Nancy I. Sanders's Blog, page 13

Writer’s Journal: Journaling an Event

When I showed up at the annual conference for the Jane Austen Society of North America, I arrived with 3 essential tools:

My 100-page wide-rule blank composition book

A bottle of Scotch quick-drying tacky glue (available in sewing or craft stores)

A small pair of scissors (make sure sharp objects are allowed at your event!)

Before the conference, I had already created my Table of Contents over 4 of the earliest pages so that it would be ready to fill in throughout my days at the event. I had also numbered the lower right hand corner of each page of the blank notebook.

Here is the overview of my completed Table of Contents. I filled it in as my days unfolded at the conference, basically in chronological order according to the classes, workshops, and talks I attended.

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As you can see by my Table of Contents, I took notes at the various talks and presentations I attended.

The BIGGEST MOST HUGE perk of this was that I made sure to jot down some direct quotes the presenters said. As a result, I was able to add a very significant quote I heard at the conference into my manuscript I was writing for JANE AUSTEN FOR KIDS. (And then I contacted the person for approval to quote him.)

The result? My children’s book has a very significant fact about Jane Austen’s family that most other biographies don’t include! And it’s a direct quote from Richard Knight, the great-great-great-grandson of Jane’s brother.

It’s golden treasures like these that are just some of the amazing reasons to keep a writer’s journal when you attend a research or writing-related event.

 

Writer’s Journal: Journaling an Event

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I love creating a journal when I attend a writing-related event. I think it’s one of my favorite types of journals to create!

So when I was researching my book JANE AUSTEN FOR KIDS, I immediately signed up to attend the huge AGM (Annual General Meeting) of the Jane Austen Society of North America when I discovered it was being held practically in my back yard!

Huntington Beach, California–just an hour away and one of my favorite places in the world!

What a whirlwind of fun that was! And I have all of it documented in my event journal.

I think one of my favorite reasons to create event journals is because you get so many handouts crafted on high quality paper that make lovely additions to the journal. These journals really turn into works of art.

The front cover of my journal is cut out from the beautiful handout I received when I walked into the conference and signed in at the registration table. I glued it on after the conference was over.

The back cover was an antique reproduction of a picture of a young country girl published in 1788–a contemporary piece of Jane’s, of course!

And in between the covers I glued in all sorts of goodies from bookmarks, to delightful flyers, to my name tag.

In an upcoming post, I’ll share in details about some of the treasures I collected to take this research journal over the top.

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Author Interview: Jean Matthew Hall

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Featured Book

God’s Blessings of Fall

by Jean Matthew Hall

Illustrated by Olya Badulina

Little Lamb Books, 2019

The whoosh of the wind, the crunch of the leaves, squirrels skittering about, the aroma of freshly baked pie: these are God’s blessings of fall!

Children will love getting up close to the sights, sounds, and smells of fall. See an owl swoop to her nest in the hollow tree. Watch a mouse roll an apple all the way home. A spider weaves a web, while bear prepares for a long winter’s nap.

With lyricism and whimsy, debut author Jean Matthew Hall celebrates the beauty of this magnificent season and the One who created it all.

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Meet Author Jean Matthew Hall

Be sure to follow Jean at:

Website/Blog: Jean Matthew Hall

Facebook: Jean Matthew Hall Author

Twitter: @Jean_Hall

Pinterest: JeanMatthew_Hall

Bio:

Jean Matthew Hall has spent most of her life singing songs, reading books, playing games, cutting, coloring and gluing with children of all ages. And, she loves it! Creating encouraging board books and picture books is her idea of fun, but her favorite times are spent with her eight grandchildren.

Jean’s picture book God’s Blessings of Fall debuted in September 2019. It is the first in her Bountiful Blessings series about the four seasons.

JOIN US as we celebrate Jean’s new book as part of her official BOOK BLOG TOUR!

Q: Can you share with us about the journey this book has taken so far?

A: Early on I submitted God’s Blessings of Fall to a few publishers, but the story was nowhere near ready. I submitted too soon—a mistake most new writers make. I eventually filed it away and left it for about five years. When I pulled it out again, I had grown a lot in my skills as a writer, I had several critique partners, and I could look at it with clear eyes.

A couple of years later I acquired an agent. He liked the story, sent it to three (I think) houses, and sold it to Little Lamb Books in 2016. She loved it but wanted the next three book manuscripts—right then!

I set aside a week to work on them, emailed my most trusted critique partners and got busy. The Spring, Summer and Winter manuscripts were kind of rough, but they were acceptable to editor Rachel Pellegrino.

Tweaks and changes later we have the finished book. It was great (and difficult) that we edited all four manuscripts at the same time. That way they all have the same tone and voice. I’m proud of how they have turned out.

And I love the way God’s Blessings of Fall shines. Thank you, Jesus, this part of the journey is completed. Now on to marketing.

Q: What are some of your favorite things?

