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How once woman went from being a SAHM of four to a published freelance science journalist |
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I'm revising this intro after more than 15 years to better reflect my intention When I started this blog in 2004, I was a stay at home mom to two small children, a college graduate with a degree in English and Astrophysics. By 2007, I had four small children, ages newborn, 2, 4, and 6. For several years, Writing.com was how I kept my sanity. This blog began, first as a way of staying connected. Later, when I worked on a novel, I used it to stoke the writing fires as I plotted out short stories and the next step of my novel. Ultimately, I moved my writing preparation to "Invalid Item"  In 2010, I became a single mom who had homeschooled her children for several years. I had a 2, 4, 6 and 8 year old and had never had a "real" full time job, since I was married while in college. Everyone told me that I would have to buckle down and take on a "real" job. Instead, I decided to attempt to live my dream: to make it as a writer. I knew that if I didn't try then, I would never really dive in. I counted my money and set a deadline. If I hadn't began making a decent (defined) amount of money after so many months, I would suck it up and get a J-O-B. After some thought, I decided to play to my strengths. I served an internship at Sky & Telescope magazine while in college and enjoyed writing about space and astronomy. With an astrophysics degree, I thought I would be able to sell myself more easily, and a small niche should be easier to penetrate. It's been about ten years since I was first paid for an article on Space.com. In that time, writing - journalism - has been my primary moneymaker. I've often thought about setting up a blog on my website - www.astrowriter.com - but just haven't gotten around to it. There are a few things I would like to share for those who are interested in scientific journalism in general. Now that I'm back on WDC, there's no reason not to combine the two and use the site blog for that sort of interaction. There are certainly plenty of folks on this site interested in the publication process. So while I'll probably meander around some, that's the intention of of this blog: to share some of my struggles as a published journalist and to help answer oft-asked questions. |
| Yesterday, I kept my posted vow and made a schedule for January. And then...last night, I was up until almost four in the morning (and I had to get up early for church today, mind you), laying in bed, thinking. I'm glad for what I thought of, but I would have preferred to have received it in dream form. Maybe. Maybe not. So, Santa brought my 7 year old a circuit kit this year. She has had so much fun already snapping various pieces into place and creating circuits that light up light bulbs, or make music. She has had almost as much fun as I have!  I've really been having a blast. But, as I played, I realized that the kit just didn't contain as much information as I would have preferred on how the individual circuits worked.My plot, therefore, is to convince a toy company that a book on electricity is a viable option. The company is small, and produces only electricity sets and replacement parts. My thought is that they could provide a supplement to their manual that would give more in-depth understanding to folks using the kit. It would pace each experiment, explain it, and provide the mathematical equation for why the circuit worked. And, since I was a Creative Writing/Astrophysics major who took several courses and labs on electricity and electromagnetism in college, and who has experience translating scientific journals into everyday language, guess who I think should write the books? Of course, it has been a few years since I have participated in the aforementioned labs, so I am going to have to do some brush-up work on electricity and circuits. Which is fine, because it keeps bugging me and I really want to know exactly how and why each circuit built works. (Side note: yesterday, I took an experiment that created a flashing light bulb and modified it so that I could make the bulb flash, then spent some time on my light-egraph [you know, like a telegraph?] machine; very fun! Such a nerd.) The manual itself is very simplistic in its descriptions of what is happening, since the kit ranges from ages 8 and up. At this point, my daughter is still wowed by the fact that she built something that made a fan turn 'round, but I think older kids and adults would benefit from a single-source explanation. The challenge: I am writing a toy company about publishing books (there are five or six kits out already). The advantage: how many other people do you think are trying to convince this company to publish their book? I don't have to worry so much about competition as I do about selling them on the idea. As Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad author) said, a book is a very inexpensive marketing