Horrible, Horrible Blogger

There comes a point in every blogger's life: do I keep going or do I just stop.

I have admittedly been overwhelmed with my life. And I just completed my 8th NaNoWriMo where I decided to try and aim for 60,000. I will tell you it is possible as long as you do not succomb to doldrums in the middle for any reason.

NaNoWriMo is about removing the excuse of "Oh, I can't write." So that seems silly on the surface that someone who is a NaNoWriMo veteran like myself can be stymied by something so simple as life. But life happens.

And things like running multiple blogs gets shoved aside.

Disappointments happen. I don't think my NaNoWriMo is as strong as it could have been. I also know I did abandon my NaNoWriMo early due to early setbacks in my month that had nothing to do with my writing.

I think in the future, I will find other things to write about. I will eventually have enough to work on shortly. But for now, do not get crazy if I do not post regularly.

What makes a hero?

When thinking about the construct of hero, I usually don't think about anything other than main character.

But in literary terms, the hero is the character that brings about the most change. It is the Hero who gives the story the purpose. He defines a role that we want to champion the defense and directions, moan poor choices and provide a self reflection that makes us better people in real life. 

Heroes in children stories can be very simple. They have faults like Arthur of the Arthur anteater. They give us hope like Frodo of Lord of the Rings. They remind us that even hero worship has limits like in Harry Potter.

But why the exposition? Because I'm looking at the construction of hero and teaching heroes. It could be a whole theme. I will sort out the ideas later. NaNoWriMo is on the horizon.

When Is It Time to Fall Short

I look at the work that consumes my life and I know that every day and every minute I don't work: I'm already behind.

I finally got a chance to review my first book I released this year and I look and I found an error, I won't say where because at this point, my few fans that know the difference haven't actually said anything. But that is the trouble that leaves me feeling like I know all the reasons why I won't "make it to the next level".

I struggle with the needs of the work that I undertake. I hope this is only temporary. NaNoWriMo is just around the corner.

A Ride On A Rollercoaster

I'm pretty honest with this: as a child, and even as an adult, I have a lot of anxiety surrounding things that are considered adrenaline boosting. I don't like being frightened. I don't like things out of my control. And I've only actually ridden 2 real roller coasters my entire life, neither of which I enjoyed.

Last 24 hours has been a wild ride. Actually, the last 3 weeks have been a huge wild ride, but last 24 have been pretty important. And I still don't know when the next loop or drop is going to come.

Most authors can blog AND write on their manuscripts, unfortunately, I let my blogs languish when the pressure is on because I want the moment to be cool when you realize that I've published.

That's right, as of this morning, my company, ParaEducate, has announced the pending publication of Finding It In The World: World Geography Level 2.

Last night with nearly 20 emails as I collaborated with my business partner to finish the first volume of "Project Alpha", I'm certain she was ready to find a way to cut me off digitally. Catching up on comments for edits and then choosing a cover and dealing with the fact that this book had many demands, especially within the last two weeks.

Finding It In The World is an entire adapted curriculum for students with disabilities to use in inclusive education settings for Geography. It reviews the 5 Themes of Geography, the continents, types of maps, natural hazards, geographic features, and selected countries of the world and their cities. We are very excited to have this available for the general public very shortly. I expect it to be available in the next two weeks.

We did choose a cover.

The first book of "Project Alpha". Property of ParaEducate

And as of this morning, we've sent this through social media. The book is now sitting on computers at our publisher waiting for final edits. There will still be work ahead of us, there is publicity and just getting our supporters to understand the material available. But the book is done. I think we're ready to step off this ride.

