Dixie Dawn Miller Goode's Blog, page 7

A NaNo-ing We Go

 I used to hate the fact that National Novel Writing Month, AKA NaNoWriMo happens in a Month theat is busy with holidays and travel. But now the fact that it has Thanksgiving in the same month seems very appropriate, as there are few on-line places which i am as Thankful for as NaNo

 http://nanowrimo.org/participants/echopandora/novels

Shows the fruition of the books which had sent down roots in my mind for years but may never have pushed through the darkness into the sun without the daily deadlines and encouragement of NaNo and the forums there 

 i also find the change in seasons here to be conducive to writing. The storm and bluster adds to my imagined drama as it also keeps me indoors and with less distracting me from the goal.



 Just like the giving tree that never stops having the right gift, November's NaNoWriMo never stops giving me affirmation of one of my favorite parts of myself.  I am a good storyteller and now I can say I am a writer too.
 If you are going to join the exhausted writers this month, stop by and become one of my writing buddies. I'm echopandora there.  I am writing about two boys helping each other escape giant volcanic eruptions 1901 years apart. Tell me about your story too.

When the Muse Can't Be Called By Words

Every November since I discovered the wonderfully freeing and inspiring group of people participating  in NaNoWriMo, I have jumped in at the beginning of November with the plan to write a sloppy first draft and polish it up later when I could slow down and realize that I did have a Novel in my hands, I just needed to clean-it up and make it decent to go in public.
This November is approaching again and I have found a group of other WriMo fans who are still working on last years novel while planning for this one. It has been fun and yet I have bogged down as the end of the writing on this on nears.
That is OK.
I have found my way through the bog before and I have faith that I will again.
For me, when the creativity slows down and the inspiration won't come, then I know it produces stale, forced writing, so I have to entice the muse back.
That means getting creative in other mediums, dancing, playing with sculpting fimo, hiking new trails, singing and drawing.  To get focused back on the story I paint possible book cover and play with them on Ribbet and picmonkey photo editing sites

after the first "win" onNaNoWriMo when I finished the novel in 30 days, I won a free proof copy of the book from createspace. I had it figured out how to upload it, but I wasn't thinking of a cover, so I just took a picture of one I doodled and got that proof to give to my mom.
It was going to end there.

I swear it was but of course we all know better now.  Seeing that "Real book" even if there was only one existing in the world.  That was an instant blast of feel good endorphins and I had to keep going. So then I read the proof and edited more and designed a cover I thought Duffy himself might have painted. Then I began writing the Sequel, "Seek Well" the next NaNoWriMo. Painting that cover came easier because I wanted them unified in appearance.
So today, even though the third book still is a few chapters short of a conclusion. When the words were stuck, I decided to design the cover anywayI paintedTrying to keep the dome shape to the upper rightthe people to the lower rightthe heavy use of blueand the back with a clue of how the transport to Uhrlin happens this time
Then, I photographed the painting and edited in the titles and other wordy stuff
and I tried to think of how to present the information that this series was now an "award-winning  Tween series"
So I think I might go with this book cover for the Third book for people who already have book one and two.
As I mentioned in my last post, I'm also thinking about putting out a combined volume with all three books included, and a different style cover, for those who want the paperback version but haven't yet invested in the first two.


 Anyway, the exercise works. I figured out the next step that the characters want to take, and they are chomping at the bit, for me to pick up my pad and pen and start following them around taking notes again.

Until next time, Happy Autumn to you, and may all your days have a creative spark.

Make Good Art, Neil Gaiman Said

I have been feeling Blue,
just a funky kind of,
"my life is perfect right now, but summer is ending, my kids are moving away, OH NO, CHANGE IS COMING!" feeling

and I am 60,000 words into the third book of my Duffy Barkley series, and loving what I wrote, but still avoiding writing any more because, well, because my energy is down.

Then Yesterday I got a 1 star review on Amazon, and to be honest a 4 Star review on another book on Amazon and a 5 star review on Goodreads too, but of course it is the 1 star review I obsess about.  So I reread the reviews I have posted, trying to find the good stuff, and I stick on the iffy stuff instead

The front of the first 2 booksSee, I have hand painted watercolor pictures for the first two Duffy books, and some people don't like them at all, and I'm not sure about them myself

And I found this comment again, from an A. Stepaniak, in the reviews
The back of the same books.

"As a graphic designer, I was put-off by the cover design Dixie Miller Goode chose for 'Duffy Barkley Is not a Dog'. And, so the saying goes, I should have never judged a book by its cover. After reading, I love the cover design. It's clearly from the mind of Duffy, and it's fitting.'