tool. That is another selling point for it. So, since this has greater publishing potential (remember, six kits, with more likely to emerge), I am going to bump it to the forefront. I'll probably spend two weeks reviewing the basics of electricity - enough to write a handful of sample sections and the introduction - and then write the specifics for the company. Since I'm all about maximizing time, I am also going to figure out a good way to pull a chapter book on electricity out of it. Probably a book that has more to do with circuits than electricity. Next week, I'm going to continue to work on my Eratosthenes book - I have to make sure the experiment I created is clear for 2nd and 3rd graders - while reviewing electricity and circuits. I can do a lot online. Then, either the week of the 11th or the week of the 19th (the 19th is my son's birthday, have to factor that in), I will start writing and polishing my query letter and my sample sections. The query letter is going to be more difficult than usual, only because it won't have the format of a standard query letter most writers use. Somewhere in that two week period, I'll also write out my chapter book on electricity/circuits. And then, for the last week of January, I'll work on my WW novel. I realized that I skimmed too quickly over a section that needs elaboration, so that will be my next target. But for now, everyone's favorite - nap time! |
| Okay, I did it! I packaged the first five pages (per publisher's request) of my first chapter book, along with a query letter, and mailed it to Arthur Levine publishing company. They are a subsidiary of Scholastic books. Now, the down side is that it is a large publishing house, but the upside is that they quote their response time in Writer's Market as 2 weeks to one month. A fast rejection LOL. Oh wait, I'm being positive, so what I really mean is, a fast response, right? Plus, I picked up on the idea some time back that you should use a personalized (wouldn't that be great!) rejection as an 'in' for another submission. Which means, if I get someone's name signed on the response - especially if it is encouraging, even if 'encouraging' = 'please try again later', as opposed to that great rejection email I got that I posted a few years ago [I'll dig through and find it if anyone needs something to make them feel better about their rejections, LOL] - then I will address subsequent submissions to that person, which slightly improves the chances of it being read and responded to, rather than a bland slush pile submission. Ugh. It was actually kind of difficult for me to package it up, I don't know why. I mean, I just printed it out and put it in the envelope, but it was still too nerve wracking to be fun. The nice thing about an internet book business is that I already have it set up to print exact postage at home, so I could just weigh, print, and mail it from home. But anyway, I will be working on my next story - Eratoshenes, I hate spelling that name - which I actually have a rough draft already finished of. I just need to see how difficult it is to do the experiment I have at the end of the book. Okay, I have to go, dh is taking a nap with my 3-almost-4 year old, and the keyboard tapping is bugging them. I'm going to work on my story so that it is closer to ready to go. I'm also going to plan out a couple chapter book ideas for the upcoming month; I have a few in my head. One last thing: the whole homeschooling thing is an excellent way to spur on the writing juices. I've been working with my DD7's new build-your-own-circuit kit, and it has really encouraged me to explore concepts like electricity and circuits, which leads to some great book ideas (in fact, one just hit me now: what if I approached the company about writing several books for each kit on the 'why' it works?). The same with my recent research into James Madison, the president; I think we are sorely lacking in kid-sized biographies on him, and I would love to remedy that. And I have another great fiction idea floating, as well. Anyway, I have some rough ideas, some more challenging and more defined ones, and I'm going to layout what I want to 'assign' myself to write about each week. I don't know if I want to do more than one nonfiction book at a time - lots of research involved there - but I will consider it as the inspiration hits. Mailing off a submission has really encouraged me to work on even more. Once I got over the shake-shake-shake part (I had to keep telling myself it is stupid to be so nervous; understandable but stupid), I felt really jazzed that I was actually doing it. So anyway, enough blogging, time to put some action behind it! |
