by Donald Maass

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have a library of books on how to write, each supposed to rocket me to the next level, morph me from mid-list writer to best-seller. Each of them provided some tidbit that is now integral to my writing style, something I remember and use every time I sit down at my computer and unleash my muse.

Well if I’m honest, some of them were a waste of money. Those, I tossed so they don’t remind me how I wasted my hard-earned money.

But Writing the Breakout Novel is one I keep as a reference. Donald Maass’ voice is one I enjoy. It’s down-to-earth, friendly, not pedantic, not judgmental. He doesn’t frighten me or make me feel the information he’s sharing is something I won’t be able to achieve. He’s humble about what he’s achieved, which makes me feel I too can conquer those mountaintops. Here are some of the high points:

• He includes critical aspects of good fiction–premise, time and place, plot, characters, techniques, viewpoints, pacing, voice, endings. In fact, he has most of what causes problems for writers.
• Each chapter includes a checklist, reminding me what I should have learned from that section. Since this is not casual reading for me–I read these types of books to improve my craft–I like this. For example, the chapter on ‘Premise’ includes this checklist:
  • A breakout premise can be built
  • Plausibility means that the story could happen to any of us
  • Inherent conflict means problems in your ‘place’.
• Where most writer’s how-to books warn that the preponderance of novels are never published–plead with us not to get our hopes up–Maas has the guts to say, “If you have indeed written your breakout novel, chances are some people along the road to publication are going to think so, too. Big things are going to happen.” Wow. Now I’m excited about my prospects. Sure, I heard his disclaimer–if I have indeed written that magnificent novel–but Maas assumes if I’ve taken his advice to heart, I will write a great novel, and proceeds to explain what the next steps are. He includes Breakout Publishing, Breakout Living, Success, Sequels, Series and Beyond. OMG. I might hyperventilate.

The only thing I found wrong in this book was on page 31 when Maas confidently puts in stone words that are probably haunting him as you read my review, “The e-revolution may not save us; indeed, it may not happen.” It’s happened and woe the writer or publisher or agent who sticks his finger in that dike.

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, CSG Master Teacher, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, Technology in Education featured blogger, and IMS tech expert. She is  the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-6 Digital Citizenship curriculum, creator of technology training books for middle school and ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Photo credit: Nemo

How to write

We bloggers divide ourselves into two categories: 1) those who write short, under-1000-word posts and 2) those who write in-depth, lengthy articles. I’ve chosen the former. I like pithy ideas that  readers can consume in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. As a result, I’ve learned to be frugal with my words. I choose verbiage that conveys more than one-words-worth of information and I leave tangential issues for another post. Because I realize readers are consuming on the run, I make sure to be clear–no misplaced pronouns or fuzzy concepts like ‘thing’ or ‘something’.

Prove my point

This part of writing transcends what print journalists and novel writers must do. Yes, they do it, but my readers expect me to support ideas with links to sources. If I’m reviewing a book, I can easily link to the author’s website for deeper reading. That’s something that can’t happen in paper writing. Sure, they can provide the link, but to put the paper down, open the laptop, copy that link–I mean, who does that? In a blog, I get annoyed if someone cites research and doesn’t provide the link.

What my voice was

I write thrillers. To pen a good thriller, you have to do what James Frey suggested in his exemplary guideline for thriller writers, including:

1. Have no bland, colorless characters
2. Have a hook at the end of each chapter
3. Be fresh in your writing
4. Keep the clock ticking and the excitement mounting

For me, that means keep my writing relevant and engaging with hooks that make readers come back for more. Literary fiction writers do it differently. My blog approach matches my novels.

How to work through the dry times

I rarely have writer’s block, but when I do, I jump into the blogosphere and see what my colleagues are writing. In my novel, I discovered that researching would water down the dry spells. The same thing works for blogging.

How to persevere

Three years of blogging and I’m still waiting to make it big. What’s that mean to me? I want that knock on my virtual door from Atlantic or USA Today asking me to come on board as a paid house blogger. Truth, that probably won’t happen and by now, I wouldn’t know what to do if I stopped personal blogging.

How to market my writing

I try lots of ideas to market my writing, but thanks to the blogosphere, I know what everyone else is doing. I can try as much or little of it as I want. For me, I found a comfortable baseline and add a few pieces every year (this year, it’s Pinterest).

One point worth mentioning is headlines. Usually, all you get from a reader is seven seconds–long enough to read the title, maybe the first line. If that title doesn’t seem personal and relevant, potential readers move on. There are over 450 million English language blogs. That’s a lot of competition. I better hit a home run with that title.

There are lots of opinions out there

Often, I share my thoughts on the pedagogy of writing. Sometimes, I’m surprised at comments I get. They might touch a corner of the idea I hadn’t thought of or be 180 degrees from my conclusions. It forces me to think bigger as I write, consider how people who aren’t me will read my words. That’s both humbling and empowering. I think I’m much better at that than I used to be.

