Authors' Day

National Authors’ Day is observed on November 1 each year. As an avid reader, I will naturally be recognizing the day by reading more. Carroll County Farmers’ Market will recognize the occasion with the addition of almost a dozen local authors selling and signing their books.

A resolution by the US Department of Commerce states that celebrating Authors’ Day show appreciation of the men and women who made American literature possible, but encourages and inspires others.

I will participate Saturday, November 3, at the authors’ event at the Agricultural Center with my chapbook Mountain Musings. This is a chance to meet local authors and shop for produce and crafts. Authors at some past events included Laura Bowers, K. Michael Crawford, Henry Ditman, David Faulkner, John H.Feortschbeck Sr., Joseph Fleck, Jean Green, Linet Kiplagat, Granville Hibberd, Jim Huckleberry, Carol Joyce, Lois Szymanski, Hattie Wheeler, Catherine Baty and Jerry Trescott. Adult novels, children’s books, poetry and historical books will be available at the Ag Center.

Unfortunately I will be missing most of a meeting at Starry Night Bakery (1 to 3 pm) featuring information about publishing.

My chapbook also is available at Eclecticity, located at John and Winter Street, in Westminster, MD. The eclectic store offers a variety of books, works from local authors, and poetry anthologies by One Tree Productions, as well as art, music and much more. The Carroll County’s Historical Society’s Shop at Cockey’s sells books from local authors topics such as historical landmarks, graves and burial sites, ghosts and legends and more. We readers need to support our area bookstores and libraries, as well as our authors. Carroll County is lucky to have a variety of writers’ groups, book clubs and poetry readings.

November 1 also is the beginning of National Novel Writers’ Month, which challenges authors to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I completed the challenge once in three tries. Here I go again. Several organizations are having write-ins, offering space and quiet for writers. For more information about this writing challenge, check out www.nanowrimo.org.

I hope I didn't rush through this too quickly. I am trying to beat the possible loss of electricity from Hurricane Sandy. Just let me know if you want any more details about the above events.

Barbara Morrison speaking

Barbara Morrison, who wrote Innocent: Confessions of a Welfare Mother, will be the featured speaker at the October meeting of the Carroll County Chapter of the Maryland Writers Association.

Do you think acceptance is the end of your toil as an author? Come hear about how Barbara tackled the task of promoting her book so successfully.

The meeting will be on Saturday, October 13 at 1:00 pm at the Westminster Library, 50 E Main St, Westminster, Maryland 21157.

She grew up in a prosperous neighborhood and graduated with a BA in English. However, a few years later her marriage collapsed and she found herself forced to go on welfare to care for her two small sons.

 This award winning author is also a poet, publisher, teacher and dancer. More information about Barbara is available at bmorrison.com.

A writers’ group I belong to recently held a contest. The rules were to write a short story with a beginning, middle and end, in three sentences. I find it fun to try new things. Below are some of my attempts for this contest.

1 – The young couple talked and dreamed of a better, safer world. They fell in love and had a son, their future. They named him Adolf.

2 - Every Saturday Roger flew below the clouds in his Cessna 150, away from the cares of the world. In the sky he escaped from his low-paying job and his unfaithful wife. One day Roger flew his little Cessna until, out of gas, it returned to the world on its own, leaving his mind in the heavens forever.

3 - Yousef ran for his life from his burning village. He ran from the soldiers, trying to make him and his friends like them. He kept running in races all the way to the Olympics.

4 – Patches the donkey eyed the lovely flowers. He bent over and put his nose into one, jumping back when a bee stung him. He learned that beauty can hold danger.

Have a try. It is fun and maybe it can give you an idea for a full story or a poem.

That Little Book

Recently I read Stylize: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style by Mark Garvey. He writes that he may be obsessive about the book. I think that is an understatement. He is definitely obsessed with that little book. Obviously he was impressed with the book and must have done a lot of research, evident by the detailed history.

I was surprised to find myself continuing to read, and enjoy, this book about a book.  Garvey aroused my curiosity in the history of William Strunk Jr., a professor at Cornell University and his former student, E. B. White, writer for The New Yorker and author of Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little.

Information about the book written to help students and sold for 25 cents at Cornell and White’s involvement in the various editions with MacMillan editor Jack Case kept me reading. I was bored with some of the excerpts and quotes from other authors throughout the middle of the book.  There were just too many.

I’ve had my copy of Strunk & White, Third Edition, as long as I can remember, referring to it occasionally, but I didn’t realize it had such an interesting history, nor that it was so controversial. Writers seem to love it or hate it, praise it or bash it.

Arthur Plotnik’s book, Spunk & Bite: A writers guide to punchier, more engaging language & style, gives reasons why he thinks Strunk & White is too rigid for today’s changing world. Although he admits he does go back to The Elements of Style to review sensible rules, his opinions of strict rules comes through in the title of Chapter One, “E. B. Whitewashed.”

