Who makes the perfect spy?

A man who was a spy writes, “Operations people don’t just collect intelligence; they blackmail foreign officials, scientists and business people; bribe union leaders; break into embassies; assassinate people; overthrow governments; and sometimes, far worse (or better, depending on your perspective).”

Read about who makes the perfect spy here.

Lucky me! My books are eligible for an award!

Lucky me! My books are eligible for an award! And it will only cost $75 to $95 each to enter each book.

The email I got begins:

"Character Building Counts (CBC) Book Awards honors books that deliver a character-building message. No matter what genre your books is in (children's, YA, adult fiction, or adult nonfiction), it may well embody character-building lessons that society can benefit from. Prizes include radio time, book seals, press releases, Internet presence, and more.
Energize your writing career by becoming a CBC award-winning author. Get the attention and acclaim your work deserves."

I think it's telling that the email has a lot of pesky grammatical errors. And when you check out the website, what do you find? Lots and lots of self-published books.

Any time I get anything like this I google some key words as well as the word "scam."

100 best kids books

Scholastic Parent & Child magazine ranked the 100 Greatest Books for Kids

Rick Riordan (I remember when we were both mystery writers!) has two books on the list. I've met Kevin Henkes, Lois Lowry,  and Pam Munoz Ryan (who also has two books on the list).  I've still got my postcard from Roald Dahl.

But this is what really made me happy:
87. Rules by Cynthia Lord

Read more about The 100 "Greatest Books for Kids as ranked by Scholastic Parent & Child.

New TV shows focuses on folks who are black and missing

NPR says, “African-Americans are only 13 percent of the country's population. But according to the National Crime Information Center, they're about 40 percent of persons considered missing or disappeared.”  Media attention is often focused disproportionately on missing white women and girls. A new TV show, called Black and Missing, hopes to shift the focus somewhat.

Read more about Black and Missing.

Doesn't this 12-year-old have an amazing voice?

Emanuelle Lo is a girl who was born blind - and with amazing musical ability. When she was 11, she wrote this song, and then last Christmas friends and family helped produce a video for it.

I'm proud to say that she is also reading Girl, Stolen.  I was contacted by her librarian, and then asked her family if it would be okay if I posted her video.

Why sit when you can stand?

Every few weeks I read a study, like this one, that basically says that sitting at your job leads to premature death and disease.

So I got this stand up rolling desk. I use it every day. It's not perfect, because my laptop is below eye level, but I think it's still better for me. And it was cheap and I could push it back into a hiding place when I'm done with it.



And it's worked out better than FitDesk Fitness Space Saving Semi Recumbent X Bike for Laptops, which, sadly was not easy to write on at all.

In a perfect world, I would have a treadmill desk. But we live in a teeny tiny house and there really isn't any place I could put one. Plus I was kind of bummed when I figured out you needed a way to mount your screen at eye level.

Taking my own advice

I'm holed up, writing, and wanted to make an on-screen to-do list.  I probably haven't used my laptop's Stickies application (they look like virtual yellow Post-It notes) for a couple of years.  When I opened it up, a sticky I used to keep hanging on the edge of my screen opened up too.

Here's my writing advice to myself:
- Slow it down
- Show!
- Emotion, emotion, emotion
- Be dialog happy
- Take the second right answer
- Surprise me now

I think I'm going to leave this open again...