing without the people who come there to gather and share information.

It was an incredible conference, one I will continue to attend, no matter what the sacrifice it takes to get me there! It's well worth every penny spent to attend.

Thank you, Lin and Steve, for conceiving the idea of SCBWI, for building and maintaining this incredible organization, and for continuing to put on such fabulous informative and inspirational conferences.

Have a wonderful day, everyone. Life is good.

God bless the United States of America and all of its people

2011-07-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Here's my hopes for the United States of America during the following year:

I hope we stay a free country, that our basic freedoms and rights are not stripped from us by a power-hungry government.

I hope we will move towards becoming a united country, not continue on our current course of vicious, opposing political factions, where nothing matters but "the party."

I hope we won't become a dictatorial, socialist regime, leaving our freedoms as only distant memories.

I hope our political leaders will finally learn how to control their spending and put a stop to bankrupting our country.

I hope those of us who see this country through different eyes can tolerate each other's views, and love each other in spite of our political differences.

I love my country! I love my friends! And yes... MANY of my friends don't see eye-to-eye with me politically. But that doesn't stop my love for them. How they feel politically doesn't change how I feel about them... I would hope it won't change how they feel about me, either.

But I cannot stand by and watch the country I love so much turn into a socialist, dictatorial state without protesting at least a little! I know I swore after being blasted the last time I said anything political on this blog that I'd never make another political statement. People misunderstood what I said that first time. I'm hoping this time my comments are less likely to be misunderstood. I want to make it perfectly clear that I am talking ONLY about the political status of our country, NOT about personalities, or genders, or races!

Have a great holiday weekend (those of you who celebrate the 4th of July in the States) and a great normal weekend to everyone else.

God bless the United States of America and all of its people!

A Special Mother's Day

2011-05-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day. It's a bittersweet happy day for me, having lost my own mother when we were both so young. I was 25 and she had just turned 50 one month before her death of a very horrible, painful cancer. So on Mother's Day, I focus on the rest of my family. This year, that's my mother-in-law and my children, grandchildren and my great grandchild. I spent the morning relaxing around the house, playing with my new Ipad2 and browsing the internet, etc.

Hubby forgot (as usual) to buy me a card, and only two of my children sent email messages to me - one of them also called. But I didn't feel bad about that, because I'm notorious for forgetting special days and I know the love is there, even if there isn't a card or a phone call from them.

After my husband finally beat me into submission (well, he didn't really beat me, he just raised his eyebrows at me, which let me know it was WAY past time for me to shower and get dressed, since it was nearly noon) I got ready to leave and go visit his mother in the care center home about an hour from us.

And this time, I remembered to bring my purse with me! I'd left it home when we went to town (an hour in the other direction from us) to go shopping the day before. Hey! I had my new Ipad2 with me. Who needs a purse? (Har, har, har!)

Mama was sitting in her wheelchair in the doorway of her room when we arrived, and she was madder than a wet hen. She couldn't find the light switch to turn more lights on in her room. (At 99 years old she's almost totally blind and she hates when it starts getting dark because then she REALLY can't see anything.) I helped her find the switch and let her turn it on, then we wheeled her back into her room so we could talk with her.

We gave her a lovely bouquet of flowers, which of course she couldn't see, and I let her squish and smash the flowers to "feel" them. I told her what colors they were, and what kinds and she smiled and then complained because she couldn't see them. But then, she complains all the time about not being able to see - but she refuses to allow us to get her anything that will help her see. If she could see again, she wouldn't be able to complain about it all the time, and she really loves to have people feel sorry for her. It's just how she is and we love her in spite of it. (Maybe even because of it! LOL!)

Then we gave her the gift we brought that we knew she would truly love - a box of fresh bakery soft sugar cookies with strawberry frosting on them. You wouldn't believe how fast she had that box open and started gobbling one of them down! Mama really loves her cookies! We gave her enough to have two a day - one at lunchtime and one at dinnertime - for the next five days. Since we'll be back to visit her again by next Saturday at the latest, she's all set for a while now for dessert treats.

After our visit with Mama, Terry took me out to dinner. Hey! That's better than a card any day. We found a new, wonderful restaurant that had great food and even better prices. Oh, joy! A new place to eat. We love finding fun, new places to eat that have good food at reasonable prices.

When we finally reached home, it was nearly dark, and our oldest granddaughter was waiting in our driveway in her car with our great grandson in tow. He was determined to give his Great Grandma B (that would be me) the Mother's Day card he had made for me in preschool. It was SO gorgeous and he "dictated" the inside of the card all by himself. (Well, actually, he finished each sentence, but it amounts to the same thing.)

Here's the card he made for me and this is what it says inside:

My Great B is 2 years old, like me.

My Great B looks the prettiest when she makes me laugh.

My Great B likes to make hot dogs. (I don't think I've ever fixed him a hot dog. LOL! I have no clue where THAT came from. Maybe he was hungry for a hot dog when he finished that sentence?)

My Great B always says, "Up!"

My Great B is funny when she plays her fart game. (Uh... it's a farting piano app on my new IPad2. He LOVES it. -shrugs- What can I say? He's a boy!)

My Great B's favorite color is blue and green and pink and purple.

I love my Great B because I want to.

Now who could ever have a better Mother's Day than this, I ask you? Not me.

I hope every mother out there had as loving and wonderful of a day as I did. Family is so special - and life is very fleeting. It seems like it will last forever, but it doesn't. It can be snuffed out in a single heartbeat. That's why it's so important to live your life to the fullest while you can. One never knows when it might be your last chance to say, "I love you," to someone.

I love my family. I love my friends. I love my acquaintances, too. I love the people I've never met but that are my trusted colleagues and peers. But I have to be truthful. I don't love my dentist. (I'm sorry. But I just can't feel love for someone that hurts me every time I see him!) No, I take that back. It's what he does TO me that I don't love. Okay. I guess I can say it after all. I do love my dentist. I just don't love him as much as I love all the rest of you!

:-) Happy Belated Mother's Day, Everyone

The Trip Home, A School Visit & X-Factor Auditions

2011-04-17T08:02:00.003-07:00

Last Monday the two cats,

my husband and I dragged into our house on the eastern side of the state of Washington after a very long drive home that spanned nearly two weeks. During our trip we had a wonderfully satisfying visit with fellow author, Linda Joy Singleton and her family, our youngest son, Bruce, and his girlfriend and her daughter, our middle son, Donn, who performed beautifully in a musical production of The Pirates of Penzance (he looked older than we did, since he was playing the part of the Modern Major General),

and a very dear friend from my childhood, Frankie, and his wife, Yvonne (he's been like a second dad to me ever since my father died when I was just 13 years old). Along with all of that, we also visited with all three of my husband's siblings on the way home, and we even managed to squeeze in two nights in Reno, Nevada, so I could do a school visit.

When we finally dragged into town and walked into our house, it was to find we'd run out of heating oil while we were in Arizona during the past six months. And of course they couldn't deliver oil until the next day. So our first day and night (and next morning) home we had to make do with one tiny electric space heater and the fireplace. Needless to say, we were bundled up pretty heavily! Coming from 95º weather down in Arizona to 32º - 45º weather up in Washington was quite a shock to our poor bodies!

Tuesday oil (#1 kerosine) was delivered to our house and we had HEAT. Yay for heat! TV service was finally back and running again on Thursday. (We came home to our satellite dish almost laying on the ground. High winds and unbelievable amounts of snow and rain this winter had rotted the metal post off in the ground and left the dish pointing at the neighbor's house across the street instead of the TV reception satellite up in space. (The NERVE of it!)

We are almost settled in now. Yay!

Today we go to visit my mother-in-law in the care center an hour away from us. She is turning 99 years old next week and next month. And no, that's not a typo. She has two birthdays every year - her legal one that is on her birth certificate - April - and her real one - which is in May. I guess when you reach 99, you have the right to have two birthday celebrations every year! (Heh, heh, heh.)

Tomorrow we get to drive to Seattle and check into our hotel so we can fight with thousands of other people for a few days on the street while our son, Donn, attempts again (for the second time) to secure an audition for Simon Cowell's upcoming new singing talent show, The X-Factor. I have a feeling it's a lost cause, but we have to make the effort. It's not every day a young man has a chance like this and we have to at least try for it.

Change of plans. We're still going to Seattle to celebrate our 46th anniversary, but our son will NOT be auditioning for the X-Factor show. We just found out what they could do to his potential music career if he signs the release form and it's not pretty. It's not worth it. So we're going to see the sights of Seattle and visit with relatives instead. It's all good.

I~~'ll take photos when I can. I imagine it will be a total ZOO there. And of course it's supposed to RAIN on Tuesday, when we'll be standing outside in line for hours and hours and hours.~~

~~Someone we know tried out in LA and they were in line for 14 hours the first day and I don't remember how many hours the second day. I hope I live through this! (LOL!)~~

The things we mothers do for our children, even after they are grown up. Sheesh!

"Verla Kay and the Evil Toilet"

2011-03-25T07:46:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there was an Evil Toilet who lived in the house of a children's author named Verla Kay.

Now it's important to this story that you understand it was the author who was named Verla Kay, and not the toilet. The toilet didn't have a name. Perhaps that's why the toilet was so evil - because it didn't have any name except just, "The Toilet." And that's not a very glamorous or exciting name, when you think about it.

Not that Verla Kay was prone to thinking about her toilet much, but then perhaps that's what caused all of her problems to begin with. She just never thought enough about her toilet.

But I'm getting away from the problem and since that's why you are listening to this story, let's jump right in and take a look at Verla Kay's day yesterday. Because that's when it all started - yesterday.

Verla Kay had a disastrous kitchen and bathroom floor in her little trailer. At some point, new cream-colored linoleum (or maybe it used to be white at some point and it had just faded out to cream colored over the years) had been laid over the original gold and brown Spanish tile linoleum in the tiny kitchen floor and even tinier bathroom floor.

Now you should know that this was not a very professional linoleum job. Whoever put it down glued it - but not all over. Whoever installed this flooring must have mis-measured, or else they just bought a remnant piece that wasn't big enough, because it didn't go all the way under the refrigerator or the the stove. It just went a tiny way under and then stopped. And since it wasn't glued under the appliances, over the years it had obviously talked to The Evil Toilet and it curled.

It curled up. Off the floor. It was impossible for Verla Kay to clean the floor around the fridge and stove, because of the lifting linoleum. The fridge couldn't be pulled out of it's cubby hole to clean behind or under it because it would have torn up the linoleum coming out of the hole. The same problem existed with the kitchen stove. And there was dirt back there, behind both appliances! Evil, nasty, horrible, unclean DIRT. (Especially behind and under the fridge. The stove had been replaced last year, so at least there was only one year of dirt under it. Who knows how many years of dirt had accumulated under and behind that fridge? It had been there for many, many years.)

But what does all this have to do with The Evil Toilet, you ask? Be patient. I'm getting there. Believe me, I'm getting there.

So one day Verla Kay and her husband decided they wanted to replace that nasty linoleum with some wonderful, new flooring. Being frugal people, they decided they (meaning Verla Kay, since her husband has a very bad back and bad knees) would install the new flooring themselves.

Now this wasn't such a strange idea for them, since remodeling houses and working on things like installing new flooring was pretty much all Verla Kay and her husband have done for the past eight years. But they didn't realize that this remodel project was going to be different from all the rest. They didn't know they harbored An Evil Toilet in this trailer!

At first, things went well. They borrowed a moving dolly from the Park Office and moved the refrigerator out into the living room and set it onto a piece of siding on the carpet. They plugged it in and put all the perishables they'd taken out of it to move it back into it.

Then they looked into the cubby hole where the refrigerator had been sitting for so many years. It must have been many years! The amount of dirt on that floor was enough to make a sane person run screaming for help. They almost did. Verla Kay fainted when she saw how dirty it was, because she knew she was going to have to be the one to get down on her hands and knees and clean up that horrible mess. And of course, she was. And so she did. She cried and screamed and cursed and yelled at the dirt first. But it just would not clean itself up, so finally, she did it with rags (that immediately got thrown into the trash) and disinfectant cleaners.

Once the refrigerator was out of the room, the stove could be pulled out. The gas was disconnected and the gas line capped off, the stove was very carefully pulled out of its cubbyhole, and it was moved with the moving dolly onto another piece of siding that had been previously placed on the living room rug.

Now the living room isn't very big in this little trailer, so that's pretty much all that would fit in there. The kitchen and bathroom are connected, one right after the other, and the bedroom is on the other side of the bathroom, so naturally the logical place to put the toilet while the floor was being replaced was in the bedroom.

With that decision made, Verla Kay and her husband turned the water off to the house, and with a plastic disposable cup, all the water in the toilet was drained out, and the toilet was unhooked and carefully moved onto another piece of siding placed on the carpet in the bedroom.

But you have to remember, this was an Evil Toilet. Apparently The Evil Toilet didn't want to be placed in the bedroom. Perhaps it felt left out because it wasn't in the living room with the Stove and the Refrigerator? We might never know, but what we do know is that it didn't like being put in the bedroom!

It leaked quietly and silently after it was placed onto the piece of siding. Luckily, the siding was thick enough to contain the leakage and keep it out of the carpet.

Meantime, Verla Kay proceeded to install the floor. It went in just fine in the refrigerator cubby hole. But then, she got into the main part of the kitchen with it. Disaster! Nightmare! Nothing fit together correctly. The strange nooks and crannies and jogs and jigs in the trailer walls around the cupboards, and the slanted sink area and the door frame into the bathroom and the jogs and nooks and floor vents made installation a nightmare for Verla Kay.

She screamed. She cried. She put flooring down and ripped it back out. She put more flooring down and ripped it back out. She cursed. She screamed and cried some more. (It did not help.)

She called for her husband's help. She thought about throwing the installation tools at him. But she knew that would only create more problems, so she managed to contain herself and she only threw them onto the floor a few times. That did make her feel better.

Eventually, after a very long day, (and dinner out at Coco's Restaurant in town) the flooring was finally all installed. Hooray! There was much rejoicing in the house. But Verla Kay and her husband had forgotten one very important thing. The Evil Toilet sitting on the paneling board in the bedroom.

They lifted the toilet, and carried it into the bathroom. It was still leaking, unfortunately. It leaked across the bedroom carpet and onto the new floor in the bathroom. But Verla Kay and her husband refused to be cowed by The Evil Toilet.

Verla Kay put the new wax ring under it, then they placed the toilet on the bolts over the hole. The Evil Toilet was bolted down, the water was hooked back up and turned on and they tested it. No leaks. Yay!

Then they flushed it. Oops! It wouldn't flush!

Now why was that? It couldn't possibly have been from the fact that they forgot to remove the rag stuffed into the hole to keep the sewer gasses from coming into the house while the Evil Toilet was in the bedroom, could it?

Oh, the horrors of getting old and losing your mind and your memory!

Okay. So now it was to do all over again. Turn off the water, bail out the toilet, unhook the toilet and water line, lift the toilet and oh, look! There's the rag! Still in the hole, plugging it up so nicely!

Verla Kay removed the rag (EWWWW!) and the toilet was replaced on the bolts and the now empty hole.
It was bolted down, the water line was hooked back up, the water was turned on, and no leaks. Yay!

Then they flushed the toilet... and it leaked all over the new floor. The wax ring needed replacing again.

By this time it was 10:00 PM, and both Verla Kay and her husband were tired, cranky and frustrated. Yes, WalMart, which is right next door to the RV park is open 24 hours, but who wants to walk over to WalMart and across their big parking lot at ten at night for a wax ring? Not Verla Kay or her husband! So The Evil Toilet still sits in the bathroom, laughing and snickering at Verla Kay and her husband.

And it's all to do over again today, after a new wax ring has been purchased. Hopefully, Good will triumph over Evil and the toilet will work without leaking the third time it's placed back onto The Sewer Hole and the water has been turned back on for the third time.

But for now? It's time to take a walk over to WalMart and buy another Wax Ring.

Verla Kay hopes The Evil Toilet will love this ring and will accept it and be not-so-evil in the future. She hopes....

And that's the story of The Evil Toilet. Be careful it doesn't visit your house!

P.S. The trim hasn't been put back around the edges of the walls in these photos yet. When it is, there won't be any more gaps between the flooring and the walls. It's almost done!

The refrigerator nook looking from the living room into the bathroom.

The stove nook.

The Evil Toilet looking into the kitchen and living room beyond.

Aha! The new wax ring has been purchased. The water was turned off yet again, the toilet drained once more, it was lifted up, Verla Kay put the new wax ring under it, it was bolted back to the floor, water line was reattached, water was turned back on and it was flushed.

It...

did...

not...

leak!

Hooray! The Evil Toilet has been conquered!

Good has triumphed!

And so ends a satisfactory saga in the life of Verla Kay.

Life Keeps Moving

2011-03-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

Life keeps moving along and sometimes I feel like I'm being left behind.

Other times I feel like I'm on a surf board, riding the wave and I'm way out in front of it.

Today my "baby" turned 30 years old. Today I feel very, very old.

It seems like only yesterday I was worrying about getting to the hospital in time so he wouldn't be born in the car. We lived in Johnson Lane (near Carson City, Nevada) and we were 45 minutes from the hospital. My 3rd child was born an hour and a half after I started labor, and my previous two children had been born in 2 1/2 hours and 3 hours, respectively. The doctor was also concerned, so he had me come in a week before my due date and I was induced. Bruce arrived 45 minutes after the first pain started. it was a good plan.

But how could that have been thirty years ago today?

I used to wonder why time seemed to go so slowly when I was a child (a week felt like a month, when I had to wait that long for my birthday or some special event to happen) and now, I blink and a month has gone by!

I have a theory about life, one that makes total sense of this phenomenon. I believe we are all born with an internal clock. When we are young, that clock is running very fast, which makes exterior time seem to go by extremely slowly. The older we get, the slower our internal clock goes. As it slows down, time around us seems to go faster and faster.

That explains to me why the days go by so quickly now, when they barely crawled by when I was a child.

And all of this talk about time flying by makes me want to write a time travel book. Maybe, just maybe, I will one of these days. If I can make the time. Right now, all my time is being taken up trying to get the cement mess cleaned up in my outside room down here in Arizona. It's taken over my entire life! I feel like I've been "eaten" by the "cement monster."

Grinding off the lumps on the cement floor after i filled the cracks (in preparation of putting down the new flooring for this formerly outside area that's now an inside room) created a veritable nightmare of a mess of cement dust in the air. It's on the furniture I'd piled up so I could get TO the cracks in the floor, and on everything else in the room, too. I tried to cover things with sheets, but... the dust got under the sheets. It blew inside and on top of EVERYTHING in the room. I've been vacuuming for days. It doesn't seem to get any better.

Time is zooming past me like race cars on a speedway, and the dust stays. And stays. And STAYS.

Oh... yeah. I took time out to bake some homemade chocolate chip cookies while I waited for the dust to settle. When I saw how thick that settled dust was in the room, I set the cookies down in the middle of it to take a few photos. I think they look rather nice on the floor in the middle of the dust....

Maybe by next week I'll have the dust under control. I certainly hope so, anyway. Right now, it's making me feel almost as bad as I do about getting so old. I wonder if my poor little vacuum will turn on again now. It keeps quitting - too much dust and it's been getting too hot with all the hard work it's had to do. Once it cools down, I can go back to vacuuming again. Almost half the room is done now. Maybe I'll live through this after all. I hope so. I'd like to be around for another birthday of my youngest son. For several of them, actually.

Happy birthday to my son, Bruce!

Verla Kay's Critique Service Opens

2011-02-08T09:00:00.001-07:00

It's finally happened. I yielded to outside pressure, broke down and opened a critique service for people who want me to help them with their picture book manuscripts. So far, it's going very well. I've been very impressed with the quality of the manuscripts coming across my desk. They have a lot of merit and have been written by people who obviously have a lot of talent. I love being able to help people take good writing and mold it into even better writing.

When I think back to my early days at writing picture books, I shudder at some of the manuscripts I sent out. I had no concept of what a picture book text needed to have in it to be publishable. I didn't think about the visuals - what descriptions needed to be in the book and which ones needed to be left out of the book for the illustrator. I didn't know about pacing for picture books, length, tightness of the text, or the natural rhythm that must be in a great picture book to make it read and flow well - whether it's in rhyme or not.

It didn't occur to me that the rhymes I wrote had to have a constant rhythm and pattern for the book to flow well. I didn't know how to make the natural rhythm of the words in the story match the rhyming pattern of my story without forcing them. I didn't know what I needed in my stories to make them rich and full and desirable to editors.

All of this I learned over time, but much of it was learned through "The school of hard knocks" through my rejections. Slowly I came to understand that picture books aren't like writing novels. You don't have unlimited numbers of words to tell your story. A picture book is the equivalent of a long, epic novel written for toddlers in something like 500 words. Somehow you have to get the full story across using the bare minimum of words.

My rhymes perfected over the years until I am getting the ultimate in compliments on them. People have told me about my books, "That's almost like poetry, isn't it?"

"Yes," I replied, with a huge smile on my face, each time I was asked that question. "It is."

But of course, my story wasn't written "like" poetry, it "was" poetry. But obviously I'd written it so well that the readers noticed the STORY first... and only noticed it was in rhyme after the fact. That is one of the best compliments I have ever received on my writing. The other was when the master poet, Lee Bennett Hopkins told me I'm "a master at couplets." What a compliment, coming from an incredible poet like him!

When people send their stories to me to be critiqued, about half of them are in rhyme. I love being able to help people with their rhyming stories! And I do. (Help them with their rhymes.) Sometimes they just need a bit of tweaking to be absolutely perfect. Sometimes they need help seeing the story through the rhymes. Sometimes the writers haven't yet found their rhythm and beat in the rhymes. Sometimes they are trying to write a story in rhyme that would be better told in prose. I've seen it all - and all of it can become better.

Occasionally, stories come across my desk that aren't appropriate for toddlers. Most toddlers don't want to read about a girl getting a new prom dress. They do want to read a story about a child losing a favorite toy, or not wanting to take a nap, or having a problem with a playmate. Sometimes it's hard to find an unusual and unique slant for a time-worn story - like a monster under the bed story. For a tried and true subject like that - one that has been written so many times before, you have to have a totally different approach or it won't ever get past a first reader.

So many things to think about when writing picture books, and my new critique service is now here and open to help others who want to become successful and get their picture books published.

WARNING! I give my all when doing critiques. If all you are looking for is a cheerleader - someone to say, "Oh, that's WONDERFUL! Send it out!" then do not send your story to me to be critiqued. Because what you will get from me is my honest opinion about your story. I'll tell you what I feel you are doing right, and where you can improve. (And I have yet to see the manuscript that can't be improved somehow!) I'll encourage you to expand on your strengths and I'll give you suggestions and ideas that can help the weak parts of your story and/or writing. I'll give you everything I can to help you get your story where you want it to be - ready to submit.

I'm excited about this new critique service. For so many years, I learned from others and from my own experiences. It's wonderful to be able to "give back" now.

I have had 9 picture books published so far and there are two more coming out in the next two years. Every one of my published books has gotten some kind of acclaim. Quite a number of them have been named to recommended reading lists, a few have been on the Social Studies awards lists, one was named a "Best Book of the Year" by Child Magazine, and one was put on the Amelia Bloomer List of Recommended Reading.

I'm a former student of ICL - the Institute of Children's Literature. After going through both their basic "Writing for Children" course and their advanced course, I eventually became an instructor for them, and for three years I taught the very course that started me on my journey to publication. I also helped give back to SCBWI - The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators - by working as a Regional Advisor for three years. It was great to "give back" to the organization that taught me so much through the years at conferences and workshops.

My writing career has been exciting, fun, and hard work, but I wouldn't trade it for anything! And now I'm ready to "give back" to the public some of the expertise and knowledge that has been so hard-earned by me over the years. If you are interested in having me consider your work for critique, check out my rates and send an email to me. I'd love to discuss your picture book story with you!

So if you write picture books and would like to have one of your books personally critiqued by me, send an email to:

verlakay2 (at) aol.com

Put CRITIQUE SERVICE in the subject line of your email. Payment will be via PayPal to this same email addy. Be sure to take the spaces out of the email addy and replace the @ symbol for the word (at) before using this email!

You will email your manuscript to me as soon as a confirmation email that your payment has been received has been sent to you. You will receive, by return email, a full critique of your manuscript. This will include some or all of the following:

"Overview" comments about your story concerning its appropriateness for today's market and the age of children for which you are writing
Assistance and or comments about the pacing and image possibilities of your story
Line by line editing of the story itself
Assistance with rhyming and rhythm when appropriate

You may include a cover or query letter in the word count if you wish to have it critiqued, also.
-------------

Special introductory prices for this critique service will be as follows: (These introductory rates will go up once the service is fully operational.)

