Keep On Writing

As many of you know that follow my blog, I try to inspire people to keep writing.

It may seem funny for a beginner like me to try and inspire someone to keep writing. Many of you probably think, "who does she think she is anyway?" Well, I guess I think I am someone who, just like a lot of my readers, wants to get my stories published. I want children to be able to read my books and get enjoyment from them.

I think the hardest part of writing is not giving up!

So many times, I've thought of quitting. So many times, I have said to myself "It's time to go on to something else. You've piddled around with writing enough."

Well, for some reason, I have stuck with it. I am not sure why, but I keep pecking at the computer keyboard. I keep going back to my stories and making changes until I think they are good enough.

I am a member of CBI Clubhouse. There is a click to The Fighting Bookworms over on my sidebar. And even if you are not a member, it is a great place to go to and look around. There are lots of articles that you can look at without being a member. If I were you, I would bookmark it and go back on a regular basis and look around, and if you do, you will learn lots of useful things about writing.

They have a free e-book download on there now that is titled, "The Greatest Children's Writing Success Secret."

Here is a little of what it says. It goes along with what I am always saying on my blog.

It states in it that many successful writers over the years were not, when they started, wizards at crafting query letters, or marketing savants with their fingers on the pulse of the children's book industry. But, they became those things.

Their secret was: They changed their mindset.

They didn't think they could become successful writers. They didn't hope they could sell a book. They didn't wish to someday get published.

They sat down to write each day with a burning desire to succeed. They knew they would become successful. They expected to sell their book. They were certain that they would get published.

Through their thoughts they built their careers.

So try it. It is kind of like the movie where the man builds the baseball diamond in his cornfield. The voice kept telling him to build it and they will come.

Say to yourself. . . write it and they will read, speak it and they will listen, send it out and they will accept it.

Yes!

Last year I did a post titled Just Wondering. It was about the mailbox. In the post I asked if anyone ever received good news in their mailbox, or if they just received rejection letters.

According to most of the comments, people only received rejections in their mailbox. I agreed with them.

Well, I have changed my mind about the lowly mailbox. I now give it a star rating!


I received my signed contract today from 4RV Publishing for my middle grade manuscript titled, Family Secret!

I have been bursting at the seams to announce this for a couple of months. It is now official. I have the contract in my hands.

I am anxious to start the process of turning the manuscript into a book and getting it in the hands of children.

Don't give up. If I can do it, you can do it.

Pitch Session

Hi everyone. I thought I would do a little pitch session for the WVWriters annual conference.

When? June 11,12, 13, 2010

Where? Cedar Lakes, WV (about 30 minutes north of Charleston off I-77)

Price? If a member of WVWriters ($20 for a year's membership) it costs $120 for a 3 day pkg. If not a member it costs $140.

Why? Lots of reasons why. It's going to be a great one this year. Pitch sessions with Peter Lynch, Editorial Mgr. at Sourcebooks, Inc., Christine Witthohn, founder of Book Cents Literary Agency and Kelly Mortimer of Mortimer Literary Agency. Workshops with Kaylan Adair, Associate Editor of Candlewick Press. If you go to her workshops, you will receive a validation to submit a full manuscript for consideration. If you check out their site, Candlewick is not accepting submissions otherwise, so this is a chance to submit to them.

At the conference, you can post samples of your prose and poetry on the writer's wall. Attendees vote for their favorite. Go to the Awards Banquet on Saturday night and see if you won.

Go here to get all the info.

Check out all the links to see the workshop schedule and presenter's bios.

I've went all out this year. I sent in 5 entries to their writing contests. I sent part of one of my manuscripts to Kaylan Adair to be critiqued by her. I also scheduled a 5 minute pitch session with Peter Lynch. I'm not sure what manuscript I'm going to pitch to him yet, but I have a while to figure that out.

I figure, if nothing else, it's good experience. I may fall flat on my face, but you never know unless you try.

Go ahead and check out the site. If you don't live too far away, think about attending. It's fun and you meet a lot of neat people who like to write.

Any suggestions on giving a 5 minute pitch?

A Book Signing

I went to a book signing yesterday at our local hospital.