And so instead of writing, I was on facebook, of course that did not help me feel less depressed. So I remembered that video of Neil Gaiman giving a graduation speech and saying, "make Good Art" all the time.  

You know the speech? 
“Remember, whatever discipline you’re in, whether you’re a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer — whatever you do, you have one thing that’s unique: You have the ability to make art. And for me, and for so many of the people I’ve known, that’s been a lifesaver, the ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times, and it gets you through … the other ones. Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong — in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too.”–  Neil Gaiman , in his commencement address to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he was bestowed with an honorary doctorate in fine arts 

Well, I used to take art classes and paint, sculpt, draw and weave, but then I became a teacher, a wife and a mom, and I stopped.
 But I dusted off my old lab coat that I used to use as a painting smock, and got out my paints, most of which were dried and worthless, but enough were there to start playing around


 Working on an idea of maybe going for a completely different look, in a book that combined the first three novels into one volume.  I'd still do a book 3 watercolor to match the first, and offer it as a single edition as well, for those who don't need to have both a 1, 2 and a 1,2,3


But this is the idea I am playing with for the multi volume.
 And after making art that may or may not be "Good art" but is for sure "Goode art" I feel better.  My mood is improved and I'm ready to write again

I'm a Winner, Thank You, Betty Dravis

Betty kindly chose my Duffy Barkley Series as her Favorite Tween Series in her Act 3 of the Betty Awards.
http://www.bettydravis.com/home/2013/8/9/at-long-last-act-3-of-the-betty-awards-miscellaneous-array-o.html
She read the first book and reviewed it very kindly in January of 2012, and I was trilled with the award but even more honored that she still remembered my books after 18 months.
Betty’s review
http://www.amazon.com/review/R6KBLNWB0CVEE/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004478F5M&nodeID=283155&store=books



And while I am at it, let me link again to two other reviews of these books from Lubna, in India


http://www.booksonmyshelves.blogspot.in/2012/05/duffy-barkley-is-not-dog.html
http://booksonmyshelves.blogspot.in/2012/06/duffy-barkley-seek-well-book-2.html





I still remember Betty's Books and have read and reviewed three of them and have enjoyed reading her stories of the many interesting people in and out of her life. 
She has met famous people and written Toon fantasy, and written interviews, and written horror, and written about her family, and written a ton of reviews. 
You should honestly check out Betty Dravis' Author Page on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Betty-Dravis/e/B002BLJJIU
And now, let me again say Thank you to Betty, and then I have to get back to writing, Duffy has a third book at 58,000 words and needs me to follow after him and take notes

Bullied and Moving On

 I was bullied first through 6th grade very badly. Then our three grade school combined in one jr high and I made some friends. It didn't totally stop but it was way better. Then finally I graduated and moved to a new town for college. I wasn't bullied there but I expected it so much I was really shy and never approached people first. 

Good luck finding those first few steps away from the group that bullies you. They may think they are the whole world but they are not even a drop in the ocean.

I never went back for reunions at my grade school-high school town but a couple of the worst tormentors in grade school have contacted me on-line and apologized and let me know that it is a guilt they have lived with and that they aways kew what was happening was wrong. That means the world to the little girl who still hides inside me even now.
I have been hearing a lot about bullying.  We all have. I know some of the students I see call everything bullying, and it is NOT. But there is a lot of bullying and it can't be ignored or it only gets worse, and the impact from being bullied lasts a life time.

Why do I think it is not all bullying?  Because, having been bullied, and yes, at times having been a bully, I know some on the differences between true bullying and just ordinary bad moments.

I believe that a lot of times when a student claims that they are being bullied, they are really just having one of those sad, frustrating days where kids learn how to get along with other people, where they practice the give and take and learn the empathy and co-operation skills necessary to live as part of a society.  It may bring tears when your "Bet Friend" suddenly tells you that she wants to play with someone else, It may hurt your feelings when your classmates laugh at the clothing you chose for the day, and it may make you mad if the kid eating his flaming hot cheetos at lunch refuses to share. However, those are not bullying.

To be bullying, it has to be purposefully targeted at you, and it will probably be ongoing and is usually not just one person because the true bully likes a cowed audience of followers along for the entertainment.  It will probably hit at your weakest area, bullies are good at seeing what those are.
See this girl, awkward yes, different than most of my classmates, true, but not as ugly and stupid and obviously bad as I believed at the time.

