 It’s almost Easter, time for chocolate bunnies and jelly beans. The Jelly Belly Company is known for their best-selling flavors. How many do you think they make? 20 30 40 50 The answer . . . 50 flavors. Jelly Belly’s traditionals include orange, lemon, lime, and cherry. The exotics include cinnamon, pomegranate, cappuccino, buttered popcorn, and chili-mango. They also do specialty jellybeans with licenced ingredients like Tabasco sauce, hot-cha-cha! The unusual ones like egg nog or pancakes and maple syrup are more my speed. Jelly Belly even has some nonalcoholic versions of mai tais, strawberry daiquiris, margueritas, and draft beer. If you want flavors like lychee or green tea, you’ll have to go outside the US. Jelly Belly also makes Berti Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, the ones from Harry Potter, and yes you can try vomit, earwax, skunk spray, and even rotten egg. Really!  The Jelly Belly Company’s base and manufacturing plant is in Fairfield, California. It’s 40 miles southwest of Sacramento, the capital of California. In 2014 Family Fun Magazine picked their self-guided tour as one of the best around. Jelly Belly has another plant in North Chicago, Illinois. Follow its eastern border north. North Chicago is on Lake Michigan, about 10 miles south of Wisconsin. Drive 3 miles north into Wisconsin, and you’ll be in Pleasant Prairie and at the Jelly Belly distribution center. They ship beans all over the country, and they offer a train tour of their warehouse.  Would you believe Jelly Belly has a factory in Rayong, Thailand? If you fly southeast of Chon Buri, you’ll be in Rayong, and that’s where they make lychee, green tea, and the other international flavors. Sources: * https://quizzclub.com/games/bonus/the-jelly-belly-company-has-how-many-official-jelly-bean-flavors/answer/65750/ * en.wikipedia.org * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelly_Belly  More great news from our group! The books are coming! The books are coming! Check them out online or at your favorite bookstore. 
by June McCrary Jacobs
by Jarm Del Boccio 
by Connie Bergstein Dow
by Pippa Chorley
by Suzanne Jacobs Lipshaw   An Interview with Laurie Smollett Kuscera Meet Laurie Smollett Kutscera! She grew up in the Greenwich Village part of New York City. She studied fine art, calligraphy, and children’s illustration at Queen’s College. One of her teachers was Caldecott medalist Marvin Bileck. What a great opportunity! Laurie used it to become an award-winning graphic designer, a published children’s illustrator, and a toy designer. What a career! Laurie got interested in writing 14 years ago when she was cruising the eastern seaboard from Nantucket to the Virgin Islands. I met Laurie last year through 12 x 12 and the Children’s Book Academy. Laurie is still a New Yorker. She lives on the north shore of Long Island with her husband Nick and rescue dog Cody. Her life sounds practically perfect!  This is Laurie’s cover! Meet Alexander Fin, master of illusion and son of a famous magician. When his father dies, Alex must move, but he won’t unpack or have anything to do with his new home. Everything changes when he discovers an unusual deck of cards hidden in his father’s old desk. They’re animated, and that’s when Alex’s real adventure begins. Read Laurie’s On the Scene interview, and you’ll learn where she got this story idea. Hint – it involves magic! PS - Laurie's interview must be magic . . . it keeps disappearing whenever I try to share it on Facebook so I'll see if it works here. Fingers crossed! Link: http://onthescenein19.weebly.com/blog/an-interview-with-author-laurie-smollett-kutscera  Back in the day my class’ name was Beach’s Best. I wanted my class to think of themselves as a team, and as a team I wanted everyone in the class, including me to be their best. To do their best. I still do. One of the tips I heard years ago to catch your writing mistakes was to read your work out loud. You will hear what sounds awkward, or even wrong. It really works! But now I discovered something better than sitting in my chair and reading my stories to myself. It’s not having someone else read it. I’m retired. Usually there’s me, myself, and I in the house, and my husband. I don’t think he’s ever read anything I’ve written, other than a text message. Are you wondering what I found? Good! Adding more words and making you wait adds to the tension. You want to have tension in a story, but not too much!  Can you guess what it is? It involves the computer. If my husband is in the room it involves headphones. Can you guess now? It’s using the narrator setting on my computer. I can hear my words so I can hear what’s wrong. Sure, it’s in a computer voice, but that’s better than my own, even though I’m a great oral reader. When I use the computer, I don’t have to focus on decoding the words and putting the sound and meaning together. With the computer I listen to the sound and meaning. I cut my work in half, and that’s a great thing.  