Take Care of Yourself - You're All You've Got

Thought for the day:

 “The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”  ~John Steinbeck~

A gift for my writer friends:

 

 Here are a couple of links I think you will find valuable.

A good post on getting tension into your writing: http://kathytemean.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/tension/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WritingAndIllustrating+%28Writing+and+Illustrating%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

On problems seen digging through the slush pile: http://misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/2012/11/bakers-dozen-observations.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MissSnarksFirstVictim+%28Miss+Snark%27s+First+Victim%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

For my fabulous giveaway, the winner is Elizabeth Varadan! (Cue the rabbit to pop out of the magician’s hat!) Congratulations, Elizabeth. I will be sending you a hard-cover copy of The Amazing Harry Kellar. It is a fascinating and beautiful book. Elizabeth is also a writer. Her magical book, The Fourth Wish, is available on Amazon as a paperback or Kindle book. Click the title to be linked to her book. She also blogs. You can read her blog by clicking HERE. There’s always something interesting there to read. I do have another giveaway for today, so stay tuned.

One of my critique partners, JaNay Brown-Wood, and I have been working on a collection of children’s poems for more than a couple of years. We’ve been close to ready to start submitting for quite awhile, but felt it needed just a little more work. It seemed we couldn’t find the time to finish it up and ship it out – until this nice, long holiday weekend. We had a couple of marathon sessions and put it in the mail Saturday afternoon. Wish us luck! I’ve also just finished another draft of my middle-grade and have started submitting it. Fingers crossed. That said, I’m trying to find inspiration for a new project to start. I’ve been feeling kind of wrung out. Maybe there’s nothing left for me to say, I think on some days.

One of the things I’m doing is taking an e-retreat that will at the very least help me stop beating myself up about not having an unending flow of brilliant ideas, but I also believe it will get my creative juices flowing again. You can read about it by clicking HERE.  I think it sounds like a terrific thing to do. If you hurry, you can sign up too.

I also dug out my copy of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. Isn't that a great title? You can open to just about any page and find something inspirational or downright funny or thought-provoking. This is what I turned to:

“You get your confidence and intuition back by trusting yourself, by being militantly on your own side. You need to trust yourself, especially on a first draft, where amid the anxiety and self-doubt, there should be a real sense of your imagination and your memories walking and wool-gathering, tramping the hills, walking all over the place. Trust them. Don’t look at your feet to see if you’re doing it right. Just dance.”

Thank you, Anne Lamott. I’m going for a long walk and try out a few dance steps while I’m at it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Anyway, with the holiday and all that work with JaNay and my crisis of inspiration, I don’t have a new review for this week, but I promised you a book giveaway, so here we go. A while back, I reviewed a middle-grade book called Lone Bean by Chudney Ross for the Sacramento Book Review. Here is what I had to say in that review:

Bean was named for a flower, but it’s a big, long name and no one calls her by that name unless she is in b-i-g BIG trouble. She’s starting third grade and can’t wait, even if her older sisters, Rose and Gardenia, who are m-e-a-n MEAN, have to walk her to school. Bean is excited about her new teacher and seeing her best friend for the first time since summer vacation. But her best friend, Carla, seems to have made a new best friend and Bean is left with no one. While Bean struggles with feeling left out and lonely, she also struggles with her mother working long hours and her father, a music instructor, insisting she take up an instrument. In her effort to have someone to hang out with, Bean spends time with Terrible Tanisha, the local bully, and Bean’s mean side shows. She starts getting in trouble, and she doesn’t seem to know how to get back to normal.

Good writing, but it’s hard to cheer for the protagonist who is bratty, mean, and selfish through much of the story. She finally gets her act together, but it’s a long time coming. Little girls may like it though.

You might win my gently-read ARC of Lone Bean. I will put your name in my proverbial hat. Link this post on your blog or Facebook or Tweet about it, let me know, and your name will be entered twice.

On the book giveaway, this is for U.S. only. Sorry, but it would be too expensive for me to send books out of the country. But please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Remember, if you have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put up a new post. Your information will not be shared with anyone.           

