The road to the NESCBWI Conference: Part 2: Moving on

If you are a parent, you may remember the exhaustion that accompanied those first months with a new born. However, as with the pain of childbirth, dirty diapers, and ear infections, you may have forcibly siphoned those excess memories (ala Harry Potter and the Pensieve) to make room for other more important thoughts. I had. Or thought I had.

For the last two days I watched my sister-in-law exist in the zombie state that is the milk machine, sleep deprived way of a woman with a child under two and a new born. She is my hero. Despite her situation, she was grace and kindness and patience in a way that I don’t remember ever exhibiting.

She is willing to embrace toddler time in a way I never could. You remember toddler time right? We will eventually get to that-there playground 20 yards away but only after we pick each dandelion along the way. No, I hoisted the kiddo and off we went. This doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate toddler time, the magic of discovery, or the pleasure of the teachable moment– I’m just not practiced in its workings at present. That is, in some ways, what this vacation is about. Trying to slow down long enough to pick the dandelions along the way.

Nevertheless, it was time to move on and leave the Cutie Cutes and their wonderful mother and father behind. Time to get behind the wheel and drive to the next stop.

Meg Wiviott is the author of Benno and the Night of Broken Glass (SLJ best picture books 2010, Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards Gold Medal for Multicultural Books, CCBC 2011 Best Choice List , and the Gelette Burgess Children’s Book Award for Multicultural Picture Book) AND lucky for me she is a dear friend. Today and tomorrow we get to catch up a bit in her home state of New Jersey. We will talk about books and writing and friends. I will nap. I will read. I may even go for a run. All in my own good time.

On the road to the NESCBWI Conference: Part 1: Toddler’s Eye View

Yesterday, I put my children on an airplane to visit my in-laws in Florida. I hugged them, kissed them and bid them farewell. Then I watched the plane leave and cried. I’m not a good flyer myself so transferring my phobias to this situation was par for the course. Also, (with my husband deployed) the three of us have gotten to be quite the team. The separation was a little like ripping a couple of bananas from the bunch. Nevertheless, I wiped my tears and got on with the business of being on my own and enjoying a week’s vacation. First stop without children? My sister-in-law’s home where she just had a new baby. She also has a cutie, cute toddler. I know– crazy.

But in a way it isn’t crazy at all. As soon as I walked in their house, I was transported back to a time of sitting on the floor, and bubbles, stones, squirrels, and sidewalk chalk, and putting things in, and taking things out, and bath time, and “what does the cow say?” It was a toddler’s point of view and it reminded me of why I got into the business of writing and illustrating in the first place.

Inspiration! It’s grand.

(PS: It also means short blog posts because someone always needs something– NOW!)

Member Monday: 15 Minutes to a Great Critique

Usually blog posts take a while for me to construct but at the suggestion of Julie Kingsley today’s post is going to be done in 15 minutes or less– perfect for our subject the conference critique. Just like at the conference, I’ve set a 15 minute timer (I actually have eggs boiling at the same time) and at the end of the 15 minutes, a bell will ring. At the conference, the timer is a wonderful volunteer who has nothing to do with finding the crit faculty or matching you up so if you are not pleased, they are not the person to whom you should bring grievances. You’ll start the crit by signing in with the timer 5 minutes earlier than your scheduled time, but your crit actually should start way before that.

In a quiet moment before the conference begins, perhaps when you are in your hotel room, pull up the 10 pages that you sent in to be critiqued. Hopefully you haven’t seen these ten pages in a while. Pull out a notebook, Pretend that you are the editor or agent, or put on the hat you’d wear if a close writing friend gave you their work and said, “Really. I want you to be honest. I want to be a better writer.” Read through the ten pages and jot down the challenges in voice, character development, pacing, and setting. Is the beginning engaging? Is the problem clear? Is the main character’s desire clear? Has the conflict been introduced? Even it it is a picture book, you can still ask these questions. Now consider the strengths in the same areas. Also look at the rhythm of your word choice and language. On the page in your notebook, write Dear Author: and jot down your thoughts in the notebook.

Turn the page. Be the author again. What questions do you have for your critiquer. These could be industry questions but really these 15 minutes are all about you and your manuscript. Questions that will help you solve the problems you noticed in your own writing sample such as: Did you find my main character likeable and realistic? Should I introduce the conflict sooner? Does my antagonist seem cliché? Any issues that have been niggling at you that you’d really like answered by an editor or agent. If it is an agent you may think about asking some of these questions.

