Dixie Dawn Miller Goode's Blog, page 6

Spring Break and Needing to Write

 Writing has been slow lately because so many other things in my life have been keeping me busy, and then when I have had time, I just wanted to turn my mind of and read someone else's books instead of working on mine.

Amazon Author Page link:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard 
 But spring has arrived and my husband had his spring break 2 weeks ago, so this week when my school is on our break, I haven't got a lot distracting me, and delving back into the active word generating is appealing again.  It is something many other writers share with me, that the ideas seem to blossom when you are away from the keyboard and yet when you sit down to write you struggle to find one or two words at a time.  My theory is that my story generating state is a lot like my pre-sleep state, because I come up with the best ideas just as I am drifting off to sleep and I have to get up right then and write them down or all I will remember in the morning is that I have forgotten a great idea.

Spring here is generating new growth and encouraging me to get outside, even though there is pollen everywhere stinging my eyes and making my skin irritated, the beauty makes me want to create as well.

Usually I work about three days a week as a substitute teacher and the rest of the week I can write, do chores and try to sell my books. Now I have started a long term class of 4/5th grade students, so I am busy all the time, but getting to do some really cool things.  We are gong on a three hour sail on a tall ship, and I get to actually reach my Double time on the Oregon Trail book as part of the curriculum here for both American History and reading.  When Del Norte County Schools Director of curriculum approved the use of my novel, I had no dream that I would actually be in a 5th grade class to teach it.


So along with writing, and trying to lesson plan, and spring clean and get ready to be a grandma soon, I am also going to the beach and to the drive-in movie and puttering in the yard.  Life is good, and if you care to read one of my books check out the links above, and please, add a review if you have time.

Finding a Class Reading my Novel

 I work as both a writer and as a substitute teacher. The two are mostly unconnected although talking to kids helps me to think of ideas for my writing and to make my characters really talk like the kids do. Recently, walking through the hall before school. I found myself suddenly surrounded by a group of girls, "Mrs Goode! We are reading your book. I love the way you go back and forth in time,"
and on and on while I stand amazed.
That is WHY!!
  I found out it is Mrs. Hooper and her class reading it. A few informed me which 1 kid doesn't like it. I actually laughed - 1 kid doesn't? That is such a Win! Thank you Sandi !  I am lucky because this wonderful teacher first read my book with her book club, a group of a dozen adults, and chose to share it with her class.  And then I am also lucky because a class set of 38 books was purchased last year by the school district's instructional media center.


 Of course, that kind of luck starts with some book promotion on my part and it is hard for me to add promoting and sales to an already busy life as a mom, teacher, writer. It is also not the best match with the shy, observer type personality that a writer tends to be, but years of teaching have taught me too, and I can speak up when I have to.

So one of the best bits of advice that I read on Twitter was the suggestion that every free copy of your book that you put out into the world is an ambassador, working away while you are not looking, to promote your writing.

In this case, I gave a copy of my book to a 5th grade teacher, she read it and suggested it to her book club, which bought 10 copies.  Then they had me come talk to them.  I also gave a book to another substitute teacher, she gave it to her husband, who gave it to the director of curriculum, who gave it to the IMC Librarian with the instructions to go to Amazon and order a class set.

It doesn't always work so well. A lot of give away books, I never hear about again, but some result in wonderful reviews on Goodreads or in blog posts.


 So, three day later I was back at the school where they had started my novel.  This time the reaction was bigger even than before. The kids surrounded me at the bus line, asking me to autograph their arms or notebooks or scraps of paper and begging to know specific details from the book,

"Why did you start the story in St. Louis?"

"Have you ever ridden to the top of the Gateway Arch?"

"Is that Old Grandma really based on yours?"

 And now I have kids, telling me that they want to be writers, and asking me how.

I have kids asking for a sequel

and when I tell them that the next book has been begun

and that it is about Volcanoes and Pompeii and My. St. Helens and connecting two boys through 1901 years, they sound as excited as I do.

 I find that I did get to visit many of the Oregon Trail sites as I researched and wrote, but I probably won't get near Pompeii or Vesuvius, and yet I have learned to travel without ever leaving my desk, and to take classrooms full of kids with me on the journey and I thank my lucky starts every day for this gift.

