I had so much fun doing this interview! It goes live at 7pm EST tonight, but can the archive can be listened to anytime at wrspradio.com

Hi! We have been working to transition all of our sites away from GoDaddy to Host Gator. I finished last night and am pretty happy with the new theme I found. The only problem: none of the pictures came over with the blog posts 🙁

I honestly don’t think I’m going to have time to go back and reload them all. So, if you see something you’re really intrigued by and there is no picture…email me (at) amandamichellemoon (dot) com and I’ll find the missing pictures for you.

Last Saturday, we went to not one, but two book sales where you paid a certain price per bag, no matter how much you put in it.

Here’s our haul at the first sale:

And the second.

(We also picked up a vintage game of Life at this sale. You can see my instagram here.)

For the last year or three I’ve loved going into antique shops on my Artist Dates. There is just something about them…especially the ones that carry a bunch of random stuff besides clothes and furniture…that I love. There are always a lot of antique books, and, lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of dictionary art.

As I have more time now that the kids are in school, one of the things I’ve been wanting to do is make more art, and, specifically, art using old book pages. I also wanted to start doing Erasure work, but I didn’t have a plan. I called a used bookstore and asked if they had a discard pile like McKay’s does, but they said no. So I went to the sales Saturday hoping, maybe…

What I found was perfect. Besides an old dictionary that I can cut up to my heart’s content, I got this:

How much more perfect could the title be?

My plan is to spend 10-15 min working on this each day. I’m guessing it’ll turn out as a series of flash fiction, but, who knows, maybe I’ll get a story line going and carry it through the whole book.

I started with the dedication page today, to see which pens I could use without them bleeding through.

And then just one paragraph:

I don’t know what the book was originally about. And I don’t know what my new story will be about, other than it’s going to be about a writer.

—–>I wrote this on Saturday<—–

I’m writing this while at Reagan National Airport, waiting for my flight home. I came out here to take pictures for the sequel to Stealing the Ruby Slippers (official title reveal coming soon) and, while only 36 hours long, it has been an intense trip.

First of all, you may think it a bit extravagant that I flew to Washington, DC, to take pictures for my book cover. I will (maybe) write a longer post about this at another time, but, basically, I needed an excellent photo of the ruby slippers, I couldn’t use the one I used for the first book, and I had Southwest credit. So the trip cost significantly less than hiring a photographer out here to take it for me.

But it wasn’t free.

I went back and forth almost everyday this week over whether this was a good investment or if I should be trying to figure out something else for my cover. Ultimately, we decided that it was the best option. So I made the trip.

Yesterday my alarm went off at 4:39 in the morning and I was at the airport at 5:45 for a 6:40 flight. With a connection in St. Louis, I got in just before noon, caught a shuttle immediately and was able to check in to my hotel. Getting to the Smithsonian was also super easy. Things were going great. Until I came around the corner and saw this:

Yep. Those are the original Ruby Slippers, but…seriously…could the light be worse?

I tried not to be too discouraged, pulled out my camera, and started shooting.

It. Was. Horrible.

Dark. Blurry. Entirely unusable.

I switched lenses.

Worse.

I Googled “Low light photography” and emailed my photographer brother-in-law. They both tried, but neither could give me much— I needed a tripod and an external flash, both of which were prohibited by the museum.

I sat down and almost cried. I was tired, hungry, and way too hot (it was insane this weekend.) I found a place to have lunch and got some coffee, then went back to the museum.

I played with the setting on my camera and the flash until I started to get some I thought might work. I took about 100 pictures (always stopping and getting out of the way when other people wanted time with the shoes), then packed up. I wasn’t getting anything different, and until I looked on my computer, I wouldn’t know what I had. I looked up nearby art galleries and walked over to the National Gallery of Art.

Here’s the thing about the museums in the Capital area of DC: they’re all free. Seriously. Free. And NGA was showing some Van Gogh’s. (I love him.) While looking for the little room housing his stuff, I had to pass through a room full of Monet’s and Renoirs. I mean…wow.

When I got to the Van Gogh room, this was the first one I saw.

His work…it’s…wow. I can’t even. I took pictures of everything, but if I post them all here it’ll take fifteen years for this blog to load. Just look at the museum’s website.

I took pictures and realized my iPhone was doing much better with the indoor light than the nice camera was, so I got the idea that maybe I needed to try my iPhone on the Ruby Slippers. On my way out, though, I stumbled on to this room.

The panorama only let me catch three walls. There was another. They were all Monet’s. (Link to the museum’s list of his pictures). I stood there for I don’t know how long, in awe.

