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We've all been hearing about branding for authors for a few years now. Sometimes it sounds very hardcore marketing/sales, something that not everyone is comfortable embracing. But this post at Seekerville makes branding sound more like recognizing an author's identity. Having an identity--knowing who you are--might be something that can help writers with the day-to-day writing process, forget about being able to present yourself to the public and publishing world in a quick way.

My identity as a writer is something I've been toying with in those rare moments when I can toy with anything. I used to think of myself as an outsider writer, someone who wrote characters who existed outside the mainstream of the literary worlds in which they existed. Since I believe children are outsiders in that they are powerless, adults run the world and control them, I felt comfortable in what I was writing for them.

With the Hannah and Brandon Stories, however, I felt I was moving from writing about outsiders to writing about children trying to control the worlds they lived in and take control of who they will be. That was even more so the case with Becoming Greg and Emma, which has yet to find a publishing home. Again, I felt control themes were appropriate in children's books because powerless child readers could see child characters trying to exert power.

It is a shift in identity/branding for me, though, and I have occasionally wondered who I am as a writer now. On top of that, I don't know if either of my identities/brands are ones that the publishing industry can recognize or market.

Okay, the rare moment when I can think about this has passed. I must go on to work.

I found the Seekerville post through Routines for Writers.

Well, I stayed off the Internet all day yesterday. (I was on briefly Saturday evening, though I didn't blog.) I was off the computer all day yesterday, for that matter. I like being disconnected, as I knew from my most recent Retreat Week. But did staying off the Internet mean I was able to do anything more meaningful with my life?

My hope had been to spend a few hours working on my office, which has been in need of help for probably...hmmm...maybe a year? Or two? I have the heaps of stuff problem that so many people have. In the past I've dealt with it, put it all away, and then the piles grew again. What's causing this to happen, I believe, is multiple works in progress, which I try to keep handy by keeping them layered all around me. I've been trying to move toward some kind of open filing system so that I can easily put my hand on the notes and research for different projects. But there are all those piles to get through to decide what I need first. We're talking the equivalent of an archaeological dig.

So that was what I wanted to do with all the free time I expected to have on my Internet Sabbath. But, you know, we're suffering through a snowpocalypse here in New England, and we're expecting snowmaggedon later this week. Tomorrow morning, actually. So I ended up part of a work crew yesterday, trying to prep for that. Prepping being moving some snow so we'll have room for more. At one point I was on snow shoes so I could get to the top of a snowbank and work on whittling it down.

I ended up with maybe an hour of work in the office. If I continue with the Internet Sabbath and am able to work on that project for an hour a week, I figure I should have the office just the way I want it by the time we are ready to move on to the contemporary Alpine retirement ranch.

Where it will be time to start organizing an entirely new office.

House guests are fine and dandy, particularly when they do dishes all weekend and strip their bed and gather all their linens before they leave. But it's rough to go long periods of time being pleasant and keeping the house clean rather than checking e-mail, reading, and exercising, which, quite honestly, is how I spend the bulk of my time when I'm on my own.

I came away from my family weekend with a lovely anniversary collectors' edition of Anne of Green Gables, direct from Canuckistan, as well as a couple of new writing magazines that I bought for myself when we were all in a bookstore. Two more publications I'll never have time to read. Because e-mailing, reading, and exercising are so time consuming.

Since I've often written here about Sherlock Holmes, I thought I'd mention that this weekend we visited Gillette Castle, a seriously marvelous place. The castle was built by William Gillette, who originated the character of Sherlock Holmes on stage and is responsible for many of the characteristics the public associates with that character.

While we were there, who shows up but ol' Bill himself in character as S. Holmes. So what we're talking about here is an actor playing an actor playing a character. It was a neat touch.

Thanks to YouTube, you can catch a bit of an audio clip of Gillette as Holmes.

Brian Farrey of Flux Books interviewed me for the Flux Podcast.

It's up on the Flux Blog; and it's also here. And here.

I talk about my job and the Printz Award and other bookish stuff and how books were literally climbing my stairs. There may be a horror movie in that.

© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

Down on yourself about work? Feeling inept? Incompetent? Maybe a little humiliated?

I've got two words for you--endorphin rush.

I've been moping around for a couple of days, boring my family to death, because it appears that I misread a book that I then blogged about. At length. You can read about this situation in the comments section of this post. Spoiler alert! That's why I'm not writing about it here (the risk of spoilage). Besides, I'm actually writing about something else here.

Anyway, I was feeling very distressed about this because I am supposed to be able to comprehend a mystery novel, for crying out loud. (Unless it's something like this. I will admit, I have only the vaguest idea what was going on with that one.) I was feeling inadequate. Stupid.

Yeah, that's right. I don't have anything bigger to worry about.

So, today was taekwondo day, and I'm at my class this morning. The instructor asked me to work with another student on joong bong defense. I've been working on joong bong defense for, maybe, five years. It takes a while, but I find it doable because it's orderly and involves memorizing an attack and a defense. Ten of them, so far. It's not like sparring, which I am terrible at, because you have to respond to random attacks--you have to process what your opponent is doing and come up with a response, within seconds, and then keep moving.