Spring into a good book, with links

Duffy Barkley Is Not a Dog
Duffy Barkley: Seek Well
Double Time On the oregon Trail

Today I went to Substitute teach at a grade school as I usually do, but I didn't know that one of the classrooms was reading one of my books.  as I walked toward the breakfast crowd, I found myself surrounded, and by now I expect hugs and questions, like, "who are you subbing for?" but I didn't expect
"We are reading your Oregon Trial book!" 
"I love your book."
"I like the way that you move back and forth through time"
"One boy doesn't like it,"
YES!
'One boy doesn't like it ?   One! 
In a class of over 30??
WIN!


 Several Times lately, I have had people ask me for links to the connections where my books and I can be found, So I decided that I need to do another post with some links.  As usual I wanted to sprinkle my blog with pictures, because I am a Words & Pictures kind of person.  I wonder, if my major role in life isn't to observe how beautiful things seem to me, and then record those observations in my writing, my photographs and my paintings.  I love being alive in this wonderful world, even though I have to play around in fantasy and try to create a world of my own, at the same time I am loving this one.

Dixie GoodeAmazon Author Page link:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/dashboard Twitter link: http://twitter.com/#!/pandorasechoTwitter # 2;  http://twitter.com/#!/DuffyBarkley Author Blog:  http://duffybarkley.blogspot.com/Blog # 2:      http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/Book Genre:  Fantasy/Young Adult365 Project (pictures) http://365project.org/pandorasecho/profileRedgage (pictures and links)  http://www.redgage.com/#rf:/profile:innercontainer:dashboard.usercreatespace Duffy Barkley Paperback book 1  https://www.createspace.com/3450238"             "    " "            "        "            book 2  https://www.createspace.com/3649425
The Double Time On The Oregon Trail links

kindle book
http://www.amazon.com/Double-Time-Oregon-Trail-ebook/dp/B008G3JZB8/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341109826&sr=1-5
paperback on Createspacehttps://www.createspace.com/3923513
paperback on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Double-Time-Oregon-Trail-1/dp/1478160926/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341504499&sr=1-3&keywords=double+time+on+the+oregon+trail
 and of course you should be able to ask your local librarian or bookstore to get any of my books



So have a happy spring, and if you do read something I wrote, even if you are the one who hates it, Thank you - and BTW Book Reviews are my favorite treat to discover online.

Happy Valentine's Day

 Life has been going quickly past this school year.  I have not written as much as I would like but then again, I have not been completely away from my stories either and my real life competes with the fantasies I try to put down in book form.
 It has truly been a beautiful winter here, which is not really a good thing over the long run.  Days in the redwood coast in January and February were not supposed to be near 70 and sunny, but even though it threatens dry wells and fiery summers, I have been enjoying it and getting into the trees and to the beach

 I also went up to Eugene with my husband and while he was involved in a music festival I explored the old cemetery. Not sure why but there is an attraction to old, decaying places like decrepit barns and mossy tombstones



 Spring weather should be rainy and it finally has come but not enough yet even though my house got 10 inches of rain in 8 day.  the river spot we love should be at flood stage this time of year, 29 feet and is often over that in January, but was only 8 feet before the rain started last week, and even now only got to 19 feet before dropping back to about 13 now


 Valentine's Day is fortunately not just for couples.  I never see my music teacher husband on Valentine's day as he is in the next town up delivering Valen-tunes - but there are many people I love and so Valentine's day is a reminder that every day, my life is blessed by a multitude of good people

It is a full moon valentine's day but the rain is blessing us heavily and therefore I can't see it, so instead here is a simple painting I did my freshman year of college.

Now enough avoiding the novel. Going to open that document and figure out why Duffy Barkley is marooned on an Island and refusing to move forward

When ideas are offered as gifts

I don't know why I didn't think of asking you this before. It's a question that has really bothered me but . . . sometimes the brain overlooks the obvious.  It is a question that has to do with talking about your writing as it is a work in progress, and having other people, either in person or on line, offer you suggestions and ideas which feel perfect.

Then when you use the idea and flesh it out in your story, do you really own it?

Anyway, while my two boys were in grade school, playing youth sport soccer we'd spend a lot of time at the park and to pass the time with the one who wasn't practicing at that time, I'd tell stories and they'd add challenging ideas and a few years later they had developed into my first NaNoWriMo Novel which I published through createspace and kindle. 

