3rd Annual Valentiny Writing Contest

Time for another one of Susanna Leonard Hill's writing contests, hooray! These are so much fun. This time, I'm submitting to the 3rd Annual Valentiny Contest. The rules are as follows:


1. It must be a Valentine's story. 2. It must be appropriate for children (ages 12 and under). 3. It must be under 214 words. 4. It must include someone who is hopeful.


Good luck to all the contestants and thank you Susanna for the opportunity!

A Heartfelt Valentine

By Debbie Day

201 words

 

All the hearts gathered on Valentine’s Day

to hear what their president, Cupid, would say:

“The people are hoping for Valentine cheer.

What message of love can we send them this year?”

Every heart shouted the answers they thought:

“Love is like Nachos – it’s cheesy and hot!”

“You are my nut bar. You’re crunchy and sweet.”

“Hey there, I’m single…so please rub my feet!”

 

Then a small heart stepped in front of the crowd.

Boldly she stated her message out loud.

“Perfect,” said Cupid, “That’s what we’ll all say!

Just the right message for Valentine’s Day.”

Everyone cheered (well, the nacho guy frowned).

Then all the hearts rained on each city and town.

 

Some people scoffed at their heart-note surprise.

Others ignored it, while some rolled their eyes.

But all those who hoped for more love on that day,

smiled at the message and went on their way…

They said “hi” to strangers and held open doors.

They donated money and food at the stores.

They talked with their neighbors and friends far away,

to share the heart-message they’d read on that day:

“NO ONE’S THE SAME AND WE ALL DISAGREE,

BUT I CAN TREAT YOU LIKE I HOPE YOU’D TREAT ME.”  

High Time for Another Update

It's been awhile, so I thought I'd give a quick update on what's been happening the last couple months...


In December, I had my one-on-one skype critique with the talented Penny Parker Klostermann (see previous post and check out her wonderful books). She gave me a great critique on one of my rhyming stories and also shared some invaluable advice that I wanted to pass on:

• When writing rhyme...don't sacrifice the story just to get the rhyme. You have limited real estate, so to speak, don't waste it just for that last word of the phrase.
• Make every word count. Every word must belong and make sense to the story - don't take short cuts.
• Picture books need to either A) Have a strong goal/purpose, where the main character goes through some sort of transformation, or B) If the story is more of a general journey through and experience, there must be a theme throughout the story to tie it all together, such as a repeating phrase. (Say no to vague stories about feelings or lists, that don't have any purpose or theme!)
• Check out Storystorm here: https://taralazar.com/storystorm/. It happens once a year in the month of January (So it just finished up), but it's a great, FREE resource for picture book writers.
• Read THE NUTS AND BOLTS GUIDE TO WRITING PICTURE BOOKS by Linda Ashman.
• Make sure your in a writing group that consists specifically of picture book writers, who know the market and the ins and outs of picture book writing (which is quite different than other genres).  

Following Penny's advice, I participated in Storystorm this year, and wow. What a great experience that truly was! It's put on by Tara Lazar and it's basically a series of blog posts designed to help you generate ideas for picture books. It's still up on her website so any writer can look through the posts and get inspiration all year long (which I highly recommend). At the end of the month, I was left with more than 60 new ideas, 5 newly written manuscripts, and over a dozen more I started writing. Never has anything helped me so much with my writing.

I'm also in the process of reading Linda Ashman's book: THE NUTS AND BOLTS GUIDE TO WRITING PICTURE BOOKS, and again have found this so incredibly helpful! It contains the best, most straight-forward advice on writing picture books I've ever seen in one place - AWESOME resource.



I also organized a new writing group last month through my SCBWI membership - they have resources on their blackboard where you can find other members who'd like to start a critique group. So we have started meeting once a month and that's been great!



So yeah, Penny's advice has been amazing. I'm feeling super excited about my newly written manuscripts and have even started querying some stories again. It's been a good month!



In other news, my new book THE TWO ANGELS, A STORY ABOUT TWINS has been out for about 2 months now, and I've been so grateful for the success it's had. The first month of sales was better than I hoped, and I'm noticing that even after Christmas, there's been a steady stream of online sales. This wasn't the case with my first self-published book, ITCHY MITCHIE, and here's what I think is the difference. THE TWO ANGELS appeals to a very specific market: Twin families, and also Christians. When I set the book up in Amazon, I made "books for twins" and "a book about twins" two of the key phrases. Because of that, and also since there just aren't that many twin books out there, when people search for those things in Amazon, my book is one of the first to show up. It's also listed under religious fiction and Christianity, which makes it even more specific. So it turns out that writing a book for a niche market can be really beneficial rather than a generic children's book that may appeal to a wider audience but will simply not get seen in the enormous sea of picture books. Good to know, huh! (Now what other book could I write that appeals to a small, but consistent niche? Hmmmmm....)



Anyway, the kids are all emerging from naps and play time, so I better wrap this up, but it's been a great couple months of writing  and I'm excited for what's ahead in 2018!



Oh, oh! Ps. One more thing: Susanna Hill's next writing contest has been announced. It's coming up in a couple weeks, check it out here: https://susannahill.com/2018/01/27/bic-writers-its-time-for-the-2018-valentiny-contest-guildelines/



More soon!