It’s not like I’ve even been taking time off to just relax, because each day seems like I am busier than the last. The initial project that pulled me away from working on some articles that I have been mulling over or even having the time or energy to blog about minutiae was the redesign of the LL Book Review site. If you haven’t seen the new site and taken a look at the new layout, I suggest you click on over there. The difference from the old site is dramatic and the information that is available on the site is much more accessible. I am proud of how quickly I was able to get the new site built and operational. We were actually a couple weeks ahead of schedule as the official launch was supposed to be June 1st, but it didn’t make sense to maintain both sites simultaneously, especially since the new site was ready and so much better (if I do have to say so myself.) And while I am proud of the accomplishment, it was definitely a team effort.

On top of that, work got heavy duty and I started having nightly conference calls with Hong Kong, so after the completion of a full day, I got to come home and spend a couple more hours on the phone – working. By the time those were over, my brain was dead and all I wanted was to spend a few blissful hours unconscious to prepare to do it all over again. Then, Denny and I babysat Memorial Day weekend for my sister and took care of her 4 children, the oldest being 13 and the youngest an 11 month old, so there was no time to even think about writing, reviewing, or anything else. We did have fun though.

I have finally reached the point where I feel like I can re-enter the world where writing is the main objective, and hopefully will not be quite so absent in the future. I have already read two books and need to complete the reviews, and next week my target is to finish editing Nowhere Feels Like Home, or at least get it closer to what I will consider a finished product.

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Going MIA appeared first on Be the Cat.

I am always amazed when I run across someone wanting a review that doesn’t provide a preview of their work. Once upon a time, as a novice writer, or even earlier – before I started writing (in my infancy), I may have considered posting a portion of my work where anyone could look at it as potentially detrimental. Why would I give something away for free, and even worse, would someone come along and try to steal my story. Now, those ideas are absolutely laughable to me. Not that literary theft doesn’t exist, but I just figure that’s not a huge threat right now in my life. And I quickly realized that every time I went into a bookstore, I would browse the shelves, picking up books, reading the back and then reading a few pages from the book itself. I used to spend hours doing that. Now I do most of my buying online and I still read a few pages of books before making the decision to buy.

Here’s the pay off for giving a little of your book away for free. Someone may not like your cover (even though you may love it – not everyone does), but become a little intrigued with your blurb on the back cover. The next thing they will want to do is take a peek inside to see whether the writing grabs them. If it does, you probably have a sale. If not, well, better luck next time. Without the preview, they may simply pass you on by. A book preview is like taking a car for a test drive. You’re interested in the car, you like the looks of it, or at least something has captured your attention, but you want to see how the car fits you and how it handles before making the decision to part with your hard earned money to but it.

So, then why, someone please tell me why, I keep running into books that people want to have reviewed but don’t offer a preview anywhere? Am I as the reader supposed to take it on faith that you are a fabulous writer and I will be captivated from the moment I flip to page 1? As a book review site, we can’t possibly read and review every book submitted to us for consideration, so we need a mechanism to assist us in making a determination as to whether or not we are intrigued enough by the writing to ask for the entire work. And the reading public works the same way, they want to see a few pages. And by pages, I don’t mean the copyright page, the acknowledgement page, the table of contents or anything else that fills the front of a book. We want actual content, and more than a paragraph or two.

If you don’t know how to best present your material in a preview, I would recommend the BookBuzzr widget as a nice, free tool to assist you in getting your work out there. Your goal as an author is to draw attention to your book, so use the book itself as a marketing tool. Let people take a peek. It will end up being well worth your while. The BookBuzzr tool is featured below. Take a look at the preview of Misfit McCabe

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LK Griffie
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Book Previews appeared first on Be the Cat.

