Your Feel-Good, Inspirational Clip of the Day: Arcadian Broad

So Why is Google Recommending These?

Today Google Reader is recommending to me

Farm Industry News

Farm Industry News

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Romance Novel Reviews | Come for the Dominican Bitches, Stay

TractorByNet.com

The Leading Compact Tractor Community. John Deere, Kubota, New

Why, oh, why?

I can halfway understand Smart Bitches et all, because I hosted them on my other blog the week they had a book released - but FARM INDUSTRY NEWS? TRACTORS?

Maybe because I mentioned wearing overalls in a blog posting. But Google, I am not interested in farms or tractors. Not. At. All.

An Inauspicious Start to the Day - Vermont Style

11.00 pm - Put down book and turn off light to go to sleep
11.30 pm - Emma throws up
2.45 am - Emma throws up again
3.00 am - Mice who have recently taken up residence in house are apparently playing castanets with spoons in kitchen sink downstairs - Sara turns on hall light and yells at them
3.15 am - Mice are playing louder - Sara goes to stairwell and throws socks at them
5.00 am - Emma throws up again
6.00 am - Emma throws up again - Sara goes down to let her outside
7.45 am - Sara guzzles iced tea and eats stale rice cake and peanut butter
8.45 am - Sara guzzles leftover coffee
9.05 am - Sara gets dressed to drag exhausted self and Emma to vet

It's Time to Get Serious

During my time in Tennessee this winter, some pounds crept on - I am convinced caused by something in the air there. On a visit to Nashville once, my French exchange student whispered Why are people so large here? I pointed out the giant sodas and huge tubs of popcorn consumed by the patrons of the movie we'd just left, and rambled on about eating habits based on an agrarian society for people now sedentary. But I do think part of it is the Tennessee air.

I cannot eat wheat, rye, or barley. This means no cookies, cakes, or pies; no pizza; no bagels smeared with peanut butter; no French toast; no hot salty pretzels; no delicious melted toasted cheese sandwiches; no PBJs; no giant bowls of pasta in cream sauce; no mouth-watering lasagna. No poutine, that wonderful gummy mess of cheese curds and brown gravy atop large-cut French fries. No restaurant fries or flavored chips, which use wheat to make seasonings or flavorings stick, and no canned soup, which uses wheat as a thickener.

And yes, I could spend a fortune for no-gluten versions of some of these foods, but they mostly taste like cardboard, and since diabetes is rampant in my family it's wiser to simply refrain.

But still I managed to add some pounds (notice how I avoid saying gained weight). We will not discuss how many. I am tall and have a thin face, so I can pass for slender long past the point of true slenderness.

But I'm tired of the hitchhiking unwanted poundage. So I'm taking the draconian necessary step (for me) of cutting out all sugar and related products and all processed carbohydrates. And ulp, cutting out yeast and mold, which elminates tasty things like cheese and wine and salad dressings. Trust me, this still leaves many, many healthy foods available. And from past experience I know I feel hugely better after I cut these things out.

Although I will be significantly cranky for the first few days. Fair warning.

Your Personal Guide to Twittering

1. Just because you can Twitter, doesn't mean you should.

2. When you're writing a DM (direct message) to your honey or someone you want to flirt with - be sure it is a DM and not a message sent out to everyone. 'Cause you really don't want to tell the world that you think someone's profile picture is cute. Even if it is.

3. If you want people to follow you (interesting ones, not the ones who will follow anyone), put something in your bio or have some interesting tweets. I'll follow almost any writer - we need to stick together. If I know nothing about you (or if your primarily interest in life is selling a product), I won't.

4. If your name is Horny Kitty or your Twitter home page has giant photos of scantily clad women (or men, for that matter) or their body parts, I'm gonna block you.

5. Do not automatically follow everyone who is following you. Be selective. Block ones you feel odd about. And do not DM someone to thank them for following you. This is creepy and sycophantic.

6. If you tweet multiple messages morning, noon, and night and are not amazingly funny or perspicacious, unless you are Sarah Weinman, I'm going to unfollow you. (If your rapidly consecutive tweets fill an entire column of TweetDeck, that's too much.) If your tweets are snide or rude or bigoted, I'm gonna unfollow you.

7. If you would like your tweets to be retweeted (repeated), leave space for extra characters. The retweet will add RT and your Twitter name (RT @sarajhenry) to the message - and the person reposting it might like to add a note at the beginning.

