Ouch! In Dec. 2019, my story got a 7 on Rate Your Story

  A comment that really got me was, "Reads more like a book report than a narrative." A 7 means it's a subject worthy of merit, but needs a lot of revision. Sigh. Some good concrete suggestions, though, and the reviewer had some good things to say about the lyrical writing. I'll shape it up and submit in January. Maybe I'll move up to a 6!

Chop, Chop

   Oh, it's so hard to obliterate my character's childhood! It's important to start the story closer to her work as a writer, so I had to "kill my darlings" and to leave so much out. It does make it tighter and more focused. But aaaaghh! Leaving out her friendship with mice in her grandmother's kitchen, her father leaving the family, her marriage to a crook, her divorce, traveling to the Florida capitol with her sufragette friends, joining the Red Cross and traveling to Europe...so sad. But it's a picture book. Kep it simple. Why is keeping it simple so hard??

Susannah Hill's Holiday Contest

A Treat for Nana (73 words)

By Deborah Holt Williams



I really love my Nana,

so I made her a Christmas treat.

She’s on a special diet,

She can’t have anything sweet.



I thought about sugar-free cookies,

But wait—she has no teeth!

I took some selfies and printed them out

And glued the pics on a wreath.



I tied on sticks of cinnamon

And pinecones, one, two three.

She hung the wreath by her favorite chair.

She says her treat is—ME!

Rate Your Story

  I joined Rate Your Story early this year, which means I get to submit a story in December as well as every month in 2020. I sent in my Marjory Stoneman Douglas manuscript tonight, after lots of revision, and I'll look forward to seeing how the judge rates it. Maybe 2020 will be my lucky year!

My Halloweensie entry

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and Susannah Hill's annual contest is one of my favorite events! Here's my entry:

 Halloweensie Treats (78words)

By Deborah Holt Williams

Halloween’s upon us

And I really love to cook.

Welcome to my kitchen!

Here’s the steps I took.

I thought I’d treat my family

To my candy apple stew.

But it tasted kinda nasty

When I added cobwebs, too.

So then I thought I’d treat them

To a tasty pumpkin potion.

Pumpkin in the microwave—

Kabam! Orange explosion!

Yikes! The pumpkin’s flaming!

Here’s a handy treating trick:

Got fire? Go get marshmallows,

And roast them on a stick!

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.