Only 24 hours in a day. Or 1+1+1+1=100.

Yesterday I got a notification that my blog was having a banner day–surprising since I haven’t posted in two months–and it reminded me how busy the last two months have been. As readers of Creative Chaos might know, I’m almost two years out from a divorce and the economic insecurities that often accompany divorce can be stressful. More on that in a few…

Over the past year I’ve been pleased to find challenging and satisfying work event planning at Maine Share, doing customer service work at LLBean, and event planning at Bowdoin College. All along, I’ve been volunteering as the Program Director with my local rowing club. This spring, they hired me as their part time Head Coach as well and I’ve spent a great deal of time in the last two months on the water teaching adults and teens to scull and sweep row.

JrCoaching

In addition to the coaching and program directing I’m also SUPER happy to have found a part time temporary home at Islandport Press as their Author Relations and Events Coordinator. In this position I’m able to help Islandport authors with social media, blogs, book them in bookstores and festivals, and help create publicity campaigns and events to sell great books. (Shameless plug: please follow Islandport Press on social media.)

Screenshot 2016-07-08 10.59.41

We now rejoin our program of economic insecurity already in progress…

I love what I’m doing. Still, anyone who has juggled a family, writing, and more than one job knows that the sum of the parts feels WAY greater than it should (ie: 1+1+1+1=100) Part of that 100 number is the chasm of unemployment that looms with temporary jobs. Once the rowing season ends, and the temporary position with the publishing house ends I’m on the search again. It’s a feast and famine sensibility so in the last two months I’ve also written and delivered an article to the new Coxing Magazine (so exciting!), given a presentation to the Romance Writers of Maine, and taught a rowing workshop to counselors at a local sleep away camp. I’m the busy ant storing for the winter.

If there is a positive about the looming chasm of unemployment it is that I might actually get back to my works in progress (a middle grade novel 1st draft and 2 PB rewrites) which wait patiently on my computer. I also might be posting more here at Creative Chaos. I will keep you updated. Cheers!

What’s in a name? Adjusting one’s eplatform.

For the last ten or twelve years, I’ve worked on building an e-platform that will hold me in good stead when I begin marketing my books in earnest. You know my books right? Well maybe not yet, but you will. Currently they are “works in progress,” or “making the rounds,” or “on submission.” Nevertheless, I have great faith that they will be published and when they are, they will need to be marketed and publicized.

I have spent much of my time (probably too much) keeping up with the newest social media marketing trends all under the name Anna J. Boll. However, recent unexpected life events have brought me to a new path, and I have decided to take back my birth name for my professional and personal life.

Cyberspace, meet Anna Eleanor Jordan.

I am not unique in this. People get divorced and married and divorced (1 divorce every 36 seconds according to this). What is newish and more difficult is changing the e-platform that is so much a part of modern daily existence.

Luckily my Twitter handle was @annawritedraw (no need to change)…

…but my email, and Facebook had to change. My name-based gmail has been relatively simple (although it ends up being crazy long because shorter versions were taken), and I can easily have the old gmail forward to the new. Facebook gives you a spot for a parenthetical name which is nice.

Pinterest even allows you to choose your own URL suffix. (I went with annawritedraw to make it the same as Twitter.)

I’ve yet to deal with LinkedIn (which I use only for people I can recommend or for those who can recommend me) and this very webpage has to change.

Creative Chaos will eventually be found at annaejordan.com as soon as I figure out how to forward it properly.

But then there are other less public things. All the sites that I subscribe to, usernames, and passwords need to be changed and updated and on and on. In fact, it is a veritable web – intricate and extensive – of minutiae alterations. Just when I think I’m done, there are another thousand bits to change.

What’s not going to change is my commitment to the kidlit community, or my writing, or my passion for championing diversity in children’s literature, or my love of books, poetry, art and illustration, education, family, and matching children with wonderful new literature. Thanks to all for the support that I’ve received thus far and thanks for your patience with my spotty posting.

See! I still have to change my bio below, ugh, and Goodreads, and…

Three Links to Great Web Content: August 4-10, 2013

When I was about eight years old, I used to sit on the landing and listen to the adult conversations that went on at dinner parties my parents would hold. I’m sure my parents thought I was asleep, and sometimes I would indeed fall asleep on the landing and they’d have to carry me to bed. The point is, that I didn’t want to miss anything. Sometimes Twitter and social media reminds me of this. With the incessant stream of tweets and updates I’m bound to miss out on something crucial.

The fact is, there is so much information out on the web that you can’t, and shouldn’t, try to keep up with it. I thought I’d post a few great links from my week and would love to see your favorite links, and a few sentences about them, in the comments.

