[december 2023] what's in my book kit
or: a client success story, a NaNoWriMo special deal, and a big list of my reading supplies
i’m back from my residency! it wasn’t as good as i hoped it would be, but i still got a lot of work done, made some great friends, and enjoyed the insanely beautiful property.
this is the view from the main house. that little seating area you see is where we had bonfires every night. at one point we made ramen over the fire, which was way harder than k-dramas make it look.
here’s the tiny shack where Edna St. Vincent Millay did all her writing.
and here’s the pool area where she held totally bonkers drug-fueled parties.
good news and not-so-good news and good news again about OFIC Mag
sale!
the good news is, we have 30% off everything in our store through December 5th! that means you can get the digital copy of all 7 issues for under $40 USD. we also have print copies of all issues except #2.
use code OFIC30 at checkout.
print copies of Issue #7 are here!
if you’re a patron, you should be expecting Issue #7 in the mail soon if you don’t have it already.
a spooky issue in a very un-spooky place! i bought a chair on a big sale (link way below) and now i finally have the reading corner i’ve been wanting for years. look how cozy it is!
delay on Issue #8
the less great news is that we’re delaying Issue #8—which was supposed to be published in January—until spring. OFIC has been running steady for two years now and i’d like to take some time to recalibrate and make workflow improvements on the backend.
if you’re a patron, i’ll be posting an announcement on Patreon soon. if you’ve submitted to Issue #8, we’ll be sending out responses in the coming weeks.
Pushcart nominations
now back to the good news: we sent out this year’s Pushcart Prize nominations! congratulations to all our nominees. we’ll be posting more info soon!
a client success story
i’m beyond thrilled to share that my client, Kat Stoddard, has signed with Claire Romine at Trident Media Group to represent her novel, WASP’S NEST! here’s what Kat had to say about working together:
Working with Beth has proved to be one of the best investments I’ve ever made in myself and my writing. Two years ago I had an established writing practice and an idea of what I wanted to accomplish (traditional publication for what was, at that point, an unwritten novel), but no real plan to get there. Beth and I met regularly as I took my novel WASP’S NEST from concept to full draft, through multiple revisions, and into the querying stage.
Despite the chaos of the last few years, meeting with Beth kept me focused and energized as a writer. Beth is passionate and curious, and she was always interested to learn how my characters were evolving and what inspired me. She’s an incredible teacher with a gift for making writing craft accessible—she’s so knowledgeable and loves sharing that knowledge with other writers. She’s also an encouraging and intuitive editor, often able to pin down my intentions for a scene before I could, and consistently tailoring her feedback to my personal writing style and professional goals. Thanks to the frameworks and techniques Beth shared during our meetings, I honed my own drafting and revision process and added countless other tools to my toolkit.
I was fortunate enough to sign with my literary agent this fall, and I’m very grateful for Beth’s help in reaching that milestone. She believed in my novel and in me as a writer before I did, and helped guide me as I polished my manuscript and developed my querying strategy. If you’re looking for a coach or editor who will meet you where you are, no matter your goals, and help you get to the next level, I can’t recommend Beth more highly.
i was so honored to work with Kat on her debut novel. i seriously love this book and i can’t wait to hold a published copy in my hands (and ask her to sign it for me some day). congrats again, Kat!
NaNoWriMo to NaNoRevMo (+ a package deal!)
if you participated in NaNo last month—whether you won or didn’t—this month you have A Thing. maybe that thing is a finished thing, or maybe it’s just the start of a thing, but either way you have a pile of words and something has to happen with them.
a lot of my clients come to me with NaNo projects in various stages of completion, looking for help deciding what to do next. finish it? revise it? set it down and work on the next thing?
if this is where you’re at, i’d love to help! from now through February only, i’m offering a full manuscript review for $250. this includes:
a developmental read-through of any manuscript up to 50k words in length
handwritten marginalia (questions, comments, cheerleading as i read)
a 2-hour consultation to go over my feedback
brainstorming solutions to plot problems
coming up with improvements to your writing process
a clear task list for where to go next
usually i charge aggregate hourly, so altogether the whole kitchen sink (sans line-level or proof edits) would usually cost $350-400. but it’s my first time trying out flat-fee package deals, so this is a test-run price. i’ll send an invoice via PayPal after our call along with PDFs of my marginalia and notes.
your manuscript doesn’t have to be complete and it can also be mortifyingly messy. you can have major sections in skeletal form or even yet to write, or information put in brackets to be worked out later. a lot of clients ask, “can i send you an early draft?” and the answer is yes, please. the messier, the better.
if you’re ready, you can book an appointment using the link below. or if you have questions, you can email me (ekweeks@gmail.com) or send me a message on discord (bettsfic).