You are reacquainted with your manuscript, you have questions to ask, you are ready for the crit. Sign in with the timer and when she says it is time, go straight to the table where you’ll be critiqued. Make eye contact, smile, shake hands (firm). Now… OPEN YOUR MIND! LISTEN!

The critiquer should pull out your writing sample and a letter she’s written that is probably pretty similar to the one you wrote to yourself. Have your notebook ready and a clean page to take notes. Chances are, your heart is beating and you won’t remember a lot of this. Write down good things with a + next to it and challenges she noticed with a -. This should all be in the letter too but it is nice to have a record of the discussion.

If there is still time, she’ll ask you for your questions. Choose the most pressing ones and ask those first. Take notes on the answers. Just as the bell dings, say, “I’m excited to work on this with the revisions you’ve suggested. Would you like to see this again?”

If they say yes, HOORAY! This is a big deal. Ask about timing– is 6 months okay? a year? Shake hands and go away. Write a thank you card immediately and send it to them at their office.

Notice that there is not one moment– NOT ONE– where you should defend the choices you made in your writing. You should not stand up for your characters. You should not tell the industry professional that someone else told you it was fine or liked it. You take their opinion (you paid for it), you keep an open mind, and later you look at your notes and decide if you- as the author- will choose to make those changes.

Most of all, give yourself a pat on the back for putting your work out there, for coming to the conference, and for moving forward on you journey as a writer.

BTW- this took me longer than 15 minutes to write- AGAIN!

Poetry Friday: Sonnets and Structured Poetry

On Wednesday I posted a review (really more of a booktalk) of A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL. In it, I mentioned the unique structure of the poems in the book called a heroic sonnet. I thought that I’d talk a little bit more about sonnets specifically, and structure in poetry generally, and how that works for me.

First sonnets. I do not claim to be an expert poet, instead I am a student of poetry which is a good place to be. A student always recognizes that they have more to learn and that promise of new knowledge can be very motivational. One place that I love to go for poetry information is Lewis Turco’s, THE NEW BOOK OF FORMS: A HANDBOOK OF POETICS.

The book is a dictionary style reference of hundreds of forms from acrostics to tumbling verse but it begins with sections on the typographical, sonic, sensory and “ideational” levels of the poem. Maybe I’ll go into those levels more in another post, but now, on to sonnets.

Science Walk Sonnet
By Anna J. Boll

Each morning when we start our day
We put our backpacks straight away.
Then line up for our morning walk
Before it’s even nine o’clock.

We watch the backyard birds that sing
They gather leaves and bits of string.
We fill their water, then their feed
With suet, corn and sunflower seed.

Waxwings at the windowsill
Bluejays squawk and finches trill.
Squirrells flip, and dive and climb
gathering seeds for dinner time.

Then quietly we go to class
Still watching songbirds through the glass.

Sonnets are 14 line poems in iambic pentameter that have one of a few rhyme schemes. Many people get interested in sonnets because of Shakespeare. (follow the link for examples) The English sonnet generally comes in three groups of four lines (quatrains) that rhyme abab cdcd efef gg (a heroic couplet). Usually there is some sort of turning point or dramatic climax before the couplet.

The Italian Sonnet is divided into an octave and a sestet or 8 + 6 = 14. The rhyme scheme for the octave is abbaabba. Turco says that the sestet’s rhyme can vary but is usually cdecde or cdcdcd. The turning point here is between the octave and the sestet. These are the two basic types but there are a bunch that I don’t know about.

The form of poems in EMMETT TILL are defined by the author Marilyn Nelson as a heroic crown of sonnets. In her book each last line becomes the first line of the next sonnet. The final poem is a collection of all of those first lines.

Turco labels this chained structure as sonnet redoubled. He defines a crown of sonnets as a sequence of seven Italian sonnets where the last line of each of the first six sonnets becomes the first line in each of the ensuing sonnets; the last line of the seventh is the first line of the first. So the poems go around and around like a crown.

So here’s the thing… who cares? Who cares if the iambs are right, or if you repeat a rhyming word, or if the rhyme scheme is abab or dfxy. Well, I’m here to argue that you should. Just as writers need to understand and have a full command of grammar before they choose to write a sentence fragment and mean it, so too should poets study poetic structure before they declare that they just prefer free verse. (Now might be a good time to mention that I don’t use 5 iambs- soft-hard- but 4 in each line above but that was a thoughtful choice). This especially goes for writers who choose to write novels in verse (which I’ll talk about next Wednesday when I review Nikki Grime’s new book PLANET MIDDLE SCHOOL).

