My Kidlit Writing Fall Frenzy entry

    Thank you, Kaitlyn Leann Sanchez and Lydia Lukidis for setting up this contest! I tip my (black and pointy) hat to you both. The idea is to write a story under 200 words based on one of the pictures they posted. I chose this picture:
  

Alas, Poor Gerald by Deborah Holt Williams (Lucky)

     My husband Gerald said I shouldn’t celebrate Halloween this year. “Why can’t you be like the other wives?” he asked. Bah! He knew what I was when he married me. And up until this year when we moved to Suburbia, he’s always accepted that, on this one special night, I can be who I truly am. Go a little batty! Reach for the skies! But now, he wants me to blend in with our boring neighbors. Stay home and hand out candy to greedy brats in Kmart costumes and surly teens who don’t even dress up. Not my cup of brew, Gerald, thank you very much. Ah, Gerald. Poor Gerald. You never saw it coming, blessed be. But you’ll make a lovely decoration for the front porch. Gotta fly!

Rewarding!

Five years ago, to celebrate finishing chemo, I treated myself to a Highlights workshop. This year, I'm celebrating an important 5 year milestone. If Triple Negative Breast Cancer doesn't return in 5 years, there's a good chance it never will. So how did I treat myself this year? With another Highlights workshop! It rained all day the first day, but the faculty was fabulous (authors Lesa Cline-Ransome and Donna Janelle Bowman, and agent Marie Lamba) and they showed us so many ways to write a picture book biography beyond birth to death. The next day, rainbows and sunshine! I'm trying to find the seed in my biography, and I hope to write like rainbows are shooting out of my fingers!

 

Recovery

Lots of recovery this year--recovering physically from two total knee replacements (which were very successful!) and recovering emotionally from being dropped by my agent after 6 months.  I'm trying to accept that, as much as I love Chipeta and feel emotionally connected to her, her story may not be mine to tell in the age of own voices. I'm considering a way to revise it to become a story about a child learning about Chipeta, and I've written a new PB biography about an old white woman like myself--Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

Recuperation Writing

Last Thursday I had my knee replaced, so I'm now spending a fair amount of time in bed with ice packs. I was hoping to make it into this year's March Madness Poetry, but I didn't. I entered another fun challenge, 50 Precious Words, run by the wonderful Vivian Kirkfield. Contests are a great way to keep up skills! My visualizations for children are with a small publisher, and my Chipeta story is with an agent, so I'm waiting to hear and waiting to heal.

Now that I no longer have an agent...

   I can't say it came as a total surprise--it had seemed for awhile that my agent and I were not on the same page--but it was so disappointing to read her e-mail that she is terminating our contract. Sigh....back in the saddle again!  Oh, well. I've learned that good follows bad, and I won't give up.

Now That I Have an Agent...

     It's great not to have to spend time month after month researching agents and submitting. But, it's almost harder to wait to hear good news!  No bites yet on my Yeti or Hippo stories, so my agent asked me to send pitches on other stories I have ready.  I did that, and while I'm waiting to hear, I started working on a new, non-fiction project. And, I start a temporary job next week for Colorado Mountain College, teaching an art class for little kids where the art projects are based on picture books! Perfect, no?
     And in life beyond hoping to bring a book to the world, I had my annual mammogram and I am 4 years clear! Feeling like quite the warrior!