300 words or less = $50

301 to 500 words = $75

501 to 750 words = $100

751 to 1000 words = $125

1000 to 2000 words = $200

Note: Word count is for the story only. It does not include your name and/or byline or the title of the story.

------------

I'd appreciate if you would spread the word about my new critique service and if you have used my service, please go to my message board and post about your experience. I'm eager to help others. It's what I love to do most!

http://www.verlakay.com/boards/index.php?topic=52790
http://www.verlakay.com/boards/index.php?topic=52791

The End of Another Year

2010-12-31T16:46:00.001-07:00

So here it is... the end of another year and almost the beginning of a new one. And where am I? Nearly the same place I was last year. Well, not quite. Quite a bit has changed in my life during the past year. My great grandson is now two years old. It's hard to believe he could be so big already!

My husband and I are enjoying the relatively warm weather down in Arizona, compared to the freezing temperatures and snow up in eastern Washington. When you live just two miles from Idaho and a mere two to three hours away from Canada, you know the weather is going to be c-o-l-d in the winter - and it usually is up there. This year is no exception. I'd much rather be in 53º weather than 14º!

If you were reading my blog last year, you might remember the beautiful new bicycle my husband bought me. I rode it about six times, then crashed in the middle of the RV park and was afraid to ride it again after that. (This is what happens when you never learned to ride a bike as a kid. It's pretty hard to learn when you are a senior citizen!) Well, I was feeling very guilty about not riding it, but no more. It was stolen just before Christmas. "Merry Christmas" to someone, but not with my best wishes! We had both our bikes locked up quite securely - we thought - inside a very heavily padlocked chain link fenced-in area behind our trailer. The thieves took ahold of the chain link fence, and pulled the entire gate away from the fence, then opened the gate with the padlock still on it, used bolt cutters on the bike lock inside on the bikes and rode both bikes off.

It's amazing how violated you feel when someone steals from you. I'm still sick to my stomach a month later and am just now beginning to be able to talk about it. For weeks I harbored evil thoughts of catching the thieves and pouring burning oil over them with maniacal laughter filling me as I watched them writhe and burn in agony. Or electrifying the fence and putting another new bike in there just to smile happily as their bodies fried from the electrical current when they tried to steal the third bike. Of course, I'd never actually do those things. But I can certainly see how someone could do something like that. I certainly wanted to commit violence on them!

Maybe I need to write something very evil and very horrible. I could make them the bad guys and see that they got what was coming to them. Somehow... I don't see that making a very good picture book, though.

Probably the biggest change for us is that our beautiful, wonderful home we've been renovating for the past seven years is finally done - and it's up for sale. Someone is going to get one whale of a deal on it. It's been totally renovated from top to bottom. All new wiring, plumbing, insulation, sheetrock instead of lath and plaster, all new electrical fixtures, cabinets, granite countertops in the kitchen, all new appliances, a stripped and incredibly beautiful stairwell, an 8' by 8' oak fireplace surround and mantle, wainscoting and crown molding in the downstairs rooms... a library, office and two bedrooms and three brand new bathrooms plus a huge workshop and upstairs extra game/exercise/hobby room in the oversized 30' by 40' garage with a 30' by 12' three sided lean-to attached to it.

Here are a few photos of it...

The house itself is a big, rambling farmhouse, built in 1903.

I spent many hours designing and building the fireplace surround. It was originally pink cement bricks. ICK!

The kitchen is wonderful now. Bright, and very convenient to work in.

Never again will I ever strip and refinish a stairwell. Months and months of work went into this. I lost count of the number of dental picks I broke while stripping day after day after day on this stairwell to get the over-ten-coats of turquoise paint off all the spindles and out of all the cracks in the bead-board and newel posts. It's so beautiful now.

The dining room chandelier is my favorite thing in the entire house. I spent a good portion of my only large royalty check purchasing it. If only it fit in my little Arizona trailer, it wouldn't be staying with the house!

If anyone knows someone who wants a really wonderful house... let me know.

I hate, hate, HATE selling it, but it's just not economically feasible for us to keep it any longer now that we plan to spend our winters in Arizona.

One word of warning though... if the new owners of the house ever paint that staircase, I might change my mind about using an electric fence or buckets of burning oil to torture someone!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Setting Realistic Goals

2010-12-08T10:58:00.001-07:00

It's getting close to the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, and I'm wondering how many people actually create written goals to meet during the new year? Usually I write down three things I want to accomplish during the next year and this year will be no exception. Most years, I do meet my goals, as I did again this year.

To set goals for yourself and succeed is a very good feeling and there's no reason in the world why everyone can't reach all of the goals they set for themselves if they set the right kind of goals. I've learned a few things about setting goals through the years that might help some of you while setting your own goals.

1) Goals are only dreams until they are written down.

2) Goals MUST be attainable to be true goals. Example: You can NOT set a goal to be published in the next year, because you don't have control over being accepted for publication.

3) It's best to have more than one goal, and to have each goal be a different level of difficulty.

Example:

One goal might be to write every day, five days a week, at least for 15 minutes. For me, this is a very difficult goal to keep because I am not a person of regular habits!

Another goal might be to finish the draft of one novel or up to three picture book manuscripts during the year. I would find this to be a very attainable goal.

A third goal might be to perfect and send out 10 (or whatever number you have finished) manuscripts and keep them circulating until they have either exhausted all of the agents/editors you wanted to send them to or they are accepted. This would be a very easy goal to reach during the year for me, since it takes only a bit of pre-planning to be ready to send each story out again the minute it is rejected. (When I sent out my own submissions, to make this easy, I pre-addressed labels for ten publishers for each manuscript. When I got a rejection, the story immediately went back out with a new cover letter to the next publisher on my list using the top label for that manuscript. All I had to do was take the saved cover letter in my computer, plunk in the correct address and editor's name and print it, then pop it into an envelope with the pre-prepared mailing label and it was on its way again.)

4) Be realistic when setting goals. It doesn't do you any good to set a goal to lose 100 pounds in one year when you know you will most likely only be able to lose a pound or so every few weeks. Instead set a goal you CAN reach - like losing 20 or 30 pounds this year. If you go over your goal, GREAT! Also, don't make your goals so easy you can accomplish them in a month. Give yourself something to work towards for most of the year.

4) POST your goals where you will see them EVERY DAY. Post them where you can act on them when you see them if possible. For instance, I post my writing goals at my computer. Each time I sit at the computer, I see them, and they remind me to act on them. If I have a goal of losing weight, I post it on my refrigerator or cupboard door, so I remember it when I'm in the kitchen. A goal to remember to exercise? I haven't found any place to put that one yet where it would do me any good. (I am very resistant to exercising!)

Setting and reaching your goals can give you a very good feeling of accomplishment. If you set three goals and make two of them and partially finish the third one, you have done well. If you meet all three, you truly have something to shout about. That's GREAT!

Happy Goal Setting, Everyone.

How to Survive Tough Times

2010-11-18T08:50:00.002-07:00

When the publishing industry tightens its belt, what do those of us who write and/or illustrate children's books do?

We can moan and groan and cry and scream and complain. But that doesn't help much. It does raise our blood pressure. It takes away our peace of mind. But it doesn't help the situation much.

Publishers ARE still buying books. They ARE still publishing stories. They just aren't publishing as many right now, and they are definitely looking more closely at the "bottom line" before taking on new projects. So what can we, the writers and illustrators of these stories do to make sure ours are the ones the publishers are buying?

I'm not an expert, and I don't claim to have all the answers. Heck, I might not even have any of the answers! But I've been around the publishing business now for over 20 years and there's a few things I've noticed that I'd like to share with you.

First, publishing is a cycle business. No, I'm not talking about motorcycles or bicycles. I'm talking about patterns. There's a repeating pattern to this business. YA books will be "hot" sellers and picture book sales will be down for a while. Then Midgrade books will be all the rage and YA sales will languish. Another time picture book sales will seem to fly out the door while novel sales will be sluggish. And no matter what is selling well at the time, sooner or later, the "trend" in what's selling well will come back to the type of books you write and/or illustrate.

And through all of this, all the different kinds of children's books are selling - they just might not be selling quickly or easily. The trick to making a sale during tough times is to write (or illustrate) something that is SO wonderful, SO unique, and SO special that editors absolutely HAVE to buy it -- something they can't imagine letting go anywhere else.

Easy? Not at all! But possible? Absolutely. People are doing it every day. Why not you?

I believe most dedicated writers and/or illustrators of children's stories have a burning desire inside to be published - to have stories that are locked up inside be told in a way that will allow many children to experience them - and that they truly care about the quality and type of stories that today's children are reading. They want something special for those children, something that will leave kids with a lasting impression, whether it's an emotion, knowledge, or just a few moments of pure enjoyment.

The trick in tough times is to write (or illustrate) something that editors want. I've been struggling now for 20 years to figure out just what that is. I've found the answer a few times - hence the books I have in print and that are still coming out in the next two years. But I have to admit, it's a lot harder today to get a story into print than it was twenty years ago. And it took me three and a half years to sell that first story back then, so it wasn't easy even then!

You will need the three P's to succeed.

Perfection, Perseverance, and Patience.

Easy? No way! Possible? Absolutely.

First, write (or illustrate) a story that is so incredibly perfect there's not a single thing you feel needs to be changed. Then send it to a critique group or pay to have it critiqued at a conference, and make it even better. Do that as many times as necessary, until you finally have something that you and your critiquers feel is ready to submit. This could take weeks, months, or even years, but don't be discouraged.

This business is notorious for being S-L-O-W. Unless what you are working on is a current event that has a need to be "out there" right this minute, the time it takes to "get it right" won't matter in the long run. And remember, what's a current event right now, might be history long before what you are writing ever reaches print status, so unless you are writing for magazines or newspapers, I recommend staying away from something that has to be published right now to be current, because it traditionally takes one to five years to see a book in print.

Second, once you have your story perfected to the point where you feel it's really ready to submit, get it out there. Your story will never, ever sell unless an editor sees it. That means either you have to send it to editors, or you have to have an agent who will submit your story to editors. If you are writing and/or illustrating a picture book, most editors are open to unsolicited submissions. If you are writing non-fiction, you can send a query to most editors. If it's a novel, you can query, or you might want to take the extra time to find an agent first. But be aware, just having an agent won't guarantee a sale, and all agents are not created equal. Often writers and illustrators go through more than one agent before they find one that is the right "fit" for them, for their wants and needs.

The last of the three P's is the hardest one of all. Having patience. If you are like me, you HATE to wait. I avoid long lines like the plague. I'm always trying to find the shortest line in the grocery store, taking advantage of the "fast pass" features at amusement parks, and leaving and coming back to a place of business that is crowded with people waiting for service until a day when they aren't so busy.

Unfortunately, none of those options are available in the publishing world. (I move we instill a "fast pass" for publishers! We take a number, and then work on things until our number is called. When it is, we send in our manuscript or artwork and the editor gets back to us within one week with a decision. What a relief that would be for all of us, eh?) The reality of the publishing world is that you are probably going to wait anywhere from several weeks (for an email query) to many months or even a year or more (for a snail mail submission) before you get an answer to your question: Will you publish this?

The hardest waits are when you only have one thing out there. All your hopes are focused on that one submission. So while you are waiting, perfect another story and get it out there, too. and another. And another. The more things you have circulating, the less you will worry about any one project, and the less it will hurt if it comes back rejected, because there's still hope for all the rest of the things you have out there.

Be prepared to wait, but don't make it your life's work! Keep writing (or illustrating) more projects and keep them circulating once you have them the absolutely best you can get them.

Remember that your stories and/or illustrations must shine above all the other submissions. They must make editors sit up and take notice. They need to be the sparkling jewels in the slushpile or amongst the other agented submissions. In a tough market like we have today, it's even more essential for submitted stories to be extra special, glowing jewels. It can be done, but it might take a little extra time to perfect submissions. So spend that extra time to assure that your submissions will be the ones that editors "have" to publish and you will soon be shouting your good news, "I sold my submission!" to the writing world. After all, getting published is why we all submit our work.

We write and/or illustrate because our hearts won't let us do anything else, but we submit to be published. Are times tough right now? Yep. Are they impossible? Not at all. If you are willing to do what it takes, you CAN still be published, even in today's tough market.

So write, illustrate, and take heart. The publishing trends will come back around to your stories - and if you keep working on your submissions, they will be perfect enough and wonderful enough to catch an editor's eye - one that will say, "Oh! This is amazing! This is incredible! This is WONDERFUL! I HAVE to publish this!"

Getting Story Ideas

2010-11-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

Are you stumped for a story idea? Don't have a clue what to write about? Try asking yourself some of these questions:

What stories have you read lately that you just LOVED? Who were the characters in them? Why did you love the characters so much? What did the characters do that made you love reading the story? What story ideas would you like to read about next?

What would a good character name be for the main character in a new story? What kind of personality would this character have? Would she (or he) be shy and timid, bold and brassy, feisty and ornery, or a gentle and caring kind of person?

What would this character's main problem be? Why would this problem be important to the character to solve? How would the character figure out a way to solve it? Who or what would stop the character from getting what he/she wants?

Once you have a main character, and a main problem and where you want the ending of the story to go, you can start writing. Try writing the very beginning and the end of the story. Now all you have to do is fill in the middle. How will your character get to that ending? What problems will get in the way, and how will the character get past those problems?

Get creative! Let your imagination and that of your friends help you find a fun, interesting, and if possible, a unique and different path to solve the character's problems than what you might first think of. The more different you can make your story from every other story that's out there, the better!

Does your character have a best friend? What big problem might cause them to get mad at each other? As soon as you think of a reason, turn it upside and inside out, and see what would happen then.

Example: Your main character and her best friend both want to win the magazine drive contest at school. They decide to work together, but the main character starts thinking she'd rather beat her best friend and be first in the contest... not have it be a tie like they talked about. So she goes out behind her friend's back and starts selling lots more magazines on her own while her friend is at piano practice lessons.

That's one way to take the story. Then, play the "What If?" game with your idea. What if the main character was selling these magazines IN HER FRIEND'S NAME, instead of in her own, so her friend would win the contest, instead? Ah... now we have another story idea! Or what if she cheats and changes the paperwork so some of her friend's sales are now in her name instead of her friend's name? Now we have another story idea!

What if the main character goes up to a house by herself and finds someone v.e.r.y, v.e.r.y STRANGE in the house - someone who turns out to be an alien in disguise from another planet or another dimension. The main character get zapped and finds herself all alone on another planet or in another dimension! Now you have another totally different idea for a story.

Take any simple idea and play around with it until you come up with some idea that "clicks" and works for you. Do you want to write a story that is realistic, futuristic, fantasy, historical, or something else? Do you want your story to be humorous or serious?

When all else fails, start writing about why you can't write a story. Write about what it feels like to want to write a story and not have a good idea. While you are writing, some little gem of an idea might pop into your mind.

Another way to get ideas is to read magazines, newspapers, and surf the internet. There are zillions of ideas all around you if you go looking for them. When an idea comes, be sure to play the What If? game I mentioned above. What if THIS happened to your main character? What would she do then? Or what if THAT happened to her? Then what would she do?

When you find ideas, as you think of silly or great things, WRITE THOSE IDEAS DOWN. Put them all into an "idea" file, pick out your favorite to work on and then forget about all the rest of your unused ideas for a while. When you need another idea, you can go back to your idea file and look through it. You will be amazed at how it will stimulate your mind to create new and better ideas for the next time.

Life is Good

2010-11-03T12:07:00.001-07:00

We're down in Arizona now, where it's warm and sunny every day. LOVE it. I look at the 33º to 50º temperatures back up in Washington and am SO glad we are here. We can go swimming at nine at night in the outdoor pool and not be cold. We can walk around the park, chat with congenial souls, and enjoy any or all of the planned activities they have. There's between eight and twelve activities to join every weekday, and three activities every Saturday and Sunday for anyone who wants to participate. So far, we haven't participated in much. We're too busy working on finishing our outdoor "Arizona" room - a room attached to our trailer. It will double the living size of our space when finished, and will be our main living room. The current living room area will become our dining area since we have our computers set up on one end of the trailer in the current dining room area.

I hope to have the entire room finished in the next two weeks and I'm SO excited about it! Can't wait to have all my time to WRITE, PLAY, and ENJOY life, instead of laboring.

Meantime, I got the F&G's for my upcoming "Hornbooks & Inkwells" book. It's coming out next summer and what a fabulous book it will be! (For anyone who doesn't know the publishing term F&G's - that's the folded and gathered actual printed pages of a picture book. They are loose, and not yet bound, and the cover is just the printed jacket. But it's the entire book... just lacking the binding.)

I was especially happy to see a quote from Lee Bennet Hopkins on the back of the jacket flap. Wow! Was he ever complimentary. He said, "Verla Kay masters periods of American history with quatrains that soar across pages. Young readers will shout: 'Hoo-RAY for KAY!'' (THANKS, Lee, if you are reading this.)

On November 1st I took the plunge and submitted the first 250 words of the barely started novel version of my WWII POW story to the GWW (Gotham Writers' Workshop) Young Adult Novel Discovery Contest. They close their contest on November 30th, and announce the winners the beginning of February. Before I spend a lot of time working on a novel version of this story (which I honestly don't believe I can do well enough to sell) I figured I might as well get some totally impartial feedback on what I'm writing to see if this is something I should pursue, or if I should forget it and find another way to tell this story.

If anyone else out there is interested in participating in the contest, I found it very hard to find the link on their site. Here's the URL for it - just be aware that it does cost $15 to enter the contest: http://www.writingclasses.com/ContestPages/YAPitch.php

So the labor on the outdoor room continues, my writing moves very slowly along, and yep, life is good.

Finding the Right Agent

2010-10-22T12:30:00.005-07:00

Agents! There are as many different kinds as there are different kinds of people. Well, that makes sense, since agents ARE people. But how do you find "just the right one" for you?

It's a crap shoot, a guessing game, and takes some luck, research and diligence on your part. But there is an agent out there that's "just right" for each of us. The problem is finding an agent that matches your needs, wants and desires.

Each writer and illustrator wants something different from an agent. Before you can find the right match for you, it's important that you know what you want from your agent. Here's a checklist to help you determine what you would like to get from your agent. Answering these questions will help you to define your wants and needs from an agent.

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Do you want an agent that will ONLY negotiate contracts for you while you do all the submitting, etc. yourself? (This might be a hard agent to find. You might do better to get a contract lawyer instead of an agent.)

Do you want an agent just to take care of business-related issues but not do any critiques of your work? (This agent would submit your manuscripts, negotiate your contracts, take care of the financial and business end of business, etc.)

Do you want an agent that will take care of the business end of things for you and also critique your work and have you do rewrites before submitting? (Some do, some don't.)

Do you want your agent to always send you copies of every rejection and all correspondence between editors and the agent that relate to you and/or your work? (Some do, some don't, and some only do when you ask them to.)

Do you want a personal relationship with your agent? (Some agents are business ONLY, others are more friendly with their clients, and a few are best friends with their clients.)

Do you have a good sense of humor and do you want your agent to also like to joke around? (If you are a jokester and your agent isn't, or vice versa, you might not get along too well over the course of time.)

Do you expect to communicate very frequently with your agent? (Example: Do you want weekly reports from your agent? If so, don't get an agent who will only contact you when absolutely necessary.)

Are you okay with going months without a word from your agent when there is nothing to report to you about your stories?

Do you want an agent who is very aggressive in submitting or could you be happy with a more "easy-going" agent who might have a more congenial relationship with editors because the agent works less aggressively, but still accomplishes very good deals for clients?

Are you willing to take a chance on a brand new agent, who might not have a track record of sales yet?

Are you willing to work with a "one person" agency, where if the agent quits the business, there is no one to take over for the agent or do you need to have a well-established agency where there are other agents to "take over" your accounts if your agent quits the business?

Is it important to you to have an agent that "specializes" in your kind of writing? (If so, will that agent also represent other work of yours if you decide to switch - for example - from YA novels to picture books?)

Do you need an agent who is very fast at responding to client questions and requests or will you be okay with an agent who takes a week or more to respond to your questions?

Why do you want an agent? Is it for prestige? Because you think you "have" to have an agent to succeed? (You don't.)

Will you be okay having no control over your submissions - letting someone else handle all your submissions or do you enjoy the research and submission process yourself and do you want to pick who your stories are sent to? (You might be happier without an agent - just hiring a contract lawyer to negotiate and check over contracts as you make each sale.)

Will you be okay losing all control over your finances and having all your money go first to your agent and then having the agent forward your share of your money to you after commissions have been deducted from the sum sent to the agent from your publisher? (This is how it works when you have an agent.)

Will you be okay with 15% (or more) of your commissions going to someone else? (That's the standard rate for author agents - 20% is standard for illustrator agents.)

Would you enjoy spending a lot of time with this agent? (You could spend many years working together - especially if the agent sells some of your work.)

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As you can see, there are a lot of things to consider when picking an agent. One of the most important things for people to remember is that YOU are picking an agent, not the other way around. Yes, agents can say no to you, and they have control over who they pick to represent. They are picking their clients, just as carefully as you are picking your agent. It's a two-way process. Just because an agent says yes to your original query, doesn't mean you must hire that agent.

When you get a yes response to a query, that's when the "selection" process really begins. That's when you need to consider all of the above questions (and probably a lot more I've forgotten to ask!) and decide which ones to discuss with your prospective agent. You do not have to say yes the minute an agent says, "I love your work and would like to work with you." Take some time - a week, a few days, or even a month if you need to - before making that final decision.

Agreeing to work with an agent is a lot like getting married. It's not too hard to tie the knot, but it can get very messy and difficult to part ways later on - especially if you have had any "children" (books published) together. You will be tied to that agent for the lifetime of those books you published together, just as if you had been married and had children together. So take your time and be sure (or as sure as you can) that this is a person you want to work with for a long, long time.

Happy Agent Hunting!

A Look at School Visits - Part Six: "Following Up"

2010-10-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

When school visits are done, it’s easy to just say, “Whew! Finished!” and walk away. I have to be honest and say that’s what I’ve done with most of my visits. It wasn’t because I was deliberately trying to be rude or unappreciative. It’s because I honestly didn’t know there was anything I should be doing afterwards. (And to all of the schools I visited that had this happen, I’m sorry!)

If only I’d known there were things I could have done to leave an even better impression with those schools. But now that I do know about these things I should have done, you can bet I’ll be doing them in the future!

The first and most important thing is to send the school a thank you note for all they’ve done for you. This can be via snail mail or even email, but it should be done in some way. This is especially important when you know the school did a lot of pre-visit activities with the children.

When you walk into a school and there are posters of your books and welcome signs to you all over the walls, you know these children have been totally prepared for your visit. When the questions the children ask you reveal their knowledge of your book/s you know they have read some of your work and are aware of what you write.

When everything is set up the way you requested for your presentation, when there is someone on hand to “take care of you” during the day, to be with you and guide you to the rest room, to the lunch room, and to take care of any little problems that pop up during the day, you have been well taken care of and this is definitely worth a special, “Thank you” note.

This kind of school did a lot of work with the children to get them ready for your work. They deserve a nice thank you for all they did before and after you arrived, so give it to them in a gracious way.

In your thank you note be sure to mention how appreciative you were of all they did to make your visit a success and you can also mention that you’d love to visit other schools in their area and would appreciate it if they would recommend you to other schools. (Assuming this is the truth. If your visit was horrible because they weren’t at all prepared for you, you might not want to visit that area again. If this is the case, leave this out of your note.)

Often after a grammar school visit you will get one or more packets of “Thank you” notes written by the children at your presentations. These are obviously assignments the children did in class, but just as obviously many of those children were excited about your visit and were happy to write their thank you notes to you. Drop each classroom a note, letting them know how much you enjoyed their letters and how much you enjoyed visiting them at their school. The kids will love knowing you read their notes, and the teachers will appreciate that you responded to their notes. DO NOT try to answer every child’s letter individually, unless each one was mailed to you (or emailed to you) individually.

In some kind of a file – either on line or in a filing cabinet – keep a record of the schools you have visited. In this record, be sure to write down any problems that came up at that school, how the problems were handled, and basically, how your day went at that school. Be sure the date of your visit is easy to spot in your record. In this record, also note any especially nice things that happened at that visit, any teachers or librarians or principals, or even children who were especially helpful and/or memorable during your visit. If you come back to visit that school again, you can ask about those people. If they are still at the school, they will be very flattered to have been remembered by name!

You might want to contact each school again in about four years, when all the children have moved up in grades. At that point, you would have a whole new audience in the younger children and the older ones would get a completely different viewpoint of your visit – because you obviously have much more detailed information in your presentations for children that are now four years older than when you first spoke to that school. If the school loved you the first time you came, they might be eager to bring you back again in a few years.

