It’s tough, gang.

I-Can’t-Do-It Gremlins move in to an idle workshop. Sit down at a dusty keyboard and they whisper paralyzing thoughts in your ear:

What can you do?

OH I THOUGHT YOU’D NEVER ASK:

• Be patient with yourself. Your writing muscles are a little rusty. If you usually write 1,000 words a day, after a break, you might only squeeze out 400 words for the first several sessions. So what? Just do what you can do.
• Be hard on yourself. Make yourself write. Don’t put it off until tomorrow, which as we all know, never comes. Sit in front of that screen until you’ve plunked down some words. They don’t have to be good, they just have to be words.
• Get yourself back in the habit of thinking about writing, even when you’re not writing. Carry around your idea notebook to catch random snatches of conversation, picture book premises, blog ideas, plot twists. (Or use your smartphone app.)
• Connect with your writing buddies–in person and online. Critique groups, book signings, write-ins, workshops, even lunch or the #amwriting hashtag on Twitter can keep you fired up about your goals.

AND WRITE.

DRAMATIC DRAWING:

CONGRATULATIONS DANA CAREY, WINNER OF ALL THIS SWAG!

Thank you to all my new followers. You’ll find I don’t overwhelm you with daily posts. Who’s got the stamina?

You’re all in the will. Whatever that’s worth.

The Amazon iPhone app.

Not only can you use this app to go to your indie store, try out an item, and THEN see how cheap you can get it on Amazon, YOU CAN REPORT BACK TO AMAZON HOW CHEAP YOU CAN GET IT IN AN INDIE STORE, SO AMAZON CAN LOWER THEIR PRICES.

Wow.

Amazon has made the entire smart-phone-owning public their minions.

AND THERE ARE SUCKERS GOING ALONG WITH THIS.

But here’s the part that’s going to make a whole lot of you angry with me:

Many of you asked for it.

How many times have you gone to a store and checked something out, then gone home and bought it on Amazon for a much lower price?

Where do you think Amazon got the idea for this app, anyway?

Hmmmm?

Amazon just made it so you didn’t have to write the store price down on a piece of paper.

And while providing that service, they tossed in an extra step of allowing you to actually, you know, directly throw every last indie shop out of business.

Hey. I like a bargain just like the next gal. But I buy my books locally, unless I can’t find them here. (Yes, I can hanker after the odd book or two.) I buy used books when I’ve already bought a new copy of the title, or if it’s out of print.

I use Amazon for things I can’t find around here, usually at Christmas. In fact, I ordered something yesterday.

Amazon is not the devil. Don’t let it make you one.

He was a funny guy–clever, never mean, and certainly not afraid to look silly for the sake of a laugh. The kind of guy people flocked to because, well, he just made you feel better.

But he was suffering.

A large percentage of depressed people don’t look depressed.

It’s a corny cliché: “Laugh, clown, laugh.” But it’s based in truth.

When you’re flat, packed in cotton, humor is a stimulant. It’s self-medication.

Problem is, like any stimulant, it wears off.

We are all responsible for our own actions. If you can have a hand in saving someone, it is a blessing for both of you. If you can’t, it is not you’re fault.

Still.

Suicide is not a decision made in a rational moment–believing your loving family and friends would be better off if you didn’t exist–how could that ever, ever be true?

So.

Just because someone can laugh and crack a joke, make you smile, doesn’t mean he feels joy or satisfaction or safety.

Try to hold his hand until the irrational moments pass, if he’ll let you.

Pray he’ll let you.

FRENCH HEN

I was going to make a whole new blog post for the THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS with GIFS! HISTORICAL FACTS! AMAZING ALLUSIONS!

But then there was this party last night, and well, it’s raining.

And I had to get a haircut.

So you’ll have to make do with these fantastic additions to the swag bag:

• Stupendous Stretchy Book Cover to keep nosey nancys out of your business on the subway.
• Journal for your wild musings.
• StickyMarkers to keep track of the Pithy Thoughts you want to go back to in the Creativity Shake-It-Up Pack.
• Traveling Candle to light your fire, wherever you are.
• Sculpty-moldy-bead stuff, to help free you mind.
• And a plucked-chicken key chain that lays an egg. OF CREATIVITY.

Don’t forget the original cornucopia of Creative Goodness:

To enter my contest is super uncomplicated, as I only have so much space left in my brain:

1. SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG–please leave a comment telling me so!
2. FOLLOW ME ON THE TWITTERS–please @me, telling me so! Use #12DOC
3. If you already subscribe and follow me, you’d think I’d be satisfied, but NO! I want more! Tweet about this contest or blog about it and let me know.