But in one of those soccer side, story sessions one of their friends was there listening, and got really into it, and told me to use a character he made up. She was perfect and fit so well and I drilled him on wether he had seen her in a game or book or movie and he swore he made her up just then. Well it was five years later when I took his basic framework and used her as a minor character, but her name was perfect and she seemed so well imagined, I was always afraid he'd stollen her from somewhere. So has anyone heard of

Miskva, Guardian of the singing trees of belle island, who is a seer of prophecy and riddles in a giant but broken pyramid that came into the world as it was being created.

Any manga creation or TV show come to mind, a game or movie or comic book? I'm pretty sure it's a case of can't be too similar the way I created her story from the bare outline above but still I'm curious.  I even had people run her through plagiarism testers and they came back clean, that it hadn't been used in any book - which of course shows how many people have read Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog, because she was used in both my Duffy Books and they are out there.

 I'm remembering this kid was into Star Wars but wasn't allowed to read Tolkien due to parent's religion and ideas about wizards being evil. He loved some card collecting game but it wasn't Pokemon because that also was taboo. He was home schooled so the kids only knew him through soccer and we've lost touch or I'd ask him again

You know I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt using ideas from the NaNoWriMo Website challenge thread too, like it is somehow wrong even though those challenges are put up with the intent that people would use them, but I've incorporated a baby dragon who gets sick in water and loves baths and is named Fred. That was on the nano site forums dare thread, telling anyone who thought they could, to incorporate him into the story, but I don't even know who suggested it, to thank them in my notes. 

New Year's Resolved

 I don't have a lot of complicated resolutions this year, just a desire to prioritize my health and my family, an urge to make a wish, hope for it and then believe it might really come true. And of course to write more books (and sell more too!)
Last year my goals were those shown above and I'd have to say I did pretty well with them the first half of the year, then some family issues slowed me down and bogged me in a lot of worry and the whole balance and health kind of flew out the window.  But Time to get back on track.

Happy 2014

After NaNoWriMo comes December

 You may have noticed that it has been awhile since I updated anything about my writing progress.  Hmmm.  That may be because there really hasn't been any progress to update about.  After the intensity of meeting a daily word count goal for the month, it was tempting to take a few days off to recover.  Then I got into the December Holidays and putting up a tree and going to concerts and writing was more about writing a Christmas letter and addressing Christmas Cards.
  And I started rereading my old Christmas letters and realized how faded and yellow the pages had become.  Then I started adding those letters to the things I wanted to save in my other blog.  Echo's Voice is less about writing and more just about the random people and places and events and thoughts of the moment.  o this December I have been retyping the letters from the early '90's and revisiting a time before children when travel was a big part of my life.
 At first I felt guilty for letting my novels just sit, but I realize it happens every December. Family and friends get to take center stage and the novels get to sit in the dark and age like a fine cheese.
So I love Christmas.  I am going to enjoy it and hope that you do too.  Merry Christmas!  If you don't Celebrate Christmas, of course just take the wishes that you have joy with loved ones for yourself.

NaNoWriMo by Day 24

 My writing was zipping right along, a bit behind schedule but highly motivated until three days ago, when my dog and I both got sick with the stomach bug that was sending my students home in droves four days before that. Then while I was sick, it got cold and while I know that cold here, isn't what a lot of the country calls cold
 I also know my house here has like zero insulation so when the outside hits freezing, the inside hits 43* even with a fire in my wood stove.  So I was too sick to lift the logs we feed the fire with, and huddled under a mountain of blankets instead. Every time I had to run for the toilet the air in the house felt like I had plunged into an icy river.  Yeah, maybe I had a fever too
 But when I awoke on Saturday, feeling like food was on the agenda
there came a brisk wind that took the temperature from freezing to 80*
 and then everything went still and the grey whale migration came in close to land, so I didn't write the either.

 Instead my husband and I watched whales and chatted with tourists and then went to see "Catching Fire" and out for Chinese food.  Ok the food was a mistake, so I just smiled at the plate for awhile then had it boxed up and had soup instead - but it felt so good to feel good to be alive again.

 and today I am back at the keyboard, better writing than I could have done without the break anyway.







