‘Tis the season. Well, some of us have already starting (maybe even finished) shopping. But, there is always room for more gift ideas – especially for WRITERS!

And, because I’m budget-conscious, these are listed by $ categories, The more “$$” the pricier the gift.

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All the buzz…Kindle Who has one? Do you like it? I’m an old-fashioned “love the feeling of manually turning pages” kind of girl, but this device is really piquing my interest. Especially for those who read multiple books at any given time….Cuts down on the bulk if you brings books to the gym or on trips.

Bookcases: What writer has enough space for all their books? I know I could use several more bookcases. Of course we all have our own decorating and organizing style, so don’t leave this purchase to chance. Browse on your own and send Santa a link to your top choices!

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Digital Dictionary: We all need to look up the proper spelling or definition from time to time, or just find that word that perches on the tip of our tongue. Everything’s going electronic – why not Websters, too?

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The Writer’s Toolbox: This little kit is so much fun for projects you are beginning or stuck on. Use the sticks for First Sentence Prompts, Non Sequitur Stick to get your characters or stories moving in a new direction and the Last Straw stick to create a “dramatic arc.” There are several other tools in this toolbox to inspire creativity and get you writing until The End.

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Subscription to the new ezine for mother writers: The Motherhood Muse. If you sign up for the free newsletter now, the first issue of this ezine is FREE. Learn how to reconnect with nature: both Mother Nature and Human Nature, while inspiring your inner muse to write and mother from a natural center. (check out my column: Into the Wild!)

T-shirts and other writer-wear: We can’t just thrust our manuscripts in strangers’ faces, but we can declare our literary greatness by wearing it on our sleeve (or chest, or back!)

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Sketchbooks: for jotting down ideas, character sketches, or taping and stapling scraps of notes you have lying around your desk and in your wallet or purse.

Spiral Notebooks: I like the inexpensive though sturdy Mead Trapper notebooks. They come in cool colors for organizing different writing projects and hold up nicely against the perils of mothering young children.

3×5 Notecards: either ruled or non-ruled, these bad boys get me through my scattered or frenzied plot points and character descriptions. I keep them in my car, purse, notebooks and novels I’m reading – ya never know when inspiration will strike.

Bookmarks: very cool, unique ones found here.  And here. And here.

Gift cards from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders or (my favorite) your local indie bookstore.

For my recc’s from 2008’s gift ideas, click here.

Have any ideas to share – please shout it out!

Fiona Robyn is going to blog her next novel, Thaw, starting on the 1^st of March next year. The novel follows 32 year old Ruth’s diary over three months as she decides whether or not to carry on living.

To help spread the word she’s organising a Blogsplash, where blogs will publish the first page of Ruth’s diary simultaneously (and a link to the blog).

She’s aiming to get 1000 blogs involved – if you’d be interested in joining in, email her at fiona@fionarobyn.com or find out more information here.

Ruth is thirty two years old and doesn’t know if she wants to be thirty three.

Hardback available now for £10.99.  Pre-order the pb from Amazon UK or The Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery) or Snowbooks.

Ruth is thirty two years old and doesn’t know if she wants to be thirty three. Her meticulously-ordered lonely life as a microbiologist is starved of pleasure and devoid of meaning. She decides to give herself three months to decide whether or not to end her life, and we read her daily diary as she struggles to make sense of her past and grapples with the pain of the present. ‘Thaw’ explores what makes any of our lives worth living. Can Red, the eccentric Russian artist Ruth commissions to paint her portrait, find a way to warm her frozen heart?

I am honored today, to welcome Kristin Bair O’Keeffe, author of Thirsty.  I’ve followed Kristin’s writing career through her column in Writers on the Rise. This is a writer definitely on the rise, and this is a book you need to have on your nightstand!

Kristin Bair O’Keeffe’s life is a melding of many cultures. A native Pittsburgher(Go Steelers!) raised with the Croatian traditions of her grandparents, Kristin lives in China with a husband who was raised in Ireland and the Vietnamese daughter.

During their four years in China, Kristin has taught writing, written a blog “My Beautiful Far-flung Life, and attempted to learn Mandarin Chinese(unsuccessfully according to her neighbors). Oh, and written the novel Thirsty. Thirsty started as a graduate thesis and ended after countless drafts. Drafts that, to the dismay of her fellow coffee lovers, she felt the need to read aloud as she edited in a local coffee shop.

If she hadn’t become a writer, Kristin suspects that she would have become a ventriloquist, roadie for Meat Loaf, or time traveler. (And yes, she has read The Time Traveler’s Wife.) Among other things, she would use her time traveling powers to frequently return home and enjoy the magic that is the hoagies at Danny’s Pizza.

