Skype an Author and Plurk

About the middle of March or so, Mr. Hughes introduced me to Plurk, a social network much like twitter. I joined and have connected with teachers and school librarians. I like it much better than twitter in that it is easier to follow the postings. The teachers are always posting great resources. I've got a couple of make your own comic book sites and a few other things from being there.

Last week, one of the teachers had posted about her class Skyping with an author. I commented that I couldn't wait to have my first Skype session. Another teacher said I could Skype her class if I was bored. So we have connected via plurks and private messages and I will have my first Skype in a classroom session Thursday. I can't wait to Skype with Mrs. Jurkowski's 3rd class in Indiana, a state I have not visited yet. If any of my readers are looking for a new social network to join, come on over to Plurk and check it out. Here is my personal invite to all of you to join. You never know with whom you will connect.

State of Heights/State of Successes

And vice versa. I placed an order for 10 copies of each back at the beginning of the month. I received them the end of the week last week; should have had them earlier than I did but we had the snowstorm hit us and no mail was getting to us until after Wednesday. I opened the box while at the post office and didn't even think about checking the books carefully while there. Friday I went by the bookstore and left a copy of both books there, dropped a copy of State of Heights at the library, and went to the bank and gave my friend her copy of State of Heights. This morning I was in the car getting the remaining copies ready to send to Heather and to Mr. Hughes. I signed a copy of State of Successes to the Welcome Center (they have a nice little display of my books), picked up a copy of State of Heights to sign to Mr. Hughes and had to do a double take. I opened the book and the title page said State of Successes. I flipped through the book and the first part was State of Successes and the second part of the book was State of Heights. I got worried. Checked all the copies and two of each title came that way. Now I have to go check the copies I left at the bookstore and the library and with my friend to make sure their copies are correct. I think it is funny that about half way through they switched up but it also isn't funny at the same time.

I did call createspace folks and Shea was very helpful. He answered all my questions I had about other things besides trying to get the books corrected. Kudos to him for being helpful. He also said he enjoyed geography and trivia things like what my books are so I have a feeling he will be reading my titles as they get printed - lol. At least they are helpful and willing to correct their mistake without too much hassle to me.

I did ask about the upgrade and how I would know when State of Successes was available to bookstores, et cetera and one thing I found out was that because the books are print on demand and I've opted for bookstores as well as libraries/educational facilities and createspace direct distribution (this is basially for indie bookstores - they get their discount) there is a no-return policy. Woohooo!!!! - that means my books are available in the stores but they will not be on the shelves unless I do a book signing at any of the bigger stores. This is huge as I don't have to worry about losing money on returns. Yay for createspace.com. Okay - off to check copies of books more later - Mrs. E :)

Writing Challenge (MOGO7000) weekly update #1

January

01/10/2011 - day 1 of writing challenge - worked on State of Nature, added 1563 words, only about 12 or 14 clue interactions to fill in. Well on my way to meeting the 7000 word monthly goal.

01/15/2011 - I had all intentions of writing more this week but work got in the way. I didn't write today on the story even though I knew I should have since I need to finish the story.

01/17/2011 - I didn't have any work this afternoon when I got online as expected so opened State of Nature and wrote for a while. I did almost 1100 words in the first couple of hours I (did some other things in there as well) and then worked a bit, fixed dinner, watched some TV and then worked a little bit more. I did leave the story opened all the time I was working as a reminder that I needed to write some more on it. I got a grand total of 1270 words in today.

In the two times I wrote in the week since taking the challenge, I have posted a grand total of 2833 words, so over 1/3 of the words for the monthly goal. I will post again next week my totals. I am hoping to finish State of Nature tomorrow as I only have seven jobs right now, knowing that there will be hand clinic work coming in sometime tomorrow and I'll be visiting with Mr. Hughes' class in the middle of the day. I'm on clue #18 but I've also added some to clue #25 or #24 and maybe a little bit to another clue between #18 and #27, so it shouldn't be too many more words to finish it. The goal is to finish State of Nature and then start working on State of Acceleration and have that completed by the end of the month and that should put me well over the 7000 words for the month. More next week. See you all in the postings - Mrs. E :)

New Year, New Tactic

Everyone knows I follow Mr. Hughes' blog, but whodathunk that one comment from a teacher on his blog would have led to so many other wonderful teacher blogs. From that one comment, I have found several dozen teachers' blogs to follow or to subscribe to via email. I have left comments on several of them as well, hoping that by leaving my signature line (see below) that I'll garner some new followers and hopefully some new virtual school visits, or if they are close enough, real school visits and book signings.