Then I went back to the Smithsonian. The iPhone didn’t work on the shoes— the glass case made it too hard to see.

I went back to my hotel and downloaded the photos I had. Not terrible. I even did a mock up. But the focus was slightly off. (Through the view finder it was so dark I literally couldn’t see what I was focusing on.)

So this morning, I got up, packed and dropped my suitcase with the hotel staff, then was at the museum when it opened. I took 48 pictures of the shoes in 5 min. This time, I had my laptop with me, so I downloaded them right away.

Still didn’t get what I needed.

I took 46 more. Downloaded. Still not quite there.

Third time’s a charm…One last try…Whatever cliche is your favorite…

There was only one angle that was working at all, so I told myself this was the last shot. One more round and then I would just figure out how to use what I had.

I shot 39 more photos, then sat down to download them.

And…

I got exactly what I wanted.

In focus.

I packed up just sat there with tears running down my face (I’m not even sure if I was crying, it was so hot my face was melting off all morning.) But just knowing this trip wasn’t a waste…

You see, lately I’ve struggled with whether me pursing writing full time is too selfish. I am not taking MFA classes this semester. Both of the kids are in school, so it’s not like I’m doing anything contributing to the family during the day. Financially, we’re okay. Chris works incredibly hard and is is incredibly supportive. And it’s better for him knowing that he doesn’t have to worry about scheduling his days around the kids’ schedules. But still…I feel like I should be doing more.

I’ve tried to make up for it by working hard. I am slated to release two books a year (no more in this series, FYI) for the next two years. I know writing is a marathon, not a sprint. The more I write the better chance I have of making a living at it. I know all these things, and, still, it’s hard.

But this weekend I came and got a photo to use for my cover that I own and can do whatever I want with for less than it would have cost me to license someone else’s art. The investment was worth it. It was a small thing, but it was a reinforcement that this investment that Chris and I are making in my career is worth it too.

I left the museum and went to Dupont Circle for some bookstore browsing. Kramer’s is ranked as one of the best indie bookstores in the country. I got there and realized I’d been there before, the last time I was in DC. It was May of 2010 and Nashville was flooding.

I looked around for a while, didn’t find anything, then went to Books for America. On the way there, I passed Gandhi.

Books for America is ranked among the best bookstores in DC and…wow. Immediately I walked in and found a comic book for Austin. Then I found some stuff for Lily and another book for Austin. And four for myself. I spent a total of $26. On my way back to the subway I found another store– Second Story Books— and detoured.

Here, I picked up Big Little Lieshard cover, for $2 more than the Kindle version. The owner recommended Luna Grill for a good burger, (and it had this amazing mural).

While at lunch I found that Chocolate Chocolate was on my way back to the subway. The two owners were there, and absolutely wonderful. Now I want to read their book. As I type I have the truffles waiting in my bag (I’m still full from lunch.) (They were amazing, btw.)

From there it was back to the hotel to pick up my bag, and here to the airport. We’ll board soon, and when I get home, I’ll start designing my cover. Watch out for the big reveal!

I wrote a blog post about goal setting that was featured last Tuesday on Book Junkie. In it, i discuss my goals for the summer and for the rest of the year…and how I think about goal setting in general.

Do you set goals? If so, what are some of yours for the rest of the year? If not, why not?

“But if you’re truly in love with the written word, with being a storyteller- if you are a writer in the very catacombs of your heart, you don’t follow another’s roadmap for your career.

You fucking draw your own.

And you never say die.”

—Joe Hart

So I still haven’t gotten the issues with this blog figured out. If you’re experiencing amazingly slow load times, missing basic things like…I don’t know…pictures in blog posts…I’m really sorry. I think I need to transfer the domain away from GoDaddy and I’m trying to figure that out. But my deadline to finish this draft of the sequel is tomorrow, so I have to focus on that.

I was actually planning on skipping posting at all this week because of the above mentioned issues. Then I came across this blog post from my friend and amazing horror writer Joe Hart. You need to read the whole thing. It’s phenomenal. Rather than try to summarize it in any way, I’m giving you the quote at the beginning of this post and the one at the end. But please click over and read the whole thing. Then check out his new book, Widow Town. I’m excited to dive into it.

---

 

“No writer, NONE, has sat down and created a masterpiece without toiling away, without chipping out the words that sometimes are moored in the subconscious marble. No writer opens a vein and bleeds a great novel onto the page without looking where the hell they’re going.

Guess what writing is?

It’s renewable wonder. It’s perspective. It’s magic and joy and torment and horror and love and pain and driving without headlights down a highway studded with hazards and pitfalls.”