First off, Ingrid Sundberg. Ingrid Sundberg is a fellow VCFA alum. She recently posted a fabulous series taken from her thesis on story architecture. If you only saw bits, or missed the whole thing, bookmark this page which includes the links for the entire series. Organic Architecture: Links to the Whole Series

If you are a parent or an educator, and haven’t found PragmaticMom.com, you should take a look. In addition to crafts, education, and parenting tips, she is an avid children’s lit reader with wonderful book lists. Her Multicultural Books for Children: 40+ Book Lists are an amazing collection of books broken into various helpful categories.

Lee Wind and the amazing SCBWI blog team were super busy last weekend at the LA Conference. Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend this year (I’m planning to go in 2014), but I was able to get the juicy tidbits on the Official SCBWI Conference Blog. If you are searching for an agent, you may want to read the many agent profiles. Illustrators will want to check out the winning portfolio images, and writers will be inspired by the encapsulated keynote speeches.

Again, I’d love to see your favorite links of the week– interesting industry news, and craft discussions that you retweeted, reblogged, tumbled or pinned that my readers might have missed. I’ll be watching the comments.

Sporty Girl Books blog debuts tomorrow June 1st!

When I saw on Twitter that my friends Kris Asselin and Stacy Mozer were starting Sporty Girl Books group blog:

“…devoted to girls (and the people who love them) who love reading, writing, talking, watching, and playing sports.

I said sign me up! Well, no. That’s not what I said at all. I said, “I’d love to do a guest post every once in a while.” But if you know me, and many of you do, you know that I have problems with one word. “No.” So when they said, do you want to join the group, you’ll only have to post once-a-month. I said, “Sure!”

You know what? I am not sorry at all. Kris and Stacy also recruited Robin Hall another up and coming writer, yoga instructor, rock climber and all around athlete, and I’ve had a blast getting to know her. Over the last weeks we’ve hammered out a new logo (see below), content ideas and blogging schedule (we’ll each post once-a-month).

At SPORTY GIRL, we want to give all girls the chance to love, watch, play, read, and write about the sports they love. We look forward to the day when the words, “You play like a girl,” is the best compliment anyone can receive.

The blog debuts tomorrow, June 1st and you can expect interviews with authors, profiles of girl athletes, book reviews, essays, current event tie-ins, and (drum roll please) GIVEAWAYS! In fact, to start things off we’ll have a rafflecopter giveaway of some of our favorite and new sporty girl books. The contest will run through the month. What do you have to do? Follow the Sporty Girl Books blog and our Twitter feed @SportyGirlBooks. For extra points you can follow our personal blogs and Twitter feed as well.

Most important we need you to spread the word to all the sporty girls in your life. We’d love for the girls to be involved in the blog. In the “Your Stories” section of the blog, girls can write about their own athletic stories, good or bad. (All stories will be reviewed before publication.)

So come visit us, enter the giveaway, and spread the word!

Introducing… Creative Bookings!

If you are a regular Creative Chaos reader, you know that I write for children and young adults. I also offer Creative Services for other authors and illustrators including Creative Curriculum (reader and teacher guide development), and Creative Freelance (editing and writing services). Today, Lucy and I have news about more chaos coming to Creative Chaos – Creative Bookings.

Creative Bookings is boutique booking agency that I own and operate. I arrange school, library, conference, and event bookings for select children’s authors and illustrators. My award-winning clients offer a variety of presentations appropriate for students, librarians, educators, parents, writers, and illustrators. Together they present a diverse mix of writing and illustrating styles, genres, and specialties to meet the needs of a wide audience. They include: Anne Sibley O’Brien, Brenda Reeves Sturgis, Cathryn Falwell, David Elliott, Hazel Mitchell, and Melanie Crowder.

If you are a teacher, librarian, SCBWI RA, or other kidlit conference/event planner, I hope that you’ll keep me and my clients in mind. My clients are wonderful, and Lucy says that I’m ~~tasty~~ friendly, organized, and flexible too.

(Out takes from the photo shoot welcoming new clients to Creative Bookings.)

My new venture would not be possible without the help of Kirsten Cappy at Curious City Books, and I thank her. Curious City is a children’s book consulting company building creative marketing projects and outreach for authors, illustrators, and publishers focused on engaging readers with story.

A Winner for the Totally Awesome Teacher/Reader Guide Service! and 3 Tips for Online Give-aways

A super congratulations to Erin Hagar who won the Totally Awesome Teacher/Reader Guide. I happened to know that in addition to being a wonderful writer, Erin is also a wonderful educator. I look forward to working with her on a Guide to meet her needs!

Now…

THREE TIPS FOR RUNNING AN ONLINE GIVE-AWAY (or do what I say, not what I did.)