Once you have properly thanked the school for bringing you in to speak to the children, it’s time for you to “clean up” your presentation supplies and get ready for the next visit. This should be done as soon as you get home, or at least within two days of your visit to the school. This entails totally emptying out any bags or boxes you took to the school and going through all your supplies, one by one.

Do you have a rejection folder or a folder with artist’s rough sketches in it? Make sure anything you might use at your next visit is back in the proper order in the folders and that the folders are still labeled properly and are in the right order for your next school visit.

Go over any technical equipment and make sure it’s clean, that all cords and hookups are in the proper places in your bags, and that everything is ready to take out of the box and instantly use during your next visit.

Weed out any crushed, crumpled, mangled or otherwise grubby handouts. Are some of your bookmarks wrinkled or not in pristine condition? Throw them out and replace them with fresh ones.

Do you have “curriculum tie-ins” papers or booklets that you normally give to teachers to use as a follow-up after your school visit? Are there enough unwrinkled, uncrushed copies in your bag or box for your next visit? If not, replenish them now.

Do you use pens or pencils during your visits? Make sure there’s enough and if they are pencils, make sure they are all nice and sharp and that they have good erasers on them.

Do you give out bookmarks to the children during your visits?

I give every child in every presentation at every school I visit a personally autographed bookmark. The kids – and teachers alike – really appreciate it. And yes, it can be grueling to sign thousands of bookmarks before a full week of school visits, but the rewards in those kids’ faces when they find out they will each be getting a personally signed autograph from me is reward enough. And then, they might be less apt to throw away a bookmark with my autograph on it. And since all of my current and upcoming books are listed on my bookmarks, their parents will probably see them, too. And who knows? Some of them might want to buy my books for their children. So it’s a “win-win” situation for all of us, in my opinion, and worth all the work of making and signing all those bookmarks.

Now is the time to replenish bookmarks for the next school – as long as the next school visit is in your calendar and your list of upcoming and current books isn’t slated to change between now and that visit. You don’t want to autograph 4000 bookmarks, then have a new book come out and have all of those bookmarks be “out of date!”

Do you give away one of your books to each school you visit? (I do. It’s another way of saying, “Thank you,” to each school for having me come visit.) If so, be sure to replenish that book in your bag, so you have one of each of your books to take to the next school.

If you sell your own books when you do school visits then you will need to replenish your books for sale boxes, also. Personally, I never sell my own books at school visits, unless I have a school who wants some of my out-of-print books that I still have some copies of – then I’ll bring a few copies of those OP books with me. Instead of supplying my own books, I have the schools contact their local bookstores to supply any in-print books they might want to have for sale the day of my visit. I’m there to inspire the children to read and write – not to sell books. If any are sold, that’s always a nice bonus for me, but I never expect sales.

Once you have gone through all the things you took with you to your school visit, and everything is back in order and ready to go for the next visit, you can relax, knowing you are totally ready for the next presentations you will need to give. You’ll be glad you took the time to get everything in order the first time a school calls and says, “We had an author scheduled to come visit us in two days and he had to cancel due to illness at the last second – is there any way you can come and fill in for the day?” You will be able to say, “Yes,” and not be stressed to get ready for the visit.

School visits are so worthwhile – both to the children and the teachers at the schools, and for you, personally, too. It’s a wonderful way to augment your income (I make a lot more off my presentations than I do from the sales of my books!) and it keeps you in contact with the children – the people you are writing for – as well as getting you out of the house and around people. It’s too easy for an author to sit in front of the computer, day after day, writing wonderful stories ina vacuum. That’s what I tend to do and school visits give me a way to connect to people and especially to children in a really meaningful and wonderful way. They are so worth doing!

May all of your school visits be fulfilling to you and everyone who attends your presentations. Some of my most memorable moments have been when children told me how much my visits to their schools meant to them – how inspired they were from my visits – and I wish the same for each of you. Happy School Visits to everyone!

Verla Kay

A Look at School Visits - Part Five: "Dealing with Problems"

2010-10-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

One: You are human. You might make some mistakes during the day. That's not a tragedy unless you turn it into one. You are in control of your attitude for the day and if you keep a positive attitude about you, everyone will "roll" with whatever happens and the day will be a success.

Turn it into a joke: Did you trip over an extension cord? Laugh and tell the kids, "Well. That was an interesting trip I just took. I think I'll avoid going there again." They can all laugh with you and they'll remember you as a funny, fun person.

Be sincerely apologetic, but don't make a tragedy of it: Did you pour 5 gallons of water into a sink in a brand new, not yet finished classroom where you just gave a gold-panning demonstration... and then discovered the sink had NO DRAIN hooked up and the entire 5 gallons of water was flooding the new carpet in the classroom? (This happened to me!) Grab your 5 gallon tub, stuff it under the sink and apologize, but don't stress over it. Even the teachers didn't know it wasn't hooked up and it could have been them that did the same thing. Tell them, "EEK! Who knew?"

Turn it into a teaching point for the kids: Did your words get all in a tangle when you were trying to explain something while talking to the kids? Stop, take a deep breath, and say, "Good grief. THAT didn't come out the way I wanted it to. It's a good thing authors get to revise over and over again in their books. Imagine what my book/s would be like if I just left the first words that came into my mind in them."

Try to imagine ahead of time anything that might go wrong and how you will handle it: If there's a fire drill in the middle of your presentation, "roll with it." Tell the kids, "Well! There's an interesting scene I can think about putting in one my upcoming books."

Always laugh at yourself and your mistakes: It will allow your audience to laugh with you, to have a good time, and to remember your visit with happy memories. You never want to make your audience feel uncomfortable because you are showing your nervousness or you are showing them that you are uncomfortable in your presentation. If you have fun, so will your audience. RELAX and be yourself. You are only human, after all.

Two: Arrive at least 15 minutes before your presentations are due to start. I like to arrive at least 1/2 hour before I'm due to start my presentations. This gives me time to make any last minute changes in the set-up of the room, test the microphone (if they have one for me) and my equipment to be sure everything is working properly for my PowerPoint presentations. It also gives me time to set out my books in an attractive display, make sure any other supplies I will need are in place (like a bottle of water to soothe my rough throat when I talk for a while, my folder of rejections to hold up for the kids to see, etc.) and it allows me time to be shown where the bathroom is, too. By the time the kids start coming into the room, I am calm, relaxed and comfortable, and I know I'm all ready for them.

Three: Know what your teachers are expecting (A hands-on writing workshop? A talk about what it's like to be an author? Writing hints or suggestions? To hear some of your book read to the kids?) and whatever they are expecting, make sure you deliver THAT presentation. Your teachers and students alike will come away satisfied and happy with your day.

Four: Be flexible. Tailor your presentations to the group. Are the children getting restless? Throw in some audience participation questions that will bring their attention back to you. If you are losing the attention of your audience, immediately change course. Quickly finish up whatever you are talking about and move on to the next subject in your talk.

Do they seem very interested in one facet of your presentation? Expand on it and help them gain the most from it.

Ask for questions during your presentation if it doesn't "throw you off" or frustrate you. (I usually require all Q&A to wait until I'm done, as many questions the children ask are covered in my talk.)

Five: Are you having technical difficulties with equipment? Have a backup plan! I can’t emphasize this enough. ALWAYS HAVE SOME KIND OF A BACKUP in case you can’t use your technical equipment. If you are depending 100% on your PowerPoint presentation, and the power goes off or the equipment malfunctions, you will have to do something else. When this happened to me, I turned my laptop towards me, and gave the PowerPoint presentation without the images, just using the program to guide me through my talk. I told the kids, “Today we’re going to use our imaginations overtime. You are going to imagine all the images that are on my screen that you can’t see.” I then “acted out” whatever I could of the screen images to help their imaginations and we turned that visit into one of the most fun ones I ever gave – even without the images they would normally have seen. In places, I made it a guessing game for them… “What image do you think I would have on my screen when I told you this…? And this? And what about this?” Have a backup plan!

Six: DO leave time (about 15 minutes) for questions and answers at the end of your presentations. Kindergarteners and preschoolers might only need 5 minutes maximum (if that) and they will most often try to tell you stories, "My grandma does...," "My dog..." and you need to keep them from taking over your presentation with their stories. Tell them before you let them ask questions, "I'm going to let you ask some questions now, but I will ONLY take QUESTIONS. A question is something that starts with a word like, Who, Why, What, How, or When." When a child starts to tell you a story, you interrupt and say, "Oops! That's not a question. Do you have a question to ask?" If they can't think of one immediately (they usually won't) then say, "Raise your hand again when you have a question." And then be sure to come back to them if they do think of a real question.

Third through sixth graders are usually great at asking questions. Younger children and older children (especially middle school and high school kids) are sometimes less forthcoming with questions. If you are in a Q&A session and no one is asking anything, volunteer some questions of your own. (Have several appropriate questions pre-planned in case this happens.) "One question I get asked a lot at school visits is... " and then answer your own question. That might spark other new questions from the kids. If they still don't have any questions to ask, then fill in the time by reading from your newest or upcoming book or just chat informally with them and tell them some funny stories about things that have happened to you as an author.

Seven: End your day on a positive note. Sign any books that the school might have of yours either for the kids or the library or the individual teachers. Thank the teachers and kids who helped you during the day, thank the people in the office that helped make your day successful, and thank the principle, librarian, and anyone else who helped set up your day. NEVER show that you are disappointed with the "sale" of books at the school. You aren't there to sell books (although if they sell 50 of them to kids, and you have to autograph every one of them, that's fantastic!) you are there to get the kids excited about reading and writing. Sales often come after your visit and are a bonus for you.

Eight: Your contract spelled out how and when you are to be paid. If it's on the day of the visit, be sure you get your check before you leave. If there's a problem with payment the day of the visit (we couldn't get the check in time... but we will mail it to you as soon as we get it) then be gracious but firm. Be sure to mention that you hope they can get it to you within a week so they won't be charged the late fee (that is spelled out in your contract with the school).

It doesn't happen often, thank heavens, but once in a while you will get a school that tries to take advantage of you. I'll never forget when I did a school visit and they tried to add on THREE extra sessions to my planned five sessions... (I pulled out my contract and said, these are what I'm contracted to do today – the principal was unbelievably rude and nasty about it, but I did only the five scheduled sessions.) They didn't leave any time for me to go to the bathroom all day, they didn't feed me anything for lunch - just worked me straight through the lunch hour with different groups, and in general, they treated me like dirt under their feet and then they didn't pay me until three months after the visit.

That's when I learned how important it was to ALWAYS have a contract IN WRITING and it's also when I added a penalty ($50 extra charge) if they didn't pay on time according to the contract. (It’s also when I learned that charging only $100 for a full day’s presentations left the school feeling I wasn’t worthy of their respect. I raised my rates and got treated much better after that.)

Nine: KNOW that at some point, something is going to go wrong. No matter what it is, keep smiling, keep your cool, and remember, the kids are there to see YOU. They are there to hear what YOU have to say. They want to know about how you write your books, and what it’s like to be an author. These are things you have intimate knowledge about. These are things you can share – no matter what happens, you can still give the kids a wonderful experience and as long as you are having fun, SO WILL THEY. And they will remember you long after you are gone as “that author that told us so much about being an author!”

Ten: No matter what happens, make lemonade out of your lemons. You will leave a wonderful impression on everyone in the school instead of leaving the teachers and/or children with a sour taste in their mouths if you can manage to turn all problems into positives. Above all – HAVE FUN!

A Look At School Visits - Part Four: "Successful Presentations"

2010-08-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

What makes a really successful presentation and how can you be sure that yours will be one?

Being totally prepared is the first step. You have in writing (in a contract or email) exactly how many presentations you will be giving, how long each one will last, how many children will attend each session and what the ages/grades are for each session. You know what time you will start and what time you will end your visit to the school. You have a copy of your book, any handouts you might want to leave with the school, and any other supplies or equipment you want to have with you for the day. You know what topics you are going to cover during each of your presentations and you have verified your visit with the school a day or two ahead of your visit to make sure they are prepared for you on their end, too.

Now comes the scary/exciting/wonderful part of your school visit - the actual presentations!

There are several things to remember when you are giving presentations.

One:  Arrive at least 15 minutes before your presentations are due to start. I like to arrive at least 1/2 hour before I'm due to start my presentations. This gives me time to make any last minute changes in the set-up of the room, test the microphone (if they have one for me) and my equipment to be sure everything is working properly for my PowerPoint presentations. It also gives me time to set out my books in an attractive display, make sure any other supplies I will need are in place (like a bottle of water to soothe my rough throat when I talk for a while, my folder of rejections to hold up for the kids to see, etc.) and it allows me time to be shown where the bathroom is, too. By the time the kids start coming into the room, I am calm, relaxed and comfortable, and I know I'm all ready for them.

Two:  Know what your teachers are expecting (A hands-on writing workshop? A talk about what it's like to be an author? Writing hints or suggestions? To hear some of your book read to the kids?) and whatever they are expecting, make sure you deliver THAT presentation. Your teachers and students alike will come away satisfied and happy with your day.

Three:    Be flexible. Tailor your presentations to the group. Are the children getting restless? Throw in some audience participation questions that will bring their attention back to you. Do they seem very interested in one facet of your presentation? Expand on it and help them gain the most from it. Ask for questions during your presentation if it doesn't "throw you off" or frustrate you. (I usually require all Q&A to wait until I'm done, as many questions the children ask are covered in my talk.)

Four: You are human. You might make some mistakes during the day. That's not a tragedy unless YOU turn it into one. Laugh at any mistakes so your audience can laugh, too. (We'll discuss ways to do this in Part Five of this article - "Dealing with Problems.")

Five: DO leave time (about 15 minutes) for questions and answers at the end of your presentations. Kindergarteners and preschoolers might only need 5 minutes maximum (if that) as they will most often try to tell you stories. (Handling this problem is covered in the next article, also.)

Six: End your day on a positive note. Sign any books that the school might have of yours either for the kids or the library or the individual teachers. Thank the teachers and kids who helped you during the day, thank the people in the office that helped make your day successful, and thank the principle, librarian, and anyone else who helped set up your day. NEVER show that you are disappointed with the "sale" of books at the school. You aren't there to sell books (although if they sell 50 of them to kids, and you have to autograph every one of them, that's fantastic!) you are there to get the kids excited about reading and writing. Sales often come after your visit and are a bonus for you.

Presentations are the Heart of your visit

What you say to the kids, and how you give your presentations is what the kids and teachers are going to remember the most about your day. Think of ways to make your talks fresh, interesting and fun. Don't attempt to be anyone but yourself. If you aren't a comic, don't try to do a comic presentation. You can be serious and still be very interesting IF what you are telling the kids is compelling and at THEIR comprehension level.

Kindergarteners and PreSchool children won't sit for longer than 15 minutes without getting restless. When I talk to this age group, I teach them a simple "activity" song that they act out after about 15 minutes. They have to stand and sit as they sing different words in the song. It's a song from long ago, so it "fits" into the historic theme of my books and it works out the wiggles in them and leaves them laughing, exercised and happy for the remainder of my presentation.

First through Third graders can sit for 30 to 45 minutes, as long as you keep the talk focused around things that interest this age group. Telling very short, interesting stories about your writing, your characters, or yourself will usually keep their attention from wandering.

Fourth through eighth graders can handle presentations that are 45 minutes to an hour long. They can go as long as an hour and half if it's a hands-on workshop session where they are writing their own stories with your guidance.

High school kids and adults can have all day sessions, as long as you have a lot of personal interaction and hands-on workshop sessions.

Making sure you are prepared to fill the proper amount of time for each age group can give you great peace of mind before and during your school visits.

Kids of all ages (and adults, too) love to see photos of authors as babies and children. If you can manage to show some of these to the kids throughout your presentation, it's a great way to keep their attention focused on you and your talk. If the photos you show are humorous, it's a fantastic way for authors who aren't comedians to get some laughter and joy into their presentations. Let the photos tell the jokes for you. Laughter keeps your audience's attention and makes them remember you fondly after you have gone home.

Practice Makes Perfect

Your first presentations will most likely be a bit rough around the edges. You might be somewhat stiff and uncomfortable talking in front of the kids. You will have gaps in your presentation where it doesn't flow as smoothly as you'd like. You might say some dumb things that you want to kick yourself for later. If you aren't an accomplished speaker yet, don't worry. Most of us started off just like you! You'll get smoother and more comfortable as you do more and more talks.

It's like buying a new pair of stiff leather shoes. They rub you in all the wrong places at first, sometimes even causing blisters to form on your feet. But as you wear them longer and longer, they begin to soften, to mold themselves to the shape of your foot, until one day you realize they are your most comfortable pair of shoes. Giving presentations is just like that. Eventually they will feel so natural to you and be so much fun, you'll wonder why you were ever worried about doing them.

Still to come...

Part Five: “A Look at School Visits – Dealing with Problems”

Part Six: “A Look at School Visits – Following Up After School Visits”

A Look at School Visits – Part Three: Preparing for Visits

2010-06-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

When you are first starting to give school visits, it can be pretty scary. What will you say to the kids? Will they be interested in what you are saying? What do you need to take with you? How should you plan your day? Will the teachers be happy with your presentation, too? What if you forget what you were going to say? What if you forget to bring a vital piece of information along with you?

These are all very valid concerns but there are things you can do ahead of your visit to maximize your visit and minimize problems. The first thing to do is to make sure you know exactly what the school expects of you. In order to be assured that the school and I are both “on the same page” and that I will be delivering a program that meets their needs, I use a contract that is filled out by both myself and the school ahead of time. They have a copy of it and I have a copy of it. There is a sample contract on my website that I’ve designed that you can copy and change as you see fit to meet your own needs. The location of this sample contract is on the following page on my site: On this Site/Writers.Artists/Beyond the Basics

Make sure your contract covers these important things about your upcoming school visit:

· Contact person name and phone numbers.

· Location and phone number of the school or facility where you will be speaking.

· Length of time you will be at the location.

· Number, lengths, and topics of presentations you will give, and the number of children and grade levels for each session.

· TIME in between presentations for one group to leave and the next group to show up! Also make sure there is time built into your day for you to use the rest room and to eat!

· A list of equipment you will need the school to provide. Include any tables, microphones, audio/visual equipment, etc.

· The price you are charging for the visit/s and when you will be paid. Include a late fee of $50 if the payment is not made on time (unless you have agreed in writing to extend payment to the school).

· Other expenses paid by the school such as travel, meals, lodging, etc.

· Places to date and sign by both you and the school, and include a place for your SS# on the form for tax purposes.

Once you have all of the details of your visit arranged and in writing, you will be ready to prepare each individual presentation. For example, let’s say you are going to a school and will be doing three assemblies in a single day. The first assembly will be 45 minutes long for 4^th through 6^th grades, the second assembly will be 30 minutes long for K-3 grades, and the last assembly will be one hour long for 7^th – 9^th grades. There will be 200 children in the first session, 135 in the second session and 150 in the third session. Now you are ready to prepare your sessions.

The school asked for more focus on writing for the first assembly, inspiration about being an author for the younger children in the second session and specific information on writing non-fiction books for the older children. This means you will be preparing three separate presentations, to address the required topics of each group.

You don’t have to drag a lot of stuff with you to school visits, although I personally tend to take quite a bit of materials with me. Essential are a copy of each of your books you have had published, or copies of the magazines in which your stories have been published if you don’t have books out yet. I would never go to a school visit without a thick file of my rejections. The kids LOVE to see all those rejections! I also bring along sample pages of some of my early drafts and revisions, as well as pages with editor notes on them telling me what to revise during the publishing process. I used to bring these on overheads, but now I have them in a PowerPoint presentation. If you put your PowerPoint program onto a flash drive, you can usually plug them into any computer at the school and give your presentation. BE SURE TO CHECK AND SEE WHAT IS COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR SCHOOL BEFORE THE DAY OF THE VISIT!

Because I rely heavily on my PowerPoint presentations and I use a Mac computer, and most schools nowadays have IBM computers with Windows, I bought my own projector and take it and my laptop along with me to schools. That way, I know I won’t have any problem getting my programs to work.

And this is where I want to say a few words about using PowerPoint presentations. They are FANTASTIC… IF you set them up properly. Avoid most of the ‘bells & whistles” built into them. During large assemblies the kids in the back won’t hear the sounds, so keep sounds turned off. Avoid slow-turning spins and other special effects except for very rare instances when you want to dramatically emphasize a certain point. Take the time to work out the timing of each slide. Set them up so when you turn “off” one slide, the next one automatically and instantly loads.

A smooth presentation is more important than a lot of “flash.” Once you have prepared a PowerPoint presentation for a specific age group and length of time, label it accordingly – as: K-3 About…30min would be the label for a 30 minute “About the Author” presentation suitable for Kindergarteners through 3^rd graders. Next time you need a presentation on this subject of that length for this age group, you will be able to pull up your PowerPoint program and tweak it as necessary to fit the exact needs of that school.

If you have one presentation on your flash drive (or in your laptop) for each age group, you will be able to instantly bring up the prepared program for each group of children, even if they change the assemblies around after you arrive at the school. Sometimes they will switch two groups because of testing or field trip conflicts or some other school event that the person making your schedule was unaware of before the day of your visit.

Be sure the school knows to have a large screen or white wall available for your presentation if you are bringing an electronic presentation with you. I always throw a long extension cord into my bag, and an adaptor that will allow me to plug two things into the cord so I can plug in both my projector and my laptop.

If you choose to do school visits without any electronic machines, then you will need to do a different kind of preparation for the day of the visit. I don’t recommend writing out a speech for kids. It’s better to have little index cards with a word or two or sentence on each one covering each topic you want to share with the children. When I used cards for my talks, before I started using overhead slides and then PowerPoint, I punched a hole in the corner of each card and put each age group and length of presentation onto a different round, metal key ring. Then, if I got nervous and accidentally dropped my cards, they didn’t scatter. I could pick the ring back up, flip to the last card I was using and I was on my way again in seconds. Make one set of cards for each of your presentations, so you won’t talk too long or leave anything out for any of the groups.

Plan your time well, practice what you will say so it becomes second nature and make a checklist of anything/everything you will need to have with you the day of your visit. Don’t forget to include a copy of your contract with contact names & numbers on it and bring a map and driving directions so you don’t get lost. Get there early and you will be a welcome author guest speaker!

Still to come...

Part Four: “A Look at School Visits –Successful Presentations”

Part Five: “A Look at School Visits – Dealing with Problems”

Part Six: “A Look at School Visits – Following Up After School Visits”

A Look at School Visits – Part Two: Booking Visits, Setting Prices & Contracts

2010-05-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

A Look at School Visits - Part Two: Booking Visits, Setting Prices & Contracts

Verla Kay

Disclaimer: When I speak of authors in this entire series of articles, I'm speaking of authors and/or illustrators. Please remember in each instance where I use the word, "author," to substitute the word, "illustrator" if you are an artist, or "author/illustrator" if you do both.

When it's time to book school visits, you will most likely find that your publisher won't be much help. It's pretty much going to be up to you to find the schools and book your own visits.

The first place to look is to your local schools. (Although, to be truthful, I've found schools that are not local treat me a lot better than most of my local schools, for the most part. Somehow, if you are local, they feel like you can't be that special, but if they have to bring you in from a distance, then you must be really good! LOL!) Ask your local teachers for recommendations of other schools where you might give presentations.

You can look up schools on the internet, too. Check districts near you, and then districts in areas where you are willing to travel. Library and School Educator's conferences are an exceptionally good way to find school visits, and don't forget to talk to the children's librarian at your local library, who may well know which teachers and schools are most interested in advancing the literacy of their students.

Check the internet for the Reading Association and Library conferences taking place near you for your state. Find out how to put in a proposal as a speaking author. Be SURE to emphasize that you are an author wanting to speak, not an educator! Authors are billed separately in the conference programs and they are given book signing times, as well. Otherwise, you will find yourself totally lost in the mass of other speakers - speakers who have strong educational credentials, which you may not have. Another advantage of being billed in the program as an author speaker, is that many of the educators and librarians who attend these conferences are looking for authors to bring into their schools and they will come to your session for the express purpose of seeing if you are a presenter that they want to bring in to inspire their students.

Bring plenty of bookmarks with your contact information on them. I recommend having a photograph of your book and/or one of yourself on your bookmarks. It will help them to remember who you are after the conference is over. Don't expect immediate results! Most of these educators and librarians are looking for authors for the future - not for the current year. I've been contacted by people that took my contact information at my sessions three or more years after the conference ended.

Some of the library and educator/reading association conferences I've attended have paid for my expenses to speak at the conferences, but most have not. One conference where I spoke once made me not only pay my expenses to and from the conference - travel, meals, lodging, etc., but they made me pay to ATTEND the conference to give my talk! I felt it would be worth the exposure, though, so I gritted my teeth and paid the fee to attend and speak. Within two years, I had been brought back to that state (all expenses paid) twice by schools, and was paid by those school districts many times over what it cost me to attend that one conference. It was well worth the initial investment.