1. Listen to Denny a little more often.
   • Denny had a very good idea about taking my laptop to the festival so I could play the book trailer for Misfit McCabe. I wasn’t thinking straight because I kept thinking the ability to play the trailer would be predicated on whether I could have a power connection ande/or internet connection. Have I mentioned I’m blonde? Of course I have a laptop with enough battery to last the duration of the signing and then some. And if that battery ran out of juice, I do have a back up battery which could be fully charged. Ok – chalk that one up for next time.
   • Put together something to show some of my reader feedback vs. professional review. This is also something Denny suggested. The tweens/teens he approached were pleased that someone was interested in giving them something and had a book especially for them, and he felt they would also enjoy reading what others their own age thought about the book.
2. Learn how to answer the question, “What is the book about?”
   • It is the most basic question an author can be asked. Words are our medium. We know our characters intimately, some of us can go on for hours about the intricacies in the lives of our characters. But, when asked point blank to sum up the story, all of a sudden gibberish is our first language.
   • It’s not as if I am shy about talking in front of people. Especially in this type of setting. I’ve always said if I can get up on stage and sing in front of a room full of strangers, saying a few words is a piece of cake.
   • Now I have an action item to be accomplished before May 9th when I attend the San Diego Children’s Book Festival. Develop an answer to the question. But don’t only say what’s on the back of the bookmarks or book cover. Make it appealing and enticing, yet keep it short (my biggest challenge whether the word is written or spoken.)
   • Part of the issue may have something to do with the fact that we are intensley intimate with our characters and in many cases they become real to us. It’s kind of like telling the life story of our best friend to a total stranger and hope they don’t think our best friend is a jerk or not worth knowing.

All for now as it’s late and I’m beat.

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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Festival Aftermath appeared first on Be the Cat.

Othello was my first writing teacher, and I remember her classes as the best, especially for the novice writer. Othello always cut right to the heart of the matter when critiquing the work, and I learned more of the writing craft from her than from anyone else so far. To this day as I am working on a piece, the valuable lessons I learned under her tutelage come flooding back to mind. The two most important lessons I learned, although I learned many, were to attack the wasiness of the work, and to read the work out loud.

I had written the majority of Misfit McCabe, and anxiety gripped me as I approached the classroom for the first time. Would my writing be found dreadful, or did I actually have a glimmer of what it takes to be an author? Mortified when I found out the structure of the class was to hand in two pages each week to be read aloud by an objective reader, and then the class would critique, followed by Othello’s summing up. I hadn’t even mastered attempting to read my writing out loud to myself when no one else was even in the house, let alone hearing someone else read it in front of a room full of strangers. My stomach twisted with apprehension as the time for my work to be read aloud crawled closer. Then, it happened. Barbara read the first few words of Chapter 1 of Misfit McCabe. I think my heart stopped beating for a moment. Then it went into overdrive as the blood rushed to my face. I couldn’t look toward the front of the room, I couldn’t look at the other people in the room. My eyes were glued to the desktop, and if the floor could have opened up and swallowed me on the spot, I would have gone thankfully.

Thus began my writing education under Othello Bach. Funnily enough, it turns out that we once lived on the same street when I was a young child. Since her name didn’t make the LA Times Book Festival author list, I began to wonder where she was and whether she was still writing or not. That’s where the internet turns out to be a wonderful thing. I popped her name into Google and immediately found her website. Now the pastor of a small church in Kokomo, IN, she also writes an opinion column for the Kokomo Tribune.

My favorite of her books has to be Whoever Heard of a Fird? which is a delightful tale of a young fird, part fish, part bird who is looking for a herd of fird. A children’s book which explores the concepts of individuality, prejudice, tenacity, hope, and acceptance in a fun spirited manner. The audio cassette includes catchy tunes and the narration by Joel Grey is superb. If you have never read this story, and happen across one of the books, it is well worth your while. This is a story I wish could be put back into circulation. I taught preschool at the time this came out, and all of the kids loved it.

When looking up her body of work on Amazon, I noticed that after she left teaching the adult ed courses at Cypress, she wrote a book to continue to help aspiring authors, How to Write a Great Story: A Fiction Writer’s Handbook. This is one that I will definitely pick up. Reading the preview took me straight back to the classroom, and while I had the benefit of having Othello teach me, among others, in person, I’m sure there are some gems between the covers that would help me to improve my writing even today. I feel that I will never reach a point where I will stop learning to improve my craft. And that is as it should be.

PS – While I felt embarrassed beyond belief at having my work read out loud during that first class, the feedback was positive with a few suggestions as to minor tweaks that could be made.

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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit: Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
For other e-book formats, visit Smashwords.com
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Finding Othello appeared first on Be the Cat.

Of course, since on the way to work myself not long after that thought, I mused over the different possiblities that invoking the Twitter mentality in the workplace could foster. Just think of it. . .managers would check those that they are following on twitter every morning to see whether anyone would not be arriving at the work place as expected. What if the employee blocked the manager so that they couldn’t see their updates?