Dr. Morad practiced general surgery at Jackson General Hospital in Ripley, WV for 37 years until his retirement in 2001. As it says on the inside flap of the book. . . He practiced medicine with his heart and was dearly loved by his patients. He was a devoted and dedicated physician. He will always call Ripley his home and the people of Jackson County his family.

He was a wonderful and compassionate person and doctor who cared for his patients.

His book is A Memoir. I arrived there in time to get the last hardback copy of it. I think people came out of all the hills and hollers of Jackson County to see Dr. Morad and obtain a copy of his book.


I have not finished reading it yet, but have read many sections. I am thoroughly enjoying the book.

I checked and it is listed on Amazon.com.

Sunday Inspiration

Our preacher actually inspired this blog post.

He spoke this morning about people going around saying they are the best.
"I am the best church member, the best Christian, etc."

Well, you know, some people are like that.

And then you have the people who want to be the best church member or the best Christian.
There's nothing wrong with that. Everyone should strive to be their best.

But no matter what you do or what you strive to do, you should put your whole heart into it.

Even though we want to be, we may not ever be the best children's writer or best novelist.

But whatever you want to do or be, just put your whole heart into it and do your best. Then you won't ever have any regrets or wonder if you could have written the next best seller.

That is all you can ask of yourself. And if after you do that, you are the best children's writer or the best novelist. . . then great!

Remember the story about the ant and the rubber tree plant.

Oops! There goes another rubber tree plant.

Figuring Out Where to Send Your Work

Okay, I admit it. I wrote a list of goals at the beginning of the year and I'm not living up to the #1 on my list.

My goal was to send out at least one story a month to publishers. Sure I'm sending out my column each month to Two-Lane Livin' magazine. But that would be cheating if I counted that, wouldn't it?

I have to keep pounding it in my head that a story can't get published if you don't send it out.

Don't worry about getting those rejections in the mail. . .they build character.

Don't worry about waiting on the mailman everyday only to get a mailbox full of bills and junk. . . that gives you the much needed exercise your legs need. It gives you a break from sitting at the computer and typing your stories.

I must confess that I love to write. I'm sure that's not news to you. But I hate stopping and searching for publishers to send my stories to. It is time consuming going back and forth from your Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market and their sites on the internet looking for a publisher who still accepts unsolicited manuscripts and would just love my writing.

Don't we all wish we had an Aladdin lamp to rub and the perfect publisher's name popped out for our manuscripts?

That would solve a lot of our problems. Oh well, I've got work to do. I've got to send out some stories before the end of the month and I have to get our garage cleaned out before winter hits again.

Maybe I could write a picture book about a scared and cold little car whose only wish in life is to be able to squeeze inside it's master's garage. But, I don't think that would sell.

Join me in sending out something this month. When you've mailed out a submission, come on over and let me know and we can all celebrate together. Or if you have already mailed out one this month, come on over and brag about it. You deserve to celebrate!

Looking At Things In A Different Way

Writer's get discouraged, but we must write on!

Our writing group has dwindled down to only two people attending since the beginning of the new year. I am discouraged, but will write on.

We will keep meeting and I am hoping that my fellow friends and writers will soon return. There's nothing like having a group of friends who understand the frustrating ups and downs of writing. I love and need feedback from other writers. I don't know, maybe this is teaching me to be more independent. However, I like being a member of a group. They keep me motivated.

They keep your spirits up when you receive a rejection letter by saying, "Hey, that's great, that means you're submitting."

On another subject. . .

Here is a little imagination and some pictures to go with it.
Maybe this will lead you to look at the pretty little flowers in a different way, too

Dandelion blankets
spread about my yard
shining like the morning
sun.

Dandelion puffballs
stand against the sky
glistening like the full
moon.

Dandelion seeds
float across the heavens
sparkling like the evening
stars.

Where do the Words Come From?

