I was at a party recently where a friend and I toasted our recent professional successes, when she said “I love the 40s!” She was referring to our ages, not the decade. Since my last post, I had a birthday and turned the calendar to a new year. These events happen on the same magical evening […]
Writing for Children, Message in Mind
I came across a tweet last week about writing for children that said if the writer’s message is to teach a lesson, the writer should throw that book away and start something else. As a new writer of children’s books, I’ve been thinking about that ever since. I think the person is referring to a […]
Obligatory Contemplative Post-Book-Sale Blog Post
My debut picture book, “Adrian Simcox Does Not Have a Horse,” sold to Penguin/Dial Books for Young Readers last week. There’s a period at the end of that sentence, though there should probably be 25 exclamation points. But that was last week, and like all human creatures, I’ve adapted to this incredible good news and […]
What To Do When Your Book Is On Submission
My picture book is on submission! What does that mean? Well, this is the phase when you’ve signed with a super duper agent (see previous post), you’ve made any edits to your manuscript that the agent suggests and then the agent submits your book to a list of editors at various publishing houses who he […]
How I Got My Agent
This is the post I’ve been wanting to write for nearly a decade, the post where I tell you I am officially represented. Sounds very serious, doesn’t it? It is very serious. I have signed with literary agent Steven Malk at Writers House, and though it’s been a couple weeks now, I still wake up […]
Sparking Joy, in The Closet
There’s been a lot of organizing talk on the old Internet lately, both fawning and less-so, regarding the bestselling book, “Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo. I have not read it. I’ve never picked up a book on organizing because I feel like I […]
Filling the Well
“Filling the Well” is a phrase I first encountered many years ago in Julia Cameron’s book “The Artist’s Way.” It’s a concept for writers that’s quite simple to grasp, harder to accomplish. It simply refers to having new experiences, getting out into the world, seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting new things so that you can […]
Agent Querying in 12 Easy Steps
So, the agent querying process…it’s not fun. It’s full of both maniacally happy peaks and soul crushing valleys, often on the same day. I would rather do anything else. I would certainly much rather be writing. This is the main reason writers work so hard to get an agent. So they can focus on the […]