1. Tease.

By the time I unveiled my teacher/reader guide contest on February 7th, I had been thinking about it for ~~weeks~~ months. I had already worked diligently on a guide for Melanie Crowder’s, PARCHED so I’d have an example guide. I had developed the content for the information page and the downloadable PDF. I had researched Rafflecopter. Really, I had spent many hours on the project. Here’s the thing… no one else knew that I was spending hours on the project. I never dropped any clues or hints. Unless you have an amazing following, you need to get the support of those who already do. Ask them to drop teasers for you in the days leading up to the contest. Use your own social media to hype the contest and its benefits to possible entrants. Send an email to your most influential friends (research their following) asking them to use their social media as well. Guest post on other well-known blogs to promote the contest and what you are giving away. That way, when you unveil the contest, people will be waiting for it… nay, chomping at the bit to enter.

2. Have well-defined and simple goals for the contest.

I knew my goals for the contest. I wanted people to learn about my new Teacher/Reader Guide service that is perfect for busy authors/illustrators who want focus on their creative work and leave the marketing and peripheral writing to another professional. I wanted to boost my Twitter following. I wanted to boost my blog following. In hindsight, this was too much for a mid-list blog contest. My most important goal was to inform people about the new service. I should have designed the contest with this focus. Ideally people would have shared the blog post with others and gotten something for themselves. If they commented with the link to their own social media post, it would have potentially boosted their traffic as well.

3. Make it easy for people to enter.

I’d seen Rafflecopter work really well on other blogs and was excited to use it. Here’s the thing. WordPress.com doesn’t support the Rafflecopter widget. That meant that in order to enter, people had to follow a link away from my blog post and then come back. IT IS RARE THAT PEOPLE WILL CLICK BACK. If I’d had simpler goals, I wouldn’t have needed Rafflecopter at all. I’d rather have a single entry from many rather than multiple entries from the same person. A simpler procedure would have increased entries.

I hope this is helpful to others who are considering a contest. Tell me what you think below!

That’s One Lovely Blog You’ve Got There!

A huge thank you to Julie Kingsley for the “One Lovely Blog” award. The award is sort of the equivalent of the old chain letter (add a few names and send it on) but better because there is no envelope licking involved, and it’s a wee bit of recognition.

Yes, I do take time from my writing, children, and domestic goddess (not) duties to share a bit of myself, my reading, my writing life, and industry news with the rest of the world. I throw my writing into cyberspace and listen to the deafening silence. So I’m happy to pay it forward and possibly introduce you to some other bloggers who post a good blog.

First, according to the rules, I need to tell you seven random facts about me.

1. I love dancing, although I don’t do it much these days. I took dance for years, and was in an Afro-Caribbean dance troupe in college. I’m also often the first one on the dance floor.
2. I was in musicals throughout my teen life both in summer camp and in Junior High School and still sing “Tomorrow” loudly from time to time, if only to embarrass my own adolescent children.
3. I’m sort of evangelical about voting. There are people who died for my right to vote and folks all over the world who don’t get that right. Every American should honor those people by casting a ballot.
4. I row in boats that look like this:

(Top: I think that’s me in bow seat. Bottom: I’m coxing.)

and I’m learning to row in a boat like this:

(My coach sculling.)

and I love the beauty and strength and insanity of the sport. My current WIP is about a high school crew.

5. I’ve been dealing with Patella Tendonosis for the last 12 or so weeks which means that I’ve done no running, or biking, and only recently started rowing again (just as the water is turning cold) and that bums me out. Still, I have my eye on the weather prophets who say that we might get a snowy winter. So if I can heal, I could xcountry ski and that would make me happy.

6. My guilty TV pleasure is Project Runway. I think the design and crafting skills required to participate makes it one notch better than most reality shows.

7. If I had one wish, I would read faster and retain more of what I read. (Is that two?)

And for the second half of the One Lovely Blog award requirements, I am happy to tell you about some of the blogs that ~~suck away my writing time~~ keep me in the know.

(Pub)lishing Crawl: Great place for craft discussion, writer’s life and industry info.

Writing With A Broken Tusk: Blog of Uma Krishnaswami, faculty member of VCFA Writing for Children and Young Adults Program, kind and peaceful soul, and massively intelligent person.

Mitali’s Fire Escape: Mitali Perkins writes about Children’s Book, diversity issues, the industry, and goings-on around Boston.

KidLit.com: Ah… Mary Kole. This agent and fun loving industry professional does not mince words. Amazing archive of information for those new to the children’s publishing industry and those not so new.

The Brown Bookshelf: I firmly believe that all children should be able to see themselves in the books we publish. This site brings “the myriad of African American voices writing for young readers” to our attention.

PhotoBoto.com: This site posts photographs that are great for story starters, illustration reference, or just to be amazed.

Write at Your Own Risk: Shop talk with the faculty of the VERMONT COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS MFA Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Yes, I’m ridiculously loyal to VCFA.

Thanks again to Julie Kingsley. Now all of you, get off the internet and do some work!