It's been a while!
Word Count Forests, Motivational Speaking, Daily Writing Schedules, Puppy Stuff, Fantasy Novels, Speech Therapy, School Visits and more...
I just sent out the monthly newsletter for Littsburgh, the literary website I run in my spare time (“Celebrating Literary Pittsburgh Since 2015!”) and realized that it’s been a while since I’ve written anything here!
That’s because I’m on deadline for my next book—book 1 of a fantasy series that I’m not technically supposed to talk about yet… although, if you’ve been in the audience for any of my recent school visits, you might have heard me break that rule a little :)
It’s a funny thing, writing a book on a deadline.
I wake up every morning knowing how many words I have to write that day, and the puzzle is figuring how I’m going to get that writing time in around all the usual errands and obligations and writer’s block and school visits . . .
And having a puppy!
It took me a while to figure out how to write with a puppy.
My wife Rachel is on a revision deadline for her debut YA novel, Night Swimming, and revision is really hard (and she’s a literary agent by day!). . . so my writing schedule these days is all about stepping up to the plate when it comes to puppy duty and trying to write when Chaely is sleeping—which is such a sweet way to schedule a day:
Wake up early and feed Chaely, then take her for a walk
Make coffee / make Rachel iced coffee / play with Chaely
Put on an “Elegant Harp Music” playlist to lure Chaely to sleep
Re-read everything I wrote the day before
2-4 hours to fit in as much writing as I can while Chaely naps
Take Chaely to the dog park for a couple of hours (recently we’ve been sharing the same dog park schedule with a guy who’s practicing the bagpipe)
Wash off the mud in the creek behind the dog park
Answer emails and try to tackle my to-do list, like updating Littsburgh or recording a read-aloud for the short story I wrote for Scholastic—coming out in the May / June issue of Storyworks!
Start thinking about dinner, feed and walk Chaely
Go to bed early so we can wake up and start again tomorrow!
I was never a “write in the morning” person (or even a morning person), but I love having an excuse to get up early and write—and after working in a little office in Manhattan for the first half of my career, I feel especially lucky to get a break from my computer and spend a couple of hours outside in the park every day, playing with Chaely in the sunshine. Or in the rain, or the snow . . .
She doesn’t really care as long as she’s playing with her friends :)
It’s easy to get distracted with busy work or puppy stuff, so to keep myself on track when it comes to writing, I’ve started making these word count charts—or word count forests—inspired by the YA author Erin Craig (I saw one of her posts on Instagram a couple of years ago and immediately drew one for myself).
These are so super-motivating when you’ve got one of those big 64-pack of crayons and you’re trying to write toward some sort of deadline.
They also work really well as a visual aid to see where you are in your book—I’ve just started coloring in the fourth line of keys of my current work-in-progress and I can see how many keys I have left to color . . . so I know it’s time to really ramp up the action and start thinking about how I want to wrap things up!
The other thing I’ve been doing a lot of—outside of writing—is visiting schools.
I wasn’t able to do in-person school visits the last couple of years, so I’ve been trying to make up for lost time by spending about a day per week at schools within driving distance of Pittsburgh (and I’m looking forward to making even bigger trips soon!) . . .
Those days start pretty early. I’m maybe a little ambitious with what I consider “schools within driving distance,” so sometimes I leave the house before six in the morning . . . but I’ve been spending most days sitting in front of my computer or talking to dogs, so it’s been really exciting to hit the road and talk with readers all day!
And I’m not teaching my Writing Youth Literature class at the University of Pittsburgh this semester—I needed to focus on writing and dog parks—so it’s been really fun to get back into the classroom, and it’s always such a privilege to try to inspire kids to read and write their own stories.
It’s funny, I never thought of myself as a public speaker. Much less a motivational speaker!
When I was a kid, I had to go to speech therapy for years (that’s why I’m from New Orleans but don’t have an accent) . . . and public speaking and sitting alone in front of your computer are two completely different skill sets. So for a lot of my life, public speaking was actually kind of terrifying.
Sometimes I meet a shy student or reader at an event—some kids like to pass me notes instead of talking, which always makes my day!—and they’re always surprised when I tell them that I can be pretty shy, too.
I still remember the first time I spoke at a writers’ conference, when I was still working for a publishing company—this was over a decade ago now—and I felt like my mouth was full of chalk the entire time I was talking.
But over the past ten years, I kind of just . . . kept doing it.
I talked about books and publishing at graduate schools and publishing programs and writers’ conferences, talking with adults who wanted to write and publish their own books. And I’d just say “yes” to everything for the experience, even though the thought of public speaking always made me wanna barf.
It wasn’t until I started visiting elementary and middle schools that I realized how much I actually enjoy being in front of microphone.
Because it’s so genuinely cool to get kids excited about books . . . and about writing their own stories, about stuff that they care about.
And now that’s one of my favorite things to do!
When I’m talking about kid’s books or writing or publishing these days, I could literally talk for hours and hours. So thank you to all the schools that have been inviting me to come and spend a day as a motivational speaker, something I never thought I’d ever be—and especially not when I was back in speech therapy and so frustrated about not being able to sound out simple words like crayon.
It’s been a journey!
Until next time,
Your friend,
P.S. I always really appreciate your reviews in the usual places people rate and review books! Those help spread the word about books a lot more than you’d think.