There are a lot of smart people in the world

In a previous lifetime when I built child care centers for a living, I read lots of data that said people thought the education system was broken–but not in their area. They considered themselves lucky because their schools worked. Well, as I meandered through life, I realized that applies to everything. People are happy with what they’re comfortable with and frightened/suspicious of what they aren’t used to. Through blogging, I get to delve into those ideas with them because we feel like friends. I’ve found that lots of people are smart, intuitive, engaged in life, looking to improve the world. I’m glad I learned that.

How to be responsible

Yes, blogging is demanding. I have to follow through on promises made in my blog profile and posts. When I say I’ll offer writing advice weekly, I have to even if I’m tired or busy with other parts of my life. It’s not as hard as it sounded when I first started. If you’re a mom, you’ve got the mindset. Just apply it to blogging.

How to be a friend

My readers visit my posts and comment or poke me with a ‘like’. Maybe, on good days, they repost. Those are nice attaboys. I always return the favor by dropping by their blog to see what they’re up to, drop a line or two on their latest article. It takes time, but like any relationship, is worth it. I have online friends I’ve never met who I feel closer to than half the people in my physical world. I’ve seen them struggle with cancer, new jobs, unemployment, kid problems. I’ve learned a lot about life from them.

Thank you to my virtual friends who have taken time to get to know me–you know who you are.

What I haven’t learned is how to engender a conversation. I love reading blogs that have lots of comments, everyone weighing in. How the H**** do they do that? Can anyone tell me?

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, CSG Master Teacher, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, Technology in Education featured blogger, and IMS tech expert. She is  the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-6 Digital Citizenship curriculum, creator of technology training books for middle school and ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, CSG Master Teacher, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, Technology in Education featured blogger, and IMS tech expert. She is  the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-6 Digital Citizenship curriculum, creator of technology training books for middle school and ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Tech Tips for Writers is an (almost) weekly post on overcoming Tech Dread. I’ll cover issues that friends, both real-time and virtual, have shared. Feel free to post a comment about a question you have. I’ll cover it in a future Tip.

Q:   What’s an easy way to create a digital slideshow that takes no time?

A:  The books we-all write traditionally are words, but that’s changing. With digital interactive books, you can share images of your characters, settings, events. I’ve done that for a book I wrote on paleo-historic man. I saw you glaze over. That’s what I mean. For some topics, it’s hard to visualize the ideas and if you can’t see it in your mind, you probably won’t want to read it. I decided to include images of what my characters look like, where they lived, how they carried out their daily activities.

Sure, you know how to do that in WordPress, but what about Windows? Here’s all you do:

• Go to the start button
• Go to Computer in the right column
• Select the folder with the pictures you want displayed as a slideshow
• Double click any of the pictures
• At the bottom center, there’s a ‘slideshow’ button. Press that and the fun begins.

Occasionally, double clicking the picture takes you to Paints (who knows? Ask Bill). Here’s what you do:

• Select Slideshow from the toolbar

In the highly unlikely event the Universe has conspired against you to prevent the slideshow playing, I can still solve that:

• Right-click on the folder with the pictures you want displayed as a slideshow
• Select the last tab–Customize
• Select Pictures from the drop-down menu
• Say OK

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, CSG Master Teacher, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, Technology in Education featured blogger, and IMS tech expert. She is  the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-6 Digital Citizenship curriculum, creator of technology training books for middle school and ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.

Today’s tip: Writers must have a web presence.

A web presence is your reach beyond the realtime world into cybersphere. Why is a web presence so important for today’s writers? Here are three reasons:

• If you have a contract with a publisher, s/he is too busy marketing books for popular, well-known authors to worry about you. That means sales and marketing is up to you. The worst situation I can imagine is after you give away the rights to your baby (maybe you sold them–no matter the price, it doesn’t compensate for the hours or years of labor that went into writing your book), the guy who bought them (the publisher) allows your story to languish–selling a couple of books a month. That’s not uncommon. The only way to fix that is you marketing your books.
• If you’re self-published, you are the go-to guy/gal for marketing your novel. You can attend conferences, give speeches, have book signings, but another tried-and-true method that can reach exponentially more potential buyers is the internet. More on that later.
• If you’re in between–sending queries out seeking an agent, trying to attract the attention of the person who will love your writing as you do–what better way than for them to see how well you write and how many people follow you. Today’s agents want to see your web presence as a precursor to giving you a chance. It helps them decide how serious you are as a writer.