—Joe Hart

So there seems to be something with this website. You may have noticed how amazingly slow it loads. Amazingly. Sorry about that. I also can’t seem to put pictures into blog posts anymore. So, over the next week or so (I’m not sure how long its going to take) I’m going to need to reinstall it. There may be some downtime. Sorry about that. But when it comes back, it should work much better. Thanks for your patience!

I’ve got some wrist problems. I’m kind of surprised I’ve never mentioned them here on the blog, but I just did a search for “arm” and “wrist” and nothing came up. When I was fourteen, I broke my arm snowboarding. I had five surgeries (six, if you count the way the hospital billing department does, the last two were combined into one procedure but we still had to pay for two) over the course of the next fifteen years, and all in all, I’m not in bad shape. I was originally told I would have arthritis by the time I was twenty-five. It really didn’t start bothering me until my late twenties, and only now do I really have an awareness of it most of the time.

My friend Charlotte posted this really good post about the physicality of writing, something that, as a Pilates instructor, used to be much more aware of in other people. (Can I please remove that speck in your eye? Pay no attention to the log sticking out of my own, I see just fine thank you very much.) But, because of my Pilates background, I have really good posture, I work out, and I even have a treadmill desk. I thought I was in good shape.

Then July happened. Lily and Austin went to school at the same time, leaving me four hours each day to write. And write I did! I wrote the whole draft of the upcoming sequel to Stealing the Ruby Slippers (about 250 Word doc pages.) I also finished redrafting Home (another 247 pages).

Yep. I typed almost 500 pages in three weeks.

On a Macbook Air. (Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my computer. But…)

My wrist has not been happy. It was hurting so bad the last week of the month I was back wearing my post-surgery brace, taking large doses of ibuprofen, and using arnica like it was going out of style. It had swollen to the point that I thought the screws in the plate on the outer bone of my arm (the ulna for anyone who cares) had started working their way out. I was freaking out about finding a new orthopedist here in Minneapolis and the cost of having the plate removed, and the time I would spend (six to eight weeks) in a cast.

When I worked a corporate job, I had an ergonomic keyboard to help keep my wrist happy while typing on and off for nine hours a day. It had never occurred to me that I might need to get one for my home office now that I’m writing full-time. I’ve never had more than two concentrated hours before. I went to Best Buy and Amazon and purchased this one, based on its price and reviews. After just a few hours on it my wrist started to feel better.

And then…we went on vacation. I worked as much as I could, which was two mornings at Starbucks. That was it. Otherwise, I barely got my computer out of my bag. Halfway through the week the pain was basically gone.

I spent about an hour on Saturday typing up notes for a project I’m working on, then this morning hit the RS sequel hard. Two and a half straight hours (I had to get up extra early!) By the time I was done, I knew two things: 1) The ergonomic keyboard was a lifesaver & 2) I needed a better one.

The 4000 was entry-level. The keys were large and required me to pound on them, but the deal breaker was the space bar. It was only responsive about half the time. My post-session spell check was 95% missing spaces today. So, I packed the 4000 back up and took the plunge to Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop System.

It’s glorious. I found a review that said the keys were like those of a laptop, and they are. (Apparently that’s called “chiclet.” I had no idea and I love it.) It’s wireless, which is so much nicer than having cords all over my desk. And the mouse is better. Also, it’s on sale at BestBuy.com.

I’m a little sad about no longer having a clean white desk (wait– I know that was the goal, but did it ever actually happen?) but am happy to have something I feel like I’m going to be able to type on for the long haul.

Do you consider ergonomics in your workspace? Why or why not, and what adjustments have you made?

The wonderful Marilyn Almodovar of Writing on the Sunny Side of the Street is hosting Indie Book Month and allowed me to do a guest post. Click here to check it out!

As you may have noticed on the Books page, Stealing the Ruby Slippers is now available in all of the major online retailers. Bookstores and libraries can also order it now, and it *should* be available on Oyster and Scribd soon (if you subscribe to either and want to read it, contact them. I’m not exactly how they decide to put books on the service, I just know that it’s available if they want to add it.)

Doing all of this has me thinking even more about both my own reading list and about bookstores in general. I’m reading The Untold
right now and LOVING it. While in Nashville this week, I visited one of my favorite bookstores. I’m really looking forward to a tour of bookstores in Minneapolis when the kids start school. I’ve visited this one the most, it’s in my neighborhood and next to a great coffee shop. I’ve been here twice and love it, and really want to check out this one and this one.

What are you reading right now? Where do you like to get your books? Are you using any of the subscription services?