2nd Annual Golden Coffee Cup! Post Your Goals!

Hi Folks,

Do you have the write stuff?

One more day! Follow the link and post you goal(s) for the 2nd Annual Golden Coffee Cup! Seize the day! MMM, coffee.

Eighty percent of success is showing up. Woody Allen

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. Ray Bradbury

Post your Golden Coffee Cup Goals by Nov 1.

Hi Folks, You have till midnight Nov 1, 2007 to post your 2nd Annual Golden Coffee Cup goals!!! Win that coffee!


The journey is the reward.
Chinese Proverb

Post your Golden Coffee Cup Goals! 5 days!

MMMMM, coffee!

Hi Folks! Hundreds of you are lurking. Come on, post your goals for the 2nd Annual Golden Coffee Cup. Add your goal by the end of the day Nov 1, 2007 to the comment section on the 2nd Annual Coffee Cup page. Wild ruckus is coming. High Fives! Holy Snapping!

Remember 4 of you will receive a cup of coffee. Here is a cup of inspiration.

Post those goals!

Inspiring coffee quotes:

I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee. - Carly Simon

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. - T. S. Elliot

Just around the corner, there's a rainbow in the sky. So let's have another cup o' coffee, and let's have another piece o' pie.- Irving Berlin

GOLDEN COFFEE CUP and SCBWI Oregon Retreat Notes

Hi folks! We are closing on November 1st. Enter the most compelling goal and achieve it by November 30th and win a free cup of coffee!

Post your goal here: The 2nd Annual Golden Coffee Cup . This is a motivational event and it is a contest -- four of you will win a cup of coffee. Check out the link for the complete rules. This coveted award will be given to the successful November goal setters. This is my answer to that "interesting concept" (cough, cough) of requiring writers to churn out 50,000 incomprehensible words in one month. Hey, some folks tell stories with few words and lots of pictures and feel like they are left out in the cold. We will churn less with much more comprehension in our month. Join us! The 2007 Golden Coffee Cup will be awarded for a month of goal setting and achievement.


I'm back from the SCBWI Oregon Retreat. Silver Falls is beautiful -- fall leaves and the most awesome waterfalls. I had the opportunity schmooze with some wonderful writers. Terry Pierce, the author of many books for kids, including the early reader Tae Kwan Do!, hiked the falls with me and few of my new friends.



Bruce Coville sent shivers down my spine with his recitation of the The Highwayman at the "not planned but held every year for 18 years" end of the retreat party. I was something of a poetry addict in high school and memorized every word of this poem. Such a gift.



Margaret Bechard shared her passion for revision. She stressed every word should move the story forward and if its not doing that it should be removed. I also enjoyed writing exercises with Deborah Brodie. She's a freelance editor and book doctor these days, folks, after 30 years working for companies like Roaring Brook Press and Viking. I also had the opportunity to hear Candlewick's Senior Editor Sarah Ketchersid. Her passion for a well constructed, timeless picture book moved me. I took away a deep sense that picture books have fathomless depths of meaning, offer countless illustratable moments, and tell one story. All and all, a lovely time.

Two gems I took away from the conference. Both from a critique session. You never know where you will find those gems.

"Everyone says, 'character, character, character' but you find out its also plot, setting, theme. . ."
Carol Bloemen

"Actually, first chapters are hell." Carol Bloemen

Golden Coffee Cup Inspiration

I sponsor a little event on my blog in November. The 2nd Annual Golden Coffee Cup is a motivational event and it is a contest -- four of you can win a cup of coffee. Check out the link for the complete rules. This coveted award will be given to the successful November goal setters. This is my answer to that "interesting concept" (cough, cough) of requiring writers to churn out 50,000 incomprehensible words in one month. Hey, some folks tell stories with few words and lots of pictures and feel like they are left out in the cold. We will churn less with much more comprehension in our month. Join us! The 2007 Golden Coffee Cup will be awarded for a month of goal setting and achievement. Enter the most compelling goal and achieve it and win a free cup of coffee.



I'm off to the SCBWI Oregon Retreat. Should be a fun time. I'm going to hike the 10 falls if it's not raining or snowing.



I received galley proofs today of my next two books: A Secret Matter and Up, Up in the Air.

They look very lovely.



