Short and Sweet Update for a New Year

I thought it was a good idea to write a quick update on the exciting changes that have taken place the last few months.

First of all, my husband got his job assignment and now here we are in...Germany! We've been here about four months already (wow did that time go fast!) It's been a crazy, hard, amazing, and fun adventure so far.

Second of all, we had our baby #4! She came at the beginning of November and is already two months old (Wow that went by even faster!) We are so happy to have her here safe and sound, and boy is she a cutie!

As far as writing goes....As you can guess, I've had  a lot less free time with all that's been going on, but I'm trying to make time when I can because writing truly fills my happiness cup. Here's a few updates:

• Out of 237 entries, my story BROKEN-DOWN broom from my previous post got 7th place in Susanna Hill's Halloweensie contest, so that was fun! 
• I'm participating in Tara Lazar's STORY STORM again this year. It's the best writing inspiration activity I've found yet. If you're struggling to come up with new picture book ideas, you should definitely check it out!
• With a new year ahead, I've made new writing goals. This year, I plan to query five agents a month, with a total of 60 this year. I also have several specific manuscript drafts that I plan on finishing up and getting ready to submit. I'm going to get it done in 2019!!
• I'm applying to Tara Luebbe's 2019 Writing with the Stars mentoring program. There are some pretty amazing authors this year. The contest is open until January 13th if you want to check it out!

Stay tuned for more soon! 

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!

Summer Update... with a lot of DOT DOT DOTS

It’s been awhile so I thought I’d give a little update on…

WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING LATELY: 

-Going to the library LOTS! Reading LOTS of picture books with my kids, and sneaking in the occasional MG book for when I have the smallest sliver of “free time” in my day, which has been especially meager latterly because I’ve been ….

-Going to bed super early lately! This is something I’ve been trying to do better for a long time and I know it’s what I NEED to do in order to be a good Mom for my kids, have energy, patience, and the ability to get through another day, etc. It’s also because my husband and I are doing a little friendly compact. We have both agreed to do certain things to be healthier. His end of the bargain is to exercise more, while mine is to go to sleep on time. It’s left me with, like 30 minutes of spare time at night, but somehow, I’ve still managed to keep…

-Writing whenever I can! I’ve been focusing on rhyming and poetry lately. In the last couple weeks, I wrote a humorous rhyming poem about converting to vegetarianism (which is partially/kinda/sorta a true story of my life right now), a rhyming picture book about venturing into the woods after dark, and a non-rhyming serious poem exploring how words/thoughts/actions define who we are.  It’s been so satisfying to get new projects done! Now if only I could figure out what to do with them all. Speaking of which, I have been…

-Querying here and there! Getting lots of rejections back, applying for different writing opportunities I find on twitter, submitting a poem or two to a magazine, waiting for a positive response, you know how it is. I’ve also been…

-Attending writing groups! I’m now a part of three different groups, (actually four or five if you count one-on-one exchanges with random writing friends). Anyway, it’s so nice to have feedback and support with my projects... 

And that’s pretty much it folks. Just trying to do what I can when I can. Here’s one more thing I can share with you  before I go though: Our favorite books we’ve read this summer! So here we go, the books we’ve loved…

Picture Books:

THIS IS NOT MY HAT by Jon Klassen

THE LITTLE HOUSE by Virginia Lee Burton

SEVEN BLIND MICE by Ed Young                                                                     

BLIZZARD and BLACKOUT by Jon Rocco

BUGS GALORE by Peter Stein

GOSSIE by Oliver Dunrea

LUCKY DUCKLINGS by Eva Moore

There’s a lot more we’ve liked, I just can’t think of them off the top of my head, so moving on…

MIDDLE GRADE BOOKS:

THE CROSSOVER by Kwame Alexander

THE GIRL WHO DRANK THE MOON by Kelly Barnhill

ONE CAME HOME (LOVED THIS!) by Amy Timberlake

Have you noticed a lot of these are Newberry/Caldecott winners? That’s because at the Wyoming Writing Conference I attended in June, when I attended Eugene Gagliano’s “Writing for Children” workshop, he handed us a list of all the award winning books from the last few years and challenged us to read as many as we could. So that’s been my goal for the summer. Along the way, I’ve picked up any other award winners I’ve come across. We’ve enjoyed so many of them! I also feel like I’ve learned a lot about what makes picture books successful in general. 

Anyway, I better call it quits since I’m far too late going to bed tonight (my husband’s been sick and since he can’t exercise I guess that means I don’t have to go to bed on time??…It's not very good logic and know what you’re thinking – she doesn’t stick to this going-to-bed-on-time rule very well, does she. But I just want to say that I’ve been SO good for the last month, with tonight being the only exception! :D 

That’s it for now. More soon!