It only takes one right connection to make the big leap to getting your name out there. Encouraging all authors who are interested in doing school visits to start following teacher blogs, work on virtual school visits and then build to the next level. Who knows where the adventure will take you.

Hoefully 2011 is the year the JGDS series will take off - fingers crossed and hoping to make the right connection somewhere.

Here is what my signature looks like:

---------------
Elysabeth Eldering
Author of the Junior Geography Detective Squad, 50-state, mystery, trivia series

Where will the adventure take you next?

http://jgdsseries.blogspot.com
http://jgdsseries.weebly.com


Do you think it will work? I can only hope.

I would still like to see more followers of this blog, as I am still under the 50 mark, so anyone who knows someone who may be interested in a social studies curriculum supplement, please pass the word and ask them to follow my blog. I will do a drawing when I have reached 100 followers for either a copy of "Train of Clues" or something else. See you all in the postings - Mrs. E :)

We've been awarded with a blogger buddy award

For those of you who follow my blog, you will see that I also follow several of the authors from 4RV and usually can be found chatting with them via instant messenger. So today, I got a response in my email on my posting about the NCGE's conference coming up the end of September from Rena Jones saying she had given me this award. I don't know the rules of this award either, so I will just pass it on to to a couple of folks -

Mr. John Hughes and Ms. Carol Baldwin - two blogging buddies that have special places.

Thanks, Rena and I'll see you all in the postings - Mrs. E :)

Grits in Utah?

GRITS: corn that is partly crushed (really ground down) before cooking, often eaten for breakfast or as part of a meal in the southern US. Most southerners put lots of butter and salt in their grits or even put cheese in them, but I've known some to put a tad of sugar in them as well.

So how did grits get in Utah? As everyone knows, I'm virtually visiting Mr. Hughes class in Utah and we are using Carol Baldwin's book "Teaching the Story" for writing class. We are working on dialogue now, not how to create dialogue but making it useful in the story. Carol has a page of Tips for Writing Dialogue. While reading the tips, I had to really laugh about this one particular one:

Show your characters doing something as they talk. Is he shoveling grits into his mouth? Is she painting her toenails deep purple? Is the old man wiping his bifocals with an embroidered handkerchief? Does the teenager frown/roll her eyes/tremble/avert her eyes/giggle? Is the lawyer tapping his foot/pencil/briefcase impatiently? Gestures, body language, actions, and small habits can all add to the picture you create in your reader's mind.

Now I'm not saying that isn't a good tip, it's just I don't think Carol realized she placed herself in the South with the grits statement and she may have even dated herself due to the reference of "embroidered handkerchief."

I've even been called on not doing this by my editors, so it is a good tip and one that I've tried to get the students to see during class time with their own writing projects. Funny how we can see things when others don't do them or do them differently but not when we do it. I'm getting better I hope with the dialogue as far as having my characters doing something while they talk, so that's a good thing all around.

And now you know ... the rest of the story (taken from Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story" radio tidbits) - Mrs. E :)

Teaching the story - my first time to really teach (POV)

A couple of weeks ago, I had to miss class due to being out running errands or somethig. Mr. Hughes started the mini lesson from Carol Baldwin's "Teaching the Story" workbook we are using on POV. When I caught up with him that evening, he said he felt that the kids weren't understanding POV. So I told him I would check some things out over the weekend and come up with something to help guide the students with POV. It is difficult to do a mini lesson in such a short amount of time. I found two websites with some excellent definitions of POV for the students - Learner Org and Blue Gill. On the Learner Org site, there was a story called "A Jury of her Peers" to use when discussing POV. I had the class read about three pages of the story. I read the whole thing but didn't really feel that the POV was clear enough for them to grasp.