True bullying makes you believe everyone else sees the reason you were targeted. It makes you believe there is no escape, that everyone is on the side of those tormenting you, and that those who you could ask for help won't be able to do nothing.  It isolates you and makes you feel like asking for help will only increase the abuse that you must somehow deserve.

Not everyone who bullies you is the primary instigator.  Some will just be almost as weak as you and be afraid that if they speak up the attack will turn on them. It is hard for anyone to willingly volunteer for that kind of abuse and it takes courage and the ability to see that bullies are afraid of groups. There is strength in numbers if other people can join together, which is precisely what the bully wants to avoid.

In grade school I started first grade not really knowing how to relate to other kids. I had a lot of grandparents, great-grandparents, great-Aunts and Uncles, but no siblings until just before I started school. I was severely pigeon-toed and the Dr. ordered dance classes but I failed drastically at dancing when I could barely walk. I was freckled and loud and tried to argue with the teacher who was teaching us to spell wrong, when I had started school already knowing how to read.  The class was using a phonetic program that taught that school was spelled "Skwl" and I knew better.  Cat was not Kat no matter what the teacher said. Not a good candidate for ITA learning!

In grade school, I had a battle every day. My things were stolen and destroyed or passed around from child to child with great drama and screams of "Dixie Fleas! Pass it on!"  They pretended to spray my chair with disinfectant before anyone else would sit there.  I came to believe I really did stink.  I started not doing homework just so I could be kept after school so the kids who threatened to beat me up as I walked home would get bored and be gone.

When I was chased to my house and tried to hide between the screen door and the locked inner door as 4 older girls threatened to kill me, my mom drove up. In sweet voices they told her that "we don't know what is wrong. We came by and she was just crying."  Mom thanked them for trying to help and I claimed I had just had a horrible head-ache.

Once I went to Jr. high it got better, and I had some friends from the other grade schools, but I still had kids who stole my PE clothes or cornered me and smeared raw eggs in my hair and poured cans of soda on me.  Pretty girls would catch my eye and I would stare back, wondering what they knew that made them accepted, that I was missing, then they would snarl at me to stop staring.
I never quite got it right. Once the High school held and anti-bullying assembly with a movie about a boy who tried so hard to be invisible that he stepped off the bus and died of a heart-attack and when the school tried to find his friends, none of his classmates knew who he was.  More kids told me "Hello" after that assembly than ever before but it only lasted a day.  I too was learning to hide, I carried a book and sketch pad and I hid behind them all the time.  I ate lunch in the art room and went straight home after school. I tried to be aloof so no-one would be able to tease me that no-one wanted to be my friend.   It made me a bad friend to the people who really were trying, because I was afraid it was a trap and then they would laugh, and I was convinced I really didn't deserve a friend anyway.How did I learn to move on?First I had to move on.  I could never have become the loving friend and Mom and wife and teacher and writer that I am now, had I stayed in that town.  When I went away, I literally kept my head down and made no eye contact, and could not believe those other kids on the college campus were talking to me when they said "Hi"  It took a lot of them to make me understand that there wasn't some scarlet letter branding me an outcast. Then it took one very confident and loving friend to keep holding on even when I pushed away, and another, and the man who loved me and married me, and kept insisting I was a treasure.  It took seeing my worth in a lot of other peoples eyes before I could see it in the mirror.
It took leaving home and creating my on home. It took living overseas in China for awhile and being in the minority and still making friends
So then I became a teacher of special ed. children and a Mom of loving men, and a writer of novels that are anti-bullying pro-loving and I have made a conscious choice to add to the love in this world
So now school is starting again, and kids will be bullied again. What can we all do?  Love each other, hold a hand, offer a smile and a validation of worth, refuse to be silent audiences any longer. Ask for and offer help.
There is more good than bad people in the world.  That is why the bad ones are the news and the good ones are the norm.

Coast to Coast across the United States

When I wrote my third book, Double Time on the Oregon Trail, it actually was the first book that I had started but the research and a strange reluctance to stop researching and write, kept me working on it slowly while finishing the other two.
you can find all 3 books on my Amazon author page http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2

I was immersed in the details of how difficult it had been to travel across this continent when you had to go on foot with only a few water passages and a few animals to help with the burdens like when Lewis and Clark did it, and how 50 years later, with big wagon trains and a series of maps and guides to follow, and a system for getting some news back and forth between the two edges of the continent, it still wasn't much easier.
Because Double Time is a book with two characters in two different times, even the modern girl in 2002 had it differently than I did this summer when my aging Mom, and my 38 year old brother with Down's Syndrome, moved across the country from me and I travelled from the Pacific redwood coast to Washington DC to visit them.
I had a lot of issues and delays, but the knowledge of the 6 months journey involved mot all that long ago, kept my problems in perspective

