resolution: more sledding

Happy New Years everyone!

writing thru the holidays

Hi everyone! 

Hope your holidays are going well! I'm tired, but happy. Gave a lot of photo books to family of the summer when we got together and that seemed to go over really well . . . yay! And apparently they want more photos because one of my gifts was a lovely little Canon Powershot S95. I'm happy to keep taking them (it's relaxing, like knitting) so that's great. 

[Sidenote: I've just tested that camera. Here's me standing over the battery charging for the first time: Please hurry, please, please HURRY... This little camera takes Fab-u-lous photos. I'll post some later. What a step up for me. I may never get one of this big, clunky SLRs ever . . . Finally I can do low light. Excited!]

I'm writing over the holidays. There's a couple of reasons for this: I get grumpy when I don't write something. And I'm under an editorial deadline. 

I've got theories about why the editorial deadline always seems to fall so I write over the holidays, but theories is about all I've got. This is only the third book I've published. I doubt if I should pontificate my theories when I've never seen an editorial office.

There. I've said it. 

But I used to work as a secretary so I know offices. And an editor works in Manhattan. This equals small, and crowded with books and papers, right? And I've seen Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery. You know the one where he plays an editor who has a tiny, tiny office and his writer (played by Angelica Huston) tries to teach him how to gamble. Funny scene. Highly recommend.

But anyway, anyway, anyway . . .  My theory on the editorial-holiday writing situation is this: That for editors December is a break between lists -- the fall and spring -- and so editors take December off. Which means, they send out editorial letters in November as they clear their desks for their December. 

That's what I imagine happens . . . Or I just have a subconscious desire to work during the holidays and keep my plate full. I'm not ruling that out either...

Anyone want to share tips for writing during the holidays? Here's my strategy: 

• I try to count on lost time (mostly so I don't feel disappointed with myself). 
• I plan the days I won't work: Dec 25, travel days, and days to unpack and do laundry. 
• In addition, I try to be extra-diligent about my working during the holidays. 
• If I'm around family and staying in a house that's not my own, I set an alarm, get up early and march off to the nearest coffee shop. At the coffee shop I set a timer for four hours and I write. 
• If I'm not around family, I try to simply be diligent and not do holiday fun stuff and chores until after I've done my work. 
• I try not to do OTHER chores, so I can enjoy family while I've got them!

How do you guys work during the holidays? Any tricks? Please share -- I may snag them for myself! 

Also: Favorite writing movies? 

OH! And here's a video of what I do when I'm not writing:   

Yay!

Amy

my sledding hill (slideshow)

Wiggins Hill, from That Girl Lucy Moon, is based on Coon's Hill in Hudson, Wisconsin. What a hill it was. 

Here's some quotes from a Feb 2009 The Hudson Star-Observer article written by Doug Stohlberg. (Also, the historic photos in the slideshow are scanned from the same article):  

...Many Hudsonites describe their first venture down the hill with words ranging from "fun" to "sheer terror."

...The huge sledding hill once covered about 10 acres of land and offered a wide expanse for sleds and skis. ... It wasn't just a sliding hill in the old days. There was a version of a ski jump, or a ski slide, for many years and in 1949 a new jump and rope tow were installed. 

...One of the early accounts of Coon's Hill came in the Dec. 15, 1932, edition of the Star-Observer when it was reported: "The first ski tournament of the season will be held on the new runway on Coon's Hill next Saturday afternoon. The hill and slide has been greatly remodeled." 

Taken from the same article, here's Willis Miller (Hudson's truly loved, local historian) reminiscing about the hill in 1946:

After I was of school age, Christmas always meant the annual two week's vacation, which was well taken up with little parties, sliding, skaing, and tobogganing out on Coon's Hill.

What did I write in That Girl Lucy Moon about Wiggins Hill?

Sledders dreamed about that extra slide, when the air turned so blue that the whole world looked like it was underwater, and the only light came from the reflection of the dusk moon on the blue-white snow. Those blue-lit runs were crazy, out of control, rushing, rushing, with roots of trees, clumps of snake-grass, and gopher holes taking on different shapes.

Loved that hill.