Kåre Enga in Montana  asked in the comments section what a chapter book is. I thought, hmm, maybe Kare isn't the only one who doesn't know, so I figured I would just elaborate here. Kids who are learning to read hit several stages. They start off with your basic cvc (consonant-vowel-consonant) books, with sentences like "Bob sat." "Jan ran." Next up are the easy readers, usually broken into three levels. These books have anywhere from 50-150 words and grow more and more complex. (That's what my next kids' book will be, an easy reader.) Next on the rung are the chapter books. These are books that are long enough to have chapters, but they aren't as long as a "regular" book. They are sort of step-into-real books type books. Non-chapter books, for instance, would be like "A Mouse and His Motorcycle," "The Secret Garden", "Anamorphs," etc. These are essentially as long as a teen or grownup book. Chapter books have between 70-120 pages, with between 60-80 words on a page. They generally fall between 3rd and 5th grade reading level. "The Magic Tree House" series, or the evil "Junie B. Jones" books are examples of chapter books. (I don't like Junie, but I do like MTH, LOL.) |
| Hard to believe it is a brand new year. I hope you enjoyed the first day thereof! I've been a little slack in my actual writing due to the holidays, but I'm sure you've been slack in your reading, as well. I've also been trying to determine goals, etc, and discussing them with my husband. For instance, we've been working on saving up money to pay off our (stupid) motorhome in one fell swoop, but we are trying to decide now whether that money might be better spent purchasing some real estate (go figure), since prices are so low, and becoming landlords, and using that money to generate some passive income. I've also been trying to get some things sorted out in my head about writing. For instance, I am sort of thinking that one chapter book a month is a little slow in the writing, especially in the first months when I won't have books rejected and have to determine which publisher to approach next. I am seriously considering a goal of a chapter book a week for the first three weeks of the month, with the rest of the month spent on my novel. I have broken down the week so that M/Tues = book writing, W = write query, Thurs = edit story, Fri = edit query, and Sat = any additional polishing, and mail, with the possibility of dropping the piece into the mail no later than first thing Monday morning. I kind of like that idea. At that pace, I should have 36 chapter books (3 x 12) written and in the submission process by the end of next year, and have made significant strides if not completed my novel. In the meantime, the free time I thought suddenly vanished; dh and the kids are on the way home, and I wanted to do some last minute polishing. As a start to the new year, I am dropping "Magnificent Marvin" in the mail tomorrow (Friday), on its way to the publisher. I was going to hedge with "maybe Saturday", but I've already polished it and am ready to go, just need some last minute "oh yeahs." So, no hedging - I will post tomorrow and <gulp> tell you that, for the first time ever, I have sent a book out for submission. Wow, just thinking about it is kind of scary/intimidating!  (we need an e:gulp here, LOL.)Oh, real quick: This is what I am putting as the "about me" part of my query level for the children's chapter books. What do you think - too much, too amaturish, what? I have spent the last four years home schooling my four children, reading an average of sixty children books at varying levels each month, so I have ample experience with studying children's literature and determining what appeals to kids. I wrote numerous news clips for Sky & Telescope magazine, have worked as a paid blogger for Families.com, and written for and edited various newsletters as a moderator on Writing.com, a website for writers. |
| Well, I'm actually having a good Christmas holiday (hope you are/did, too!), but I'm in a funky mood for a bizarre reason. While scanning the descriptions for upcoming Christmas movies on my Tivo, I came across one that sounded a little familiar. So I set the Tivo to record and moved on. I started watching it tonight. Suspicions confirmed. Now, I know that ideas are everywhere, it's the execution that matters, etc, but this 2008 made-for-TV movie bears a great resemblance to one of my stories that I posted online. And that makes me feel sick to my stomach. Seriously sick. I keep trying to do some zen-like thing and remind myself that it is altogether possible it is an original idea, not a stolen one, that mine was a short (abt 2000 words) story and not a screenplay, and so on, but I can't help but be suspicious. I wrote my story back in 2004, and the TV movie just premiered, which gives someone plenty of time to make some changes and film it. Repeat after me. It's just an idea. Probably not stolen. Ideas cannot be stolen. I should start turning my short stories into screenplays. ARGH! |
