While I was at BEA, I collected tons of awesome stuff, from adorable tote bags to lots and lots of ARCs for some of the hottest titles coming out this fall.  I decided that to celebrate the new blog look, I’m going to some of these goodies away.  What I did was I assembled two swag bags chock-full of cool writing stuff.  These bags are put together especially for aspiring writers interested in writing Middle Grade or YA literature.  Here’s what’s in the bags:

Each Bag Includes:

• One adorable tote bag
• One iggilicious journal designed by yours truly
• The June issue of The Writer magazine
• One pen
• One eraser
• One button that was just too funny not to grab
  And last but certainly not least…
• TWO ARCs!!!

The only thing that differs between the bags are the ARCs, which are Middle Grade for one bag and Teen for the other.  The ARCs are:

Middle Grade Bag:

• Pie by Sarah Weeks
• The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann

YA Bag:

• A Long Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan
• Bunheads by Sophie Flack

Because I’m still new to this WordPress interface, I haven’t figured out how to embed the form in the post just yet.  Instead, you can enter the contest by filling out the form here: Iggi & Gabi Swag Bag Giveaway! All you have to do is fill out the form.  If you tweet the contest, you’ll automatically get an extra entry in the contest (please mention @iggiandgabi in the tweet).

Please note: While I try my best to make all my giveaways international, this time I will have to limit the giveaway to the US only.  So sorry to my international readers, but stay tuned because there are plenty of other giveaways coming this summer that will be open to everyone!

Good luck everyone!

Edit: Oops! I forgot to add one important piece of info, the end-date for the giveaway.  Contest closes at 11:59pm on Sunday, June 12. Random.org and I will do our thing and choose the winner for each bag, then I’ll announce the winners.

Hello writer friends!

As you can probably tell, iggi&gabi has a new look and a new location!  That’s right.  After about a year of using Blogger, I decided to make the switch to my own url and blog location.  My amazing web designer came up with this fantastic new look for the website and iggi and I are so, so happy with our new home!

On Monday, I’ll be announcing a super-exciting giveaway that I’ll be doing to celebrate this momentous occasion so keep an eye on the blog.  If follow the blog through an RSS feed, you should continue to get updates, but be sure to update your bookmarks, OK friends?

I’m still learning this new platform and there might be some minor goofs and glitches, so please bear with me.  More details on the giveaway will be coming on Monday!

Today I wanted to give you all an update on DIY MFA.  Over the next two weeks , I’ll be doing a few lead-up “DIY MFA Orientation” posts, explaining some background (especially important if you’re new to DIY MFA and didn’t participate in the fall).  A week from this Monday, I’ll be opening sign-ups for DIY MFA 2.O and I’ll be announcing a sooper-seekrit, sooper-exciting giveaway.

But first off, I wanted to talk about two things that I’m really excited about but are new to DIY MFA this time around.  These are: writing sprints and a writing marathon.

Every Saturday during April, I’ll be doing DIY MFA Writing Sprints.

Here’s how it works:  I’ll be blocking out a chunk of time (between one and three hours) each Saturday in April to make a mega-push on my writing.  Sure, this might mean making some sacrifices–like waking up an hour, or two, or three earlier than usual (ugh)–but we writers need to get used to making sacrifices for our work.  These sprints will be good practice.

I’m telling you about these sprints because I’d love for you to join me!

I’ll be making some iggilicious badges that you can post on your blog to show off your awesome weekend accomplishment.  Also, you can use the twitter hash tag #diymfa to share how long or how much you wrote.  If you don’t tweet, you can also share your results in the comments for that day’s DIY MFA post.  Cheer-leading other DIY MFA tweeps is strongly encouraged.  The idea is to create an online community of DIY MFAers writing together and encouraging each other even if they’re in totally different locations across the globe.

On Sunday May 1st, to celebrate the end of DIY MFA, I’ll be doing a Writing MARATHON.  This idea was inspired by Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones but is a little bit different.  Rather than committing to a specific time/place, writers can commit either to a full marathon (~6 hours) or a half marathon (~3 hours), then write those hours whenever or wherever during that day.

I myself will camp out somewhere in NYC and write ALL DAY.  I’ll post where I’m writing so that folks in NYC can come by and join even if it’s just for a short sprint.  Also, like with the sprints, people are encouraged to tweet their progress and encourage each other to make it through the marathon.  At the end of the day, we’ll have a post-marathon, post-DIY MFA twitter party!

So my question for you is: are you in?

One of the sessions I was super-excited for at the Writer’s Digest Conference was the Social Media panel.  After all, over the last year or so, I’ve become almost addicted to fairly comfortable with connecting to readers and writers through blogging or twitter or other webby things.

I’ve been to plenty of conferences with panels on social media and I find they always run into the same glitch.  The speakers are super-talented and the audience wants to hear what they have to say.  The trouble is, the panelists and audience are speaking in different languages.

I didn’t do an empirical study, but here are a few things I observed during the session:

• Very few young whipper-snappers in the audience, tweeting the panel from their iPhones.  (OK, I guess I’m a whipper-snapper but I didn’t tweet from my phone because I’m morally opposed to phones that do more than work like phones.)
• Hardly any people clicking on their laptops (fewer than what I noticed at other panels, in fact).  A lot of people taking notes by hand.
• When the moderator asked how many people in the audience had a twitter account, only a few people raised their hands.
• When the moderator asked how many used social media to interact with industry professionals who would be at this conference, no one raised their hands.  (I almost raised my hand, but then I was embarrassed because no one else did.  Remember, I’m shy.)
• Based on a lot of the questions that came up in Q&A, most of the people at the session were just starting to get their feet wet in the world of social media.
• As the discussion and Q&A progressed, I noticed more and more writers around me looking like they were about to have a nervous breakdown.

Despite these obstacles,  I was blown away by the awesome I observed from both the audience and speakers at the session.  This session had everything to be an incredible opportunity.  Writers hungry for information were present and motivated to connect with some of the leading industry professionals in the field of social media.  Both sides of the equation were there, but it seemed like there was one crucial piece missing in the middle.  What it needed was some way to bridge the gap.

How do we solve this problem?  Personally I’m a believer in baby steps.  When people get overwhelmed with too much information, they end up shutting down altogether.  The idea is to help them take one tiny step outside their comfort zones.  Once they’ve grown comfortable with that, they take another step.  And so on.

This is where you come in.  Think back to when you were new at all this social media stuff.  For some of you, it could have been last week; for others, it was back in 1989.  The point is, somehow or other, you learned to get comfortable with it and to make it work for you.  All sans meltdown.

I want to know: If you had one piece of advice or one small step you’d recommend to a newbie, what would it be?

Here’s mine:

From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy