The real reason Lisa prefers I go to conferences with her...

Yeah... We're going to get to what's in the title... But first...

Yesterday was the re-dedication of the Idaho Falls temple. We attended the first session via the broadcast to our stake center (and we were grateful for not having to deal with two and a half hours of meetings before church and choir practice after...). It was good, and we're glad to have the temple open again!

Lisa is working on developing articles from her dissertation and teaching (again). She's also got some interesting knitting projects going on and just went to a conference (which she can talk about if she wants to...)

Over on my side of the office I'm editing Going Home the Hard Way, a follow on novel to Johnson Farm.

And by the way...

The proof  for the novel is in and the production run started this morning... I should have actual books available late next week (No you can't have the first one... That one is staying on my shelf...)

Hard Way is going well. There is a lot of work going on with it, but I think that in the end the story will be stronger than the first one. Some of the subject matter is definitely proving more challenging to write...

Speaking of challenging...

There will be a third book in the series which technically is happening in parallel with the first two. This one will be the biggest challenge yet and is one of the reasons Hard Way is taking longer to write. As I've said it's a parallel story to Johnson Farm and Hard Way, which means I need to make sure things match up at some points. But that's not the hard part...

Johnson Farm and Hard Way are told from the point of view of a 14 year old boy. The third book, which currently has the working title of Jamie's Story (but that may not be the final title), has two point of view characters. That's still not the hard part...

One of the two points of view is that of Jamie, a 14 year old girl... This is going to make things really complicated. I've done the 14 year old boy thing (some people say I'm still doing the 14 year old boy thing...), but I've never been a 14 year old girl (or any kind of girl for that matter!). This means I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to write this.

One of the steps I've taken is calling in a little help to get me in the right mindset. I've had the daughter of a friend of ours do a little decorating on the notebooks I intend to use for notes and the actual writing of Jamie's part of the story...

Funny thing number one: This is the only blue one I gave her to work on... I never told her I was using blue for notes...

Nothing weird here. This one just fits the subject matter...

Funny thing number two: The footprints actually make sense with a couple things that happen in Johnson Farm... Again I never told her about them and she hasn't read the book yet... (And you're going to have to read it if you want to know what I'm talking about...)

 Again nothing weird here... Just a pretty flower (and you'll have to read all three books to disprove that...)

Once again a young artist does an extraordinary job for one of the books. This time it's something to help me write the book instead of a finisher, but it's still great and much appreciated.

Ok... So... What does any of this have to do with the title?

Well, I did say some people still think I'm a 14 year old boy at heart...

Well, I mentioned Lisa went to a conference (I had work that needed to be done here so I didn't go... )

Well, you may remember these guys from last post...

Well... They kind of did a little construction while Lisa was gone...

Yeah... I was busy even when I wasn't working...

The whole thing has been taken down now, but it would be feasible to do it again (and possibly better!). Of course I'm not planing on doing so (yeah... and I'm not building an aircraft carrier on the table instead...)

That's it for now. See you next post.

Has it really been a month???

Ok, yes I know it's actually been a month, but there were adventures happening!

For those of you who aren't as interested in the reading and stuff just watch this explanation (thanks to WRappin and Wierd Al for this one)...



For those who are interested in reading...

Let's start with Lisa's stuff...
In the last month Lisa has done four presentations at two national conferences and was awarded a conference internship that covered most of the cost for the one that work wasn't paying for. Competition for the internships is actually pretty tough and at this point Lisa is the only person I'm aware of that got one on the first try!

Lisa is also officially in the data collection phase of her dissertation (she's running tests on people and recording the results) so she's well on her way to actually being DR Kidder!

Of course Patrick wasn't exactly just standing around guarding the walls...

Ok... so maybe I did guard the walls but I did other stuff too!

I went with Lisa to both of the conferences.

At the first one I discovered the old Mormon settlement that was the actual first building in Las Vegas. I also found components for a couple of new stories and finished the almost next to the last draft for Johnson farm. The next steps from here are to put it in the hands of my third group of pre-readers (which includes people who will hopefully be creating my cover art!) and doing the worky icky, make sure all the punctuation is correct, editing.

And of course this happened...

We brought back about 20 LBS of agate and petrified wood. (We also found the worlds largest agate sphere but I'm going to have to find the picture for that one...)

(Lisa found the picture, although there was some funky light reflections on her phone.)

The second trip was in Portland Oregon...

I brought this little pretty home...

I'll be turning this amethyst point into my version of the one that Jamie, one of the main female characters in my novel Johnson Farm, wears.

Speaking of Johnson Farm... NANOWRIMO started while we were in Oregon, so I didn't spend too much time roaming the city. I'm working on the second book of the Johnson Farm series with three more planned. Hopefully I'll be releasing one a year for the next five years. But for now it's get the first draft of book two done this month (27,000 words (about 114 pages) so far and about that much more to go...), and then get the first book out and on the market!

So, for all the nieces and nephews that bugged me about being in one of my books that one's coming too (about 70 pages done) but I needed to give it a rest to get this whole book in a month thing out of the way... hopefully you guys' book is out in 2018!

So, what have we learned from all this?
Lisa is a really smart competent person who gets things done.

And Patrick...?
Well, Patrick just has too many things he's trying to do. And...
You can not take that guy anywhere without rocks and stories being part of the adventure!

So, that's the short version...
We'll say more when Lisa feels like writing one; the second book is done; or I go completely insane (or is that completely insaner?)

For those of you who actually read this instead of watching the Albuquerque video...
Here's another one! (This is about the shape book two is in (which is why I'm not writing too much right here right now...))



Thanks guys, see you soon!

Next steps

I know that lately (well, since Fall of 2014) Patrick has been doing most of the writing here.  Today you get to hear about the work that I'm doing...

Last week was definitely stressful, I had finally set a date for my dissertation proposal - Friday, September 16th.

What is a Dissertation Proposal?

This is when I present the design of my research, prove that I've thoroughly searched the literature (and no one else has done what I've designed) and get permission from a committee of 5 people (who will also decide at my dissertation defense if I get to graduate) to move forward and start collecting data.  This is the second biggest (and almost the last) presentation for my degree. I've written more about some of the details about this on my other blog.

There were questions - which were addressed, and some points and ideas that need to be made more clear in chapters 1-3 (this is common). And, one of the committee commented that my PowerPoint presentation did not look like PowerPoint - I guess some of the design research I've done is paying off.

End result, I have permission to move forward.

What is Next?

I'm currently waiting on the permission from the Human Subjects Committee.  Once I receive that email I can begin advertising, and hopefully be able to schedule 36 participants to come spend an hour in the computer lab. It is a bit unreal at the moment as I have been focused on this end goal (which is not really the end) for quite some time.

Once I have collected the data, I can do the analysis, write chapters 4 and 5 and the plan is to graduate in May 2017!

In the Meantime...

In the Work/School Arena

• It was pointed out to me yesterday that I made a list of "100 Educators in Idaho to Follow on Twitter."  I honestly haven't posted anything on Twitter lately - but there will be more towards the end of October as I tend to post more when I'm at conferences. Which brings me to the other upcoming things...
• At the AECT Conference my schedule will be busy as I was awarded one of the Cochran Internships.  I am excited for this opportunity, but I'm told it will definitely keep me busy.  In addition I'm also doing a round table about my dissertation research - which won't really be ready for a full presentation, but will provide an opportunity to talk about it.  I will also be helping with the Three Minute Thesis Competition as I won last year.  (That was like a mini-dissertation proposal - a 3 minute version of the 40 minute presentation I did on Friday.  You can get the overall idea of the research watching that video.)  I will say that this competition really helped me focus my writing.
• Then there is the Quality Matters Conference where I'm participating in 3 presentations with colleagues from across the nation.  I really enjoy associating with all these people and look forward to our conversations this year.
• This morning I also got a notice that my chapter from last year has been cited again (according to Google Scholar) - which means with two publications I'm up to 15 citations!  I find it amazing that people are actually reading stuff I wrote.
• Patrick is the real writer. He has several projects in the works, as usual, and is making amazing progress in spite of having to deal with a very stressed Lisa last week.

In Other Arenas

• I continue to knit to keep me sane.
• Patrick is using more E6000 - perhaps he will share some of those creations next week.
• And the planning has begun for the Layne Family Reunion 2017

Some News from Lisa...

Just a few months ago, I (Lisa) decided to submit an application for one of the few internships for AECT (Association for Educational Communications & Technology).  I scrambled to update my CV (long resume for those outside of academia), answer questions about my goals and research (like I really know what I want to do when I grow up), and had a faculty advisor willing to squeak in a letter of support just under the deadline.

There are limited spots for these internships.  What would this get me?

Registration and hotel costs for the AECT 2016 conference are covered along with a stipend to help with travel.  In addition, during the conference I will have the opportunity to interact with and learn from leaders in instructional design, learning, and technology .  Following the conference I will be paired up with one of those leaders as a mentor to help me continue to progress as I transition from PhD student to professional.

(What would it get Patrick? - a week long most expenses paid trip to Vegas to write, and write and write.)

I completed my undergraduate degree years ago, so in many ways I do not feel like your regular PhD student.  In other words, it feels like I'm on a second or third career and falling behind.

I was already planning to attend this conference.  The presentation I submitted was accepted, and I had already committed to helping with the 3MT Competition (See Conferences and Travel (Lisa's belated post))

This morning I received in my email inbox...

Lisa, congratulations!
You are a recipient of a 2016 AECT Leadership Internship. You join a prestigious and small group of people who have become leaders in the field...

I was selected as one of the three Cochran Interns!

AECT 2016 Internship Announcement

I was so excited!  And extremely grateful for this opportunity. 

While my life has not always taken the expected path, I have been extremely blessed with opportunities to grow and progress in my professional life.  From opportunities to further my education to kind comments from professional men and women I admire to affirmations like this award; all small indications of the Lord's hand in my life letting me know that I am where I need to be, doing what the He wants me to do.

Johnson Farm and Other Oddities

Things are going mildly insane around the Kidder household at the moment...

Lisa's amazing world of nonfiction stuff
Lisa is teaching a QM class (again) and earnestly working on getting the actual worky icky parts of her dissertation done and ready to collect data. It's actually kind of scary having someone I can have a conversation about being published and working on writing with that's on the same page I am...

Lisa is also at a good place in terms of conferences she's got three proposals out with co-author/presenters with words like doctor and assistant dean in their titles. And one to present her dissertation research in the fall (the data should be collected by then...). It will be interesting to see where things go with her conference stuff this year.

Johnson Farm (or... the story gets stranger)
Things have not exactly been quiet on my side of the office either... Last week I finished the final draft of my NANOWRIMO novel Johnson Farm (that is the final draft before I start letting people read it...). This one I finished the pass in about three days (I worked 150 pages last Thursday).

Now, what happens?
Next week (at the beginning of the month) I'm going to be handing copies of the text off to a couple of select readers to be looked over (not Lisa this time, she's got her own stuff and a couple scripts of mine to look over). And this is where things get really exciting...

One of the readers is a young artist here in the area and the first entrant into a little project/competition I'm putting together. The challenge is to read the book and create a piece of cover art for it. I'm actually planning on recruiting a small group of artists to do this with the best (or at least my favorite) three covers being selected as limited edition covers for the first run of the book. I would like to promote the work of young and up and coming artists and giving a few of them a shot at a book cover seems like a good way to do it.

This first cover will be sort of a test case and example for the others I'm hoping to recruit. I'm going with this particular person because she's a local so I can talk with her pretty easily during the process; she's a fast reader; and I like her stuff (Note that there are other artists who fit two or more of those qualifications, unfortunately the ones that read this blog tend not to be local and/or are rather busy and I'd like to have something on hand around the time I'm finished with next months madness with the chainmail book...).

As for the other readers and artist/readers for the first wave... well, I haven't really had time to figure that out. Between editing the book, doing two blogs, the ward boundary realignment and a couple of non fiction projects I've been slightly busy...

The good news is that the crew I'm putting together is helping and things are coming in almost/semi/sort of on schedule. Though I really need somebody to man the camera for some videos (torch in one hand, camera in the other... not good). 

I'm hoping to have Johnson Farm out in the fall and the chainmail bottle carriers book is still on line for April release (but I do need to get those videos done...)

That's the big news for this week.

Until next time...

Don't worry the team is on hand to make sure I don't do anything really drastic (and to guard the soda supply :P

Conferences and Travel (Lisa's belated post)

I (Lisa) should have posted last week, but after 3 full days of travel (still not sure why I had to fly to Minneapolis to get to San Antonio) and back to back conferences, I was tired.

I presented at the first conference (Quality Matters) and got great feedback and made some new connections.  At the second conference (AECT) I competed as a grad student in the 3MT competition - explain your research in less than 3 minutes without any fancy language.  I'm really glad I did it.  Mostly because it got me to really think about my dissertation research.

I was extremely nervous during the first round, and slotted to go last.  I did try to pay attention to the others, but found it very difficult.

The end result?  I won!  Interesting to note that the runner up and people's choice winner was a grad student from BYU.  I love all the BYU (Provo, Idaho, and Hawaii) connections at the AECT conference.

So, if you want to know about my research, I had a friend record me during the finals round - it is only 2 1/2 minutes - and hopefully I didn't get too technical.


I (Patrick) am really glad that Lisa did well. Winning the 3mt is not a small thing. She also did a book signing with her co authors for the  book that she's got a chapter in.

I do have some news to talk about on my front but I will wait to talk about it so as to not detract from Lisa's post.

Reving up, counting down...

Definitely a busy one in our little corner of the universe!

Lisa is leaving for her double conference trip on Saturday. It was originally just going to be a one conference trip but then she was asked to present at the other one. So she's got one where she's been invited to present and another where she's working on making contacts and setting up for the job she really wants when she grows up...

(Ok, ignoring her comments about when  I'm going to grow up and continuing the bragging) She should also be getting bumped up to a higher position with Quality Matters soon (they're the ones who invited her to speak by the way). This is something that's been very good for her (even if it is tiring some times).

She is  on hiring committee for the university (again) and hoping to be done with her dissertation this year (leading to some speculation on several peoples parts about where we will be next year (even without me using our moving to scare our bishop...)).

The conference trip is actually going to be a bit of a challenge for reasons that I'll be talking about in my Wordsmeanstuff post on Friday (no, I'm not going to say it here, because if I don't there's 0.0000001% chance somebody who reads this blog will go and read that blog....)

So next question (and one not addressed in the WMS post...). What will I be doing while Lisa is gone... (thanks to Akinius)



The week Lisa is gone is the first week of National Novel Writing Month (I may have mentioned that before) so, as much as possible, most of my other writing projects will be on hold while I bust out a 50,000 plus word book in thirty days (actually 26 since I try to take Sundays off...).

I will also be doing camera stuff for three or four videos that are on my list to get done. Three of the videos are associated with the chainmaille book so I need to bust those out quick! The fourth one is actually another shop project video that's tied to another project I'm working on (but more about that later (if I talk about and work on that one I'm up to seven book projects on the running list and my official limit is five...).

Note: if the city burns down while Lisa is gone it's not my fault this time! Nothing (almost nothing) I'll be working on involves fire (ok, except that one... and that one... and maybe that one... and the kid in the book might set something on fire (it still won't be my fault if the city burns though... I was working on some other project at the time...))

Speaking of the chainmaille book... you'll notice I haven't really mentioned the chainmaille book or the Kickstarter project. Kickstarter isn't really going too well. But I'm not bitter.