The conferences that were closest to me were the cheapest for me to attend, so I started with those. As I made money from presentations picked up from those close areas, I was able to move further afield. Once you start booking visits and are successful with your presentations, you will find word will spread -- especially in this age of the internet!

If you have had postcards made of your most current book, send them to the libraries and schools in the areas of the country that you would most like to visit. Tell them you are interested in coming to their area (or if you are planning a trip to that area, when you will be in their local area) and that you are interested in finding schools (or libraries) that would like to have you as a speaker.

Also, once you have done some school visits, ask for referrals to other schools. Word of mouth is the best way of getting bookings. Many of these educators and librarians get to know each other at the big conferences and they will help spread the word for you if you are an accomplished and entertaining presenter.

Once you have located likely targets for your presentations, find out who sets up the author visits for each school, school district, or library, and then speak directly to that person. For public libraries it will most likely be the children's librarian or activities coordinator, and for schools you will probably need to talk to the librarian, the principal, or a representative from a parent-teacher association.

Find out what they are looking for and see if your presentations will fit their agenda. What do they pay? How many sessions will they want? When would they want you to come? What age group/s will be in attendance? Will your session/s take place in the daytime or at night? How many sessions do they general request of a visiting author? How long will they be? Do their requirements "fit" the agenda you have in mind for your presentations? It's not wise to book yourself as the picture book author of a rhyming, juvenile, counting book as a speaker to junior high school students unless you have a way of presenting that will captivate that particular audience.

Example: You are there to talk to the junior high students about a career as a picture book author. This would be an entirely different presentation than the one you would give to elementary students about the same book. For younger children, you would emphasize the story, while for junior high students you would talk about the benefits of being an author, the excitement of creating books for young children, the advantages of being your own boss, setting your own hours, and the joys of creating something special that will connect with young children.

On the other side of the coin, if you are writing mid-grade or young adult novels, you will want to look at older elementary students through high schools for your talks. It's always best to plan to make contact with the kids and/or educators and librarians that will be reading/using your books. It's a natural audience for you and is the best place for you to start your search.

Once you have found your target audiences, you will want to set up terms for your visits. The first thing you need to know is how much you will be charging for your visits. When I did my first couple of visits, I did them locally for free. I explained to the schools that I was just starting to give presentations and asked if they would allow me to come in at no cost to them and test my programs on their students. They were very agreeable!

Once I had perfected my presentations (see the last part of this article series for an example of a scorecard I used to help my presentations improve) then I started charging for my visits. At first, I didn't have any books out yet, so I only charged $50 for one session at one school. Then, as my books came out and as I became more polished as a speaker, I charged more. I went to $100 for a day, and then $300. Later I upped my fee to $500 for a full day's school visit. Now, with nine books published (six still in print) I'm charging $750 for local schools for a full day and $950 - plus mileage/travel, lodging and meals - for out of area visits. I consider any place as "out of area" if I have to spend the night away from home. Note that this is only for school visits of up to four presentations in one day.

If I am doing a school fair, or some other kind of event where I'm only giving one or two presentations, my rate will be substantially lower -- usually not more than $500. I normally charge $100 to $300 for SCBWI conferences as I like to "give back" to SCBWI. (The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators) Check with other authors in your area to find out what they are charging, and then charge accordingly. You don't want to undercut your peers, nor do you want to price yourself right out of the market with fees that are too high. A great way to find out what is being charged in your area is to join SCBWI and talk to your regional advisor. Some SCBWI regions have programs in place to help book school visits, too. Ask what your region offers.

Once your prices are set for your visits, the next step is to make sure you and the school both know exactly what is expected of your visit. There's nothing worse than showing up at a school with presentations that are totally inappropriate for what the school expects -- unless it's showing up with the expectation of giving three 45 minute long sessions and finding out they have booked you for SEVEN back-to-back hour long sessions and that you thought you were being paid $500 and the school only pays you $100 for the entire day! (Or like one author I heard about who did three grueling days of visits and was paid with A BAG OF COOKIES at the end of the three days!)

I can't recommend having a signed contract strongly enough! Here's a sample of the contract that I put together years ago for my visits. SAMPLE SCHOOL CONTRACT It's somewhat outmoded for today's sessions, having overhead projectors listed instead of powerpoint, but it will give you a good idea of what to put into the contracts that you create for your presentations. Make SURE you have a contract in writing, with a copy for both you and the school, so that there aren't any unpleasant surprises when you arrive. (It's perfectly okay for you to copy, change and print this contract for your own use. I just ask that you not post it anywhere on the internet without giving me credit for having created the master copy of it.)

Always have the school finish filling out the agreement. When I talk to the visit coordinator on the phone, I fill in how many sessions I'll be doing, what grades they are for, and how long each session will last. I put in the date of the visit and the times I will be starting and ending my visit. I mark if there will be any special sessions, like a "Meet the Author" informal session for special writing students, or a booksigning session. I put in the price agreed upon and how I will be paid.

Some schools can pay the day of your visit, but many have to go through "channels" and will need to send it a purchase order and have a check mailed to you afterwards. You will see on my contract that there is a $50 penalty attached to my fee for not paying as agreed in this contract. I have never required the penalty if the school contacts me with a real reason for a delay in payment. It's there solely for the purpose of "encouraging" the school to do their paperwork in a timely manner.

Make sure the school gives you adequate directions on how to get to them. It's not quite as crucial as it was in the days before there were driving map programs on the web, but it's still a smart thing to have it in writing on your contract.

Be sure the phone numbers of the school and a contact person for the school are on your contract. If you get stuck in traffic, or have other difficulties finding the school the day of the visit, you will need to have a way to reach someone.

I make sure I know how many children and what grades I'll have at each session, as well as how long that session will last. This allows me to bring personally autographed bookmarks for every child in the school that I'll be seeing the day of my visit. (And yes, it can get tiring and be a bit expensive, signing and giving out over 4000 bookmarks for a full week of school visits to populous schools, but the looks on those kids' faces when they each get a real autograph from the author that visited their school is SO worth the time and money and effort.)

Knowing the ages and numbers of each group also allows you to plan your presentations so they will be the best they can be for the children. Once in a while I have a session that combines an afternoon kindergarten with 5th & 6th graders. When this happens, I ask if it's possible for the kindergarten children to be allowed to leave after the first 15 to 20 minutes of the session. That way, I can give more comprehensive information to the older children, while still allowing the little ones to have the thrill of hearing "a real author" talk and read to them.

I just plan the parts of my talk that will also appeal to the younger children at the very beginning of my talk, then I pause and tell the kindergardeners that they can leave, now. It only takes a minute for them to go out, and the rest of my talk can be about things they would not be interested in -- like how much money does an author make? Do stories have to be revised? How much research is involved in writing historical stories? Etc.

If you plan ahead and know the prices you want to charge, contact schools and find out what they need and plan programs that will supply those needs, you can get as many bookings as you want to do in a year. And just for the record, many authors, myself included, usually make a lot more money from their author talks and school visits than they do from their book sales. At 62¢ per book, it can take a LOT of books sales to make even a fraction of the money earned doing just one author talk!

Still to come...

Part Three: “A Look at School Visits – Preparing for Visits”

Part Four: “A Look at School Visits –Successful Presentations”

Part Five: “A Look at School Visits – Dealing with Problems”

Part Six: “A Look at School Visits – Following Up After School Visits”

A Look at School Visits - Part One: Why Bother?

2010-05-22T01:27:00.000-07:00

A Look at School Visits - Part One: Why Bother?

Verla Kay

Why should an author give schools visits? Does an author have to give school visits? Who sets up school visits? What do authors do to keep kids interested for 45 minutes or an hour? How many sessions should an author plan in one day? How much should authors charge for their visits? Should authors have contracts with the schools? How and when will authors be paid for their visits? Will authors sell a lot of their books? How far should they travel? Will they need to stay overnight somewhere? Who pays for the expenses of their travel, meals, lodging, etc.? Is it worth it to do school visits?

Most authors ask these questions and many more at some point during the lifetime of their published books. The question of whether or not to do school visits usually initially occurs when authors have their first books published. The question recurs with every new book that is published and throughout the lifetime of each book. It’s a good question, and there’s no one right answer for everyone.

Some authors never do school visits. But in my experience, my books always sell better after I’ve been out doing school visits and exposing lots of teachers and students to my work. Even if nothing sells that day, many teachers will pick up my books later and use them in the classrooms with the children. Often children will ask their parents to buy my books after my visit, so bookstores get requests for my books, and my books come to their buyers’ attention that way, too.

Some authors are so extremely shy that to even think about doing school visits makes them break out in hives and have panic attacks. If this is you, then in order to do school visits, you will need to take some speech classes or get other training in order to overcome your severe shyness. Otherwise, you will find yourself miserable and sick before, during and/or after every school visit, and that’s not an experience you want to have – for you, or for the children attending the schools you visit.

Doing school visits should be fun – for you and for the children in attendance, too! An audience that’s having a good time is an attentive audience. One of the key elements to a successful school visit is to rivet the attention of your audience, so they will go away with information and inspiration about reading and writing books.

But what’s the point of doing school visits? They take a lot of time out an author’s day (sometimes more than one day, depending on how far away they are from where the author lives) and there’s a good deal of preparation time involved, as well as physical energy expended by the author the day of the visit. Are they worth giving?

Those are important questions to consider and the answers depend (again) on each individual author. The point of doing visits has several facets.

They expose the children and staff of schools (and sometimes entire school districts and communities) to the author’s books.
They energize the students and teachers to read and write. The author often goes home equally energized and inspired – even if somewhat exhausted from the exertion of the visit.
Most schools pay well. Many authors make a lot more money from their school visits and other author talks than they do from the sales of their books!

The question about whether or not school visits are worth giving is another question that is totally unique to each individual author. Some authors hate doing them, others love them. When you first start giving them you may find them very hard to do. You might not know what to say or do. You could feel very uncomfortable standing in front of children and teachers, talking about yourself and your book/s. This is totally normal.

The more you do school visits, the more comfortable you will become with them. As you discover ways to connect with the children and teachers, you will gain confidence, which will in turn give you greater satisfaction and make school visits more fun to do.

As I look back on the school visits I’ve given, I derive great joy in realizing how many students and their teachers I’ve inspired over the years. Some moments, of course, are more memorable than others. For instance, I’ll never forget the time I did a gold panning demonstration for a school in a newly built schoolroom. It was so new they hadn’t even used the room yet. It was also so new, there was no drain line hooked up under the sink in the room – and no one had bothered to tell me. So after my presentation, when I dumped the FIVE GALLONS of water I’d used for my demonstration into the sink, it poured right onto the floor under the sink, out into the room, and totally flooded the new carpet of the brand new room! Talk about an embarrassing moment.!

And then there was the day a little girl came up to me after my presentation and asked if she could shake my hand. Of course, I said, “Yes,” and smiled at her as we shook hands. She held that hand up into the air with her other hand as she walked away and chanted, “She touched me! She touched me!” My eyes filled with tears and I muttered under my breath, “No, Honey. YOU touched ME!” It was a very powerful, inspirational moment for me, realizing that I was being held up as a role model for this child. Me! Little old, nobody-ever-even-looked-twice-at-me-because-I-was-nobody-special, me!

Those are the kinds of moments that money and riches can’t buy. But they are there for every author to experience, with preparation, planning, and the giving of some of their valuable time and energy while doing school visits.

Which brings us back to the crucial question – are school visits worth doing? Yes! They are to most authors. Sometimes you won’t sell a single one of your books. Sometimes you will find teachers uncooperative and students unruly. But those are the exceptions that make all the rest of your school visits that much more exciting and inspiring – both for you, and for students.

When I do school visits, I never plan on selling any of my books. If some have sold, I consider that a bonus. I go to schools to inspire the students, to touch their lives for a moment, to connect with just a few of them and to inspire them to read more and write their own wonderful stories. If I can connect with even one student, like I did with that little girl who shook my hand, then for me, that school visit was a resounding success. Because, at least for me, that’s what school visits are all about – inspiring children in a totally new way – a way they might never before have imagined for themselves. So, yes, school visits are definitely worth doing.

Next time –

Part Two: “A Look at School Visits – Booking Visits, Setting Prices & Contracts”

Followed by –

Part Three: “A Look at School Visits – Preparing for Visits”

Part Four: “A Look at School Visits –Successful Presentations”

Part Five: “A Look at School Visits – Dealing with Problems”

Part Six: “A Look at School Visits – Following Up After School Visits”

RapidWeaver Rocks!

2010-05-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

I'm in heaven this morning. As most of you know, for the past year (or has it been two years? I can't remember back that far...) I've been struggling with learning how to use DreamWeaver to update the hundreds of pages on my website.

Every time I get something right, the next time I open a page I'm working on, something has "glitched" and it's all to do all over again. All I wanted to do was update the main page of my site with a template that would allow me to easily copy/paste information from other pages into the new formatted template and get through updating all of the hundreds of pages on the site.

But in over a year, I haven't even gotten ONE page to work correctly. Navigation menu buttons wouldn't work right. Images kept breaking. The program kept locking up/freezing/crashing on me in the middle of sensitive saves, etc. Nothing worked right! I've been so frustrated the past week I was ready to throw my entire computer out the upstairs window! And it's not even the computer's fault.

Yesterday, in sheer frustration, I started looking on the web for a different website creator program - one that would work seamlessly with my Mac and be easy to use. And... I found it! RapidWeaver is created JUST FOR MAC COMPUTERS! It's made to work with the Leopard operating system. (I have Snow Leopard on my machines.) AND they let you download the program and create up to three pages before you have to buy it to continue using it.

Within a few HOURS I had three pages created and ready to upload! HOURS! Not days, months, or years! (Insert fainting smiley here.) I'm absolutely thrilled to have found this program.

I zipped over to the website to buy it and found I had a couple of options. I could buy a single license for one computer for $79 or I could buy a 5 computer license for $129. Since I need my website creator program to work on both my main computer AND my laptop, I bought the multiple license option. I'm glad. If I upgrade at some point to a new computer, I'll have another license key to use on the new computer, too.

This program is absolutely amazing in both power and simplicity. Need an image on a page? Drag the image from anywhere on your computer to the page and it's there. The program will automatically save your images in the proper place on your computer and upload the images correctly when you save the page.

Want to wrap text around an image? Click on the menu and scroll down to left or right justify for images. It's done. (Some changes don't show on your page until you click on preview.) Want a logo on every page? Click on setup. Pick up your logo and drop it into the logo box. Done. Want a copyright on every page? Type your information into the copyright box (also in the Setup box) - the © symbol is already in the box for you. Done.

When it's time to upload, you will need your FTP connection information. Input it into the Publish pop-up screen and Poof! Your pages, all your images, the theme you picked, (from dozens of themes - there's a lot more than show on the Theme button. They are listed in the drop-down styles menu when you click the Page Inspector button.) everything you have on your site is instantly, correctly uploaded to your server! When you make a change on any page and save it, the next time you upload, the program will AUTOMATICALLY upload ALL changed pages, images, links, everything on your site that has changed. It doesn't touch things that haven't changed, so upload times are extremely easy and fast.

When I think of all the hours and money I spent trying to get just ONE page right in DreamWeaver, I shake my head. How sad that I spent so much money and so many frustrating hours when there was this incredible program out there just waiting for me. I'm glad I finally found it.

If you are wanting to make a website, and you have a Mac computer, I HIGHLY recommend it! It's... fantastic.

(And no, I do NOT have stock in the company that makes RapidWeaver. But I wish I did!)

Today, life is good. Very, very good.

If you want to see these new pages, go to my website and look at the home/main page, my bio About Verla Kay page and the Educators' Page. I'm VERY pleased with how easy this program is to use and how nice these pages look.

Saved by the Cavalry! A Great Review! Life is Good Today...

2010-05-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

I had so many people from SimpleMachines.com jump onto the bandwagon over the past 36 hours to help me get my message board back up and running, I felt like the cavalry had swooped down to save me. Kat helped me, then gamesman helped me, TheBear offered help and then JBlaze jumped in and finished cleaning up all the rest of the messes I'd left in the wake of trying to "fix" the board.

JBlaze was SO helpful, I'm sending him a personally autographed book - a copy of my "Whatever Happened to the Pony Express?" book that is being released TOMORROW. (I just got my author copies yesterday - just in time!)

So now the Blueboard message board forum is finally back up and running smoothly. It's been upgraded and is now so squeaky clean it should be in great shape for many months to come. It even has a new look - during all the mayhem, I was even able to get my new header/banner uploaded and installed. I love my new banner! http://www.verlakay.com/boards/index.php

I probably should not have said that since I designed and built the banner myself in Photoshop. It took me months (about six of them, I think) to get the background to blend like I envisioned and the stars to work the way I wanted them to -- not too fast, not too slow -- the twinkling stars are "just right" for the look I wanted for the banner.

This will be the same banner that will be on the top of most of my web pages once I eventually get them updated. Right now, my highest priority is to get links working on the main page of my site. People can only go four places from it at the moment -- here to my Blog, to FaceBook, to Live Chat, and to the Message Board. All of the hundreds of pages of my site are inaccessible at the moment unless you happen to know the URL of them.

If only I could figure out why the spry menu won't work. I keep trying to upload all the "pieces" of it... but they just don't work. And the one time I tried to upload it through the Dreamweaver program was when it took between 16 and 20 hours to upload and that's what "broke" the message board. I won't do that again! I'll stick with my Fetch upload program from now on.

Yesterday I got Good News on my pony express book! Not only is it being released tomorrow, but Publisher's Weekly gave a good review of it this week. Hooray for good reviews! They said in part:

"Echoing the purposeful rhythms of a pony express rider, Kay's (Rough, Tough Charley) characteristically spare and cadenced verse sets a deliberate pace as she examines the history of information delivery in the U.S..."

"This catalogue of various delivery methods, from cumbersome stagecoaches and camels to the Pony Express and telegraph, is sandwiched within a brief, epistolary story of grown siblings who live across the country and share family news via these outlets; their colloquial notes and telegrams allow readers to glimpse their joys and hardships..."

"While the story may seem to end abruptly with the advent of the steam train, it packs more than a saddlebag's worth of information..."

The review also had great things to say about the artwork in the book, which made me very happy because it's really, really good artwork and very accurate historically, too! It says the illustrations, "burst with vigor."

I'm extremely proud of this book. It was over 5 years in the creation of it, and has been over ten years to get it accepted and see it in print. A labor well worth working for to me.

I would encourage everyone to let your libraries and schools know this book is being released tomorrow. It's a great way for young kids to learn a bit of history.

Happy Reading!

Okay. Panic Time...

2010-05-11T02:56:00.000-07:00

It's time to panic. I can't figure out how to get the board back up. This is... not good. Not good at all.

* <--- that's me, splayed all over the desktop in hysterics.

The Message Board is Down

2010-05-11T01:28:00.000-07:00

I know it's down. I'm doing my best to get it back up. Don't panic - yet. I'm working on getting help right now.

The Website Won

2010-05-10T22:50:00.000-07:00

The website won round one, but I'm not through yet. I'm down, but not for the full count. I'll be back up again. Just as soon as I get over the "Creeping Crud" cold/flu bug my husband so generously gave me for Mother's Day. It wouldn't have been so bad if I could have just stayed in bed until I felt better, but he gave it to me on the first day of a four day road trip. We had to go down to California to bail out one of our boys who needs a place to stay for a while until he gets back on his feet. He's back up here with us now for a little while. It's great to have him around. But the trip down and back (18 to 20 hours in the car each way) was murder while I was so sick.

I'm really glad to be back home. I'm making another attempt at fixing my website before I hit the sack for the night. I doubt that it will do anything but make things worse, but I have to try. I'm like that. Stubborn. It's a very necessary trait for most writers, and I'm no exception.

Should things be a real mess by morning, fear not! I WILL eventually get it fixed right. Even if I have to delete the entire site but the first page for a while. I WILL GET IT RIGHT.

(UH... before all you Blueboarders come attacking me, I'll do my best to keep the message board page up and running, too, along with the Live Chat page.) But if all the rest of the site is gone for a while, don't worry. I WILL get it all back up as fast as possible.

Life might throw some curve balls at me, but I'll find a way to catch them and throw them back. I'm just that kind of person. :-)

Website Woes

2010-05-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

I am so frustrated today. I need to update my website desperately and I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I bought Dreamweaver CS4 a year or so ago in order to update my site because my GoLive 6.0 was not working well. (Kept crashing when I tried to work on pages, etc. and is no longer being used by Adobe.) Supposedly I could transfer GoLive files into Dreamweaver, so I could work on them just as I did in GoLive. Yeah. Right. I STILL haven't found a way to transfer the GoLive files into my Dreamweaver program so I can work on the pages. Dreamweaver doesn't see them. I've tried bringing them in via my server, but it kept stopping/quitting on me partway into the process. (My site is HUGE.) I finally got them to download the other day. Oh, Yay! I thought that would fix everything, but... it's only made my problem worse. NOW everything is broken that I try to upload. EVERYTHING. In GoLive AND in Dreamweaver.

Obviously, I've somehow "moved" the site stuff in a way that has messed everything up totally. But I don't know how to fix it. Needless to say, I'm VERY frustrated. I guess I need to take some website design classes to find out how to fix this mess. Only trouble is, there aren't any classes anywhere near me. I mean, really. I live in the middle of wheat fields in the middle of nowhere!

Today will be a day of fighting with the computer and my website. So far, the website and the computer are winning. That will change by the end of the day or ELSE. (Or else what, I haven't a clue. But it sounded good when I typed it.)

Today is a regular weekday, so I'm hoping perhaps I can somehow get some help from Dreamweaver. Maybe. It might have been too long since I bought the program to get help. I don't know.... They have moved up to a new version since I bought mine. They're now on CS5, I think.... So they will probably tell me "where to go." But it's worth a try, anyhow.

What really frustrates me is I have an opportunity to actually get my website to make a little money for me, in a really good way. All I have to do is update my main page. JUST THAT! But can I get it updated? NOPE. No way.

It truly is frustrating. It's a lot like losing your car keys and being frantic because you CANNOT FIND THEM no matter how hard you try or where you look. At least you can always change your locks and/or have new keys made. I'm stuck with my static website pages at the moment. STUCK!

And besides all of this, it's still raining outside. Rain. Rain and snow mixed. Rain again. More rain. All it's done for the entire week we've been home (in the state of Washington on the eastern side near Idaho) is RAIN. And it's COLD outside. We left 80º and 90º sunshine in Yuma, Arizona, and came home to THIS? What WERE we thinking of? We must have had rocks in our heads....

Ah... the joys of websites and weather. Somehow, they go together today. The rain (with a bit of snow mixed in it off and on) is supposed to continue through tomorrow. By Saturday it's supposed to warm up to 60º (from the current 40ºs). I'll believe it when I see it.

But for today, I'm going to find a way to fix this website. Hopefully, before it kills me. Wish me luck, folks. I feel a lot like I'm going in to battle the enemy. Here's hoping *I* win!

Another Exciting Adventure for Us...

2010-04-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

Wow. We had an adventurous trip home from Yuma. It started off at four in the morning with the cats "nailing" both my husband and I when we tried to give them their pills to calm them down so they wouldn't foam at the mouth in fright during the LONG trip home. Tightly wrapping them in a towel didn't keep them from getting us. But we finally managed to get both of them calmed with the pills, got the trailer all "summerized" with insulated foil in all the windows, many jugs of water placed in the sinks and tub to keep moisture in the air, Bounce sheets placed in all the drawers and cupboards to keep "critters" out, and everything locked up and/or put away for the summer months. We placed perishable foods (like spices, etc.) that might lose flavor during the hot summer days into the turned-off refrigerator (along with baking soda, of course!) and locked the doors. We were on our way and it was only 7:00 AM. Yay!

Had a pretty good traveling day, and decided to stop at The Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada, at 5:00 PM. We'd traveled 10 hours that day, and we were definitely ready to stop for the night. They had a mini fridge with tiny freezer in the room, as well as a microwave. We zipped down the road to the grocery store and bought TV dinners and a quart of milk, a roll of paper towels (for napkins) and some plastic silverware. We were ready for dinner. All was well... until morning.

We woke up to "the morning from hell." Got everything ready to leave the next morning and... we had a totally flat right front tire. AWK! Not to panic, though, we have AAA roadside service, right? Right. I called and... the nearest AAA that could respond was in Hawthorne, Nevada, 2-1/2 hours away from us. AWK! NO....!

Hubby said, "Forget it. We're not sitting here until 10:30 for them to come and change the tire. I'll do it myself."

