Remember your teacher making the class put chairs in a circle for discussions. I have to admit I didn't like the arrangement in junior high. It was harder to hide when I was in a circle. I didn't like to talk much in those days. Blending in with the group was my main goal.

How times have changed! Being a teacher, I now have lots of experience in front of groups. Now that I am also a self-published writer, I'm trying to expand my presentations to other groups. For that reason, I volunteered to be on the small publishers panel at the Kansas Authors Club convention. I figured even though I was new to self publishing, I could offer up some experiences to people who were thinking of doing the same. The panel turned out to be a small one. I and Susan Howell, publisher of Kansas Traveler, were the only panel members.

I'm not sure who suggested we put the chairs in a circle, but it turned out to be an excellent format for presenting to the approximately twenty writers who attended the session. While I had only a beginner's knowledge of self publishing, others in the room had far more experience. The circle format allowed for a free exchange of ideas that might not have happened in the traditional rows-of-chairs situation. I both contributed to and learned from the discussion, which covered a range of topics, including book formatting and printing, book covers, marketing, and the advantages of your business being a sole proprietorship or a limited liability company (LLC).

I might have been embarrassed because so many in the group had more knowledge than I did. However, I'm glad I volunteered. If I hadn't, the self publishing aspect might not have come up for discussion, and many in the room who were only thinking of taking that route would not have gained from the collective experiences of the group.

The circle formation was also excellent for Susan Howell's discussion of Kansas Traveler, including what she's looking for and guidelines. Participants wanted to know how much editing she does on submitted articles and also asked her about themes, reprints, and simultaneous submissions. If you have a Kansas event you want to publicize or have written an article about Kansas, check out Kansas Traveler at http://kansastraveler.com/.

And don't forget, for maximum participation in a discussion, it's hard to beat talking in circles.

Hazel

Bonnie and I attended the Kansas Authors Club (KAC) convention in Dodge City this weekend. On the drive out, Bonnie mentioned that she had entered the club's writing contest, but she hadn't won anything. I knew that KAC didn't let entrants know if they were winners ahead of time, but I didn't say anything. I just had the secret hope she would win.

Guess what? Secret hopes sometimes come true. At the awards luncheon Sunday, Bonnie's name was announced for taking first place in the fiction category, First Five Pages of a Novel, for her novel, Assisted Living. Congratulations, Bonnie!

Bonnie is quicker on the draw than I am when it comes to cameras, so I didn't get a photo of her accepting the award. However, KAC took photos of the winners, so eventually there will be one. In lieu of the winning photo, here are two others of Bonnie at the convention. 

	Bonnie and our book display  in the KAC book room.
	Bonnie and the cowboy at  the Dodge House.

 
There will be more about the conference and more pictures in a couple of days.
Hazel

I'm preparing a presentation on self publishing and need your help. If you were attending the presentation, what questions would you want answered? I'll post answers here as well as include them in the presentation.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Hazel

At a meeting Sunday, one of the group members said she'd have to get back to blogging since she had a book coming out soon. She followed that with the statement that her entries take ten minutes. If it took longer, she wouldn't get it done.

Ten minutes was a "Wow!" moment for me. I can barely complete a comment on a student essay in ten minutes. But I decided to give it a try. If it didn't work, I could always delete.

This emphasis on time got me thinking before I even got to the computer. I had a poem about time. In fact, I had often thought of it as the title poem for a chapbook. I don't often write poetry, but last week I attended a readaround and sorted through my poems for something to read and realized I had enough for a book.

But what about a cover? The answer: a clock. I could take a picture and work up a cover in my Photoshop Elements program.

But what clock? And then I looked at the Seth Thomas clock my grandparents received as a wedding gift. It's my one treasure from the people who raised me the first twelve years of my life. Definitely, it's the cover image.
Here, in the final three minutes of this entry, is the title poem.

IN TIME

Today's ache; today's smile
Fade, are gone,
Without a note, a line
A poem to hang them on.

Hazel

People say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we do. With thousands of books available, we pick up what attracts us. Different genres require different images. Edge of Nowhere, the book Bonnie and I are preparing for publication, contains mostly horror and dark fiction and needs a cover that conveys that genre. A former art student of Bonnie's had offered to do the cover for her, but the cover choices submitted didn't fit the tone of the book, so we are thinking of what to do next.