When a poet practices highly structured poetry it forces her to: 1) study other poets (read, read, read) 2) solve problems with words (Julie Larios is amazing in this way) and 3) – well first a quick story.

This past Wednesday, I met with a wonderful group of junior high students to study and write poetry. We started with a wall of cool words they brainstormed and then used each other’s words. They each chose a free verse style and the poems were so angst ridden that it was difficult to glean meaning. Too, Marilyn Nelson says that focussing on the structure of her book allowed her to detach a bit from the subject matter- the lynching of a boy- so she could complete the project. Therefore, structure forces the poet to 3) push aside the emotion for a moment to study word choice and meaning.

Whether it be a sonnet, limerick, rondeau, or haiku, try some structure in your poetry today.

Book Review Wednesday: A Wreath for Emmett Till

Recently, the name Emmett Till has surfaced quite a bit in relation to the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. Houghton Mifflin’s teacher guide to A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL gives the following short explanation of Emmet Till’s death.

Emmett Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy murdered in 1955 in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at or speaking to a white woman. Though two men were tried for the crime, they were acquitted; no one has been convicted for Emmett’s murder. In 2004 the U.S. Justice Department reopened the case based on new evidence brought to light by two documentary films.

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Marilyn Nelson’s A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL is a heroic crown of sonnets– a sequence of fifteen interlinked sonnets, in which the last one is made up of the first lines of the preceding fourteen. The final poem is also an acrostic that reads RIP Emmett L Till.

The book was published in 2005 and won the 2005 Boston Globe—Horn Book Award, a 2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book, a 2006 Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and a 2006 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book. Nelson is not a stranger to awards and prizes and holds three Coretta Scott King honors for her books EMMETT TILL, FORTUNE’S BONES, and CARVER and the Newbery Honor for CARVER: A LIFE IN POEMS.

With all of these awards, my opinion is unnecessary. Instead, this posting is a way to alert those of you interested in poetry and social justice about this sophisticated, complicated, and emotional book of poems.

I mentioned in a comment last Wednesday that we learn and retain new information when we have a scaffolding of previous learning upon which to hang the new knowledge. To this end, EMMETT TILL came across my desk at just the right time. I happen to be completing my first reading of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. The classic courtroom and coming of age novel transported me to the deep south in 1935. While writing this post I also found out about “Strange Fruit” the 1936 poem about lynching referenced in EMMETT TILL. That poem was published by Abel Merrapol and made popular by Billie Holliday.

It is the season of Easter and martyrs, death and rebirth. Further, it is the season of Passover. I spent this afternoon teaching children about the importance of remembering history so we will not be doomed to repeat our mistakes. Each year, Jews try to put ~~themselves~~ ourselves in that place of slavery, and deliverance so that ~~they~~ we will not allow slavery and injustice to happen again. But injustice is all around– in far away lands and close to home.

The poems of Marilyn Nelson remind us of this. Below is the fifth stanza, and I’m taken with how it captures my feelings for Trayvon Martin’s parents.

Your only child, a body thrown to bloat,
mother of sorrows, of justice denied.
Surely you must have thought of suicide,
seeing his gray flesh, chains around his throat.
Surely you didn’t know you would devote
the rest of your changed life to dignified
public remembrance of how Emmett died,
innocence slaughtered by the hands of hate.
If sudden loving light proclaimed you blest
would you bow your head in humility,
your healed heart overflow with gratitude?
Would you say yes, like the mother of Christ?
Or would you say no to your destiny,
mother of a boy martyr, if you could?

This book crossed my path at the exact right time.

While researching this post, I found a video of an hour long speech/reading that Ms. Nelson presented at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC. The section of the video on this book starts around 15:00-34:00 and she discusses the heroic crown of sonnets structure and the final acrostic poem. She also reads the entire book in the most melliflulous voice.

If you are interested in more information about Ms. Nelson, please follow the links to some of these other online resources.

There is an NPR interview with Nelson who was the Connecticut Poet Laureate at the time.

More about Marilyn Nelson at the Poetry Foundation here.

And a ton of links at Teaching Books including slide shows, videos, and other websites.

Member Monday: NESCBWI Spring Conference Buzz with Joyce Johnson, Conference Co-Director

Here at Creative Chaos, the NESCBWI 2012 conference buzz is building. “Keeping It Real,” takes place from April 20-22 at the Sheration Springfield Place, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Today I’m happy to have Joyce Shor Johnson, Co-Director for the conference. She’s agreed to answer some of my questions about the conference and if you have more, please put them in the comments!

