Jennifer Brown

This morning I guest-blogged for Books for Company about some book covers that I'm loving on. Check it out. And while you're there, enter to win an autographed hardcover copy of Bitter End! Woot! Thanks, Books for Company, for hosting me!

I must be crazy. It's the only explanation. Or maybe it's just habit for me now, after all these years of being tempted and lured by NaNoWriMo, to start to feel the itch of a crazy writing challenge this time of year. I've attempted it so many times. I've completed it once (last year). But that once was enough to make me want to do it again.

So, yeah, I'm NaNo-ing again this year.

And I'm not NaNo-ing a YA novel, partly because I've already started my next YA novel, and only have about 40,000 words left to go on it. By the time November gets here, I hope to have cut that number in half. Instead, I'm NaNo-ing a middle grade novel, just like I did last year. But last year's attempt had some problems, and I've learned from those, so I'm going into NaNo this year smarter and more prepared.

Here are some things I learned about NaNo:

1) Join a group or get some buddies. Last year my November was super crazy. And I was still on post-Germany-tour brain vacation. And there were precious few days open for writing for me, and many of those I didn't write anyway, and next thing I new, I was 25,000 words short with only three days left to complete the challenge. But I belonged to a Facebook group of moms who were trying the challenge, and three of them were completing it! And I am totally not competitive at all, but they inspired me. They wer super busy women and they managed to finish, so I had zero excuse not to do the same. So I buckled down, got those words on the page, and finished it up by the skin of my teeth. I know for a fact if I hadn't been in that group, I would have given up. Again.

2) Know your word count, and hit it before you do fun stuff. You might have noticed above that I'm also working on a YA novel. And I intend to continue working on it through the month of November. Which means my writing goal for the month will be somehwere in the 70,000 word range, rather than the required NaNo 50,000. Youch! So I've gone in and counted my available working days (being honest, not optimistic) and have decided that I will need somewhere around 5,500 words a day. I can do this on a full writing day, so I'm not too worried...as long as I stay off of Facebook and other things until I'm done with my writing day. So new rule: No playing until the work is done.

3) Research ahead of time. What threw me the most last year, and what ultimately caused the biggest construction problems with my novel, was that I was writing so frantically there was no Pondering Time. I didn't have the hours in the day to work out plot points, and the novel suffered. So this year I've spent my October doing pre-writing work. I've got my character profiles done on my main characters, and have spent a couple weeks researching. I have a stack of hand-written and typed notes sitting on my desk, waiting for me to begin writing. Pondering time not needed!

So if any of you are planning to NaNo, I'm JayBeeWrites, and would love to buddy up. And good luck! There's nothing like going into the holidays feeling the accomplishment of having finished a novel in one month! It's addictive, even!

I'm not the best social media-er in the world, that I will admit. I never did MySpace, hated Twitter, couldn't keep up with Goodreads, don't care much for Google+ and can rarely even make myself blog (which, I know, isn't social media, but it sort of applies). There is and always has been only one social media outlet where I felt at home: Facebook.

But part of why I liked Facebook was because I felt I had some amount of control there. I could say who was, or wasn't, looking at my stuff. So the recent changes to Facebook -- and that stupid ticker -- kind of freaked me out. If I wanted everyone and their uncle to have access to everything I'm talking about, I would have stayed on Twitter.

So I sat down and figured out that the problem was there were two sides of my Facebook habits: the writing side, and the regular mom/family member/neighbor/friend side, where I talk about my kids and what's going on in my personal life. The writing side of me doesn't mind talking writing all day long to whomever will listen. But the mom/family member/neighbor/friend side of me...? Not so much.

I've always tried to keep my family, and in particular, my kids' lives, private. I never divulged their names in my column, never posted a photo. I've always thought that just because I chose a public life doesn't mean they chose one, and they deserve the chance to make the decision to be public or private for themselves. And, honestly, they didn't always love their lives being even as limitedly public as they were. Their complaints were part of why I quit writing my column for The Star.

Occasionally, one of my friends would let slip one of my kids' names on a Facebook status. Not a huge deal, except to me it is kind of a huge deal, not just because I've worked so hard to keep their private lives private, but because I was friended to over 1,200 people in all corners of the world. So when I learned that now not only would my 1,200+ friends get to see more private information about my family, but all of their friends could potentially see it as well...well, I really felt I had only two choices. Leave Facebook entirely, or split my pages according to privacy level.

I'll be honest, there were only five things that kept me from leaving Facebook entirely: My dad, my brother, my niece, my daughter, and a few select friends who aren't in my back yard.