8. Realize anyone you follow who follows you (a requirement for Direct Messages) can glean your email address from the email DM announcement.

9. If you don't read fast and process information fast, don't Twitter, or at least don't follow more than a handful of friends.

10. If you want to promote your book, include your website URL or maybe the name of your book in the tweet. Just saying. (Here is a tweet from one of my favorite authors: "Print "Lost Enzo" flyer. Post it somewhere cool and take a photo. Best placement wins a very cool baseball cap. Limited edition!" Uh ... does it mention the name of his book? No. Does it tell you where to get the flyer to print? No. Do we know how to enter this contest? No.)

11. If you clutter your tweet with hashtags and several URLS and Lots of Capital Letters, it's too hard to read. We won't.

12. Twittering can be fun, a way to meet other people in your profession, a great networking or promotion opportunity. Use it judiciously. Play nice.

Some Fantastic Web Sites for Writers

These are writers' web sites a bit off the beaten path that I've stumbled across recently.

The Anonymati - also called the "evil first page clinic" - you send in your first pages for critique. Anonymously, of course.

Call My Agent! - an Australian literary agent who critiques query letters. I love this gal. Funny, concise, and a grammar nerd to boot.

Hey! Teenager of the Year - a talented, funny, vivacious writer dissects first pages of YA novels. Did I mention she's 15? Yet another Aussie, I think.

The Intern - an insider look at book publishing. Anonymous, of course. Poignant and screamingly funny all at once.

I See You - a visit into the life of crime writer Cat Connor as she juggles writing and book promotion with rearing seven children in Upper Hutt, New Zealand. Think a wise-cracking but more sardonic Erma Bombeck who spends her spare time figuring out how to make realistic fake blood for a book promotion video and the precise manifestations of chlorine gas poisoning, while cooking for a dinner party and tending to her youngest kids, who are fighting off the flu and upchucking in Mum and Dad's bed. (Her KILLERBYTE is available for Kindle.)

Guide to Squaw Valley Writers Conference

I posted this last year in Sara Meets Oz, a blog that chronicled my five weeks house-swapping in Australia. Here again, slightly updated, for those attending this conference:


Sara's Guide to the Squaw Valley Writers Conference

In no particular order:

Read books written by staff. Read or peruse books by all the major authors who will be there – your library can request many of them if they're not on hand - you won’t know until you arrive which ones will be teaching your classes, but it helps hugely to have an idea what they write (and if you even like their writing).

Gill Dennis. Never mind if you don't think you'll use his workshop on Finding the Story - sign up. It will be the best $150 you have ever spent. Take a pad of paper or spiral notebook and a couple of good writing pens. Try to sign up for his 7 am class – it runs longer than the others, and you won’t have to miss any afternoon seminars. But it fills up fast.

Open Workshop. Think speed critiquing, like speed dating – your names are drawn from a hat, you read aloud about 2 pages, and get a quick critique from Sands Hall before the group offers its comments. Go every time – your chances of getting to read increase, plus you meet good people, even if you never get to read. I met one of my best writing friends here, who has been a stalwart supporter in the three years since.

Write everything down. In every workshop where your work is discussed, have your pad of paper open and write like crazy. Look at the person who is talking but just write - all of it. Otherwise you will get home and remember only the negative comments or forget half of what was said. Write it all down; sort it out later. Later, go back to where you have written "gorgeous writing" and "couldn't stop reading," and this will sustain you through months of painful revisions.

Housing. If you're a quiet type who needs your sleep, say so on your housing form (see "Parties" below). If you're attending with a friend, you can request to share a room or house.

Parties. Go to at least one or two evening parties (keep your ear open to find out when and where) – you absolutely cannot miss the opportunity to be at a party with famous authors. But leave early – you need your sleep.

Cadge rides. If you aren’t lucky enough to be housed close to the lodge, ask for rides or stick out your thumb. Last year one woman asked about renting a bicycle, and someone loaned her one. My housemate handed me her car keys.

Shop judiciously. The market near the lodge is hugely expensive – best to get a ride to one of the grocery stores several miles away, or take your own food or live off the snack bar offerings (run by Squaw Valley, pretty much at cost).

Don’t believe everyone. You may find overwriting, idea-stuffed MFAs in your group who sneer at your genre or your style or, worse yet, write nasty comments on your manuscript without signing their name. (Yep, this happened to me, and I stopped writing for nearly a year.) You may be unlucky enough to get your one-on-one session with someone full of himself who is coasting (but if he spends only seven minutes with you instead of 20, go talk to the organizers). Take it all with a grain of salt. Listen to what fits; take notes. You can sort it out later.