Hey, Joyce!

Springfield, Massachusetts is a new location for the conference. What did NESCBWI gain by changing venues?

NESCBWI gained space to expand our conference offerings. This year, we are able to offer more opportunities for manuscript and portfolio critiques, Agent Quick Queries and brand new opportunities to help improve your chances for advancement in the industry with Submission Strategy meetings and NetWit Social Media and Promotion consultations. The way the traffic flows in this space allows for more interaction among attendees and faculty and makes networking easy.

Since Springfield is a transportation hub, did that make editor and agent recruitment easier?

I don’t know about making recruitment easier, but it certainly makes transportation to and from the conference less complicated. Recruitment this year was more about fielding request to participate from agents and editors. They want to be here as New England holds these industry professionals in such high regards.

So now that we have all these great industry professionals, I see that NESCBWI is offering more critiques then ever before! Tell us about the walk-in, and other new options for critiques.

Yes, On-The-Spot critiques are a go. They are with Elizabeth Carpentiere and will be 3-5 pages for 15 minutes. You can sign up at registration. Also the registration desk will have sign ups for NetWit Social Media and Promotion consultations and other high demand bonus offerings. I’d say that this year, people should bring with them a large stack of business cards, the very polished first five pages of a completed manuscript or portfolio and their checkbook so they can jump on any bonus item opportunities they may arise.

We have Sara Zarr, and Harry Bliss as Keynoters this year. What other speakers can attendees expect?

Okay just so you know, we have AMAZING panels this year. Our Friday night Keynote is an Independent Editor Panel: What’s Going on in Children’s Publishing Today and How to Navigate It with Harold Underdown, Tamson Weston, Eileen Robinson, J.L. Bell and Lionel Bender. Kate Mesnner is presenting her TED talk, and there will
Keeping it Real After the Signing: Author/Agent Relationships with Vickie Motter, Jennifer Laughran, Stephen Fraser, Kate Messner, Chris Brodien-Jones, and Kristine Carlson Asselin. The list just goes on-and-on.

I love that there are so many intensive options this year: novels, picture books, nonfiction and illustration. I’ve even had other regions ask me how we do it. How do the intensives change kind of learning that goes on at the conference?

I think the intensive offerings elevate the level of our conference by helping writers and illustrators really dig into their crafts. The downside is having to limit it. This year intensives offerings were pretty much full within 36-48 hours. We were all shocked at this. Really, none of us thought they would fill up as quickly as they did.

The schedule is just packed with great workshops. At the national conference they used the Guidebook App so people could keep track of everything they have to do and everywhere they have to go – on their smartphones. Will NESBWI be using it too? How do attendees get it?

Funny you should ask. I have been working on the NESCBWI Guidebook app for a while now and it should be ready for unveiling any day now. There will be an E-blast and an announcement on the website. This app allows you to personalize your itinerary to your conference needs. it lists faculty, bonus items, and special interest groups. You can even post photos of your adventures at the conference.

What other conference related technology should members know about? Is there a Twitter hashtag people should use to tweet about the conference?

The Twitter hashtag is #nescbi12. I do urge everyone to make sure they use it. Technology is evolving so quickly, I think we will see many more people with ipads and other devices. I hope attendees will keep a lot the technology at bay so they can reap the benefits of being in a building with close to 750 people who are all like minded and work on their networking. This is a tremendous opportunity to get away from the social media and technology for a short time and immerse themselves in just being with other authors, illustrators, editors, and agents who think being in children’s publishing is the best thing ever!

I hear there might be some surprises in store for the conference. Can you reveal any clues?

I’m not ready to reveal the cool additions, but people should be prepared. Bring first pages, bring portfolio items. You just never know what additional opportunities might pop up this year. We are still working out some of the details! I do urge anyone with a Cat In The Hat hat, to wear theirs.

It may be too early to ask, but can you give us a sneak peek into your thoughts for next year? When and where will the Call For Proposals (CFP) be posted?

