The Nitty Gritty of Children’s Writing – Page 36

Writing Business Expenses

Posted on September 29, 2013September 24, 2024 by Susan Uhlig

picture courtesy of Jane M Sawyer on morguefile.com
Every year I plan to do better at keeping track of my expenses than the year before. The area I struggle is recording all those trips to the post office or writing events. Often, I remember to record the event or trip, but forget to enter the actual mileage. So then I have to dig for the mileage I wrote down on a piece of paper or the map showing my route.

In 2012, I did pretty well at keeping it up-to-date.
Until I discovered I’d left off something else . . . a conference fee. And the taxes were already filed. Hmm, unclaimed expense from previous year? I think there’s a spot for that–must check it out when preparing 2013 taxes.

Several of my writer friends are just starting out with keeping track of writing business expenses. When I shared my personal info, one was shocked to see how many miles I deducted for 2012. I did a lot of travel by car, but the majority of it wasn’t big trips, just a lot of small trips adding up. For example, last year I joined a critique group that usually meets weekly. Let’s do the math. If roundtrip mileage averages 20 miles per week and the group meets only 42 weeks out of the year, then that is 840 miles in 2013. The IRS mileage deduction tax rate for 2013 is 56.5 cents per mile. That would allow a deduction of $474.60. for a legitimate business expense. (Read IRS publications for full details. Start with Publications 334 and 583.)

Conference fees, travel, hotel and meals add up really fast, too. Not all are fully deductible, but if you don’t know what you paid, how can you know how much to deduct? Accurate record keeping is necessary.

So how do I keep track of my expenses? With a spreadsheet. I have columns that I created long ago using a Schedule C as my model. My column headings are:

date
expense item (e.g. roundtrip mileage to event, address; postage to submit manuscript)
publisher/magazine (or those extra details, if needed, such as to whom and what I’m submitting)
miles (you also must keep track of the car mileage at the beginning and end of the year)
other car expenses (tolls or parking fees)
advertising (e.g. website)
office supplies (those things you need to run a home office: paper, postage, etc.)
taxes (e.g. sales tax on any books you sell yourself)
travel (airfare, taxis, hotel)
meals (while traveling–only a portion is deductible)
misc (where I put conference fees)

Someone else might need different columns. I am by no means a tax consultant!

I find if I don’t immediately enter trips to the post office in my spreadsheet, I forget when I did them. That means I lose out on those miles that I actually took. So what’s a writer to do? One writer says she puts her trips on a calendar–at tax time she can go back and garner the information from that. I thought I might try something new and that’s a mileage tracker app. There are a number of free ones. Looks pretty easy to enter appropriate information. But again, it’ll only work if I actually do it.
Right now I have some receipts I haven’t entered. I’d better go do that. And photocopy the receipts for my records as receipts fade. Besides it’s easier to have standard size sheets with several receipts than those small strips of paper.

Hope this has been helpful.

Subjective

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Susan Uhlig

You’ve started reading a book and just couldn’t get into it, right? It could even be a well-recommended award-winning book, but it didn’t grab you. Sometimes you try the book later and this time you’re hooked. Other books, later comes and they still don’t do it for you. That’s subjective reading.
So why then are we surprised when an editor or agent isn’t hooked by our writing? Yes, our query got their attention but responses vary from “I didn’t love it enough” to “This isn’t right for me (I just personally don’t like…)” to “I simply did not connect with the voice here enough” to the “we only respond if we’re interested” no response. If we pin our hopes to much on one person’s opinion, it’s too easy to be heartbroken.
I experienced the subjectivity effect on the other side of the desk recently. I teach a correspondence course for writing for children’s magazines. Student lessons either come by email or regular mail. One response to a student got lost and I had to re-edit the lesson. The first time, I looked at the lesson and basically said “not in the right format, please redo.” The second time, yes, I still noticed it was not in the right format, but I also noticed a paragraph that would make a good opening. I spent more time the second time on the positives and less on the negative. Why is that? It’s that subjective thing again. Perhaps the first time I’d had a number of students not following directions and so was pre-set to be irritated. The second time it was the first lesson of the day, so I was more open minded. The student got a better response…on the same material.
So, back to editors and agents and their subjectivity…