It Takes A Community

I want to say, as a writer: you can't write what you don't experience. You can anticipate emotions, but you might not know the depths of despair or the heights of plateaus truly until you have lived through it. A few years back, one of the short stories I wrote for my NaNoWriMo was a collection of letters written by fictional parents to their unborn children. I don't think I really captured the depths of worry, sorrow, and fears that parents could bring as well as the joy and the hopes that parents often have. Just around the corner, a co-worker of mine would be a parent for the first time the following year. And then in February, we got a letter from the co-worker about the baby, the baby was going to have a pretty serious birth defect. We rallied around her. And when the baby was born extraordinarily premature, we were as supportive as we could be. When the baby died a few days later, we all came together and helped the family out the best we could.

Again, at my feet lays an experience I never wanted to have. A good friend of mine from high school lost her little boy on July 4th in an accident. And I've challenged some thoughts in another blog and he was a wonderful little boy, but again, the depths of loss leave me floundering for the words to share the truth that community comes together, even a small one for this little boy.

This taints my look at things. And yet today, something else came my way that was much more mundane. One of my NaNo groups had an author who was flustered over the fact that his work was lacking in gender diversity. I am not sure how old this author is, but I was struck by how much he was troubled by this conceptually. He had tried adding more characters, even supporting characters but they weren't nearly as interesting and they were only shells as he had described them. He wanted fully participating characters.

As an author, and especially one who participates in NaNoWriMo, I usually don't give a rip what genders my characters are. Gender eventually comes to the surface and it all balances itself out, though admittedly: I have never written a gender neutral character or a transgendered character. But again I could not ignore the idea that an author had wanted to make sure that his story lived in a gender balanced world.

I look at my own constructed life: I spend a lot of time with women, but I have spent a lot of contact time with men. But each individual representation had elements of stereotypes on both sides of the gender. However, my last 3 published stories all had main characters that were female, with a heavy dose of women surrounding them. The stories that have yet to be published that contain male main characters are surrounded by men. But that is also a result of things that I know about how deep secrets are comfortably shared within genders. A greater trust has to be met to share across genders be it marriage/partnership, siblings, or a long time of friendship.

I sometimes wonder that my own writing is too lacking in diversity due to the fact that my world is the world that I see. To be honest, I have only know 3-4 practicing Muslims, and only 1 Pagan. Of those 5 people, I think only the Pagan would list me within their good friends (a significant difference of best friend). I also do know that in my experience, I am all too aware of the contrived racially, gender balanced writing (High School Musical and upcoming Teen Beach Movie--I realize that these are screenplays, but they address the same things). There was a presentation to me that discussed the limitations of popular media with regards to racial equality (that there is no equality for races), but I am also struck that I know of shows that are specifically targeted at certain ethnicities and yet they are not at all racially balanced. 

As a concept: diversity I'm flummoxed by it as a writer. I know diversity, I've lived it most of my life even in its limitations: I socialized with people with multiple ethnic identities and religious choices, I know the difference between being the leader and knowing when to take a supporting role, and I have friends, good friends of several genders and gender preferences. I'm lucky: I live in a state that has a lot of representatives of both mainstream and minorities.

This becomes a sticking point though as I am on the precipice of preparing materials for social sciences to be used with students with developmental disabilities. I know it's the point of educational materials to be as politically correct as possible and be the introduction to the world beyond the four walls of school.

And then I take a breath.

It's the community that will give rise to the work. Both fiction and non-fiction. I can strive for the diversity without purposely putting it to task. I can ask myself to consider to have my characters step outside of prescribed stereotypes, that they will rise to the task. And I know they all will be okay. Because my friends have 2 special angels on their shoulders. And I have more experiences, albeit, experiences I hope no one ever has to see.

Roadblocks

Roadblocks in writing are harder than they look. 

Things like "Spare the air days" limit research possibilities and then the actual finished product. Don't suggest that writing on a pad of paper and researching at the public library between hordes of fellow citizens or even trying to organize materials on my phone or iPad are a useful alternative because they currently aren't. I will gladly give up my spot at the public library to a family who doesn't have an air conditioner. I will gladly give up my spot to a person who doesn't have access to research in the middle of the night so they can get their essay for their last community college class.

