Dee Garretson's Blog, page 10

Writers, are you tired of the Snark Monster?

Over the last few months I've been shaken by the amount of snark a few writers are throwing out about other writers. Most writers are wonderfully supportive of each other, but the few that aren't adds a sour note that isn't needed. A little snark can be entertaining, I admit, but to go to the point of ridiculing someone for their newbie mistakes or disparaging writers' work without reading it is just wrong. One of the latest examples was from someone on Twitter referring to the incident of an author who self-published their old short stories and ran into a legal tangle with their publisher. The commenting writer referred to the author's work as "crappy short stories" and derided her decisions. This sent up a red flag to me. Did the commenter read the author's stories? I don't know, but after that, I did. "Crappy" is the last word I would use to describe them. I'm not here to do a review, and I don't often read short stories, but one of them won an O. Henry award and several others received accolades from recognized reviewers and authors who know the good from the bad.

We all make decisions based on our own lives, responsibilities and goals. If I've learned anything from the last two years in this industry, it's that I know enough to no longer judge a writer for the decisions they make. I haven't lived their disappointments, their dreams or their experiences, just as others haven't lived mine. Publishing is a tough business, and we all supposedly love books, so why would we undercut each other? Anyway, the point of this is to make me more aware that if we all want to survive and flourish, it's time to slay the snark monster. I had a very prim and proper grandmother who mostly drove me crazy, but when people were being nasty to each other, she would say, "That's just ugly behavior." You did know something after all, Grandma.

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And you thought math couldn't be funny?

I thought this was hilarious:

Making a Book Trailer – A Brief How-to with the Costs for a Movie Trailer-Look

There still seems to be much debate about the value of book trailers. I, for one, love them and think they are very useful for children's literature. I know some teachers and school librarians use them to encourage children to read. An author-made book trailer can't compete, of course, with a big-budget trailer produced by a professional at a publishing company, but I think we can still make ones that showcase our books. I wanted to post how I did mine for my latest book, WOLF STORM, and how much it cost, so that other authors who are considering trailers can use this to look at some of their options.

There are many ways to make trailers. I learned on the fly, so to speak, and have no previous experience, so there may be better or cheaper ways to do this than my method. First of all, I couldn't have done this without my 15-year-old son, who knew far more about the movie-making software than I did.

The costs first: We used an old video-editing software called Ulead, which we bought about seven years ago for $80.00. I've heard IMovie, available for Macs is very easy to use, and I know there are many choices out there. I purchased all the music, video clips and illustrations from Istockphoto.com. At Istockphoto, a buyer purchases a block of credits, and the larger the block purchased, the less expensive each credit becomes. A credit ranges in price from $1.25 if you buy a huge block to a $1.63 if you only buy a few. That's why it's best if you can search out what items you need, add up the total number of credits required to buy all of them, and then purchase the block you need right before you are ready to put the trailer together. You can download samples for free to rough out a trailer, and this helps insure you have exactly the right bits before you actually buy them.

My trailer was far more expensive than many author-made ones, because I decided to use video clips as much as possible, rather than still images. I wanted the feel of a movie trailer and thought that would be the best way to accomplish it. There are also different levels of quality of images and clips you can buy, which affects the price. I chose to purchase "big web" images because I wanted them to show up clearly when viewed full screen.

If you haven't seen the trailer, here it is:

Here's what I purchased with the credit price (not dollar price) next to each one:

Video Clips:

Space ship animated 55

Sweeping mountain scene 55

Nice snow scene 30

Creepy snow scene – 30

Snow falling – 30

Black Wolf – 30

Still images:

3 photos of girl at medium quality 10 each- 30

Spaceship illustration 15

Music:

Total of 3 different clips at 15 credits each – 45

I was not very familiar with Photoshop then, so the poster image is one I paid someone to make. Now I would be able to do it on my own. I also filmed one clip myself, begging my husband and son to participate, making that one was free. The boy who did the voiceover is a friend of my son's, and I didn't pay him, except to give him a $25.00 gift card to an indie bookstore in our town.

