Dusting

I'm dusting off three more picture books. As you may have read here, in my author page-Facebook- or at the “Ten Little Gator Eggs” page, I'm submitting my work. Follow me here or on Facebook. I'll keep you informed about the progress of each story. You'll be the first, well second, Thom will be the first, to know what's going on with “Ten Little Gator Eggs” and then subsequently my other picture books. Look for their pages as they are created and follow them as well.

Here's some information about the other three picture books:

“Nature's Zoo” is about a young boy whose trip to the zoo is prevented due to a broken down car. Depressed with nothing to do, his mother suggests he find nature's zoo in the back yard. With the help of a bluebird and his band, the young boy discovers how much fun his back yard provides and dances until the sun sets.

“Grandpa's Cute and Fuzzy Farm” is about a young boy, Timothy, who visits his Grandfather on a nice spring day. Timothy plays outside on the farm and finds cute, fuzzy goslings, ducklings and chicks. As he attempts to touch each, their mother's attack him on his hand. Finally, he asks Grandpa if he has a cute and fuzzy animal that doesn't have a mother with a hard beak. Grandpa takes him to the barn and opens a stall with cute and fuzzy, beakless animals. Join Timothy as his days ends with fun and laughter.

“A Pet, A Pet”

What child doesn't ask for a pet? They'll ask and ask showing you different types of pets trying to find the one you'll accept in your home; something they can call their own. This is a story of a young child going through the list of wanted pets and proving responsibility by completing chores and improving school grades. Follow along and see if a pet enters this home.

Happy dusting and submitting.

Tiny bit of time on my hands

Okay, bookstore is fully closed down as of August 31st. I'm seeing a little relief in book needs. Still having to go to the library for internet since our home internet is slow in coming. I'm finally thinking about my writing and submissions.
Yesterday I polished my query letter and even though I went through it a couple of days, after submission, I found a mistake. Uggh!
I submitted "Ten Little Gator Eggs" to the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. The agent that always sticks out from this agency is Laura Rennert. I'm not sure why, but when I think of this agency, her name comes to mind. As she's Senior Agent I searched for another agent I felt could meet my needs. I found a suitable one and discovered she's on maternity leave. So I decided to listen the the voice and submit to my first choice, Laura Rennert. Now for the waiting game.
I did decide to simultaneous submit. I'm not sure I'm good enough for the cream of the crop agency. After all, Ruben Pfeffer thought this story was really good. Just not good enough for him to take a chance on me as an author. I met him at a SCBWI conference and he analyzed the story and made some recommendations, which he subsequently loved.
Anyway, keep tabs as I inform you of other submissions and responses if any. (This agency says they no longer respond and if I don't here from them within 6-8 weeks, they're not interested)

Happy writing, revising and submitting

Meet Nancy Hall

Born March 14th, year left out on purpose, Denver, Colorado. She moved to Florida about 20 years ago to get away from the snow and lives just north of Homestead in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade County.

Her story, "Happy Birthday To Me, woke her in the middle of the night and demanded to be put on paper. Thinking that would be the end of the story, she soon realized it wanted to be perfected and published. After several months, she handed it over to her editor.

"I received it back bleeding," she comments and laughs. "The red marks and recommendations filled the short story. There was almost as much work after the editor than before. I tried to put it aside, but it called to me until I made the recommended changes. I then presented it to FictionBrigade who accepted it for publication in their eBook collection titled "Lucious"

You can purchase the collection of 21 stories, only $ 2.99, at the publisher's site where you'll find several download formats: "Luscious: a flash fiction collection of sex and relationships" or at amazon

Happy middle of the night stories.

amazon.com as a publisher

I remember reading the uproar when amazon.com decided to start it's own publishing company. I receive regular emails from DearEditor.com. An inquiry was received about submitting to Amazon's publishing company and here is the response:

Tim Ditlow, Associate Publisher of Amazon Children’s Publishing, spoke about his months-old program at the 2012 SCBWI Summer Conference last week. While official submission guidelines are still being created, he said ACP is indeed accepting unsolicited submissions. For now, send a query email to acp-submit@amazon.com. Attach your full picture book ms or the first 3 chapters of your MG/YA fiction as pdfs or Word documents. There’s no time frame for responses yet. See ACP’s list of picture books, chapter books, and MG/YA fiction at http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000775681. Note that for now, ACP appears to function like any traditional publisher, reviewing submissions and then putting acquired books through the full production cycle, which can take a year+ for novels and 18 months for picture books. Proposals for books for adult readers can be submitted to Amazon Publishing at manuscript-submissions@amazon.com.

Looks like they're up and running, kindof. Anyway, they're another source for submission.

 

Happy submitting.

I entered my second assignment into a contest and guess what?

It came in third place. Check it out here:

http://www.watchmebounce.com/front/3rd-place-winner-in-fiction-not-today/

It's basically the first scene in Second Chances series only this one has an ending.

This is exciting. Of the three entries I sent in a couple of months ago, two have come back and put huge smiles on my face. The third is still in the judging process.

If you've been following along, you may remember the blog I posted about using contests as a stepping stone in May/2012. Here's the link if you want to re-read: Use Contests as a Stepping Stone

Happy reading, writing, researching, revising and contesting.

Critique of my story "No Laughing Matter"

If you remember I entered this at the WOW site  I didn't place, but I did receive a great review and here it is:

CRITIQUE

Scores: 1-5 (5 being strongest):
Subject: 5
Content: 5
Technical: 3


OPEN PROMPT (Any genre in fiction)
Word Count: 750 max

SUMMARY


Subject (Is it fiction? Appropriate for WOW! readers? Brief summary):

The story is fiction and appropriate for WOW! readers. A girl is bullied at school


Content (Is the story well developed? Is there a plot/point to the story? Is it compelling? Are the characters well-drawn?)

Plot/point: There is a plot/point to the story
Compelling: It is compelling because of the tension
Characters: We know enough about the characters to carry the story


Technical (Did they follow the rules--is there a title and proper word count? Check for proper spelling, punctuation and grammar, correct tense, active not passive sentences, overuse of adverbs, use of "wrylies"):

Title: There is a title and it is appropriate

Word count: 281 words

Dialogue: The dialogue is good
Past tense/passive voice: This is written in active voice
Word choice/word usage: The word choices are good
Adverbs/adjectives: There are no adverbs or adjectives that stand out
Grammar/punctuation: The two commas should be periods. An em dash is two dashes with no spaces before or after—like this
Unnecessary words: There are no unnecessary words
Phrases: There are no awkward phrases
Clichés: There are no overused clichés



Overview (This is where you give your general impression about the writing style, how the story affected you, etc.):

"I really like your story! The fact that you were able to tell a complete story in less than 300 words is hard to do, but you did a great job. I like the way you characterized Brenda, and kept wishing she wouldn’t turn her story over. I wondered what the extra credit word was, and Susan let everyone know. I laughed at the end, and from now on, every time I hear the word “nincompoop” I’m going to think “ninja poop”! Nicely done!"

Critiqued by Literary Agent Regina Brooks

I'm doing the happy dance inside and out

Happy contesting

Closing a store is harder than I thought

I've been too busy getting loose ends tied to write, read and barely time to think.

A story woke me up at about 2 am Thursday and demanded to be written. I asked it to wait until I woke for the day. It did and as my husband was driving to open up his workplace, he was sick and I didn't want him alone, I wrote the story. Now it's done and ready for revision when I'm ready to revise.

I read an article about writer's block that was really good for the house. Here it is. I recommend using it especially if your house needs cleaning too:

http://thewritepractice.com/unproductivity-fuels-productivity/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheWritePractice+%28The+Write+Practice%29

Happy writing, revising, unblocking and cleaning