Happy New Year, Mamas!

Hope everyone has a wonderful New Year’s Eve.

We were joking that we wish we could watch the ball drop on NYC time…even though we’re on the west coast.

Then we could go to bed at our usual time.

In seven years of marriage, I don’t think we’ve ever even come close to being awake at midnight. 😉

But, hey, you never know. There’s a first time for everything.

I have a lot of resolutions to post in the New Year (tomorrow) as well as some professional goals, my “one word” for the year, and of course all the good stuff from the all-new The Writer Mama Zine.

Yahoo! 2008 is going to be a great year.

Wishing you as much health, wealth and wisdom as you can possibly handle.

Clink-clink!

A Little Vacation from Our Vacation, Perhaps?

Um, yeah. If you read my post from a couple days ago you might be able to guess what happened next.

Yes, that was me up all night on Christmas Eve and I wasn’t waiting for St. Nick.

Then my hubby went down on Xmas day.

Fortunately, Samantha bounced back in time for Christmas morning and sledding down a short, steep hill in the back yard with daddy and grandma.

On Wednesday, everyone was well enough to go see Beauty and the Beast and even eat the Christmas Roast Beast.

Thanks for letting us take some cookies home with us, Mom!

On the upside, the trip home went quite a bit smoother. A delay in Chicago but Samantha made some little friends at the airport while we were waiting.

We’d heard we’d be coming home to snow…but it turned out to be the usual rain instead. Hey, our plane wasn’t canceled. We’ll take it.

Today is all about unpacking and wrapping our gifts for each other that we will open in the morning. (!!!)

I’m going to lay low for a couple more days. My stomach is still not quite right…but come January 2nd, we’re going to have some excitement around here.

First, I’ll send out the tip markets to all the folks who have been sending in their Writer Mama receipts over the holidays. Good job, ladies!

Then, I’ll be posting and sending out the zine versions of Writers on the Rise and The Writer Mama. Yahoo!

I’ve got a few deadline myself before another month of intensive book writing recommences.

Hope everyone has a safe and fun New Year’s Eve. Above all, stay healthy! I’ll try to do the same.

Gold Star: Wonder Graffiti

This is way too cool not to share.

Have you heard of Wonderful Graffiti?

The company is owned by a former student’s daughter and son-in-law.

Actually, the former student and her husband both took my class when I taught in Bellingham, Washington. They would sometimes quibble in class, so I called them “The Bickersons.”

It usually got them to stop and laugh about it. Now they’ve been married for fifteen years.

I love what a fun idea this is and how successful the owners have been in a short time.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have wonderful graffiti on every wall? Fun!

Warm Winter Wishes

After almost missing our flight, running with all of our bags from the parking lot, making our first flight, only to be told that our second flight was canceled, I was wondering…why do we do all this again?

Did I mention that the first flight was a red-eye, so I was up all night? I didn’t think so.

So we opted to fly to another city, my parents drove extra hours to get us, we stayed at a hotel, and swung by the original destination airport to retrieve our luggage.

The good news: it was all there!

The bad news: my daughter spent the last leg of the trip throwing up.

That’s right—the stomach flu.

Tra-la-la.

Seems like the worst is over…about twelve hours later.

I’ll be mostly off line for the next few days. Hope yours are merry and bright!

Register Now for 2008 Writing-for-Publication Classes with Christina Katz

I’m very pleased to announce my (recently revised) class line-up for 2008. 🙂

I have a couple of “new additions” this year that I’m excited about:

Targeting Your Best Writing Markets (which is being offered in February, for those of you who have taken Writing and Publishing the Short Stuff and are looking for the next step)

&

Crafting the Nonfiction Book Proposal (which is being offered one time in June, please read the suggested prerequisites if you are interested)

I’ll be posting a flyer for the entire 2008 year soon. In the meantime, the 2008 schedule is posted on the classes page at Writers on the Rise and registration is now open.

