Author: Beth Hull

Friday Five!

Posted on by Beth Hull

1. Starting in October (or next week maybe – I like to keep you on your toes), this blog is going down to one post per week. There isn’t time to write two to three posts per week, on top of everything I want to do with my fiction, on top of, oh yeah, real life family and friends. So what do you think? Wednesdays? Fridays? Any preferences?

2. Next week I’ll be judging pitches in Deana Barnhart’s “Gearing Up to Get an Agent” Blogfest/Contest. I get to use a secret code name and everything. I’ve never been a judge before, for, um, anything, and it’s thrilling to be able to help other writers like this! Last night we had a Twitter Question & Answer session (#GUTGAA hashtag), which was a lot of fun and I got to feel totally helpful even if I wasn’t.

3. I’ve heard the phrase “go big or go home” in three different places this week. Maybe it will become a Thing, like “NOT!” so long ago, or my favorite of this year, “just sayin’.”

4. Why do babies fight their naps? Because I would pay very good money to have someone put me in a crib all by myself to sleep for up to three hours. Just sayin’.

5. Tomorrow! Tomorrow is exciting for two reasons. The first is that I will be getting an actual hair cut for the first time in two years. This is not nearly as exciting as the second thing – Talia Vance‘s book launch! 4 pm at the Avid Reader in Davis. In addition to Talia speaking about her debut novel, Silver, authors Katherine Longshore (Gilt), Veronica Rossi (Under the Never Sky), and Donna Cooner (Skinny) will be there to speak about their books as well! It’s going to be a blast. Wear silver nail polish! Go big or go home!

Baby Songs

Posted on by Beth Hull

We’re beyond “routine” with the bedtime routine in this house. It’s become a superstition. So much so that when Z was a toddler, I had to read the same book, sing the same three songs (“O Holy Night,” “Scarborough Fair,” and “All the Pretty Little Horses”) in the same order, and give her the same stuffed friend for every single nap and bedtime. Followed by the ever popular, ever annoying Drink Of Water.

Whatever works, right?

While I usually end Maverick’s routine with the time-honored classic “All the Pretty Little Horses,” I’m trying to mix it up a little more. Mostly because he’s still taking two or three naps a day, plus bedtime, and I can only handle so much of the same three songs.

So here’s what I’ve got in my bedtime arsenal:

  • All the Pretty Little Horses
  • Loch Lomond
  • O Holy Night (a little too long for Maverick, & I gotta sing it loud when I sing it otherwise I can’t pretend I’m auditioning for church choir solos. I’ll save this one for later)
  • In Ancient Egypt (a made-up song – here’s the “sheet” music & lyrics)
  • Sleep, Baby, Sleep (I made up my own melody for this, but I think there are others)
  • Peace Like a River (don’t I wish)
  • Ring Around the Moon
  • Scarborough Fair
  • a mutant version of I Love the Mountains (either I wasn’t taught the right way, or I heard it incorrectly – I’m guessing the latter because that happens all the time)
  • You Are My Sunshine (Z doesn’t like this one, thinks it’s too sad because of the part where “I held my head and cried”)
  • Three Little Birds

Any suggestions? What did your parents sing to you? What do you sing to your kids or nieces or nephews or the little boogers in your life?

Too Many Notebooks

Posted on by Beth Hull

You might as well face it, you’re addicted to notebooks.

I remember being nine and putting “notebooks” and “diaries” on my birthday and Christmas wish lists. We’d go to the drugstore and I’d salivate over a pink, three-subject, college-ruled, spiral-bound notebook (still have that, although the cover came off). And I’ve rhapsodized about old diaries here.

But now, as I outline Books 2 and 3, as well as craft pitches for various ideas I’ve had over the last year, I’m finding old ideas everywhere!

The problem with this, is that the reverse is also true: I can’t find anything! A few days ago (and I posted this on Twitter), I said to Homes, “Where is that prophecy I wrote?” His response: “In a big vault, with rows and rows of other prophecies, trapped in spheres.”

I never should have made him read Harry Potter.

There’s a line in Zero Effect that goes: “Now, a few words on looking for things. When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad. Because of all the things in the world, you’re only looking for one of them. When you go looking for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good. Because of all the things in the world, you’re sure to find some of them.”

So true.

Clark thinks it’s too many notebooks, too. She bats at them in disapproval.