Synopsis:

In 1883, Klara Bozic arrives in the New World ready to start a new life with her new husband. She quickly learns that her new life in the Pennsylvania steel town of Thirsty is very much like her old life of beatings, isolation, and poverty. For forty years she endures with the help of a few misfit friends she makes: her fun-loving neighbor Katherine Zupanovic; BenJo, the only black man in Thirsty to have his own shop; and Old Man Rupert, the town drunk. Only when her daughter enters a similar marriage punctuated by pain and terror does Klara resolve to free herself, her daughter, and her granddaughters from this life sentence of brutality and find peace.

Just Thought You Should Know:

According to the CDC, one in four women has experienced domestic violence in her lifetime. The WOW Blog Tour for Thirsty , a novel about one family’s attempt to break the cycle of domestic violence, takes place during the same month as International Day Against Domestic Violence (Nov. 25).

Author’s Websites:

Kristin Bair O’Keeffe’s website: http://www.thirstythenovel.com

Kristin Bair O’Keeffe’s blog: http://www.kristinbairokeeffeblog.com

Thirsty Video Book Trailer: http://www.thirstythenovel.com/audio-video/

Interview by: Mary Jo Campbell

1. Your debut novel, Thirsty, was inspired from a poem you wrote years before. Can you tell us about that process: how did you know there was an entire novel in there?  How did you expand poetry to prose?

I love poetry…reading it and writing it. In 1987 as an undergraduate at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, I wrote and published “Crumbling Steeples,” a poem about how the crash of Pittsburgh’s steel industry affected its steel communities (and in particular, my grandfather). After I wrote it, I thought I was done writing about Pittsburgh and steel. But around the same time, this woman started floating around in my head (the woman who eventually became Klara). I didn’t see her clearly for a number of years, but she was always there, giving me small glimpses of her life and her struggles.

When I started graduate school in 1992, I took a creative nonfiction workshop in which one of our first assignments was to choose a topic to research. Still driven by my experiences as a kid in my grandparents’ steel community—Clairton, Pennsylvania—I chose the steel industry in Pittsburgh. That’s when Klara and the setting of Thirsty began to take shape.

Thirsty is about a woman trying to break the cycle of domestic violence, which has followed her from her childhood, through her marriage and into her adult daughter’s life.  You witnessed domestic violence in your own family and went on to volunteer in domestic abuse shelters. Can you share the emotions you felt while writing this poignant book? How do you hope it will connect with readers?

One of my Google Alerts is “domestic violence,” and every day I get somewhere between fifteen and thirty alerts in my inbox…sometimes more. The stories pour in from all over the world: White Ribbon Day in New Zealand, the domestic violence program in England that will be implemented in schools in 2011, Rihanna and Chris Brown, Oprah’s recent hubbub concerning BeBe Winans, and so many stories of women who are broken, burned, maimed, and killed by their husbands and boyfriends.

This issue touches everyone, and it makes me crazy that we can’t get a handle on it…that hurting women and girls is still an epidemic in our world. There’s a moment in Thirsty after Klara has just given birth to her first child in a field—a girl—and she’s thinking about her husband, pain, motherhood, love, violence, and, well, lots of other things. It echoes my own feelings about domestic violence. It goes like this:

Klara looked up and squeezed her knees together until she felt the baby’s tiny fist flutter against her thigh. The sky spread behind Katherine like a variegated quilt, and all Klara could think was that if she felt stronger, she would reach right up and grab hold of its corners, which stretched out somewhere in faraway lands where other women of other colors and beliefs were lying on their backs in fields with babies warming between their legs, vines rustling, pumpkins looking on. If she felt just the slightest bit stronger, she could pull that sky down to cover all the women of the world, cover all that hurting, like a tent, a blanket, a second skin. (pp. 42-43)

2.  You received your Masters of Arts Degree from Columbia College Chicago, my old stomping grounds. I can see the art and depth in your writing and recognize how the workshop method resonates in this novel.  Can you tell us which writing class was especially helpful to your writing? Do you have a favorite writing reference book to recommend for fiction writers?

Yep, I was lucky enough to get my MFA from the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. (In fact, the first full draft of Thirsty was my graduate thesis.) Truly I loved all my writing workshops there; we worked our arses off, but it was so worth it. Randy Albers, the chair of the department and my thesis advisor, was especially important to me and to Thirsty. As I moved through the story, he made me look more deeply at Klara, and despite any protests I might have made, he continued to ask the question, “What happens next?”

My favorite writing reference book? Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life…mostly because a) she makes me laugh (read the section about school lunches…you’ll laugh, too) and b) she tells stories about storytelling…which is, for me, the most effective way to teach writing.