So I found this onlne version of The Three Little Pigs and read to the class. Then we talked about POV and did some fun rewriting of the story. So we took the writing time in class and rewrote the story from the wolf's POV in first person. The kids had a ball doing this. We shared a few beginnings and then Wednesday, shared a few more. The kids were supposed to finish their stories and post on the wikispaces pages we have for the class, but I've not checked them yet. Just haven't really had much time.

I will try to do better and update how the use of the book is going in conjunction with the writing time in class, so Ms. Carol will know where we are in the book. LOL. I think the book will work well, once Mr. Hughes gets the kinks worked out and can settle down into a routine. I know in the fall, we will probably go full force, since we will have most of the lessons down to where he needs to be teaching them, what's working and what isn't. I wouldn't mind doing a few more lessons for the class - that was fun for me. So maybe in the fall, I will get to do some. See you all in the postings.

Vote today!

Only two weeks left to vote. Voting closes on February 28. Click the title of this posting for the list of book trailers on the Books in Sync site and cast your vote for the video you like best. The JGDS book trailer that Mr. Hughes worked on so diligently is #11. Remember tell all your friends and pop over to check out the videos listed this go round. Mrs. E & the JGDS

Virtual Class Tours - the wave of the future

It seems now that I have been doing my class visits, the trend is for everyone to do them. Elizabeth Dulembo set up a class visit in December using two computers and tech stuff at the school - for more on her setup, you can check out her blog here. Now someone in Canada has been inspired and has blogged about his experience here.

I started a trend but not as extensive as these two. One of these days, maybe I'll have a setup like this and will be able to charge for virutal class visits, but for now, Mr. Hughes' class gets me on a weekly basis as needed to help out during the writing workshop program class and as needed for other writing related projects for free.

See you all in the postings - E :)

Travel the states wind down

Back home again and it has been a whirlwind week. We started our travels to the Book Roast Blog (and I think that the "owners" of that blog are in different states so I really can't say where we started). We saw about 200 visitors on a Saturday, which according to Chris E. they hadn't done a roast on Saturday before so for being the first one, to me that's a big success. The comments left were great, as we learned about a few of the states and who knows, some of that trivia may show up in the book about that state.

Sunday we took a break. Monday we went to Montana and visited with Rena. She was such a delight with her questions. Being a homeschool mom, I think Rena's site see lots of visitors too. Speaking of which, the winner from her blog has not contacted me and I will need to pick another winner.

Tuesday saw us in New York with Donna McDine and an article about what inspired me to write the series. Since it was also inauguration day and most folks weren't visiting blogs because they were watching history unfold before their very eyes, many thinking they would never see the day when an African-American would be President, but it happened. The festivities of the day made it difficult to concentrate on the everyday things, like work. Since Donna had so few commenters, we waited until Wednesday to do her drawing.

Wednesday brought us to South Carolina not far from home with a visit on Katie Hines' blog. The interview was good and we had a blast. As Katie's blog is still new and she's feeling her way in blogger land, the visitors were probably not as many as we could hope for but I think overall it was a great day.

Thursday, well what can I say. We went to Texas to visit with Holly and she saw 110 page loads, with 56 visitors and 47 of those being first time visitors. Only 9 of us were return visitors. All in all a good visit and a good day.

Friday we traveled up to the cold northwest and visited with Suzy (Susan Marlow) who looks like a kid. I've seen pictures of this woman and she looks very young but she has grandchildren, so I know she isn't a kid. Suzy did a wonderful review of State of Wilderness. Not sure how many visitors she had but with her also being in the homeschool field, I can imagine many stopped by and read but didn't comment.

Saturday we went to Utah and visited with Mr. Hughes. It was a weird day. I knew he was in class but wasn't sure how long he'd be gone during the day and I knew I would be gone for the morning and part of the afternoon for a live book signing. When I returned about 5 pm (Eastern time), there had been no comments left the whole day other than the one I left before leaving to let the readers know I would return and get back to them as soon as I did. A few trickled in and when Mr. Hughes returned he posted a comment and called his sister to get on there and post (as she had told him she would). Since I had so few comments on his blog, I decided to make each of the posters a winner. I was tired and didn't really have anyone to pick numbers for me, so I said - all of them would be winners.