However, when you are trying to teach a skill to someone, especially someone who is having trouble with it (and these things aren't easy), randomness comes into play again. The student makes mistakes. The student gets confused. I get confused. I make mistakes.

We didn't get very far, and I had to let the instructor know that I was...ah, how was I putting it earlier? Oh, yes. Inept, incompetent, and inadequate. He's a lovely young man and said he'd take over. I should go put my gear on because we were sparring this week.

In case you don't recall, I mentioned earlier that I am terrible at sparring. So I'm walking across the dojang to my gear bag thinking, I can't read. I can't do joong bong defense. Now I've got to spar. I'm going to be crawling home on my stomach.

Au contraire!

Sparring went fantastically! I had a great training partner who doesn't usually train in the morning class, though I'd seen her around before. We were perfectly matched! Which is awful to say because she was six ranks below me. In my defense, though, she was taller than I am. But it was as if we were both at a level where we could each challenge the other without overwhelming her.

I came out of there with a buzz on like I haven't had after class in years.

And on the way home I said, You're going to the library, Gail! And you're getting books. You're getting hard books. And you know what else? You read that father/child storyline into that book, right? Okay, do something with it! This spring, after you finish your big project and are working on small ones, you're going to write that weird father story you've been thinking about for eight years! And then you're going to write that message-from-my-forefathers essay. And it's going to be brilliant! And you're going to submit it somewhere!

Yeah! Yeah!

I'm telling you, just remembering it is bringing the rush back.

Think of this post as your Shaker and curling post. Without the Shakers or the curling.

Today's Training Report: I revised about four pages of the last chapter of the never-ending story. I'm within paragraphs of being done. This denouement is very different from the last one. I'm focusing very much on theme. I never used to think about theme much at all when I was writing. This is new for me.

I was visiting an older relative this past weekend. We were talking about the book I expect to be writing the rest of my life. I think she was feeling sorry for me and was trying to think of some way to offer encouragement, because she said to me, "Gail, have you ever thought about writing comedy?"

I sat there for a moment, and then I said, "I think that's what I'm known as--a humorist."

She said, "Oh. Really? I thought you'd be good at that."

More on the subject of humor: Laughter in the Dark in The New York Times Sunday Book Review.

It was for yesterday's Original Content post regarding receiving only one Google Alert for someone else's obituary.

A few of my blogger buddies were talking about Google Alerts at one of my listservs. Google Alerts will give you an e-mail update of whatever topic you ask it to. So you can have it notify you if your book or blog is mentioned somewhere or if you, yourself, get a mention. You can keep track of anything you want. The woman down the street you don't like. Your kids. You name it. It's so convenient!

Well, I decided I'd have Google alert me whenever my own name was mentioned. I figured that would be enough to let me know if any of my books were being talked about.

That was maybe five days ago. I've received one alert because someone named Gauthier died in New Jersey, and his obit ended up on-line.

Actually, I think we have a distant relative in New Jersey--a descendant of one of my great-uncles. Gee, I hope that guy wasn't a family member.

I'm having quite a stimulating week here at Chez Gauthier. I've done school presentations, I've started getting ready for next month's on-line chat with a library in Maine, and I've been fielding inquiries for more author visits. And then today I celebrate (well, let's say I notice) the sixth anniversary of Original Content.

This blog is one of the few techie things that I grasped before my computer guy did. When I asked him to take a look at Blogger to see how I'd go about starting a blog, he didn't know why I wanted to bother when he had already made me a website. Blogs weren't anywhere near as common as they are now. In fact, before I started mine, I googled "children's literature" and "weblog" and found somewhere between four and six sites. TodayJacketFlap's main page says it includes more than 650 children's book-related blogs. I guess a lot can happen in six years. Still, I find that number staggering.

This blog has changed over time. I didn't post every day for several years, but had a goal of generating new material two or three times a week. (I didn't always meet it.) I didn't have a method for readers to comment for many years. I didn't have my covers up here for a long time. I didn't know what a blog roll was until I started noticing them on other kidlit blogs.

I cannot recall at what point I started noticing that there were other kidlit blogs. Maybe in 2005? Though I have found a link to Kids Lit from back in 2004. Also, I was obsessed with Jane Yolen's On-line Journal (like a blog but different) from the end of July, 2004 until the beginning of April, 2007.

In spite of the changes, I remain amazingly consistent. Or, perhaps, I am not capable of evolving and changing. My purpose for blogging remains the same as it was the day of my first post--to bring original content to my website on a frequent basis. I am still intrigued by the line between YA and A literature, just as I was in my third post. And I was writing about Beowulf back in March, 2002 just as I was last fall.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Blue Rose Girls pointed me to this extremely interesting article in the NYTimes,"The Greatest Mystery: Making a Best Seller."

This line from the story jumped out at me, because I realized how true it was.

“Before Amazon, we didn’t even know what people thought of the books,” she said.