I thought how old fashioned these looked now that everyone has cell phones, but at the end of my trip I wished I was prepared and could find one
At first I had a very small drive (90 miles) to get to the "local" airport. And then the fog delayed the arrival of the plane I needed to catch to get to my one hour layover in San Francisco.  So before I even got in te air, I knew my connecting flight had already been missed, but the next one would take off an hour after my predicted new arrival


The first plane I rode Once I got to San Francisco, on the opposite side of the terminal from the gate I was leaving from, I caught a tram, and several moving walkways and tried to make the 45 minutes work.  I shouldn't have worried, that planes departure was seriously delayed as were all of San Fran, due to the closure of one runway because of the wreckage from the korean jet just days earlier. In fact we landed almost on top of that wreckage it felt like.

 So I spent a lot of time watching the children's playland area.  It was filled with hands on science things like at the exploratorium and I wished my kids were still young enough to give me an excuse to be in there swirling the steam and making the electrical lightning flash upon the wall.


 the Asiana plane crash was another reminder that the delayed flights were minor details in the grand scheme of travel and life.

 And the plane finally was loaded and ready to depart, when thunderheads between Lake Eerie and Florida meant planes were being diverted to DC and we were being delayed on the tarmac for 2 1/2 hours so we were told to go back in the airport.  Then pulled up across from the wreckage and parked instead.
 Finally in the air, and due to arrive at midnight instead of 540 PM - I sent a text to my brother and my phone died.  He didn't get it, and I landed in a nearly deserted Dulles airport with no idea of where to meet him, and with no idea of his cell phone number or how to reach him.

The kindness of strangers came into play many times on this trip and people helped me find a place to charge my phone enough to get a text to my brother. He had just given up and gone home so by the time he came back for me it was 2 AM when we got to his house.



Then things got pretty good. I got ten days of family time, seeing my brothers, and my Mom and a niece and a nephew and visiting the Smithsonian and seeing an old Wyoming High School classmate there.

Lance, after 18 years at Walmart has a new job driving and feeding animals around a farm in Virginia
Mom, can't always remember our names, but can still enjoy many things with her family



 ll too soon it was time for me to leave, and th return home was even more complicated.  In DC the thunderheads returned, so there was another 2 1/2 hour wait in a plane parked on the tarmac, and I missed the flight I was connecting with in Sacramento, but this time that 9:30 flight didn't have another until 6:30 the next morning, so I ended up sleeping in the Sacramento Airport's quiet room. Again the kindness of strangers was wonderful, and I got to visit and talk to many people, but whrn I went to the quiet room to sleep, there was only one other person there, a young woman who now lives 1500 miles from me, but was in my son's first grade class.
 we watched the sunrise together
 and then there were only 3 passengers on the plane I caught that finally brought me home.

 DC had been 40 degrees hotter than the redwoods every day I was there, and frankly, the fog and coolness and relief from the sticky humidity was a wonderful welcome home.

To see a great review of Double Time by a book reviewer in India


http://www.booksonmyshelves.blogspot.com/2012/10/double-time-on-oregon-trial.html


 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

Not just Duffy's Mom

I call my Blog "Duffy Barkley's Mom" because I created the character of a young boy with cerebral palsy and an allergy to being told "no." He stars in two of my novels. But there are two wonderful young men who are the only people in the world who get to call me "mom" and neither is named Duffy.
I wanted to be a Mom for my whole life, but it took a long time to happen and yet happened unexpectedly fast.  For 10 years i couldn't get pregnant and then I was trying to adopt older children, or handicapped or a sibling group, when suddenly i found out i could bring home a newborn and his birth Mom was 2 weeks overdue so in 3 days I suddenly had a baby, and then found out shortly after that I was pregnant and then there were 2. 2 boys in 1 year.

I needed advice, and fast.  The best advice I ever got was, "When they are cranky, put them in water." It worked for cranky moms too.  Water or anything messy, anything that meant washing in water would be required later.
 I think I got pretty good at being a mom.  I think that because I had so much fun at it, and also because both of my babies became young men who make the world a better place by being in it.  Kind, creative, loving, hard working and wonderful, but I could be biased.


'Hmmm. No I'm not.  I asked an objective opinion from their dad and he agrees.