The total number of credits I used was 320 credits. I purchased two different blocks because I didn't anticipate the exact number I needed, so on average, I paid $1.45 a credit. That brings the total to $489.00 with the gift card.

How I did it: I wrote a rough script and blocked out different ideas for images. Once I started searching through Istock, I ran across others that I thought would work better, and continually adapted the script to the images. We put all the images together to see how long the video would be. I wanted it at no more than two minutes, so we did some shortening of various clips. After that, we recorded the dialogue and added it in to fit the images. This showed us where we needed to cut some of the clips and double others to get the timing right. My son added in the music around the voice, lowering and raising the volume to the appropriate levels.

It's a long process, especially searching for just the right images and music, but I enjoyed it. If you don't like that sort of thing, it would be very frustrating. Overall, I would do it again. Whether or not it's worth it in pure monetary terms as it relates to book sales, I don't know. Then again, so much of what we authors do is hard to quantify, so at least with this particular promotion attempt, I came out of it with something I'm proud of, and I enjoyed making it.

Lord of the Rings Hobbit Cake – Bilbo's Bag End

My whole family are huge Lord of the Rings fans and we are anxiously awaiting the first of the two Hobbit movies. And because September 22 is Bilbo's birthday and the Shire would be a lovely place to live, we decided to attempt a Bag End cake for my son's birthday.

The cake has a bottom layer of chocolate and a top layer of pound cake.

I bought some of the supplies from a cake decorating store, because I like to use the concentrated food coloring available there. It doesn't add too much liquid to the frosting or the marzipan to get the intense colors. Here's the list:

1 jar of green

1 jar of yellow

1 jar of brown

1 jar of gold luster dust

1 pack of decorative flowers

1 jar of small flowers

1 pack of rabbits

Besides regular baking supplies for the cake, we also used:

2 containers of white frosting

1 tube of marzipan

4 frozen Sara Lee pound cakes

Here's how we did it:

I made a chocolate sheet cake using a recipe that made a sturdier cake than a usual box recipe:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1 Duncan Hines Devils Food Chocolate Mix

4 egg whites

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 small package instant chocolate pudding mix

1 cup sour cream

Mix all ingredients together and bake in a greased 9×13 inch cake pan for about 35 minutes

I attempted to make a top vanilla layer using another recipe I found on the internet and baking it in apan, but that failed miserably, so at the last minute I went out and bought four frozen Sara Lee pound cakes. We stacked them together to make a square hill, then shaved off the sides to get a more natural looking house.

We frosted it all in green frosting and after the cake was covered, we used forks to make the frosting look more like grass. The pathway is crushed up graham crackers. The fence is chocolate-covered pretzels and the door and window are made from colored marzipan. The doorknob is made from marzipan rolled in gold luster dust.

Overall, I'm pleased with the way it came out. I'm not a huge fan of pound cake, so I'm glad there is a chocolate layer there too.

A wolf pack of giveaway for WOLF STORM's release

WOLF STORM comes out tomorrow, and in celebration I'm giving away a collection of wolf-related books and items over on the Project Mayhem blog through September 12th. To get there, you can click on this link: http://project-middle-grade-mayhem.blogspot.com/2011/08/character-inspiration-and-wolf-storm.html Please check it out!

Second Book Syndrome – The difference between the first and the second books

Zen Cat

Two days away from the release of WOLF STORM, I've been thinking about how different it is to have a second book coming out. Not just in the release, but in the whole writing process. First of all, I am incredibly thankful I've connected with so many people in the kidlit community since WILDFIRE RUN came out: the writers, the readers, the teachers, the librarians, and the bloggers. It has made the second book process much easier. At the time of the release of  WILDFIRE RUN, I had an established online network of writer friends, but I had no idea I could find so many people who are passionate advocates of children's literature.

Many writers talk about second book syndrome. I'm not talking about the first and second books people have written. Most published writers I know have written several books before they have one that gets published. I'm talking about the first and second books that actually get out into the world.  When you are trying to write a second book, the syndrome is very real, but it's also totally self-induced, except for the deadline pressure. If you are like a typical writer, you may have spent a long time writing that first book, tweaking it, rewriting it, changing the plot, and polishing it through long query rounds or writer workshops until it gets picked up.