Their responses can be influenced by what has happened that day. Agent Jenny Bent shared how agents can feel like losers on a March 2010 blog post. Here’s the link.
They can be influenced by personal taste. Agent Suzie Townsend said on her blog, “Here’s the thing. Reading is subjective and it’s a matter of personal tastes. I don’t read business books. I don’t really find them interesting and I wouldn’t pick one up off a shelf in a store, which means I wouldn’t request one from my slush pile either.”
The responses can be hindered by what else they’ve said “yes” to.

That means we can’t take one “no” too much to heart. We need more responses.
And then we need to look at those responses not subjectively (oh, poor me, another no), but objectively. We need to see the big picture. What are they saying? Are there any common threads in these responses? Perhaps a number mentioning character or voice? Or maybe several say it’s an overdone topic? Whatever it is we can learn from a consensus in feedback. It points out a problem with our writing that we can address. Here’s a blog post on Good Rejections–Deciphering Notes from Editors and Literary Agents by another writer Althyia Brown–you might find it helpful too.
We can also take heart from any positive comments and use them to help us move on to rewriting, making our book better, so that one day, someone subjectively says, “yes.”
Thanks to godidwlr on morguefile.com for the above picture.

Craft, Guest Post, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing

The Hero’s Journey for Magazine Writers

Posted on September 5, 2013September 24, 2024 by Susan Uhlig

Guest Post by Jan Fields
Increasingly editors are interested in two things in fiction (1) adventure and (2) something a boy might read. But many writers are stuck when it comes to thinking about adventure. What makes up an adventure and can you do it well in 2000 words or less (sometimes a lot less). Sure you can. After all, Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is a perfect adventure story in 336 words.

The adventure story is the basis for so many classic myths and legends – so much so that “The Hero’s Journey” has become almost a guidebook for adventure. So how could the circular structure of the basic “Hero’s Journey” help us craft a magazine adventure story? Let’s begin by looking at a simplified version of the Hero’s Journey structure, keeping in mind that for magazine fiction, the story must will focus on the main character (MC):

Ordinary World – Stories begin just before the thing that ultimately changes the MC.
Call to Adventure – A need arises, the MC has a challenge.
Refusal/Commitment – the MC resists the challenge, doesn’t want to undertake the task but ultimately accepts that the challenge cannot be avoided.
Approaching the First Ordeal – The MC begins to understand the size of the challenge and the stakes are raised.
Ordeal – MC faces a serious challenge and overcomes.
Reward – a time of rest for the MC, sometimes a false sense of completion.
The Road/Resurrection – more complications, when things look much worse than expected and the biggest challenge met.
Mastery – The adventure resolves, often a sense of coming full circle. The MC has changed.

Okay, how might that play out in a magazine story? Let’s look at how it could play out in a short story synopsis:
Ordinary World – A boy heads home from a day at the pool and stops in a store for a cold drink.
Call to Adventure – Unexpectedly, the beloved store owner isn’t there and in his place is a hostile woman whose attention constantly shifts to the backroom door.
Refusal/Commitment – The boy hurries through his purchase to get away from the unpleasant woman. Once outside, he sits down to sip his drink and notices a lot people coming and going through the back door of the building – something he’s never seen before. He begins to wonder what’s going on.
Approaching the First Ordeal – The boy watches the store, even creeping close enough to the back door to hear what sounds like a scuffle. Could the woman be doing something illegal and holding the real store owner prisoner. The boy runs to alert a trusted adult.
Reward – The boy returns to the story with the trusted adult, expecting to save the story owner. But the woman tells the trusted adult a believable story and even opens the door to the backroom, where everything is quiet. The boy has now lost the support of his trusted adult.
The Road/Resurrection – The MC sits outside, determined to find out what is really happening. At first everything is quiet, then someone comes out of the backroom door, sees the boy and chases him away. The boy sneaks back, finding a better vantage point to watch the shop. He’s caught and this time the bad guy decides to hold onto the boy until their goal is met. The boy is locked into the shop bathroom with the beloved store owner (now slightly injured).
Mastery – Because of his small size, the boy can escape through the cramped bathroom window, though not without some minor injury. He runs to his trusted adult, this time with “proof” – the real store owners ubiquitous cap – now with bloodstains. The trusted adult calls the police and the store owner is saved!

