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Up to this point in my Organic Architecture Series, I’ve been discussing the goal-oriented plot (arch plot) and the limitations of this plot-type. Arch plot functions in such a way that the connective tissue is a desire that moves the plot through its progression.

But are there plots where the cause-and-effect tissue isn’t defined by goals? Or plots that don’t have heroes? Or plots where the main character isn’t active?

YES!

In the next two posts, I’m going to introduce you to the following alternative plots:

• Mini-plot,
• Daisy chain plot,
• Cautionary tale plot
• Ensemble plot
• Along for the ride plot
• Symbolic juxtaposition plot
• Repeated event plot
• Repeated action plot

This list is by no means complete and I’m constantly on the lookout for more!

I’ve defined an alternative plot  as one that doesn’t have a hero (as termed by the hero’s journey), one that lacks a specific goal, or one that does not use traditional cause-and-effect as its connective tissue. Let’s look at how a few of these plots are different than the hero’s journey arch plot.

MINI PLOT (Also known as: Emotional Plot)

Mini plot is a minimalist approach to arch plot in which the writer reduces the elements of classical design. Often these stories are internal and appear to be plot-less, and/or have passive protagonists. However, the cause-and-effect links are often derived from points of emotional growth rather than high-stakes action. Some might argue that this is a “watered down” version of arch plot, because you can still see the same patterns of arch plot arising in mini-plot, but on a smaller more emotional level.

• Film Examples: Tender Mercies, Five Easy Pieces, Wild Strawberries.

DAISY CHAIN PLOT

In the daisy chain plot there is no central protagonist with a goal. Instead multiple characters or situations are introduced through the cause-and-effect connective tissue of a physical object that is passed from one character to the next.

• Film Examples: The Red Violin, Twenty Bucks.
• Book Examples: Lethal Passage (Larson).
• Modified Daisy Chain Plots with a Protagonist: The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (Angleberger), Thirteen Reasons Why (Asher).

CAUTIONARY TALE PLOT

In the cautionary tale plot there isn’t a hero and it is often the antithesis of comforting growth. In both Chris Lynch’s Inexcusable and Todd Strasser’s Give a Boy a Gun, the main character’s commit horrible acts of violence.  In this plot, the reader becomes the protagonist who must evaluate the main character, and it is often the reader who ends up changing as a result.

• Book Examples: Inexcusable (Lynch), Jumped (Williams-Garcia), Give a Boy a Gun (Strasser).

ENSEMBLE PLOT (Also known as: Polyphonic Plot)

This plot has multiple protagonists in a single location which is “characterized by the interaction of several voices, consciousnesses, or world views, none of which unifies or is superior to the others” (Berg). There can be goals in this plot type, but more often it is a character-driven story in the form of a portrait of a city, group of friends, or community.

• Film Examples: The Big Chill, Nashville, Beautiful Girls.
• Book Examples: Keesha’s House (Frost), Give a Boy a Gun (Strasser), Bronx Masquerade (Grimes), Doing It (Burgess).

Are you starting to see some of the new and exciting options available? Stay tuned. In part 2, I’ll cover: along for the ride plot, symbolic juxtaposition plot, repeated event plot, and repeated action plot.

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Howdy Campers!   Welcome to another edition of TeachingAuthors'

TeachingAuthors--and most writing teachers--have taught and discussed versions of this exercise over the years—and it's worth repeating.

Last week I tweaked it just a bit and the raw results in student writing was much more personal than when I've used this exercise before--their stories were notably stronger.

In my UCLA Extension Writers' Program class on Writing the Children's Picture Book, I spend one of the three-hour classes on rewriting.  I tell my students, "the information I'm about to tell you may be a tad depressng."

Then I show them a stack of revisions of my 1087-word picture book. I read an early draft, a middle draft and the final published book.  I show a PowerPoint which details the long journey to publication:

TIMELINE OF ONE OF MY PICTURE BOOKS
•    April 2000: interviewed expert on topic; wrote first version
•    April 2002: additional interviews
•    October 2004: accepted by publisher
•    January 2005: author’s revision sent to Dial
•    July 2005: editorial notes promised
•    December 2005: editorial notes received
•    January 2006: author’s revision sent to editor
•    January 2006: line edit promised “soon”
•    March 2006: line edits promised “May at the earliest”
•    May 2006: no line edits yet
•    May 2006: illustrator accepts offer
•    September 2006: considerable line edits received
•    September 2006 (about 12 days later): edited ms. sent off with new title
•    May 2007 titles still under discussion—August 2008 projected publication date
•    September 2007—book delayed until summer 2009 because illustrator is delayed.
•    April 2008—tiny edit: five small word changes
•    Fall 2008: illustrations arrive—wow, wow, WOW!
•    June 2009: book ship—yippee!
•    Summer 2009 lots of PR
•    September 2009: official launch—bricks-and-mortar and blog tour

      = 38 versions from start to finish.

