Lauri Meyers .

I always have a blast with Susanna Leonard Hill's seasonal contests which offer both the inspiration to write and a fun block party atmosphere with a great community of writers.  The March Madness Contest : Write a  children's story , in  poetry or prose ,  maximum 400 words , that is a  fractured fairy tale .  You can post entries until   Monday March 24  at midnight.  So fracture a fairy tale and come play! I'll be bringing a stinky cheese plate... The Princess and the Stinky Cheese By Lauri C Meyers "If you don't find a princess to marry soon," the Queen said, "I'll be forced to give the crown to the dog." "Mother, your ridiculous "true princess" tests are the problem," Prince Plumbottom whined. "Let's see. Merida didn't feel the grain of rice in her pillow." "Snored like a bear." "Fiona couldn't taste donkey snot in her soup." "Gobbled i...

I have been planning to interview my local children's librarian for a long time. Unfortunately, it took over a year for me to shower on the same day as story time. (Hey, I have to make time to write somehow...sorry personal hygiene.) I'm so glad the day finally came, because I enjoyed every minute of my time with Linda Lawrence. She was full of wonderful insights and some great quotes.  The interviewed actually started with Linda asking about me . Which was so kind. She must have established I was nervous, or perhaps she shares that universal librarian curiosity. As usual I humble-fumbled through it: "oh I've written some things...maybe someone will like to read them one day...or maybe not...I blog about stuff...I had a short story published...it was about dragons and cake and stuff..." [ Note to self: start practicing verbal pitch before NJ SCBWI conference!!!]  But still, it gave me a chance to settle in and ask some questions. Lauri: How did you b...

I live by the list. I'm the kind of gal who puts it on her to-do list to make a little purse for her to-do list so her to-do list can carry its own to-do list.  In fact, any day they'll surely cast me in my own reality show called "Extreme Listing!" (...In the next episode Lauri gets so overwhelmed she forgets to put "shower" on her to do list, and you won't believe what happens!...) The To-Do list is of course the nephew of Action Plan and the grandchild of Goal Setting. Without goals, I probably wouldn't do anything at all. Without tracking against goals, I probably wouldn't even care.  So I treat my listing as seriously as a squirrel gathering nuts in fall. Since it's my 2 nd Blogiversary today (hooray!), I thought it be informational (nerdy?) and fun (like a Star Trek convention) to share my two years of writing by the numbers. Here's what I've done as a part-time writer (~15-20 hours a week): All t...