So the news is, I am finally starting another book! I will admit that following the publication of Starting the Colt, I had no more interest in writing. I had a rough idea for the next book (even for several more books), but I hadn't been able to develop it enough to motivate me.

For awhile I struggled with guilt, wondering if I was being a "quitter." I felt quite blessed to have two published books, but I had sacrificed other interests in life in order to do that, and selling my books continued to take a big chunk of my time. Maybe some day I would feel like writing again, but until then, I chose not to feel guilty. There was nothing to blog about, so no need to feel guilty about not blogging about writing. I wanted to ride, not write! When people asked me if I'd been writing, I always did a double-take, not sure what I'd heard, and countered, "Did you say riding? or writing?" Funny how those two interests were so related in my life, even sounding the same.

The only problem was my subbing. Kids at school often told me how much they loved my books and asked me if there was going to be another one. I would give some vague answer, not wanting to say I was done writing books but not wanting to give false hope. I'd say, "Well, I'm not sure, I'm not working on one right no"; I'd say that writing a book is so time-consuming, especially when you have a job besides writing.

The turning point came one day this past week at the middle school when I was just overwhelmed by how many kids talked to me about my books. Then a few days later, at the ranch hand rodeo, I had a big conversation about writing with one of the vendors whose son was also a big fan of my books. It seemed like there was some conspiracy going on to mess with my mind!

After the rodeo, I was shocked to find that I was actually toying with the possibility of a third book! I dusted off my idea and did a little brain-storming. Lo and behold, it started to shape up and grab me! I still didn't say anything about it to anyone--until today. Subbing at the middle school again, I got brave enough to verbalize my plans to my class, telling them how they and the kids at their school had played a big part in my decision. They were so excited! While they worked on their stories, I enthusiastically worked on my plot, crafting the various conflicts that would center around the new character I was introducing.

I'm glad I took that little vacation from writing--apparently it was needed. I don't guarantee there will be a third book, but as of today, I am officially working on it! Cold weather is here, daylight savings is over--it's high time to start a new book!

Well, it has actually happened--my second book, Starting the Colt, is out! It even arrived earlier than expected from the printer. Now it's time to take off my writer's hat and put on my marketer's hat--not my favorite hat. I'd much rather be spending more time with my cowboy hat, but that's not going to happen for awhile, what with winter cold and snow. So it's a good time of year to be selling books in my spare time.

I am an introvert--I don't enjoy publicity or the process of publicizing my books, but I am trying to balance the side of me that would prefer to remain invisible. Every time I take a load of books to the post office, the rewards of marketing outweigh the challenges. Starting the Colt is now at the library and available in over half a dozen stores across northern Nevada. I just barely got it in at the Western Folklife Center in Elko before the week of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

My hard-working publisher, Janet Muirhead Hill, at Raven Publishing, has Starting the Colt up on Amazon.com, both as a paperback and as a Kindle book. She has been so great to work with--promptly answering my many questions, always making good suggestions and guiding our projects in the right direction.

As I have been subbing, I have shared with students the progress of my book in its journey toward publication and had a few opportunities to give mini-author talks or short readings. I love talking to students about reading and writing.

Other projects include tweaking my website (www.janyoungauthor.com) and placing the curriculum unit that I wrote last summer on TeachersPayTeachers.com. I have spent the past month and a half familiarizing myself with TpT--the products, the descriptions, and the process of formatting and uploading a digital product. Here, teachers can easily access the CU for an affordable price, and even download a free introductory mini-unit. Visit my TpT store to find "STARTING THE COLT Curriculum Unit Common Core Aligned" and "STARTING THE COLT Mini-Curriculum Unit Common Core Aligned."

Galleys are the uncorrected preliminary version of a book that can be sent to reviewers a few months before the book actually comes out. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley_proof) The galleys of Starting the Colt have been printed and sent out to reviewers. In proofreading one last time (I think!), I managed to find a few things that needed fixing. We are getting close to publication! It was very exciting to receive my galley copies in the mail and see what my book will look like shortly.

What I found amazing in proofreading was that as many times as I have read through my story, I found it as hard to put down as if I'd never read it. My husband asked me one evening when we were going to eat dinner. I thought to myself, "Not now! I'm right at the good part--I have to keep reading!" Not like I didn't know what was going to happen, right? And yes, I did get up and start dinner...after just a few more minutes of reading.

It reminded me of the many times my mom scolded, "Jaaaaan-ice! Haven't you started on your chores yet?" And I would answer, "Oh, just let me finish this page" or chapter, or one more chapter, or however much I thought I could sneak in before she'd get after me again to do my homework or piano practice or my chore list taped on the refrigerator. Has my love of books been passed on to my kids and grandkids? You bet!

