My Bad!

Actually, I dislike that phrase. But in this case...

My newest book came out this week - my tenth for children and teens since 2008's Meeting Miss 405, all from Orca Book Publishers. 

 

 

I am proud of them all. Even the one that did not 'earn out' the advance, despite good reviews from review journals and readers.

I am proud of the work I put into Creatively Human.  Proud that I was able to focus on the premise I had started out with - that 'Everyone is Creative. Creativity is Everywhere.' My ability to stick with my editor as together we developed the outline in a way that responded to the editorial committee's input. To do the research necessary. Nip and tuck the writing until it fit the required 17,000 words. Come up with section titles and headings that help the reader find their way through the book. Seek out photos that work with the text and write captions once they were in place. Have the patience to let the editorial and design process do their work. 

To wait for the three years that it took between idea and publication.

A lot of this business is about waiting. Everything moves at the speed of molasses finding its way uphill. And it's easy to get stuck in the morass of inertia that's generated. Or get distracted by other things that seem more important at the time.

Now that the first event to celebrate this book birthday is over, I can admit that that waiting made me lazy. Too lazy to update my website, which is often the first place a potential reader goes to learn more about the book and its author - or where to buy it! Too lazy to keep up my blog so people might keep coming back to it to find out what was going on with the book that I had, in the beginning, been so fired up about.

Blogs, like websites, fade away if neglected. They fall off readers' reading lists. They lose their relevance and their momentum. They become obsolete.

So I am going to try to return to this blog. Encouraged by my friend Liz Forbes' discipline in showing up, and adding new posts to her blog regularly. In Liz's words, committing to "...promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore."

And to update my website.

Tomorrow... if I can find my passwords. (See, that's another thing that happens when you neglect it for too long!)