After depressing them with the timeline, I did something different this time.  I read them the touching picture book, I Remember Miss Perry, written by Pat Brission, illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch (he's also the illustrator of New Year at the Pier).  It's about the death of a beloved elementary school teachers and how her students work through it by sharing happy memories of her.  It's a delicious book about a topic no one wants to talk about--the kind of book that every school needs in its library, because when you need it, you need it immediately.
I want my students to feel they can tackle any topic in a children's picture book as long as it's written honestly.  As long as it rings true.

So, here's the exercise:

1) Have your students brainstorm for five minutes, writing a list of experiences from their childhood that rocked their world. 

Tell them to jot down whatever comes to mind, writing quickly. They don't need to worry about neatness or spelling or complete sentences--they're making notes for themselves.

Here are some possible topics:

When did you do something that made you feel grown-up?
Maybe you helped paint the kitchen.
Maybe you did something that helped someone older than you solve a problem.

When did something scary happen to you?
Maybe your dog ran away.
Maybe your parents separated.

When did something joyous happen to you?
Maybe your family moved into a nice home for the first time.
Maybe you learned how to skateboard or read.

2) Give them just five minutes to circle one of the things on their list that they want to write about and then write a brief outline of the whole story. 

3) Tell them to change one thing about this story.
Tell them: BE WILD!  
Tell them: STAND ON YOUR HEADS AND BALANCE SAUSAGES ON YOUR TOES! 
They might change:
~ Point of view.  Instead of first person, try third person.  Or perhaps the family dog tells the story.
~ Time period.    Instead of the present, try setting it in ancient times, in the 1920s, in the future.
~ Place:              Instead of on a farm, try setting it underwater, in a volcano, on an island, in New York.
~ Characters:      Instead of people, try ground hogs, lightning bugs, elevators, a jar of pickles or cows.
~ Plot:                Instead of the cricket finding his home at the end, perhaps he gets even more lost.  Or instead of the bully getting her comeuppance, throw a party for her and see what happens.

As I said, this is the first year I've read my students that book before we launched into this exercise; the stories were more heartfelt than in the past.
I hope you try it--either in your own writing or with students.  Then let me know what happens!
And, hey--thanks for reading this!
April Halprin Wayland

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Part 2.

There’s this convention in 1965 where Bill first publicly spoke about his involvement. Were you there?

I don’t remember if I was there or not.

There was a panel that you were not on, but maybe you were there.

I might’ve been there, but I don’t have any specific memory now.

Did you ever go to a convention with Bill after that?

I can’t remember ever doing that.

So you never got to see Bill interact with fans?

If I was at that one, I might have, but I don’t remember generally, no.

Were you in touch with Bill up until his death?

Sporadically. He would visit here. For a while, I was sharing an apartment with another writer, just before I got married. And he collaborated with him on various things. Mostly for television, I believe. And so they would write up here in my apartment and I would see him then. And then on a few other occasions. I’ll tell you something but it’s not for print.

Okay.

[redacted]

Do you remember how you heard that Bill had died?

I don’t know if I read it or somebody called me, I’m not sure.

Were you at his funeral?

No, I never knew that there was one. Usually, DC has a service, but they never had one for him. They had one for Siegel and Shuster and I attended each one.

Where were their funerals, by the way?

I don’t know if they had a public funeral as such, but we had a special service at DC.

For both of them?

Not together, each one.

Do you know where Bill is buried?

No, I don’t know that, either. It may be that nobody survives who does know. That’s possible.

[I say that Freddie’s friends might know but I don’t how to find them…though eventually, I did find some]

I never knew the service for Portia. I was never called. And I knew I was one of the closest friends.

You weren’t called when she passed away?

[inaudible no]

If you were doing this book [on Bill] yourself, who would be the main players?

The editors at DC and some other editors. But on a personal level he might have had some other friends I don’t know of, some school friends. Portia. His son. [something including “myself” and “Bob”] …the editors at DC we dealt with, mostly [Mort] Weisinger and [Jack] Schiff.

…

[Bill] created most everything for [Bob]. He definitely was a full co-creator. I think he had more to do with the molding of Batman than Bob. He just did so many things at the beginning. As an artist, I can appreciate what goes into that. Aside from creating almost all the other characters, creating the whole persona, the whole temper, the history, origin of Batman. Everything. It made it a success from the beginning.

Do you know what Bill thought of Jerry and Joe going after the rights to Superman?

I don’t remember discussing it with him specifically, but I can’t imagine he would be other than supportive or happy about it.

Do you think it ever gave him a kick to try to do that himself, get some rights to Batman?

