Lauri Meyers .

This Christmas I gave the children lots of stuff.  Sparkly stuff, shiny stuff, shrill sounding stuff, swirling stuff and stuffed stuff.   They are pretty good wonderful kids, and I am lucky to be able to give them these gifts. by foxumon via sxc.hu But it got me thinking about the other gifts I can give my children - self esteem, compassion, responsibility to name a few. I'm a pretty good fantastic Mom.  And sometimes I am spectacular, evoking my days as a 4-H camp counselor.  But when I'm tired, overwhelmed, it's Monday, or any other number of situations, I can be a real lousy lady.   I'm reading the 10 Greatest Gifts I Give my Children by Steven W. Vannoy and hoping to store some of the tips in my parenting purse for those too-frequently-occurring lousy occasions. I was struck by how consistent the advice for raising kids is with advice on writing for kids, such as: Let kids develop their own solutions when problems strike.  Quoting the boo

Susanna Leonard Hill is hosting her second annual Holiday Contest  where you write  a children's holiday story beginning with any version of "Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh" and under 350 words.   In case you were wondering 350 words is not very many, but forces editing practice!   Happy Holidays everyone! A Mom to Share By Lauri Meyers Photo by N.J. Lee via Flickr Hopping through the squares in brown leather shoes, Maggie picked up her rock.  "How come you wear those shoes every day, even with your purple dress?"  Eva asked.  "They're the only pair I have," Maggie replied and skipped back to 1.  At home Eva spread her shoes across the floor.  She slid the flowered ones in her backpack.  "The flowers will match your purple dress," Eva said and handed Maggie the shoes. "Thank you!"  Maggie gave Eva a high five. For sharing day, Maggie brought the same pirate book she did ev

To be fair he had to use those ties with the little balls on the ends.        When I was five I would sit on the bottom step in front of a mirror.  My dad would ask "one pony or two?" and fix my hair in the requested fashion.   Too bad he didn't ask about straight or not, because I always ended up with lopsided ponytails.              After years of giving him a hard time about his salon skills, I admit defeat at the challenge of chasing a child and inserting decent looking ponytails.  On the rare occasion I find success, those stinkers yank 'em out within minutes.       What a sweet, if asymmetrical, memory.  Ahh, my memory!  That wonderful place where snow isn't cold and Ramen Noodles taste expensive.         Have you been shopping lately in your memory for picture book ideas?   Maybe the memory itself isn't worthy of a book, but the feeling that accompanies the memory is .        Rob Sanders (author of Cowboy Christmas,  which I was lu

PiBoIdMo is over!   I have over 30 lovely picture book ideas just waiting for me to write them. I immensely enjoyed my first Picture Book Idea Month hosted by Tara Lazar at Writing for Kids While Raising Them.    Each day in November a writer or illustrator posted advice, experiences, and inspiration to light a spark for participants gathering story ideas.  It got me thinking, daydreaming really, about being famous one day (as I sometimes do to gain inspiration ).  What would I write in my PiBoIdMo post?   How would I inspire others to develop ideas for children's stories?  I loved the idea generator posts the most including the idea mash up by Diana Murray  and brainstorming in themes by Corey Rosen Schwartz .  So, here's my suggestion.  Write a picture book "like ( fill in celebrity) would write."  Some of my friends are anti-celebrity book, so I'm not suggesting celebrities literally writing.  I'm merely saying don a persona of someone i

    As a new blogger, I completed the "April Platform a Day" Challenge at  Robert Lee Brewer's site .   He sprayed firehouse information at me, and I asked questions liked "What's Pinterest?"  Thankfully much of the social media and blogging concepts I learned then seem like second nature now.  A community sprung out of the challenge which now goes by the name "Wordsmith Studio."       During December Wordsmith Studio is hosting a weekly writing prompt.  Please stop by to check out the prompts and participate.  I couldn't resist trying my hand at a 700 word story when I saw this photo prompt:  Photo by Gerry Wilson The Elf Spy By Lauri Meyers      I dropped my backpack where Mom says it’s a major trip hazard.  Whatever, she'd leave it there too, if she had to carry 8 text books every day.  As I walked to the kitchen to snag a snack, I felt the chill of someone staring at me.  My parents weren't home yet, and Addie