Actually a couple of things have happened behind the scenes that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't launched the Kickstarter and had it follow the course it has so far...



One way or another, Kickstarter or no Kickstarter this thing is launching!

Why I chose something from Starblazers (and even more so a Starblazers Pachinco machine) is something for another post, but I'd like to thank SonicBoom for the clip.

I found the solution to my 'doing this as an ebook' issues and funding that will definitely help with some test kits for select testers. So if the Kickstarter goes it goes. If it doesn't it's actually way easier for me to do it the other way (so actually if you want to slow me down, make the Kickstarter go through...). My royalties will actually be higher on the ebook too (We're talking $2.00 to $3.50 per copy on a $5.00 ebook versus to $1.00 to $1.50 per copy on a dead tree edition...). I'm still planning on the release date I listed in the Kickstarter (April Fools Day just seems right!).

Can I actually pull it off? There are only 156 days left.

That's it for this week.
Till next time... Remember...
Insanity is a sane reaction to an insane world!

I finally get vacations...

I finally get vacations...

Thursday and Friday were the days for Lisa's conference in Boise so I went along and for two days (not counting parts of Wednesday and Saturday...) I was able to relax get away from this whole publishing and marketing end of the writer thing...

But maybe I don't...

When it comes to the actual writing part of being a writer I got more done on my two vacation days than I would in three days at "work"...

The writey wordy stuff...
As of today I'm back hard at it. I shoot the video for the Kickstarter tomorrow, I finished a short story that I started on the trip and I dug up a couple thousand pages of research for another book I've got in the works.

I am very much looking forward to the day that I can send the shirt and tie people part of writing (marketing and such) back to what ever _ _ ll it comes from and get back to just hardball writing (until the next one is ready to be shoved out the door and then I'm write back here (pun intended (Hey... I have to suffer, everybody suffers!)))

On other fronts Lisa is pushing closer and closer to proposing her dissertation. Then she gets to deal with the human subjects committee AKA "the murder board" (whether that's a statement about how I feel about them or what they do to projects is up for debate...). And then she can do the actual gather data part of the research...

Lisa is also gearing up for her double conference trip at the beginning of November.

I'm not going on that one because of costs and my NANOWRIMO project. That would be a novel of no less than 50,000 words in one month. Since I don't intentionally write on Sundays that would be 1923.08 words per day for a whole month... (remember that hardball writing I was talking about). And that's not counting blog posts, emails, or any of the other wordy stuff I have to do.

The shiny pretty stuff...

Writing isn't all that's going on...

The first shipment of stuff on my business account got here today. Now I have to build the stuff and figure out a better storage system (so I can keep the business shiny and the personal shiny separate better...). Some of this is for things for the ETSY store we're opening and some is for the Kickstarter (more about that in a week or so...)

This also happened...

We broke down and bought the half a hog bundle as part of a local grocery stores case lot sale... 50 pounds of pork... How much meat to we have? I have no idea I lost count around 45 meals... (and that's not counting the pork stock we will be making with the bones...)

Woodn't you know (pun intended again...)

Naturally we stopped at one of our usual rock connections in Boise...

And part of Arizona came home with us... Apparently the tumbler is going to be back in operation soon...

And of course Lisa got into the act...

With a nice little piece of jade.

The biggest over all piece is mine (and onyx)...

But that's because I have a plan for it that involves making something for Lisa (to be seen later).

Annnd we'll end where we began...

With petrified wood... and me wondering whether I get this vacation thing or not...

That's it for today. Till next time...
Life is like a box of chocolates...
You'd have a pretty good idea what your going to get if you'd only read!

Sean 27:56 For Mine is a Life Full of Miracles

Nope, no videos or shiny things in this one (ok lots of shiny things but that's not the point). On this one occasion I am actually quite serious. My life is a life full of miracles.

One of them is my wife... Lisa... you might have met her...

I can brag about her later, let me tell you about a few of the other miracles that have been happening lately...