He might’ve entertained it, but I think he was so beaten down, and without resources, and without any seeming legal avenue to do it, he probably never thought seriously.

Did you ever play golf with him?

No.

Or tennis?

I don’t know that he played tennis. If he played tennis, I’m surprised I wouldn’t have [played with him], because my thing was tennis.

Anything in particular about Bill that you think kids would find interesting?

[unintelligible] …how widely read he was and how he would absorb everything and you never know how something he read would turn up in the feature. He was very hard-working. [unintelligible] …one of the best writers in the business, certainly at that time. … As you probably know, it came hard for him. He was always late in deadlines. Maybe some of his personal life interfered with that as well, but I know a lot of times it was due to his painstaking work, that he wouldn’t hand it in until he was satisfied with it. And they would never appreciate the time and effort he put in, even though they were benefiting from it and it made the feature so great. But he couldn’t help himself. He would slave over it. He was not a natural writer in the sense that it would pour out.

Where did he do his research?

We’d go to the library. We’d go to the newsstands. Movies. Park. Everywhere.

Did he carry with him a notebook and a pen and jot things down in movies and places like that?

I don’t remember him doing that. I think he would clip things in that extensive clip file when he read things. Anything that he thought might be useful.

He clipped out things from magazines?

Yeah.

But he wasn’t jotting things down all the time?

I don’t remember him doing that. But he had a great memory so he probably didn’t have to.

[asked about the two blizzard stories that were similar enough to seem like the same event, yet still different: one in Batman and Me, one in Men of Tomorrow; Jerry’s response (part verbatim, part paraphrased): “Bob was full of crap” (laughs); he probably read that, that’s what he did all the time—read a story, adapt it as his own, “I never heard that story before”; Jerry mentioned the “preposterous” interview Bob gave to Jerry Bails where he said Bill Finger didn’t create anything—anyone who would say that is capable of anything; “I’m probably the one who gives Bob more credit than anybody”; I asked Jerry about the sketches dated 1/17/34 and how Gerard Jones said they were fabricated; Jerry agreed and said another Bob lie was that he said he went to anatomy classes]

Anything else about Bill that I didn’t cover?

He suffered a lot. And that’s sad. He didn’t deserve it. He was a very fine guy and a very fine writer and a good friend.

How did he influence you?

In many ways. I was an inspiring writer myself at that time. That’s what I intended to be. Fortunately, as my career went I was able to do a lot of writing. So his approaches and inventiveness, his creativity, humor, I appreciated his injection of that to humanize the strip and Batman. His idea of introducing Robin to humanize Batman enlarged the plot potential, the parameters of the strip. I think a lot of his reading went into the creation some of the great villains that he molded, like the Penguin, the Riddler.

Was he funny in person?

He could be. We joked a lot.

But it was a defining characteristic of him in person?

I wouldn’t say defining.

Was he already married when you met him?

No.

Did you guys ever go try to pick up girls together?

No, I think early on he fell in love with Portia. I don’t know where they met, actually, being she was way up there till she came to New York. I think pretty early on, because I was still on Batman in this instance where I told you when he stopped and called Portia. [After he?] married, I don’t know that he ever fooled around. Not to my knowledge.

Sorry, I wasn’t implying that. I just thought if he wasn’t already married…

No, I understood what you said. I think he very deeply loved Portia. She was a fighter, she would call me and rail against the injustice done by Bob. She hated it.

When did they divorce?

I don’t know when they divorced. I wasn’t in touch with them at that time. And when I did find out and talk to Portia, I was very surprised.

Because you never saw signs of that?

No.

[asked him about comment he made in Comics Journal that Joe Shuster did marry at one point]

In his later life, yeah. At the end of his life, the last few years. Married in California.

But then divorced because I think he was a bachelor when he died?

Were you in touch with him at that time?

I was in touch with him but I didn’t meet her. Jerry and his wife knew her very well.

Do you know how long Joe was married?

Not exactly, but it wasn’t too long. [unintelligible] …few years.

…

What I’d like to do is, I mean, you’re the legacy, and if this gets together, I’d like to show you what I wrote. It’ll be as short as what you read, the Boys of Steel book. (laughs) It won’t take much of your time. I’d welcome all your feedback.

Yeah, I’d appreciate it before it’s published.

[NOTE: Sadly, Jerry died in December 2011, six months before the book came out.]

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Yes, it's nerds in love --
but it's romantic and
life-saving (really!) too.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. St. Martin's, 2013, 320 pages.