So I created an author page. A place where I could post writing-related stuff, book news, links to great articles, videos that I enjoy, etc. etc. etc. And I asked everyone who was not a family member or someone I considered a "close friend" to join that page. I went with the Lunch Rule (either "Have I ever had lunch with this person?" or "If this person asked me out to lunch, would I go?" If my answer was yes to either question, they stayed). My original Facebook page, which, I should say, pre-dates my first book sale anyway, is totally private and personal now, just as it was when it was created. A place where I feel I can talk openly about my family, my kids, my life, and not have a zillion eavesdroppers listening in. I hate that Facebook changed things so it had to be that way, but they did. Not my fault.

Anyway, so I've definitely learned some things in this process:

1) People get pissed off when they're pruned, whether the reason has anything to do with them or not. It's okay. Anyone who got superpissed over being asked to just move over to a different page definitely isn't someone who would fall in the "family or close friend" category anyway.

2) Some people disagreed with my Lunch Rule decision and asked to be re-friended. Something I never expected. But I'm okay with that, too. I've done that before, when I've been pruned and miss the person who pruned me.

3) And this is the most important lesson of all...Of the 1,200+ friends that I asked to move over to the new page, via multiple status updates and emailed invitations...only around 60 have actually done so. And many of those are...family and close friends. Hmmm...that's interesting...I wonder why?

I noticed, while pruning, that the vast majority of my "friends" were writers, and also that the vast majority of those writers had never, not once, commented on anything I'd ever posted. Now, this is fascinating to me, since I tend to post on Facebook (*cough* way more than I should *cough*) several times a day. Yet, in years of posting multiple times a day, I never said anything comment-worthy to the majority of my "friends." Even when I posted big news, like a book sale, or when I posted something controversial, like about my hatred of Glee, or when I posted comments on their statuses and walls.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a Center-of-the-Universe complex I've got going on at all. I post to pass time, I post to inform, I post to entertain myself, and sometimes I post links that I want to later show my husband and am too lazy to look up again. So if none of it is comment-worthy, that's fine.

But it does make me scratch my head, wondering what exactly our goal is, writers, when it comes to social networking.

Is it to truly network, as if we were all hanging out at a giant business dinner party? If so, I think we're failing. Just like you can't just sit at your table with your head over your dinner, saying nothing, you can't just hang out on someone's friends list and think you've somehow "networked" with that person. To say you've networked, you have to get up, shake some hands, ask some questions, reveal something about yourself, and, yeah, be charming.

Or is it all just about name recognition? Are we just hoping that getting on as many friends lists as possible will make someone's third cousin twice removed see our book on a bookshelf and go, "Oh, hey! I know that person from Facebook!" and buy it? Because if it is, once again I think we're failing. Many on the names I deleted last week, I thought...now who is this again? I'm not sure if I know that name...

It's all been a bit baffling to me. People who clearly don't want to be my friend, because they aren't actually speaking to me, ever, and who aren't interested in being a "fan," either, because they aren't moving over to the new page...well, what are they interested in being? It's all just very...odd...this world we've constructed for ourselves, don't you think?

This morning I read a wonderful blog about writers putting too much pressure on themselves to create a platform (I'm not going to dare suggest that writers stop blogging, because I've done that once and it was a huge mistake, but I will say you should read this blog, writers, because she's got some great points about building platforms through blogs), and I think my recent experience with Facebook adds an interesting element to that discussion. It's been kind of liberating, really, to see who I'm reaching via which efforts. Despite the loss of so many "networking contacts" through this move I made, I'm really, really glad I did it.

Because, really, why are we all working so hard to network with nobody when we could be writing great books instead?

Look what just arrived!

So check it out, my good friend, T.S. Ferguson, has opened up his own editing business. Why am I mentioning it here? Because T.S. is more than just my friend. He also happens to be the editor who edited Hate List, so I know he does a fantastic job. I've sung his praises here (and everywhere I else I can think of) before, so I'm so happy to be able to finally lead you directly to him. Click below to see for yourself.

For most of my life, I’ve battled with my weight. I was abig baby (9 pounds) and a pudgy kid. I had the good fortune of stretching that pudge out into curves as a teenager, but even then I knew that someday those curves would just turn into all-out fat. I knew I’d be a fat adult.

I am a fat adult. Most of the time, I’m okay with that. I’m pretty muscular and I can hide some of it with clothes, but I’ve never in my life been a beauty queen, and I never expected to turn into one the minute I turned 21, either. And would it help if I said I have thyroid disease (I really do)?

I'm comfortable with who I am. I know that my weight is noticeable, but forgettable. I'm happy with the way I look. But I can be as happy as I want to be...that doesn't mean my heart is happy, and the older I get, the more I have to consider that it's not all about vanity anymore.

Over the years, I’ve tried more diets than I can count. And most of them twice. Anyone remember the cabbage soup diet? Metabolife? PhenFen? I’ve done them all, plus Weight Watchers (twice, of course!) and many others.

