Sabrina's 2015 Writing Goals

I've never been much of a goal maker. And given how unorganized I am, maybe I should get in the habit, to help focus my thoughts and practice accountability. In that spirit, here are my writing goals for 2015. They are, other than #1, are rather limited. That's because I have a variety of stresses in my personal life to deal with before I can reroute all of my energy back to writing. A girl can only spend so many hours a day in front of a computer..

1. Finish and publish (?) Pyromancy 
I'm so excited to write this book, especially after reading reviews and comments and reader theories on Prophecy of the Six. This book is going to be amazing, people.

2. Finish and publish various short stories. 
The first draft of my 'Curse Story' is sooo close to being done. I've got to get that finished, polish it up, and send it to the first round of beta readers. Oh, and at some point I should give it a working title.

And then I want to get working on the other two short stories, the one with the firebirds, and the one with the house in the wastelands. Those are just little embryos of ideas right now though.

Really, I have to get back in the habit of writing. I took a break, had technology chaos (got the new laptop working now!), and took care of a wide variety of other things, but it's time to set up a schedule. It's weird for me to manage my own writing time, instead of working out a schedule with other people. I'm somehow more productive when I know others are depending on me, fancy that. :)

3. Do some research on my next solo novel. 
 As time allows, I want to do some more research for the next novel. I think I'd start with the setting - it's going to be alternate world fantasy, but set in an era equivalent to some time between 1900 and 1915. I should probably add figuring that out to my official list of goals. I'm sort of playing in the world already - both the curse story and the firebird story occur in the same world as the novel, though in slightly different time periods.

So I need to get myself back to the lovely UCSD library and look up fashion and culture, cars and farming equipment, economies and cityscapes. I can't wait. And in the meantime, I can think happy thoughts about Kate and Alex and Vivian and that guy I haven't named yet, along with Rhys and Ammalina and all the other supporting characters.

SPACESHIP LIBRARY

4. Educate myself on how to participate in the push for more diverse books. 
I've been rather passively following the campaigns for more diversity in fiction, but I want to do more. Being that I am white, I come from a place of incredible privilege, including that as a kid, I could find heroines like myself in books without any troubles. I want all kids to experience that sense of wonder, This article has a lot of wonderful and sad pictures from the We Need Diverse Books Campaign.
In any case, I want to do more. I want to learn how to write diverse characters, and I want to support the inclusion of diverse books in the publishing world.

So there we go - those are my goals as a writer for 2015. Here's to an amazing year for writing and everything else.

Loaning out the Library

I knew a girl once, who didn't own any books. She had a spotless room. Or rather, I suppose it really was spotted. There was a spot for everything. Clothes, toys, crafts, each in their place. But no bookshelf. Just the occasional check-out from the school library.

That girl was not me. Our house was full of shelves, and boxes and teetering piles of print. Still is, thankfully. When I grew up and went away to college, I was blessed to fall in love with a man who always kept a stack of books by his side of the bed, too (could I have fallen in love with any other sort of man?). Every room in our house has at least one bookshelf in it - as all proper houses should.

But we also have a little nook library. It's funny how over the last little while word's gotten out about our library. Friends call (adults and kids), or knock on the front door, or simply wander up the stairs if they're visiting. I suppose it's a little glimpse into someone's soul to see what they collect.

It's also been my privilege to be able to recommend and loan out many of these little glimpses of our family. And for some reason, it makes me most happy to be able to introduce a new generation to old books written long before they were ever born. Usually there's kind of a skeptical raise of an eyebrow like, 'how could anything so ancient be any good?' But if they're willing to give it a go, a few days later they often come back asking for more, and why haven't they ever heard of that author before? It makes me feel, in some ways, like I'm keeping something alive.

So, what kinds of things are on your bookshelves, and what are you most likely to share?

~Susan

Lovely Libraries

My Old Library

We moved recently, so I can't boast that I live near the oldest library in Maine anymore, but it was my library for twleve years. The front desk was a large desk in the middle of a smallish room lined with bookshelves. There was another smallish room in the the back lined with children's books. The checkout system involved pulling the library card from the back. There was an honest to goodness card catalog with cards typed out on a typewriter. It was like stepping back in time. It rarely had the books I wanted to read, but I loved that library.

We're on vacation this week, so of course we've visited two different libraries. We're just that kind of family. Holy macaroni! They are so cool! My sister and her kids took us. The return room in the first library is made out of glass so you can look in and see the whole return process. You place your book in the slot marked "book return" and it zooms down a conveyor belt and passes through a laser. The laser reads the bar code to check the book back in and to decide which bin the book belongs in.   The rollers on the belt lift up and another set of rollers slide the book off the belt and into the correct bin. If the book has a hold on it, a printer prints up a slip and a librarian takes the book directly to the "holds" area.

But the fun doesn't end there! Oh no. Then I got to go looking for books. So many shelves! Even though I'm reasonably well versed in the world of books, there were so many I'd never heard before. How many can I read while I'm on a crazy busy family visiting vacation? Certainly not the 8 that I picked out. But still...

The Fountain of Books Accidentally Left Behind

Then the real excitement begins. Using my sister's library card (shhh!!!! don't tell the library please!) my kids and I placed our books four at a time on this metal scale looking thing, and the names of the books popped onto a screen! It was magic.

And the next week, we did it again at a different library, with an even better selection of books. That time, my nephew bagged all the books he wanted and threw the bag on the scale, and the computer read them! And then we sat near a spectacular fountain right outside, and that bag got left on the far side, where we'd never notice it. Some kind soul noticed, and when we returned several hours later, the bag was waiting with the incredibly patient librarian.

I love libraries for everything they do to make my world a brighter place. That's probably why I sat in the bookstore today and cried when I read The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore  by William Joyce. Libraries come in all shapes and sizes. I'm much too tired to help you out, but if you look on the side bar, I even wrote a post about Maine's amazing Books By Mail program. Do you have a story about a library in your life?

I've never actually seen this library before, but I'd sure like to.

It's in Kansas City.