As stated, we also had a live book signing on Saturday. I think even though there was only one sale, the signing was a success in that I had two teachers or retired teachers and a mother whose son's teacher has been looking for things to supplement the after school program come to the tables and show some interest and a chance to get in the schools. The retired teacher has seven grandchildren and took my postcard and said she would definitely contact me with an order. She just didn't have any money at the time. Katie joined me for the book signing and it made the time go by quicker. After packing up, we went to lunch and had a great time. Her husband, Bill, thought of some ways to make my board (which I put together Friday night at like 1 AM) better and stand out. So he's going to create me another board that can be used to try to attract more visitors and hopefully gain more sales. So another good thing which will benefit me in the long run.

Today will be a quiet day due to the fact that I have over 100 jobs waiting for me and I will be concentrating on getting them out as much as possible today. I will stop by throughout the day to comment back to my posters but don't panic if I don't show up immediately. I will be here.


If you'd like to see the postings that occurred around the states this week, scroll down to the posting - Travel the States posting that has the schedule. Everyone is linked and all the posts are still available for viewing. Come on out and leave your comments and I'll still do a drawing from my blog tonight. So leave a message and who knows, you may be the winner on this last day of the Travel the States virtual book tour.

Remember to preview your posting so you can mark the email when new comments are made box so that you will receive notiication of the winner and everyone who comments.

If you have already won a prize on another stop this week, you will not be eligible for today's drawing but your comments are welcome. See you all in the postings - E :)

Last official stop on the Travel the States tour

Today is the last stop and it's a good one. I'm the guest on Mr. Hughes' blog. He has a delightful write up about me and helping in the classroom via the internet. I love it when the enthusiasm of a teacher comes through and they really enjoy what they are doing.

I'm off to a live book signing today and will be back to check comments afterwards. Remember leave your email addy in the comment to be eligible for the drawing.


And just to tease you all a bit, Aidana has finished the cover for book #3 and so I thought today would be a good time to unveil the next book in the series. Hope you all enjoy it. I really like #3, don't know why but it is my fav so far, even though I really like her Sacajawea drawing a lot on book #1.

Travel the States book tour

Hope you all have been following the tour schedule below. I'm having fun. Stop over at Holly Jahangiri's blog today and see what she's cooked up for the JGDS in Texas. Don't be shy. Remember all comments are entered in the drawing for some prizes. (Don't forget to leave a valid email addy in the comment to be contacted if you win) Come on over, we'd love to have you visit for a bit. See you in the postings - E :)


The JGDS is traveling around the states to promote State of Wilderness and State of Quarries (hopefully with a release date in January). Follow us and see where the adventure takes you next.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 17
Book Roast blog


MONDAY, JANUARY 19 - Visiting Montana on Martin Luther King, Jr's Day
Rena's multiply site
Rena's blog A cross posting where comments will be used for the drawing


TUESDAY, JANUARY 20 - Visiting New York
Donna McDine


WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21 - Visiting South Carolina
Katie Hines


THURSDAY, JANUARY 22 - Visiting Texas
Holly Jahangiri (Holly will also issue a challenge for commenters to leave an interesting, fun, or wacky fact about the state in which they live)


FRIDAY, JANUARY 23 - Up to Washington state
Susan Marlow


SATURDAY, JANUARY 24 - and down into Utah
John Hughes


SUNDAY, JANUARY 25 - Wrapping it up in South Carolina and Tennessee
Elysabeth Eldering and Aidana WillowRaven



There will be prizes offered for each stop. I'll be giving away USA map puzzles and a few state related items. The following are the rules to giveaway:

Rules for drawing:
1. Each person who leaves a comment and a valid email address in the comment will go into the drawing.
2. Only one entry per stop. If you leave several comments on the same stop, your name will only go in once.