| I've been really struggling for a little bit about finances. In this staggering economy, we are blessed to have few of the struggles so often featured in the news. A big part of that, of course, came from paying off our debts last year, but we still have the motorhome to go. That thing is a permanent pain in my side. Anyway, I ran some numbers, and if dh works serious time-and-a-half, and is working every other Saturday, then we can have the motorhome paid off by July. Technically, we can use the money in our emergency fund to finish the payoff and be done by May, but I'd really feel more comfortable keeping that money around right now and taking a little longer to get done. As much as I have loved writing - and do love it - it is making it difficult for me to list books. Every minute of free time I have, I would rather spend working on my novel than on listing the piles of books we have stacked in the garage. But I need to list the books - we already paid for them, and they will never leave or earn us money while they are sitting. SO, I am going to put the grownup novel on hold for a little while. I am going to reclaim my schedule so that 90% of my free time (which will mean waking up stinking early at 4 a.m., as if I had the aforementioned paper route) is spent listing books. I will keep working on writing and submitting children's books, and I may spend some of that extra scheduled time on my novel, but I can't commit to it. My goal is actually to have all of the books listed by May. As I said before, that means listing approximately 25 books a day. The books with ISBNs are easier to list than those without, so I should be able to get through more than 25 a day of those. But the ones without ISBNs, which I am saving until the end, take longer. Those will slow me down. Anyway, by May, I should have time to start up my novel again. This stinks. BUT, if I am asking my husband to essentially cut out any "down" time to work time and a half, then I should do the same. The more books I have listed, the more books I will sell, and the sooner I'll be done. Once these are listed, I think I'll wind up focusing more on writing than anything else, but I can leave them listed to sell as it happens. So that's my plan. I'm going to try to get up at 5 a.m. tomorrow. Once we get off the holiday schedule, I'll get up at 4, but for the holidays, I think 5 should be okay. I can work on listing the books piled up in my bedroom and be fine. But I'll need to start making sure I'm in bed, lights out, by 10, which is tough for me. I imagine if I keep getting up at 4 and working through naptime that going to bed at 10 will be much easier, though. |
So I've filed today's word count, which is pretty pathetic, but there you go. I spent probably 45 minutes writing today; it would've been longer but my husband came home after being out of town all week, so I thought I should maybe see him for a few minutes.  I think part of my problem when it comes to writing a novel is pacing. I have been looking over what I have written so far. I have almost 7 full (single-spaced) pages, and the action is already bam-bam-bam, just one after another. What do you do? I don't want to slow it down with needless action, nor do I want page after page of exposition, flashbacks, and history. Perhaps some of that is occasionally needed? I don't know. I mean, everything should be written with a purpose, right? Argh! Maybe I am a better short story writer after all. But I'm still going to finish this one. All of that said, today I asked a friend of mine what she would do if her husband of about 25 years dropped a big secret on her. She said, oh, well, he seems to have handled it pretty well, so as long as he hasn't been keeping any other secrets it should be fine. ??? You wouldn't be angry? I asked, and she said, No. Well, of course, the fact that the main character has this terrible secret is the ENTIRE crux of my novel, so I am really hoping that she is just too nice. I can see that I am going to have to ask a few other people how they would react. Maybe I am just too harsh, mean, and unforgiving, or maybe I just have this idealized expectation of marriage, that you shouldn't have any big, life-altering, identity-crisis secrets. I'm still hoping that my friend is just too nice, though, because she is one of those way-too-sweet-to-be-real people. I'm taking a poll. We'll see how that goes. I'm almost afraid to ask, though, because what if everyone says, oh, well, I guess that would be okay. No, I wouldn't feel lied to, betrayed, or like I couldn't trust him. I don't know if I could keep writing a story that has that as its underlying motivation. Maybe I just need to get to know a worse class of people. <eyeroll> |