The good news: I finished the curriculum unit for Starting the Colt! A combination of hard work and fun, it could also be a slave driver, taking over my summer and pushing aside other things I wanted to do. But I had set a goal of finishing by the start of school, when I begin work of another sort, and there is satisfaction in reaching my goal. I also feel a burden has been lifted from my shoulders, freeing up my time for other things, or even, nothing! I try to keep projects from becoming my master, stealing my ability to relax and do what I want.

The bad news: Starting the Colt won't be out in paperback until early 2014. We tried to make 2013 work, but life just wouldn't cooperate. There was a chance it could happen late in the year, but I learned from my first book, The Orange Slipknot, that a late-in-the-year release has marketing disadvantages. Many lists, awards, reviewers, etc. will only accept books published in the current year, so a late release makes it difficult to take advantage of many of those possibilities. With subbing and teaching piano, I only have so much spare time to spend marketing, and I don't want to shoot myself in the foot. I believe it will pay off in the long run to be patient and make a wise marketing decision. If you just can't wait that long, the ebook is available on Smashwords and Kindle!

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Some writing is hard work, but some is serendipity. Yesterday I started to create a curriculum unit activity for a science connection, then remembered that many years ago, I created something similar that is still in my old files. I pulled it out, spent the day revising it, and voila! Just what I needed!

One of the rules of writing is, "Write what you know and care about," so I started out years ago writing about Nevada, cowboying, and ag-related topics. Much of what I came up with in my early writing days never sold, but waited patiently for the right opportunity to jump out and find its niche. I love seeing how some of my original ideas, after aging a bit, found new angles and became part of The Orange Slipknot or Starting the Colt. As I recently read in Ecclesiastes 3:1, "there is an appointed time for everything."

The deeper I get into the curriculum unit I'm creating for Starting the Colt, the more fun I'm having. At first it was hard work to determine and formulate the right kinds of questions, but now, over half way through, the questions are becoming more obvious to me, as I find them building on earlier questions. For each chapter, there is a page of writing/discussion questions and journal prompts, then a vocabulary page.

I'm especially enjoying the vocabulary pages, because I find words interesting. In fact, I start with the vocabulary page, reading through the chapter looking for any words or phrases to focus on. I find that usually my list breaks down into two groups: horse or cowboy terminology, and interesting words. I don't start with the question page because that "seems" like harder work. But in the process of gathering up my vocabulary words, I "discover" the chapter questions without really having to work at it.

Vocabulary activities include glossary and dictionary, context clues, similes, idioms, slang, synonyms and antonyms, root words, origins, parts of speech, domain-specific language in several domains, etc. Right now I'm in the middle of an interesting rabbit trail that started with double-ought sized horseshoes and turned into a math connection page on ought/aught/nought/naught. Now I need to organize all that information and make it interactive.

Starting the Colt e-book released! In fact it was released a week and a half ago, but I've been so busy--working, going out of town two weekends in a row, getting ready to go out of town, catching up at home after being out of town--that I never even thought to update my blog till today. 

When my publisher emailed me that the e-book was released, I had to think up some ways to publicize it, without actually having a book in my hands! A Facebook announcement was the obvious first choice. I quickly made a few last-minute changes to my website, including the addition of a page where website visitors could read the first chapter. 

Then I got busy with my computer and printer and created a flyer I could post on bulletin boards around town and on my two trips to visit family. For a template, I used a flyer from The Orange Slipknot, swapped out the cover photos and the pertinent information, and tweaked the size and location of my text boxes. I decided to add tear-off strips, formatted from my piano lesson flyers with tear-off strips, with each strip containing the title, my website, and the information "Smashwords/Amazon."

Finally, I created bookmarks, again using the template from the bookmarks I created for my first book. I printed them on photo paper and cut them apart, five on a page. Now I had something to hand to people I talked to. 

The paperback won't be out for a couple more months--should I contact the newspaper now or then? I decided I'd rather give the biggest publicity boost to the paperback, so I'll hold off on that. But I did write up a possible press release. 

As a substitute teacher, I've had fun sharing my publishing journey with the classes I've been in recently. I love to answer their questions, but my favorite comment was: "You don't look like an author." I laughed and agreed, and told them that actually, authors are just regular people, that happen to also write books.

As usual, I'm ashamed of how seldom I blog. As an introvert, I'm just not all that interested in keeping others updated on my sporadic writing life. But the last couple of months I've been preparing my talk and handout for the annual Nevada Reading Week Conference in Reno this Saturday. This year I'm not doing my usual presentation: "Nevada's Ranching History." I do love that topic and sharing my slideshow, but this year I am presenting something else I love talking about: "Writing for Children." We will look at how to get started, how to get published, and how to market your book after you get it published.