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Over at GeekMom today, I’m thinking about a small child’s most beloved word:

Why is a chameleon-word that shapeshifts into all the questions put together. Who, how, when, what, where, will. Why is the wonder-word. It collects the flurry of bewildering input that swirls around a small child like leaves in a tornado—and in a single syllable, it tames the wind. It puts form to the formless: When other words are leaping all over the place with their jittery meanings (leaves fall in the fall but snow doesn’t winter in the winter), why stays put. Why is reliable. When grownups all around you are failing to comprehend the very clear statement you’re making about eating opiemeal in the hoffabul, why is a word they understand. Sometimes it’s the only word they seem to understand, so you use it in place of all the other words they can’t quite grasp…

GeekMom Counterpoint: Why I Love Why.

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LATEST NEWS

The North Carolina Press Foundation is offering four of Artie’s serial stories to Newspapers in Education (NIE) newspapers across the United States. This year’s theme is Dig into Reading. In addition to the NIE, the foundation will also be offering Artie’s work to libraries and other newspapers throughout the United States. To read the stories please click on the NC Press Foundation link listed above.

Two of Artie’s children’s books will be featured on Ameba TV beginning this summer. Based in Canada, Ameba TV is presently streamed worldwide in million of homes.

Ameba TV’s rich, diverse content library delivers thousands of hours of educational, preschool, musical, and multilingual programming to children ages 2 to 12. The popular children’s streaming TV service features award-winning shows, like WordWorld, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That, BusyTown Mysteries, and Ruby Skye PI.

More to come!

View from a Zoo – Bored with her life, a housecat seeks out adventure in this new fully illustrated picture book coming in the summer of 2013. Written by Artie, the book is being illustrated by the incredibly talented Indian artist Sunayana Nair Kanjilal. More to come as the book’s release date gets closer….

Use of any of the content on this website without permission is prohibited by federal law

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Coloring pages inspired by The Secret Garden!

I heart them.

Also at the Guardian: a cross-stitch pattern of Matt Smith.

(I had no idea they had a Craft section. Yet another RSS feed to follow. MY WORK IS NEVER DONE.)

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Summary:
History is on repeat, and things didn't go so well the last time.

Alexandria isn’t sure she’s going to make it to her eighteenth birthday--to her Awakening. A long-forgotten, fanatical order is out to kill her, and if the Council ever discovers what she did in the Catskills, she’s a goner... and so is Aiden.

If that’s not freaky enough, whenever Alex and Seth spend time "training"--which really is just Seth's code word for some up-close and personal one-on-one time--she ends up with another mark of the Apollyon, which brings her one step closer to Awakening ahead of schedule. Awesome.

But as her birthday draws near, her entire world shatters with a startling revelation and she’s caught between love and Fate. One will do anything to protect her. One has been lying to her since the beginning. Once the gods have revealed themselves, unleashing their wrath, lives will be irrevocably changed… and destroyed. Those left standing will discover if love is truly greater than Fate...

My thoughts:
It is so hard to review this book and not give anything away (spoiler-wise). Let me just say that I know so many people are Team Aiden, and I get why. But I love Seth. Not that I don't love Aiden, too. I do. But from the very start, I could see why Alex was drawn to Seth. So as we learn more about Seth in this book, well...I'm not sure what to say except I'm afraid of where this series is going. Will I continue to read the books? Of course! I love Jennifer's writing, and this series drew me in from the start. 

On a different note, the gods are in this book! I love that. I'm a big mythology fan, so seeing the gods revealed in this book was just awesome. And Hades! I was excited to see that Jennifer views Hades the same way I do in Touch of Death. :) He is one hot god, hot in appearance and in temper. I'm looking forward to seeing more of these gods.

Just for fun: The last line in the summary is about whether love is greater than fate. What do you think?

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I’ve been so lucky to have been kept incredibly busy over the last 7 months. Between illustrating a number of books for publishers that I’ve always wanted to work with, and   doing book store appearances and accompanying food drives for local food pantries, and attending book shows and DIY book and comic shows like MOCCA and TCAF— I haven’t really had time for much else. Happily, because we homeschool, our kids were able to go with us to all of our events, either selling their own books at shows, or just getting to know a new city. And I won’t complain- I swear, we had a blast. The last book store we visited was the way way cool Librarie Drawn and Quarterly in Montreal, and we had an awesome turn out. Here are some pics from the event.

But now we put our suitcases away and  things will get quiet. We’ll get reacquainted with friends, chickens and weed the already unruly garden.  And soon start working on some new books, inspired by all the beautiful work we’ve seen, people we’ve met and places we’ve seen!

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Since LEE & LOW BOOKS was founded in 1991 we have monitored the number of multicultural children’s books published each year through the Cooperative Children’s Book Center’s statistics. Our hope has always been that with all of our efforts and dedication to publishing multicultural books for more than twenty years, we must have made a difference. Surprisingly, the needle has not moved. Despite census data that shows 37% of the US population consists of people of color, children’s book publishing has not kept pace. We asked academics, authors, librarians, educators, and reviewers if they could put their fingers on the reason why the number of diverse books has not increased.