Soak up the seminars. You can learn a huge amount from these – but skip some of the less promising ones so you can nap or work on manuscripts. Or sit at the back so you can slip out or nod off without being too obvious.

Diversify. You already know the sample you sent was good enough to get you in – for class bring something you need workshopped, maybe 5,000 words from elsewhere in your novel, with a summary at the beginning. For your one-on-one bring something else. And find a third sample, about 2 pages suitable for reading aloud in open workshop.

Format. Print your manuscripts in 12 point Times New Roman, double-spaced, with name and title and page numbers on each page, and on one side of paper only. (This seems extraneous advice, but astoundingly, it’s not.) And run Spell Check and Grammar Check. Yes, they can be laborious, but you can learn something. And you don't want half your critique time taken up with people pointing out your grammar errors.

Take extra sample partial manuscripts. You're not going to Squaw Valley to pitch to agents or editors - but if an agent or editor asks for a sample, you'll want to have something to hand them. Take along a clean copy or two of your most polished sample with contact information.

Visit the office. Don’t be bashful about politely going in the office to use the computers or ask questions – the staff is great. When I lost my reading glasses after an evening session Brett and Sands helped me search, took a pair of their father's glasses off his nose to lend to me, and drove me home. And I spent much of the next day wearing Oakley Hall’s glasses until mine were found. (The next reminder should be: Take spare reading glasses.)

Don't skip the Follies. Priceless. Indescribably priceless.

Seize the moment. Have fun. Believe in yourself. Soak it all in. Take it home with you and make it stick. It is, indeed, the opportunity of a lifetime. You can change the path your life is taking in this one week. I did. If you're ambivalent about this conference, don't go, and tell the organizers right away - because other people are eagerly awaiting your slot.

For those of you now slavering to attend this conference, applications close mid-May and it's held in early August, so mark it on your calendars for next year. Approximately 96 fiction writers and 24 nonfiction writers are selected (for separate workshops), based on the writing sample you submit. You can apply to both but can only attend one. And, oh, yeah, there's a screenwriting section, too, without about two dozen participants, but for some reason screenwriters don't seem to mix much with the other folks, and they're housed separately.

For All Writers: This Blog is Hilarious

If you are a writer or want to be a writer or are thinking about being involved in publishing - ah, heck, maybe if you just like to read books - go read the blog called The Intern. Would that we were all clever enough to keep our blogs anonymous so we could say what we're really thinking.

I found this via Editorial Anonymous, another fun-to-read blog (but not so sidesplittingly funny).

Some of the Best Writing Advice I've Seen

SO sent me a link to this wonderful guide for writers by author Jennifer Weiner.

It's a stupendous article - to read the whole thing on her blog, just click through the title below.

So You Want to be a Novelist?

1. The Unhappy Childhood
2. The Miserable Love Life
3. Major in Liberal Arts (but not necessarily creative writing)
4. Get a Job (not an MFA)
5. Write to Please Yourself
6. Get a Dog
7. Get Published
8. Find an Agent
9. Be a Smart Consumer
10. Read

I've managed to do them all but number 3 - having a nuclear physicist father and growing up in a town constructed to help build the atom bomb, I majored in science, later followed by some journalism classes. Others on the list, I have perhaps done to excess (notice the description of this blog in the header).

Read it. Tells you all you need to know.

"Commercial" Is Not a Dirty Word

A writer friend recently told me she started an MFA program. I told her about my not particularly stellar experience with MFA students in a fiction workshop a few years back who wrote nasty little comments on my manuscript on the last day of class. Anonymously. But of course I was able to figure out who wrote what. And I'm human - it hurt.

My friend admitted that yes, well, the other students, who are younger than she, treat her with enormous disdain. She writes for magazines and one student chided her, "But that's not literary."

She should have responded, "No, it's not - I get paid."

Before I signed with my literary agent, another very lovely agent told me my novel was "a bit too commercial" for her.

I can live with that.

It means I can make a living doing what I love - writing.

Note: I am sure there are some wonderful, thoughtful, mature MFA students out there who would never dream of writing unpleasant anonymous notes or looking down their noses at people who make their living writing for magazines or writing "commercial" books, and it is not my intent to malign all MFA students. Just the ones who were mean to me and my friend. (Nor is it my intent to malign literary writers, and I especially applaud those who are making a living at it.)