The Amazing Harry Kellar -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author."  ~ G. K. Chesterton ~

A gift for my writer friends:

 Here are a couple of links I think you will find valuable.

Kristen Lamb’s blog is always worth checking out. She is a very funny lady. This post is on Social Media: http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/3-social-media-myths-that-can-cripple-our-author-platform/

Good post on whether to write a stand alone book vs. a series: http://jamigold.com/2012/11/series-vs-stand-alone-what-should-we-work-on-next/

For my fabulous giveaway, the winner is Janet Smart! (Cue the whistling and foot stomping please!) Congratulations, Janet. Please send me your snail mail address at rosihollinbeck (at) yahoo (dot) com. I will be sending you an autographed hard-cover copy of Tony Gold and the Secret Fortune. It is a most interesting read. I have another giveaway for today, so stay tuned.

A couple months ago, I reviewed a wonderful book for the Sacramento Book Review – the fascinating and beautiful book called The Amazing Harry Kellar – Great American Magician by Gail Jarrow. A couple of weeks after I had written and turned in the review, I went to Pennsylvania for a writer’s retreat with editor Carolyn Yoder, put on by the Highlights Foundation. Every retreat includes visiting authors, and while I was there, Gail Jarrow stopped by. She is a lovely and generous person, and she spent an evening with us talking about her writing process and chatting for a couple of hours. Go to her author page by clicking HERE. She has written several wonderful books. Below is my review just as it ran in the Sacramento Book Review. I gave the book five stars, and I wished I had more than five to give.

When children are assigned biographies for their literature classes, this is the one they will all fight for in the library. In fact, children of all ages, from eight to eighty, will love this fascinating story of Harry Kellar, arguably the greatest magician America has ever produced. This is also a story of great perseverance and focus. Harry Kellar was on his own by the time he was eleven years old. After seeing his first magic show, he became fascinated. When Harry found out the magician he had seen – the Fakir of Ava – was running an ad for an assistant, Harry made his way to Buffalo, New York, to apply for the job. He got the job and was on his way. He traveled the world, learning from the best magicians, figuring out or buying the very best illusions and tricks, and learning how to run the business of being a magician. It wasn’t long before he was one of the most famous magicians, not just in America, but in the world.

“In this illusion, Kellar sat on a chair in the middle of the stage. While the audience watched – some horrified – he lifted his head from his body. As his head floated away, it smiled and nodded. Then it disappeared.”

This amazing book is also one of the most beautiful biographies ever printed. Wonderful photographs and the lush posters Harry Kellar created for his shows support the story.

Gail Jarrow

You might win a hard-cover copy of this gorgeous book. I will put your name in my proverbial hat. Link this post on your blog or Facebook or Tweet about it, let me know, and your name will be entered twice.

For more Marvelous Middle Grade Monday books, See Shannon Messenger's blog by clicking HERE.

On the book giveaway, this is for U.S. only. Sorry, but it would be too expensive for me to send books out of the country. But please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Remember, if you have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put up a new post. Your information will not be shared with anyone.           

Strange Problem

Hello Blog Readers,

I had a strange problem with my blog this week. For some reason, no notifications were sent out to my faithful subscribers of my latest post. I have tried everything I can think of to send notification, but to no avail. So now I am making a new post and hope you will receive a notification for this. Please click HERE to see the last post and have a chance at winning a signed hard-cover copy of Toby Gold and the Secret Fortune. I don't want you to miss out on this. See you again soon and thanks for reading.

Rosi Hollinbeck

Toby Gold and the Secret Fortune -- Review and Giveaway

Thought for the day:

“It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.” ~Jack Kerouac~

A gift for my writer friends:

 Here is a link I hope you will find valuable.

For blog writers, it’s important to not post photos that are not in the public domain. Here is a good site to find free photos – http://kathytemean.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/finding-photos/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WritingAndIllustrating+%28Writing+and+Illustrating%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

For my fabulous giveaway, the winner is Pat Kahn! (Cue the trumpets please!) Congratulations, Pat. I will be sending you a copy of All Different Kinds of Free. I’m sure you’ll love it. I have another giveaway for today, so stay tuned.