Here are some encouraging quotes as you think about setting your goals:



Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome. - Samuel Johnson

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. - Theodore Roosevelt



Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison


I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. - Christopher Reeve


Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. Courage is what counts. -Sir Winston Churchill

Fourth Annual Golden Coffee Cup - Nov 1-30

It's that time of year, folks. The 2009 Golden Coffee Cup held from Nov 1 to Nov 30 will be awarded for a month of goal setting and achievement.

Want to be featured in the 2008 Annual Golden Coffee Cup? Send me (molly.blaisdell@verizon.net) a digital picture that expresses your "High Five", a link to your blog, website or book, and up to three sentences of inspiration. This opportunity is open to children's writers and illustrators only. You do not need to be published. I will fit in as many as I can.

For the past few years, in honor of National Novel Writing Month, I've had this little event on my blog for anyone one who needs an extra boost of motivation to get their current project rolling. If you don't know about Nanowrmo, National Novel Writing Month, this is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. This is a kamakazie approach to writing, it's about quanity and not quality.

The Golden Coffee Cup is a different kind of motivational thingy. This coveted award (an awesome picture of a coffee cup emailed to you that you may display it with pride) will be given to the successful November goal setters, but for EXTRA, EXTRA INCENTIVE!!!!! , four lucky winners from the group of successful goal setters will receive a Starbucks card for genuine coffee. Winners will need to send me(molly.blaisdell@verizon.net)their address to receive their card.

This is my answer to that "interesting concept" (cough, cough) of requiring writers to churn out 50,000 incomprehensible words in one month. I do the judging and it is wholly subjective. Even so, you do not have to be my friend to win. Really, honestly, cross my heart hope to die stick a needle in my eye.

THE RULES:

1. Post your November creative goals on this post by Nov 1. That is the deadline, folks.

2. Come back weekly for general cheering and wild ruckus, celebrating your successes. We'll do some holy snappin'. For extra motivation, my virtual celebrity guests will be on hand to offer high fives for your achievements!

3. If you reach your goal from Nov 23 to Nov 30, and post on blog again, you will be recieve your Golden Coffee Cup picture. There is no verification process, I believe you. Send in your email address to molly.blaisdell@verizon.net and your Golden Coffee Cup picture will be emailed to you. Display it proudly as wallpaper, post it on your blog, print it out and tack it on your bulletin board for year-long motivation. Write a great post and you might win the real coffee!

GOAL GUIDELINES:

The Golden Coffee Cup is about making a goal and keeping it.

If you are a novel writer, you can write something new with a realistic word count goal, keeping your life in mind. Your goal might also be making your first novel submission (think Delacorte Contest) or a revision of a novel you've already written. You can do this!

If you are a picture book writer or artist, hey, picture books are harder to write than they look. I don't really care about the word count because if your project is over 500 words that might be a problem. Picture book artists tell stories too. You might be an artist making a dummy and a dummy is certainly as hard to create as a novel. This is about quality not quantity.

Win your very own Golden Coffee Cup. Win a cup of hat java!

Let's bring some excellence into that creation!!!!!
I can't give you a peek at the THE Golden Coffee Cup but here are the Motivational Coffee Cups. Feel the power pouring into you!

Goal Setting Tips for the Golden Coffee Cup

The 2nd Annual Golden Coffee Cup is a different kind of motivational thingy. This coveted award (an awesome picture of a coffee cup emailed to you that you may display it with pride) will be given to the successful November goal setters. This is my answer to that "interesting concept" (cough, cough) of requiring writers to churn out 50,000 incomprehensible words in one month. Hey, some folks tell stories with few words and lots of pictures and feel like they are left out in the cold. We will churn less with much more comprehension in our month. Join us! The 2007 Golden Coffee Cup will be awarded for a month of goal setting and achievement. Enter the most compelling goal and win a free cup of coffee.

It's that time of year.



Here are some goal setting tips.



Create a compelling goal; one that you have passion about.



Get out your closet optimist and let positive goals rip, like write 1 fabulous manuscript page every day as opposed to to 175 pages of worthless stuff.



Call someone with a Type A personality and have them enter your goals on your calendar.



Choose the most important goal and focus on it.



Avoid huge goals. Keep reality at the front of your mind.


Think about moving past the outcome and considering the performance. Your goals should be as much about what you can control as possible. So a goal can be something like, go to the library every Friday for two hours and work there, instead of I will write 10000 words on Friday.


I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
Helen Keller