I read all the time how people have trouble writing an entire novel without editing as they go. I have that problem, also. But I started out as a children's picture book writer and my biggest problem is writing enough words to meet the word requirements of MG and YA. I am now editing a manuscript, which I have been told because of the ages of the main characters, it should be considered YA and not MG. Well for it to be YA I need to have close to 40,000 words. I don't have nearly that many words, but I really love my story. I am currently editing it to add words. My first step in doing this was taking each chapter one by one and writing down the amount of words I had in each chapter. I'm working on the shorter chapters and trying to add more detail to them. I'm accomplishing this, but still am far from the required amount of words needed. At this point and time if I could get 30,000 words, I would be happy. I would be ecstatic! What suggestions do you have in finding more to write about? I'm adding more detail to what I already have and that is helping, but what are some ideas on finding more chapter ideas? My story takes place in the early 1900s in rural WV. I have a lot of detail and description in my story letting the reader know what life was like 100 years ago. The story is based very loosely on my grandparents life and I've taken tidbits of info I knew about them and weaved a story around those details. All fiction, of course. I don't know, maybe I'm not cut out to be a novel writer, maybe I'm always going to be stuck in the picture book genre. But what's funny is that when I write picture books I have to go back and cut out what is not needed, not add more. With picture books, the fewer words the better. They want you to take out that description and take out those extra characters which add so much to the longer stories. I hear there is a genre now called Tween. Does anyone know the criteria for that category? Any suggestions on how to add more story, more details and more words to those MG and YA manuscripts? Help, please!

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.

Reception and Reading of Poetry

Last night my husband and I drove down the WV Turnpike to Concord University. We drive the turnpike all the time in the summer when we go on vacation, but yesterday was absolutely the worse trip on the turnpike I had ever been on.

It is one of those highways where the speed limit keeps changing, the lanes keep changing from two to three and back to three again, curves and steep hills abound and crazy drivers are all around.

We survived the turnpike and arrived about one half hour before the reception and reading of the poems began.

My poem got accepted in the winter edition of Holler. Mr. McKenna was in charge of the reception and he was so nice. The reception was in the State Room at Concord.


I stepped forward and volunteered to read my poem first. I must be getting better, I wasn't nervous at all. I told a little about myself and my writing and read I Am From Appalachia.

Afterward Mr. McKenna posed for a picture with me.


Eric Fritzius was a familiar and friendly face in the audience. He is a member of West Virginia Writers. Here we are in front of the refreshment table.


Concord University has a beautiful campus. When we walked out to the parking lot last night we took a picture of the 48 bell carillon. Isn't it pretty lit up at night?



We had a good time. Wish you could have been there.

Spring Has Sprung

I heard the peepers! Oh, what a sweet sound.

The crocus have sprung from the earth!


They were a sight for sore eyes!



The robins flew overhead!




What more could you ask for on a beautiful day in March?

It was even pretty enough to sit outside on the porch and watch for the mailman.

I am going to enjoy this while it lasts, because I am sure the cold and snow will return and cover the crocus and chill the red breasted robins.

Have you seen the first flowers or robins of spring?

Writing, Writing, Writing

I have been writing a lot lately. Mostly editing and adding words to my manuscript Lucy of Tupper's Hollow.

I love this story, but it needs to be made longer and that's what I've been doing for the past week, going through it chapter by chapter and adding more content.

I want to get it good enough so I can start submitting it to publishers.

If you noticed on my sidebar, the poem I submitted to Holler got accepted and it is in the Winter 2010 edition of that publication! Since I don't really consider myself a poet, that email was a surprise and made me very happy. I've been invited by them to a reception and reading of poems on March 18th. I figured, why not, and emailed them that my husband and I would attend.

The deadline for the WVWriters Spring Writing Competition is drawing near, I have to decide which stories I will submit to the contest.

The convention is going to be great this year, they are having a lot for children's writers.

There will be pitch sessions with Peter Lynch of Sourcebooks, Inc. and one on one children's book critique sessions with Kaylan Adair of Candlewick Press.

You can go here for more information on the WVWriter's Annual Conference at Cedar Lakes.

I'm looking forward to the conference this year.

Soon, I hope to announce about something else I've written being accepted. So stay tuned, I'll hopefully let you know about it in a few days.

Keep writing and sending in, that's the only way to succeed at being published.