Spunk & Bite offers “A Little Light Unstrunktion,” discussing flexibility, freshness, texture, force and form. “With some ten million copies rooted on as many reference shelves, Strunk and White has become the ivy (if not the kudzu) on our great walls of clarity and correctness.”  Later in that chapter he writes that both Strunk and White knew that bending the rules “can give writing its distinction, its edge, its very style.” I agree.

I am enjoying the look at different approaches to writing offered by Plotnik. Although, I’m only half finished the book, I had to check out the last chapter, Contemporaneity.

Plotkin discusses excess and standing out from the crowd – to go for broke – whether you win or lose, you learn and can survive. I enjoyed this section: “What is it that the protagonist of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral declares about writing in general? ‘As pathological phenomena go, it doesn’t completely wreck your life.’ Spunky.”

Isn’t it great that we have access to such variety. We can refer to Strunk & White and then add some spunk and bite to our writing.

Local promotion

As writers, we are constantly reminded we also need to promote our works if we want people to buy and read them. We need to build a platform, have a website, use social media, send out press releases, etc. There are many other methods to promote our works. One person I noticed doing this very successfully is Lois Szymanski.

I saw Lois recently signing books at Constellation Books in Reisterstown. I’ve seen her signing at A Likely Story bookstore in Sykesville and the Farm Museum’s Author Day and at a meeting of the Carroll County Maryland Writer’s Association. More than 90 people attended her recent talk, with a pony outside, at the Finksburg Library. She was even signing - and hopefully - selling books at the Union Mills Flower and Plant Show, an appropriate venue, since she has published seven Gettysburg Ghost Gang books with Shelley Sykes. She is available for school visits and critiques. She has a website, www.loisszymanski.com and an occasional blog.

 (Pictured above is Lois Szymanski, sitting, and Lauretta Nagel, of Constellation Books)

Lois is also a good example of “write what you know.” Her favorite book as a child was “Misty of Chincoteague” and she has loved horses ever since. She wrote a Charming Ponies series and  several non-fiction books: Chincoteague Ponies, Untold Tales and Out of the Sea: Today’s Chincoteague Pony and The True Story of Sea Feather. She is a key supporter of The Feather Fund, an organization that helps by Chincoteague ponies for children who can’t afford them.

Lois teaches about writing for children at Carroll Community College. She writes a regional column and feature stories for the Carroll County Times and is active in SCBWI (the Society for Children Book Writers and Illustrators).

Another local writer, Laura Bowers had a successful signing of her newest book, Just Flirt, at a Flirting Tea Time from 3:00 to 5:00 pm July 21, at Constellation Books in Reisterstown, MD. I was there to support one of our local writers. Laura also wrote the hilarious Beauty Shop for Rent. You can find out more about her at laurabowers.net.

In the September 2012 issue of The Writer Erika Dreifus writes about “5 free and easy ways to promote your book” in addition to the “tried-and-true techniques.”  There is no question that authors need to promote their books. Books, magazines, writers’ groups and blogs give us ideas, but the methods we use can differ greatly.

SCBWI Conference

What a learning experience I had at the Maryland/Delaware/West Virginia SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) conference this past weekend. Preliminary information promised a lot with the title “Creating Sparks: Kindle the Fire of Imagination.” It did not disappoint.

Award winning authors Richard Peck, Deborah Wiles, Sally Walker and Bobbie Pyron provided inspiration and practical instruction. I returned home with a notebook full of tips on how to improve my writing and ideas for future books.

I enjoyed learning from Richard Peck’s experience.  Practical advice presented with humor. Bobbie Pyron showed the patience necessary to make your writing alive. I was amazed at the diligence and drive of Sally Walker in pursuing details for her non-fiction books.

Deborah Wiles was inspiring as she discussed using your imagination to invent the documentary novel. Editor Stacey Barney in “how to get an Editor (to fall in love with your manuscript) used audience participation. Differences in opinions and reasons for them provided a good example of why editorial opinions could differ so much. The conference ended with the rebelliousness of James Proimos, revealed through his presentation of “How to Write a Novel That Sells in Ten Weeks.” Again, humor and facts made for an interesting session.

I survived a detailed critique by agent Molly Jaffa of Folio Literary Agency. Just kidding. She combined praise for ideas and other aspects of the first 10 pages of the Middle Grade novel I am writing, with suggestions for ways to improve it. I was happy. You don’t ask for a critique if you think everything is perfect.

Molly led an Opening Pages workshop on Saturday discussing what first pages need to do, such as establishing stakes for the main character. There should be internal conflict, change, sacrifice, questioning. The opening pages need to introduce characters we can care about, build tension, and make us want to find out what happens next. It sounds like a lot, but we don’t want too much to happen within those first few pages.

Writing that is fresh and new is what she is looking for. She is not interested in trendy. I have a lot more hints written in my notebook, as well as books and authors she recommended we read and learn. Molly lost her voice later that day, but not her ability to communicate and provided more insight during panel discussions the next day.

I am writing more than I normally do in my blogs, but I was so inspired and motivated this weekend, I wanted to record some of my thoughts. More details from the conference will follow in future blogs.