Photo by Kay Kauffman
I went out for lunch today and ate at the local Chinese place. This was my fortune. I’ve had one fortune cookie come true already; why not two? I think I’ll post this up at my desk so I can see it every time I sit down to work on something. It will be my mantra.
(c) 2012. All rights reserved.
Well, today was announcement day for the Pitch Wars competition. Sadly, I was not selected by any of the awesome mentors. But! I did get some fantastic feedback from two of the three mentors I submitted to, which I was totally not expecting. That kinda made my day, actually. Of course, like any author who has sent out a query and had it rejected, I wish the feedback could have been a little more specific and/or had some suggestions for ways to improve, but I know they were all very busy and swamped and I am super grateful for what I got. However, back to the drawing board go I.
I hadn’t really expected to be chosen. And I’ve spent the last week or so kicking myself for submitting so early because I took some advice I received during GUTGAA and used it to hopefully fix up my first page. Whether it would have made a difference or not, I’ll never know, of course, but I really regretted my itchy typing fingers.
Friday morning, I visited the third graders at Reinbeck Elementary School. The kids were all lovely and quite attentive while I prattled on about poetry and writing, punctuated by the occasional attempt at humor. (My suspicions that I’m not funny were confirmed – not one kid cracked a single smile.)
Mrs. Fleshner introduced me by saying how surprised she was to discover an author in their midst. I imagine it was something of a surprise; I’ve known her a couple years now, as Tadpole had her for third grade last year and nothing was ever said of my writing then. But at conferences this year, we happened to get on the subject of books and how we just don’t have the time to read as much or as often as we would like. I said that my problem was that I wanted to both read books and write them, but I didn’t have the time to do both, and that was how we ended up discussing my writing. She invited me to speak to the class, and I agreed, despite my intense dislike of public speaking.
I surprised her again when I arrived a bit early, laden with visual aids.
This has been a busy week for me! It seems I’ve had something going on every night and even when I didn’t have to be somewhere, I still had plenty to do. Last night, for instance, I had to bake seven dozen (84) cookies for my church’s cookie walk this weekend. I found a recipe that claimed to make approximately six dozen (72) cookies. I thought, “Okay, I’ll make small cookies and then I’ll be able to squeeze an extra dozen out of the dough.”
I ended up with a hundred and sixteen cookies. That’s almost ten dozen.
Tonight, I have to work on my presentation for tomorrow morning. But this afternoon, you can find me visiting with my good friend, A.F.E. Smith, at her blog, Reflections of Reality. She’s just started a new weekly feature called “Barren Island Books” and today’s post features me. If you’re interested in finding out a bit more about what sort of books I enjoy reading, head on over and check it out!
And even if you couldn’t care less about what I like to read, do check out the rest of her website. A.F.E. is a great writer and has a wonderful site, full of neat odds and ends. You won’t regret visiting her, I promise.
(c) 2012. All rights reserved.
This was originally posted on Griffin’s Quill on November 30 as a reflection on Goal Achievement Month for Authors. I had planned to post it here as well a bit sooner than this, but, well, you know how it goes…
Hmm…
I started this, my GAMA post, on November 7. You can see how well that went for me.
November disappeared on me this year. I was all set to do GAMA and NaNoWriMo and have a fantabulous month. But you know that old saying about the best laid plans of mice and men? Well, I used to know it, too. Then November snuck up behind me and walloped me over the head with this really cool frying pan I saw on the FAIL Blog the other night. Now I have no memory of pretty much anything beyond the last five minutes.
I’m like Dory from Finding Nemo, only hopefully much more endearing and much less annoying.
That’s right, it’s another snippet. This one’s from Chapter 13, which I was excited to start writing Wednesday night after a very long day at work. We’re talking crazy long. It’s not finished yet, but I just couldn’t wait to share this little tidbit with you:
Aaand more excuses and such for not posting about Chapter 12 (see yesterday’s post about Chapter 11 for the deets). But to rectify all that, see below!
I finished Chapter 11 a while back but I’ve been so busy with NaNo and Thanksgiving and work that I didn’t get a snippet posted. So, without further ado, I present A Bit of Chapter 11… This-a-way!
What a day! It’s been a rough couple of days for me, guys. Today I worked straight through my lunch hour and didn’t have a chance to do any writing till sometime after seven o’clock tonight. It was nuts! But hopefully things will settle down after tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll be posting more snippets soon.
But now, bed. We have a date. I need all the Z’s.
(c) 2012. All rights reserved.
Okay, I’m climbing down from the sad horse I rode in on last night to announce that I’ve entered Pitch Wars. See? Moving on I am!
What’s that? You don’t know what Pitch Wars is? Well, then head on over to Brenda Drake’s blog and read this post. Have no time to click through and read? Okay, okay, I’ll spell it out.
Suddenly they all died. The end. 