One Step Closer to an Agent?

  I heard from the Lavender Ninja this evening, asking me to query and send more stories!  I wanted to send a variety, so I sent Mom Dot Com, I'm a Good Dog, Bottled Anger and Trashing Through the Snow.  She loves Confetti the Yeti, but thinks it would be hard to sell.  I agree, but I think it's worth the effort!  So curious to see how this all works out.

Stalked by a Lavender Ninja!

  I signed up for WriteOnCon for two reasons: 1.)  I work weekends and I live in a small town, so going to conferences involves travel and a missed paycheck, and 2.) it seemed like another opportunity to get my work in front of agents.  "Ninja Agents" stalk the forums looking for queries or stories that appeal to them.
   Yesterday on the query forum, I got a request from "Ninja Agent Lavender" asking me to private message my Confetti the Yeti story!  I was so excited, but when I tried, I got a message that the agent was not accepting PMs!  Aaaagh!  But she wrote me again that she'd fixed the problem and to try again, so I did.
    Let the waiting begin!  I so hoped that I would hear from her this morning, that she (or he) would love it and that a contract would shoot out of my printer.  It didn't happen.  But, we writers are a patient breed...
    In other news, Glenwood Springs caught fire last night (thank goodness for the rain that followed),  and I heard from my friend in Cedaredge who is planning a picnic for my visit tomorrow.  It was a very busy evening!

Senior Moment

  Sometimes, usually after several rejections, I wonder if I'm just too old for this writing biz.  Not for the creative part, but for the self-promoting, tweeting, website, do I need to know how to make a video part. I query agents a third my age, and wonder why they would take on a client that used to type her stories on a typewriter, who remembers the smell of the mimeograph machine, and taking rolls of film to the drugstore...but I keep on keepin' on because I so want my and grandkids to hold a book in their hands that their Nana wrote!
    What are some of the challenges and the joys you face as an older person writing for children?

A Sensei-tional Compliment!

  Corey Rosen Schwartz, author of Three Ninja Pigs, used my Confetti the Yeti poem as an example of good rhyme and meter when she appeared on Julie Hedlund's 12x12 blog.  Then I found a private  message from her where she said I had a black belt in rhyming!  Wow, that means so much coming from her.  She also said she has three new rhymers coming out!  And she encouraged me that well written rhyme will sell.  I would so love to find a home for Confetti.

Making Stuff Up And Writing It Down: How to Use Twitter In A Way That Won't Get You Kicked in the Face

Making Stuff Up And Writing It Down: How to Use Twitter In A Way That Won't Get You Kicked in the Face

This is what agent Karen Grencik says agents/editors are looking for in picture books:

“Very child-centered stories where the kids will see themselves in the place of the main character, with a very strong narrative arc, with scenes specifically building one upon the other, a series of three, and a very emotionally satisfying conclusion, with broad audience appeal and a great marketing hook. They do not want fleshed out descriptive texts. They want simply the framework of the story so that the illustrations can offer 50% of the story. They want tension throughout and great page turns. All under 600 words, preferably. Oh, and a takeaway for the kid. They want layers to the story where a child or parent will see something new with each reread. Sweet stories or fun wordplay stories are not enough anymore.”

   My story Hurricane Carlos, recently rejected by Karen, has a lot of these features, but it may be that I fleshed it out too much.  On to revision!

Even if I never sell another thing...

  ...it's been such a joy to help my friend Genevieve Doak sell her childhood story called The Year of the Goose.  She had typed it up years ago and submitted it somewhere and got rejected, so she put it aside.  I typed it up on the computer and printed it out for her, and then we looked on line to find a magazine that might be a good fit.  I wrote a submission letter for her and we mailed off her story.  I crossed my fingers and toes that she wouldn't get a rejection...
    ...and 8 weeks later, while I was there with her on a Saturday, she got her contract in the mail!  Her story will appear in the December 2013 issue of Good Old Days magazine, and they are paying her $25.00.  As the photo shows, she couldn't be more pleased!