But what about my trusted laptop? You ask so very politely. Ah, my laptop has had hard drive issues for months now. I couldn't let it go because I had so many things that required my full attention at the time. So this device too is out of my reach being examined thoroughly by people who should know more about computers than I. I hope the drive is not toasted. I suspect I might not be so lucky.

So I sit in my office, sometimes napping because during a spare the air day that's all one can do. And I think about how important the images I have in my head are and how they can't tantalize someone else's sense. I think about the fact that I could solve some of my problems by just writing this all out by long hand without being distracted by the constant need to research a specific fact I am unfamiliar with.

And maybe without distractions, I can concentrate on not making another project. Only if that were true eh?

Heat wave: hurry up and pass before I burn off all my good ideas being lazy.

90% mark

I have to say, one of my favorite parts about having access now to regular publication: I can publish whenever I am ready. Except when my material isn't ready.

This isn't about the reluctant artist. I will deal with that later.

I'm sitting here with my unedited manuscript knowing that I have to edit it, deal with the issues surrounding the final pages and potentially cutting the introductory chapter because it's a little flat.

I worry about the issues surrounding the fact that I don't have a full publishing house to back me up and I'm entirely stuck with my work being what it is and what I could potentially be missing to support my work.

The worries of what I still am missing are there, but also at this point, I lack motiviation to finish things that I think aren't important or as important as they were when I started the book in the first place. After all, who cares if something didn't make the final cut? I have the finished product. And by hook or by crook: it's done. I have to accept the deadline, even self-imposed deadlines.

Other things keep sucking away my 100% focus, but I suppose my business partner and co-authors from other projects will be thrilled with that knowledge.

But 90%. Missing 5 pages, 8 maps, a complete editing, and citiations. So close.

When It Is Ready, You Will Know

Since I was in college, I've been writing a series on about government service. And most of the short stories there had never really went many places. They were about character development and looking at the past of characters.

Until this week. A reoccurring photo kept creeping up on my Facebook feed. And while I've seen the photo a thousand times, for whatever reason, this week it made sense, this was the image I was going to write about to tie the entire series together.

I find that the one thousand words produced by the picture that emanates silence and reverence was perhaps the most soulful addition to the series. So my next book, not due for at least another year will focus on service and sacrifice both publicly and politically. I can't promise stand alones, but I'm looking at the short stories I generated and perhaps this might be the better way to imagine that these stories all share a common thread.

There have been multiple requests for updates and the companion story to "Putting It On The Line", and while I have been sitting on the manuscript for over 15 years at this moment in time, I am not interested in releasing the continued stories of Jessie and the rest of the Bakers.

I would, however, like to request that if you had the pleasure of reading my books, any of them to date, that you would offer up a good review on Amazon.com. And by good reviews, I mean something that is sincerely useful to someone who might be looking to buy a new story/book. I don't really care if you liked the book, but it is somehow much more useful. The reviews help validate my work, and as much as I like hearing from my readers personally, I think it's infinitely more useful that someone reviews my work honestly and understands that there are all sorts of different readers that I come in contact with.

So to sum up: 1) new book in progress. 2) if you like my work, put a review on it. (Sorry Beyonce!).

Thanks! and stay tuned for more updates on Project Alpha as the summer begins, because now I'm fully immersed in the world of CCSS...

Carving time to work

It would seem counter intuitive that a writer would not have time to blog. The problem lies in the fact that my day job, while revolving around writing unfortunately does not mean by any stretch of the imagination mean I am a writer.

I still go to a 8-3:30 job and sometimes for chunks of time I have a 8-5:00 job on top of any general life responsibilities (laundry, cooking, sleeping). And then when I am finally home, I have a potential 3 hour window where I get all the things done I need for my job on top of running a company, taking care of my own writing interests, and fitting in my love of video games. 

So where does someone who professed to write about emotional sacrifice as it surrounded family and life to find love find time for love anyway?

Well actually it's much, much broader.