In real life, the trusted adult might have stormed over to the store and given the woman some real conflict, not giving up easily. But then the story would have shifted from being the main character’s adventure/challenge to being the story of the actions of a side adult character. To work as a story, the main character has to commit to the challenge and overcome the obstacle on his own.

Author’s Brief Bio
Since my first magazine publication in the 1980s, I have been steadily writing for money in some form. Today I have over twenty books in print and still more in the pipeline – books for children and adults. I’ve also written for magazines, educational publishers and even a toy company! Writing is the only thing I’ve ever done really well that didn’t eventually become more like work than fun.
Read more about Jan at www.janfields.com.
General Store photo courtesy of wallyir on morguefile.com.

Craft, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing

Altitude and Attitude – Adult or Child?

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Susan Uhlig

kid & cannon I’ve had writing students set at the wrong “altitude” in relationship to their main character. They’ve talked about “little arm,” “tiny mouth,” “short body,” and more. That’s adult-size looking down to see child-size. When we are in a child’s viewpoint, arms, mouths or bodies of kids are viewed as the right size unless part of plot/character issues. In that case the main character likely views his shortness, skinniness or cuteness as a flaw, not a simple description of who he is.
So this got me thinking. We’re so used to seeing the world at the adult height that it is easy to forget what it looks like from kid height. I experienced a direct example when my then six-year-old grandson looked up at me and said, “You have hairs in your nose.” After struggling with that brief moment of being offended, I said, “yes.” Then I told him everyone did. I explained the purpose of those hairs. Of course, later I checked the mirror to see if, gasp, I needed to trim my nose hairs.
These both have reminded me that I need to think about what my young main character is seeing from her altitude. I may have to walk around on my knees a while to see what the world looks like from that height. I need to dig back and remember when I had to look up at every adult. I need to remember how I had to use a chair to reach the upper cabinets in the kitchen, and sometimes even climbed up on the countertop. I need to pay more attention to kids who are the age of my main character and see the things they have to deal with in an adult sized world and convey that in my writing.
I also sometimes see students write with the wrong “attitude.” As an adult we think it is funny or cute when kids do certain things. Unless they are trying to be funny, often what they are doing is very serious business. The two-year-old pretending to go to work on his ride-upon car is practicing what he’s seen a parent do. The four-year-old ballerina believes she dances beautifully. At that age anything is possible. The six-year-old asking about nose hairs was not trying to offend, he was being honest and talking about what he saw. The kid in this picture is exploring the cannon by sticking his head inside. Let’s not taint those experiences with adult reality and attitude in our writing.
My adult daughter let me read her sixth grade diary. She wrote about boys, boys, boys, her friends, and her older sister. She wrote about stuff that happened at school. We, her parents, were only mentioned once. That was when her fish died and she said we laughed. I can’t remember laughing. I don’t know why we would have laughed. Whether we did or not isn’t the point. She felt we didn’t care or didn’t care enough. To her that little fish dying was important. Callous parent me, I’m not even positive what kind of fish it was. In my defense, I do remember her winning it at a Vacation Bible School and remember what she named it. But to that sixth grade girl the life and death of her fish was an important event.
I need to convey the same child attitude in my writing. I need to share child concerns, questions and experiences as honestly as I can to make my stories more believable to my child audience.
I plan to be checking my altitude and attitude often as I write. How about you?
picture courtesy of seneca77 on morguefile.com