There are many ways to make your presence known on the internet:

• A blog showcases your writing skills and allows you to interact with readers and potential readers. It gets them excited about your writing so they spread the word and you go viral (I’m still waiting on that step).
• A website on your book (or a page on your publisher’s website) tells readers everything you want them to know about your book, including the location of your blog, twitter account, Facebook. The downside is it’s static. Readers can’t  ask questions and you can’t respond to a trend or personalize it to the uniqueness of individual readers.
• A Twitter account gets you out there in real time, chatting with readers as well as other writers, spreading your good word in a personal, down-to-earth way that appeals to many. Each tweet is a quick insight to your readers, having a mandatory limit of 140 characters.
• A Facebook account is similar, but has more depth. You can post pictures, blogs, other reader comments.

There are a few books to help you through the steps required to get live on the internet:

• Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Promoting Your Book on the Internet!
• The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won’t
• We Are Not Alone: Writer’s Guide to Social Media, by Kristen Lamb (review coming soon–so far it’s great)

In my case, here’s what I do on the web:

• I host several blogs, WordDreams on writing and one on my field of interest and a few more
• I contribute weekly columns to several ezines, online newspapers, blogs, to reach people my blogs don’t
• I have a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a LinkedIn account (a discussion for a later post) and a few more aggregators and social media personalized to my interests
• I have seven marketing outlets for my books, most with their own ‘about the author’ page
• I have a Goodreads account, highlighting my writing expertise

I’ve gone on a bit too long, but I want to motivate you to set up a web presence. Now get going!

–Click to have Writer’s Tips delivered to your email.

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog,Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is  editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Silent Joe

by T. Jefferson Parker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I know of no author who writes such unique characters as does T. Jefferson Parker. Joe Trona (the protagonist in Silent Joe) is yet another in Parker’s stable of main characters that I loved getting to know. He is the 23-year-old adopted son of a politician who spends his entire life thankful to the father who saved him from a family-less life–picked Joe from among all other children in the Home despite the acid burns that covered half of Joe’s face. From that day forward, Trona hones his body to a level of strength that will defend him from future attacks and trains his mind to seek out danger to his father. But, early in the story, he fails and his father dies. Joe makes it his job to find the killers and bring them to justice.

Throughout the story, Parker’s characterization of Joe is creative, fascinating, unique. I am entertained by his take on events and enthralled by his ability to puzzle out solutions. Joe is the only fully-fleshed character in the book, but where usually that results in a flat story, in this case, Joe’s quirks are more than enough. Highly recommended to anyone doing character studies or writers working on developing their skills at portraying the actors in their own novels.

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, CSG Master Teacher, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, Technology in Education featured blogger, and IMS tech expert. She is  the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-6 Digital Citizenship curriculum, creator of technology training books for middle school and ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Geeks come in all sizes

favorite Geek Speak words (Computer nerds are so neologistic):

1. alpha geek–the most technologically savvy dude in the company
2. amazonned–amazonized, means you’ve lost a chunk of your business to a dot-com.
3. back hack–when you get hacked, you return the favor
4. beta baby–child born to a high-tech pro after 1995
5. code 18–Used by tech support to disguise when they’re calling a technical issue user-caused. They’re so PC
6. cyberterrorism–terror on a computer
7. digital jewelry–any hi-tech stuff you wear around your neck–ipods, phones, etc.
8. edress–an electronic address (IP, IM, email, etc.)
9. idea hampster–Someone who always has his/her idea generator running
10. inner geek–the techie deep within each of us

Want more? I’ll be posting Part II, or try NetLingo. You’ll find a clever term for everything techie, to satisfy your inner geek (see above).

More?

• Beautiful Words
• Ten Favorite Words (Part I)
• Ten Favorite Words (Part II)
• Eight Favorite Words (Part III)
• Ten Favorite Geek Words (Part II)
• Seven More Favorite Geek Words

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, Technology in Education featured blogger, and IMS tech expert. She is  the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-6 Digital Citizenship curriculum, creator of technology training books for middle school and ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Can you describe body parts without being boring?

I got a lot of feedback on my post on physical descriptors for characters, A Nose by Any Other Name. Here are a few more that will jog your inspiration:

Face

• Brush of make-up and light touch of lipstick

Mouth, neck and chin

• Square chin
• Strong chin
• hanging jowls
• slack, hanging mouth
• long neck
• Adam’s apple
• Neck muscles were drumhead tight
• Beard gone to white
• Thick brown mustache gone to gray

Legs, feet

• bowlegged
• twig-like calves
• Pink toenails
• lateral displacement of the big toe bunions
• nails bitten and dirty
• thickened yellow nails

Hands, fingers

• fingers as thick as sausage—sausage fingers
• lighter patch of skin on third finger
• nicotine stains between the first and second finger of his left hand
• wrist cords bulged like roots of oak

Head

• Bald spot on top
• Bushy eyebrows
• eyebrows of white steel wool
• wore a ballcap
• a single bushy bar above the eyes