3.  While living in Chicago, you also taught writing in the Chicago Public Schools. As a creative writing teacher to young adults, myself, I’m always looking for unique lesson plans and exercises. But, more importantly, how to engage the “non-writers.” What method(s) did you use to draw these students in and give them courage to write (and share)?

I’ve been teaching writing workshops since 1994, and as a teacher I love to figure out how to move a student who believes she is a “non-writer” to recognizing that she can write (and then, writing). The funny thing is, every student (and every class) is different so I have to pay close attention to the particulars of each situation. Sometimes I reach the students by sharing a piece of published writing. (Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried usually works quite well.) Other times, it’s simply a matter of telling lots of stories out loud so that students (often subconsciously) recognize that “oh, writing is just another way of telling stories”…something we all do every day.

In October while I was home in the U.S. touring around with Thirsty, I returned to my high school alma mater. For two days I met with the creative writing students at the school; I yakked with them about life in China, selling a first novel, the writing process, creativity, and lots more. In one particular class, the conversation was getting a little flat, so somehow (and don’t ask me how) I began telling the story of my first kiss.

Now when I tell stories out loud, I tell them with my whole self …gestures, facial expressions, voice, etc…not in some kind of wacky, don-the-costume kind of way…but I’m completely engaged. And I tell you what, even before I got to the moment of the actual kiss, I had every student (and teacher!) in that room thinking about their first kiss (or perhaps, in some cases, dreaming about what their first kiss would be like). The air in the room got thick and floaty, the way it does when people are deep in the creative process; everyone’s face was soft and their eyes cloudy and distant. It was gorgeous! If I’d had time, I would have had them all grab a piece of paper and a pen and start writing. (Who knew high school classes are only 40 or so minutes long?!) The results would have been spectacular.

4.  Are there any events, signings or tours you’d like us to know about? What’s next for Kristin Bair O’Keeffe?

I spent a good bit of October and November in the U.S. promoting Thirsty. Although I was moving so fast that much of it is now a blur, I’m pretty sure I did an author’s feast at the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association convention in Cleveland, a flurry of radio interviews, a webcast interview with the books editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and readings and book signings in Pittsburgh, Massachusetts, and Maine. I was also the one in the international terminal at the airport calling, “Hey, hey, you! Yes, you! Do you read? Have you seen my debut novel Thirsty?”

Now that I’m back home in Shanghai, I’m doing as much as I can via the Internet (including this spectacular blog tour put together by WOW!). Living in China and publishing in the U.S. has forced me to think outside of the box…I’m constantly dreaming up new ways to reach potential readers.

On top of that, we have a terrific reading/writing community in Shanghai, and folks are very supportive of fellow expats. In the coming months, I’ll be doing as many events in Asia as possible. Right now I’m scheduled to speak to a handful of reading groups and give a talk at the most amazing Shanghai International Literary Festival (March 2010).

There’s lots more creative marketing ahead, including fun giveaways. Check into my blog (www.kristinbairokeeffeblog.com) and stay tuned!

The Kindness of Strangers – Becoming an Ambassador for NaNoWriMo

by: Grace Tierney

Ever since I first stumbled upon the online writing community in 2001, I have been amazed by the kindness of most writers. Nowhere is this more evident than in the annual crazy ambition of more than 170,000 writers to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days at www.nanowrimo.org. Nano, as it’s known to its friends, attracts all ages and all stories.

This year, failing the 50,000 word finish-line in 2007 and 2008, I decided to become a Municipal Liaison for Nano. I’d found many wonderful online writing friends overseas but I’d never chatted to a writer in person and it bugged me. I’d set myself a challenge in 2009 to change that. I signed up for writing workshops and courses (cancelled due to the recession) and tried a local writing group (we weren’t compatible). I’d have to organize something myself. Why not become an ambassador for Nano?

Thankfully they were desperate for organizers in Ireland (usually they require MLs to be past Nano winners). I landed a region with a population of 394,000 (Census 2006). But, how many of them had heard of Nano? I spent October sending press releases to every local paper, event listing, writing group, library, and radio station I could locate. Each time I spoke to active writers they said “Nano? What’s that?”. I realized I might end up with zero participants in my region. Thankfully Nano mentors new MLs with experienced ones and they advised me to relax. I might have a small region this year, but it would grow by word of mouth. I got us a listing in a national newspaper and other coverage but I still only had a handful of writers registered on October 29^th.

I prepped goodie bags from my own limited funds and headed to a centrally located hotel lobby on Halloween morning wondering if I was in for a trick or treat? I arrived twenty minutes early to help my own nerves. Two seconds later my first writer arrived. Hurrah! I wasn’t going to be the only one there!! Six writers gathered at that kick-off meeting. It was a general chat about our books which flowed easily and inspired us all so much that four of us are likely to win Nano this year, including two complete novel novices.