I have suggested to Bonnie that she do the cover. As a former art teacher, she has all the skills necessary, and as the author of the title story, she has a definite idea of what she wants the cover image to be. In the early days of paperbacks, many of the covers were artists' drawings or paintings. No final decision has been made, but book publication is on hold for now. As soon as we have a cover, I'll upload the image for your comments.
Hazel

Bonnie and I spent Tuesday and Wednesday, two beautiful days, at Lake El Dorado, where we edited our new book of dark fiction/horror stories, Edge of Nowhere. We were not alone, however. A full complement of insects joined us in the great outdoors, including spiders and ants of various sizes. One particularly stout-looking bug was a large, orange insect that Gladys, the lady at the park office, helped us identify as a cow killer ant. Every once in a while, Bonnie would be staring at the ground instead of the page, and I'd know she was bug watching again. 

In the cabin picture below, you will see regular coffee cups. Bad idea! I found a spider floating in my coffee. If you go camping, take those covered cups.

In spite of the insects, we each read the entire Edge of Nowhere manuscript and marked needed changes, from passages that needed revising to punctuation and formatting problems like headers and gaps between words. After completing the 6X9 paperback, we scanned the mass market size paperback for gaps. For those of you who haven't formatted a book, when you justify the margins, there are places where the words spread out on the line. There are ways to get rid of those large gaps, a tedious, but necessary, task.

However, the trip wasn't all work. We took time to cook and enjoy the scenery. We also discussed our favorite subject, writing. More about those discussions, mostly about description and point of view, in the next blog.
Hazel

	Bonnie took this picture of me editing on the front porch of our cabin.		Bonnie took this picture of our picnic area. We spent most of Wednesday editing here when Bonnie wasn't bug watching.
	I took this picture of Bonnie trying to cremate her hot dog.		Bonnie took this picture of the lake at sunset.

Later today, Bonnie and I are headed to El Dorado Lake and a two day write-in to complete the editing and proofreading of our new book of short stories, Edge of Nowhere. We are going to the Kansas Author's Club Conference in Dodge City the first weekend in October and want to have the new book ready to sell.

Our new book of horror stories, Edge of Nowhere, contains nine short stories, five by me and four by Bonnie. However, Bonnie's story, "Edge of Nowhere," is novella length and is the title story. Our stories include demons, vampires, and other mythical creatures, along with some stories of murder thrown in. We will publish the book in two sizes: a 6x9 paperback and the smaller mass market paperback.

Because there are two sizes, there are two files to format. Besides the usual proofreading one must give every manuscript, whether self-published or not, we have to check headers, footers, and their spacing on the page. Because there are different stories and, therefore, different sections, the page numbers sometimes do strange things that take time to decipher. Just when we think we have nailed them down, something shifts, and we have to start again. Perhaps, one of these days, we will have published enough books for headers and footers to be a snap. That's my dream, anyway.

Of course, after all the work, we intend to spend evenings gazing at the lake, cooking hot dogs, and and talking--our idea of a party. The two days will end at noon on Thursday, all too soon. Our goals are to get both sizes of our book publication-ready and to have a good time. I'll update you on Friday on how our write-in went.

Hazel

If you've attended writers conferences, you've no doubt heard published authors dispense this advise: "Use specific details. Make sure your reader can see every action." My friend, being the dedicated aspiring writer she is, took the advice to heart. Below is a partial scene that follows that advice. The main character has just received a note from her sister.

    Wendy
I have decided to forgive your rude behavior. I also need to talk to you. Can you come to Wichita today? It's very important. I need your opinion.
                                         Nicole

     Puzzled, I stared at the letter. It wasn't like Nicole to value my opinion. It must be something bad. Really bad! Curiosity got the better of me; I decided to go. If I left within the next half hour, I could be there by noon.
     I pulled on a pair of jeans and a blue tee shirt, then ran a comb through my dark curly hair. I took time to clean the litter pan and feed and water the cat; then I called Nicole, but there was no answer, so I left a message on the answering machine that I was on my way. I grabbed my purse and car keys and headed for my white '87 Ford Escort.
     An hour later, I drove into Nicole's driveway. She met me at the door. There was a suppressed eagerness about her as she stepped aside and motioned me in.

The passage above is near the beginning of an exciting paranormal story and establishes character and situation, but the sheer number of details drag the story to almost a halt. Since it is often easier for someone besides the author to do the pruning, I edited several words out of Wendy's reaction. 