That is the intro to the timely and highly informative piece, “Why Hasn’t the Number of Multicultural Books Increased in Eighteen Years?”  Highly recommended.

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Last year, my friend Dan Tapper wrote a guest post for Bonny Glen about the Mission of Mercy event in Connecticut—a free dental clinic people wait all year (and many hours in line) to attend. This year, I’m delighted to once again feature Dan’s recap of this remarkable event.

Connecticut Mission of Mercy: The Wait, the Line, the Need

by Dan Tapper

The rain hadn’t started quite yet around noontime in Bridgeport, CT last Thursday, but the sky was showing it could happen at any minute. There was a steely pall and a grim chill that spoke more to March than to the early summer day it actually was.

Beth Carter was ready, rain or shine. The New York resident was going to get her ailing teeth fixed, no matter what. She was here, first in line outside the Webster Bank Arena, and doors to the free Connecticut Mission of Mercy (CTMOM) dental clinic would be opening in just…18 more hours.

To Beth, it didn’t matter. She was here. And she was prepared to wait.

“I missed last year’s clinic by one day. There was no way I was missing this year’s,” the Westchester County, NY resident said with a smile. “The cost of dental work is so expensive – I’ve been planning for this since last year!”

Beth sat there, the only one in line until about 1:30 pm last Thursday. She had a chair and books and snacks and blankets. She chatted with reporters who were on-hand to cover the clinic’s setup, she talked with and charmed volunteers who stopped out frequently to check on her.

By 4 pm Beth had about 15 new friends on line with her, ranging in age from early 60s down to less than a year old. By 6 pm the number grew to 25. It was raining now, but the Webster Bank Arena has an overhang by the front door that runs about 100 feet long and 30 feet out. Organizers figured that up to 200 people could stay dry under there.

They were right – by 2 am more than 200 people were in the line, waiting for the doors to open in four hours, all keeping dry. Waiting for the free dental care that was there for them inside – free cleanings, fillings, extractions, x-rays, root canals, oral surgery; basically anything they needed. They could even get partial dentures made for their front teeth. For free.

The line was sleepy but friendly. They huddled under the overhang as the rain fell and fell. Volunteers brought them water and chatted with them. The Red Cross set up a truck to hand out free coffee and snacks. As the rain pounded the arena’s plaza and the line swelled to 350, some unfortunately standing in the rain now (all would soon be brought inside to stay dry while waiting), there was still an hour to go before the doors opened. And the line kept growing – patient and friendly, but deeply in need of dental care, of relief from tooth pain.

That line. That wait. This is the face of dental care in America. This is the picture of the need.

***

America’s Mission of Mercy began in rural Virginia in 2000. A group of dentists got together decided to set up a charity event to help people of that area receive the dental care they so badly needed. That was the first Mission of Mercy free dental clinic ever held.

Connecticut was just the 7th state to jump on board when it held its first CTMOM in April 2008. It was held in the quiet middle class town of Tolland, 25 miles east of Hartford and one town over from the University of Connecticut’s main campus. It’s not exactly the middle of nowhere, but it’s indeed a stop on the way. That year, in pouring rain that dwarfed even what was seen this year in Bridgeport, hundreds of people lined up overnight to get in. All told that first two-day clinic treated 1,200 people with about 75 dental chairs. It was a big start.

The next year in New Haven (home of Yale University but also filled with, like this year’s host city of Bridgeport, much poverty) that number swelled to more than 1,800 and the number of dental chairs to more than 100 and more than 1,000 volunteers on-hand.

By the time the 5th annual CTMOM rolled around last year in Danbury in the far southwestern corner of Connecticut, just across the border from New York, the picture was a familiar one. That line. All those dental chairs. More than 1,500 volunteers. The need. The need remained as visible as ever.

And it’s growing nationally. By this year 26 states now host them. America’s Mission of Mercy, based in Kansas, is the organization that sends support and materials to the states in the form of four tractor-trailers, filled with dental chairs, pumping and filtration systems and everything else needed to create the infrastructure of a full functioning dental office.

It takes one full truck to outfit the Connecticut Mission of Mercy. Setup happens in a day – really in about eight hours. We watched with amazement while the empty floor of an 8,000-seat sports/concert arena was transformed, bit by bit, into a 120-chair dental office. Rows and rows of chairs for general dentistry popped up. Pipe and drape cordoned off special areas for numbing, oral surgery and children’s dentistry. This was an operation as technologically advanced as an dental office in the country – there was nothing makeshift or temporary looking about it. And it literally went up before our eyes.