I love seeing the barn swallows build their annual nest and hatch their brood. 

I love seeing my students recoil doing something I have done a million times before. 

I love seeing my students reach a goal they have set for themselves. 

I love knowing my work has made a difference to someone in their academic pursuit.

I simply, honestly, find the tiniest kernel of love, knowing.that love in all places of my life is not meant to be the earth shattering love that we pursue in our lives. 

But in the meantime, I will blog more. Today's highlight: my first readers have love my new book!

I am going to love that pretty much forever.

Things that influence a writer

I can really get lost sometimes in one tiny aspect of a story line. I think that is most true with "Sheltered Hearts".

I haven't heard any reviews yet, there are only two copies out there in public, but I'm certain, they'll be moving soon.

One of the things I did differently for "Sheltered Hearts" was to develop a sound track for all things related to the book.

In the past, with other stories, I have used songs to do specific chapters or "movements" of my story. by using the music for the full story instead of things I'd like to do or say with the characters, I think I was able to provide a way out as I wrote. I could find conclusions for things that needed to be addressed in the plot and forge relationships around the character.

So for "Sheltered Hearts", here is the list I used to help remind me of my characters, moments in their lives, and emotions I wanted to explore as a writer:

Hunter Hayes "Wanted"
The Wallflowers "The Empire In My Mind"
Ryan Cabrera "True"
Reba McEntire "The Greatest Man I Ever Knew"
Glee's version of "Roots Before Branches"
Kenny Loggins "For The First Time"
Kelly Clarkson "Catch My Breath"
Nickleback "Savin' Me"
Hinder "Better Than Me"
Fleetwood Mac "Landslide"

And It's Out of My Hands

I just want to thank you all for your support the past few months as I've prepared my newest book, Sheltered Hearts. It is the first book I've independently published in over 4 years. Sheltered Hearts has just made it to the final check with the publishers, pending a 24 hour review before final publication to go live on Amazon and Amazon Europe.

Sheltered Hearts surrounds Blair Jacobson as she tries to manage the aftermath of her father's recent death. She knows how isolated she is in her life that has been consumed by work, like her father. It is her little inlets to reaching out that helps her and her brothers and sister find that the house they grew up in was more than just a building conceived and built by their father, but the safe harbor they never thought they would ever have.

Still available on Amazon.com: ParaEducate (with Megan Gross, Jennifer Kurth, Ph.D, and Lisa Yamasaki), Putting It On the Line, and Small Voices.

In the next few months I'm preparing ParaEducate's first adapted curriculum book, Geography, and potentially a release of the US History book.

I'm really excited and cannot wait to see what I will get my hands on just around the corner.

Final Stretch

So I'm sitting in front of the computer staring at the completed manuscript I'm getting ready to publish. I have an "acceptable" cover though that may change shortly pending my mood next week when I finalize all my materials to the publisher.

I cannot tell you how hard it is to sit and summarize a book I've written about for the better part of over a year in only five sentences. Especially since the published version is nothing like the version I spit balled through my writing in a NaNoWriMo over two years ago. But the characters stand, and that's the most important part to me. My characters can weather the changes of editing for any reason. 

And all I know is that this is all (editing, designing, going to regular work) harder than it is supposed to be to upload the final materials and tell the publisher to green light the project. After all, this is my baby. What sort of part of me will now be vulnerable once people start reading my newest book?

I'm also sitting on about three middle drafts for the different volumes of ParaEducate's newest round of materials. This is a different sort of vulnerability as I try to organize all the sources I have for my materials.

All of these things are coming out in the next five to six months right on top of each other. It will take a small miracle to keep them all organized but I'm getting there. And hopefully, they'll all find the audience that I've intended them to be seen by.

There is quite a bit of vulnerability as an author and running a company whose goal is to publish to a specific industry. And it can be confusing at times, even to me as I consider all the parts of my public life. But the best part of my growth as a writer, is the chance to share the stories and materials with more people. And that's where this is all headed. Non-fiction or fiction, that is the greatest joy I have when that finished book is in my hands. That is really what the final stretch is about.