Whenever I write one of my web posts, I always use the narrator function on my computer. It usually takes like 5-9 times through the post before I publish it. It makes good writing so much easier. When I write stories, like NEIL ARMSTRONG’S WIND TUNNEL DREAM, I do the content first (the story). Then I go back and run it through the narrator function until I’m happy with it. If I just got a critique from one of my writing friends, I make the changes, and then I run it back through the narrator again. If you’re writing in Microsoft Word and want to use the narrator function, hit control/windows/delete at the same time, and it will open the function. Then click on caps/m to start it. To leave, click on caps/escape. If you don’t use word, you can google how to use a narrator on your program. Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17173/windows-10-hear-text-read-aloud  Another writing tip is to find great sources with interesting facts that you can share with your audience. If you have a book or science report to do, I have a pair of animal books in My Reads that you should check out.   An Interview with Sarah Hoppe Meet Sarah Hoppe! She’s from Minnesota, born and bred. Her favorite things are writing weird stories, taking photographs, hiking through the woods, crafting with lots of hot glue, and snuggling on the couch with her family. It sounds like a wonderful life! Sarah lives in Rochester, Minnesota with her husband, two boys, and two dogs. I’m glad Sarah’s a photographer and a writer! Between her family and her walks, she has lots of material to record and to inspire her.  This is Sarah’s first cover. I love the dog AND the beach! Did you know that dog books are best sellers with Scholastic book clubs? Everybody loves dogs! In WHO WILL? WILL YOU? Lottie is out beach-combing and finds something unbelievable, a lost puppy. She spends the day looking for a home for him. Lottie discovers that there are different kinds of pups, and they each have different needs for their just-right homes. Read this book, and you’ll discover some fun animal facts. They make this book pup-tastic!  It came in the mail so it’s official . . . I’m old enough for a Golden Buckeye Card. They’re for Ohio senior citizens. I don’t think of myself as a senior, but now I am. I have the Golden Buckeye Cards to prove it.
Turning 30, 40, or 50 never bothered me. I’m named after my grandmother. She died when my mom was two. She never got to turn 50 or 60. I found a cool link to help me celebrate my age by the numbers . . . On May 7, 2019 I’ll be – 31,512,962 minutes, Or 525,216 hours, Or 21,884 days, Or 3,126 weeks, Or 718 months, Or 60 years. Or 6 decades. Age is a state of mind! On May 7th I’ll be anything from 6 to 31 million. Let’s just say I’m timeless! If you’d like to see how timeless you are, click on this link, and type in your birthday. Happy aging! https://happyhappybirthday.net/en/1959/05/07   An Interview with ME!!! You’ve already met me so instead I’ll introduce the biography I wrote for NEIL ARMSTRONG’S WIND TUNNEL DREAM. Rinda never planned to write. She was a second-grade teacher who read and told stories, until the night a bat paid her a visit. It inspired her to write. She learned how to edit, thanks to SCBWI, writing classes, and critique partners. Rinda substitute teaches to stay connected to today’s kids. She uses her knowledge and imagination to write stories for them. Her website features a weekly blog and book review for kids. She expanded her career to open a company, Beach Girl Press. Visit Rinda at www.rindabeach.com  Here’s the summary from the back cover. Most people know that Neil Alden Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon, but very few know how it all started . . . with a dream to build his own wind tunnel. Read how Neil’s love of planes took him from the Cleveland air races at age two to the Wright Brothers’ wind tunnel at age sixteen. Discover how Neil made his wind tunnel dream come true. Here are the quotes from the back cover: A wonderful book for any young person interested in how to think about solving engineering problems using an example of one of America’s most famous astronauts. Additionally, Ms. Rinda Beach gives real examples for those willing to go a step further in conducting their own experiments, just like young Neil Armstrong! That is what sets this book apart, it is not just a young person’s book, but a book for young people. -Robert G. Bryant -Ph.D Eagle Scout • NASA Senior Research Engineer The Space Foundation’s Space Technology Hall of Fame 2016 Inductee What a fun, interesting and informative look at how a young Neil Armstrong’s curiosity led him to outer space. An added bonus is the instructions for making your own wind tunnel! -Patricia A. Johnson, retired educator  Look what came in the mail today!!!