     I stared at the letter. It wasn't like Nicole to value my opinion. Something really bad must have happened. I glanced at the clock. If I left in the next half hour, I could be there by noon.
     I pulled on jeans and a tee shirt and ran a comb through my hair. After setting out food and water for the cat, I called Nicole. There was no answer, so I left a message on her machine and hurried to my '87 Ford Escort.
     An hour later, I drove into Nicole's driveway. She met me at the door. There was a suppressed eagerness about her as she stepped aside and motioned me in.

As I set out the changes here, I made a cut I hadn't made before and was tempted to make at least one more.
I cut "dark curly" because the story is in first person, and it doesn't seem like something the character would think. It is also not important in this particular place. I considered cutting " '87 Ford Escort" in favor of car. I left the specific make and model because it gives an indication of the character's standard of living, which is important in this story. I took out the litter pan but left in the other care of the cat because the cat, too, is an integral part of the story.

If you were editing, would you cut more? Would you leave in details I removed? How important is the color of the tee shirt and the car? Perhaps you'd like to try your hand at editing the passage. Leave a comment and let me know what you would do.
Hazel

For several months, I have been attending author presentations. Since I hope to be making some presentations of my own, I'm looking for elements that make them successful. By successful, I mean capturing and keeping the audience's attention and making people want to buy the book.
 
Most presentations include general comments about the author's background and the generating idea/background of the book. Some have an added feature that makes them memorable.

A few months ago, I went to see Kathy Patrick, author of The Pulpwood Queens' Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life. Patrick, a former beautician, gives away a hair piece and arranges it on the winner, giving that person the "big hair" she writes about in the book. It is the perfect end to her talk on how she came to write the book and get famous.

Last night, I attended a signing by J.A. Jance, mystery writer, who was promoting her new book, Damage Control. Jance talked about her parents, who are the basis for a married couple in her book. During the discussion, she told about being one of seven children, and how on long car trips, her mother taught them to sing to keep them occupied. She then sang a couple of the old songs. Jance has a great voice, and many people identified with the songs.

I'm looking for my own added feature, something that will make people remember me and my books after the presentation is over. I know for sure I won't try hairdressing. It's all I can do to make my own hair presentable. It took me years, but I finally found a wash-and wear cut that only demands combing. And although I love to sing, the only people I torture with it are the folks who are passengers in my car. I sing along to the radio. But I don't want to lose my potential book-buying audience, so singing won't be part of my program.

Have you attended a book reading/signing with an unusual feature? If you have, tell me about it in a comment. I'm looking for ideas.
Hazel

My mother has Alzheimer's, and a few weeks ago, I had to meet with a Department of Aging supervisor to help with an evaluation of the treatment Mom is receiving at the nursing home where she lives and receives care. As I found out once I was there, my mother's cognitive ability was also being tested at the meeting.

The supervisor, Karen, handed Mom a piece of paper with a large circle on it. After telling Mom that the circle was the face of a clock, Karen asked my mother to fill in the numbers. Mom was able to do this with confidence. Then Mom was asked to indicate the time of ten minutes after eleven. She stared blankly at the paper, unable to figure out how to complete the request. Throughout the rest of the meeting, she periodically glanced at a wall clock a few feet in front of her and attempted to tell the time. Clearly, not being able to correctly fill in the time on the paper clock bothered her long after the test was over.

I didn't understand how widespread the use of the clock test was for testing cognitive ability until another disabled person in another county mentioned being given the same test during an evaluation of the home health care services he receives. He said they do the same test every year. He, of course, passed. But knowing the clock test was a standard one repeated at every evaluation gave me greater insight into my mother's distress when she was unable to satisfactorily complete hers. I'm sure she remembered the test from previous trials and realized her abilities were being judged, and she was lacking. Always an independent person, I'm sure she feared even more restrictions on her already limited living situation. Since she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's a year ago and sees a doctor for regular checkups, I wondered if needed information about her cognitive abilities couldn't have been obtained from her doctor instead of putting her through the stress of the test.

I have had several relatives who lived into their seventies and eighties without the debilitating effects of dementia.  Until my mother, I had never known anyone with Alzheimer's. I now find it more frightening than almost any other condition that might someday afflict me. I can't help wondering and worrying about what life is really like when memory begins to go. At a writer's conference a few months ago, I met a man who was writing a novel about a woman with Alzheimer's. He was attempting to tell the story from her point of view as she gradually loses her memory. It seemed like an ambitious project, and I wondered how successful he would be at portraying her mental struggles. Perhaps we will meet again at a future conference. If his book is published by then, I will certainly be interested in purchasing it.

Hazel