 These are two large rocks but the whales were hanging right beside them, spouting and showing a flipper or tail every now and then
So what have I been writing?
more about two boys 1901 years apart but both in areas with impending volcanic eruptions
here is a brief sample, unedited
"Marcus guided the Fortunatus family out of the boat at Naples. He was grateful to step onto an unmoving surface with the farmer and his wife and children. The farmer and his wife had both been seasick, or simply sick with terror but the children seemed to love the adventure of the nighttime boat crossing. And it had been more adventure than Marcus ever hoped to endure again. The Bay heaved and seemed to try to pushed them away from shore. The Air was clogged with dust and ash and smoke so that even in the dawn it was dark. Back toward vesuvius there was lightning and flames and both white smoke and black ashes blocking everything and roiling through the earth. Once they were clear of the crowds he sought out directions to the artists home and hoped his Father was still waiting there. Then he gestured to the family to come with him. The older man hesitated again, clearly uncomfortable going uninvited to a stranger's home, but glancing at his children and the crowds of refugees convinced him to set his pride aside. The streets were covered with ash like snow. It wasn't possible to move quickly through the crowded streets with the children and the few possessions that were meager enough and yet still weighed them down. The crowds were in disarray, everyone was speaking, shouting questions, and not just in Latin but in Greek and other languages as well. Where people could, they searched the incoming refugees for familiar faces, and sometimes there were shout of joy at a successful reunion, and that gave everyone a more hopeful feeling. Still, many people milled about with no idea where to go now, or any hope left on their faces. The disaster had brought out both the best and worst in people, so some of the locals had come down to the harbor bearing extra blankets and clothing and food. Some had come trying to make a quick profit off of necessities they themselves had paid almost nothing for. There were fishermen and boat owners preparing to go for more survivors and there were thieves stealing from the overburdened and vulnerable crowd, knowing those burdens contained all the earthly treasures those refugees carried. There were people spreading stories that they had no way of knowing if they were true or not, but the audiences they found believed them. If reality was this bad, of course it was probably even worse. At times the air would almost clear, the daylight could come through, and that seemed even more wrong somehow. The ashes falling and the smokey air seemed to tell the truth that the familiar mountain was now and forever unfamiliar and threatening. Farmer Fortunatus, without a farm now, and still too close to the loss, to realize how fortunate the Fortunatus family had been, kept turning to look toward his family home, pointing up in the air, beyond the new crest of the mountain, to where he had been so comfortable in his old home and terraced fields. It had to still be there, because it always had been. Finally Marcus and the family were pushing through the door, greeting Veruses master and then Marcus was grabbed into a strong hug as his father pulled him close and they wept on each other's shoulders. “Oy! Marcus, so glad you are safe, my boy. Your Brother?” “No problem, Father. The boat was full and I had promised to help this family, but Verus and Aemiliana were safe. They were there at the beach with us, and while he insisted I come ahead, they were waiting for the next boat. They will probably have smoother tides and better winds than we did. And they are together. I imagine they are right behind us, maybe already at the dock.” “I went down to the ocean when people began talking about the strange cloud, I wanted to find Verus but I had told him to go and I did not know where he had gone exactly, only why. He was going for medicine, he must have heard of the eruption and caught one of the boats as soon as it happened, but I wish that he had come back for me. He probably thought I'd be too old to help. No, I'm sure he only thought of getting to the girl.” Father began to tell his story, much relieved to know that his family was safe."

Today is the Middle Of NaNoWriMo, or 25,000 Words

Just My Books and I Candles from my Dad and Grandma to guide my way
 Writing has changed from when I first began thinking seriously that I could write a book. Well, no, I'd been thinking I could do it since I was a toddler, but getting started, Now That was a different matter.

     I began with a blank notebook and a stack of note cards and a trip to the library to dig into the multi-volumed encyclopedia set of course. This was how I had begun writing all those required papers back in Jr. High, and High School, and at College.

    Now I sit at my computer or tap on my hand ha
eld device and when I need to answer a question I don't have to drive to the library, or even walk across the room to get a stack of notecards, and when I need to know how to describe Mr. Vesuvius in detail, I can read other people's descriptions, or see their paintings, pictures and video.

     When I started my Nano Novel I was already knowing it would be a conversation between two boys, one living in the days leading up to the 79 AD eruption of Mt. Vesuvius at Pompeii, and one living in the months before the 1980 eruption of Mr. St. Helens. But I am a Nano "Pantster" meaning I don't outline ahead of time, but take my characters and a faint idea and we jump off the Nov. 1st cliff and fly by the seat of our pants toward the goal.