Still Need a Holiday Gift?
If you’d like someone to give you a partial class payment as a holiday gift, feel free to have them contact me at writer mama @ earthlink dot net. They can always make an electronic payment towards your balance. (And they’ll probably notice that I have the best priced e-classes around.)

Here are the two classes being offered in February. Hope to “see” you in then!

Writing and Publishing The Short Stuff – Especially For Moms (Dads Welcome too)!
Finally, a writing workshop that fits into the busy lives of moms! You will learn how to create short, easy-to-write articles—a skill that will make it easier to move up to longer, more time-consuming articles when you’re ready. Try your pen at tips, fillers, short interviews, list articles, how-tos, and short personal essays—all within six weeks. Class begins February 13, 2008. Cost: $175.00. Register.

Targeting Your Best Writing Markets
Learning to sift through and analyze markets is one of the biggest challenges of launching a writing career. This class will help you tackle the markets head on while covering: idea management, how to discover your best audiences, how to allow those audiences to lead you to fresh ideas, how to break a magazine down into the key areas that matter most to freelancers, and how to start specializing right away so your career will achieve lift-off faster. Class begins February 13, 2008. Cost: $175.00. Register.

Gold Star Movie Recommendations for Over the Holidays

I have four movie recommendations to suit the following occasions:

You want something the whole family will enjoy in theaters
This would be Enchanted. J and I saw it today and wished we’d brought Samantha. We’ll have to prep her for the scary part though. But it’s not all that scary. Teenage boys might not go for it, especially in groups. But everyone else, especially the girls in the family, will love it. My husband even enjoyed it despite repeated efforts to talk me into seeing something else. View the trailer here or here.

You want to be inspired at the theater
If you are not a cynical person, you will love August Rush. If you lean to the cynical or even the intellectual side, you may need to suspend your disbelief…a lot. But I recommend it because it’s a really inspirational film that upholds the promise of my fourth movie recommendation. If you need help suspending your disbelief, watch recommendation four at home, then go to theaters and watch this. View the trailer here or here.

You want a chick flick you can view at home
I loved Waitress. We saw it on DVD when I wasn’t feeling well and it was thoroughly entertaining. For a movie that seems very lighthearted, it gave me a lot to think about. Especially because of the tragic death of the film’s director. Don’t miss it here or here.

You need a pep talk and you need it now
Apparently while the rest of the world was reading The Secret and watching the film, I was busy. And I’m still busy, which is perhaps why I welcome a positive message such as this film conveys. I am not sure it’s up to all the hype or that they’ve covered the topic very thoroughly, but I still enjoyed watching the film, especially over Thanksgiving right before seeing August Rush. We started a family vision board after seeing this film. I used to do this on my journal covers but I’d fallen out of the habit. Now I’m encouraging all of my friends to create vision boards too. Watch the trailer here or here.

Happy holiday R&R and happy movie watching!

Interview in Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine and a Riff on “Happy Holidays”

How interesting. Just when a post in Michael Stelzner’s blog, Writing White Papers, really tripped my trigger, my interview with Jackie Papandrew in the Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine appeared.

In my comment to Michael’s post, Merry Christmas, NOT Happy Holidays, I talk about the importance, for me, of diversity and following an inner, not an external, authority. And how that determines what I say to others, as opposed to what a study says:

I say “Happy Holidays” because I am part of an interfaith family. Sometimes I say “Happy Holy Days” to remind me that important traditions of the season we still practice today come from many (not just christian) faiths. I feel better about myself when I don’t make assumptions about others being one faith or another but remember that we are all the same regardless of what religion we choose or are raised in. At holiday time, I want to celebrate and acknowledge diversity because diversity is healthy and it’s the reality in which we live. I say Happy Holidays because I trust my gut, not a study when it comes to what I should say and to whom. Personally, I don’t find anything particularly American about Christmas. Nor do I associate being American to have anything to do with one religion or another. I am an advocate of people following their gut…and it will inform them of what to say when. Thanks for the discussion.

