It's About Time

I finally emailed my picture book manuscript to Kaylan Adair of Candlewick Press.

I had until Sept 15th to send it to her.

Amazing Miss Maizy is now titled Miss Gracie and the Shiny Black Crows.

It has changed a lot since I first put the words on paper.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I still have not heard from Sourcebooks about my manuscript, Lucy of Tupper's Hollow. I sent it to them in June. It has only been two months, but it seems like it has been a lot longer.

I've started putting together The McMillion Family History. I have wanted to do this for a long time and look forward to writing it.

I think I will call it That's Okay, We'll sit the Coffeepot on it. Everyone in the family tells me that was a favorite saying of my Grandpa McMillion. He died 6 months before I was born, so I only know him from pictures and recollections of older family members.

In addition to family trees, pictures, names and dates, I will fill it with info about the everyday lives of our family. I'm going to write about our food customs and traditions (with recipes), superstitions and special abilities of family members (my grandma was a very superstitious person and my grandpa had special abilities. . . such as stopping bleeding and blowing the heat out of burns), their occupations, military records and much more.

I have found some old obituaries from the 1800s that tell a lot about the person. One tells how this lady will be remembered for her beautiful thick black hair, which came to be known by family and friends as "McMillion hair" (My mother had thick, wavy, dark hair).

There is so much we can learn from these early records.

Another one tells how this man loved to go to auctions and that he loved to work in his apple orchard, and farmed and raised sheep and cattle. I was lucky enough a few years ago to find the cemetery that this long ago Uncle was buried at in Cana, VA, and the path leading to the cemetery was lined with apple trees!

Has anyone ever written their family history? Any suggestions from anyone?

More Writing Workshop Info

I attended a picture book workshop conducted by children's author, Cheryl Ware. But if you are not a picture book writer, please read on, I think the information will help you with any genre of writing you choose to write.

Here is a group picture of the attendees of her workshop. Cheryl is the tall lady in the middle, I am in the pink shirt beside of her.



I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop. She came with a pile of picture books to share with us. She read a few of her favorites.

She told us something that I think is very hard to do. She said to find the holes in the market - find what hasn't been written. I think this applies to all genres of writing, don't you?

She showed us some books that she stated when she first saw them, she didn't think they were the greatest. But when she read them to small children, they loved them!

They shouted out answers when she read the text to them!
They became involved in the reading!
They wanted it read over and over again!

I think that is what we want to accomplish with any of our books. We want our reader to become involved with the story and for them to want to read it over and over again.

One of her favorite books : THE DOT
If you write picture books, but haven't read this one, go to the library and check it out.
It is so simple, yet so good!

Some very good advice from her:

Start your story on a day that something is different in their life.
Ending should be expected, but a surprise.

As you can see, I think you can take this information and apply it to whatever type of writing you do, whether it be for adults or children.

Some of Cheryl's published books are:

Flea Circus Summer,
Catty-Cornered,
Venola in Love, and
Venola the Vegetarian

Her stories introduce you to Venola May Cutright, a spunky 11 year old girl.

I hope you read something from this post that will help you with your writing.

Writing Stories and Getting Ideas

I love writing stories and getting ideas.

Usually writing picture books requires a lot of writing and editing as other stories do, but this week an idea came to me and I wrote.

I read picture books a lot and it seems that the simplest ideas and short texts are very popular. I sometimes tend to get wordy and go into too much detail. This story, however, has only two main characters and it is rhyming. I know, I know they say don't submit rhyming books! Editors don't want to see them! Well, I did it anyway. Unfortunately, writers can be stubborn.

Children love rhyming books and you see them on the shelves all the time. I tried to write this story so the publishers would not cringe, wad it up and throw it at the trash can! The rhymes were right on, there were no "almost rhymes" (which editors don't like to see), but I had to work on the rhythm a lot. That's where I have most of my trouble, getting the rhythm just right.

I used to think if I got the syllables the same, it was right. Wrong! I'm learning that syllables and rhythm are two different things entirely.

I almost gave up on it and quit. But, I didn't! I put it aside a few nights ago, went to bed and started fresh the next day. I didn't think I could do it, but I finally got the rhythm right (at least I think I did). I also emailed it to a poet friend of mine and asked about the rhythm. She offered a couple of very good suggestions and brought a smile to my face. After reading it aloud again and again (thanks, hubby, for being my sounding board), I also changed a few boring verbs to better verbs and I am happy with the end result.

It is short and sweet (only 221 words), but I have faith in it.

Did a story or idea ever come to you and you just loved the result.? Thought it was meant to be?

This is one of those stories. I really like it, now let's hope the judges do, too.

I also rewrote one of my older picture books and entered it into the WVWriters Competition, too. One of the things I did was take out characters that didn't need to be there (Even though I loved those characters). This is another one of my manuscripts that I think is meant to be. I also added a concept to the story, I added the days of the week.

In all, I sent out five entries to the WVWriters Competition. Wish me luck that at least one places. We'll find out in June.

I think, in the meantime, I will send out my new picture book to a publisher, also. I haven't sent to publishers lately and I have to remedy that situation.

Anyone been sending out stories lately? Anyone been cutting and slicing and getting rid of clutter? Anyone been inspired with an idea? If so, go for it. It may be your next accepted piece.

Writing Picture Books

We took a trip to Parkersburg last week and I went in Borders. I checked out with this book.


I love it! Here are pictures of the table of contents. Click on the pictures and you will be able to read it.



There are quotes throughout the book, the one in the prologue reads:

I love revisions. Where else in life can spilled milk be transformed into ice cream?
---Katherine Patterson

My son wonders why I keep revising my stories. He thinks the first draft should be the final draft. But completing the draft is only the beginning of the writing process.