Of course, the spare tire was in the back of the Subaru... underneath a lot of stuff we were carting home. So we moved the cat box, cat food & water (which was sitting on top of all the boxes) and then all the boxes out of the back of the car so we could get to the spare tire. Hubby got it out and... Oops! We'd put new tires on the car recently. The spare was a lot smaller than the new tires. We couldn't use it. GREAT. Now here we sat, in the parking lot of The Clown Motel with a totally flat tire and a spare that didn't fit.

We looked in the local phone book and found a couple of auto parts stores in town. Hubby figured since it was a slow leak, we could buy a portable air compressor and just keep airing it up until we could get somewhere whey they could fix the flat. Good idea. Except no one had a portable air compressor in stock. ONE place had ONE aerosol can of "fix-a-flat." Luckily it was a very short distance from the motel, so hubby walked over and bought it while I repacked the entire car. When he got back, he sprayed the can into the tire and it aired it up about half-way... just enough to allow us to drive it to a local place where they fixed flat tires. (We were so glad it was Monday, and these places were open!)

Of course they couldn't fix the flat tire, because we'd put "fix-a-flat" into the tire. That ruins tires and they can no longer be fixed once it's used. Wonderful. They did air the tire up the rest of the way for us and then the lady at the repair place sat on the phone for about 15 minutes, calling all over town until she found a place that had one portable air compressor for sale. We gave them $20 as a thank you for helping us so much, then zipped over and bought the compressor and headed for home, getting out town finally after 11:15 AM. MUCH later than we'd planned to leave town! But we were finally on our way. Yay!

We drove. And drove. And drove! Hubby didn't want to stop again. He was worried the tire would go flat again. We didn't want to fight with getting the pills down the cats again for another day's travel. (Yes, they'd nailed us again that morning while we tried to get them to take their pills.) So we drove. And drove. AND DROVE.

Finally, at 3:00 AM, 13 hours later, we pulled into our driveway. HOME! Yay!

The first thing I did, after unloading the bare necessities from the car, was to turn off call forwarding, so anyone calling our home number would get us, and not reach our cell phone, which doesn't work here in town as we have no cell service here - only when we are traveling out of town. Unfortunately, I accidentally hit the redial button and my daughter and son-in-law were yanked out of a dead sleep at 3:30 in the morning by the phone ringing one short ring. She called me back (they didn't have a clue we were at home) and when I answered, she was relieved to know what had happened. Good thing they love us. (Well, I HOPE they still love us after giving them such a scare!)

I'd called on Friday before we left Yuma and arranged for city hall to turn the water back on on Monday in our Washington house, so we'd have water for toilets and showers, etc. when we got home. Of course, they hadn't turned it on. So the next morning, (Tuesday morning - yesterday) hubby turned it on himself. I called city hall and told them what we'd done. She was very apologetic. Hmph.

We noticed there's about a two-foot square area on the very highest peak of the roof that no longer has any shingles (or even tar paper!) on it. The big windstorm they had up here the beginning of this month must have blown off a chunk of our roof. Great. It rained all day yesterday, and it will continue to rain for 2 to 4 more days according to the weather forecast. The missing chunk of roof is right over my office, of course. Right over my computer. Ugh. So far, no leaks inside, but I don't know how long that will last.

Yesterday was spent trying to get TV service turned off in Arizona and on in Washington. Took the better part of the day to get it right. At least it's done now, and we are getting all our programming up here. We are GLAD the trip is over! It was a long, grueling trip for us. (Although the cats had it pretty easy - they slept most of the way.) It might take us a week to recuperate, though. We aren't as young as we used to be and we don't bounce back from "adventures" like this one so easily anymore.

I'm just glad we are HOME.

Good News on the Book Front

2010-04-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

YAY! My editor just sent me notice that another good review of "Whatever Happened to the Pony Express?" is coming out in Booklist on May 1, 2010.

The review reads in part:

...Kay catches a sense of the Pony Express’ urgency in the terse accompanying rhymes: “Orphans wanted, / Riders, rough. / Risk death daily, / Must be tough.”...Readers will come away understanding the era’s need for quicker delivery of news and mail, so the broad angle of this overview provides value as preparation for any of the plethora of more detailed accounts of the Pony Express’ brief ride....

This is the second good review for this 9th book of mine. The first was from Kirkus. I'm looking forward to having this new book to share at the SCBWI International Conference in LA the end of July/beginning of August.

Also, I recently received color copies of the final artwork for my 10th book - "Hornbooks & Inkwells." It is scheduled for a summer 2011 release and I love, love, LOVE the art in it! I'm totally blown away by the incredibly detailed and accuracy of the illustrators my editors have picked for my books. Each one has truly been a "work of art" and has enhanced my words beyond all my wildest expectations. I feel so very fortunate to have had each of the artists I've gotten for my books.

"Civil War Drummer Boy" is the 11th book I have under contract and it's scheduled for publication sometime in 2012. I'm extremely happy to see "Hornbooks & Inkwells" and my civil war book finally getting published as I sold both of these book in 2001. They've been a long time coming!

I'm still working on my WWII POW story. Looks like it will end up being for adults, not kids, but that's okay, too. I think once it's out, high schools and teenagers will get excited about it, too. I just have to finish it and get it out there! (Someone kick me in the rear, please, and tell me to stop playing games on the computer and WORK.)

Yes. I play too many computer games. They are so relaxing and I love them!

We're closing up our two trailers and getting ready to head for home for the summer months. Yesterday we worked all day on the little trailer and got it totally "summerized." Insulated foil is taped into all the windows, the linens have all been washed and the beds are made and ready for new occupancy. I took photos of the inside and outside so we can put a listing up on Craig's List to sell it. There's new baseboards in the bathroom. (You wouldn't BELIEVE how yukky the old ones were!) Everything is cleaned and dust covers are on everything but the lamp in the living room. I have to go over and cover it with a black plastic garbage bag today, and then we are done with that whole project.

It can get up to 140º in these closed up trailers in the summertime, so it's important to make sure there's nothing inside that can possibly explode or cause problems. I put bay leaves in all the cupboards and drawers (keeps unwanted bugs out) and we have 16 open jugs of water in the sinks and bathtub to keep a bit of moisture in the trailer so things don't dry out too much.

We still have all of that to do to our bigger trailer before we can leave and I'm exhausted! Almost all of the renovations we wanted to do to this trailer have been done now, except for the Arizona room we want to put on it outside under the covered patio area. But that will wait until next time (or later) when we come back down.

Meantime, I'm trying to figure out what to keep here and what to take home. One lady told me if we leave any clothes with elastic in them (pants, underwear, etc.) that the summer heat will totally destroy the elastic. DANG. And I'd hoped to leave a complete set of clothes here so we wouldn't have to bring anything with us next time except our overnight duds.

In this trailer there's a lot more to do, because we have food, spices, etc. that I don't want to have to re-buy every time we come down. Another long time resident of the RV Park said she puts all her canned goods, spices, etc. into her turned off refrigerator and that it helps insulate them from the excess heat. Good idea! I'm going to try that. Might leave a few undies to see if helps with the elastic, too....

Yesterday evening we (hubby and I) walked over to the pool and leisurely swam in the wonderfully comfortable water in the pool for a while, then soaked our aches and pains out in the hot tub. Dried off in the warm sunshine for a little while, and then walked back to our trailer. So wonderfully peaceful. We hate to return home to our "rat race" of a big house and all the things that will be waiting for us there.

Hubby is talking about selling the big house up there. Right now, I'm all for it! I love it down here in Yuma. It's so comfortable, and when it gets hot, (like when it was in the low 90's yesterday) we have a terrific air conditioner that cools the trailer off almost immediately. All of us, hubby, myself, and both cats, are really enjoying our life down here.

Well, time to go to work. It's in the mid 70's today so it's a perfect day to spray weeds outside, etc.

45 Years and Still Going Strong...

2010-04-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

Today is my 45th wedding anniversary. I gave my husband a new light-weight shirt and pair of shorts to wear when we go to the casino for lunch today. It will be the first time we've tried out any of the three casinos down here in Yuma. We're looking forward to an afternoon of relaxation. He hasn't gotten me anything YET. He will, before the day is over. I don't need a gift, just a card. But I DO want a card. He needs to renew our 5-year lease. It's up today!

What? You don't know about the 5-year lease program on our marriage? It goes like this:

When we got married, someone told us, "If you can make it 5 years, you can make it forever." So we decided to stay together for 5 years, no matter what. And we did.

On our 5th anniversary, my husband gave me a dozen red carnations and said, "Here's a lease on another 5 years." Every 5th year since then he has renewed the "lease" and it's up again today. I'm waiting for him to renew it....

Oh. I just thought of the perfect renewal gift. He can win zillions at the casino today (like it's possible to win zillions on the penny slots, which is all we can afford to play) and that will be his lease renewal gift. Yeah. That works for me. (Grin) I especially like the idea that if he wins, I get the cash. Now that's a perfect situation in a marriage. (Double Grin)

Have a wonderful Sunday everyone. I know mine will be great. :-)

The "Best Buy" Television Problem Update

2010-04-13T10:35:00.000-07:00

The damaged television we bought from Best Buy - that the store refused to take back (they said I damaged it when I opened it, which I did not) has been getting a lot of attention, thanks to a lot of you people who have been Tweeting and spreading the word via FaceBook about how horribly I was treated in the store when I tried to return it.

Many thanks to everyone who has been helping me attempt to resolve this problem!

This morning I received phone calls from both Best Buy Customer Relations and Samsung Customer Support. Both callers were respectful and actually listened to what I had to say - a far cry from the way I'd been treated by Best Buy up to now.

Samsung people have been very nice, even though they admit there is probably little they can do to help me. At least they have not been rude to me. They have listened right from the first phone call and are doing their best to assist me with getting my damaged television replaced via Best Buy.

There's no saying how this will end. At least I'm finally being treated by one person at Best Buy like a valued customer, instead of a criminal! That's one thing I'm thankful about.

I'll let everyone know how this turns out. I'm sure there's a lot of you that would like a happy resolution. Not as much as I would, perhaps, but still.... At least I don't get sick to my stomach every time I look at the damaged television anymore. That's progress, anyway.

Moving & A Horrible "Best Buy" Experience!

2010-04-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

We (my hubby and I) are still trying to get settled into our "new" 1977 trailer. We are moving out of the smaller one and it's been quite a job to move. Since we were only in the little one for two months, and since the bigger trailer is in the same RV park, you would think it would be an easy transition to get our things from one trailer into the other. NOT SO!

I've come to the conclusion that moving is a nightmare of gigantic proportions, no matter how small and insignificant it seems on the surface. What a pain it is! It probably wouldn't be quite such a chore if I didn't have a compulsion to line every drawer and cabinet with Contact paper. Whoever invented that stuff had to have been someone who likes to torture people. At least it's a LOT better now than it was when it first came out. I remember several decades ago when it would stick PERMANENTLY to ANYthing it touched - even a slight touch. Today, it's much less sticky, so at least if you don't get it right the first time you set it in place, you can pull it up and move it around. It's still a major pain to install it, though. But it's now done!

We've been fixing up our "new" place, getting it ready for next season when we come back down in the fall. Some of the things we've done in the past few weeks on the trailer are:

We had the old carpet pulled out and new carpet installed in both the bedroom and the living room.

We had the old VERY narrow sidewalk removed and all the Mexican stones from the back of the covered patio area and had new cement poured.

We tore out and removed the huge furnace that was taking up a huge floor to ceiling two-foot wide cabinet in the kitchen. Who needs a big furnace in Yuma, Arizona?

We installed a new curved rod over the tub - like the ones they have in fancy hotels - so there is more room to shower.

We cut and installed quarter-round boards in the back of each of the dresser drawers, so the backs and the bottoms of the drawers no longer have a big gaping hole where clothes can fall out.

We cut and installed drawer glides to the dresser drawers so the drawers no longer fall out and land on your bare feet when you open them.

We bought and installed a new microwave, to replace the one that was probably leaking radiation, it was SO old.

We bought and installed (after removing the old one, of course) a new apartment sized kitchen range. I tried it out last night after hubby had adjusted the flames to a normal and correct height. When we first fired it up, the oven flames were a foot high! Came right up into the oven from the broiler area! It works GREAT. I'm thrilled! It's SO much nicer than the harvest gold original 1977 one we took out. I'm really excited about being able to cook in the new trailer - and not have to depend always on the microwave.

Today we have to start moving everything from the storage shed at the little trailer into the storage shed at the bigger trailer. As soon as the shelving units we bought are moved into this storage shed, I can get all the tools (that are taking up half the living room in this trailer!) out into the shed and we can get our living room cleared out enough so we can actutally use it. Yay!

I put together the new TV stand for our new TV. This is the brand new television we just bought that I HATE. Just looking at the box makes me sick to my stomach. We bought it at Best Buy. It came damaged - there was a three inch long scratch across the center of the screen where someone had obviously cut open the box with a very sharp object - like a razor knife - and had cut into the middle of the screen. We immediately took it back to Best Buy. They said I damaged it opening it. I told them I didn't. They told me I did. In other words, I was lying to them. They refused to take it back. Funny how they didn't have any problem with me returning it until I told them I wanted a refund. I didn't want to wait another week or two for another one to be special ordered. There was no problem with them taking it back until I said I wanted a refund, then, suddenly the damage was something *I'd* done to the TV and they refused to take it back.

I became extremely angry when they accused me of lying - ME! The person who is so danged honest I've had a zillion problems over the years because I WOULD NOT LIE just to make things easier for myself in sticky situations. It didn't make matters any better when the manager threatened to throw me out of the store (he threatened me three times!) if *I* wasn't "nice" to HIM. I told him I wasn't leaving until he gave me back my receipt for the TV. (One of the "customer service" people had taken it from me when we brought the TV into the store.) He just said he didn't have it and ordered me to leave the store. I yelled at him that I wasn't leaving without my receipt and he threatened twice more to throw me out of the store. By this time, I was SO LIVID WITH ANGER I wanted to throw the danged TV in his FACE. I gritted my teeth (I'm surprised they aren't broken into a zillion pieces!) and VERY SWEETLY SAID, "Please give me back my receipt!" He said, "That's better," and went off to get my receipt. At this point, I was so livid with anger all I wanted to do was throw the danged television onto the floor and walk out of the store. Unfortunately, I can't afford to throw away $422. Otherwise, I would have.

When we got home with our damaged TV, I called Best Buy's customer service. They said someone would call me in the next 48 hours to take care of the problem. When a lady called two days later (I didn't expect a call on Easter Sunday, which was the next day after I'd reported my problem) she said she was with their insurance company and that was a damage problem and they don't deal with damage problems, that I had to call Best Buy customer service people back and start all over with my complaint. I threw up instead.

I called Samsung (the TV maker) to tell them what my problem was and they said, "It's a damage problem. We don't replace damage problems, only defective TV's, but if you will take photos of the back of the TV of the serial and model numbers, and the damaged packaging, and the scratch on the front of the TV and email or fax them to us along with the receipt from the store, we'll look at it and see if there's anything we can do about it." In other words, they want me to jump through hoops for them and then they will spend a week or so deciding they won't do anything about it anyway. I threw up again.

When I tried to take the photos the Samsung guy wanted, I couldn't get the scratch to show up in the pictures. The screen is so highly reflective, that it just reflects the bedspread it's sitting on, the light from the windows, the walls, everything around it and you can't see the scratch in the photos. Apparently you need a professional camera to take a photo of it that will show the scratch. I'm NOT going out and spend hundreds of dollars more on a new camera to take photos of a damaged TV that they probably won't replace anyway. Since the guy was so sure they wouldn't do anything, I gave up on trying to get the photos. I don't have a scanner to get the receipt into an email nor do I have a fax machine to fax the stuff to him, and I can't get photos that will show the damage, anyway.

Oh, how I wish I had enough money to throw that television into the dumpster and just go out and by a new one. I KNEW I should have bought my TV from Sears. I've never had a problem with anything from Sears that they didn't immediately take care of for me.

This has been dragging out for a full week now and in the meantime, our old TV is still hooked up to the satellite, which is still at the old place, because we can't call them and have them move service over here until we have the new TV set up and ready to connect to the satellite. (The controller has to be programed to work with the new TV when the satellite is set up or it won't work properly.) I think my blood pressure must be shooting through the roof by now, I've been SO upset about this whole thing.

I'll be posting my horrible experience with Best Buy all over the internet about how I was treated there. I would encourage each of you to copy the part of this message that tells what happened to me with Best Buy and to share it with everyone you know. I had hoped Best Buy would make things right, that they would treat me with the dignity and concern that a caring company does to make customers satisfied consumers. They didn't. Best Buy obviously doesn't care that they have made me more than a dissatisfied customer. I will NEVER buy ANYTHING from Best Buy again. NEVER! That's the last money they will EVER see from me.

It's been a tough week.

Moving & Happy Easter

2010-04-04T09:32:00.000-07:00

Moving. We are moving. We're moving 3/4 of the stuff from the new (if you can call a trailer built in 1977 "new") trailer into our old, smaller trailer and the new stuff we bought for the little old trailer into the new bigger trailer. What a nightmare! I hate moving!

But moving is what we are doing. The new carpet was installed in the living room and bedroom on Friday. The new concrete sidewalk and back part of the patio was poured and finished yesterday morning, so now we can move into our bigger trailer.

We spent what felt like hours yesterday (but was probably only about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes) arguing with a manager who was unbelievably rude to me at Best Buy over a damaged TV we had ordered that they are refusing to take back. They say we damaged it when we opened it. It's not so, but they are refusing to take it back. Funny how they were fine with us returning it until we told them we didn't want to wait for another one to be delivered, we just wanted a refund. Instantly, the TV became non-returnable.

I've got formal complaints in at both Best Buy and Samsung about the damaged TV and my treatment by the manager at the store. We'll see what happens. At this point, I don't even want the TV. If I could afford it, I'd just throw the TV in the dumpster and go buy a new, different one somewhere else. Every time I look at it I get angry all over again at the extremely rude way I was treated in that store. It's a long, ugly story. I'll be telling what happened in great detail to the customer service/litigation people when/if they return my complaint calls.

Now we are back to moving stuff from one trailer to the other. We bought a lot of new things for the little trailer that we will be keeping in the bigger one and that means moving all the duplicate items from the bigger one into the little one. LOTS of moving stuff back and forth!

Did I say how much I hate moving? I hate moving! And there's a lot of things left to move. Today (Easter Sunday - Happy Easter, everyone!) we have company coming over for a steak BBQ and pinochle. I'm really looking forward to it! We'll be eating outside, as there's not a lot of eating room - even in this bigger trailer. Since the weather is supposed to get up to 82º today, eating outside will be a pleasure. Which reminds me... the table we need to eat on is still over at the other trailer. We need to move it over here this morning!

We are LOVING having a queen sized bed that has room to walk on both sides of it instead of being in tiny crib-width bunks that are up against walls on three sides of them. It's great to have a full sized bathtub so we can shower in our own trailer now instead of having to walk over to the public showers. No waiting for a shower stall now, either. We think we are in heaven. :-)

Our cats spent the night RACING back and forth down the length of the trailer, chasing each other. In the little trailer, they only had room to walk. If they tried to run, they would bounce off the ends of the trailer before they even began to get up any speed. Obviously they also think they are in heaven.

Well, I guess I'd better get dressed and start moving stuff again. I need to get everything ready for our company this afternoon (they are coming at 4pm) and there's a lot of things I want/need to get over here before they come. We still have all my books, most of my clothes, a lot of kitchen stuff (including things from the refrigerator) and the outdoor sheds at both places to empty and move around. Most of what was here is going over there, and most of what we have over there has to come over here. We will most likely take several more days to move all of it.

Did I mention how much I hate moving? I HATE MOVING! I hope this is the last time for me.

Yeah, RIGHT!

My husband is talking now about selling our big house up in Washington.

WHAT? WE JUST FINISHED RENOVATING IT IN JANUARY! We spent SIX YEARS working on that house, we JUST finish it and he wants to SELL it? He's worried about the economy and he wants to get out from under the big payments on it. I can understand that. But it will break my heart to sell it.

We'll see. We'll just have to wait and see.

Meantime, we are moving. Again. (Sigh.)

Happy Easter, Everyone! I hope your day is blessed with love, good health, and happiness.

Arizona Saga Continues

2010-03-28T23:39:00.000-07:00

Wow! When my husband and I were young newlyweds, with our first baby, we spent a winter in Yuma, Arizona. (That was back in the dark ages - in 1966.) We loved it here and always said we wanted to come back some day. I'm so thrilled that that day has finally arrived. We are really loving our second "winter" in Yuma. We'd like to have spent a longer time down here this year than two short months, but we had too many other commitments and had to wait until the middle/end of February before we could come down this year. It's been wonderful!

We knew when we bought our tiny trailer down here that we'd want to upgrade as soon as possible, and we were right. After we got here with our two cats, we found another trailer that is also a 1977, but it's 7 feet longer than the one we're in, and has two tip-outs, one in the living room and one in the bedroom, so it feels a lot more like a home than a travel trailer.

There's a queen-sized bed in the bedroom that we can walk all the way around. That means no more having to make up bunk beds that have walls on three sides of them. It also has a full wall closet and a real dresser. Room for clothes that don't have to shoved into overhead cabinets or squeezed into one small hanging rod in the bathroom. Yay!

We got the title to the "new" trailer on Friday and yesterday we ran around shopping for new stuff for the trailer. Today I worked on the inside of it. Much of the inside is original 1977. We're talking Harvest Gold stove and overhead stove fan. Blech! Even the kitchen sink is Harvest Gold. (I'm hoping to replace it soon.) I'll be ordering a replacement stove (white!) tomorrow. I pulled the fan down, sanded it, and painted it white today. The original refrigerator was replaced with a full-sized white one at some point. The only thing wrong with it was that the racks inside had lost their white paint and had gotten rusty. I sanded them thoroughly and painted them white today. In a couple of days I'll put them back in. I want the racks to be thoroughly dry before I put them back into the fridge. They look great.

There was a microwave in the kitchen, but it was pretty pathetic. I think it was one of the first Litton microwaves ever made. Who knows how much it would be leaking microwaves out of it by this time. We pulled it out and installed a brand new white Sharp one. It will be more efficient and we know it will be safe to use.

We found a great price on carpet/install yesterday. They will be calling us tomorrow to tell us which day they will be here to:

A) move all furniture out of the trailer
B) tear out the old carpet and pads in both the bedroom and the living room
C) install new pad and carpet in both rooms
D) put all furniture back into the house

We got an awesome price on this job. Another place (BIG name home improvement center) wanted over twice what the carpet/mattress store we found charged us. We are very pleased.

We also went through most of the stuff in the storage shed. It was almost all Christmas decorations for outdoors. There were some very neat things, as well as a lot of outdoor lights. We kept what we think we might want to use, and I put all the rest out in the front yard with a sign that says, "Free Christmas Decor. Help Yourself." I have hopes that some of the other residents will take some of the good things. Quite a few people will see it as our trailer is "on the way" to one of the two dumpsters in the park. There's a lot of stuff too nice to throw out. There's also some junky things that will probably end up in the dumpster in a few days. NOTE TO SELF: I need to remember to post a notice on the message board at the clubhouse about the free stuff.

If all goes well, we should be moving into our new trailer next week. We're very excited. Our cats will LOVE all the room in it - once they get used to the new place. Poor babies have had a rough time of it with all these new things happening around them. But they are young. They will do just fine. Especially since we are right here to help them get used to things. I know they will be more comfortable over there, since it has a very good air conditioner that works. They get so hot in the afternoons here, and since they are both purebred Himalayans with extremely thick, long fur, they need to be in a cooler space.

Tomorrow I'm going to order my new stove, find out when the carpet is being installed, and get an estimate on some cement work we want done in the yard. I'd also like to hang the new curved rod in the bathroom -- this trailer has a full sized bathtub in it, big enough to take showers in. YAY! No more having to walk through the park in a robe with hair that looks like an uncombed porcupine to take a shower in one of the park's bathrooms. I'm almost positive the man who had a stroke last week made the mistake of looking out his window just as I walked by on my way to the showers. Oh, and tomorrow I also need to work on hanging the two new mini-blinds we bought to replace two broken ones in the bedroom.

We've purchased two new "memory foam" bed toppers. One for our bed in the bedroom and one for the hide-a-bed in the living room. (For company.) The one for the sofa will be stored until we have company visiting. The other one is already on our bed. Yay! It's ready for use - as soon as we get the carpet installed.

It's supposed to be 91 tomorrow, and 92 on Tuesday, which feels like the mid 80's back at home. It's beautiful weather right now. We are very pleased.

And the Arizona saga continues.

We love being in Yuma!

Ouch!

2010-03-21T18:36:00.000-07:00

I knew it would happen sooner or later. Too bad it was sooner....

