​In the last few weeks I have been sluggish in my work to re-write the manuscript to my third novel.  In part because I’m waiting for feedback from two beta readers who are both reading the last chapter.  I need to have that sense that the last chapter is effective so that I can build the story to that point successfully.  I’ve changed the last chapter several times and in particular I changed the perspective of my protagonist in a turnabout in the last chapter based on comments from a beta reader several weeks ago.
I used that excuse for at least two weeks and the energy to continue re-writing fizzled.  I needed something to rejuvenate myself.  Often I turn to nature for a way to give myself the space to become creative again.  In recent years I’ve become a devotee to birding.  Birding allows me to get out into nature and focus my attention on being a witness to the marvels of the bird world.  When I learned that modern birds are the remnants of dinosaurs I was hooked.
Winter in Wisconsin and the Midwest is a great time to watch eagles.  Eagles like to hunt in open water to catch fish so dams on rivers attract eagles.  Sauk City, Wisconsin is close by and a dam on the Wisconsin River is an excellent place to watch eagles.  We’ve been there many times so I searched for a new location.  A nature magazine outlined the benefits of going to Lock and Dam 12 on the Mississippi near Bellevue, Ia.  We left one early Friday morning and encountered more traffic than expected.  I also didn’t check the mileage in order to have some idea how long a drive it would be.
We entered Dubuque Iowa after two hours of driving and I was ready to take a break but we bore on because we were close.    South of Dubuque we turned off onto an Iowa state road that ran parallel to the Mississippi.  The weather changed to be overcast and very windy.  I noticed that Iowa Highway trucks were spreading beet juice on the road.  I checked the weather before leaving and there was no rain in the forecast.  The Subaru has weather tracking but in the rolling hills of far eastern Iowa there was no reception.
We arrived in Bellevue about thirty minutes after leaving Dubuque.  The entire town is about three blocks long one side because the river is on the other side.  There was a park and a place to view the eagles.  That day a crew was cutting down trees, making a horrendous noise that the eagles didn’t like any more than I did.  Down river there were about thirty boats in the water with people fishing.  The eagles would never compete with that many stalwart Iowa fisherman.
Walking through the viewing area we did spot two eagles soaring upriver to the dam.  I guessed they were a pair by the way they flew and floated on the thermals.  They must not have been too hungry because they soared for a few minutes and then flew off north east to their nest.  It was magnificent to watch but cold and windy with a storm brewing so we scampered back to the car.
Back at home in the late afternoon I laughed when I realized we drove about 300 miles to watch two eagles.  We could have driven to Sauk and driven less than a hundred miles.  Yet, the trip did clear out all those cobwebs that sometimes grow in my mind.  I went back to work on re-writing for story and knew the trip was worth every mile.           

​I believe that all writers should attend at least one writer’s conference a year.  First, it gives us writers an opportunity to mix with our own kind.  A great deal of our time is spent alone bleeding over our laptops or old yellow tablets.  The truth is, writing is often a lonely profession.  At most conferences there is time provided just for socializing and often shared meals.  Second, it gives writers the chance to learn the latest publishing news both self-publishing and traditional publishing.  Both forms of publishing are in flux and will likely be so in the near future.  Third, writers can learn business skills need to promote yourself and market your work.  Whether you self-publish or traditional publish the author is responsible for their own marketing and dare I say it, developing your own “brand”.   All conferences include presentations on craft which can help improve your writing.  In addition, many conferences invite agents and you have the opportunity to make a pitch for your work, often for an additional fee.  Finally, conferences give you the chance to take a mini-vacation while still working in your profession.  Conference fees, travel and meals are also tax deductible.
I will be attending three conferences this year, each unique, and offering different things to all writers.  The first is the Wisconsin Writers’ Institute March 24-26 at the Concourse Hotel in downtown Madison, Wisconsin www.writersinstitute.wisc.edu.  This is 28th annual writers confernce.  I have been attending since 1996.  If interested there are also pre-conference classes beginning Thursday March 23rd that you can register for in advance.   To help you select the sessions you would like to attend four “tracks” are offered:  fiction; non-fiction; marketing; and, poetry.  This year there will be nine agents there accepting pitches.  There are even classes you can take on how to make a pitch before you find yourself sitting across from an agent with your life in your hands.  A new offering this year that I am taking advantage of is Advance Manuscript Critique, the timing is perfect as I re-write the manuscript to my third book.  If you’re not ready to pitch an agent yet, no problem, you can attend agent question and answer sessions to understand their role in publishing.  This conference can be pricey but is best viewed as an investment in yourself.
The second conference I’m attending is the Lakefly Writers Conference in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on May 12-13 – lakeflywriters.org.   This conference is unique because it is sponsored and organized by the Oshkosh Public Library.  I should confess that I am presenting at this conference in addition to attending.    