The second book is very different-WOLF STORM was sold on a one paragraph pitch and a three page synopsis. I was left, like many writers, with a contract, a deadline, and a blank screen to fill. The pressure is greater because people are depending on you and assuming you can meet their expectations. Every writer I know has to fight that little voice whispering, "You can't do it again. The first book was a fluke. You are a fraud." I've come to believe writing is a mind game. You not only have to overcome rejection and criticism in the outside world, you have to overcome the insidious doubt your inner saboteur is trying to inflict on you.

In this whole process, the hardest part for me was actually getting a first draft done. Once I had something there, I knew I could get it into shape. When I had a polished draft completed, it was all a relatively easy after that. The rest of it depends on so many other factors that are outside my sphere of influence. I now know what to expect, what I can control, and more importantly, what I can't. My hair actually began to fall out with the whole publication process of WILDFIRE RUN over the things I couldn't change or affect. I'm happy to report that's not happening with WOLF STORM. When the book is released, I can reach out to people who have come to know me a little over the past year and let them know it's out. I can hope that the story will find enthusiastic readers who will want to recommend it to others. I can continue to find interested people in the children's literature community, but beyond that,  I have to let go and concentrate on writing the next book and the next. That's how I should be spending the bulk of my time. I want to be a storyteller, and to do that I have to tell stories.

National Aviary Pittsburgh

I didn't know the National Aviary existed until my children started researching things we should do and see on our Pennsylvania road trip. My daughter and I both like birds and so we were happy to find this fabulous place. There are over 600 birds there. It's not a traditional zoo-almost everything is inside, and it's small enough to manage in two to three hours. We signed up and paid for some of the special events, but even if you don't want to do those, make sure you are there for the wetlands feeding, the flight of the macaws and the dove release.

The extras we did were the sky deck to see and learn about lanner falcons and vultures and the flamingo encounter. The flamingos were especially fascinating. The aviary does this program because they have three flamingos they had to hand raise, and these three are willing to approach people. Th other flamingos in the exhibit just ignored us. Shoelaces were quite fascinating to one of the birds. It was amazing to be able to get so close to so many birds.

Pennsylvania Road Trip – Day 1

The Carnegie Science Center

We missed being able to tour the WWII submarine, but my favorite part of the rest of the center was the Robot Hall of Fame, featuring famouse robots from television and movies.

 

I had forgotten about this little guy:

This is a model of Dewey, one of a trio of robots from the movie Silent Running.  I think I'll have to rewatch that movie. As I remember, those robots may have been the inspiration to George Lucas to give R2D2 a personality in the Star Wars movies.

Next stop: The National Aviary

And the Winners are… Armchair BEA giveaways

I wish everyone could have won, but  unfortunately it isn't possible. The two winners were chosen at random by my kiddos drawing numbers out of our handy-dandy prize bucket.  They think this is one of the small perks of being a writer's kids. The numbers correspond to the order in which people entered. So the winner of the signed ARC of THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern is The Book Wurrm. The winner of the signed hardcover of WILDFIRE RUN (by me) is Joy. I'll contact you for your addresses.  And for all of you who entered the WILDFIRE RUN contest, I'll be contacting you as well. I might be able to get you ARCs of WOLF STORM if you are interested. Thanks to all who entered, and a huge thanks to the organizers of Armchair BEA to give writers a chance to connect with book bloggers.

Free Skype Visits for Summer Book Clubs

Skype is my newly discovered love. It was a fantastic experience to skype (new verb?) with classrooms around the country on World Read Aloud day. I'd like to continue to connect with readers, so I'm offering free 20 minute Skype visits with books clubs and homeschool group who read WILDFIRE RUN, my middle grade/tween adventure. It's the story of a (fictional) President's son and his friends getting trapped at Camp David during a disaster and was a Junior Library Guild selection in the high interest middle reader category. You can download my bookclub discussion questions by clicking on the link above. Email me at deegarretson at gmail.com to schedule.  I won't be available some of the first part of July, but am flexible about other times. Happy summer reading!