I was contacted a month or so ago by Craig R. Everett, a writer who teaches finances in the MBA program at Pepperdine University. He wanted to know if I might be willing to read and review his middle-grade novel. He said he had come up with the idea of teaching kids about money, building wealth through saving and investing, and the financial world with an urban/contemporary fantasy novel. It was an unusual premise, so I agreed.   

The book opens on a train with a murder of a young mother by a man with paranormal powers. The woman has left behind a six-month old baby who is swooped up by social services. This is a strange opening for a middle-grade novel, but intriguing.

Toby Gold and the Secret Fortune is a story of thirteen-year-old Toby, a seventh grader in Wallingford, Connecticut. He has just been removed from his ninth foster home and is on his way to his tenth. Toby, an orphan, has no information about his parents. The readers know what’s going on from the first chapter, but Toby has no idea. By the time Toby is in his new foster home, the only constants in his short life have been a caring social worker and two friends he has had since kindergarten – Marc, a computer geek, and Bidge, a super athletic girl Toby is just starting to notice is a girl, and not just a buddy.

Toby’s new foster home is okay. He has a room of his own and his foster parents seem nice, but his foster brother, Eddie, is pretty much like Eddie Haskell on steroids and makes it clear to Toby that Eddie sees his job as one of making Toby’s life a living hell. Since Eddie forces Toby to give up his allowance to Eddie, Toby ends up taking a job as a dog walker. (One of the most fun scenes in the book is how Toby and his two friends get Eddie under control.) Toby has to earn money because he has a plan for financial independence through saving and investing. The people for whom he works are a bit strange, but the readers immediately recognize the man as the killer from the first chapter.

Toby, who is a math whiz but a lazy student and who watches the financial channel like other kids watch the Cartoon Network, discovers that someone is sending him messages encoded in the ticker strip at the bottom of the screen during trading hours. Toby’s special gifts with math allow him to decode the messages, and he discovers whoever is sending the messages knows who his parents are and seems to have big plans for him.

Toby is invited to apply for Choate, a private school in Wallingford. He gets a perfect score on the math section of the entrance exam and is offered a full scholarship. He does have to work a few hours a week in a work-study program to cover his room and board, but is given a special job working for the guy for whom he walks dogs, Jack Leonard. (Remember that killer I mentioned?) Leonard is an investment expert and manages the investments of Choate’s endowment, in excess of $250 million. Toby is given a key to Leonard’s office and is told to read all the files and familiarize himself with the financial files of Choate. What Toby does discover is one piece of paper that doesn’t belong in the file and sends him on a quest.

“Toby felt confused and powerless, and he didn’t like that. Confused and powerless had been the story of his life. Five minutes ago, he had a good job and a bright future for the first time in his life. Now, once again, he was back to confused and powerless.”

When Toby tells Marc about what he has found, Marc does some research and discovers the reports on the account are being sent to a post office box that is in the name of Toby Gold! Toby has no idea about the post box or the account. After he has gone through all the files in Jack Leonard’s office at Choate, he decides he has to go through his files at the Leonard’s home. There he discovers a whole lot of other accounts, all of which lead back to that post office box in his name. The plot thickens. I don’t want to give up too much. You can read it for yourselves.

Kids can learn a lot about saving, investing, and finances by reading this book. There is a lot of mystery and humor, but it will take a fairly sophisticated middle-grade reader to stick with it. There are a few writing problems such as some jarring point of view shifts, but overall it’s well-written and interesting. The mystery is pretty compelling.

When the author contacted me, I asked him to sign the book and promised I would give it away when the review ran, so here is your chance to own a nice autographed hard-cover copy of Toby Gold and the Secret Fortune. Just leave a comment and I’ll put your name in the hat. Blog, link on Facebook, or Tweet a link to my blog and let me know for an extra entry.