Today I got on my bike. I've been riding it every day, faithfully. I'm not much better at it than the first day I tried it. I still have a lot of trouble trying to control it and make it go where I want it to go, instead of where it wants to go. I did fine on the first turn at the end of our little lane in the RV park. But when I got to the next turn, I missed it. The bike went zooming up onto the big boulder rocks the people had in their front yard. I managed to ride across two of them, then flipped the bike up into the air on the third one, and I ended up lying at the edge of her yard in the street with the bike on top of me. Three of the lady's solar walkway lights were in pieces all around me. I'd apparently ridden over them, right along with the big rocks. (I left her a note a few hours later letting her know what had happened and that I'd be replacing the lights - I ordered them on line and they should arrive next week sometime.)

I didn't get hurt much, thank heavens, because I was wearing my new bike helmet. Luckily, I'd insisted my husband and I each get one and wear them just a few days ago. There's a lump on my left eyebrow and a red bruise on my left cheek, my left knee is a teensy bit scratched and my left forearm has a big lump on it. Other than that, I'm pretty much okay. The bike wasn't even scratched, of course, as it fell on top of me. (I did not do that on purpose!)

When we got back to our trailer, my husband had the NERVE to say, "We're going back out again this afternoon, right?" Yeah, right. OVER MY DEAD BODY!

Wait. That's what I said at the beginning of this "adventure," wasn't it? And today, it nearly was! I take that back. OVER MY SLIGHTLY BRUISED BODY!

There. That's better. It's more accurate. At least, I HOPE it's more accurate!

I know I have to go ride again. Next time, I think we'll take the bikes out to the walking/riding path out behind the park. There's no cars, houses or yards to destroy out there. Just pedestrians, and dogs being walked by pedestrians, and perhaps a roller skater or other biker for me to hit. I should be able to avoid them, if I'm very careful to stop the bike whenever I get near one of them on the path. :-) That's what I plan to do. Wish me luck...!

WWII POW Contact!

2010-03-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

What a shock I got a few minutes ago when my phone rang and it was a man I'd sent an email to last August. He was just now getting back to me. (I don't feel quite so guilty about taking months to return emails to other people, now. Seems like it's not as unheard-of as I'd thought!)

He was a pilot in WWII -- like my father. He was shot down and was in the same German prison camp with my father -- in the same compound, the same block, THE SAME ROOM my father was in!

I was so thrilled to hear from him. To my knowledge, he's the only one of the 16 aviators from that room that is still living. My heart was beating so fast and hard I could barely hear him talk. What a thrill it was to talk with a man who lived with my father during those days.

The sad part of the conversation was that he doesn't remember much of anything about his prison days. Not the people he roomed with, the incidents that happened while in the camp or anything else except how he left the camp two weeks before everyone was let out. And that was an interesting story.

Eisenhower had told all the men the last six months of the war to NOT try to escape. That it was too dangerous and would be safer for them to just wait for the war to end. When the end of the war was in sight, and it was obvious that the Germans were being defeated, most of the German guards deserted and disappeared from the camp. Two weeks before the Russians came into the camp to liberate the men, 200 airmen left the camp.

Later, when they were all under court-martial orders for disobeying a direct order from Eisenhower, an important man who was also in the camp but who had not left with the 200, was asked for his opinion. (He was a very important person in the Army, apparently.) When he was asked what should be done with the court-martial orders, he said, "There's a very good incinerator out there in the yard, Sir. That's where those papers should go." The man in charge agreed, and none of those 200 men were disciplined for their actions.

That's the only story he had to tell me about his war experiences, but I greatly appreciated him calling me. Even if he didn't remember my father, they did share experiences, and he was a part of my dad's life during those bleak years. So, while I didn't learn a lot that was new, I still got teary while talking with him. He's such a NICE man. He's 88 years old now - the same age my father would have been if he were still alive.

I'm still choked up just thinking about how sweet it was of him to call me, knowing he couldn't tell me anything much at all. Knowing how extremely long it can take to see a book in print, I just hope he lives long enough for me to get this book published so I can send him a copy of it. He gave me his mailing address. I'm crossing my fingers....

"Over My Dead Body"

2010-03-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

Most kids learn to ride bikes at an early age. That was true with my older sister and my younger brother, too. But not me. When I was old enough to get a bicycle, my sister fell on hers and got a concussion. The result of her injury? No bike for me. By the time my little brother (6 years younger than me) was old enough to ride a bike, that concussion injury of my sister's had faded far into the past... and of course, he got a bike. But never me. (And yes, I always felt deprived.)

The only time I've ever ridden a bike was three times when my youngest son (now 29 years old) was a baby. Other than that, I've never been near a bicycle. So when my husband announced that "we" were going to start riding bikes daily down here in Arizona, my first response was, "Over my dead body!"

Behold my dead body, folks. Because I just rode for about a half a mile! My hands are slippery and my whole body is shaky. I was all OVER the road. (We're talking the little roads inside the trailer park here - not a busy street.) I came close to plowing into a sign in someone's front yard, nearly hit two parked cars, one motor home and one moving car, but I missed them all. We rode down to the corner and around the back of the park, then hit the gravel in the park area behind the trailer park. I haven't learned how to brake yet, but the gravel stopped me very quickly.

I managed to get off the bike and walk it across the gravel to the grass and then rode over to the paved walking/biking/skating path. It's exactly 1/2 mile around the track, unless you take the middle shortcut path halfway around. I got 1/4 of the way around the track and... there was a woman with a running toddler walking towards me. She saw me wavering all over the track towards them and started running to grab her toddler. Wise woman.

Brakes! Where were my BRAKES?

Oh, yeah. the handlebars. The left side controls the front brakes and the right side the back brakes. I'd read in the instruction booklet that came with the bike that you should always use the back brakes first, so I gently squeezed on the right brake. It worked! I was able to stop and walk the bike past the woman and her toddler. Whew.

After I'd passed them, I got back on and went the rest of the way around... to the middle halfway path. I turned onto it and took the short way back. Enough tension for one day! We rode back to our trailer, making our total ride about a half mile. Pretty good for this old couple and especially good for this old lady who's never really ridden before.

I'm proud of myself. I need a new seat for the bike, though. One that feels more like an easy chair than a torture chamber. I bought one of those nice cushiony pads for it... but it was still uncomfortable. Hubby has a good seat on his bike. I'm taking it for my bike before our next ride.

Writing Class?

2010-03-04T13:05:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of designing a How-To class for beginning writers of picture books and I'm requesting the help of people who are either new to picture book writing or who can still remember when they were new to this area of writing. If you have a moment to answer these questions, it would be VERY helpful to me while preparing this class.

The questions/comments are numbered, so you can easily number your answers to match the ones about which you want to make comments.

When you were just starting out writing for children...

1) What questions were the ones you felt were most important to you that you needed to have answered?

2) Did you need craft help? Could your writing have improved by learning the basics of picture book writing for children? (I'm talking about story length, show-don't-tell techniques, using sound, sight, touch, hearing and smell in stories, etc.)

3) How much (or how little) would you have liked to have had a teacher critique your work?

4) How much submission information did you need? Did you know about market guidebooks, how to interpret listings in them, etc. or would you have liked to learn that during a How-To class?

5) Did you realize editors and agents are just ordinary people like you and I - or did you feel they were super powerful entities?

6) Did you know how to submit to editors and agents? How to find them, how to format your work, that it's important to include SASE's with snail mail submissions, etc.?

7) Did you feel you HAD to have an agent before you could submit your work?

8) Did you think you needed to have an illustrator before you could submit a picture book?

9) Did you realize that authors DO NOT PAY anything for their stories to be published? That the publisher always pays THEM?

10) Were you aware of vanity publishing companies and "Book Doctor" agents and that you should avoid them in almost all instances?

11) Would you have liked to learn how to create really exciting and worthy story ideas? Would brainstorming sessions have been helpful with this?

12) Did you know that editors and artists and art directors decide what the artwork will be on each page, where the page turns will be, etc.?

13) Did you know about story-boarding picture books? How to pace them?

14) What about rhyming instructions/assistance? Would you have liked to have some sessions spent on learning how to make your stories flow really well by using good rhythm techniques (whether or not they are rhyming stories) and also to learn how to make your rhymes "sing" to readers?

15) What else would you have liked to have learned in your class?

16) Do you have any other comments or suggestions to make this class a really worthwhile session for new writers of picture books?

17) Would you have liked to attend a class held in a chat room, where you could talk with the other students and the instructor in "real time"? Would this kind of class have helped you?

18) How long and how often should a session that covers these things be held? (How many days a week and over how many weeks?)

19) How much would you have been willing to pay for a session like this?

20) Do you think a course like this (taught by me) would be of interest to any new writers?

I want to thank everyone in advance that takes the time to respond to this blog entry.

Realistic Dreams

2010-02-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

Wow! I had the most realistic dream last night I believe I've ever had. When I woke up this morning, I THOUGHT IT WAS A REAL EVENT! That it had really happened. It was totally surreal. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's what I assume triggered my realistic dream:

Yesterday, my husband and I made the decision to purchase another trailer here in the park in Yuma. One that is about twice the size of the one we're in. Only one problem with that... we don't have enough money to buy it. That means getting "creative" with our finances. And the problem with that is... all of our financial records are up in our big house in the state of Washington and we're down here, in the state of Arizona. So Terry (my hubby) made a snap decision to drive back home and get the papers and stuff that we need in order to get this trailer. In one hour, he had his overnight bag packed and was in the car and on his way last night. (I'm sure a good part of his decision was because he'd found a "fabulous deal" on a new metal detector on Craig's list that he just "had to have" which he could pick up in Portland, Oregon, on his way to our house - which made the trip entirely necessary, in his opinion. Ha, ha, ha!)

So off he drove, leaving me down here with the two cats and no car. The only phone we have here is the cell phone, and he didn't want to leave me without any phone OR car or anything, so he left the cell with me. That means I can't contact him until he gets to our house.

But in the middle of the night, he came home! I said, "What happened? Why are you back?"

He responded, "It's dumb to drive all the way up there just for a couple of papers. I changed my mind."

I asked him, "What about that detector you wanted to buy?"

"We can do it through the mail," he said. And he climbed into his twin bed and went right to sleep.

I laid there for a while, listening to him snore, befuddled and feeling very unsettled. It was such strange behavior for him! He usually doesn't change his mind like that. Finally, I rolled over and went back to sleep myself. I'd give him a good grilling in the morning and find out what really made him come home like that.

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to roll over and prepare to give him a good grilling - and his bed was empty! HE HAD NOT COME HOME IN THE NIGHT. It was all a dream.

WHAT? I am still in shock. It was so REAL. I honestly believed he'd come home during the night. It was SO strange. I'm still having problems believing it didn't happen.

I've had a lot of dreams in my lifetime, but never one that felt as real as this one. It's unsettling, to put it mildly. But my big question about it is this: If I had to have such a realistic dream, why couldn't it have been an absolutely stupendous story idea that would immediately get published and become a bestseller book? I mean, somehow I just don't see a story about a husband returning home unexpectedly in the middle of the night making a good book. Darned subconscious of mine, anyway. I think it needs a good kick in the rear to get it working in a more productive manner. Really!

Life is certainly full of surprises, isn't it? Just when we think we have it under control, it throws a curve (or two or three or a dozen!) at us and blasts off in it's own way. Maybe I'll go back to bed and see if I can have another dream. Maybe the next one will be more lucrative financially. :-)

It's Snowbird Time

2010-02-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

Snowbirds. That's those lucky, rich, retired people who have two places to live (or own a recreational vehicle which they can drive/move back and forth), one in the north and one down south, where they move during the cold winter months every year, right? Right! But we have discovered you don't have to be rich and retired to be a snowbird. You can do it on a limited budget and even if you aren't retired - if you are a writer - because writers can work anywhere. Yeah!

If you read my previous blogs, you'll know my husband and I happened to find a spectacularly good deal on Craig's list on an old, beat-up trailer down in Yuma, Arizona, and bought it on impulse to use for a winter snowbird home.

When we came down to check the trailer out in early December, all we did was work on the plumbing on it. For a week and a half, we got blasted with leaks from the trailer's faucets and pipes, drove all over Yuma looking for parts that would fit this o-l-d 1977 Prowler travel trailer, and trying to get the parts we bought installed so the leaks would stop. Then we drove the 27 hours back home, had Christmas with our family, got packed and ready for our cruise, then took our youngest granddaughter on "her" cruise to Mexico - that was another 25+/- hour drive each way. We've taken each of the grandchildren on a one week cruise when they were in their mid teens - she's the last one to go with us. Then we closed up our house in Washington and drove 27 hours again to get back down to Yuma. This time, though, we brought both cats with us. They were NOT happy travelers. When we arrived, I had deep scratches down my upper lip, lower lip, and chin from my abortive attempts to get pills down one of the cats to keep her from dying of stress/fright on the trip. It wasn't the best trip we've ever taken, but we all managed somehow.

Because of the cats, we took the trip more slowly than we usually travel, only driving 6-7 hours each day. We drove for two days, then spent two nights in northern California with my husband's brother and our sister-in-law, then drove two more days down to Yuma, finally arriving on Friday night. Yay! Yuma, at last!

Since we got down here this time, we've done nothing but try to get everything "hooked up" and ready for our two month stay. We have temporary internet service - that was the FIRST thing after turning on the water - we'd left the electricity running in December since we knew we'd be back in a few months and we'd filled the refrigerator with condiments and things in the freezer for when we came back down.

The cats are thrilled to be here. So are we. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for that warm, Yuma winter weather that we've heard so much about. It's been cold down here! Why, it's only been in the high 60's. How DARE the temperature be so "low" when "we" are here? (sticks nose up in the air and sniffs loudly)

(looks up and frowns) I'm losing my husband. He's going bonkers. Must be the cold air outside. LOL! He's making the weirdest noises with his mouth right now. The cats are racing (and I do mean RACING) back and forth in this tiny trailer, zooming over the two chairs, the twin beds, and into and out of the bathroom like streaks of lightning. I think he (Terry, my hubby) must be feeling better today. He's been pretty tired and hasn't wanted to do much of anything since we got down here - until now. I made him drink one of our MonaVie energy drinks last night. Obviously it worked! He feels wonderful this morning. (rubs hands gleefully together) It's obviously time to ask Terry to install the cat door we bought the other day in our bathroom door, so we can leave it shut and the cats can still get into the bathroom to their cat box, water, and food. That's the only place those things will fit in this tiny 27 foot long trailer.

We got Dish Network hooked up Monday, so we were able to watch American Idol last night. Yay! We love it when the show gets past Hollywood week and we can watch the best of the singers perform in the semi final and final rounds.

Oooh, I just looked at the weather forecast for this week. It's supposed to be in the high 70's starting tomorrow for a few days. YAY! WARMTH! I can hardly wait!

Today I start working on my WWII POW story again. I'm still extremely disappointed to know my agent doesn't like the story the way I'm doing it, but I have to write it the way it needs to be for me. (shrugs) I'll keep everyone posted on how it's coming along. Since my agent didn't like the "teen" voice I put into it, I'm going to change it again and write it the way *I* want to write it. I'm not going to worry about the market, or the target audience until I get it ready to submit. THEN I'll worry about how to market it and what the audience will be for it. It may turn out that I have to write it for adults. If so, so be it. I still think teens and schools will want to see it, even if it doesn't have a teen character in it. My parents were 20 and 21 when this story took place. That's young enough for teens to relate to, in my opinion. Of course, I'm not an agent or an editor, but like I said above, I'll worry about that aspect of the story once I've got it put together in a way that I feel is so compelling, so dramatic, that readers "have" to read it. Uh... that's the whole point of writing for publication, isn't it? I think so, anyway....

Vacation & WWII POW

2010-02-10T15:13:00.000-07:00

We're back from our wonderful vacation and what a great time we had. On the way down to catch our cruise ship, we stopped and spent a couple of nights in central California. That enabled us to see our son, Donn, in the operetta, "The Merry Widow."

He played the character Njegus (I think that's how it's spelled.) And he was fantastic. He got nearly as much applause at the end of the performance as the two main characters! He's quite a character and sure did a great job in this musical comedy. Not only was his acting superb, but his singing was exceptional and when he did the "Cancan" with four dancing girls while singing his solo, he nearly brought the house down! We were extremely proud of his performance.

Our cruise to the Mexican Riviera was fabulous. I love cruises! They are such a fun and relaxing way to travel and sightsee. My husband (Terry) and I took our youngest granddaughter, Rayana, with us, and Terry's sister, Judy, came along, too, so it was an extra special trip for us. Meals were good, the company was superb, and the ports were enjoyable and fun. We had fairly good weather except at our first port of call, which was Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was cold and rainy and we cut short our shore time and went back to the ship to get warm after our fun Semi-Sub tour. That's the four of us in the photo on the left and those are just a few of the many, many fish we saw through the windows of the bright yellow submarine we were in for the tour. The most fun part of the tour was on the way back to the dock when they played, the "Yellow Submarine" song by the Beatles and everyone on board was singing the lyrics of the song at the top of their lungs. It was a super fun tour!

We saw the cliff divers at Mazatlan, many interesting sights, and watched a Mexican show. Great fun! When we got to Puerto Vallarta, we had the best time of all, taking a catamaran out to a secluded beach where Rayana and I snorkeled and Judy and Terry lounged in the shade on the beach, enjoying the warm air, the sunshiny jungle and beach atmosphere. An international buffet topped off the tour perfectly. It was a great day! We took three underwater cameras full of photos of that day... but before I can share them, they have to be developed and then I have to figure out how to get my scanner to work with my new operating system. It may or may not get done before we leave for our Snowbird time in Arizona.

The last two days were spent relaxing aboard the ship, watching the ocean and when we were close enough, the land go by. We saw some enjoyable shows (the ice skating show was the one I liked the most) and I spent a lot of time sitting in a comfortable chair in one of the lounges, watching the gorgeous ocean while working on my WWII POW story. On the entire trip it went from 2000 words long to over 11,000 words! I got a lot accomplished on it.

Here we were at one of the dress-up dinners. Rayana, Terry, Verla, and Judy - from left to right in the photo.

As soon as we got home, I emailed my agent to see if she had gotten the first 2000 words of my story that I'd sent to her snail mail before we left. She emailed a little while ago and told me she had it and that she had read it and so had a couple of other people. She's hoping to get back to me later today with some news about what she thinks of this new, longer version of the story. I'm on pins and needles, waiting for her response. My biggest concern is how to make this story work for teens, since the main characters in it are 20 and 21 years old at the beginning of the story. Since WWII is studied in high school, I'm hoping it will work as it is without any changes.

...Several hours later... no word yet from my agent. She said she wasn't feeling well in her first email. Apparently she's not gotten any better. (I hope she feels much better soon.) Guess I'll have to wait another day or so to hear what she thinks of my new version of the story. Oh, it's so darned hard to WAIT!

(Grumble, grumble, grumble....)

Wooo Hooo!

2010-01-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

I'm excited! There's over 6,000 words in my new version of my dad's WWII POW story now. It's "humming" right along. I'm having a tough time getting the images set in place for it. This book will have a lot of pictures to go along with the text. It needs them in order to show "the whole story."

While my husband drove the car for ten hours yesterday, I worked quite a bit on my book. It's a bit hard to get the cursor in the right place, though, when the car is zooming along. Slept good last night in the motel (we're on our way down to LA to catch a ship - going on a cruise to Mexico, Yay!), but woke up at four this morning with new ideas and thoughts of what to say in the narrating of this story buzzing through my head. Couldn't get back to sleep, so I've been working on it now for four and a half hours. Whee! It's exciting to see it coming together in such a dramatic and wonderful way. Everyone else is still snoring away.

I think I'll divide the book up into sections. Part One will be the story of him flying and fighting in the air. The next part will be him getting shot down and about his MIA status. He was Missing in Action for 8 long months before my Mom and his parents got the official word that he was alive and a prisoner of war! During that time, he was captured by the Italians, escaped, and was recaptured by the Germans and sent to a prison camp in Germany that held only fliers who had been captured.

I've been lucky enough to be able to talk to some of the men who were in my dad's prison camp with him! Unfortunately, none of them knew him personally, but a few of them knew some of the same men that my dad also knew. Each of their stories is unique and interesting. I'm hoping to put some of their stories into this book, too.

Part three of the book will be the POW (prisoner of war) section of the story. It will be the biggest section. I plan to end the book with his death, so Part Four of the book will be "After the War" and will tell about what he did after he got out of the prison camp, and after his service time ended and he went back to civilian life. I have some funny stories to tell about those years. Like the time he came home with the back of his pickup FILLED with beautiful flowers. Apparently when he was dusting a nearby field, (he was a cropduster) some of the dust drifted over onto a field of flowers being grown to sell to flower shops. The angry farmer made Dad pay for the whole field of flowers - he said they were all ruined and he could no longer sell them. So my dad picked the field clean and threw them all in his truck and brought them home. He said, "If I'm going to have to pay for those blasted flowers, I'm going to keep them!"

Another time he came home with a pickup filled with electric wire. The phone company (or electric company) had put up a new wire after he'd gone to the field the day before and checked it out, and he "took out" a wire while dusting the field. They made him pay for the wire....

LOL! My dad was definitely a character.

WIP (Work In Progress) is going to Agent today!

2010-01-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

Oh, wow. My current WIP (work in progress) is being mailed to my agent today. It's the teen/adult version of my WWII POW (World War II Prisoner of War) story. In this version, it's going to be more historical fiction than non-fiction, because I'm no longer a teenager, but I'm narrating it from myself as a teen. (Did that make any sense at all?)

This version is SO strong! I've completed 27 pages of it so far, and I've got my father up to two days (and one mission) before he was shot down over the Mediterranean Ocean and was captured by the Italians. There's a lot more story to go.... He escaped from the Italians, and was recaptured by the Germans about a month later. Lots of drama there to write about.

I packaged up the beginning pages and am sending them off to my agent to see what she thinks about this version. I honestly think it really "works" for readers. It will be exciting to see what she says...!

Meantime, I'm trying to "close up my house" for our two week trip. We leave this afternoon after our youngest granddaughter gets out of high school for a one week (driving down to Los Angeles and back up to Washington state will take the better part of a week) road trip and a one week cruise to the Mexican Riviera. We've taken each of our other grandchildren on a cruise -- this is the last of them to go on a trip like this with us. We're so excited, but packing for the trip? Making all the arrangements for the cats to be cared for while we're gone? ICK! I'll be glad when everything is finally in the car and we're on our way. Anything that gets left behind at that point -- it's just too bad! We'll either buy replacement items on the trip or go without. As long as we have our boarding tickets for the ship (check!), our passports (check!), our medications (oops! NOT packed yet. Mine are still at the drug store, waiting to be picked up.) and credit cards and money (check!) then we can "roll" with everything else. So we're almost ready to go.

Of course, my husband had to leave the house this morning and drive an hour and a half away from us to pay for something he bought last night off of Craig's List. Eh? Where ARE that man's priorities? Personally, I think getting the laundry and dishes clean and making sure everything we need is packed into the car is more important than buying something we don't even really need. (I mean, does he really NEED 16 battery powered screw guns?) But that's my man, for you. He's crazy and has no sense of priorities when it comes to preparing for trips. That's probably why I love him so much. Because he's so different from me. :-)

I'm shaking in my boots and wondering what my agent will think of this (almost) adult version of my story. Will she love it? Will she feel it's corny and stupid sounding? I'm so eager to know her reaction, and yet I'm so scared to hear it at the same time. I really, really want this version to be "The One" that is perfect for the market -- the one that will grab the hearts and minds of readers and make them truly "see" and "feel" what it was like to be 22 years old and the pilot of a P38 fighter plane during WWII -- flying out of Africa into Italy.

Of course, I'm so very close to this story, that it's extremely hard for me to step back and look at it dispassionately. But I think I might have gotten the essence of the story in this new version. I certainly hope so, anyway. Wish me luck...!

Almost Time to Go, More WWII POW & Website Changes

2010-01-21T22:43:00.001-07:00

It's just five more days before we leave home. We're taking our youngest granddaughter (16 years old) on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. My suitcase is 3/4 packed, and I have a long list (getting longer each day!) of more items I want/need to take with us. We'll be on the road and staying with relatives and friends for five nights on the way down to central California.

We're staying an extra night with author friend, Linda Joy Singleton. On Friday night (the 29th) we're all going to Modesto to watch our middle son perform in The Merry Widow. He's got one of the leading parts in it and this will be the first time we'll have ever gotten to see him perform outside of college productions. We're excited!

On the 31st we catch a private group bus and ride the rest of the way to LA to the dock with a dancing group that we'll be traveling with. My best friend from high school (she stood up for me when my husband I got married 44+ years ago) is the person in charge of the dance group and they had some extra space at a great price... so we're off to Mexico! We're taking hubby's older sister with us, too. She's never been on a cruise before, so it should be a wonderful trip for all of us.