Damn, Garth Stein, I Did It Again

This time Garth Stein sent his newsletter quiz on a Saturday, and this time the winner was drawn from among the correct entries.

So I found the answers quickly using my clever shortcut method and sent them in, and then emailed them to SO in case he wanted to enter. He complied, somehow thinking he was entering for me, sending them on a business email account we share. And won. (I am wondering if ours were the only two correct entries, because otherwise the odds of winning two of these contests in a row are astronomical.)

And, yes, I got the signed copy of THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN I desperately wanted and a Go Enzo ball cap, and we'll figure out a good home for the copy of the book on CD.

But I think Garth is going to start blacklisting me from his contests. Or else I will be polite and stop entering. Now that I finally have the signed copy I want.

Poetry in Motion: Danny MacAskill

Some of the Best Writing I've Seen

On the edge of the covered bridge near the Vermont town where I live, right where you'll see it when you're waiting your turn to cross, is a very small sign, with accompanying phone number: LOST: FAT GREY CAT - SIX TOES

This is a masterpiece of succinctness - all the pertinent facts, in short words, easy to remember. And if I find a fat grey cat with six toes, I'll know who to call.

That Wasn't Particularly Easy

My new Dell laptop keyboard arrived quickly, as thank goodness they've stopped using DSL (who delivered here maybe twice a week). But the tech did get even with me - no instructions, and no cool little plastic stylus tool and screwdriver. Fortunately I could find the tools from the keyboard replacement on my previous Dell laptop, and find directions on the web and print them.

Ah, but then the tricky part of getting the hinge cover off. "Pry up to loosen the hinge cover." That I managed. Then

Insert a finger or plastic scribe underneath each side of the raised parts of the hinge cover, and slide your fingers underneath the long part of the hinge cover. Moving from right to left, slide your fingers under the hinge cover to pry up and loosen the cover, and lift the hinge cover away from the computer.

Easier said than done. But mission accomplished - primarily because I am too stubborn to give up.

Now the small screws to detach the keyboard - and oops, the keyboard cable connector. It doesn't simply pull loose as I'm used to. No, you are supposed to "Rotate the retaining bracket upward to release the keyboard cable connector."

The problem is this thing is tiny. Very tiny. No way to see any bracket, let alone how to rotate it. Of course the thing I am prying at is very close to the delicate parts of the motherboard, and it occurs to me that I should have at the very least backed my manuscript up one more time before attempting this.

Finally I get it, pretty much working blind. Pop the new one in, smush the clamp cover down, screws back in, hinge cover popped back into place.

And now I can type again without hammering on certain keys.

And bliss reigns.

Yes, I Wore the Magic Black Vest

You had to know I'd wear the black vest to my agent meeting. It helped make me famous at Bouchercon; it made people at the Nashville Film Festival assume I was someone important.

So of course I wore it.

Came home and mulled over the meeting and the other offers I received and the ones still pending (people still reading and those I hadn't heard back from yet - I sent most queries out on the 14th, 15th, and 16th, which is no time at all in the agenting world).

And this morning I signed with Barney Karpfinger - who seems absolutely perfect for me and for my novel, and the ones that will follow.

And I'm very happy.

The Dogs Are Excited

Because I put on shoes.

I am trying to convince them that this is part of my new work-at-home routine - to not work in PJs and sock feet, to actually get dressed every morning so we don't have those panicky throw-on-the-overalls moment when someone unexpectedly shows up.

But they are convinced that Shoes = We Are Going Out.

Mind you, the patio doors are open and they can go outside and roam the huge fenced yard as much as they like. No, they want Mum to go with them.

And later this afternoon, when the sun hits my side of the river, we will go down, and I'll stretch out on the sun-warmed rocks. Bridget will swim madly and Emma will wander and Lucy will rush about excitedly. (Monty is not a river guy, so he gets a separate walk.) And then we'll come home and they will sleep all afternoon while I work.

No, they don't know how good they have it.

Buy This Book: KILLERBYTE by Cat Connor

My web pal Cat Connor over in New Zealand is obsessing over the sales rankings of her recently released book, KILLERBYTE. How she manages to do this between rearing seven children, finishing the next book in this series, and working on a Kiwi-centric novel escapes me. But she does.