A valid email must be left within the comment or the person is ineligible. I need a way to contact the winners so I can get mailing address to send their prizes. Winners will be announced in the comments section the next morning first thing.

So come follow us and see what we are up to. - the JGDS

Mini update

State of Quarries is now at the editors (my friends Lana and Batya) and should be completed when I return from my trip (see below). Once I get it back, I make my revisions and send it on to Vivian for her editing.

Class visit happened today after a long absence (a week). Mr. Hughes' class had "fall break" last weekend - Thursday and Friday and then his wife's grandmother passed away and they had to make a trip out of town to go to the funeral, so no class time Monday and Tuesday. It was a good visit. We are starting on dialogue and the kids seem to be picking it up for the most part.


The SCWW writer's conference is this weekend and I will have limited or no internet access so won't be able to do any updating until after the conference Sunday night.

Remember that Vivian's Midnight Hours tour starts Sunday. See my other blog for details on that.

You all have an enjoyable weekend. See you next week.

Where did the time go?

Ten days and I've not posted anything on this blog. I haven't even posted any more challenges from the class visit. I will post the rest of the Harris Burdick pictures shortly and let you readers write leads to them as we did in class. We have been moving on since the kids have another challenge from me to write a short story like a mini contest. Mr. Hughes is working on dialogue and a few other things to do with writing a story from start to finish. I won't be in class but one time this week due to a family emergency on Mr. Hughes' side and my going to the SCWW writer's conference at Myrtle Beach. I'm so looking forward to this. I get to have fun.

State of Quarries update: Six more clues and a few interactions to put in and the story will be finished. It will be with Lana and Batya before I leave for the beach and hopefully upon returning they will have sent me suggestions/corrections to make and then I can fix them and get it to Vivian. I probably won't have internet connection or if I do, won't be very much, so won't be able to do any updates during the time I am gone. I will, however, have all my research with me to start working on State #3 - so hopefully most of the clues will be decided upon by the end of the weekend.

Will get Harris Burdick pictures posted before I leave and then no updates until I return from the conference. See you all then - E :)

Virtual Classroom visit Day 3

Yep, I was in class again today. We got two pictures done and two more leads for stories done. I found the second one much harder to do. So if you would like to take the challenge (3 minutes writing time on the first one and 1 minute writing on the second), then please share with us what you come up with. The first picture is a bit freaky but it does have a lot of possibilities. The kids had some humerous things and some not so humerous but I think they are doing well considering they are learning about writing stories.

Lead #3 (I didn't get to participate in Lead #1, which is action and the one yesterday was starting with dialogue that we did yesterday) Setting and Time - this is the more traditional way to start stories and might be the easier for a good many writers. For me, it was a tough challenge because I tend to lean toward action and dialogue for starting off my stories (or so it seems). Here is the caption from the picture:

JUST DESERT

______________

She lowered the knife and

it grew even brighter.





REMEMBER YOU ONLY ARE GIVEN 3 MINUTES TO WRITE A START TO THE STORY: Here is my start:


Jennifer's knife glowed brightly on that eerie Halloween night. She needed to get the pumpkin pie made but the lights had gone out and the only glow was from her knife. She will never forget the feel of the knife in her hand as it glowed hotter and brighter.

The closer to the pumpkin the knife came the brighter it glowed. The blackout allowed the glow to be the only light seen for many blocks.

How had she gotten this magical knife?



Lead #4: The one sentence wonder. This takes longer and more thought to come up with a sentence to start a story. The caption above the picture was as follows:

CAPTAIN TORY

_______________

He swung his lantern three times and slowly the schooner appeared.





My starter: Not very good by any means but this was tougher (1 minute to come up with this)

Jason looked out in the fog and jumped when he saw what appeared out of nowhere only to be stopped by the firm grip of the old man.



Share what you come up with. Keep checking back for the classroom visits and what we are doing. Don't forget next Friday is the Trockle Trick-or-Treat tour stop on this blog. We have been preparing for your creativity by giving you a few simple challenges here but next one will be a fun writing exercise for you - E :) and the JGD Squad