A: Herbal tea over coffee

Color are red and blues

I watch very little TV

I’m not into POP culture

Foods – chocolate, NY style cheesecake, beef stew, fruit

Books – probably whatever I’m currently reading.

Genre – picture books of all types and historical fiction for us older

kids

My car – LOVE my KIA Soul

Music – classic hymns, soft, easy contemporary Christian

Q: Describe your writing process.

A: I need quiet and solitude to write. I always write at my desk in my bedroom.

I pray (sometimes for weeks) before I get an idea. Then I type it out quickly and think on it for days usually. I keep popping in to tweak little things.

Next come my critique groups. They are inciteful and help me reign in my dreams of grandeur. Then I dummy and re-write and re-write and dummy and tweak.

I usually feel when I’ve made a manuscript the best I can at that time. Then I’ll work on the proposal. Don’t you just love proposals?

All the while I’m praying for God to put this manuscript where He can use it for His glory and other people’s good.

Q: What word of advice would you like to share with aspiring writers?

A: Don’t be in a hurry. There is no such thing in the publishing business. Everything takes months and years to happen. Everything.

Writer’s Journal: Journaling an Event

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During the 2 1/2 year journey it took me to research and write my newest book, Jane Austen for Kids, I kept different types of handwritten writer’s journals. In the photo above you can see most of them.

I created one journal as an overview of my project.

I filled up two journals with my research notes.

I made an event journal for an important event I attended.

I kept a travel journal, a daily diary of a research trip I took.

I also filled up 2 entire journals of scenes I wrote to include in my nonfiction book. I wrote the first draft of each scene by hand in these notebooks before typing it into the computer and polishing it to perfection.

Next up on my blog, I’m going to share with you how I created an event journal to document an important event I attended to help me with my research (as well as networking with fellow Janeites for future marketing connections).

Stay tuned for fun!

Writer’s Journal: Additional Pages

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Part of the fun of creating homemade writer’s journals for my research as I wrote JANE AUSTEN FOR KIDS was to add additional pages into my notebooks.

 

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Some pages I Xeroxed from books and taped across the top to flip up as I referred to the information.

 

 

 

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Some pages I Xeroxed and glued right onto my pages of my writer’s journal.

 

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Some pages I taped together along the left and taped them into my writer’s journal to open and read like a mini-book.

 

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And some pages were things I had handwritten without my journal. (I might have been away from home when I suddenly got an idea or a concept such as this concept I had for the timeline I wanted to include in my book.) I just grabbed any piece of paper I could find, jotted down my idea, and when I got back home I glued this into my research notebook.

This also works well if you’re writing chronological notes and you want to plug an event in between two pages you’ve already filled in your journal. Just cut full pages to size and tape them in between the two pages they fit in, taping as close to the spine as possible. Number them 16b or 22b and make a note of this in your table of contents.

 

Writer’s Journal: Research and Tracking Notes

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If you’ve been following along with my posts, you know that I opted to keep handwritten research notes in homemade journals during my two-and-a-half-year journey to write my newest book, JANE AUSTEN FOR KIDS.

One of the challenges in keeping a handwritten journal is tracking the research notes. And as one of my online writing friends, Annette, posted in a recent comment, she asked, “When you are taking notes from various sources, how do you keep track chronologically?”

There are a couple of ways I track my research, whether it’s chronological or topical.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

One way I track my research is to be very careful in my table of contents. If you zoom in closely to the photo right above, on page 25 I added a note to (See also p. 66). This was because I ran out of room in this part of my journal, so I added another page later on to include more information on that topic.

Some research entries I had to continue in a separate research journal because this one filled up. Again, in my table of contents I made a note.

Alternately, I would make a note on the page when I turned to it in my journal. I would write: For more info on this topic, go to Journal #3, page 44 etc.

OUTLINES

I also like to create and use outlines as I research a manuscript I’m writing. Since I was writing a birth to death plot for Jane Austen in my book, my outline was in chronological order.

I didn’t create an outline in my writer’s journals. My outline stayed on my computer so I could quickly and easily type in new details where they needed to go. I would print this out occasionally as I was working, to refer to it while I was reading my research books in a comfy chair.

USING MULTIPLE SOURCES

So when I’m using multiple sources, such as I did when I wrote Jane Austen for Kids, here’s my general method for keeping track of chronological events.

I frequently read one chapter or section in my research book. Such as the chapter on Jane’s birth. I took notes in my journal and then picked up another research book and read the section about her birth, adding more notes or backing up notes I already write with the page number of that research book, too.

For example, I created a page in my writer’s journal for:

Jane is born.

On that page in my writer’s journal, I wrote down all the facts from that research book regarding Jane’s birth. My entry reads:

Jane is Born

Born December 16, 1775 MEM1, CH249, CW68, GT6, BCA21,

Born at Steventon Rectory CW68, GT6

Details of birth EJ9, DLFR27

Father baptized her the next day GT6, IC2, HW23

Mrs. Austen write to her relatives a letter to quote AL571

As you can see by my entries, I include with each note I write the secret code I assign to each different research book, along with the page number where that fact was found. I usually like to back up each fact/note with at least 2 sources and hopefully at least 3.

