Two packages came within days of each other.
One contained my author's copies of THE HALLOWEEN BOOK OF FACTS AND FUN. The other came from a novelty shop -- pencils. Orange pencils with Jack-o-Lanterns on them, inscribed with the title of my new book.
Great! Now I'm all set for the various places I'm scheduled to do an author presentation this year.
-wendie0
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Talk like a pirate
Well, it's almost over, but today was Talk like a pirate day.
No, I'm wrong -- it's INTERNATIONAL Talk Like a Pirate day. So, of course our library branch had a Pirate Party.
(See www.talklikeapirate.com/ for ideas for your own event next year)
The Fall library Friends' book sale was going on, so we couldn't use the meeting room. We held it out in the Children's room -- thus eliminating food. (Goldfish crackers and Swedish fish were all I could think of serving, so maybe it was better so.)
What's a Pirate day without a Treasure map -- that really leads to treasure? So that's what everyone had to do, first. Find the YA section. Find the Children's nonfiction. Find the Joppa Room. Find the Adult Information desk and GET SOME TREASURE. (choice of 2 necklaces out of a whole pile of them) Find the Circulation desk and get gold coins. And at the Children's Information desk, they could put their hands into a Feelie Box and pull out Jewels. Or a pencil. Or bubbles. Or something. They finished with a map of the library they could keep and use.
Then on to the crafts and handouts. (I probably should have handed out the Pirate vocabulary list first and insisted that everyone talk "Pirate" during their Treasure hunt.)
Although some children came in costume, the hit of the evening were the ladies who came in full (female) pirate dress! I also wore velvet and brocade, but had to remove my leather jerkin because it was too warm for it.
-w
No, I'm wrong -- it's INTERNATIONAL Talk Like a Pirate day. So, of course our library branch had a Pirate Party.
(See www.talklikeapirate.com/ for ideas for your own event next year)
The Fall library Friends' book sale was going on, so we couldn't use the meeting room. We held it out in the Children's room -- thus eliminating food. (Goldfish crackers and Swedish fish were all I could think of serving, so maybe it was better so.)
What's a Pirate day without a Treasure map -- that really leads to treasure? So that's what everyone had to do, first. Find the YA section. Find the Children's nonfiction. Find the Joppa Room. Find the Adult Information desk and GET SOME TREASURE. (choice of 2 necklaces out of a whole pile of them) Find the Circulation desk and get gold coins. And at the Children's Information desk, they could put their hands into a Feelie Box and pull out Jewels. Or a pencil. Or bubbles. Or something. They finished with a map of the library they could keep and use.
Then on to the crafts and handouts. (I probably should have handed out the Pirate vocabulary list first and insisted that everyone talk "Pirate" during their Treasure hunt.)
Although some children came in costume, the hit of the evening were the ladies who came in full (female) pirate dress! I also wore velvet and brocade, but had to remove my leather jerkin because it was too warm for it.
-w
Saturday, September 15, 2007
early in the morning
Two things.
1) I'm not learning enough about How-to-BLOG from the 23 things we librarians have to do, so I've put several blogging instruction books on hold. They should be on my desk by Tuesday and then maybe I'll figure this stuff out.
2) I've begun a strange habit for my writing. I sleep for 4 hours or so -- then wake up and can't get back to sleep -- so I fire up my computer and work on writing. My project this week has been to slash and burn a 4600 word manuscript -- cut it in half. or more. I originally had intended it to be another 48 page picture book biography, like TO FLY. (see the bookcover at the right over there? that one.) But it keeps being rejected. One editor was kind enough to tell me that they only do 32 page books, not 48 pages.
Wondering if it was being rejected because something was wrong with the writing, I got it critiqued by an editor at a SCBWI conference. She was very nice about it. Said the writing was well-written. (yea!) But, even if TO FLY was 48 pages, she didn't think anyone was doing books that length anymore. Her advice was either to lengthen it and illustrate it with photographs and documents -- or shorten it to better fit the picture book length.
I assured her that I had already done the photo research for this and there was very little out there -- it really needed to be illustrated by an artist.