Be sure to enter all the other blogses contests. YOU WON’T BELIEVE THE FABULOUS PRIZES.

BUT HURRY. YOU ONLY HAVE UNTIL DECEMBER 12TH.

The prize awarding begins December 13th.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? WHAT IS GOING ON? I AM RUNNING AROUND AS IF I HAVE NO HEAD, LISHA, STOP ME! STOP ME!

oh good lord. talk about the blind leading the blind, because THIS:

Lisha Cauthen

Good likeness, don’t you think?

Yes. Visit Sarah’s page and you will see that I am the proud representative of THREE FRENCH HENS.

TWELVE, COUNT ‘EM, TWELVE writers/bloggers/good eggs are giving away GIFTS UNTO YOU.

Just because we’re wonderful. And because Sarah Belliston organized us. So. Visit all 12 of us and read our blogs and love us and squeeze us and enter our little contests for a chance to win FAB SWAG.

You have from today until December 12th to enter on each blog, so go here for a list of partipants:

THE GATEWAY TO PRIZES AND GLORY

Then, beginning December 13th on up to Christmas, a prize a day will be given away. (I love it when I rhyme.)

FABULOUS PRIZES I WILL AFFORD TO ONE WINNER FROM THIS BLOG:

The Creativity Shake-It-Up Pack

A. The perennial favorite, The Artist’s Way by Jill Cameron

B. The outside of the boxish, A Creative Companion by Sark

C. And the pick-and-choose, Inspired Creative Writing by Alexander Gordon Smith

Throw in assorted bookmarks and other sundry gee-gaws I will add by December 3rd. Yes, I am that kind of person–a moving target.

While I ponder my Frenchly, Chickenly post for December 3rd, you guys get busy and enter the contest. HERE’S HOW:

1. SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG–please leave a comment telling me so!
2. FOLLOW ME ON THE TWITTERS–please @me, telling me so! Use #12DOC
3. If you already subscribe and follow me, geez. Let’s go steady! I mean, tweet about this contest or blog about it and let me know.

I love you all madly.

It made me realize how thankful I am for my new life in the Kidlit community:

• SCBWI National. I got to meet so many persons this year at the LA convention.(<3 Colleen)
• Kansas SCBWI and my writing peeps. Ah, lunch.
• Heartland Writers for Kids and Teens and the Wednesday morning critiques. (Ouch, I needed that.)
• Reading Reptilians. Imagine, a kidlit store just blocks from me!
• My Twitterlie friends. Ones I’ve met, ones I DM and ones I banter with occasionally.

The Kidlit Tribe.

I am so grateful to finally find where I belong.

But not here.

I seem to have caught NaNoWriMo fever. And the only cure is:

Um, I mean,

My usual method of writing is a chapter a week. I write it and polish it and love it and hug it and squeeze it until it is a beautiful burnished thing of incomparable genius.

But boy, is that slow.

So I’ve decided to take the leap, and spit out the whole first draft in a month. I’m curious to see if I end up taking the same amount of time to extrude a finished project, because of the difference in revision effort.

OH IT IS A GRAND EXPERIMENT.

I think I’m including the same amount of plot twists, hilarious asides rising action and threads of conflict that I would at a slower place. But–

I might end up in the loony bin.

Yes, one of Pete’s many famous pals.

Jon talked about his family, mostly. Be sure to read Knuckleheads: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka.

It explains everything about what makes him tick. He’s the second of SIX BOYS. No girls. If you look at their pictures, they all look about the same age.

Holy cow.

Jon answered some questions at the end, of course. First his favorite books he’s written, and favorite book he’s read:

His favorite story from the Guys Read Books–THE ONE THE GUY’S EDITOR COULDN’T BEAR TO READ:

What he’s working on now. Something with Kate DiCamillo!

Of course he’s on tour promoting his latest SPACEHEADZ book.

The Spaceheadz books teach the kids to interact on the intrawebs, and there’s a nifty-frito website where readers can write their own stuff, read a blog, upload pictures. Major Fluffy even has a lame app.

If you ever have a chance to see Jon, geez. Don’t pass it up.

And bring your kids.

They’ve partnered with the Kansas City Woodworking Guild to bring books to Joplin, MO.

Listen to Pete at the recent Jon Scieszka book signing:

So I know you want to help out. Did you hear him say your dollars are going to buy the books AT COST?

Here’s the information page, where you can get the skinny and donate:

Joplin Project

Remember?