 

Umm... first off the book (one of them) is done and if things go anywhere near right it will be out this year. 

Note that that is this year, not next month... As one might expect the print date has slipped some (Who knew that writing the book was the easy part...). Part of the reason the schedule slipped is that Lisa and I decided that the book could use some testing before it's full release (so I will be looking for a few brave volunteers to see if the instructions make sense (we learn as time goes on...)). So rather than launching the book next month I'm launching a Kickstarter to fund the tests. The book will go into a limited test release in December and the fully re-edited book will be out in April (somehow sending the final copy to the printers on April Fools Day just makes sense...).

Now then... earlier this year I did end up going to the hospital, which was not all that fun. The fact that I lived and am actually off insulin (and so quickly...) is a miracle. Add to that that the book whose cover you just looked at and two more in the top five on my production schedule are direct results of that trip... A slight change in direction for some of the writing stuff, but one that has cemented that yes, I am a professional writer. This whole mess fits into the Life Changing Miracle category.

Follow the bouncing banking for this one... 

Last year Lisa and I were going to go on a conference trip and I was worried about funding for it. I did some digging and found some old money the state of California was holding from when I was an undergrad and put in the paperwork to get it... Lisa and I never went on the trip and the money would have taken too long to get here anyway. It wasn't a lot of money, but after it got here and I paid tithing we split the remainder three ways: $68 to Lisa for some knitting stuff; $68 to me for some chainmaille stuff; and $68 that got put into the bank for a latter project...

The chainmaille order is the one that most of the materials for the originals of the designs in the book came from. As for the $68 I put in savings it was mixed with a little more money in savings and waited.

This last week I needed to open the new account for the Kickstarter and publishing stuff (my own business and easier to track if it has it's own account). With the money in savings I still needed $26.00 to open the account. I didn't want to use our regular income for this because it was a special project of it's own and I wanted it to be something I worked specifically for and found a way to do, so...

I dug around and found an old cash of change that I had but it still wasn't quite enough. I cashed in the aluminum cans I had on hand and got some cash. I was bummed and thought I didn't quite have enough till I counted everything together...

After taking out tithing on the cans I had enough to open the account with $1.68 left over! So, I was able to open the new account for the new business without having to dip into paychecks and regular house funds to do it. Sure, I could have just slid a hundred over from the house checking account but I didn't want to do that, both because I didn't want to pull extra money away when Lisa's getting ready for her double conference gig, and this version has a way better story! And yes I do feel I was blessed to be able to do it. But wait there's more!

Today I made my first supplies order from the new account, some stuff for the Kickstarter and promotion of the book. The total $68.26! 

So the money from long before we were married, that I was willing to give up for Lisa's trip (and I still gave a way part of it to her...). Actually helped with this book. Not once, but three times... And it was money I'd forgotten I'd had for the last 12 years... Don't care what anyone else says, MIRACLE.  If it had not been for that forgotten money and the failed trip (and the whole hospital/not dying/insulin thing) this book never would have happened.

One more related miracle...

Working on the marketing and business side of the book is stressful and that's no lie... (somewhere in our stake there are a couple of people walking around headless for bugging me while I've been trying to get the publishing and Kickstarter nailed down...). Just when I want to get out of here but it looks like it's not going to happen... Lisa gets a chance to go to a two day conference in Boise and because work asked her to go, it's covered and doesn't mess with the double conference! 

As usual, no more info on that one till it happens (other than the fact that somewhere between here and NANOWRIMO in November I'm going to get two days of just straight up fiction writing in (no marketing, statistical analyses or other "shirt and tie people stuff").

Summing it all up... 

Miracles can and do happen. But, sometimes you have to take the effort to make yourself worthy to receive them and to put yourself in the right place to receive them. Sure there are the ones that happen without your help... but a lot of the time it's preparing and asking (and knowing what to ask for). The miracles can and will happen, you just have to be ready...

That's it for this post 

Until next time... if the miracles aren't happening, make 'em yourself!