Therefore -- on the advice of two good editors -- I'm slashing and burning.
3) This writing in the wee hours of the night means that I'm a teeny tiny bit tired for my day job. (yes I do go back to bed and get a few more hours of sleep.) So far, bottled tea has kept me going.
-w
1) I'm not learning enough about How-to-BLOG from the 23 things we librarians have to do, so I've put several blogging instruction books on hold. They should be on my desk by Tuesday and then maybe I'll figure this stuff out.
2) I've begun a strange habit for my writing. I sleep for 4 hours or so -- then wake up and can't get back to sleep -- so I fire up my computer and work on writing. My project this week has been to slash and burn a 4600 word manuscript -- cut it in half. or more. I originally had intended it to be another 48 page picture book biography, like TO FLY. (see the bookcover at the right over there? that one.) But it keeps being rejected. One editor was kind enough to tell me that they only do 32 page books, not 48 pages.
Wondering if it was being rejected because something was wrong with the writing, I got it critiqued by an editor at a SCBWI conference. She was very nice about it. Said the writing was well-written. (yea!) But, even if TO FLY was 48 pages, she didn't think anyone was doing books that length anymore. Her advice was either to lengthen it and illustrate it with photographs and documents -- or shorten it to better fit the picture book length.
I assured her that I had already done the photo research for this and there was very little out there -- it really needed to be illustrated by an artist.
Therefore -- on the advice of two good editors -- I'm slashing and burning.
3) This writing in the wee hours of the night means that I'm a teeny tiny bit tired for my day job. (yes I do go back to bed and get a few more hours of sleep.) So far, bottled tea has kept me going.
-w
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
RSS feeds
Okay, now I know how to add other people's blogs to my Bloglines' account. But nowhere can I find out how to add that little red RSS button to my blog so that people CAN add my blog to their RSS.
Back to learning more of the 23 things librarians have to know.
-wendieO
Back to learning more of the 23 things librarians have to know.
-wendieO
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Pictures into blogs
I'm trying to learn how to insert pictures of bookcovers into an older blog post.
So far I've figured out that Blogger won't work with Safari and I'm assuming that if I do try to insert the bookcover, I won't be able to insert it into the message that I had already done. Oh well. I'll try to remember to be on Explorer the next time I do a book review. Uploading pictures seem to work with that. (but it still seems to have to be a brand new post.)
So, it looks as if I'll not be able to put the cover of Jennifer Holm's new book into that message.
grumpf
-w
So far I've figured out that Blogger won't work with Safari and I'm assuming that if I do try to insert the bookcover, I won't be able to insert it into the message that I had already done. Oh well. I'll try to remember to be on Explorer the next time I do a book review. Uploading pictures seem to work with that. (but it still seems to have to be a brand new post.)
So, it looks as if I'll not be able to put the cover of Jennifer Holm's new book into that message.
grumpf
-w
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Summer is officially over
Yesterday was Labor Day.
A day of vacation from our day jobs and an extra day off for us to do all those little chores that you never can get done on the regular two-day weekend.
Yesterday was the last day our community pool was open. Luckily the weather was warm, even though the water had cooled down to 76 degrees. (I usually won't get into the pool until July, when the water warms up to at least 80 degrees.) Even so, I braved the chilly water and took one last dip.
The seven year old and her swim team friends had great fun that afternoon in and out of the pool. But many tears were shed when it was time to go home.
Now, it's back to school. Back to work. Back to normal.
=wendieO
A day of vacation from our day jobs and an extra day off for us to do all those little chores that you never can get done on the regular two-day weekend.
Yesterday was the last day our community pool was open. Luckily the weather was warm, even though the water had cooled down to 76 degrees. (I usually won't get into the pool until July, when the water warms up to at least 80 degrees.) Even so, I braved the chilly water and took one last dip.
The seven year old and her swim team friends had great fun that afternoon in and out of the pool. But many tears were shed when it was time to go home.
Now, it's back to school. Back to work. Back to normal.
=wendieO
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
