A new design for a new year, plus a new resolution: blog at least once a week. If the snow stays intent on keeping my driveway buried, this should not be hard.

2009 was a dreadful year all round for myself, my family, and most of my friends. Family sentiment especially was “Thank God it’s over.” However, when it wasn’t bashing us over the head with large, spiky sticks, ‘09 did try, every once in a while, to redeem itself.

the life and times of a YA writer

Began Violet my current work in progress (WIP), and finished & revised Kit, my second novel. No, these are not titles. They’re characters.

Lost the ability to attend my Wednesday morning group (regained it later) and so joined a couple night critique groups. I love them, especially the one that meets at IHOP. Not only do I get excellent feedback and advice, I can get my monthly dose of egg nog pancakes.

(Speaking of egg nog, Shatto’s is all kinds of wonderful. The best on the market.)

I’ve discovered the joys of reading on my iPhone – Stanza’s my favorite, but Kindle’s good too. Never thought I’d be an ebook person, but it’s wonderful to curl up anywhere and read. My books are always with me–including some as yet unpublished goodies by friends.

(More: what 2009 got right)

Metainfo

Do Your Research. It’s among the top rules/tips for getting an agent, along with Follow Submission Guidelines, and Never Handwrite Anything. Excellent advice in theory, but sometimes impossible in practice. It’s amazing how many literary agents have an online presence of next to nil. Sure there are the big guns, such as Nathan Bransford and Kristin Nelson, who blog, tweet, offer advice, and have done numerous interviews. But many agents have nothing more then the blurb on their agency’s site and a page at Publishers Marketplace, if that. So you dig deeper, until you’re on page twenty of Google, browsing through links titled “All-Mercury News basketball teams dating back to 1960″ or “Heaven’s Nursery – SIDS Families.”

I’ve found research to be much more productive, and less time consuming, if I begin with something solid and work backward – an interview instead of just a name. To this end, I’ve complied a list of sites that offer interviews.

(More links and interviews after the jump)

Metainfo

This year I’m excited to be a part of Why Pink’s photographic ‘09 Breast Health Awareness and Fundraising Campaign. We offer thirty minute sessions for $100, half of which goes to charity. The fun part is you wear something pink, and then we’ll desaturate everything in the photo except the pink stuff. For more info, check out the Why Pink photographer’s page.

For my first session this year I shot Trevor, head of the Why Pink Campaign:

(Read more…)

Metainfo

Shontail’s daughters, pretty and sweet, got all dressed up to run through the park, gather pine cones, and have their pictures taken. Through the lens, it looked like a fairytale.

(Read more…)

Metainfo

One of the nice thins about creating a YA Twitter directory, is I now follow (with @readwritetweet) everyone listed there. Today I came across The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online (via Justine Larbalestier, YA author, @JustineLavaworm) on how we socially classify ourselves through MySpace and Facebook. To quote one of the teens in the article (and much of the basis for it):

Kat (14, Mass.): I’m not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever, and Facebook is all… not all the people that have Facebook are mature, but its supposed to be like oh we’re more mature. … MySpace is just old.

The article then proceeds to dig deeper into the race/class aspect.

I can’t argue with the perception as such, Facebook is generally considered “higher class,” but I think it has more to do with function than social class. A sociologist sees stratification. A web designer sees, well, web design.
Sure, MS & FB are social sites, but doesn’t mean they function in a similar way or with the same goals.

Design

Let’s start with FB.

(Read more…)

Metainfo