I have a friend whose children sit nicely and quietly. They whisper. They enjoy quiet activities. They love to read.

My children love to read. While yelling. And playing. And poking each other. While jumping on one foot. And twirling in circles. And fighting over the book in question.

My children are loud. They do not sit still. They never, ever whisper.

I live what Ursula Nordstrom said about wanting to publish good books for bad children. I think that’s what I’m destined to write. I do not consider my children bad. But if the rest of the children in the world are anything like my three, we’ve got our work cut out for us.

Don’t you hate it when you’ve been working on something FOR-EV-ER and you finish it and decide the ending doesn’t work? But then you can’t come up with a way to change it, so you set it aside and you come back to it each week and stare. And you still can’t think of a good fix? And then suddenly one day, you open it up and you think well, if I did this, I would have to do that, but then I could do this other thing to make those two things work together. So then you do it and by golly, you think you HAVE it. 

There’s a new chick on the scene and she’s broken through all her fears and made it home just in the nick of time. At least, I hope so. I’m pretty sure. Probably.

I’ll have to run it past a few people to be sure. 🙂

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/i/ /z/  /th/ /i/ /s/  /f/ /u/ /n/,  /or/  /w/ /o/ /t/ ?

I took a break from writing this weekend to take a trip — no computer, no internet! — with my in-laws who are here visiting for two weeks. Whenever I slow down on my writing, it seems as if my brain goes into overdrive, coming up with a multitude of new ideas, plot suggestions, interesting character names for me to work on. I just jot them down quickly. I never seem to have a shortage of (what I consider) interesting story ideas. Some of them end up being not so interesting once I begin working on them but that’s how it goes…

What about you? Are your files full of more story ideas than you’ll ever be able to finish in a lifetime or do you have to search for each little speck of flour that you bake into a wonderful story?

Okay, so I did something yesterday that I’m sort of glad I did and sort of terrified that I did. I have been working on a picture book (what seems to me a very marketable, quirky, funny idea) that I just can’t quite get to where it needs to be. It has some really funny parts. And then it has some parts that would be dependent on outlandish illustrations to support blah words. 

And so, it’s been through my crit group. A much older version has been tamarak -ed. I’ve changed it up, tried different povs. It’s getting closer. But still, just not quite there. It hasn’t changed significantly enough since its last version to have it critted again by the wonderful ducks. SO, yesterday afternoon, after having wild back and forth –it’s great, it’s not so great –emotional swings, I decided to send it to my agent and see what she thinks. I mean, she sees tons of picture book manuscripts a year. She knows what works and what doesn’t. Maybe it will spur some idea from her that will spur some idea from me that will make it work.

But still, I can’t help but think that she’s going to read it and go, “what?” “I signed this writer?” “She thinks this idea has hope of going anywhere?” It’s a step of trust in her for me to send her something that I wouldn’t have thought was ready to send to an editor. I mean, she’s helped me revise before, but only after she helped me see what wasn’t ready in something that I thought was ready. And I don’t think this is ready. 

So wouldn’t it be really funny if she came back and said, “This is perfect!”? But she won’t, because it’s not. I’m simply hoping that her expert eyes will see something of value in the idea and can help me head in the direction with it that I need to.

annemariepace already posted the list, but congrats to all my WINner friends, especially:

TracyH from Verla’s
Jenny Suffredini, my Chautaqua friend
Gwendolyn Hooks, also Chautauqua friend
Brianna Sayres, another Chautauqua friend
susanwrites!

jadedmetaphor!

kmarcus!

kpluta!