The release of Starting the Colt is only a few months away! Then it will be time for me to shift gears and get busy publicizing and marketing again. Things I learned and contacts I made the first time will make it easier the second time around. I've seen the sketch for the cover art and am anxious to see how that turns out.

Looking forward to getting this cast off my left arm--yes, I am one of the many unfortunates who fell on the ice last month, but I was klutzy enough to land on and fracture my wrist. I'm anxious to get back to my piano! My next project--the curriculum unit for Starting The Colt.

Actually quite a bit has been going on in the "Writer's Corner" of my life--yes, it only is one corner, not the main thing, which is why it takes me so long to get things accomplished. Two big things:

1) As a follow-up on my November blogpost, over the next few months, I contacted an administrator, several teachers, and various resource people in the school district to learn more about the Common Core Standards and how I might incorporate them into my existing Curriculum Unit for The Orange Slipknot. I ended up cutting some of my original material, rewording much of what remained, adding a few new things, and then inserting numbers to indicate which standard was met by each activity. My goal was to finish this by the end of summer, which I did. The second edition will be a great improvement! (It is not yet available.)

2) My second book, Starting the Colt, is in the works and is slated for release this coming spring! I recently finished editing and proof-reading the "page layout" version, in which the pages on my screen actually look like book pages--kind of exciting to get that visual of the finished product. I was amazed, in my editing, at how many things jumped out at me that needed fixed, clarified, or just improved. There was much less editing needed than in The Orange Slipknot, hopefully because I learned so much about writing from that experience that I did a better job in my initial writing of this one. But my publisher will now do further editing before creating the galleys, so I guess that remains to be seen.

Now that those two biggies are behind me, I have two more biggies to tackle. One involves marketing: Every year I contact all the Nevada fourth grade teachers for whom I can find email addresses (a very time-consuming project) to make them aware of The Orange Slipknot-plus-Curriculum Unit as a great social studies tool. The other involves writing: Now that I'm up to speed on the Common Core Curriculum, I need to craft a CU for Starting the Colt. This should take me much less time and work than the first one did.

One of the purposes of this blog has been to demonstrate what is involved in being a writer. First you write and self-edit the manuscript. Then you must market and sell the manuscript; however, I managed to skip this step with my second book, because my original publisher, Raven Publishing, was interested in my sequel. There is much involved in the publishing process--editing, proof-reading, galleys (preliminary unfinished copies), artwork and cover design, deadlines. Then you market and sell the book, which includes flyers, phone calls, emails, presentations, etc. And yes, blogging. Since I procrastinated so badly on my blogging, I am making up for it by posting twice in one day!

Oh yes, and don't forget websites--finding a host and learning your way around their technology, creating and updating your website, then repairing the things you screw up...which I was just reminded of as I tried to post this. In posting my earlier entry today and updating the link on my "janyoungauthor.com" home page, I found I had accidentally wiped out my entire home page. Instead I had somehow uploaded the wrong home page: the one from "jackyoungclinics.com"! I will admit to a few moments of panic as I tried unsuccessfully to get the right page to come up, until I finally figured out what had happened, and got everything back to normal. Sometimes I love playing with websites, but when things don't go right, well...let's just say the problem is not always fixed this easily!

I've been busy writing for the past month or so, but not on a book. However, it is book-related, and I'm very excited about it.

Twice in the past few years I've given my "Nevada's Ranching History" slideshow presentation at the Nevada Reading Week Conference in Reno (http://www.nevadareadingweek.com). Most of the attendees are northern Nevada teachers and librarians. This year (February 10-11) I will be giving two presentations: the ranch history, and one for aspiring writers called "The Path to Publishing."

I'm expanding the ranch workshop to fit a longer timeslot, so I can fit in things I had to leave out to fit the other shorter timeslot. Then I have to tweak my slideshow to match. The handout includes an abstract and several ag-related pages from the Curriculum Unit of my book, The Orange Slipknot.

The writing workshop will focus on how your life experiences prepare you to be a writer and give you the raw material to get started. There is a short slideshow about how I came to write my book. Then we will discuss marketing and publishing your book, with the information summarized in a handout.

The biggest challenge is the clock--practicing and timing myself, while factoring in the possibility that things will move quicker or slower than I have estimated. I hope to get people talking; they may talk longer than I intend, or not as much, so I need to be able to adjust my presentation accordingly.

I always take my cowboy gear display--saddle, bridles, etc., and I wear my boots, chaps, spurs, hat and wildrag. My book, The Orange Slipknot, and the accompanying Curriculum Unit, will be available for sale, and I get to talk about the upcoming sequel, Starting the Colt--targeted for early 2013.