      You know that feeling of excitement when you open a fresh container of play-doh?   I like to take a whiff of its salty smell first.   Then I plop it out carefully without injury to its perfect cylinder shape.   Finally, when the dough is least expecting it, I smush it with abandon.     Oh so soft and supple, ready to transform into anything I can imagine.     Sloppy spaghetti on a plate. A penguin prince sailing an iceberg to NYC.   Axl Rose. Some serious smashing is about to go down.       Tara Lazar posted this week on the importance of picture books to children: " Picture books let them know there’s a place without limits. (Psst, it’s called “the imagination”!) "       Some activities - like playing in the back yard because mommy is digging in the garbage disposal to see if she lost her mind in there- force kids to use their imaginations.  These activities are like rolling pins, dough presses, and cookie cutters shaping and stretching little minds.

     Long drives usually make my eyes glaze over with boredom, but on the way home from the holidays I jumped at the opportunity because it meant a break from being the wet nurse for the back seat drivers.              "Mommy I can't find my nugget!" they screamed.      "Sorry, Mommy's driving," I beamed.               Happily, I let my mind go blank.  White.  Empty.   My New Happy Place! Eye by Vjeran Lisjak &  Wheel by  Melinda Bylow via sxc.hu      But the stillness was short-lived, because lots of happy little picture book ideas came to visit.  The unruly fellows yelled out their stories at the same time.         My husband was busy combating a barrage of flying crayons, so I fired up my  Dragon Dictation  app.  I was too excited to recite calmly, and ended up with a garbled mess of story bits.  My husband feeling heroic after winning the crayon battle, took pity on me and wrote down the ideas as they attacked.        &q

    I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.  Quite literally.  Just like in a fairy tale, the moment my foot stepped out on the right (not left) side of the bed, the Wrong-Side-of-the-Bed-Gnomes conspired to penalize me for insubordination.       The first fellow quietly padded in his red felted slippers over to the bathroom and put the toothpaste in the wrong drawer, causing me five minutes of delay and leaving a wake of products strewn across the bathroom.      The second green -hatted lad kept hiding my coffee in different rooms.  It was cold when I finally found it, and the morning seemed worse without proper caffeination.  "Has anyone seen any hot babe Munchkins around here?" by Tracy Scott-Murray via sxc.hu     Finally, a particularly spiteful troll wearing lederhosen had the audacity to make me put my shirt on backwards.  I only discovered as I ran out the door, but I didn't have time to switch it because we needed to acquire a box of donuts

Day 10 of PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month) brought a great idea from Diana Murray to try a mash up of ideas to create fresh new picture books.  To add structure to this inspiration, I decided to create the Birthday Mash Up Match Up Game!   How to Play:  MASH 'EM! By Miguel Saavedra There are two lists below.  Find your birth month in the first listing and grab the corresponding classic golden book.   Find your birth day from the second listing and grab the corresponding movie.  Then select any elements of the stories - characters, plot, key word in title, etc. -  and mash 'em together.  The idea could be for a picture book or for whatever genre you prefer.   For example, my birthday is December 5.  So I mashed up The Saggy Baggy Elephant and Titanic.  (Oh crapplesauce, how in the world am I going to do that?)   Okay, okay...here goes. S.B. Elephant is the biggest elephant in the plains.  In fact he is the biggest elephant of all time!  No one and nothing