Books Are Precious

One of the reasons I keep writing: I have loved books. I love the journey and the story within books. And even as I have migrated to ebooks for some things, I love the tactility of a book. It reminds me that the knowledge and experience within the book is valuable, not to be overlooked.

As I begin the second round of editing of my first fiction book in over 4 years, I'm looking at the events surrounding its concepts and I was discussing this with my business partner from ParaEducate, Megan Gross.

And I admitted that I had to deviate from the original intent of the book. She did poke fun at me about it briefly and yet, as I examine the esoteric nature of my story for the first time in print as I make suggestions to myself to improve the nuances in the story: the romance still remains. Books, written or otherwise are a romantic nature of themselves. It means that the book itself is valued for simply the attempt to reach someone and pursue a series of thoughts that no one else might have been willing to share in the same manner.

But as my book may not rise to the top of the New York Times Best Seller's List, I am reminded that my story never originally wanted to be shared with the greater population. Even still, the population at hand will only ever see my books when they find the need for them. But I am not discouraged. The remains of my thoughts shall live on and on. And if only a small population sees the book, than I have achieved success.

Books are precious. And will always be so.

Writing, Theater, Professionalism, and Who Really Did All The Work...

I'm still riding high: my students did fantastically today. We still have another show to get through.

But this got me thinking. My students wrote their original script and one of the comments: they wrote in TV fashion because the scenes were short and sweet. But that is actually not an affect of having not enough theater. My students who pursued this project are well versed in theater. But the short scenes lent itself to a lot of different information.

One of the things that are struggled with is professionalism, and teaching it to the students. And classes like Theater are direct links to professionalism. All skills I have to demonstrate make them stronger people in professional life: ability to problem solve in real situations, demonstrating the difference between leading and following, knowing when to lead and let someone else take the lead, and simply: the accountability to someone else.

Another random musing: everyone congratulates the director and the actors separately. The way I've always been taught: the director gives the boxes that the characters need to fit into and everything else is with the actor. The director is responsible for the final product over all, but the details, even when the director is working through the details and making the show complete, the director isn't the one who takes the final bow. The director is the one who comforts, who frames, who makes the impossible plausible. 

So what does this really mean to me as a writer: it's another experience. And I know one day, I hope to be in the thoughts of my students when they receive an award for the amazing things they've done.

Where have you been?

It has been a wild ride the past few weeks.

My writing has been subjected to the highs and lows of a multiple job schedule. I literally just counted: In my day I deal with literally 4 different jobs in a given day.

So for the next 7 days, I'm 100% immersed in the facts surrounding the U.S. Civil War.

The story? Actually, amazingly: this has NOTHING to do with Project Alpha. It has a lot to do with me opening my mouth and spit balling over two years ago.

In drama club two years ago, it was probably November, the kids asked simply, "What can we do with our season?"

We talked about it, and then someone thought it was a great idea to do something in service for the school. And then a few minutes later, I had pieced a couple of ideas from other parts of the campus and offered up the idea of taking some existing pieces of the Civil War simulators we had and acting them out.

The kids didn't want that. They wrote their own Civil War Script. We did try to produce the show the first year and then it didn't work out.

So we had to do it this year. And here we are, a few bumps away but we've gotten it ready for production.

7 more days and the curtain rises.

And then I can go back to writing as my 3rd job for about 2 weeks before I return to Auditions. For a show that doesn't have anything to do with at least the United States Civil War. But Project Alpha will be in the middle of the Civil War.

Solving Plot Holes

So I've been working on my new book preparing it for publication.

The Fiction book, if you were wondering.

And I realized, that there were horrible gaps in the story, like the details of certain interactions didn't matter. And when I looked at the traditional plot line, I could actually put details about every event in the story but the main purpose of the story. And that really bothered me. So, as an author, my first go to is usually to write all the missing details in. Except, this time, there wasn't anything there that could be filled in.