Every company has them. The people who go on and on and on and on in email and never quite get to the point. Just think how implementing the Twitter mentality in email would be. Everyone would be limited to a certain number of characters, so they couldn’t waste all that time typing up their latest dissertation to confuse the masses with and would have to get to the  point. Straight to the point every email. No room for fluff. And for those who tend to pontificate and never say anything of value – that’s the beauty of the block function. Most companies would save paper because those employees who insist on printing out their emails so that they can be maintained in paper files, would now be reduced to printing a single page which could contain several communications.

(Now, this one’s my favorite) Meetings. . .I’m in meetings all the time, and if not meetings then conference calls. Wouldn’t it be great to implement the 140 second rule? Once the time had passed, your turn is over and the floor turns over to someone else. We’d get them over with in record time, and you eliminate having to listen to someone drone on and on for an hour on a topic that actually has nothing to do with your job.

Let the Twitter revolution begin.
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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Twitterizing the Workplace appeared first on Be the Cat.

How does this relate to change for me? Well, in order to keep the status quo, I am having to take on one of the new laptops so that my current/old laptop can be used for parts. Most people would be thrilled with this event. I’m not for a couple of reasons. I know that the unit I now have due to putting my old laptop on the chopping block is only temporary, so I will have to go through the process of transferring all of my pertinent files again in the near future (whenever they finally break down and decide the time is right to buy new equipment). So, that’s an inconvenience and I’ll get over it.

The screen on the new unit is wider, but shorter. I’d love if it were wider and the same height, but shorter? Come on. Ok, I’ll get over that too – eventually. But as I was driving along musing over the fact that I was bugged by a change that would have thrilled most, it hit me. The old laptop had a software on it that I am not going to install on the new one as we are driving away from it, and I need to let go as well because I no longer use it for work.

The issue? I do use it to work with my website on occasion and will now be forced to do what I have actually wanted to do for awhile, which is change platform for how the Griffie World website is set up. I’ve been meaning to, but don’t actually want to go through the pain of again rebuilding the whole thing. There are so many reasons that I should. Better integration of the website and blog being a primary factor, plus some of the additional flexibility/functionality that I will have at my fingertips that I don’t have to build from scratch, like I do with the current website.

So, while I’m thinking about revamping the website, the characters in Nowhere Feels Like Home and its sequel were popping up to say Not so fast. I realized that they are right. Before I can even think about revamping the site, I need to get the editing process completed on Nowhere Feels Like Home because I don’t want to lose the momentum on the project. In the meantime, thoughts of what I would like to do with Griffie World kept surfacing and I really am going to have to figure out how to carve a little more time out of the day. There truly are not enough hours to do what I want to do, as well as those things that I have to do.

Don’t look for a revised site in the near future. I’m going to have to get all of my ideas marshalled and map out my strategy, and besides Katie McCabe won’t let me work on that until I finish her story.

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Griffie World appeared first on Be the Cat.

Which took me off course and I started to think about how it would be if we could actually beam places. No – wait! I don’t want to beam anywhere, I want to travel like Elizabeth Montgomery in her role as Bewitched! A little wiggle of the nose, with the appropriate sound affects, and bam you’re at your destination. No Scotty to have to rely on. Really, what would happen if Scotty had to answer the call of nature when Capt. Kirk and Spock really needed that beam? Samantha handled her own stuff. Plus, I can remember as a child trying to twinkle my nose like Tabitha and being very disappointed that it didn’t work in the same way. I mean after all, we were much the same age, we both had blue eyes, and we were both blondes with petite noses, so why didn’t mine work like hers did? She didn’t even have to wiggle it on her own. . .she could use her finger to help herself out.

Many times I tried to get my room to clean itself up, or the bed to make itself, and all with utter failure. Was it true, was a I mere mortal like Derwood, I mean Darren? And if Darren were such a mere mortal, then how could he change his appearance like that?

Well, now that I have really gone off the beaten path, it’s time to get back to editing Nowhere Feels Like Home. Do you think I can get it to edit itself if I wiggle my nose?

PS Letting my thoughts wander that way did take my mind of the fact that I was crawling along on the freeway, so maybe the nose wiggle did work.

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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

The post Thoughts From the Morning Commute – Traffic appeared first on Be the Cat.