I am still reading this book and I have learned a lot from it. I am using her advice and going over my picture books I have already written and revising them yet again.

She mentions the 6 Ws:
Who is your main character? The main character must come on the scene first.
What does your character want? What is the main character's problem, goal or conflict?
When is your story taking place? Give hints indicative of the time period.
Where is your story taking place? City, country, suburbs, farm, etc.
What is the tone of your story? By careful selection of words, you let them know if it is going to be sad, happy, serious, etc
WOW! Whether it be with a word or a phrase, early in the book you must hook the reader

As you can see by the table of contents above, the book covers a lot of territory. Some people think writing a picture book is easy, but it is far from it. You have to pick the right story and the right words.

Every word only has to be perfect ---- Ursula Nordstrom

The book has a section on Rhyming Books. Children love poetry, but publishers want the rhythm and rhyme to be perfect. Every word must move your story forward and the rhyme pattern must be consistent. Unless you are very good, this is hard to do and the editors will be sending your manuscript into the slush pile never to be seen again.

The first line of a poem is a hawk which won't let go of its prey. ---Gabriel Preil

If you love writing picture books, create a fabulous first line and start writing.

If you are serious about writing picture books, I recommend this Hands-On-Guide.

Getting It Right

Did a song ever get in your head and you just couldn't get rid of it?

Or, since we are writers, did you ever get a story in your mind and you couldn't get rid of it.

That's what's happened to me lately. A while back I joined in the 7 picture books in 7 days challenge. The first story I wrote was my favorite one and I pulled it up from the computer yesterday and started to work on it.

I loved the story. It's a funny tale about someone leaving the barn door open and all the animals getting out. The boy and his mom have a time getting them back in before a storm hits.

Well I wasn't happy with the second half of the story. So I worked and worked on it. When I went to bed last night I still had that story on my mind and I couldn't turn off my brain and go to sleep. I kept thinking about the last part and how I was going to get it right.

We have our monthly writers meeting tomorrow night and I thought to myself, I'll read it there and ask for suggestions.

Well, that didn't help. I still couldn't get the story out of my mind, no matter how hard I tried.

I guess it was meant to be, when I got up before the crack of dawn to get my husband off to work, the new second half of the story came to me.

I got my handy dandy tablet, which was by the bed, and jotted down notes before I forgot what came to me in the middle of the night.

It worked! After hubby left for work, I stayed up for about a half hour and pecked on the computer the new second half of the story. I ran it off on paper and read and scribbled changes to it on the way to Sunday School.

I'm pretty happy with it, but I'm still bringing it to our meeting for some expert critiques! The group I belong to is very good at editing.

Did you ever get a story in your mind and couldn't sleep until you got it right?

I find when inspiration hits, it's best not to fight it. Take advantage of it and who knows, it might end up being your best story yet.

Then get some well deserved sleep.

Just Checking In

I haven't been writing much lately. We've been very busy at the house.
My son and I took three days and cleaned our outside storage building.
It was such a mess! Birds try to build huge nests inside, but we manage to stop them before they lay any eggs. You would think they were eagles with all the mess they make.
That's what started our cleaning spree, taking out remnants of a nest. My son does wood working in the building and he hadn't cleaned it up since making my other son and his bride a cedar chest for their wedding present.

We are getting carpet in our bedroom today. We spent hours and hours last night moving everything out of the room. In addition to the heavy, solid wood furniture, the clutter was the hardest thing to remove. We slept on our mattress in the floor last night.

I have been working on one of my picture books.
I finally figured out how to write it the way publishers want picture books to be. I really cleaned it up and took out the descriptions that I loved. It's the one about scarecrows and I described each one to a tee. Well, you're not supposed to do that, you're supposed to leave that up to the illustrator.
It finally sunk into my hard head and I figured out a way to re write it. I left out the descriptions and started it with action! It is so much better now and I have submitted it to a publisher.
But, I sent it a few months ago to a writing contest before I made the changes. Wish I could resend it, but alas, it's too late for that.

I love the story and I'm glad I finally figured out how to word it right.

It's one of the hardest things for writers to do.
Get rid of those words we love.
But, it's one of the best things we can do for a story.
Cut and slash words if they are not needed!

I'm Getting a Little Behind

I've been trying to write 7 picture books in 7 days.
I started out with a bang. Three books in three days!
Monday was a dry well, but last night I finished another one.
So, I have written four.

In desperation, I asked for help over on my other blog.
I needed suggestions for book ideas.

My sister commented "it can't be that hard to think of subjects for children's books"

That is the misconception most people have about writing for children ---"How hard can it be?"

Children's books have been around for years. Every conceivable topic has been written about. The writer needs to come up with a unique twist to a topic. Writing it in a way that makes it seem fresh and different, even though the subject has probably been written about 100 times already by other authors.

Publishers, especially now a days, are looking for something that will sell. They are looking for something a parent will pay good hard earned money for. They are looking for a book a child will want read to them over and over again.

Sometimes, I think too hard. My brain feels like mush right now. My imagination seems to have gone with the wind (Hey, I think I just got an idea for a story). I may not write 7 stories in 7 days, but I'm trying.

I took a somewhat easier route last night and wrote a concept book.
It was an A B C Book. But in doing so, I still needed to make it a little different than the ones already out there. I already titled it, but I did get an idea this morning from one of my blogger's suggestions for a story, and incorporated it into the title.

Even when your imagination takes hold and soars, you still have to convey what you want to say in the least amount of well chosen words as you can. Unlike novels where you can embellish and write and describe to your heart's content, a publisher wants picture books to be under 1000 words, even under 500 words! So you have to choose your words wisely and kick out any unnecessary ones, no matter how attached you are to them.

"How hard can it be to write a picture book?"

"Very Hard," if you want it to shine and stand out among the thousands of others being submitted every year.