​‘We need obstacles’ is likely not a statement that will receive wide support.  For as long as it takes you to read this blog I ask you to suspend your criticism and your natural bias and let me explain. 
Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and popularizer of modern science.  He’s the Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and hosts the television program ‘Star Talk’.  He describes his television series as the cross roads for popular culture and science.  Recently he interviewed jazz greats Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.  Tyson asked his guests to compare creativity in music with creativity in science.
Hancock had an interesting response.  He said in music you create something that has never previously existed.  For example, a Bach fugue could only have been composed by Bach.  Art creates something new out of nothing.  Science, on the other hand, is to reveal and understand something that previously existed.  For example, the laws of physics.
The other difference is that artists need resistance or obstacles in order to refine and polish what they create.  The analogy he used is that an airplane is able to fly because of air resistance over the wings which creates lift.  Resistance or obstacles gives an artist “lift”.  Think about how critique groups can help with your writing.  Think about how we rely on editors to help polish our prose, correct our grammar, guide our plot and make our characters believable.
To be an artist means that we have resistance to our art, to what we create.  Without resistance our writing would be incomplete.  Resistance is how we hone our art.  A serious artist must learn not only to accept resistance but to embrace it as part of the creative process.  Steinbeck tried but couldn’t come up with a title for Grapes of Wrath.  His wife suggested the title based on the hymn, The Battle Ground of the Republic.   

​Should you enter the Book Award game?
It is about as difficult for a self-published author to get noticed as it is to undertake a mission to colonize Mars.  Two of the most common ways to gain attention for your work is through book reviews or book contests.  Here’s the rub – the self-published author must pay a fee to enter the contest.  Everybody has their hand out to help a self-published author; the problem is they expect you to put money in their hand to help.
I subscribe to the Writer’s Digest because they have a number of interesting articles every month on the craft of writing and the business of writing.  They have supported self-published authors for years.  In fact, they run a self-published author contest annually and this is their 25th year.   The prizes include:
One Grand Prize for $8000 and a feature article in their magazine and a trip to their annual convention
First Prize in a Category $1000 (there are 8 categories) and other promotional items
Total cash prizes $16,000
Sounds alluring.
But WAIT.  The entrance fee for a book is $99 plus the cost of your book plus shipping.  In my case it would cost me about $121 to enter this contest.  There is a potential to win only one of two prizes – the Grand Prize or the Category Prize.
Los Vegas is required to inform you of the odds of a winning a game when you gamble.  I think that all book competitions should inform entrants on how many submissions they receive each year.  With that information you could roughly calculate your odds of winning.  For example, if 9451 people enter the literary fiction category – my odds would be 1 in 9451 or 0.0001.  For the grand prize let’s say 23,801 submit entries so my odds would be 1 in 23,801 or 0.00004.
Of course, self-published authors must invest in themselves.  I accept that.  I compare the cost of entering a contest to how many books I would need to sell just to break even.  In my example, above, I would need to sell between 8-9 books to break even.  The problem is, just entering the contest doesn’t gain me anything, I would need to win in order to get enough promotion to sell those 8-9 books, then you need to look hard at the odds of winning.
I’ve researched and was unable to learn how many submissions there are each year so it’s impossible to determine your odds of winning.
There is something that doesn’t settle right with me for any award that I have to pay for to receive.  A rational analysis indicates it’s not a good investment for a self-published author.