Twice as an adult I’ve been successful in battling the bulge. Both times was when I was on a serious workout bender. I mentioned that I have an athletic build. I like to work out! I like to get all sweaty and gross and breathing hard and ugly. I love that floaty-away feeling you have when you finish a workout like that. Anyway, working out works for me. But both times (and once last year when I was starting to make headway on my waistline with daily visits to the gym again) I was sidelined by an injury or illness and all that nasty fat came right back.

A few months ago, a very good friend of mine started asking me to go with her to Jazzercise. I’ll admit, I’d had some curiosity about the place and had always looked in when I’d driven past the building many times ever since it ever opened up in the old Dairy Queen building just off the square.

Okay, let me stop right here. Yes, I said the old Dairy Queen building.

You know how sometimes you’llget asked a question like, “If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?” I almost always answer, “Ice cream.” I love ice cream. No, I mean I loooove ice cream. Me and Dairy Queen is buds. There’s a Dairy Queen in Northtowne, which is the city between my city and downtown Kansas City, and every time I have to drive into the city, I simply cannot resist the siren song of their hot fudge and peanut butter sundae. When I got my new car, the very first thing to be spilled on the seats…was hot fudge from one of their parfaits…spilled by me, as I drove through Northtowne horking down the thing like I had just been released from reform school.

Anyway, so eventually my friend wore me down, because, like I said, I like exercising. I was really embarrassed to get my jiggly, huffing and puffing ass out on that floor doing dance moves alongside the skinny people. But I did it. And I have fallen in love with it. Since the kids started school two weeks ago, I have been every day.

I have no idea if I’ve lost any weight. I don’t care. I know that, even if I don’t, starting my day with an hour of exercise can be nothing but healthy for me. And if I drop a few pounds along the way, so be it.

And it seems so perfectly fitting that I’m doing it in the old Dairy Queen…sort of like giving back the pounds that I gained there. Rock on!

Years ago, The Goddess had a best friend move away. This girl was quirky and quiet, just like The Goddess, the kind of girl who decided to change her own name when she was nine...and her parents let her! The kind of girl who liked eggplant parmesan (because she was a vegetarian, of course)  and tried to do CPR on her dying guinea pig with an eye dropper. The girls never fought, and they played together every day.

Until the other girl's dad got a job in Arkansas.

It was a sudden decision and a quick move. Within weeks they went from playing Barbies in the backyard to waving goodbye in our driveway. The Goddess was fairly devastated to say goodbye to her friend. On the day she left, Goddess packed her friend a goodbye bag (full of Barbies, candy, and word puzzle books), gave her a hug goodbye, and stood in the driveway and waved as they pulled away. After they left, she turned to The Hub and I, said, very melodramatically, "And just like that...she was gone," then ran up to her bedroom, flung herself face-down on her bed and cried it out.

That was, gosh...8? 9? years ago. Seems like it was yesterday.

Yesterday, we took The Goddess to college. We packed up all her important stuff (clothes, mini fridge, plastic ducks) and transferred them to a tiny dorm room. We went to parent meetings and watched the matriculation ceremony and had a little luncheon. We got her parking pass and her student ID and her post office box number. And then we hugged her goodbye in the parking lot and let her go on to build her adult life. Without us.

I have been a stay-at-home mom for 11 years (though I did a 2-year stint as a stay-at-home mom when The Goddess was born as well, so you could say I've been one for 13 years). It's the job I identify with first and the job that's most important to me. I am a mom, more than I am anything else.

But four years or so ago, as The Goddess started down the path of high school, I began to panic. I knew how very fast time slips by, because I had seen it firsthand. I knew that I would blink and she would be leaving home and I would blink again and her brothers would be right behind her. And I knew this would devastate me.

It was at that time that I really began the hardcore press toward being a published author. I knew that my current job would end and I would be left standing out in the driveway, waving goodbye to everything I had ever put all of my effort into for my whole life. I wanted there to be something more for me, something more about me.

That's when I sat down and wrote Hate List.

Being a published author hasn't made this process any easier. Yesterday, as I watched my daughter place her things in her new home, I wasn't thinking Well, thank God I'm a published author. When I cried into her hair and told her how proud I was of her, I wasn't dying to get home to work on a novel. When I broke down last night as I realized I didn't need to turn the porch light on for anyone to come home to, I wasn't plotting my next story. I know I'll be glad for the distraction come Monday when I sit down to work on the huge pile of stuff I've gotten behind on during the summer. But I wasn't thinking those things yesterday.

All I was thinking was, And just like that...she was gone. Excuse me while I fling myself face-down on my bed and cry it out.