***

The numbers generated by the Connecticut Mission of Mercy are staggering. A quick glance:

2,100 – The number patients served this year
1,500 – The number of volunteers on-hand (Fifteen hundred – think about that number for a minute)
120 – The number of dental chairs
300 – The number of dentists working on-site, taking the day off as well as donating their Saturday.
$1.35 million – The amount in free dental care given out
2 – The number of days in which this all takes place
365 – The number of days it takes to plan the Connecticut Mission of Mercy

The Connecticut Mission of Mercy is a wonderful event, an inspiring event. Every Mission of Mercy held around the country is. But when all is said and done, it’s charity. And charity, as we all know, is no substitute for a comprehensive dental health care policy.

Dental health is general health – the two are inextricably linked. Dental decay is preventable, but it is also prevalent. Heart disease, diabetes, low birth-weight among babies – this are byproducts of poor dental health. Conversely, good dental care makes a healthier body. It also adds to a person’s confidence and demeanor. Who wants to go to a job interview afraid to smile, or in pain? Who wants to exist like that for even five minutes? But people do, year-round.

That’s why beyond the MOM clinics, when the trucks are loaded back up and the chairs and pipes and equipment are all off to their next destination, the dialogue must continue on how to find a more permanent solution for the dental crisis currently hitting our nation. Connecticut is the richest state in the richest nation in the world. Yet hundreds of thousands of people here lack access to adequate dental care. Lawmakers, the dental community, insurers, businesspeople, health advocates, community leaders – they all need to be at the table, working on a long-term solution.

Until then, we wait for charitable clinics such as CTMOM to roll around. Like Beth Carter and her hundreds of new friends sitting in that line, we wait. We wait with hope, with patience and maybe even with a smile on our faces.

But still, we wait.

Dan Tapper is a public relations professional in Connecticut with the firm Sullivan & LeShane Public Relations, Inc.. CTMOM has been a client of his firm since 2008.

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I am often asked if I offer discounts on my classes or services. Yes, I do! To make things easier and affordable each session I offer EARLY BIRD SPECIALS on classes. It’s an opportunity to save money by signing up early. You can see the list of JULY classes here. Sign up by July 1st to get the class price advantage. For Private Lessons, I offer special bundle rates so if you schedule more sessions you save big and the prices go way down.

I would love to discount even more but this is how I earn my living. Every dollar earned at this site helps me eat and pay for things like the Internet, electricity, and my computer so I can continue to offer my services and products. I do offer two-payment plans and Paypal has Bill Me Later which breaks the payments down into small pieces which makes it reasonable. I’ve used that service before and it’s very helpful.

I had one person ask not too long ago if they could have a free class because they were on a limited budget. I had to laugh — I’m on a limited budget myself and am not in the situation yet where I can give away any of my time free. Hopefully, in the future, I can offer scholarships when I am in that position.

Look forward to seeing you in class!

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City of Orphans is now in paperback! While I have read a handful of books by the prolific, Newbery Award winning author Avi, his most recent book, City of Orphans, is the first I have reviewed here! In 1991 Avi won the Newbery Honor for his book The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, a unique work of historical fiction in which the twelve year old Charlotte goes from a proper young girl to

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No, Treasured Sister, THIS is a Dawson Leery cross-stitch pattern:

And before you ask, the answer is YES. Yes, I have the pattern complete with DMC colors and symbols.

I am suddenly envisioning a set of the MOST AWESOME THROW PILLOWS EVER.

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The above slide points out two things I think are extremely important to the success of your self-published book. IMO, cutting corners on the cover design and copy editing can make a big difference in how many copies you sell.

The report found that getting help, paid or unpaid, with editing, copy editing and proofreading provided a 13 per cent bump in earnings. Those who added cover design to that list saw a 34 per cent increase over the average. Interestingly, ebook formatting help added only an extra 1 per cent.

It was estimated that about 68 per cent of authors who’d spent money on their book would recoup that cost within 12 months. For the rest, no amount of lipstick could improve the story. So make sure your foundation is good and go through all the steps you would to get a solid, interesting story.

Writers with agents earn three times more than those without. Romance writers earn 120 per cent of the average, but science fiction, fantasy and literary writers do much worse earning 38 per cent, 32 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

Those who had already had books put out by traditional publishers earned 2.5 times more than authors who’d been rejected by traditional publishers or who had skipped the traditional route all together.

The Taleist survey found that most self-publishers are “old hands” with 40 per cent having been writing for more than ten years, and 60 per cent for more than five years. Only one in ten were newbies, writing for less than a year.

Getting positive books reviews is important. In book stores like Amazon, getting reviews is key to getting your book recognised by the site’s recommendation algorithm. The survey found that those authors who submitted to book review blogs has slightly higher than average reviews and revenue. But those authors who submitted their book to popular reviewers on Amazon received 25 per cent more reviews than average and 32 per cent more revenue.

