Lauri Meyers .

I love, love, love Susanna Hill's contests. But what do I love more than her writing contests? Her illustration contests.. because I don't even have to enter!  Ahh, that's a relief. No revising my fingers to the bone to meet her itty bitty word limits and chocolate-induced constraints. Thankfully, I love revising. *wink, wink* No, the best part is actually getting to see my story The Princess and the Stinky Cheese come to life at the hands of amazing artists. (And all the finalists' stories too - a total of 42 illustrators participated!) I have learned so much watching this contest unfold. How critical it is to inspire illustration without dictating it. The importance of smart details. The amazing number of ways artists can demonstrate the stinkiness of cheese! Each artist took a unique approach to the story. Each one found a detail to add to enhance the story and to make it their own. Thank you Susanna for hosting and to each of the artists who partici

I had a lovely, uneventful, swimming and eating vacation . The only very slight problem was my notebook. It was pretty enough with nice Mexican-ish stripes. And the paper felt satisfyingly sturdy and smooth. The only problem was the blankness of the pages. My girls helped to remedy the situation. Filling that first blank with anything is always a relief.   This portrait of me (quite accurate, no?) really got me motivated. Finally, the book - Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life by Natalie Goldberg provided the trigger for my pen to move. At the end of Chapter 2 Natalie encourages writers to complete a timed writing session. To kick it off, write "I remember." Anytime your pen hesitates, start another "I remember" sentence.  This was an effective way to trick me into writing just to write. Now here's the kicker. Natalie suggests using "I don't remember" sentences every so often. When you're exploring a topic, this

Oh dear, I'm going on vacation tomorrow, and I realize it already appears I have been on vacation! It's been almost two weeks since my last post, how does that happen so fast? Well, like they say, time flies when you're having fun, and 2014 has been fun! I had my first short story "Copernica" published in the January edition of Spaceports & Spidersilk. If you enjoy daring post dragon apocalypse teen angst, then this is for you! ( Smashwords   or Barnes & Noble )  (footprint by clblood via sxc.hu) I learned a lot during ReViMo (Revision Month) in January, and I'm still having a good time in ReViMo's Facebook group. Plus I won the Children's Book Academy's Grammar Groove course with Miranda Paul. Her lessons have been very helpful far beyond grammar advice. I won 3 rd place in Susanna Hill's March Madness story (Yay! Thank you everyone!) and had a great time writing about Princess Peabody, too. [Insert break h