The other day I was rooting around in my old "hope chest," and I found an old sketch book of mine. I was curious so I flipped it open and lo and behold there was till a sketch in it, from back when I thought maybe I would try my hand at writing and illustrating my own children's stories:

I remember sketching this, the story based on an old poem I wrote in high school creative writing class. But I'd given up on it just halfway through this picture, probably because I had told myself that it sucked, but also probably because I had finally come to grips with the fact that...I...hate...painting. (If I remember correctly, this was ink and watercolor)

Okay, this isn't the world's best artwork or anything, but it's not terrible, either, I don't think. I took art all through junior high and high school, after a music teacher told me I slouch too much to be in a choir (I can kind of sing, too...another hidden talent!). I even took Drawing & Painting on Saturday mornings in college. I guess I can kind of draw. And paint. But for years I battled with myself over the difference between "can" and "should."

Back when I was younger and nicer and had more time on my hands I would occasionally paint something for the kids. Not much of my artwork remains, but there is this:

And this, which I painted, perched for hours on the edge of a bathtub, right after we moved into this house 12 years ago:

Whenever I'm asked if I have a hidden talent, I always answer that I taught myself to play piano the year I turned 30 (I did!), but I guess I could also call this a hidden talent. A well-hidden talent. One I haven't indulged in years.

I guess just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to do it.

But it is kind of fun to run across hidden treasures, isn't it?

Omigosh, school starts again this week, and you know what that means? Back to being a full-time author, baby! I can hardly wait!

Not that I didn't have a great summer. Not at all. I got to do and see lots of cool stuff this summer. It really was the breath of fresh (heat) air I needed after a full school year of doing not much other than writing.

But part of how I juggle my writing and stay-at-home-mom-ming is to make myboundaries very, very clear and unbudging: Family first, and then writing in the leftover minutes. Problem was, this summer there weren't many leftover minutes. I got precious little writing done, and most of the work I did manage to complete came in the form of revisions/copyedits/pass pages rather than actual writing. The good news is this means my third book, Perfect Escape, which comes out next spring/summer is almost D-O-N-E. The bad news, of course, is that I haven't come even close to completing any of my writing goals, especially the one where I was going to finish writing an adult novel that's been on my brain for a good year or so.

But that's okay, because I got a lot of life lived this summer. Did a lot of road-tripping (good grief, a LOT of road-tripping) and soaked up tons of ideas and thoughts and descriptions that can only come from getting out there and engaging with life.

Things I saw/did this summer:

*Toured the Clinton Library and Heifer International (including their green building, which was awe-inspiring...I wonder what kind of real changes could be made in the environment if just a few big businesses put in the time, effort, and money involved in going as green as Heifer...?)

*Bought knives and a really tacky t-shirt of a squirrel with giant testicles in a funky shop in Eureka Springs

*Flung, hung, and swung on thrill rides at both World's of Fun and Silver Dollar City

*Swam, swam, swam, swam, swam...did I mention we swam?

*Saw tons of movies, old and new, including Harry Potter (of course), but also Marmaduke (cute!) and Alpha & Omega (.......strange). Also, I discovered that the reason I liked Captain America so much when I normally hate superhero movies is because I liked the hero before he was a superhero. Apparently this makes a big difference to me...something I can take with me to my own writing.

*Took three kids on a road trip by myself. Destination: space camp!

*Visited salt mines, where they store movie paraphernalia, including Batman's costume and the Dorothy II from Twister.

*Toured the devastated area of Joplin, a trip that won't leave me anytime soon.

*Talked about Hate List and writing with teens in juvenile justice centers in Oklahoma (a trip I'll be writing more about later)

*Played Lazer tag, went to two planetariums, rode water slides, hung out at an arcade, and played a game of two-on-two with some 10-year olds

*Drove to Jefferson City and back

*Watched a baseball game and a fireworks show

Gosh, no wonder I'm so tired!

So, will I be blogging more now that school's back in session? *shrug* I dunno. I always say I will and then I always fail. Clearly, blogging's not my strong suit. I'm okay with that. But I'll be trying to check in every now and again at least. I can promise that much.

See ya when the first bell rings!

As you know, all month I've been celebrating the launch of my novel, BITTER END. I want to thank everyone who stopped by my online launch party, listened to my play list, chowed down on some yummy soup, and, most importantly, signed my guest book to get party favors (I'm still sending those out, so if you haven't received yours yet, you will soon!) and be entered to win a grand prize pack. Today I randomly chose the winner and...congratulations janelleschelert@yahoo.com! You win the prize pack, which includes the following:

*An autographed hardcover copy of BITTER END

*An autographed paperback copy of HATE LIST

*Bookmarks

*A $25 iTunes gift card (so you can download your own Bitter End playlist)

*A $25 Barnes & Noble gift card

*A dreamcatcher necklace

Thanks again for the well-wishes and support, everyone! It was so great to celebrate my launch with you!

Jen