What respondents did to seek reviews actively:

The authors who did best, however, did everything except pay for reviews: They gave away review copies, submitted to book review blogs and the mainstream press, sought popular reviewers on Amazon and asked their readers through email lists etc.

The results of the recent self publishing survey by Taleist.com shows Authors who submitted to popular reviewers on Amazon received 25% more reviews than average and earned 32% more revenue for their latest release.  But there can be potential risks, so spend the time to do your research. Getting a review for your fantasy book with a top Amazon reviewer who doesn’t like fantasy is not going to help your book.

Here is the link to the top Amazon reviewers: http://www.amazon.com/review/top-reviewers.

Did you know you do not need a Kindle to read an ebook from Amazon. Under its promise of “buy once, read anywhere”, Amazon provides free apps to read Kindle books on computers, smartphones, and tablets. Even if you have a Nook, you can use the Amazon App to read their books and everyday they have four Kindle book deals. These apps can be downloaded from Amazon here.

Here is the link to purchase Not a Gold Rush – The Taleist Self-Publishing Survey [Kindle Edition]

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Filed under: Advice, article, marketing, need to know, Process, Self-publishing, Tips Tagged: Importance of cover Design, Romance Writers earn more money, self- Publishing Statistics, Taleist Self-Publishing Survey

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As I always get a giggle out of Travis Jonker's One Star Review Guess Who posts, I figured I'd swipe the idea and post the occasional one-star Amazon review of a much-lauded YA title.

So, can you guess what book this disappointed reader is reviewing?:

According to my Kindle, I'm about 5% of the way through the book. I need someone to tell me if the style, the content, the dialogue, hell, if pretty much anything improves and starts to approach that which would normally pass as engaging composition. Because I'm just about to give up. I dove into this book without knowing anything about it, other than it is WWII historical fiction. After reading the first few pages I came to learn that a twelve year old girl has been captured by the Nazi's and is being subjected to the worst brutality. Those beasts are sharpening pencils in her general direction, causing painful pencil shavings to irritate her eyes! Forget waterboarding, these Nazi's are serious. They will take your knickers away!

Is it just the first couple of chapters that are like this? Does she start acting like an adult at some point? Does she ever stop feeling sorry for herself? At what point do you get over that hump of wishing she would just stop whinging and start to write an entry in her diary that reads like the words of a strong woman in a difficult situation instead of an agony letter to Teen Beat?

Click through for the answer!

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I’m in Austin at the Texas Association of Library Administrator’s conference where I enjoy meeting new people and reconnecting with colleagues from all parts of this great state.   We went to dinner tonight with the Mackin group where we heard Chris Wood speak. He is the Library Director for the Genessee Valley Educational Partnership. This is an educational service agency in western New York. Chris is a national leader in the school library community so I was very interested to see him at this dinner and hear what he had to say. Chris announced that tonight was the national launch of Here Be Fiction. He said that Mackin and the Big 6 publishers have reached an agreement and a limited beta release of their new fiction titles is underway.

He said the Big 6 have agreed to provide discount access for multiple users (you may have to buy more than one title), agreed to provide off line access with no Internet needed and can reach our special needs readers. Kitty Heise, co-owner of Mackin, said that School Library Journal is helping to sponsor this new program by having their reviewers review some of the titles they will offer. We librarians are anxious to see if our expectations are met.

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As of November 20, 2012 (that is, Midnight Eastern Time tonight) I am closed to queries. I will reopen to queries January 7, 2013.

If I already have your work, you should hear from me by January 7. (That's the point of taking the break, I have to catch up!)

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Up to this point in my Organic Architecture Series, I’ve been discussing the goal-oriented plot (arch plot) and the limitations of this plot-type. Arch plot functions in such a way that the connective tissue is a desire that moves the plot through its progression.

But are there plots where the cause-and-effect tissue isn’t defined by goals? Or plots that don’t have heroes? Or plots where the main character isn’t active?

YES!

In the next two posts, I’m going to introduce you to the following alternative plots:

• Mini-plot,
• Daisy chain plot,
• Cautionary tale plot
• Ensemble plot
• Along for the ride plot
• Symbolic juxtaposition plot
• Repeated event plot
• Repeated action plot

This list is by no means complete and I’m constantly on the lookout for more!

I’ve defined an alternative plot  as one that doesn’t have a hero (as termed by the hero’s journey), one that lacks a specific goal, or one that does not use traditional cause-and-effect as its connective tissue. Let’s look at how a few of these plots are different than the hero’s journey arch plot.