I have been shunning one of my manuscripts. It was my favorite.  I still remember the night I jumped out of bed and began feverishly scrawling the idea for the character.  I had a hard time getting to sleep that night thinking, this is the one!   My first love.  "And then she said I couldn't edit with her anymore and now we aren't friends!" via sxc.hu by Ned Horton But after it received its second rejection, I tucked it away and stopped even cordially waving when I passed it in my notebook.   Some days I would put "edit Willie" on my to-do list, but I never got to the task. Why was I being so harsh to my love?  I thought about the happy spring picnics where we would discuss our dreams for the future and the summer days by the beach where it would make me laugh so hard I snorted.  I forced myself to give it a look the other day, after quietly saying sorry.  The manuscript got some much needed TLC, and I fell back in love again.  After tha

     While the power was out last week, I suffered a recurring zombie dream.   Being cut off from television and internet lets your imagination loose in the dark streets of your light-deprived mind.           One particularly cold night we stayed at a friend's house.  I was lulled to sleep with the sense of security the loud hum of a generator provides.  At 1:30 in the morning the generator cut.  And my body froze in place:         Oh no, the zombie attack is happening. Saltwater from the hurricane must have made subway rats sick, spreading a virus to humans.  The sound of generators will decrease each day until only silence and zombies remain.  copyright H. O'dowd       Luckily, we got the generator back on without major incident.  And then my friend did something amazing.  Since she couldn't run in the NYC Marathon (cancelled), she organized a local marathon to support a police officer seriously injured during Hurricane Sandy.  In the flash of a day I went

Susanna Leonard Hill is sponsoring the Halloweensie Contest !  To play you have to write a children's story less than 100 words long and including the words witch ,  bat , and " trick-or-treat " .    Here's my entry:  No Trick or Treating for Jack O'Lantern By Greg Jordan via sxc.hu My costume is ignored, Because I'm just a gourd. Can't cackle like a witch, My lips don't even twitch. White ghosts can scare with boo- An orange one wouldn't do. No flapping like a bat, You need two arms for that. It's hard to trick or treat, I don't have any feet. Without my belly spark I would hide in the dark. What goblins do I see? The treaters came to me! It's only 72 words - Won't you please add another verse in the comments?  Make sure you say Boo to your local Jack O'Lantern this year.  Oh and if I get into the final three, won't you please stop by and give Jack a vote?!   Happy

By Emil Bacik via sxc.hu Finding the right tool can be difficult, especially when you are a new writer.  Or a vampire slayer. Dressed as a vampire slayer this weekend, I ran to the garage to grab a matching stake.  It was a kid party, so I picked a non-threatening dowel rod.  My husband shook his head no.  I came back with a broomstick.   He yelled, "Short, fat stakes kill vampires better!"  There was a silent "duh," which I found a bit condescending.   I was planning to slay zombie vampires, in which case you would obviously want to keep some space between you and the target.    Duh. Having a killer stake in hand did not help me avoid the first 4-year-old who asked "What are you Miss Lauri?"  I realized quickly zombie, vampire, and slayer were difficult to explain and the term "blood-sucking" generally should be avoided with the young crowd.  So, I magically turned into a dragon trainer- complete with a perfect stick for playing

Technology can be pretty cool and stuff.  My recent iPhone purchase is delivering new found connectivity and cheers from the children: "Mommy you didn't get lost today!"  But technology is not perfect, much like my sense of direction. I use Dragon Dictation sometimes when my hands are full and I can't write my ideas down.  It's an app that types what you say.  More or less. Here is a picture book idea I had the other day by way of Dragon Dictation: Why you shouldn't let him go come Darlen with you because I don't like me your socks and let him know may e-mail me toothpaste and mess thanks All sorts of other thing .  Why no goats stay with you. "Yeah, I got a big thing that's gonna work out in 3 weeks tops..." By Nick Holdstock via sxc.hu Million dollar idea, right?  May have been, but I totally can't remember from this gibberish here.  I believe it was actually about why you shouldn't let a goat stay with you.