My first book! I’ve been writing since 2007 so this is a dream come true! I got the paperback copy today, and the hardback is coming tomorrow. It’s even better because I was expecting both of them next week. Now it’s back to work. On the list, I must approve the paperback and hardback copies, order the eBook, and get my ISBN numbers on Amazon, Good Reads, and Barnes and Noble. Here’s to tomorrow! These were Cole’s first and second submissions for the back cover. I changed the title from Headline Copy to Dreams Come True because it’s a better fit for Neil and his wind tunnel dream.
On the first one, there was room for a quote and my biography/picture. I cut them because they’re already inside the book. In its place I thought I had room for 3 quotes from 3 very special people.  This is Cole’s first full cover submission. The color is a little off. That’s because all files go to the printer in PDF form. I couldn’t cut and paste it into this document so I took a picture with my phone. I wish it was perfect like the PDF, but I’m glad I could share it with you. The biggest change Cole wanted was more white space. I talked to a friend who suggested cutting one of the quotes. I hated to do it, but it was the right thing to do.  This is the second and final cover. I submitted it to the printer using two PDF’s. One for the paperback version. One for the hardback.
The only change, I have two quotes instead of three. I think it looks better with more white space, but I hated cutting my friend’s words. The good news . . . is that I still used that quote on my application to the printer, IngramSpark. I had to fill in eight screens of questions before they could check my application.  When I joined On The Scene in 19, I needed a cover for my book. Cole didn’t have one yet, so I copied this image from Suzanne Jacobs Lipshaw. She used it as a place holder for her book, and then she shared it with our group. It was perfect! Yesterday I revealed my cover, and today it’s time for Neil’s cover story!  This is the cover I didn’t pick. I loved it the minute I saw it, but a friend thought Neil looked too old for my 3rd – 5th grade audience. She suggested looking at covers online. I did, and they all looked younger than mine. I emailed Cole, and we talked about what to do. We looked at Neil’s face, but we didn’t want to make it rounder and younger. That would mean changing half the illustrations inside the book. That was definitely a no-go! We looked at Neil’s clothing, and I researched what boys wore in the 1940’s. I remembered Ralphie from the movie, A CHRISTMAS STORY. He wore a sweater so I immediately decided Neil could wear one too.  So how did we help Neil fit in with his audience? I looked at Cole’s illustrations inside the book. Neil and his brother Dean look like the kids at school, full of life! Cole tried this smile on for size. Neil looks younger without changing all those illustrations. It was a win for Neil and for the book, AND everyone looks younger with a smile, especially Neil Armstrong! These were Cole’s first and second submissions for the back cover. I changed the title from Headline Copy to Dreams Come True because it’s a better fit for Neil and his wind tunnel dream.
On the first one, there was room for a quote and my biography/picture. I cut them because they’re already inside the book. In its place I thought I had room for 3 quotes from 3 very special people.  This is Cole’s first full cover submission. The color is a little off. That’s because all files go to the printer in PDF form. I couldn’t cut and paste it into this document so I took a picture with my phone. I wish it was perfect like the PDF, but I’m glad I could share it with you. The biggest change Cole wanted was more white space. I talked to a friend who suggested cutting one of the quotes. I hated to do it, but it was the right thing to do.  This is the second and final cover. I submitted it to the printer using two PDF’s. One for the paperback version. One for the hardback.
The only change, I have two quotes instead of three. I think it looks better with more white space, but I hated cutting my friend’s words. The good news . . . is that I still used that quote on my application to the printer, IngramSpark. I had to fill in eight screens of questions before they could check my application. |
AuthorWhen I write, I can only have one voice in my head, mine. A little noise is fine. But too much, or worse yet, WORDS, and I must change rooms or pull out headphones. Then I can write on! Archives
April 2019
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