I’ve been keeping track of my writing submissions, rejections, and acceptances in a fancy little notebook for the past three years. In a private Facebook group, I recently participated in a discussion about how much money other full-time freelancers make annually. Many of them are doing full-time journalism and copywriting and not trying to make… Read more »
General writing
How to Write an Animal Fantasy Story
I juggle a lot of projects simultaneously, but every once in awhile I dive in full force on a project and decide to work on it until it’s ready to go. I’ve kind of dabbled on a certain story about bees for awhile. Back in April 2014, I went on an SCBWI writing retreat back… Read more »
Read All the Newbery Medal Books, March 2016 Update
We’re into March of 2016 and I feel like I’m finally starting to tackle my “read all the Newbery Medal Books” project. I was stalled at the beginning of the year because I wanted to finish Ulysses. While that book is an excellent but very long read. Then in the process of researching the biology… Read more »
Advice Wanted: Should I Finish this Story?
Sometimes it’s really hard to tell if I should finish a story. I have several writing projects happening all at once. Some are non-fiction articles I’m researching, some are fiction stories I’m writing. Since most of the stories aren’t on assignment but are things I’ve decided to work on during my own time. I jump around… Read more »
Find a Writing Critique Group
If you want to be a writer, for children or otherwise, it’s really important to find a writing critique group. Right now, I’m a member of three different writing critique groups and each one has it’s own flavor, pros and cons. SCBWI There are lots of ways to find writing critique groups online, but if… Read more »
Setting up Shop on Facebook
Have you visited my Shop on Facebook? My Shop on Facebook offers direct links to three of my self-published books, including The Bumpy, Grumpy Road, My Food Notebook, and Dinosaur Boogie. Pros It was super easy to set up, once I had the books ready to sell. There are few requirements to setting up a Shop… Read more »
Is the Problem Bad Reading or Bad Writing?
Let’s say you’re reading a book and the author makes a reference to something and you just don’t get it. It could be a phrase, a symbol, a name. Whatever it is, it doesn’t make sense to you. Some readers might feel confused and give the book a bad review. Some readers might just skip… Read more »
Reading (It’s what I do)
This year I set myself a reading goal to finish 100 books. And I got it done! Goodreads was nice enough to provide a little graphical overview of my reading history. I wanted to read 100 books and I finished off the year with 107! That’s a nice total. Still Reading I had hoped to finish… Read more »
My Christmas Story
What is your favorite Christmas story? Personally, I am not a fan of the Grinch. I get the appeal, but it just doesn’t hit me in the heart. And while I laugh hysterically at the movie “A Christmas Story,” my real favorite is O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi. I love the self-sacrifice… Read more »
Winning NaNoWriMo 2015
I did it! I won NaNoWriMo 2015! I wrote the first draft of my novel, The First Step, in a touch over 50,000 words. Here’s the day-by-day progression of my word count. My boys really enjoyed seeing the word counts grow and as you can see, they also enjoyed writing the updates themselves. At the… Read more »