I love when my 4-year-old says something random or annoying or demanding or crazy, and I say "that could be a picture book."   This happens pretty regularly, but every once in a while it really develops into something.  I expand on the idea a couple sentences, "so the princess turns into a cat who barks. Then, what happens?"  1 out of 3 times my daughter comes up with something great.  The other two times the princess just eats a peanut butter-Nutellla sandwich or lets an echoing fart.  (What she would do in the situation.) By Ramunas   Geciauskas via Flickr Then I scribble the idea in the medium of crayon on construction paper or marker on hand...whatever is handy.  A solid scrawl of an idea is about 250 words.   Usually it starts with "once upon a time" or something along those lines.  A thing happens.  The story ends.  The middle is a mushy stew of dot-dot-dots.  The first draft is a story, not a picture book.  Words are not care

I am notorious (well notorious only to myself) for putting placeholders in manuscripts when I can't think of the right words.  Maybe I need to schedule a brain massage? photo by Julia Freeman-Woolpert via sxc.hu I allow myself thirty seconds to come up with the perfect phrase. If I don't succeed I leave stage directions to follow later.  Stopping for too long causes a break in my flow which leads to picking my nose, eating a few donuts, changing the laundry, and then remembering I was writing several hours later.  My current selection of placeholders includes: "in the hallway something frickin' hilarious ensues" "name that is sweet and rascally" "funny sound an orange would make" "eats something grosser than a caterpillar, but not as gross as a tarantula." "mom gives her incentive so she has to win" "The octopus' arm falls off or some other very bad thing happens"

Ahhh, isn't the new blog header better?  The old one was so...moody.  And I really am not moody, unless I drop my ice cream cone or something.  And even then, I am more mad than moody.   I'm more like a kid on a swing enjoying a lovely fall day. A new name too!    Your Imagination is the Limit was too ethereal.  And I really am not ethereal, unless I haven't had coffee yet.  And even then, I am more incoherent than ethereal.  I'm more like a clumsy spider not realizing I'm flying on a kite. The energy goes snap, crackle, pop when I open up my blog now!   Surrounding yourself with inspiring images is important.   The life of the new writer can be overwhelming - blogging, building a platform, writing picture book manuscripts, being sucked into twitterverse, exploring genres, outlining the plot for a middle grade story, developing the craft, reading constantly. Sanity requires knowing the action items to reach your goals.  You can't meet every go

I'm just a perfectly nice mom of two girls who have turned out very messy.  I have no idea how.  Well, maybe I have a little idea how...  Cutest mass murderer ever! I always loved making magnificent mudpies.   They were chocolate, because mud is chocolate-flavored (obviously.)  I decorated my creations with seeds, berries, and flowers in intricate designs.   In today's terminology they were Artisanal Dirt Delights with whole grains and organic ingredients. Another day three-year-old me noticed a stream of ants in the garage.  My parents let me stay out there swatting hundreds of them.   It was a fantastic day!  My mom taught me an important parenting lesson: "Peace and quiet is sometimes worth a lapse in hygiene." My mom may claim dirtygirliness skipped her generation, but she was did teach me how **WARNING- graphic story follows** to pull the tails off lightning bugs and put them on my nails for a glowing manicure.    If this seems a littl

The Book Doctor is "In." No I'm not talking about fixing your writing, just fixing books.  Literally.   T he wounded had been waiting patiently with missing pages, absent flaps, non-working pulls, and decapitated heads.   It was time for my  semi-annual book clinic.  Tape, glue, and photo splits (those little 2 way sticky squares) were flying while the repairs took place.  The girls flipped through the books and yanked on the pulls, testing my work.  Then they said, "Thank you for fixing our books!"   Awesome!   It always feels great to be thanked, especially when it comes from the tiny tyrants who caused the casualties.  I want to say "thank you" to two great bloggers Jenny Young   and Ink in the Book who recently gave me a Liebster Award.  Which also means it is time to share about myself again.  Jenny Young asked some very specific questions, so here goes: 1) What state would you like to live in other than where you li