The NESCBWI 2013 Conference is Word By Word – The Art Of Craft. The Call for proposals will go out June 1, 2012. You can sign up through NESCBWI’s Constant Contact email lists (if you haven’t already) to be included in the Call for Proposals. It will also be announced on the website and tweeted. The conference date is set for May 3-5, 2013 and will be at Sheration Springfield Place, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Thank you so much for visiting Creative Chaos, Joyce. Having been in your place, I know that the Co-Directors give up tons of their own time to basically create a college for the weekend. NESCBWI puts on amazing conferences all with volunteers. A huge thank you to everyone who plays a part in creating this incredible learning and networking opportunities for SCBWI members. Let the countdown begin… 17 days and a wake up! If you have questions for Joyce, please leave them in the comments.

Five on Friday: Festivals, Events and Blogs, Oh my!

1. Maine Festival of the Book

The Maine Festival of the Book is a literary extravaganza taking place tomorrow, March 31st. Workshops, presentations and readings are scheduled throughout the day and take place at various USM locations including the Abromoson Center and Glickman Library. Children’s and Young Adult authors and illustrators including Jeannie Brett, Anne Sibley O’Brien, Brenda Reeves Sturgis, Lynne Plourde, Reza Jalali, Maria Testa and others will be present.Click here for a complete schedule and specifics!

If you liked my review of CITIZEN SCIENTIST by Loree Griffin Burns, you’ll probably love Anastasia Suen’s blog hosting creation Nonfiction Monday. Different bloggers agree to host a round of Nonfiction Reviews from blogs all over the kidlitosphere. Take a look!

3. We are on the cusp of April National Poetry Month! I hope you have events in your area. Here in Brunswick, I’m one of the organizers of Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 26th. Please take a look at our Poem In Your Pocket-Brunswick Facebook page for events throughout the last week of April. It’s also a great place to find links to just the right poem to fit your mood. We’ll be putting up posters next week and distributing stickers to local businesses and libraries over school vacation. Look for them!

4. Speaking of poetry…and blogs

At Jama’s Alphabet Soup, she has a wonderful round up of Poetry events all over the kidlitosphere here (click on image):

and a list of all the Poetry Friday Hosts here (click on image):

If you haven’t seen allaboutlemon, it’s a blog where the creativity just flows. Every 3rd Saturday, the author invites people to write haikus inspired by her collaged photo. For the Love of Haiku

Here’s mine:

Middle class captive
Blind to horrors far away
Our valley is lush

And here’s the picture:

Wild, right?

5. What’s coming up on Book Review Wednesdays? I’ve got a bunch of nonfiction and poetry that I’ll be sharing round-up style throughout April. Some new, some not as shiny but just as precious. Hope to see you here all month long.

Book Review Wednesday: Citizen Scientists

CITIZEN SCIENTIST: BE A PART OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY FROM YOUR OWN BACKYARD
By Loree Griffin Burns
Henry Holt and Company, 80 pages
ISBN 9780805090628

Some books make me want to stand on a chair in the middle of my local independent book store and shout, “You have got to get your kid this book!” It is rare that a nonfiction book would ignite this kind of passion but CITIZEN SCIENTIST: BE A PART OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY FROM YOUR OWN BACKYARD is rare. Loree Griffin Burns manages to offer so much in a single volume that the book itself becomes a discovery.

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The first discovery comes in the form of citizen science projects. The book is a year-long journey of four such projects– one for each season. The book begins in the autumn with monarch butterfly tagging, moves into bird counting in the winter, frog counting in the spring, and ladybug counting in the summer.

Each section is further divided and starts with a 2nd person narrative nonfiction explanation of the project. The use of the 2nd person places the reader smack dab in the moment of discovery. Keep reading and find out more about the science behind the project. Meet the scientists who oversee the projects and get a sneak peak at their instruments and labs. Next, meet actual young citizen scientist who are making a difference in the study of the featured organisms. Burns includes a check list to help children prepare for their study of the natural world, a quiz to check reader knowledge, diagrams of each critter, maps, and fabulous photos with thoughtful captions. The back matter includes a glossary, an index, and a resource page of field guides, internet resources, and other citizen science projects. (Imagine me breathless on my chair. I am.)

Since all learning is connected, readers get a dose of geography (migration paths) and economics (families who are paid for finding monarch tags in the central Mexican mountains where they live) with their science. Like the best educators, Loree Griffin Burns’ unique voice is comforting and empowering. She inspires children and their families to “contribute to understanding and improving our world.” Civics too!

This is one of the most thoughtfully designed nonfiction books that I’ve seen. Each season/project is color coded. The designer uses halftones of that color as the background for the 2nd person narrative then continues the section with white background and a ribbon edge of a matching hue. A reader can easily turn to the season they want by looking at the edges of the closed book. The fonts are playful and unique and carefully chosen elements set off the page numbers.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the clear and well-composed photographs by Ellen Harasimowicz. The photos work so seemlessly with the text that there is a wonderful sense of balance between the writing, photos, and design.