I've already booked our off-shore excursions... a submarine ride to see the fish and coral and stuff under the sea, two sightseeing/shopping tours that include a visit to a glass-blowing factory, two Mexican shows, cliff divers and much more. One day we'll be taking a 1 1/2 hour catamaran ride out to a private island for fun in the sea and sun and shade. An international buffet, snorkeling or kayaking, cooking lesson, or a guided walk through a small botanical garden are all included. Or if we don't feel energetic, we can just play in the surf and relax in lounge chairs in the shade on the beach for the day. I can hardly wait! All this in addition to the ship amenities, which anyone who's ever been on a cruise knows, are amazingly wonderful.

Ah... to be already on our way! Now if the weather (GLARES at the weather report) will just behave until we come back from our trip. :-)

After a short but intense talk with my agent the other day, I've come to the conclusion that I have to rewrite (AGAIN!) my dad's WWII POW story in a completely different way if I'm ever going to get it to sell. My rhyming version isn't going to work because of the mature content of the story. It needs to be written for teenagers. Talk about a scary venture for a picture book author!

I do like the way I'm starting it now, and have hopes that it will work for some of the editors that "didn't know what to do" with my rhyming version of the story. It will definitely be more powerful written this way. Trying to sound like a teenager who is telling her father's story is a real challenge for me, though. I hope I'm up for it. :-) So far, I like what I've written. The test will come when I send some of it to my agent and see what she says about it. Hopefully, she will like what I'm doing with it, too. Time will tell. I just wish I were a faster writer. I'm soooo slow.

And in the middle of all of this, I'm working on a major update to my website. Many of the pages are so out of date they positively stink. I've finally created a header I LOVE for the site. Getting navigation buttons that had the right images on them when the cursor moves over them was another real challenge, but I finally got them doing what I want them to do today. YAY! Now I have to figure out how to turn what I've done into a template, so I can plunk each page's content into the basic page format and have the menu items, header, and copyright information automatically show up on each page. Once I figure the mechanics of it all out, I should be able to move fairly quickly through the hundreds of pages on my site, updating them by moving the basic information to the "editable" region on the template page.

But first I have to get all the links activated on the navigation bar. Yeah. I kind of forgot about that tiny detail. It doesn't do much good to have cool links that are active but don't take you anywhere! LOL! Those of you who are familiar with my website, be prepared for a shocking visual change soon. The content will stay pretty much the same on the pages and all the good pages will still be there, it's only the look of the site that will be changing.

Change can sometimes be good. I'm hoping for good things with these changes.

Think fond thoughts of me while I'm "suffering" through my cruise to Mexico. (LOL!) Hope everyone has great news when I get back. (Verla waves to everyone.) Bye for two weeks....

Starting Over... Again

2010-01-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to report that I had a word count yesterday of 1673 words on my father's WWII POW story. (This is the story that is currently out via my agent. I'm rewriting it yet again, in another different way.) But I'm cheating. Almost none of these new words are original ones written by me.

And no, I'm NOT plagiarizing. I've gotten very discouraged at the lack of editorial interest in my WWII POW story. Every editor that has seen it so far has rejected it, saying things like, "We don't know what to do with it," or "We can't figure out what market it's for," etc. I'm sure it's because the subject matter is for older kids and adults and that just doesn't "work" for the publishers when the basic story is told in rhyme - especially when it's in my cryptic style of rhyme.

So... I'm rewriting the story as told through my father's diaries and letters. This new writing is mostly my dad's own words, copied exactly from letters he wrote to his parents (and a couple to my mother). I've also got the photos and scanned images of the telegrams my mother got saying he was missing in action, was a prisoner of the German government, and that he was back under military control and was coming home, ration stamp books with stamps still in them, and other super sources to augment the diary entries and personal letters.

Between copies of the letters my grandfather wrote to people, begging for information on his son while he was MIA (missing in action) and letters in response to his pleas, the detailed memoirs of some of the men my dad was in prison camp with, my father's own letters, his flight mission diary and his log book (diary) that he kept while he was in the German prison camp, it pretty much tells the whole story without me saying much of anything myself. It's an amazing story, as told through his own words. I think this might be the format it needs to be in in order to get an editor excited enough about it to "have to buy it."

I wonder how many more times this story will "morph" before it becomes the incredible book I believe it has the potential to be?

Life Moves On...

2010-01-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

And in my case, life has been moving at rocket speeds. We survived our week and a half in Arizona, and came home (driving 27 hours in two days) to the cold of the far north. And it's been COLD. Brrrrr.

We wish we were back in Arizona already, but we have to wait until we have taken our youngest granddaughter (16 years old) on our planned cruise to the Mexican Riviera before we can go back down to the warmth of Arizona to spend the rest of the winter. (Such a terrible dilemma, eh? *GRIN*)

I fought with the computer for hours yesterday, trying to get checked in online and get our boarding passes printed out for the cruise. It took about 3 (or it might have been 4!) hours but we finally beat the system and got all checked in and the boarding passes printed out. So now all we have to do is A) Pack and B) drive down to California (18 hours) to catch the group bus in Aromas which will drive us the rest of the way (another 6-9 hours) down to the pier. We're hoping for no snow, but are planning an extra couple of days to get down there just in case. At this time of year, one never knows from day to day what the weather will be like and we do NOT want to miss the ship!

My computer has been totally dominating my life the past month. The keyboard is apparently going kaput on me. The mouse keeps constantly locking up and I have to unplug it and replug it to get it to move again. The mouse works perfectly with my laptop, so I'm assuming it's the desktop keyboard that's the problem. I've ordered a new keyboard which I thought would arrive by today, but so far, I'm still waiting.
On top of the mouse problem, and far more serious, is the fact that I'm getting very frequent Kernal Panic lockups on the computer. This is equal to The Blue Screen of Death on a Windows machine, except you don't lose your programs, just whatever new things you have done since the last time you saved. These horrible Kernal Panic attacks are supposedly (from all I've read about them on the web) related to hardware issues, so hopefully when my new keyboard arrives, that problem will end, also. Otherwise, I'll be looking for another solution that problem.

The good news is that I've finally found a solution as to why I haven't been able to upload my website pages (except for one miserable page at a time!) and so I can finally work on my website to update it. Yay! It's woefully in need of a major overhaul.

I wrote a new picture book a few weeks ago. I think it probably stinks. I'll pull it back out and read it over in another week or so with fresh eyes. If you don't hear from me for another month, it's probably because the text was so bad it threw me into a shivering, huddled lump of hysteria on my office floor. Those first drafts can definitely be pretty gruesome.

Somehow we need to figure out how to get our tax papers started before our cruise, since we want to head for Arizona as soon as we get back from it. We won't be returning until probably mid-April... and that won't leave us any time to do taxes when we get back. We'll most likely just file an extension before we go. If only I knew if and how much money we'll need to pay to the IRS so we can get it done before we leave for our trip. The money has to be paid when you file for the extension, not when the taxes are actually done. Don't get me started on what I think of the IRS! *insert wildly screaming smiley here*

Here's hoping 2010 will be a wonderful year for everyone. I do have hopes....

Arizona Saga

2009-12-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

My, my, my. Life can get very interesting when you buy a vacation trailer through the internet that's permanently situated in an RV Resort Park several states away from where you live. Before we bought it, we had some friends of ours check it out for us. They live right there (in Yuma, Arizona) where the trailer is located. They told us what the trailer was like and what the park was like that it's in. So... we bought it, sight unseen.

Then, last week we drove the six thousand zillion miles down to spend two weeks in it. The plan was to check it out, clean it up, and get it ready for our "winter vacation" in February, when we'll be coming down to spend the rest of the winter in it. Little did we know we were in for a major adventure....

For several days we did nothing but clean, throw out stuff we didn't want or wasn't good enough or clean enough to keep. Then, on Thursday evening, I kicked off my shoes and ICK! The carpet at the edge of the bedroom was DRENCHED! We made a quick trip to WalMart to get a flashlight and then checked under the kitchen sink. There was a steady stream of water pouring out of a T in the pipes on the floor. Yoiks! So we turned off the water and drove back to WalMart for parts.

The parts didn't fit. So we drove to Home Depot for parts.

This is an RV trailer, not a home. The parts didn't fit. So we drove to an RV parts center. They didn't have the parts we needed, so we drove to two more RV centers. We finally found the parts we needed.

In order to put the hoses together at the T, the pipes have to be warmed. We didn't have a hair dryer with us to warm the parts. Hubby was so frustrated by this time, he was ready to go buy a blowtorch and burn up the entire trailer! Thinking fast, I suggested he might use the little portable heater we'd bought to take the chill off the nights.... It worked! Yay! He finally got the T fixed. No more leak, right?

Wrong. After all that, we turned the water back on... and surprise! Surprise! The T hadn't been leaking at all. It was the fittings above the T where the faucet itself connects to the water line that was leaking. (Insert husband steaming from the ears and foaming at the mouth here.) So... off to Lowes to get the parts he needed to fix the faucet connection. They didn't have what he needed, so it was back to the RV Centers again. He finally found the parts he needed, returned to the trailer and started to work on the faucet connection.

This trailer was built in 1977. It's OLD. It's darned near as old as we are, and that's older than dirt. The connections he needed to fix on the faucet were made of plastic. For anyone who is not aware of it, plastic gets very, very brittle after many years. When he put the wrench on the plastic, it totally disintegrated before his very eyes. Now we not only had a bad connection, we had no faucet to connect TO the hoses. Back to the RV stores to find a replacement faucet.

Did I mention the trailer is VERY old? When our trailer was built, kitchen faucets in trailers had 4" centers. (That means the holes between the two handles of the faucet were four inches apart.) Today all kitchen faucets have 8" centers. There was no faucet to buy. Anywhere. Finally, after driving from store to store, we located one that had ONE very old 4" center faucet in stock. Hooray! We bought it and zoomed back home.

Did I mention we still didn't have running water in the trailer? We didn't.

Water! I was going to finally have running water in the trailer. Talk about excitement.

Hubby put the faucet on the sink, and went outside to turn it on. Before he did, he told me, "I need you to stay here with the flashlight, and let me know if it's leaking or not."

So I climbed under the kitchen sink with the flashlight and eagerly waited for him to turn on the water. Unfortunately, neither of us had noticed that when he installed the faucet, he had neglected to put on the spout. There was this big huge hole in the top of the faucet fittings where the spout would normally be attached.

Water was turned on. It shot straight up in the air out of the spout hole, hit the ceiling, and flooded (litereally FLOODED) me. Hair, shirt, pants, every inch of me was instantly drenched. "SHUT IT OFF!" I screamed. "Shut it off!" He did. But it was far too late for me to avoid getting a super shower. I normally prefer my showers without clothing and with warm water, thank you very much!

Hubby put the faucet spout on, handed me the flashlight again and said, "Okay. Let's try this again."

I muttered a few choice words, climbed back under the sink with the flashlight, and waited.

I didn't have long to wait. He turned the water on... and... water sprayed straight out from the pipe connection - right into my face! "Shut it off!" I screamed. "Shut it OFF!"

He did. "I guess it needs new O rings," he said.

"Gee. Do you THINK?" I muttered, changing my shirt for the second time, and using the rest of the towels in the trailer.

So off he went to get new O rings. Knowing how many trips he'd made earlier in the day, he bought three sizes of them. Ha! That would show that faucet, right?

Wrong. None of them fit. Some were too big, others were too thick. "I give UP," he screamed. "I'm going to Ace Hardware. THEY will have what I need." Of course that store is on the other side of town.... And by the time he arrived, they had closed the store just minutes before he got there.

It was not the best day we've ever had....

At that point, we gave up for the night, ate dinner, and resigned ourselves to another night with no water.

This morning, things looked brighter. The sun was shining, and the stores were open for business. I'd managed to rip the carpet in the living room and bedroom areas out the day before while he was fighting with the pipes, and had gotten lovely new carpet laid in the living room. The two new swivel glider chairs and footstools had been delivered and we were ready to beat that leaky faucet.

Hubby got the correct O rings, then found out it wasn't O rings at all. It needed a totally new faucet connection. He bought one, cut off the old pipe, and put a completely new pipe in. This time *I* went outside and turned on the water, leaving HIM inside to get soaked. So of course, the faucet didn't leak. Yeah! I didn't care! It wasn't leaking. I had WATER. I could clean all of the dishes in the sink. Yay!

When I got done washing all the dishes, he looked under the sink and...

It was leaking! But this time, it wasn't the connections, it was from water splashing up around the faucet itself. He lifted the faucet assembly, put caulking around it, and then tightened it back down. YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY! No more leaks!

"Quick!" I said. "Before something else happens, let's race over to the swap meet and buy some things I want to get for the trailer."

"Okay," he said. "As soon as I use the bathroom for a minute... SCREECH! THE BATHROOM FLOOR IS FLOODED!"

"WHAT?" I screamed? "NOOOOOOooooooooooo!"

But of course, it was. The water line to the toilet had water pouring down it in a steady stream.

It's been a rough two days.

Epilogue: The bathroom water line just needed to be tightened. So far, no more leaks. We are waiting with bated breath to see what excitement tomorrow might bring....

The Story, The Room, My Head

2009-11-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

THE STORY:

Got another unofficial rejection the other day. I'm super sad about this one because the editor had actually seen some of the prime source materials in person, had discussed this with me at length, and had even given me good ideas of how to put the story together in a cohesive, workable package. Unfortunately, the person above her who has the final say in all acquisitions didn't want to publish it. RATS. Back to the drawing board. I haven't a clue what my agent plans to do with it next.

THE ROOM:

It's done! We built four large shelving units yesterday (that had been disassembled at our last house and have been in storage for the past six years) and put them into the room. Hubby got a whole wall of extremely large, heavy metal storage units assembled and in place in his shop the day before. So now we are ready to put things away. The very thought of having a place for everything is... SCARY! (I love, love, LOVE it!)

Two of the mini-blinds we bought for the rooms are now in place upstairs. I have one more to fit and hang in the last window, and then I'll be done upstairs with that part of the project. Taking out all the extra slats (they are way too long for the short windows we have up there) is a pain in the neck, but they work so much better when they are exactly the right length for each window. Then I'll have to help hubby hang the ones in his windows in the shop. At least he only has two windows down there.

I haven't walked on either of my exercise machines yet, nor have I set up my ancient, antique Nintendo game. I've got several dozen of the old, classic games for it, and always loved playing it. It will be fun to have it back working again finally.

A lot of the scrapbook stuff is now put on shelves and in drawers. (The sharp cutters and things are all in a top drawer, well out of baby's reach!) Bryan has been loving his chalk board and very small all-plastic, easy-to-clean, just-the-right-size-for-him picnic table we put into the room. It will be nice when he learns to use them by himself, so we can spend our time doing crafts at the adult sized table. :-) My material is all out of boxes and I can actually SEE what I have. Yay! I can start scrapbooking again. I can start sewing again. I can start doing Swedish Weavery again. I miss my crafts! What a riot that we are getting the room ready to use just before we leave for Arizona for the rest of the winter. LOL!

MY HEAD:

Or rather... my mind. I think it's on crooked. I know it's not contented and relaxed. It's tied up in knots right now, and is spinning totally out of control. There are so many things to think about, so many decisions still to be made, I feel like I'm on a merry-go-round that's out of control. Maybe I should replace my head with a newer, younger model? Oh, wait. That would be a wee bit tough to do, wouldn't it? (Heh, heh, heh.) Guess I'll keep this old gray one and just deal with it.

We're getting ready for an onslaught of company for the Thanksgiving holiday. For dinner this year, though, I'm doing it the easy way. Everyone is going (dutch treat!) to our little local restaurant, who is putting on a Thanksgiving feast buffet from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. The cost is $10 per person, plus two cans of food for the local Food Bank. That works for me! No fuss, no mess, no cleanup afterwards. The only bad thing is no leftovers, but since we plan to head for Arizona just a few days later, that's not such a bad thing, either.

This trip down will be a fast one. We'll only be gone a few weeks, and will be back before Christmas to spend the holiday with our family. We won't go back down again until after our cruise to the Mexican Riviera in February. It's nice to have our granddaughter close enough to come and house and cat sit for us while we're away. :-)

I bought an external hard drive for backups the other day. It's sitting on my desk, staring at me, yelling at me to install/hook it up. I haven't a clue how to do it. Guess I should look at the instruction booklet that came with it and see if I can figure it out. I've been having recurring nightmares about losing everything on my computers that's irreplaceable. Since it's got one TB of space on it, it should have enough for a lot of storage.

Here's hoping everyone who reads this has a great week. If you are from the USA, have a beautiful, safe, and loving Thanksgiving. If you are from outside the USA, I hope you have a wonderful, safe week also. :-)

The Room, The Trailer, The Story

2009-11-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Room.

Our big room over the garage that we've been building for the past three or so years is finished! The inspector signed it off yesterday afternnon. The only restriction is: "Not to be used for dwelling or living space." No problem. It's an exercise, hobby and craft room, not living space. Who would want to live in a room without running water, anyway?

Yesterday was spent moving stuff from our house and out of the storage unit into the big room. What a job! The HUGE electric treadmill, our Gazelle exercise machine, a large dresser (used for my wrapping center - it holds bows, ribbons, tape, scissors, etc.), two huge bookcases, a tall stereo cabinets and all stereo parts, and boxes and boxes and boxes of paper, punches, cutters and other scrapbooking materials, plus more boxes and boxes of material, ribbons, thread, etc. have all been moved up into the room. Oh, and did I mention boxes of games and jigsaw puzzles? Those are all up there, too, along with all the glass and glass-working tools for the five foot high, two and half foot wide stained glass picture I started making years ago that is still unfinished....

Oh! I forgot to move up the glass light box and the two boards used for soldering the glass pieces together, as well as all the boards and metal pieces to put the big metal shelving units together that will hold boxes and games and puzzles and other things. I haven't moved up the craft books yet, either. Those are still in the house in the library. Freeing up those shelves will allow me to put the books piled up on the floor in the hallway upstairs into the downstairs library. MORE moving of stuff! YUK! I hate moving stuff!

Anyway, I'm THRILLED that we will finally be able to start using the room. Yay! When we got the treadmill up there (it's been in storage, along with all the rest of this stuff, for six LONG years) I immediately stepped on it to try it out. It didn't work! My heart sunk. Then I remembered. Duh. It has a plastic "key" that has to be inserted before it will run. I inserted the key. Nothing. Pfffth! It still didn't work. I called to my husband, "Terry! The treadmill doesn't work."

He zoomed up the stairs and stepped on it. Nothing.

"Uh, Honey, you have to use the key to turn it on."

He inserted the key. Nothing. He blew on the key and into the keyhole. A massive cloud of dust puffed out. He reinserted the key. Success! We have a working treadmill again. Now if I can just force myself to USE it. I'm really out of practice. Six years is long time, plenty long enough to form "other" habits that have nothing to do with exercising.

The Trailer.

Of course, I won't be using it too long anyway before we head down to Arizona to our SnowBird trailer for the remainder of the winter. We sent off the title to the trailer to the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division to get it changed into our name. We should get the new title back in a week or so. Then I'll really feel like the trailer is ours. I'm glad to know they have a computer center at the RV park where our trailer is located. That means we won't have to worry about being without internet service until we can get our own installed down there.

The Story.

Yesterday I got the sad news that two more publishers rejected my WWII POW story. They just don't seem to know what to do with it. That's what happens when you write something that doesn't fit into a nice, neat "mold" like most stories. It takes a special editor who can really think "outside the box" before you get one that says, "I LOVE this and want to publish it!"

This morning I was still sad about the rejections and when I woke up at five, my head was spinning with ideas of how to MAKE someone want to buy it. The conclusion I finally came to was: there's no way to make a publisher or editor want to publish a story. All you can do is write the story in such a way that someone feels they absolutely have to publish it. So... I think I'm going to rewrite the story in a new way. One that doesn't take much of an illustrator. I may even self-publish it with scrapbooked "picture" pages. If I do this, I'll be putting out a call for illustrators to send samples of their work if they would like to work with me on this project. IF it comes down to this, I'll be letting illustrators know what I'm doing on my website. The request will be in the Illustrator section of the message board. If you are an illustrator, you might want to watch that part of the message board in a month or so if you are interested in sending some of your work for consideration. DO NOT SEND ANYTHING NOW. If this happens, I'll be sending instructions of what kinds of illustrations I'll be looking for and will send detailed information for the sample illustrations. I want all the samples to be of the same subjects, so I can compare "apples to apples" and not try to evaluate apples against fire hydrants. :-)

Hopefully, my agent will be able to find just the right editor before this ever has to happen. Time will tell. I'm probably have a better idea of what to do in another month or so.

Meantime, I'm headed outside to start putting the Big Room together. There's boxes and furniture EVERYWHERE in the room right now! And I might even walk on the treadmill for a few minutes. Woot!

Snowbirds, Move Over!

2009-11-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

Wow. My hubby and I are about to join the ranks of official Snowbirds. We purchased a little (turned out to be a tiny bit bigger than I first thought - 28x8 instead of 24x8 - yay!) trailer in a wonderful RV Resort Park (Suni-Sands) down in Yuma, Arizona. We'll be living there during the coldest months of the year, coming back to Washington (east side of the state - just two miles from Idaho) for the hot Arizona summers and the rest of the year. So this winter we will become Snowbirds. :-) We are really looking forward to exploring our new home away from home next month when we go down to see it for the first time in person.

We bought it off of Craig's List via the internet for a fraction of the price we thought we'd have to pay for a place down there. And the space rent in the RV park is extremely reasonable - just over $200 a month. That includes water and garbage and all the park amenities - swimming pool, hot tub, showers, rest rooms, clubhouse, horseshoes, shuffleboard, computer center, planned activities, and (we won't use this one) a golf practice cage. Since we have Snowbird friends that are already down there, they went and checked out the trailer and the park for us in person. They were VERY impressed with the park, the area, and the people that were both managing the park and living in it that they met while they were there. They said the bathroom is horribly small, but since the park has shower and bathroom facilities available to people staying in it, we aren't too worried about that. If it turns out it's truly impossibly small, we'll look around for something bigger while we are there, sell off one of our rental houses up in Washington, and buy a bigger place later. The main thing is, we have a place to stay right now when we want to go down there.

(Does a happy dance.)

Our cats, both purebred Himalayans with very thick, long-hair, won't be as thrilled as Terry and I, but hey! They will adapt. It's not like we'll be there in the hot summer months, after all.

I've been burning up the internet this past week, purchasing lots of fun art supplies for my great grandson. He's nearly 14 months old now, and is already learning to draw pictures with the new chalk I bought him. We all laughed heartily when we discovered he isn't interested in using the pink chalk.

I handed him different colors to use on the paper. "Here's blue, Bryan." He drew a few lines with the blue chalk. "Here's green." Draw, scribble, scratch. "Here's pink." Bryan took the pink chalk, glared at it for a fraction of a second, dropped it, and reached for another color. "Here's yellow." Draw, scribble, scratch. We all laughed. The next day, we did it again. Same exact thing happened, except this time he wouldn't even take the pink chalk. He batted my hand away and reached for the blue. LOL! Not even 14 months old and he's very opinionated already. He's a "chip off the old block" for sure. What a delight it is having this little guy in our lives. :-)

I'm making a big chalkboard wall area for him in the Hobby/Exercise/Craft room we are finishing building out in the garage. He will have lots of fun with it. I also got him a full set of poster paints, nice fat brushes made for little fingers, and a set of companion no-spill paint pots for the paint, as well as paper. (He's not spoiled by his great grandma and grandpa or anything....) LOL!

Today we are driving to the city to pick up a Little Tikes picnic table for him to use in the Big Room for his craft projects. I found the table on Craig's List, of course. :-) It's just $20, which is a very good price for a quality table like that. Oh... his smock and finger paints should be arriving any day now. Then he will really be "set." I've already cooked up a batch of homemade clay that is similar to PlayDoh and he loves to poke his fingers in it, smash it with his hand, and grab chunks of it and attempt to squish it on everything in the house. He has already learned he has to keep it in the cookie sheet pan I put on the floor for it or Great Grandma will take it away from him and put it back up, and he also knows already that it doesn't taste too good. It's far too salty for him to want to eat it. :-)

Here's the recipe I use for this homemade clay. I love it and so does he!

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water w/food coloring (or if you want smaller amounts of different colors, add food coloring after the clay is cooked. Just be sure to mix it WELL if you do it this way so the food coloring doesn't get all over their hands when children are playing with it.)
1 tablespoon oil (or a bit less if you want it less "greasy")
2 teaspoons cream of tarter

Mix well in a medium sized sauce pan, cook and stir contantly over medium heat until it leaves the sides of the pot and forms a ball. Remove from pan and knead well for a minute or two to thoroughly mix the clay so it has no lumps. Put into airtight containers and it's ready for use.

