Another egg hatched into Omega Man, who cleans up crime throughout the land. With a plunger. That's some serious sit fighting, although he's a stand up guy. You know what I mean. He's even had some commercial success. You guessed it, in a commercial. Something fishy about a sushi chef advertising comics. TBS

Too bad not enough of our nest eggs hatched to keep all our chickens, I mean children, fed. Maybe its the size of those little cluckers, not so small any more, and always hungry. So we did some nest cleaning before the big storm the night of our anniversary. No, wait. That was a whole week before. However times flies, we were still tired from the stress or helping another fledgling fly the coop. Of course, seeing this fledging in front of a 7' tall door, you'll wonder how much bigger one could get. And maybe how sharp are his teeth?

    Blog June7, 2011

Before that, the question for me was to do or not to do. To make things clear, there’s really no question of me not doing. The only way I could fail as a writer is to quit. I’m never done writing even when I just finished editing the last chapter of my book. So I must do—but not in the manner of much ado about nothing.

I have committed substantial effort to my book. This last revision was inspired by a class of 7th graders I worked with once a week this year. Now I need a few adults to volunteer as reviewers. These reviewers must not quit, at least not before the 4th chapter. More important, there’s a one week deadline to review three chapters.

I don’t expect a full line edit like a professional editor might provide, but I do need to know if the story is easy to read, whether it flows and makes sense to an adult—you know, those “old” people who buy the books for their young teenagers.

The 7th graders gave me suggestions and inspiration that generated a ton of changes. Think I’m kidding? Try lifting the stack of review papers I went through first as a group and then individually to make sure I addressed every question and concern.

The most important lessons I learned from them are less talk and more action. The average twelve-year-old these days doesn’t understand puns without explanation. Same with words like entity and rift. There’s a huge mental leap that happens somewhere around age 13. I hope that’s my lucky number, even if I don’t believe in luck except as a reward for hard work.

Now I have until the 24th of June to have adults read my book, or at least the first three chapters, and offer up opinions, good or bad. That date is when I’ll attend the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Bookwriters and Illustrators) midyear workshop in Orlando to try and sell it. I could use a few more volunteer reviewers, but only if you’re a fast reader and only if you’re not afraid to tell me the worst. I wouldn’t ask for criticism if I couldn’t take it.

I have one volunteer who left on vacation and might not be able to finish the first three chapters in time. Make no mistake, timing is critical because I need a week to make any changes necessitated by the reviews. For locals, I can print and deliver the manuscript if you prefer. For everyone else, the reviews must be online because there’s not enough time for snail mail.

I will return the favor of course. If you’re not a writer, I can help hone presentations or lessons for work, school, or church. So now the question is to review or not to review. I leave it up to you.

My to do list gets longer every holiday season. It's a wonder I made it anywhere near the computer this month, let alone my blog. The time passed fast, yet the most enjoyable hours I spent all month were two I spent visiting a class at a local middle-school. I have Mary Brown, our ECW critique group chairperson, to thank for coordinating with a teacher friend to get another teacher's reading class to review my first three chapters. I don't want to put names in my blog without permission, but I was overjoyed when Mary's friend called to say the reviews were finished and to ask if I could visit. Yes! I wanted to jump through the phone.

During my visit I talked about reading, writing, how I get my ideas, and all sorts of things, including the difficulty of making a living as a book author vs. a technical writer or reporter, for instance. I asked the students questions and they asked me questions. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. When they voted to let me come back for another visit the next week I was ecstatic, to say the least. I felt like I carried home a bucket of gold in the form of reviews of my manuscript, chapters 1 through 3, which they had been reading since near the beginning of school.

By the time I read through all the stack at home, I was surprised the class didn't give me the boot. The opening of chapter 1 confused everybody, as did much of the rest of the chapter, but the majority of students wanted to read more. Chapter 2 had the worst problems, so much that only half wanted to read more. Hence, the blog title -- 2 was too much. Thank goodness, Chapter 3 turned the tide, with a cliffhanger ending. It was really muddy,  a mystery that made all but a few students want to read more. Whew. I was very glad I didn't visit until after they read chapter 3.

Wouldn't you know my mad science puns confused almost all the students. That was just the beginning, so I got busy and rewrote, and rewrote again and again. Two wasn't enough, and even twenty wasn't too much. At the next visit, the day before Christmas vacation, I read some of the revised parts as the class ate muffins, my bribe to keep them happy. They seemed to like those parts better, but the real test will be their written anonymous reviews. I read aloud bits of my favorite reviews from the first batch, one of which was a well-done negative review with helpful specific suggestions. Even so, anonymity will encourage honesty. I left chapters 1-6 for the class to read over Christmas break. And woo-hoo! I get to visit again once they finish, so I guess two wasn't too much for the class, either. 

One of my biggest hopes is that more of the students will try writing stories themselves. Two already said they did and I'm anxious to read their stories. I promised if the students would help me with my story, I would help them too. In this case, two is definitely not too much. Bring 'em on!

I also explained to the class why I decided to split my own book in two, catering to publishing industry rules for word count of middle-grade vs. YA. One was too much, but two won't be, in terms of book length. Since then, I have managed to write some of my new ending. I'm maybe halfway through the plan, which changes every time I touch a keyboard. I have another think or two coming before the next class visit. I try inventing new ideas when I take a walk, but that doesn't work.  So I let my fingers do the walking. They connect better to my unconscious than my conscious mind does, and they're not telling -- until I type.  For those type digits, two is nowhere near too much. I need all ten. 

To Self Publish or Not Rather than let another week go by without blogging, I searched for inspiration in the easiest way, by reading through my blog subscriptions. This blog will be short and not so sweet, for those of us in the first time author boat. I read my writer beware blog, wherein Victoria Strauss refutes the claims of Author Solutions concerning the supposed takeover of publishing by self-published authors. Not yet, she says.

Ms. Strauss links to another blog, written around three months ago, with some good insights for any peon unpublished (accent on the un), or PUP. I define PUP as me or any other writer who either isn't published or hasn't published a first book yet. Michael Hyatt, chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers,wrote this blog at the time non-fiction author Seth Godin declared intent to self-publish his next book. You might guess Mr. Hyatt listed several reasons most authors shouldn't follow the same path.

You'll have to read for yourself to see whether you agree or disagree. I know Tommie Lynn would disagree, having seen enough success to make a profit. But she started with knowledge I don't have about creating a cover, typesetting, etc. Two months after her presentation, I've forgotten those instructions. I've even forgotten where to look for the handouts. That doesn't give me much confidence in my publishing skills. How much? None. But that doesn't mean I'll tuck my PUP tail between my legs and go home. And  I'll try not to peon anybody along the way to success.

I guess I'll worry about ppublishing later, when I finish splitting another book in two. Better than splitting heirs in two, I guess. Better than spitting hares, too. No, those aren't typos. One of those happens in my book. And I'm seeing if you're still awake.