Social Anxiety

If you know me, you’re probably aware that I’m a little shy around people I don’t know. I try to avoid situations that involve large groups of unknown people. In fact, joining in a group conversation with people I know is even daunting for me. Yet somehow I just picked a new career that seems to require numerous interactions with groups of people I’ve never met.

At the beginning of the month I attended an SCBWI holiday party. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that I was putting myself into another of these group situations that I dislike until I was walking into the party. Then I had this thought of, “Oh crap! What am I doing here?” So I calmly advised myself to get a drink. Then at least I’d have something to hold on to.

As I was turning away from the refreshment table, I glanced at the nametag of the woman standing next to me. I realized that she’s part of the second critique group that I joined but hadn’t met with yet. I very awkwardly said something like, “I think I know you. I mean, I think you’re in my critique group. Or rather, I’m in your critique group.” Wow. I must have really impressed her with my smooth conversational style. Thankfully she is very nice and spent some time talking to me.

I was somewhat comforted to discover that I was not the most awkward person in the room. People always talk about how socially inept engineers are, but it turns out that some writers rival them. I suppose part of it may be the nature of the situations where writers meet: large conferences/meetings/parties/workshops where most of the people have never met before.

Most conversations begin with something like, “Are you a writer, illustrator, or both?” or “What do you write?” Then these questions are followed up with, “Do you have an agent?” or “Are you published?” Sometimes conversation flows smoothly, but not always. At the holiday party I was asked, “What do you like best about writing picture books?” For some reason this completely tongue-tied me. I think part of it was that the guy asking was not able to maintain a normal level of eye contact (i.e. no blinking, intent staring). I also talked to a woman who asked me if I had children. So of course I asked her if she had children. She was like, “NO! Are you kidding me I can’t STAND children.” Hmmm…interesting that she writes children’s books. I guess no matter how awkward and uncomfortable I am, there is probably someone in the room who is in worse shape than me.

What I’m reading: I finished reading Lost in Shangri-la and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Unusual Children. I enjoyed both of them. I also read Divergent by Veronica Roth. It was pretty entertaining, but there were some things that bothered me about the story (perhaps they’ll be explained in the later books). I am almost finished with Call the Midwife. And now I’m reading Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. I found this book in a box of free books on the sidewalk. Who can pass up free books? Not me!

I've Got Fans!

They might all be friends and family, but I’ve got blog fans! It’s so nice to have an *adoring* audience, even if it’s small. Everyone starts somewhere, right? Check out this amazing birthday present I got from an awesome friend!

Yes! My blog is immortalized on a shirt!

My critique group met again this week and I was excited to learn that they all thought I’d done a good job with my revisions. I think the consensus is that my story is getting pretty close to submission ready. Now I just have to learn to write an amazing query letter to go with it.

I’ve been reading up on writing effective query letters and it turns out they’re a little different than I was imagining. The first part of the letter really reads like a book jacket—it makes you want to read the book. I spent hours yesterday reading a blog called Query Shark. The author of the blog is an agent who accepts submissions of query letters for critique. As a reader, you get to see her suggestions for improvements as well as how the suggestions were incorporated (or not) into revisions. She’s super-direct and often pretty funny in her commentary.

I’m still having some trouble figuring out how to deal with writing a query for a picture book. Most of the information I’ve come across deals with novels. So a query for a novel might include three paragraphs about the story. This of course doesn’t make sense for a picture book since it’s so much shorter. It seems like it’s going to be really hard to tell enough, but not too much. I definitely have my work cut out for me.I finally subbed at the school down the street for me. The people at this school are so nice! The secretary actually walked me to the classroom and then introduced me to a few teachers. Then the principal stopped by the classroom to introduce herself and welcome me. The kids were really nice too and a lot of them came to me at the end of the day to thank me for being their sub. It was very sweet.

What I’m Reading: Call the Midwife is getting better. I think, but I’m not sure, that the author’s writing has improved since the beginning of the book. Lost in Shangri-la is pretty interesting. The author chose to include a lot of information about WWII that doesn’t relate directly to the story he’s telling, but I think it really adds to the book. I started reading Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, a young adult novel by Ransom Riggs, based on a recommendation from a friend. It is quite an unusual book both in story and format. It has all these photos that go along with the story (Yes! A picture book for teens!). Anyway, I’m really enjoying it so far.

Writing Is Hard

Today is a “writing is hard” day. Some days are “writing is easy” days. I learned this concept from an insightful friend regarding running, but I find that it applies to many things. A “writing is hard day” usually involves staring blankly at the computer screen. It can involve skimming through manuscripts and assuring yourself there’s nothing you can do to make them better. It often involves getting up to walk around and then sitting back down with determination. Or it could involve online shopping for Christmas presents. And blogging, ironically, frequently occurs on “writing is hard” days. Between having some “writing is hard” days and being sick, I haven’t written a lot in the last few weeks.

I do not recommend getting up at 5 a.m. and driving from Oakland to Long Beach on Thanksgiving Day while sick. It sucks. Especially when the weather goes from lovely Bay Area fall temperatures in the 60s to 90 degrees during the course of the drive. I actually had to change into shorts in the car. So gross. But the excellent food and company did kind of make up for it. By the way, if you’ve never had turkey AND beef for Thanksgiving, I highly encourage you to try it. This meat combo caused me to sing that Meghan Trainor song with some substitutions: “Because you know I’m all about that beef, ‘bout that beef, no turkey”. The humor was lost on my boyfriend, who had never heard the song before. No one appreciates me around here.

After living in Pasadena last year when it just didn’t rain, I’ve been delighted with the amount of precipitation in Oakland. I’ve been putting my rain boots and umbrella to good use and thinking that rain is glorious. However, while it was dumping rain yesterday morning, I happened to look out at our balcony. It looked like a swimming pool. The water level kept rising until it was almost level with the sliding glass door. I realized that the balcony must have a drain and I wondered if it was clogged. So I put on my rain boots and stepped into the pool. The water was almost ankle deep. And I discovered that the drain was indeed clogged with leaves. I cleared the leaves with my hands and watched the pool get sucked down the drain, gurgling as it went. I felt super-heroic. It’s a good thing I didn’t sub yesterday or our apartment would have flooded.

What I’m reading: I finished How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. It was OK, but kind of frustrating mostly because it ended suddenly. I read Bossy Pants by Tina Fey. It was interesting and entertaining, but I was disappointed that it wasn’t funnier. I started reading non-fiction book called Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff. It’s about a US military plane that crashes in New Guinea during WWII. It’s pretty good so far. And I’m still reading Call the Midwife.