On the book giveaway, this is for U.S. only. Sorry, but it would be too expensive for me to send books out of the country. But please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Remember, if you have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put up a new post. Your information will not be shared with anyone.           

Review of All Different Kinds of Free and a Giveaway

Thought for the day: 

 

I have never written anything in one draft, not even a grocery list, although I have heard from friends that this is actually possible.

~Connie Willis~

A gift for my writer friends:

 Here are a couple of links I think you will find valuable.

This is a good time to think about writing scary stories. Even though it’s after Halloween, it’s a good time to write for next year’s Halloween issues. A great blog post about How to Write Scary: http://childrenspublishing.blogspot.com/2012/10/wow-wednesday-gretchen-mcneil-on-how-to.html

           

From Writer’s Digest – 7 Reasons Agents Stop Reading Your First Chapter: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/7-reasons-agents-stop-reading-your-first-chapter?et_mid=587312&rid=3028165

From Writer’s Digest – 10 Hidden Gifts of Rejection Letters: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/10-hidden-gifts-of-rejection-letters?et_mid=587312&rid=3028165

For my fabulous giveaway, the winner is Julia DeGuia! (Cue the tympani and cymbals please!) Congratulations to you, Julia. I will be sending you a copy of Henry Franks. It is a very unusual book, and I know you’ll enjoy it. I have another giveaway for today, so stay tuned. By the way, Julia is also a writer and blogger. You can see her blog by clicking HERE.

As I’ve oft stated, I read a lot of blogs and get a lot of books from other blog writers. Lots of blog writers give books away like I do, and, if I see something interesting, I enter the drawing. A long, long time ago, I won a book on a blog written by Michelle Fayard who is presently on hiatus from blogging. She wrote a wonderful review of the book All Different Kinds of Free by JessicaMcCann. I put the book in my TBR pile and it sank and rose several times before I finally found time to read it. I’m sad it took me so long. It’s quite a wonderful book.

I mentioned last week how much I like historical fiction when it is well-researched and well-written. All Different Kinds of Free is both. The story is based on important happenings in the Antebellum South that laid some of the issues bare that led to the Civil War.

Margaret Morgan was a free woman of color, living in Pennsylvania with her husband and three children, when a bounty hunter named Prigg came to her home to take her and her three children to Maryland, claiming she and her children were the property of a woman whose husband had owned, then freed, Margaret’s parents. Because Margaret had been born free (after her parents were freed), she had no papers to prove she was free. There were good people in her town who helped her, preventing Prigg from taking her, but he came back and got her later. There were court fights and even one action (Prigg vs. Pennsylvania) that went all the way to the Supreme Court, but the real story here is the story of Margaret and what she and her children endure.

“The overseer gallops up on his stallion from the other direction for his weekly inspection. He rides through the gate and heads toward the fields. He looks my way, just for a moment, and fear comes over me like a burlap blanket, all prickly and hot.”

Jessica McCann

The woman who claimed Margaret had run through her money, and her son and daughter-in-law convinced her to go after her “property.” Margaret and her children were taken back to Maryland and sold through auction. Her young daughter was kept with her, but her sons were sold away separately. The agony of losing her freedom and sons and surviving all she has to is horrible and fascinating. 

Margaret was strong, a survivor, and someone the reader will cheer for from the moment she is introduced. I don’t want to tell any more about the story. I just want to encourage you to read it. It is well worth your time.

I hope a lot of teens will read this book, although it is really an adult book. But it gives such a clear and compelling picture of the horrors of slavery that it might well become required reading in high school classes.  

I have a gently-used review copy I am giving away this week. Just leave a comment and I’ll put your name in the hat. Blog, link on Facebook, or Tweet a link to my blog and let me know for an extra entry.

On the book giveaway, this is for U.S. only. Sorry, but it would be too expensive for me to send books out of the country. But please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. Remember, if you have trouble leaving a comment, click on the title of the post and it will give you just this post with a comments section on the bottom. Also, if you haven’t signed up by email, please do. Just look in the upper right-hand corner of this page, pop your email address in, and you will receive an email each time I put up a new post. Your information will not be shared with anyone.