If you like fast-paced thrillers with a quirky heroine, this is for you. Buy a copy, and ease her misery. She's kindly supplied an excerpt:

    You’re gonna die-you bitch!
    I looked at the words sitting alone on the expanse of white. A ridiculous thought occurred to me. The words were innocent. They had no volition. Just photons squirted out by a display system.
    “Uh huh,” I said to myself. It was a shame this moron couldn’t see my eyes rolling. Woo hoo, someone else wants me dead. I held the cursor poised over his idiotic nickname, Addictedtolove, waiting. Sunday nights bring out the miscreants, the later it is, the worse the behavior. It was almost Monday.
    I'm serious. You are gonna die.

    I’m sure you are, bye-bye
    Then hit the twenty-four-hour ban and watched him disappear. The chat room went quiet; to enjoy the moment I clicked off Real Player and with it the latest Grange album I’d been listening to. The room plunged into deep silence. I stretched my legs out under my desk and tapped away at the keyboard. What’s that now, Stormy? Twelve death threats? I looked up to see her answer on the screen.
    Yup, she replied. I’d set a new record, the most death threats received in one night, excellent.
    I typed, Well, that’s me for the night then, best check my doors and windows.
    Stormy replied, LOL. Talk tomorrow.
    I shut down the computer, not tired, but not interested in sitting at my desk all night either. The house creaked and grumbled like an old man settling into a rocking chair.
    I prowled around the house, both upstairs and down, checking every window, door and deadbolt. It wasn’t fear that motivated me. It was boredom. Funny really, boredom wasn’t something I tended to suffer from. Perhaps I was wrong about the boredom. Maybe it was me being just a little sick of my own company. It sure as hell wasn’t empty threats from chat room weirdos. I mean, what were they really going to do? Turn up on my doorstep and shoot me? I think not.

Ready to read more? You can buy KILLERBYTE on Amazon for the Kindle, or as an e-book you can read on your computer via Mobipocket.

You can also follow Cat on Twitter or read her blog, I See You.

My House is a Stairmaster

My house has a preponderance of stairs. Six from the basement to the kitchen. Six more to the living room. Two sets of six upstairs to bedroom and office, with two landings. Frankly, I think the bulk of the square footage of my house is consumed by stairs and landings (I manage to squeeze small bookcase on the landings, so the space isn't entirely wasted).

I've been away for several months, hiding down south away from the snow, dogsitting and then essentially squatting while I finished the rewrite of my novel. In a house with no stairs.

So here I am back in my full-scale Stairmaster of a house.

I'm building leg muscles, quickly.

And, yes, it's comical to watch Monty (aka Big Dog) bolt from the bedroom balcony, skid around the corner to the first landing, and run as fast as his giant feet and 100-pound body can make it around the turns of the landings, to rush outside and chase the chipmunk he spied from above.

Chatting Online with Dell Support

I resolve to be patient. I know these techs, probably underpaid in another country, have a script they must follow and must ask nonsensical questions to buy time so they can handle several "chats" at once. I also know that I type obscenely fast (very few people can handle IMing with me).

My resolve does not last very long.

I explain the issue. Specific keys on keyboard are sticking. Clearly worn out. I go through several keyboards per computer. I type a lot.

Tech asks When did this issue start?

OK, there went my resolve. Just that fast.

Me: Why does it matter? If it started a week ago or yesterday, the keys stick. It's gonna need a new keyboard. You ship it to me; I install it and send the old one back. This is not my first Dell laptop. Your keyboards wear out fast.

Me (and I am not proud of this): If you know a software issue that makes the T key stick, I will eat my hat.

The tech makes me pay for this - she wants me to plug in an external keyboard to make sure it is not a software issue. She goes off to do research for a long time. She returns and says: alright sara, we'll bereplacuing the keyboard. [sic and double sic] (Of course this spelling of "all right" is like a fingernail on a chalkboard to me.)

Then she says: can i send it part only?

Now I'm stymied. What does this mean? I politely inquire.

Apparently she was asking if I needed a technician to install the keyboard. This would probably take a week to arrange, and I'm sure a tech would love working on my computer with four very friendly dogs trying to assist. No, thanks.

Chat begins 5:57; chat ends 6:30. Thirty-three minutes of my life gone - although I did this blog entry in the meantime.

Now to hope like heck they do not use DHL, which delivers here only when they feel like it, about twice a week (I am a mile off a major highway, not deep in the Vermont wilderness).

I see a shiny new Mac in my future.