As you can see by the last entry I included, I only have one research source for that. It’s because that particular research book is a primary source (and it’s in the public domain), so I only have to have one source listed for a primary source that is in the public domain.

Do you have any more questions about this process I use? Let me know before I move on to more info about keeping a writer’s journal!

Writer’s Journal: Research Code

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In the photo above of my research journal for Jane Austen for Kids, you can see some of my favorite research books, along with the secret code I created for each one.

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In this photo above, you can see the notes I took about Jane’s character. Since my entire book would be about her life, I decided to just do a section here on her CHARACTER, her personality, and her faith.

Typically, what I did, was I sat down in a comfy chair. I held my research journal in my lap. I held my research book in my hands (some books were on my iPad Kindle).

As I read my research book, I’d just down a note.

For example, I discovered Jane had a “keen sense of humour.” So I wrote that down. Next to it, I also wrote down the secret code for the research book I was reading: MEM.

And next to that I wrote down the page number of that book: 88

As you can see, my entry looked like this:

MEM88 keen sense of humour

I didn’t have to write down the entire title of the book…the code keeps my notetaking much simpler and quicker.

And if I find more than one source that says the same thing, I can easily add that code and page number to back it up. I hardly need any extra space.

I can’t tell you how much using this method of research makes my life as a nonfiction writer so much easier in so many countless ways! I hope you try it and find it helpful too!

Writer’s Journal: Research Code

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Okay, I’m going to share a strategy that I use that changed my life as a nonfiction writer. If you use it, I hope it will change your life too!

I create a secret code for nearly every research book I use.

See that stack of research books I used during my 2-year journey to write Jane Austen for Kids?

I created a secret code for most of them!

Here’s how I did it:

First I gathered totebags of research books from a local university about Jane Austen.

I sat down over several sessions and typed up a bibliography of all those books. (I always like to do this very first thing during the writing journey so all those titles are handy to grab when adding footnotes on my manuscript or adding research notes in my journal)

Then I gave them each a code.

For library books I borrowed, I write this code on a sticky note and stick it inside the front cover.

For research books I bought (which I did for my favorite ones I liked from the library) I just write this secret code inside the front cover.

I type this code on my bibliography. (I make sure to delete the code when I copy and paste bibliography entries into my actual end-of-the-book bibliography.)

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But as you can see here in my notebook, after my table of contents, I write my FAVORITE research books here in my writer’s journal, along with their secret codes.

I also included some of my favorite INTERNET resources with their secret code on this page, too

I also glued a sturdy piece of paper up at the top right so I could flip back here often.

What do I do with these secret codes you may ask?

I’ll tell you in my next post!!!!

Talk Like a Pirate Day

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Ahoy there, Mateys! Today be the official “Talk Like a Pirate Day”!

And what better way to entertain yer scalawag crew than to read them these rollicking fun poems based on familiar tunes and nursery rhymes. A Pirate’s Mother Goose is a must-have fer every young pirate!

For free printables, coloring pages, and pirate crafts to celebrate this international holiday, be ye certain to check out my book’s website, A Pirate’s Mother Goose.

And for all ye teachers and homeschooling families who want an entire unit of piratey fun, visit my store at Teacher’s Pay Teachers to get YO HO HO! A PIRATE UNIT WITH LOTS OF FUN.

Avast me hearties, yo ho!

Writer’s Journal: Research Notebook TOC

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As I explained in an earlier post about creating writer’s journals, one of the first things I do is make a 4-page TOC or Table of Contents. I’m posting images of all 4 pages so you can zoom up close to see (if you want to know something I don’t really mention here in these posts).

First it’s just blank numbers from 1-75 or 90 or so (depending on how many blank pages I leave in the front).

Then I go ahead and number all the pages in my blank notebook in the bottom right corners.

As you can see by this first page in my TOC, I’m pretty much following the chronology of Jane’s life.

First I created page 3 about Jane herself.

Then page 4 was about her father.

Page 5 was her mother’s background.

Page 6 was about her mother.

Page 7 was her parent’s wedding, etc.

Page 8 was about when her parents moved to the home she was born in.

Then on Page 9, I took a side trail and created a page about George III and the Prince Regent because they were the rulers when Jane was born/growing up.

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On the second page of my TOC I just simply continued to add research notes in a chronological order of Jane’s life, adding pages of research notes about the times she lived in such as the politics and fashions and recipes of the day.

Page 39 was about her last days of writing.

Page 40 was research notes on her death and what happened after she died.

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My third page of TOC included notes on various biographies about Jane.

Then I included sections to add research notes about what was happening all over the world during her day. She lived during an amazing time!

I continued these types of notes onto the last page of my TOC.

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Once again, I just want to emphasize that this was all a work-in-progress. I didn’t add entries to the TOC until after I created a page for those notes inside my journal. Then I’d come back here to the TOC and mark where that page was.