With this book, Loree Griffin Burns relates the excitement and wonder of earnest observation of our natural world. She quotes Dr. Orley “Chip” Taylor who oversees the printing, distribution, and recovery of monarch butterfly tags, “If you are interested in conserving a particular organism you have to understand it. You have to understand every little aspect of its biology.” In CITIZEN SCIENTIST, Burns has managed to put together a well-researched and wonderfully written book that invites action on the part of all young citizen scientist.

Okay. I’m getting of the chair and putting it away.

Member Monday: What’s new at SCBWI.org

Things have been busy here at revision central which means I give more time to my WIP and less time to all things social networking. Today, a few links from the kidlitosphere to keep you procrastinators busy, then we can both get back to work!

1. Planning a trip to New York and Book Expo America? The Expo takes place June 4-7, 2012 and includes a concurrent conference of Book Bloggers. SCBWI members get a discounted rate. Check out the info here.

2. SCBWI has an amazing list of directories to help members navigate the children’s book industry: freelance editors, agents, reviewers, art councils, classes… The list goes on. The current Agent Directory is being revised as I type. If you are an agent, or an agented writer/illustrator, take a look at the Directory to check the listings. If you have new information, help SCBWI update the publication by sending corrections to scbwi@scbwi.org with the subject line “Agent Directory Update.”

3. We all need a little pick me up from time to time. Specifically, at that time when you are slogging through the same manuscript… okay, chapter… okay, sentence for the millionth time. That is exactly the time when reading about someone else, who was right where you are now, and rose above it to achieve success– makes all the difference. SCBWI is gathering success stories and they’d like to hear yours. Send your story to webmaster@scbwi.org

4. If you are planning to attend the SCBWI International Summer Conference in Los Angeles, the registration date is right around the corner. Yes– Registration opens on April, 18th 2012 at 10 am PDT The link on the website is NOT LIVE yet (3 weeks to go) but I know that those at HQ are planning some amazing things for the August 3-6 conference. I went last year and have to say that the LA conference is so much fun: the dancing, the friends, the speakers and the workshops. Take a look if you missed my posts from the conference.

Okay. That’s it for now folks. Stop by next Monday for an interview with NESCBWI Conference Co-Director, Joyce Johnson!

Five on Friday: Early Spring

1. Today I’m excited to attend the Maine Poetry Out Loud finals. Over 8,000 high school students representing schools from all over Maine started competing many months ago, and now there are only ten. The winner, the runner up and Cumberland County finalists will be invited to participate in the Brunswick, Poem in Your Pocket afternoon event at The Little Dog Café on Tuesday, April 24th.

2. El Niño? La Niña? Global warming? Whatever it was, I was thrilled to don my short-shorts and tshirt to enjoy the 80 degree weather in Maine this week. Look!

Daffodils in March! Crazy, but I’m not complaining.

3. Beautiful weather = Anna outside training. I got in two longer bike rides this week and a long walk with a friend at Pinelands. Today, I’m in the pool again doing laps. Nevertheless, I’m feeling good about the upcoming UNE Nor’Easter. At first, I thought I’d just do it as an early training exercise, but now I feel as if I might beat some of my previous times. We’ll see.

4. Despite the beautiful weather, and my training, this week has been extremely productive. Every day I’ve been forcing myself inside to chip away at the revision of my WIP. I’m thrilled to report that the end is near. (26 pages away) I’ll be sending it to first readers next week– meeting my self-imposed April 1 deadline. My momentum is slowed only by my own fears. Will my generous first readers get half way through and decide that my writing sucks? That the story is trite? The characters two dimensional? I can only hope that they have (as one of them told me this week) “a sharp pencil and a soft heart.”

5. So with all that productivity something has to slip, right? My kitchen is a total mess and we’ve eaten out about three times in the last seven days. The messy kitchen is actually out of character for me. Even if the rest of the house is a pit, my kitchen is usually clean. I just haven’t been able to rise to the challenge. I’m trying to give myself a pass on the guilt. It will get done. I have food in the freezer. Yesterday at Pinelands, I got fresh veggies. Salmon with zucchini and brussel sprouts are on the menu tonight. What’s for dinner in your house?

Have a good weekend! On Member Monday– Looking forward to the NESCBWI spring conference. An interview with Joyce Johnson, conference co-director