summertime

Returning from a Series of Misadventures

beccakinla news, summer, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , 5 Comments

I decided to post today and realized that I hadn’t posted in months! I’m still researching the book I reported researching in my last post, but in between then and now:

  • I attended a great conference hosted by the Association of Jewish Libraries. While there I got super exciting, top-secret news and then was told not to share it. (G-d-willing, I’ll be able to in a few months.)
  • I figured out I couldn’t do the necessary research on that YA novel because my kids were home for the summer. I decided to shove the rest of the research off till fall.
  • I got a wacky new idea for a Middle Grade novel and started writing it.
  • I broke my arm. (Yes, my dominant arm.)

    man carrying backpack

    Fun fact: When you break the radial head, you don’t actually get a cast. But it still hurts like heck. (Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com)

  • I finished writing that MG novel, largely through voice-to-text and typing help from my husband and eldest son.
  • I sent that MG book out to beta testers. (Thank G-d, they liked it, and I got a slew of useful suggestions to improve the book.)
  • I got a rejection letter from the one agent who had the full manuscript of my adult-audience novel.
  • The kids went back to school.
  • I attended a great writing conference in Fallbrook at the library there.
  • And now, because I got so many useful tips about my adult novel submission and my MG novel submission, I’m shoving off my YA novel research just a bit more. Hopefully, I’ll get to it in October, because my plan for the moment is to write that book during NaNoWriMo.

What did you get not get done this summer? What happened instead? What are your fall plans? I’d love to hear the answers to these questions!

Glixman Sales, Writing While Parenting, and Other Summertime Thoughts

beccakinla parenting, Uncategorized, writer, writing Tags: , , , , , 6 Comments

I heard from the CEO of Menucha Publishers last week, and he says that while there are no official numbers yet, the sales of Glixman in a Fix are strong. I’m a bit frustrated because due to the timing (the U.S. release was just before Shavuos, and now my kids are all home from school), I can’t really spend the time and energy on promoting the book that I’d like.

Writing has been hard, too. I’ve tried to write in the early hours while my kids are still either asleep or curled up with a book, but everything is slow, slow, slow. Still, I managed to write a short essay last week, have added a bit to my novel-in-progress, and started a new short story yesterday.

I’m trying to remind myself that summertime brings all sorts of new and different experiences, especially with everyone home from school and no camp in sight. Hopefully, all those novelties will feed my writing once I have more time on my hands again. But I can’t help feeling frustrated.

Stopgap measure: 4 (okay, it’s really 5) totally awesome literary links

beccakinla Israel, Jewish, Jewish writing, literature, magazines, optimism Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Sorry for the recent lack of posts. Camp was out, day school was still out, kids were home, and Mr. K. started his school year the second week of August. As you can imagine, I’ve been a little busy…the only significant writing I’ve done in the last several week has been a few episodes of my serial.

I’ve got kids home from school for one more day, but recently I’ve been seen some really interesting stuff out there on the web which I believe will be of interest to followers of this blog. So I’m posting those links in lieu of a truly original post by yours truly (although I’ve got an idea about what I want to post next).

Top 4 Cool Things I’ve Seen on the Internet Recently:

  1. If you haven’t seen it yet, this is the best analysis of Israel media coverage ever, with fascinating insider details.
  2. Hevria is the new project of Elad Nehorai from PopChassid. He’s brought together an amazing range of writers to solve problems in the Jewish community through positive action and creativity.
  3. The L.A. Times periodically publishes poetic op-eds. Here’s the latest bunch.
  4. And finally, the geektastic interview with Rabbi Goldfeder about how truly intelligent robots MIGHT actually count in a minyan. I’ve actually had an idea for a SF story for a while with robots, and Rabbi Goldfeder’s research will definitely come in handy.

Hopefully, I’ll be ready to publish the aforementioned post later this week. As a teaser, I’ll tell you that it is partly based on Nina Badzin’s essay from earlier this summer about the things she doesn’t write about. So I guess that’s link #5.

Have you read any of those articles? What did you think? Share your opinions in the comments.