So what do I do? Something must change because I’m going bonkers trying to find pitches I may or may not have written months ago, and prophecies I apparently didn’t write months ago (because I read through six months’ worth of diary angst, obsession, and drivel, and never found the stinkin’ prophecy), and random scraps of ideas and half-formed Blake Snyder beat sheets. Maddening, I tell you.

And I LOVE Scrivener and always will, but there’s something grand about opening a notebook and jotting down ideas. There’s no screen involved, and my eyes thank me for that. And I can curl up on the couch more easily. It’s peaceful.

So…maybe limiting myself to a set number of notebooks? Say, seventeen?

PS: In the middle of writing this post I went to Target and bought two more notebooks. It’s a disease. I rationalize the purchase by exclaiming, “Back to school clearance!” but in truth, disease.

As My Houseplants Lay Dying

Posted on by Beth Hull

You know you’re getting old when you say things like, “Back when I was in college…” Usually with a nostalgic tone of voice, like when my friend KJoy was visiting and we reminisced about the amazing cream of cajun carrot soup we used to eat at this restaurant where we worked, Mulberry Street Pizzeria (in San Rafael. Smith Ranch Road. Go ye forth and try the soup).

KJoy: We used to eat so much of that soup!

Me: And the french bread! We’d have at least five pieces of it, which is like half a loaf, and just dip it in the soup…it’s amazing we didn’t gain fifty pounds.

KJoy: That’s because we were nineteen.

(To my nineteen-year-old self: ENJOY THAT METABOLISM WHILE IT LASTS, SISTA.)

But this post isn’t about metabolism. It’s about houseplants. And how, back when I was in college, I loved them and I could grow them and keep them and they were just lovely little points of green in my life. I even talked to them because I read somewhere that it helped them thrive. Of course, back when I was in college, I was in the Bay Area, and not in the Central Valley, which is basically a hair dryer and not conducive to growing much except cacti and tomatoes. When I moved back to the Hair Dryer, all my favorite plants died. I’ve replaced them with a few others, but now they’ve gotta compete with kids.

Apparently in my house it’s survival of the whiners, and guess what: houseplants don’t whine.

I no longer talk to my houseplants, but I think they are talking to me. Their message is loud and clear.

Gearing Up to Get An Agent Blog Hop

Posted on by Beth Hull

This is for the blog hop through Deana Barnhart’s Gearing Up to Get an Agent contest. For those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about, you can find details on the contest here. If you’re querying or getting ready to query agents, this contest is for YOU.

Hi! I’m Beth, and I’m one of the 1st round judges for the agent contest. I live in northern California with my husband (code name: Homes), two kids (daughter Z, age 4, and son Maverick, age 4 months), and cat. I write YA and am represented by Brandi Bowles of Foundry Literary + Media. I like to draw silly pictures with Paint, like the one below. (Okay, I was just looking for an excuse to reuse this drawing. I love it so. The goats!)

Where do you write?
Everywhere. I’ve got a little baby, so usually on the couch. Before he came along, I’d work in the Love Shack, part of our garage that we converted into a guest room/writing studio.
Quick. Go to your writing space, sit down and look to your left. What is the first thing you see?
First thing to the left in the Love Shack is the windowed door, looking out to the back yard.
Favorite time to write?
Mornings, afternoons, night…anytime I can find. Ideally I’d do all drafting in the mornings after a quiet half-hour for morning pages, then revise in the afternoons. But in addition to the baby, I have a four-year-old. So that hasn’t happened in about…four years.
Drink of choice while writing?
Water, if anything. Tea when it’s cold outside. But then I get distracted, wanting to drink the tea before it gets tepid, which totally grosses me out, and then I’m worried more about my tea than the crazy-making plot holes.

The tall iced decaf caramel macchiato I was sipping while I checked my email on that fateful day.

When writing , do you listen to music or do you need complete silence?
Complete silence! I’m talking to YOU, YAPPY DOGS NEXT DOOR.
What was your inspiration for your latest manuscript and where did you find it?
The one going out on submission soon was inspired by a dream. The last one I wrote was inspired by Karen Russell’s wacky premises in St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. It was meant to be a short story (like hers) but kept going.
What’s your most valuable writing tip?
If you love it, never stop. Forget about publication. Seriously. Forget about it. Just write, and love it, love it even when you’re tearing your hair out because that plot hole just won’t fill.

Click here to join in, and find other participants on the linky list at Deana Barnhart’s blog.