Craft, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing

Slow Down, You Move too Fast

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Susan Uhlig

You’ve got to make the writing last. (with apologies to Simon & Garfunkel and “The 59th Street Bridge Song” (Feelin’ Groovy)
I’ve had students who have rushed to submit an assignment. They’ve forgotten to double-space, run spell check, or proof; they haven’t followed directions–they’ve even sent the wrong version. If I was an editor, instead of an instructor, lack of double-spacing would mean instant rejection because it’s just too hard to read. If a story/article didn’t fit a theme list, when guidelines indicated they must, I’d reject. By the time I found three typos, I’d probably quit reading.
I’ll be honest. I’ve submitted material I shouldn’t have. I thought I knew enough about what I was doing, but didn’t. I moved too fast and was embarrassed later. It takes time to learn the craft of writing for children. Allow yourself some time.
slow sign Here are some suggestions to help you “slow down:”
S – “Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth,” A. Bronson Alcott said. A year is too long for a class assignment to sleep, but you get the point, right?
L – Look your best! If you are going on a special date, don’t you take time to do so? You might get a haircut, a manicure, a new item of clothing. You’d definitely clean-up with a shower or bath. You might shave, pluck eyebrow or facial hair, trim nose hairs. You’d give yourself a final polish, whether it’s makeup, a shoe-shine or using a lint brush. Same with your writing. Do the basics of cleaning it up by running spell check. Reread it again and again looking for typos or awkward phrasing. Polish it by asking yourself, “Is that the best way to say it?” or “Is that the right word here?” or “Would this be clear to someone else?” Ask yourself if there are sections that need tightening or cutting.
O – Own it! Do you find yourself making excuses to yourself and your instructor (or critique group) about why something isn’t as good as it should be or why it is late? You are the one who chose to write. No one is making you. Do you want to do this or not? Then claim writing as your own. Show by your actions that it is important to you. Tell others you are writing and look for those who will help you with accountability. Think how “owning it” will feel, when you get that acceptance.
W – “Writing is rewriting… If you fall in love with the vision you want of your work and not your words, the rewriting will become easier,” Nora DeLoach said. Even the simplest piece will benefit by rewriting. The words you write aren’t “what you want to say” but a means of getting across what you want to say. Make sure they do the job.
D – “Discipline provides the canvas. Inspiration is the paint. You create the art,” Laurie Halse Anderson said. Just as practicing piano scales, prepares someone to play music, you must be disciplined and practice your writing. Schedule some dedicated time to your writing and you’ll be amazed how much you improve just by showing up and practicing.
O – Open up. Be willing to reveal yourself in your writing. Write about really matters to you. Judy Blume said, “The stuff that’s going to work is what’s coming from deep deep inside.” You probably won’t find this unless you spend time thinking about what is really important to you, asking yourself questions, and digging into memories.
W – “Who has time to read? If you’re a writer, you do. Reading can unlock the mysteries of writing,” Christopher Meeks said. Yes, it takes work to read, but reading what you want to write is invaluable. You won’t have to ask, “Is it okay to write a short story in first person for preschoolers?” or “How can I make an article on this topic accessible to 10-12-year-olds?” Because you’ll know. You’ll have been reading stories and articles for those audiences. You’ll see what works. You’ll be inspired by the wealth of material already out there. You won’t send “the same old” unoriginal story to editors that they’ve seen over and over and over.
N – “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence,” Calvin Coolidge said. Oh, that is so true for writers. Instructors will tell you something isn’t right; editors will reject you; critics won’t like what you wrote, but they can’t stop you from writing. Only you can do that.
You’ve got to make the writing last. The song lyrics also say, “Looking for fun and feeling groovy.” Writing should be fun. You should feel good about what you produce. I think you’ll find you do when you follow the above steps.