Lauri Meyers .

Those of you considering Middle Grade writing ( like I sometimes do ) will enjoy these highlights from the panel "A Blues for Middle Grade" at the Brooklyn Book Festival .  The authors offered a great introduction to the middle grade audience.  Here are some of my favorite tidbits: R.J. Palacio  ( Wonder ) had this to say about middle graders:  they are "toddling back and forth between being little kids and believing everything they are told and being a teenager and being skeptical."  Wendy Mass ( The Candymakers ) shared middle graders "spend so much time thinking about what others think of you - you forget to figure out who you are." Adam Gidwitz ( A Tale Dark & Grimm ) remembers "how difficult it was to be who you wanted to be."  He could identify what it meant to be cool, but he couldn't control his actions enough to develop into that person. Sheela Chari ( Vanished ) said during middle grade "You really star...

I did it! I went to my first writing event - The Brooklyn Book Festival.  Here's how it went:             A cool breeze made her consider one more safety pee as she walked down the sidewalk.            No , she thought, five times was enough .  Her foot stomped firmly on the concrete to shake           out the creeping anxiety.  This country girl from Ohio took each step with commitment,           feeling independence surging through her muscles.           You can do this , she thought.   No pitches, no critiques; this is easy.  Just put out your hand and            say, "Hi, I'm a writer."  Then do it again and again until you believe it.          Sunshine warmed her shoulders pulling them a little higher as she entered the city square.      ...

I am a rule follower.  So when people say "Remember the rule of three," I cut incidents out of my story.  Then they say "Remember aim for 14 spreads."  Then I squint my eyes, wrinkle my nose, and say "Aw sassafras*."  *I have been caught saying other things in front of the kids recently, so I am working on using 'sassafras.' Oh the Rule of Three.  Three bears.  Three porridges.  Three attempts.  Three. Three. Three. And I get it.  In a short story.  House of sticks, house of straw, house of bricks, wolf in the pot. But how do I stretch 3 incidents into 14 spreads for a picture book?  Even if each incident is a reasonable 2 spreads, 8 spreads remain to be filled with the opening and the resolution.  Throw in the "open in the action" and the "two spreads to resolve" rules and clearly picture books are mathematically impossible.  So I studied some picture books.   The majority are concept books w...

If you write for children, you probably have the childlike tendency to play games.  Playing Candy Land with my Mom was the best part of any sick day.  She even let me cheat most of the time.  I still love to play games (minus the cheating, of course.) Many sites offer online events and contests which are great opportunities to get feedback on your writing, develop your skills, and practice writing. Here are a few of my favorite sites for contests, writing prompts and events. Tara Lazar hosts PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month) in November,  with registration starting October 24.   The idea is to come up with  30 PB ideas in 30 days!  Artwork by Sandy Tanaka Paula Yoo hosts NaPiBoWriWee,  a contest to write 7 picture books in 7 days (first week in May).  Each day also includes a great guest post for inspiration.  Exhausting but amazing! Cynthea Liu hosts Red Light Green Light contests throu...

Some people leave an echo after they walk away.  Sometimes the echo is yucky.  A certain cashier at the grocery store is always mean to me either because I loaded the belt wrong one day or because she is just always having a bad day.  I try to avoid her line so I don't have all those little bits of negativity nibbling at my skin. Sometimes the echo is like fairy dust, glittering on your skin for hours.   One day at Target a woman said "Excuse me, maam."   I turned suddenly assuming I was in trouble for letting my 2-year-old run around knocking things off the shelf.   I put my hands out for the cuffs.  (I have a fear of authority.) Instead I found a little old spunky thing of a lady.  She asked where the clothes were and told me she was 95 all in one breath.   She followed with, "Do I look it?"  "Not a day over 61," I told her honestly.  Angel Hands? by gratsy via sxc.hu The senior bus had droppe...

This is my new buddy.  His name is Lucky.  The package says : "Lucky brings good fortune.  It's as simple as that, don't over think it."    How could I resist? He is of course a flash drive to back up my writing.  I pop him in, spend 75 seconds updating him, and throw him in my purse like Tom Thumb.  I am usually tight with my $10 writing budget , but I splurged the $14.99 because he was so freaking adorable.  He is also soft enough to rub when my brain is busy working out an idea. You can get a 2-4GB flash drive for cheap.  The $3.99 one was about the size of a dime, but I was worried certain I would lose it.  Lucky can hold 8GB! which is clearly unnecessary since 6 months of writing = 150 mbs. We do use a separate external hard drive to back up all our files at home, but the process isn't perfect.  We only do the backup monthly and generally forget to put it in the fire proof safe. So it only secures u...

Blogobot says resistance is futile image by sacura via sxc.hu I mean, I believe you are all human too, but I have only met you virtually. The possibility lurks you are a cyborg/robot thing sent from the future where I never publish the really amazing book I have inside me.  You are hell bent on helping me get it published so the resulting alternate universe is freaking awesome! Have I mentioned reading the Hunger Games this week has consumed me and confused my sense of reality?  It also threw my posting schedule out of whack.  I'm bummed she wasn't the heroine I imagined.   No, she was a real person instead.  I imagine that's why the story is so good.  But I digress... Yes, I met with a writing group at my local library!  There were 7 of us.   A variety of genres sat around the table- poetry, steampunk, mommyism, memoir, children's.  We introduced ourselves, and the moderator shared information about upcoming events....

Susanna Leonard Hill is hosting a picture prompt at her site .   I am a sucker for dragons, so I had to give it a shot.   The Rules:  The contest is for a children's story of 250 words or less based on the picture above and in which somebody somewhere in your story says, in dialogue, "Did/do you see that?"  and  somebody somewhere in your story says, "Goodbye!" (you are allowed to substitute "Farewell!", "Au revoir!", "Sayonara!", "Ciao!", or "So long!") Another Princess to Save            illustration copyright  Heather Newman  2012 Moats were pretty common in the land, but this river of fire was overkill.  The dragon's red hot scales and sharp horns were frightening enough.  His snake eyes followed me as I searched for a place to jump to the castle.   I could see the captured maiden over the tips of the flames.  She was pretty, but not the fairest of them all.  Princess Gw...