I wanted the happy ending. I want the sun to shine and birds to fly. And I couldn't do it. In fact, there were five chapters that were started and never got anywhere. They were great moments of tender character exchange that just were that: moments. But they existed without reason.

So last night, I did something drastic: I decided to cut out as much of the main subplot as possible. And suddenly, I only had 2 major issues to address instead of 50. Admittedly: I would feel better about having a word count closer to 30,000 instead of dropping 9,000 words to get the outcome I wanted, but anxiety I was having over getting my resolutions is gone, which is really the most important thing.

Writer's are often told to write about what they know. And to be fair: I do. And as a result, I reveal a lot about myself in the process. But what authors really are good at are drawing distinctions between fiction and fact. The world where my character's live is just that: their world. And sometimes, even if I don't understand why I know so much about them, I need to know that not all the pieces are going to be ready when I am. I consider it much like the way I get to know people in real life. I know all these details about them, I might not understand all the bits, but I know them. I have an idea of chronology. And the other thing about me, I don't usually ask the deeper follow up questions. Which always gets someone to ask me follow up question about what I really do know.

But the book is coming along. I'm going to be ready for June.

Plot Hole So Big, You Can Write A Plot About It

Plot Holes.

Not as nice as pot holes. Not as useful as pin holes. But certainly, no less deserving of attention.

Right now, I don't know why my hero and heroine need each other. The problem is,  the story was originally a romance. Which makes things harder when you get rid of the interesting hot guy that you spend HOURS trying to create and make at least plausibly interesting to the reader.

The funny thing is, I've fixed all the other plot holes. This one is huge. Neither one is vapid, but they ultimately need each other. Mean while, I will continue to work through all of the other issues as they arise.

What else has been keeping me from updating? I'm about 75% ready on Volume 3 US History of Project Alpha. I have to ultimately go through and add the index, the sources, and then all the pictures I have been gathering and documenting where I got them from. In addition to each hand drawn map and then series of icons that will be created based on each section. That's still a lot of work. Even for normal people.

I just came back from AZ-TASH's AZWINS, 9th Annual Inclusion Institute. That was awesome! I got to meet people that I've been meeting online. And we got to talk about special education and try to inform people about things that can do to help make inclusive environments in schools.

I think Megan, my business partner, got to the reality of what is going on with our company before I did. And yes, we do write to a specific population, and no, we're probably never going to be a top 200 book sales, but we needed to get this stuff written. Because, like the baseball stadium, if it isn't built, they won't come.

But the plot hole won't fix itself. So back into filling in the hole. Maybe, it'll just have to be left to the side, for a while.

A Writer's New Year's Resolution

Being a writer, one would imagine that resolutions are all about documentation. They're actually not. So here are my goals for 2012.

• Actively take more time to write. This isn't about writing. I write all the time. What I need to write are coherant sentences. Which then leads to...
• Publish regularlly. I think once a year isn't too much to take on. Even with a multifaceted day job.
• Be mindful that not everything is going to work out.
• Enjoy the breaks that come with having worked on something for more than 5 minute stretches.

I am going to publish a new story like I said in my last post. The title is evolving as are the subplots. I've found plot holes so wide that it's a little scary how I thought that this book would be ready to go in a few minutes. But that's the nice thing about having things ready to go.

This is where my life gets dicey. Publically, I have always been RHM, since I could have my own email back when I just left my first year of college. But my life today is about both RHM and ParaEducate. And sometimes, they cross over. Project Alpha and Project Beta wouldn't happen if I hadn't been RHM first. ParaEducate depends on that element.

I will work on the identity crisis in my life. Until then, I will work on my resolutions.

In other news: ParaEducate is on schedule for multi-city locations over the next few weeks. So keep an ear to the social media taps, we're on the move.