Attending the in-person meetings made writing pep-emails weekly and keeping the forum posts flowing for my region (Europe:Ireland NorthEast) easy. Knowing the faces and the questions they’d raised gave me something to talk about. One of the more experienced MLs ran a word war between the seven regions in Ireland. The healthy banter and competition from that egged us all on to greater word counts too. I definitely wrote more because I knew I was contributing to my team as well as my novel. Apparently being an ML or attending meetings raises your chances of winning from 18% to over 50%. That sounded good to me.

By the halfway point, despite ML duties, I was ahead on my word count. Then I found the Word Count Scoreboard. My tiny region of ten active writers was running in 6^th place out of nearly 500 worldwide regions. You should have seen the grin on my face. I am so proud of my writers, I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect the flow of sympathy for my daugher’s chest infection when I posted that I’d have to stop writing for a few days due to her illness (if you think anyone gets through November without losing a few days to Real Life, you can think again). I didn’t expect the rush of goodwill, even from rivals in the word war, when I crossed the 50k finish line on day 25, or the invitation to attend the Thank Goodness It’s Over Party at my adjacent region just because they know me on the forums.

The kindness of other writers. Strange writers, writers of strange things. They have a heart of gold and if you never go to a meeting or read a forum post on your Nano quest, you will not encounter it. Please take twenty minutes to look around the next time you’re updating your word count and prepare to be amazed.

Bio: Grace Tierney is currently writing her 2009 Nano novel in Ireland NorthEast (“Hamster Stew and Other Family Meals”). She’s had publisher interest in her 2007 Nano novel (“The Morning After Service”). When it’s not November she can be found freelance writing fiction and non-fiction for anthologies, glossy magazines, and ezines all around the world – check out her writing tips at www.gracetierney.com. She blogs on unusual words at www.wordfoolery.wordpress.com.

Are you as behind as I am in your NaNo word count?

Try one of these techniques to add more words to that fledgling novel:

• add a dream or nightmare sequence
• your protagonist finds an unmailed letter in a library book
• your character lets a phone call go to voicemail and the result is tragic
• add a childhood flashback
• listening to a song brings back a hurtful memory: use songs lyrics here, too!
• truth about a minor character is unveiled, shifts tone of a relationship
• spring cleaning in any season: character rummages through a car glove box, items under a bed, a junk drawer in the kitchen, an hierloom chest or an inherited house

What are your ideas for adding more meat to your novel?

Eyes burning? Fingers aching? Characters taking a nap?

Here’s another list of unuseful things to do instead of work on your novel:

1. Look up unusal holidays and decide which you’ll celebrate in 2010
2. Create a blog for your antagonist to ramble about his plot to destroy your protagonist
3. Leave random comments on your friends’ FB pages speaking from the POV of your supporting character
4. Write an entire scene of dialogue using one post it for each speaker, then arrange them in an interesting way.
5. Sort the items in your recycling bin by color, than by brand name labels
6. Look up the most popular dish served in your protagonist’s home town: find the recipe and cook it!
7. Write a letter to your protagonist from his/her 3rd grade teacher: would they be praising your character or reprimanding him/her?
8. Dust the blinds on all of your windows using Qtips
9. Plan your 2010 summer vacation trip
10. Write a list to Santa Claus and tell him everything you DON’T want this year!

Hopefully writing your novel will be more appealing than any of these activities, but if you must procrastinate, share your ideas with us!

my word count: _________

1. Blog surf  – looks like you’ve got that one down ; )
2. Catch up with friends on Facebook
3. Organize your purse or wallet
4. Search #nano or #nanowrimo on Twitter for other procrastinators
5. Begin your holiday wish list on Amazon
6. Organize your files on your desktop
7. Make new playlists on your ipod
8. Go out for a brisk walk, look for a hard labored pile of leaves to destroy
9. Fall into the dreamy eyes of Edward or cutesy smirk of Bella on the NewMoon site
10. Look up your characters’ horoscopes for today

How do you procrastinate? Come back for part two later…

my word count:_11,635

Taken from the wise words of Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo:

“…And please remember: If you write a paragraph or chapter you don’t like, just put it in italics (or change the font color to white). Do not delete! After you write your way across the 50,000-word finish line, you can double back and clip out all the parts of your book that make you cringe (I think you’ll surprise yourself with what you decide to keep). For now, just keep moving forward! There’s an old folk saying that goes: Whenever you delete a sentence in your NaNoWriMo novel, a NaNoWriMo angel loses its wings and plummets, screaming, to the ground.

Where it will likely require medical attention.

These are words to live by. Resist the tyranny of the delete key! Onward! Upward!”

“Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.” Norman Vincent Peale 1898-1993, Pastor, Speaker and Author

word count:_4,226_____