 Anyway, the problem with developing the skills to be a good Mom, is that those skills are not really needed for as long as it takes to develop them.  By the time you learn to ignore the minor details and focus on the fun and creativity.  By the time you know a thousand kids songs and can mix playdough and finger paint from common kitchen ingredients, by the time you can smile and get giggles while cleaning up a baby with the flu.  They are not babies.
 Then you find yourself in the grocery store, buying groceries for two middle aged empty nesters, next  to an awkward young father trying to juggle two kids and the debit machine, and you know if you offer to help, he will wonder what kind of weird stalker creep is trying to get close to his babies. Suddenly you know all the skills you have built up in a lifetime, are not wanted anywhere.  And it shakes you to the core.
 Then you get lucky, because life keeps changing and moving on, and there will be other laughing toddlers and exhausted parents, who say yes to Grandma when she wants to have the kid for the weekend
 and once again I got to soap the floor with bubbles and mop it by skating on wet towels. I got to see messy face break into giggles as I sang about baby whales and little white ducks.  So Sorry Duffy, but you have to share, because the best job I ever had, was being A & E's Mom.

Free Kindle ebook version of Duffy, AKA Tales of Uhrlin #1

Once again my first Duffy Barkley novel is free on kindle for today through June first




Duffy Barkley is Not a Dog
 kindle http://www.amazon.com/Duffy-Barkley-Tales-Uhrlin-ebook/dp/B004478F5M/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2


Dixie Goode Amazon Author Page will tell you more about it and about my other booksAmazon link:  http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004458ES2
one of the best reviews that book got was not on Amazon but from a book reviewer in India http://www.booksonmyshelves.blogspot.in/2012/05/duffy-barkley-is-not-dog.html
I am so grateful to the people who have read my books and taken the time to write a review of course.  I am even more grateful for every time I get to talk to kids about what it means to hold on and pursue a dream.
I hope that if you read about poor, Bullied Duffy struggling with his Cerebral Palsy and his crutches and a school shooting, that you will stick with him until the end when he shows that there is a voice singing in the darkness and it will lead you home.

Only So Much Imagination

 Lately I have been wondering why the very idea of writing, which I love, makes me feel blank and stalled and like weeping.  I stare out the window and finally jump up and grab a mop or my camera or my car keys and head anyplace but the keyboard.
 Looking at my life at the moment however, reveals a simple answer and gives me permission to tell myself that this is temporary and I can relax about it.
 I usually substitute teach, and yet I have been subbing full time for the last quarter of this school year, in a very difficult class with 8 students and 7 assistants to deal with.  I love the kids, but they kick, pinch, bite and spit on me.  I love the assistants but they need directing, and have schedules to balance and inter-relationships that work or not as the situations come up.
 I have been struggling to create situations at school where everyone gets along without feeling stressed to the point of exploding and honestly, that requires a lot of imagination. And I have been creating art projects to teach them and doing my own 365Project photography, and dealing with a very broke time of our life. Money and old everything, house, cars, clothing add stress and require more creative solutions.

My husband and I just had our 29th anniversary and our hundredth battle over my own agoraphobic tendencies.  I love that guy and his patience with me, but his patience tends to evaporate just when wqe are most overwhelmed and my courage is at its lowest, of course.

 Then I have aging Mom and aging friends and suddenly everyone I care about seems to have health issues to deal with, and my kids are young, just post high school adults who need support as the parents also need it, and that requires more imagination and a lot of love and patience, and exhaustion.

Yeah, I know, It is not called the sandwich generation without cause. I just wish my sandwich had less jam right now.
Some days I don't even consider writing, or promoting the three books that are out there neglected, on the shelf.  Then I feel guilty. Everything makes me feel guilty lately.  Then I get a exhausting day, and I'm walking out to my car and a teacher tells me, "Hey, our bookclub wants to pick your book to read. The Oregon Trail one?  Would you be up for coming to talk to us, Say in October?"

I smile, and laugh and say, "I'd be honored."

and realize once again, that everything that exhausts me, also recharges me in a wonderful cycle.


Life IS Good.

Spring Blooming All Around Me

 I have been really busy, and writing has taken a back seat to working with a Special Education class that I was hired to teach for the last 9 weeks of the year as a long term substitute.  When I get home the dog and cat are waiting attention and exercise. The Springtime burst into bloom all around me, so instead of chaining myself to the keyboard I have given myself permission to get out and enjoy.

 I hope that you will enjoy the fact that I usually remember to take my camera with me.
 Even when I'm at home the view outside the window has mesmerized me while I sit and pet the dog or read stories to a cute little 2 year old.

 Life is good.  I plan to write more soon but today, Nature is abundantly beautiful and a picture is worth my normal word count anyway.