     So I have spent some time writing, alternating with time on Google earth seeing street view and satellite views of the volcanoes. I have watched you-tube video of kids snowshoeing on Mt St Helens and of a determined old man who died because he wouldn't be evacuated since he was a Mile and a huge forest say from the volcano and his mountain wouldn't hurt him.

     Then I have taken every day at work, and grabbed a scratch piece of paper and on every break and lunch time, written or sketched in my novel. So some editing happens there, when I type from a pencilled written piece first, but editing is not supposed to slow down the passionate rush of story this month.  Oh, and neither is blogging.  Oooooopsy daisy.

My sons loved the same picture book I did
Look Out for Pirates
So I made them a poster with their faces
My life has been filled with books, and it started with these, the kids picture books that were always abundant in our house even when we were low on money for almost everything else. On the wall is the quilt from my crib that my grandmother made for me.

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be
I had a Mother who read to me.
  --Strickland GillianOr 

Talking about the Writing Process with Peers

On October 28th I posted this on my facebook page
Why are peers so much more terrifying than anyone else? I've talked about my books to classes many times, talked at writers conferences, art fairs and libraries but tonight I'm going to talk to a book club of my friends and coworkers and I'm feeling so nervous I might as well be back in Jr. high facing the dreaded ninth grade speech and presentation. People were so intimidated by that someone called in a bomb threat. Of course that was back when bombs in school were pretty much guaranteed to be a false alarm. and the next morning this was my report to the Backpacker.com site where I chat with friends
Last night I was really shaking in my shoes, too nervous to eat, feeling like I had in 9th grade with a huge class project on erosion to present to the whole 9th grade.  I've talked up my books at lots of places, but this time 11 woman teachers had bought and read the Oregon trail one, and asked me to talk to their book club.  The whole peer thing was way harder than talking in a class of kids or among other writers.

They loved it, and had a lot of questions about the research and kept asking me to write a sequel when the girls had grown up a few more hers, and saying, it would make a great movie, you need to write a script.

So, relieved. 



So I am going to share some of the things I showed them, that I also talked about with the classes I have visited as an author.  In fact a couple of them have now had me booked to come talk to their classes.
I always knew I wanted to be a writer, and when I go to give a talk about being an author, I share the first books I wrote, including one in pencil and crayon from when I was a ten year old. It is called "The Police Twins on Death Island" and includes lots of death and drama and is bound up with yellow yarn through the holes meant for the binder. and I showed them the first, small font, cramped, and scribbled on manuscript that I printed out an read to some of my family after doing 50,000 words on it in my first NaNoWriMo,  (National Novel Writing Month) and putting it away until I was no longer sick of it, a year later, and then adding another 38,000 words
And then I explained that back in those olden days it cost me $109 to print out four copies of my finished manuscript an then began the expensive and lengthy and ultimately depressing process of mailing out copies to agents and editor who were already swamped with mountains of unasked for manuscripts.

but fortunately times change and it is easier now to attach a document in pdf form to email and get it where it is going cheaply and that same day.  Not any more likely to be a happy result, but quicker and cheaper.  Now that I am 50 and willing to take a chance as an Independent author, and now that it is easier and friendlier to be your own book publisher and marketer I have found that I delight in the experience.  I love designing a book and writing and editing it and sharing it with people around the world.
I love doodling and outlining and watching those simple beginnings grow into a finished book and then head out into the world.  I find it a lot like raising my children.  Once they leave my home, who they interact with and how they are received may reflect back on me at times, but much of it I will never know about, and the reactions that do find there way to me are surprising. The things I love may be overlooked while things I barely noticed are loved.  It is a discovery and an adventure every moment.

That is OK because the books I have loved and that have shaped me, were only faintly binding me to their authors but more about connecting me to the world as one filled with many people with different stories but all capable of being loved and hurt and worthy of compassion. So now it is November, and another NaNoWriMo finds me digging into the history of two Volcanoes. The next Double Time book is growing this month, while the third Duffy Barkley takes a rest and waits for me to return with fresh eyes, and a rainbow book of colors is starting to take shape as my first picture book.
I am delighted that the students I met through a teacher in the bookclub are participating in a program called being a writer and are hoping I will guide them through the steps to publishing a class collection in the spring.  Life is filled with surprises and the next generation is discovering that as things change, there is still value in books