P.S. Empty Betty Crocker frosting plastic containers are a perfect size to store it in. The lids fit tightly and come off very easily when you want to get it out of the containers.

Now we just need to finish the Big Room over the garage to put all the art stuff in. The electrical is finally ready for the final inspection. Hooray! I'm so happy! Once we get it, and have the doors installed (downstairs one is hung, we just need the two upstairs doors now) and the trimwork is cut and nailed into place around the doors and the downstairs windows, we'll be ready for the final inspection and we can start moving things into the rooms and using them. Yay!

I bought a cute little looks-like-a-tiny-black-metal-wood-firebox electric heater for the upstairs room. We have another old freestanding electric heater for the downstairs shop, so can have heat on cold days. Of course, now we won't be here during the coldest months of the year, so we won't have to worry about heating it except in the fall and spring.

Well, it's time to get moving. I have to call and see if the electrical inspector is coming today or not. If he is, that will determine what time (or even IF) we can leave to go to the city today. Have a good day, everyone.

Moving Stuff

2009-11-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

Life is slowly getting back to normal over here. The hysteria of my domain name expiring is slowly fading into the woodwork, the room out back might even see some progress again in a day or two, and I'm actually doing "writing things!" tomorrow. Hooray! I have a gal coming to my house to share a manuscript with me. I'm excited to see what she's done with it, as I critiqued it at our local SCBWI conference in September and it had great potential. It will be fun to see what she has done with it since then.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get my living and dining room cleaned up enough so she can A) walk into the house without severe risk of falling, tripping or getting stuck somewhere and B) clear off a space large enough on the dining room table so she can lay down her manuscript and we can work together on it. Also, it would be nice if the kitchen sink was at least partially visible... and if there was a clear path to the bathroom, too. (At least I know the bathroom isn't piled up with stuff!

The garbage cans from under the sink are still in the middle of the kitchen, waiting for the sliding garbage can holder to be reinstalled under the sink. I wanted to make sure nothing was leaking after we installed the new faucet to replace the old one which broke the other day before I reinstalled the garbage container holder. Nothing is leaking.

I would have put the holder back in today, but I found this incredibly great bargain on Craig's List... and we had to make a trip to the other side of the city (an hour and half from us) to pick up a trailer load of bedroom furniture. Then when we got back, we needed to move the bed, frame, mattress set, and a nightstand out of the upstairs guest room to make room for the new bed, frame, two nightstands, and a much heavier mattress set into the guest bedroom. (One of our granddaughters got the old bed. She is thrilled, as she's been sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And of course that had to be delivered to her house and set up in her room.)

Two great dressers came with the set we bought, and one of them has been carried upstairs into our bedroom and it is now housing my winter sweaters, jammies, and warm underwear which used to be heaped in a pile on the floor where the new dresser is now sitting. The other dresser is still in pieces (drawers and dresser separately scattered around) all over the living room. Hubby has to make room on his side of the room for it so it can house all of my shorts, bathing suits, and summer sleeveless tops which are in boxes and heaps on top of my old dresser. What a novel idea that I might be able to actually SEE a dresser in my room!

Naturally, the other new dresser is also for me. Hubby doesn't need it. I do. Ha! After all, he has one nightstand and one tall wardrobe type dresser for his clothes. That's all he needs except for his hanging clothes in his slightly-smaller-than-mine closet. :-)

I almost feel like we moved today! I detest moving! I'm glad it's almost over except for that last dresser. I'm sure we won't get it moved before the lady comes tomorrow to have me look at her manuscript. I wonder what she'd say if I suggested we sit out in the car for the critique session? LOL! I know I'll let her in. I just hope I'm not totally embarrassed by what she sees when she walks in the door.

However, it always helps to put things in perspective when you think about how bad things could REALLY be. One of the families in our little town just lost their son in an accident last night. He would have been 18 today. Such a tragedy for all of them. Hearing about their loss sure put my "problems" into proper perspective. Minor, minor, minor. Life is always full of challenges. I'm just glad to know the ones I'm facing tomorrow are simple and non-life-shattering ones.

Here's hoping all of you reading this have an incredibly wonderful day today. Life is precious and we only get one time through it. Happy reading, writing, living, and loving to all of you.

VerlaKay.com website and Message Board Update

2009-10-31T21:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry about all the mess today, folks. I blogged about it and also posted some messages on Facebook and Twitter since I was unable to get onto the message board all day -- until JUST now! Whew, is right!

My VerlaKay.com domain name expired due to a collection of errors. It was set to automatically renew, but unfortunately when you buy the domain name for ten years, it's pretty easy to forget to update the credit card information ten years later so it's not an expired card being charged! And it didn't help that I'd changed providers and they were sending messages to an old email account that no longer exists....

When I went into the account (when I finally FOUND the account!) to renew the domain, I nearly had a heart attack. IT HAD ALREADY BEEN RENEWED BY SOMEONE! With my heart pounding and adrenalin blasting through my body, I tried to log into my website provider's website to see what was happening with my domain. I couldn't log in!   PANIC! After a couple of abortive tries I got logged in and discovered someone else had paid for my domain name using PayPal. WHO? WHY? I could still access my domain information, but I COULD NOT OPEN MY SITE ON ANY BROWSER OR ON ANY COMPUTER IN MY HOUSE.  PANIC! WHY? All I could get was a message saying my domain name had expired. Later in the day, the page changed and said "A New Page" was being created.  PANIC!

All these hours I was on the phone with tech people trying to figure out what was going on. I paid for another nine years to make sure I'd get the site back after whoever had paid for one year had his/her "takeover" expire, but I still didn't know what was going on. The domain "appeared" to still be in my name, but I COULD NOT GET ONTO THE SITE, no matter what I did! My local provider spent hours with me. They couldn't figure out what happened or how to fix it. I spent hours with online support on the computer with my website provider trying to figure out what had happened and how to fix it. In desperation, I changed the IP to a "static" one, as we thought whoever had paid for the website had put some kind of block on my IP. NOTHING WORKED.

My son called from Colorado. He'd seen my desperate pleas on FaceBook and/or Twitter and tried to help me. He's a super computer techy... but even he was stumped! Here's what we finally figured out at the end of the evening (and a VERY long day!)... The domain name DID expire. Someone (possibly one of you!) saw that it had expired, and he jumped in and paid for another year so some evil person couldn't grab it and mess us all up. (THANK YOU,  CARL!) He sent me an email... but I didn't find or see it. I still haven't seen it. I DID get his second message to me tonight, which is how I finally learned what happened.

Because the domain had expired, the browsers needed to "update" their information after the renewal had been paid. That can take up to 24 hours. In the meantime, that horrible "Domain Expired" message kept showing up. When I changed the IP to a static one from a shared one, it caused the site to go down again for a period of time. That's when the "A new page is being created" message showed up. Just a few minutes ago, I was finally able to access the site again. All of you should be able to get onto it again by tomorrow at the latest.

I'm posting this same message over on my Blog, so anyone who can't get in here will be able to read this tonight.

Thanks for your patience, everyone. This has been a pretty rotten day on my end, too! It seems like almost everything I touched turned to   today! The final straw was when I walked into the kitchen an hour ago and put my hand on the faucet to turn on the water and rinse out a glass. The handle just fell off into my hand as I touched it. The faucet is totally Kaput! Gone. Broken. My super he-can-fix-ANYTHING hubby can't even fix it.    It's not been the best day for me. I think I should have stayed in bed and never gotten up!

I'm just thankful things are getting back to normal. (Except for the kitchen faucet, of course. We'll have to buy a new one tomorrow.)

Happy Halloween?

VerlaKay.com website and Message Board

2009-10-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

There have been some issues with my website and message board today and I've spent the past umpteen hours trying to resolve the issues.

Here's what I know:

Apparently my website domain name expired because the renewal notices were going into an old, no-longer-accessible email account and I didn't get them.

When I went to the domain renewal site - I got a message saying the website domain had already been renewed. It was paid by an email account via PayPal that I didn't recognize. I haven't a clue what is going on there! I had the account set up to automatically renew, but why would it renew with someone else's PayPal account instead of mine?

When I went to my domain information, I was able to log in okay, and paid for another 9 years - until 2019. BUT... I can't access my site. I'm still being routed to the "domain has expired" page.

Here's what I don't know:

I've tried contacting my service provider. They can't help me. I've tried contacting my website hosting service. They can't help me. The last I was told was that it might be a router problem. Why would a router problem "suddenly" occur at the same time as my domain name expiration? It doesn't make sense....

I'm told that other people can get onto the site now, as well as the message board. But I can't access it at all. It's totally weird! It's totally frustrating! (insert 200 smilies beating heads violently on computer desktops)

At this point, I have no clue how to resolve this issue. I'm going downstairs and take my three zillion pills for this horrible cough and swollen thumb (totally unrelated but both very annoying) and then I guess I'll get on the phone with the router people and see if they can help me. So far, NOTHING has done any good. I just keep getting transferred to that Domain Expired page no matter what I do.

I cleared my browser cache several times. I reset the entire browser. I tried a different browser. I turned off the computer several times and restarted it. I reset the DNS in the guts of my computer -- whatever that is. I tried going directly to the port address. I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of. I can NOT get my website pages or message board to come up. I tried my husband's computer, and our spare computer. They both have the same problem, so it's obviously something outside of my computer itself, which means it is probably either a problem with my provider or with the router.

Hopefully, the rest of you are able to access the pages. I certainly can't!

If anyone out there is a computer whiz and can give me any help in how I can get my computers to access my site again... it would be greatly appreciated.

Whatever Happened to the Pony Express?

2009-10-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

My next book, "Whatever Happened to the Pony Express?" will be coming out in summer of May 13, 2010 and I just got the F&Gs for it! (For anyone who doesn't know what those are, they are the actual printed pages of a picture book - not yet bound.) So I can sit down now and read my story from start to finish and see all of the finished artwork with it. It's... wonderful! I'm so thrilled with it.

This book is different from any other I've written, in that it has two complete story lines running through it -- one in rhyme and the other in prose. The rhyming story tells the history of the rise and fall of the pony express and the prose story follows two families, a sister (Prudence Snodgrass) and her brother (Thomas Wilson) as they send letters, messages and telegrams back and forth to each other from Pennsylvania to California in the mid to late 1800s using the different methods of mail/message delivery available during that time in history.

I couldn't get my scanner to work (since upgrading to the newest operating system, my computer no longer recognizes the scanner - SCREECH!) so I took a photo of the cover. The art is great! I'm so very happy with it. This book was written about 11 years ago and finally sold a few years ago. It's been a long time coming. :-)

This book is available right now to pre-order via Amazon. Yay! And now I know when it's being released, too -- May 13, 2010. Hooray!

http://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Happened-Pony-Express-Verla/dp/0399244832/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_9 ------------ Whatever Happened to the Pony Express? (Hardcover) ~ Verla Kay (Author), Barry Root (Illustrator), Kimberly Bulcken Root (Illustrator) List Price: $16.99 Price: $11.55 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details You Save: $5.44 (32%) Pre-order Price Guarantee. Learn more. This title will be released on May 13, 2010. Pre-order now! Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available. -------

The End is in Sight! The End is NOT in Sight!

2009-10-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

The end of the construction project in the garage (three years of it) is finally winding down to a point where we can see the end coming. Hooray!

The floor is done in the upstairs room except for trim boards and edgings. Both upstairs and downstairs rooms are painted. (There's still an area outside the downstairs room that needs paint, but I'm hoping to get that done today.) The wallpaper is up on both of the end walls of the upstairs hobby/craft walls. (Now being called The Big Room or The Rumpus Room by us.) All of the trim boards have been painted except the baseboards, which are 16 feet long and need to be cut to size before they are painted. The window trim boards are cut to size, painted and ready to install. The finish electrical is well on its way to completion, with all of the lights installed upstairs (one fan light still has to be balanced) and half of the outlets are installed and ready to use. The other half will hopefully get done today, then we start on the downstairs electrical.

All that's left to complete the downstairs shop is window trim and electrical. It won't have baseboards or doors right now. It will be open into the garage for a while. Until the cold weather hits, then my hubby will start yelling, "It's too cold to work in here!" and then he will close it up. LOL! He should do it while it's still not too cold outside... but I know him well. Most likely he'll wait and then I'll have to listen to him complain about working outside in the freezing cold.

I'm so eager to move my treadmill and gazelle and other exercise equipment out of storage. They've been stored for SIX LONG YEARS now. I wonder if they will even still work? I do hope so! We won't know what to do without a storage unit anymore. Wow. It will be... like cutting off an arm. Of course the storage unit fees staying in our pockets will be a nice bonus..... The end is indeed in sight. And what a welcome sight it will be!

On the writing front, the end is not in sight. Still not a peep from anyone on my WWII POW story. I keep hoping for That Phone Call from my agent that says, "X publisher LOVES your story and wants to publish it!" But so far... nothing but crickets. "Chirp, chirp, chirp... silence." Sigh.

Once The Big Room is done, maybe I can get back to writing again. That would be a novel and exciting experience.... :-)

WIP (Work In Progress) Follow-up & Construction News

2009-10-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering and wondering what is going on with my WWII POW submission that my agent sent out. Two of the places have had it for two months now without a peep from the editors. Got an update from my agent yesterday and one still hasn't responded at all, the other is probably going to pass on it. There's a third editor who has only had it for a week or so, so we don't expect to hear from her for a while yet.

Why is waiting so darned hard? It's the "not knowing what's happening" that drives me up the wall. If I just KNEW what they were doing with my submission, it would be so much easier to wait. Are they looking at it? Is it still in a pile and they haven't even glanced at it yet? Are they excited about it and showing it around the office? Did they hate it so much they don't even want to return it -- because they don't want anyone else to *have* to read it? What? What? What ARE they doing?

(Insert smiley pulling hair out by the roots here.)

In the meantime, while I'm waiting, I'm working on completing the upstairs hobby/craft/exercise/guest room over our garage. Yesterday I got the primer totally painted on the walls and ceilings. Yay! (Yes, I did say ceilings - plural. This is a "double bay" attic room over the garage and there's a cathedral ceiling on each bay of the room.) Next is the paint and wallpaper on two of the end walls, then flooring, finish electrical and baseboards and trim around the windows. Then the room will be done and ready to move into. Yeah! I can hardly wait to get all my sewing and scrapbooking stuff out of storage. It's been stored for nearly six years now! It will be like Christmas. I'm sure I don't even remember half of what I have stored. :-)

Cake Decorator Week

2009-09-26T18:13:00.000-07:00

This week I'm a cake decorator. My granddaughter's birthday was on the 20th and my great grandson's birthday was on the 23rd. His party is being held tomorrow, and I was privileged enough to be allowed to make his birthday cake for the party. Yay!

Here's the cake I made for him. It's homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, topped with a whipped cream frosting and the decorations are made with butter cream frosting. YUM! I'm very proud of it!

Hopefully, I'll live through the party tomorrow afternoon. There's so much yet to do. It will take the rest of the night just to clean the mess in the kitchen from all the frostings and cake decorating! LOL! And I still have to clean up the deck (where she plans to hold the party under the big awning) and of course the downstairs has to be clean enough for people to get in to use the rest room....

Tonight we have four overnighters, just to add to the mix. It has been a very busy week. I love birthday celebrations, though, so it's all worth it.

WIP (Work In Progress) Breakthrough, 2008 Taxes & Pirate Talk Day

2009-09-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

The local SCBWI yearly conference day took place last Saturday and I came home tired and elated. In 1989 I started a young adult novel. It took me the better part of eighteen years to finish it. (I'm obviously not very fast at writing novels.) I was SO proud of it! I sent it to my agent. It came back... with a giant NO. She didn't feel it had any place in today's market. The characters weren't engaging enough. It just "wouldn't make it" in today's market. She didn't believe she could sell it so she wouldn't send it out.

WAH!

So for the past two years it has been sitting in my computer. Unloved. Unlooked-at. Uncared-for. Basically, dead.

But at the conference I was listening to Terry Trueman talk about how he started his novels and a giant lightbulb exploded in my brain. Suddenly I knew what was wrong with my novel. It was my main character. She was made of cardboard. Readers couldn't "feel" her anguish, her pain, her joys. They could read about her, but they weren't involved in her life in that vital way that would make them really care about her. They needed to care so much that they would laugh with her, feel her elation when things went right and cry with her over her woes. And sitting there listening to Terry talk, her voice jumped into my head and I started scribbling a new beginning paragraph for my novel. It worked! At every break, in between everything, I continued to scribble. The bones of a first new chapter formed. it worked! The bones of a new third chapter formed (the book switches POV -point of view- every chapter from her story to his story and then back to hers). It will work with serious revisions.

But that poses an entirely new problem. I have a whole novel to rewrite. (Well, at least half of one. Every other chapter....) At this point, I'm looking at my age and the time it took to finish this book the first time. I may or may not have another eighteen years to spend on this book. I mean, I'm getting OLD, ya know? *pulls out sixty more gray hairs*

Perhaps I need someone to push me daily on this. I know my favorite YA (young adult) writer of my acquaintance is Linda Joy Singleton and over the years I've watched her write and get published dozens of series novels. She does it by writing a little EVERY DAY on her books. One at a time. A few pages a day. Almost EVERY day. And in a matter of several months, she has a book. She revises as she goes, but she moves her stories forward every single day.

One step at a time. That's the key. Can I be that disciplined? Can I do that? I don't know. I'm a pretty unscheduled person. Linda writes every morning for several hours. Every day. Me? I'm all over the place. I don't have a specific writing time. I don't do anything the same two days in a row even. I'm more like a spoonful of water dropped into a sizzling hot frying pan coated with oil. I explode and splatter all over the place - on a daily basis.

My novel is calling to me right now. But the deadline for our extended 2008 taxes is looming and crushing me, too. And frankly, the taxes have priority. They HAVE to be done. I'd almost rather cut off both arms and legs than do taxes. Almost. Every year I swear I will be more organized the next year and every year it's the same thing. Missing bank statements. Missing credit card statements. Nothing where it needs to be. Papers flung in boxes and scattered on shelves and tucked into odd corners, into strangely labeled or not labeled at all files and folders. It would be so simple if I were more organized. I can be a whiz at organizing some things. But paperwork? Bills? Receipts? The second I get my hands on them they disappear, not to be seen again for eight or ten years.

It's like I have a hole in my brain. Paper goes into hand, brain takes over and subconsciously says, "Oh, goodie! A paper. An IMPORTANT paper. Where can she put this so it will be impossible to find? Under that big atlas that she never, ever looks at? Great. It should take her at least six years to find it there." And my evil body immediately walks over to the atlas, with my brain totally unconnected to it so I'll never remember where the paper went, and my hand lifts the book, puts the paper under it "for safekeeping" so it won't blow away when a door or window is opened, and that's the last I see of that important paper for years.

Later, at tax time, when I'm searching for that paper, lifting the atlas and looking under it is the last place I think of. So the paper is unable to be found, and I pay more taxes that year than I should. It's a foregone conclusion. It happens every year. I spend days and months hunting for missing papers, most of which are eventually found before the tax papers are all taken to my tax guy, but a few that are not found until years later. Literally years.

This year, while searching for 2008 tax papers I found some important missing receipts from 2005. Great. I put them into a folder marked... 2005 Tax Receipts Not Yet Deducted. If I ever get audited for that year, I'll have more deductions to add into the mix. That habit did save me from paying anything extra one year when I was audited. I just pulled out my "not yet deducted" file and actually ended up owing less taxes for that year. Of course the auditor just looked at them and said, "Oh. I see. Well, we'll just call it even then." If I'd been smart, I'd have made her pay me the extra refund, but I was just so happy to come out of it owing nothing, that I said, "Okay," and let her leave.

Just a note for the uninitiated. That tax auditor was sneaky. VERY sneaky. She kept saying things like, "Wow! You have a wonderful sense for business. You should start a business of your own."

I looked at her like she was totally insane and slowly said, "I DO have a business of my own. You are auditing it right now." Later I realized she had been trying to trick me into saying yes so she could say my business was really a hobby and then she could discount all my business expenses and make me pay a zillion dollars more in taxes and penalties. Since deep down inside it was a business to me, not a hobby, her trick didn't work. But that's when I realized how sneaky she was being. And it scared me. One wrong word and I would have been "toast." I'm not eager to be a tax auditor's toast. Not at all. And I'm sure she wouldn't have been buttered toast. :-)

Hmmm. I'd like to continue procrastinating to avoid those taxes, but it looks like the time has finally arrived to dig in and work on them some more. Think of me today and please send good thoughts my way. My mood will be foul. I will snap at anyone who comes near me. (Perhaps that's why my husband has already gone out to the garage to putter around out there? After 44 years of marriage he knows better than to be in the house when I'm working on taxes!) I'd get a huge bowl of M&Ms and put them on the table to give me strength while I do the taxes, but my diabetes numbers won't allow me to eat candy like that anymore. *sob*

So it's clothing (I need to get dressed first) and then breakfast and then the dreaded TAXES. Wouldn't it be great if I could actually finish getting them together for my tax guy today? That would be... wonderful. Yeah. It would be VERY good. Wish me luck! Here I go....

Blub, blub, blub...BLURP! I'm sinking....

Oh... and did everyone know that today is Pirate Talk Day? Yarr! I loves talking like me piratey character (Ramboetta on Midnight Ocean) in the Puzzle Pirates game on line. I play it often and LOVE the games. No slash and slay in this game. Just fun tetris-type puzzles. Lots of them! Yarr! Billions of Blistering Blue Barnacles, Yo Ho Ho and six bottles of Rum and all that to ye.

P.S. I'd MUCH rather be playing Puzzle Pirates than doing taxes!

High School Class Reunion

2009-09-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

Oh, wow. How the heck did my husband and I get to be so darned OLD? Our 45th High School class reunion is taking place this weekend in central California. (My husband and I graduated the same year from the same school. We actually met on Tuesday of the last week of school.) We're going to attend the reunion, of course. It will be fun to see if we even recognize any of those other "old folks" who will be there. It's scary to realize we have gotten so darned old.

It will be fun to go back as a successful author. At the last one we'd attended I had one or maybe three books published. Now I have had eight published and have three more under contract, two of them coming out in the next two years. For a little "nobody" at school, I feel pretty good about what I've accomplished so far in my lifetime.

I sent my agent my cell phone number. (Our cell phone only works when we are traveling, because we have no cell service in the middle of the wheat fields where we live in our little town of 860 people.) Wouldn't it be great if my agent called me while we were at the reunion to tell me she had an offer on my WWII POW story? Now that would be absolutely perfect! Of course, that's just a dream and wishful thinking. But it would be terrific if it happened.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of my old friends again. I hope most of them are there, too! From what the reunion committee gal said on the phone last week, only about 70 people had signed up to attend. A small number of the hundreds of people who graduated on that sunny day in June in 1964. Yep. 1964. A lifetime ago.

I'm just thankful I've had the opportunity to grow old. :-) The alternative isn't too attractive.

Writing Tips: The ABC's of Writing - Part 6

2009-08-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

TO FIND AN AGENT:

Request: SCBWI's list of agents.
Study: "Guide to Literary Agents & Art/Photo Reps" (Writer's Digest)
Check: Agent listings on the Response Times board at Verla Kay's Website (Only visible if you are a registered member of the Message Board.)

FOR CONTRACTS AND NEGOTIATING:

Call the Regional Advisor of your local SCBWI for advice and assistance
Talk to other published writers (Through SCBWI or Verla Kay's Message Board.)
Read and study the book - "Business & Legal Forms for Authors & Self Publishers" by Tad Crawford (Writer's Digest Books)
Join the Author's Guild and ask their lawyers to look over your contract for you

RECOMMENDED "How to Write" BOOKS:

The Writer's Digest "Guide to Manuscript Formats" by Buchman & Groves
"How to Write & Illustrate Children's Picture Books and Get Them Published" by Bicknell & Trotman
"Writing with Pictures" by Shulevitz (For illustrators and picture book writers.)
"Writing for Children & Teenagers" by Wyndham
"Author to Editor - Query Letter Secrets of the Pros" by White (Available on the Write4Kids website.)

HELPFUL URL's

SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators - The single most helpful organization for children's writers.)

Author's Guild - (You must be published or have a contract to be published to join. Yearly fees are contingent upon your yearly writing income.)

CW (Childrens-Writers) List (A very active email list for writers of children's literature.)

Verla Kay's Website for Children's Writers & Illustrators (Links to other helpful sites, access to a Live Chat Room, a very active Message Board, on-line workshops, transcripts, and extensive writing information.)

I hope you have enjoyed reading the ABC's of Writing. More writing tips will be posted on this blog later. Watch for them!