what i’ve been into lately
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (theaters)—the book (hunger games prequel) came out 3 years ago and i’ve been eagerly awaiting for the movie adaptation ever since. i don’t think i’ve anticipated a film this much since Captain America: Civil War. but unlike Civil War, tbosas really delivered. naturally, i’ve gotten re-obsessed. in 2020, i scratched my head about why the book wasn’t more of a hit, but i’m chalking it up to dystopia stories being a bit of a risk in a pandemic. i’ve been pleasantly surprised by the reception to the film; i thought it would also be kind of a flop, because nothing ever really gets popular anymore, at least not the way it used to, but i’m seeing a lot of fanvids on youtube and gifsets in the tumblr tag. surprising no one, i’ve written 15k of a modern AU christmas fic. once i’m done with my book re-read, i also want to finish the coriojanus fic i started in 2020 and maybe a little snowbaird canon divergent two-shot. i’ve never had a situation where i had a book version ship and a movie version ship, but here we are. book coriojanus and movie snowbaird, but nearly notps the other way around.
The Glory (netflix)—i started this k-drama a while back and couldn’t make it through the first episode. there’s some really violent bullying early on that i couldn’t handle watching, but i was told by a reliable source that the romance is somewhere in the Love Language: Acts of Service (Evil) category. it takes “i’ll kill for you” to a very literal (and wonderful) degree. highly recommended!
M*A*S*H (hulu)—i pride myself on my knowledge of twentieth century american sitcoms but somehow MASH eluded me, even though it’s a favorite in my family. for as long as i can remember, my family has always had this inside joke of saying “ah, bach” whenever anyone says something boring or incomprehensible, but like many inside jokes, i had no idea where or why it started. imagine my surprise when all of a sudden the source of a lifelong inside joke shows up in season 1 of MASH.
i’m genetically engineered to love this show, so i’m sure i’ll be writing more about it as i make my way through.
here’s what’s in my book kit
yesterday’s Question of the Day in the Fanauthor Workshop was all about reading habits. do you prefer ebooks or physical books? do you buy books or rent them from the library? do you annotate your books, and if so, why/how?
the answers were very illuminating. everyone has such a different relationship with reading—not just what they read, but how they read. i think that’s something that will always fascinate me. unlike tv, movies, and video games, reading a book can be such a private and intimate thing, with so many different preferences and myriad approaches.
during this time of year—or this Season, if you will—i get kind of obsessed with material objects. maybe it’s because of the various black friday, small business saturday, cyber monday, etc. deals, or maybe it’s my usually hyperverbal brain going, “hey, buddy. maybe shut up for a minute.” either way, i thought i would share all the Things associated with my reading habits.
(none of these are affiliate links or sponsorships or anything, just stuff i use.)
the kit itself
one of my goals this year was to sit outside and read every morning (weather permitting). i accomplished that goal through most of summer, but when i started it, i realized i would nearly always forget something and have to come back inside. the thing is, i annotate the shit out of my books. all of them. how and why i annotate them i’ll reserve for another post, but the point is, i had a lot of things to carry outside with me each morning. so i made a book kit! all i had to do was pick up the kit and my coffee, and the habit became a lot easier to establish after that.
here’s what the kit looks like:
the pouch—the bag itself is important. it needs to be big enough for at least a mass market paperback, but small enough to fit in my Avoiding a Mental Breakdown in Public at All Costs (AMBPAC) bag (again, probably another post). i picked this one because i liked the pen loops, the color options, the size, and the fact it stays open standing upright. (note that if you put a beefy boy like tbosas in it, you can’t zip it shut, but it does fit long-ways.)
pastel highlighters—look, i go through a lot of highlighters. i mean a lot. i highlight so much that i’ve developed opinions about the absorbency of paper. i don’t actually use the pastel highlighters on my books; pastel is for my A4 Rhodia (that’s just the way my brain works, okay), but considering the A4 is always with the book kit (see below), the pastel highlighters therefore also go in the book kit. (note this link goes to a different brand than what i have; i got mine at a walmart in mississippi.)
clicky-top highlighters—it’s these bitches i use for highlighting books. for some reason, retractable highlighters are not the standard. i don’t want to have to put down my whole-ass book to undo the cap on my highlighter every time i want to use it, nor do i want to keep it uncapped and dry the ink out even faster. ugh. anyway these highlighters are my lifeblood. i end up buying at least a pack a year. note that the dark colors in this pack are DARK. good for highly absorbent paper only where the highlighting will fade over time. the light colors are good for low absorbency paper and general use.
page flags—if clicky-top highlighters are my lifeblood, book flags are my very flesh. no, that sounds weird. but you get my point; they’re important. you may be compelled to buy the many-colored massive packs of flags, but i assure you, a few pretty colors of a high quality brand (Post-Its) beats the 8000-count, 500-color pack you can get for the same amount of money. the ones i’ve linked have never failed me. (amazon has the 5-color version which i keep in my purse [i’m just very dedicated to book flags, okay]).