And then in the interview for Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine posted today, I elaborate on the same theme, which is be mindful of the rules but ultimately follow your gut.

You can read the interview here.

Coincidence? I think not.

Say “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas,” mamas, whichever you prefer, but for goodness sakes, do it because that’s how you feel in your heart. That’s the reason for my riff today. If there is one thing I’ve learned as a mom who strives to communicate with all moms, it’s how incredibly diverse we all are. I celebrate that diversity because homogeneity is fine…but diversity is divine.

While I’m bringing everything full circle, I want to acknowledge that this blog wasn’t chosen as a top ten blog by Writing White Papers. I’ve been meaning to write about that, but I’ve been so darn busy with deadlines and holiday prep.

I knew we wouldn’t be chosen after we were nominated when I saw the criteria for the top ten. For a split second, I had the urge to conform to someone else’s idea of what makes a good blog. Then I remembered that this blog has received almost 50,000 visitors this year and I came back to my senses.

You can view the list of nominees here and the blogs that were chosen here. Check them out. They are great blogs.
It’s unlikely that I’ll adhere to someone else’s standards any time soon because my blog is the place where I let it rip, not where I follow someone else’s rules. I encourage all bloggers to do the same.

Happy Holidays, mamas!

On the Nonfiction Book Writing Process #1

I’m not ready to share what my next book is about, however, I am ready to talk about the nonfiction book writing process.

Has anyone seen the magazine ad for American Express featuring Tina Fey? Her daughter Alice is sitting in the desk chair and she is under the desk in a pile of papers? That was pretty much me last book.

Because it was my first book, I tried every creative approach I could think of. I mean I tried EVERYTHING.

But what was cool for me when I saw this ad was to recognize the storyboard bulletin board in the background.

The storyboard technique was instrumental for me in trying to devise the form or shape that Writer Mama would take.

To read it, I bet you would never guess the pains I went through to make sure that everything was in there and in an order that made sense.

I had to prioritize and condense an enormous amount of information and—what I obsessed about most—make it enjoyable to read.

I am trained as a fiction writer, after all.

So, I used the storyboard constantly. I bet I rearranged those darn post-it notes about a thousand times.

And then of course, my editors would suggest rearranging chapter, sections and sidebars again. And I would. Right up until the very final draft.

OMG, don’t even ask me how many drafts I did. I’m going to guess about a thousand, especially on the front of the book.

The second half went much faster once we’d settled on a definitive format for the book.

I hope, if you are working on a nonfiction book this winter, that you will find my posts on process encouraging…especially when you are ready to throw the whole darn mss. out the window.

Just remember that all of your hard work, in the end, is supposed to be indiscernible to the reader. So when someone emails me and says, “I read your book in two days…” I just smile. And I know that all my hard work—and storyboarding—were worth it.

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

I found this crafty 12 days of Christmas video over at my very favorite blog, Ali Edwards Design.

It’s from Craft Amor and will definitely put you in the creative spirit!

Thanks, Ali!

Baby Boom Reported in The Oregonian

Apparently Oregon joined the rest of the nation in a baby boom in 2006, according to today’s Oregonian. Last year The US saw the biggest increase in births in nearly 20 years. It’s the first time since 1971 that women are expected to have more babies than needed to replace a generation.

Oregonians top the trend with a six percent jump in births. That’s double the national average.

One reason for the trend is the large numbers of women over thirty giving birth.

You can read the whole article here and link to a list from babycenter.com of top baby names.

Interesting, huh?

Jodi Picoult Videos

I stumbled across a couple cool videos of Jodi Picoult talking about being a writer mama this past summer.

We chatted about the trip to Rome that she was about to take with her daughter Sammy back in June when I saw her at the Writer’s Digest/BEA Conference. So it was fun to see her actually on the trip.

I can’t embed (need to figure that out), so here’s the links:

On the road with Jodi Picoult

 At home with Jodi Picoult

Isn’t the Internet grand?

We’re going to NH to visit my family for Christmas.