| Well, as you can see, I changed the top format of my blog so that I am more accountable for my goals. Now you guys can pick on me if I miss them. I've been spending part of my free time (where I can find it) researching children's markets. It's actually really fun, because as part of my market research, I am requesting books from the library for my kids that I think are about the right genre, and that are books that I think my kids would enjoy. I may just have to start lurking around the webpages of children's publishers for fun as well as profit! (Just what I need!) Anyway, I have one query letter written for my first children's book; I need to print it out and review it, tighten it up, and then I plan to put it in the mail before the new year. I should have the comparative books in hand at that point. I actually mentioned in my query letter that it is similar in length and range to xyz book, but I want to read a couple of xyz books to be certain. But the big news is that, today, during nap time, once my 3 yo was asleep, I got up and plunked out three pages of my novel today. Yes, I know, three pages is pathetic, but then my brother called about Christmas presents, and I remembered that I hadn't gone through the fifteen packages we've ordered from Amazon to be sure my mom's wasn't already here (it needs to be mailed), so I got distracted. And I'm going to wake the kids up early today so we can go see Santa. I did about an hour of brainstorming yesterday, and I think that I have most of the kinks worked out. I also did some pondering after reading a discussion board over on Goodreads. I just finished Chaim Potok's novel The Promise, which, like The Chosen, is very thought-provoking. It would be nice to write such a profound and amazing first novel, but I think I'm going to have to be content to write more of a fluff novel. But I think I'm okay with that. There still seems to be some element missing in my novel that I just can't pinpoint. But I decided yesterday to just write the stupid thing, and go from there. It feels a little flat; you know how sometimes you read a book and think, well, that was good, but a little flat, and you can't figure out why? I have a feeling my novel is going to be one of "those" books. I'm hoping that either a) it rounds itself out in the actual writing, or b) I figure out the problem so I can fix it. I think part of it may be that I am just focusing, in my pondering, on the main character's perspective, although I intend to include more depth from the minor characters. I think that may fix the problem, but I'm not quite sure. But, the point is, I am writing. It is going to be insanely difficult to continue over the holidays, but I feel as though I have the story as chronologically determined as it is going to get. I don't want to continue to procrastinate it. We'll see how it goes. I am hoping to put more into it than 1500 words a day, but I'm not even sure if that is possible, since I am cutting out an hour to go see Santa, but that hour really should have been spent listing books (which I am losing momentum for). We'll see. One of my goals this year is to get all of these stupid books listed by June, which is something like 500 books a month, which is going to be really difficult in an hour a day. But we'll see how it goes. But I'm writing, really writing, and it feels great. I forgot just how great it feels. Sad, isn't it? |
| Went to bed last night with this problem for my (grup) novel on my mind. I woke up today with a clear idea of how to solve it. I'm not sure it gets it all the way there, but it brings it very close. It is becoming obvious to me that I should give up on everything but eating, sleeping, and writing... Okay, I'm kidding, but if my sole and primary goal was to be a published author, it looks like that oughta be my schedule. If only my primary goals didn't involve being a mom, LOL, I'd be set. But seriously, it's kind of cool how well the random nighttime (or naptime) firings are helping me with the writer's block. Of course, it could well be because all of my novel ideas come to me in dreams, anyway. I'm probably going to wind up stumped by an insurmountable problem now...at least I'll know who to complain to!  |
| I had a sudden realization that I never signed up for the free year online when I purchased the 2007 Writer's Market. I tried to, but had some weird computer glitch, and then we moved into the motorhome. So I used the code, and now I've got Writer's Market online! Woohoo! I made up a list of four or five publishers that I think will work, so far (I only have four more pages of children's publishers to sort through, LOL). I'm going to take a peek at several of their books and go from there. I'm also going to consider the LDS market, which is on the first page. I'd like to send something in that direction, but that is a fairly narrow market, so if I can't break in with the two or three publishers in that direction, I have no other option than to self-publish. Been thinking about the self-publishing option after Kåre Enga in Montana 's comment. I'd prefer a more traditional route, but I'll go where I have to go, LOL. Of course, if I self-publish an LDS book, the best market for that would be out west. I could travel around Utah and Idaho in my motorhome, maybe visit with my friends who are in the process of moving to New Mexico. I don't think I could take touring in the motorhome, especially since dh couldn't come with me. It would have to be me and the kids, and some teen/youth hired to help with the kids. And if I didn't want to travel in the summertime, I'd have to find a teen/youth homeschooler. And, oh yeah, I would have to drive the motorhome, which will never happen. Death first! |
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