sharpie pens—these are my go-to pens. i end up buying multiple packs a year, and i have one on virtually every surface of my house and also probably on my person at all times. i just think they’re perfect.
sticky note folio—it’s not just enough to have sticky notes, no. i must have many sizes of sticky notes. i’ve linked to the one i have, which fits *exactly* in the pouch. HOWEVER, i don’t like these sticky notes at all. i’ve found Mr. Pen brand things are pretty but ultimately low quality. these suit my needs well enough, but when they run out, i’m going to find something better. this folio does have page flags included, but i hate them and don’t use them. the multiple sizes are necessary: the large ones i use to create an index at the front of the book and a summary sheet in the back; the medium ones i use for chapter summaries; the small ones i use for notes that can’t fit in the margins. for me, annotating is also indexing, so all of these tools make it easier for me to find the information i’m looking for.
bookmarks—my mom bought me these for my birthday. i need big bookmark sets because i’m always picking up and putting down books, and for some reason i can’t just use pieces of scrap paper, i need real bookmarks (or postcards). if you’re ever in the position of “hm i’d like to buy betts a present,” your best bets are 1) bookmarks, or 2) anything with wolves on it. if you buy me bookmarks with wolves on them i will go insane about it.
a zippered tissue pack—these little tissue pack holders are a life-saver. for real. i have a tissue pack in every bag i carry. it keeps the little sticky tab on the pack from sticking to things and it also keeps the tissues clean. it’s a real bummer to be in the middle of reading something and you have to get up to get a tissue.
my e-readers
i was an early adopter of ebooks. the first Kindle came out when i was 21 and i bought one asap. in fact the first books i ever read on it were The Hunger Games trilogy. in terms of ebooks vs. physical books, i’m an equal opportunist reader. it usually comes down to whether i’m doing seasonal reading (books related to the current Season and/or Project) or funsies reading. admittedly i don’t do a lot of funsies reading these days, because when reading is your job it kind of inherently becomes less fun.
i have two Kindles: a Paperwhite and a Scribe. the Paperwhite lives in my purse; i read it when i’m out and about, or in bed. the Scribe lives in my AMBPAC bag. the Paperwhite is a nearly perfect device. the Scribe is deeply flawed; if you’re on the fence about an e-ink device you can write on, i wouldn’t go Scribe. in fact in my research, there really aren’t any good ones out there yet. i still use the hell out of mine, i just wish it had features and capabilities it doesn’t yet have. the Paperwhite is the result of many versions of the Kindle, and i have a feeling the Scribe will take just as many.
kit-adjacent items
A4 Rhodia notebook (black)—i’m not kidding when i say this notebook changed my life. i tried to write a newsletter about it but it ended up being like 10k and i realized i needed to reevaluate some things about who i am as a person. i know bujo people will convince you side-bound, flat-lying notebooks are where it’s at, but i’m a top-bound spiral bitch. this notebook has everything: sturdy binding. perforation. some seriously good quality paper. a hard cardboard backing that keeps it stable while you write so you don’t need to put it on a table. how i use it is yet another post, but if you were to ask me what’s the most important thing i carry on me every day, it’s this notebook. yes, even over my phone.
book beau sleeve and reading pillow—i really like book beau! they have lovely book sleeves (for books too large for the kit) and a very comfy bean-shaped reading pillow. highly recommended.
neck light—i use this thing a lot. it’s a light that wraps around your neck and illuminates whatever you’ve got in your hands. it’s really great for reading in bed, and it has different kinds of light and brightness levels. unfortunately it doesn’t quite fit in the kit. still in the market for a smaller book light for portability.
foldable bookshelves—if you’ve ever been on a Zoom call with me and wondered about the bookshelves in the background, here they are. they’re expensive, but as someone who has moved many times, a sturdy and portable bookshelf is an absolute necessity. these things can fit just about anywhere and they fold up small enough to fit in my car.
the cozy chair at the beginning of the newsletter—very comfy, small, and easy to put together! it also has a phone pocket on the side. the only thing i don’t like is that the ottoman it comes with is about 2 inches too short. when i put my legs up, i like them to be elevated parallel to the floor.
custom book embosser (pictured below)—i don’t have a link to this because it was a gift from my friend Amber, who is also the managing editor of OFIC. i love this thing so much. a lot of people are hesitant to annotate their books because they want to resell them, but here’s my thinking: you annotate a book, you get super famous for hopefully good reasons, you die and then your family can sell your book collection for crazy money. and each one will be officially embossed, confirming that it was indeed yours. it’ll definitely happen. and if it somehow doesn’t, it’s still super fun to stamp your books.
i would love to know about your reading preferences/habits and the bookish items you love! feel free to leave a comment on this post or send me an ask on tumblr.
Can’t wait to sign a copy of WASP’S NEST for you someday! ❤️ And taking frantic notes on your book kit supplies...that bag looks great. Also I would absolutely read a 10k newsletter about notebooks but that may be a personal problem.