MINI PLOT (Also known as: Emotional Plot)

Mini plot is a minimalist approach to arch plot in which the writer reduces the elements of classical design. Often these stories are internal and appear to be plot-less, and/or have passive protagonists. However, the cause-and-effect links are often derived from points of emotional growth rather than high-stakes action. Some might argue that this is a “watered down” version of arch plot, because you can still see the same patterns of arch plot arising in mini-plot, but on a smaller more emotional level.

• Film Examples: Tender Mercies, Five Easy Pieces, Wild Strawberries.

DAISY CHAIN PLOT

In the daisy chain plot there is no central protagonist with a goal. Instead multiple characters or situations are introduced through the cause-and-effect connective tissue of a physical object that is passed from one character to the next.

• Film Examples: The Red Violin, Twenty Bucks.
• Book Examples: Lethal Passage (Larson).
• Modified Daisy Chain Plots with a Protagonist: The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (Angleberger), Thirteen Reasons Why (Asher).

CAUTIONARY TALE PLOT

In the cautionary tale plot there isn’t a hero and it is often the antithesis of comforting growth. In both Chris Lynch’s Inexcusable and Todd Strasser’s Give a Boy a Gun, the main character’s commit horrible acts of violence.  In this plot, the reader becomes the protagonist who must evaluate the main character, and it is often the reader who ends up changing as a result.

• Book Examples: Inexcusable (Lynch), Jumped (Williams-Garcia), Give a Boy a Gun (Strasser).

ENSEMBLE PLOT (Also known as: Polyphonic Plot)

This plot has multiple protagonists in a single location which is “characterized by the interaction of several voices, consciousnesses, or world views, none of which unifies or is superior to the others” (Berg). There can be goals in this plot type, but more often it is a character-driven story in the form of a portrait of a city, group of friends, or community.

• Film Examples: The Big Chill, Nashville, Beautiful Girls.
• Book Examples: Keesha’s House (Frost), Give a Boy a Gun (Strasser), Bronx Masquerade (Grimes), Doing It (Burgess).

Are you starting to see some of the new and exciting options available? Stay tuned. In part 2, I’ll cover: along for the ride plot, symbolic juxtaposition plot, repeated event plot, and repeated action plot.

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Anger is a good, healthy thing. It let’s you know when things are not right in your world.

Yesterday I had a pissy attack. I don’t usually care much for Twitter but it proved to be an excellent way to discharge my anger and frustration. I figured although I have over 400 followers, most of which are folks who don’t give a hoot what I do and who I am, that I was safe and could dump on my feed comfortably. It did seem to help.

Today I have some clarity. Do you ever notice that if you have one of those days, usually there’s a theme lesson that is happening. I was super angry at Verizon. This isn’t the first time my needs were ignored and I found myself with a huge overage bill that I did try to rectify but since I had upgraded online the new plan was in effect “incorrectly” so I had an extra $70.00 tacked on my bill. Not cool. I have a real problem with corporations that have different rules that don’t make much sense and don’t hear the individual. They did not earn my money nor they deserve that amount.

I was also very upset when I heard news of a situation with a former friend that was another “everyone is all happy and smiling but underneath is massive dysfunction that I can see but they won’t even talk about.” It’s the old Oleander experience I have lived with in the past. Everything is just fine, just drink the Coolaid. My usual response with both these situations is to want to scream and educate and show everyone, Hey! There’s a problem here. I want to warn people so they aren’t hurt! And I’ve lived in too many situations where I felt like I was in the middle of one of those horror movies where you are the only one seeing the evil alien behind the mask who is trying to take over Earth for destruction and no one believes you, because the alien looks just fine.

With the second situation, unfortunately, it’s not my problem. If someone’s lesson is to deal with an unhealthy individual, I can’t interfere. Unfortunately, in time, they will find that out–the mask will fall off. With Verizon, I could continue to try to convince them that there is an issue and jump up and down or I can…find a new phone company.

I often wrote about my problem with finding a good veterinarian and that situation finally shifted. I found a very kind one that will listen and is reasonable after kissing many toads that didn’t hear me or were very shaming. I guess when I look back at that situation when I was in it, I felt stuck in that endless cycle of discomfort until I got super pissy and realized I deserved to have what I needed and wanted. I didn’t have to play that dance anymore.

If my phone company doesn’t hear me I can look for one that will and that fits my needs. I don’t want to pay for a Share Everything Plan to save money when it’s just one phone!

And that toxic friend–obviously, I was in the middle of the lesson thinking I didn’t deserve more, and at the first signs of creepy behavior and red flags I should have ran the other way. Far away. Maybe that’s what I’m really upset about now. And that means no arguing, no trying to show or point out the alien in the mask, no trying to fix, or worse, heal them.

I still am fighting the urge to put up billboards for folks to stay away from certain organizations. So I finally learned that important lesson in that playing field. And some folks are still there–in school, so I need to have compassion, and not take away their schoolyard.

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