I can hear Samantha in the kitchen right now saying, “Daddy, where’s New Hampshire? Show me on the map.”

We have family all over the world so we keep giant maps up so we can show Samantha where everyone lives.

I’ve been working hard on my book, but this weekend I’ll take some time off to wrap up the holiday preparations and get ready to go.

How are you spending your holidays, writer mama?

Back in the saddle

Nothing like getting up at four a.m. to work for twelve hours.

Then taking a bath and watching a little Everybody Loves Raymond with the best take out pizza in town…and the best family in town too, of course.

First day of real health in a week. Hooray!

Can’t wait to do it all over again tomorrow. 😉

Riff: Thanks for Backing Me Up on That, Mr. Maass

Finally, I have proof, straight from an agent’s mouth that it is not a good idea to compare yourself in a query letter to a best-selling author. This has always been a tactic that screams “amateur” to me. And now, in an interview with Writer Unboxed’s Therese Walsh, agent Donald Maass tells us why:

Q: Is it arrogant to compare yourself to a known author in your query letter, in order to convey style? It this a recommended approach?

DM: The problem with most comparisons is that they over-reach. “Fans of David Baldacci will love my political thriller!” Oh, yeah? Try toning it down. Compare to writers at a lower level, or say you’ve “learned” from David Baldacci. That’s more credible. Many new writers are afraid to compare themselves to their true competition, other debut novelists, for fear of painting themselves small. Actually, it works the other way around. An honest comparison locates you on the genre map and starts me thinking about which editors would be right for your project. Calling yourself a “sure-fire bestseller”, on the other hand, just makes your expectations sound impossible to fulfill.

Read the first half of the interview here at Writer, Unboxed.

Self-Care Goals for the New Year Meme

I think it’s time we start talking about our goals for the New Year, don’t you?

And, then I thought, why not make these discussions memes so everyone can post their list in their blogs and spread the wealth? So here we go.

Up first, self-care. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going to be scheduling self-care rituals into my routine because I’ve proven that the busier I get, the more my self-care inadvertently goes to the bottom of my list.

So, these are ten simple self-care steps I commit to making a habit in 2008:

1. Take a daily vitamin

2. Drink more water

3. Drink fresh juice or Superfood daily

4.  Eat more veggies

5. Exercise daily (30 minute minimum)

6. Keep up with doctor and dentist appointments

7. Take a monthly day off and just read when most tired

8. Schedule more “work meetings” with friends 😉

9. Take more baths

10. Indulge in occasional extras like massages, manicures and pedicures

Okay, your turn! What’s your self-care plan for the New Year? I’m not going to pick anyone specific because I know most moms need to be asked about this.

Thank you Barnes & Noble, Clackamas Town Center

I have been wanting to do a writer mama panel for a long time. So I invited Chelsea Cain, Elizabeth Rusch and Heather Sharfeddin and we did a panel. Diana Page Jordan moderated and she was terrific. The whole experience was altogether enjoyable. I wish I had recorded it!

We’ve all recently published very different kinds of books and yet, despite our individual approaches to process, we seemed to agree on the following:

Childcare is important.

Supportive spouses are key.

Seeking a tribe of believing mirror fellow writers is critical (especially because they may not be the folks closest to you, that last part came from me).

Thanks, to Page Jordan from Barnes & Noble for hosting! And Jerry Isom and Bill Johnson from Willamette Writers!

Here we are. I will definitely be organizing another one near Mother’s Day. Thanks everyone for coming!

Meanwhile, when she wasn’t in the audience, Samantha enjoyed the children’s section.

She was also pleased to receive a copy of Elizabeth Rusch’s A Day with No Crayons (Rising Moon), one of four books she published this year along with the Oregon Book Award Nominated, Will It Blow? Become a Volcano Detective at Mount St. Helen’s (Sasquatch), The Planet Hunter, The Story Behind What Happened to Pluto (Rising Moon), and Girls Tennis, Conquering the Court.

All in all, it was a good day.