Hair

• Corn silk hair
• Blue-black hair
• shoulder-length silver hair with a jaunty clip, dark rimmed glasses, smooth unlined face
• Blonde hair trimmed close to the scalp
• Shaggy white hair
• Teased platinum hair
• Hair in a neat ponytail
• Unruly shock of prematurely white hair
• Cowlick
• bad case of dandruff
• light brushcut hair
• clipped her hair back in its usual twist
• salt-and-pepper hair was wet and freshly combed
• Hair tied in a severe school-marmish bun
• Hair a light sandy brown

Skin

• rashes
• Beauty marks
• tattoo of…
• lentigo
• Leathery skin
• Spongy skin
• Steroidal with bad skin
• Walnut dark skin that glowed
• Brush of make-up and light touch of lipstick
• Dimple

Multiple

• The pale curve of her slender neck and the way her long dark hair draped down her back
• looked like hell—purple bags under her eyes, fingernails bitten to the nub

Body

• Thickening at the waist

Shoulders, chest

• Big slope-shouldered man
• Wide sloping shoulders
• broad shouldered
• Plump shoulders
• Bowed back
• Burly man with shoulders like a ledge
• Ramrod straight and rock-jawed, with gunmetal eyes and shoulders that seemed mitered at perfect ninety-degree angles
• Tall and thin and wearing her hair shorter than the last time I’d seen her

Miscellaneous

• Comfortable looking 60
• lissome body
• Wolfish boy
• Solidly built
• Chubby, pear-shaped man
• Rail thin
• Muscle-bound
• lean muscular build
• Almost fat, always slovenly dressed
• he was taller than he looked and bigger
• Nearly mythic ugliness
• Imposing nearly to the point of intimidation
• A hundred pounds overweight with an orange streak in her hair
• handsome but certainly not memorable
• Pushing seventy
• Fit looking man in a tattered straw cowboy hat jammed atop his sun-bleached blond hair
• Heavy-boned farm boy
• Short, overweight black woman
• Big guy, white, maybe forty. Black hair. Wide neck
• Thick man with shabby hair
• Talk, spike-straight guy with a pinched face
• Medium height, pale, stick-thin and leggy with a gamin face under a layered mass of long black hair

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blogger, Technology in Education featured blogger, and IMS tech expert. She is  the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-6 Digital Citizenship curriculum, creator of technology training books for middle school and ebooks on technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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Tech Tips for Writers is an (almost) weekly post on overcoming Tech Dread. I’ll cover issues that friends, both real-time and virtual, have shared. Feel free to post a comment about a question you have. I’ll cover it in a future Tip.

Q: I’m copy-pasting between a Word doc and an Excel doc on my computer. I know how to do that, but here’s the problem: I have three Word docs open. I don’t want to close the other two because I’ll need them soon. It takes a lot of time to click down to the taskbar, bring up the Word group and find the correct Word doc. Is there an easier way?

A: Oh yes, Much easier. Use Alt+tab. That takes you to the last window you visited. If you’re toggling between two windows, this is the perfect solution. I use it a lot for grading and report cards.

Question you want answered? Send it to Kali at kali.delamagente@structuredlearning.net

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.

Today’s tip: Finish what you start

Source: 70 Solutions to Common Writing Mistakes by Bob Mayer from The Writer’s Digest Writing Kit:

Why this is a mistake: Kind of obvious, isn’t it? But starting a project is so much more interesting than slugging through the entire thing. The middle section of any piece of  writing, whether it be a novel, narrative nonfiction, a magazine article, even a short story, is almost always kind of hard to work on. The excitement of generating the idea—the lure of the beginning, writing something new—isn’t there, and the lure of the finishing line is as far away as the shiver of the beginning. It’s always easy to get sidetracked by a new idea while you’re in the midst of working on something. It’s also easy for a writer to do just about anything other than write. Check e-mail, go out and walk the dog, do laundry, take a nap, research, market—anything. I’ve always said the hardest aspect of the job of being a writer is writing.

The Myers-Briggs personality test classifies people as either process oriented or result oriented. If you are a process person, you might have a problem getting to the end of a project.

The solution: Suck it up. Keep those new ideas and exciting other projects at bay. For the professional writer who is under contract this is a bit easier because you know your paycheck hangs in the balance, but even then, I know many authors who have a hell of a time bringing a project in on deadline.

For the writer who isn’t under contract this isn’t quite the case. But understand you won’t ever get that contract if you don’t finish a project.

If you are one of those people focused on the process and not the end result, figure out a system whereby you can reward yourself by getting to the end.

The bottom line is simply forcing yourself to sit down and plug away at it. Knocking out words regardless of how you feel. A one-hundred-thousand-word novel might take a year or several years, and then you just come to “The End” one day. But it takes hundreds of days to get to “The End.” As a writer you have to put in those hundreds of days.

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog,Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-monthly contributor to Today’s Author. In her free time, she is  editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of technology training books for how to integrate technology in education. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.

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