Lauri Meyers .

Writing children's books is really quite simple as long as you think about it like a 2-year-old and not like a person much older than a 2-year-old who knows about the complexities of developing voice and finding an agent.  Kind of like this: One, Two, Slippers will do. Three, Four, shut the door. Five, Six, Grab writing sticks. Seven, Eight, Caffeinate! Nine, Ten, Write 'til The End. See? Easy, Peasy, Nachos with cheesy.  Hmm, that makes me think I should add: Eleven, Twelve, Reward yourself!   (Okay, that's a near rhyme. No need to call the police. It's totally allowed in nursery rhymes.) Yum, nachos. (image by Jean-Philippe Dufour via sxc.hu) Thirteen, Fourteen, Repeat routine.  Now grab your writing sticks and get back to work!

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 re...

I did it! I went to my first writing event - The Brooklyn Book Festival.  Here's how it went:             A cool breeze made her consider one more safety pee as she walked down the sidewalk.            No , she thought, five times was enough .  Her foot stomped firmly on the concrete to shake           out the creeping anxiety.  This country girl from Ohio took each step with commitment,           feeling independence surging through her muscles.           You can do this , she thought.   No pitches, no critiques; this is easy.  Just put out your hand and            say, "Hi, I'm a writer."  Then do it again and again until you believe it.          Sunshine warmed her shoulders pulling them a little higher as she entered the city square.      ...

I was moving and grooving, learning about the craft of writing picture books.   I faced obstacles, but I continued to grow just like a character in my stories.   Then my growth kind of stalled and puttered and twittered and finally stopped.  What happened?  Had I reached my peak and discovered I was hopelessly average?  Why wasn't I getting better? And then it hit me:  I wasn't reading a writing book.  I had Summer Break Brain Drain.   It was time to get back to school, so I picked up Writing Picture Book s by Ann Whitford Paul.    If your brain is on summer drugs too, here are favorite insights from other writing books: You Can Write Children's Books by  Tracey E. Dils On reviewing your dummy book: "Is there enough action to illustrate on the spread you've chosen?   Is there too much action to illustrate? Is there a variety of scenes or a variety of different actions of interest throughout the...

Do you remember acrostic poems?    T his is an easy variety of poetry for grade school kids, with each line starting from a letter in a word or phrase.   I have queries on the brain since I set a goal to complete ten this month.   As of midnight last night I had done two.   I seem to have forgotten how difficult queries are (or how difficult I make them...) You may be saying, "Why not work on a query now, fair maiden?"  But alas, procrastinating with an acrostic poem is too delicious of an option.  Plus I am quite certain a little break for creativity will unleash my productivity for the rest of the day.  The 10 marshmallows I just ate will also contribute their fair share.         Q uite         U gly         E diting         R arely gets         Y es.         Q uality writing       ...

Trying something new... heading for the drink.  This year has been full of firsts.   First query letter.   First blog post.   First submission.   First interview.     First book review.    First critique.   First tweet.    First rejection.   Most of the time I have been in over my head. Luckily I have started every new job in over my head.  I had a really pervasive habit of saying "That sounds challenging, and I am underqualified.  I am in!"  I have swallowed enough salt water to fill a killer whale enclosure.   As a result of all these years of dog paddling, I have learned the most growth occurs in the midst of challenge.  Here are my coping mechanisms to stay afloat: Gather data.   I can't wrap my mind around where to start until I have some background information.  This has annoyed most people I have worked with.  But I have to do it.  I study.  I...

          Let's just assume I was allowed in the deer enclosure.     I was a tomboy growing up.   I had an older sister, so all the girly skills were already taken.   She cooked with my mom, while I was out in the garage with my dad pounding nails into a board to make a pretend cash register.   While she was learning to clean; I was learning to mow the grass.             As a result I got to live on the wild side.  My dad brought me up on the roof while he was installing new shingles.  I was one.  (He says I was in a box, so it was okay. I got stuck in a box a lot. )   He let me make Rice-a-Roni at the hot stove sitting on a stool.  I was four.  He propped me on the railing outside the gorilla enclosure at the zoo.  We'll pretend there weren't signs back then, but I suspect there probably were.     ...

      Today you will be treated to a guest post by Kasie Whitener from Life on Clemson Road .  She is a writer, process improvement analyst, jack of many trades, and mom to a Pirate Princess named HB.  She is reviewing the book Pinkalicious , the original book which has turned into a 20+ book series and enterprise for author/illustrator Victoria Kann.        “I neeeeeeed mmmoooorrrre!” HB whines after I’ve given her two cookies.  I respond, “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.”   I wish I could thank my Momma or Nana for this clever piece of rhyming reason, but I stole it from somewhere else: Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann, authors of the Pinkalicious series.   The protagonist is an imaginative little girl whose favorite color is pink.      In the series’ first installment, Pinkalicious , mommy and Pinkalicious are making cupcakes.  After waking up from her nap, Pinkalicious asks mommy fo...

While digging in the attic, I found a book full of sibling rivalry, teen angst, and romance.   It was my binder of writing from school.   I set aside the stories using the week's vocabulary words as I didn't have a dictionary handy, and I entered the magical world of my teenage self. A few stories were typed on my Dad's old typewriter, each letter crisper than a printout can do today.  Some poems were amorphous scribbles crawling across the pages with circles and arrows connecting the rhymes.  Most stories were in soft lilting cursive in pencil.  Teachers must have been so patient to read assignments in cursive. I loved to write poetry.  This feeling was briefly awakened when we lived in Detroit for a couple years, and I wrote rap on my way to work.  Luckily, it was a short commute, and I didn't force anyone to listen to it on lunch break.   Why don't I feel brave enough to try it now?  There were also some dark turns in st...

It has been a rough week.  I was diagnosed with "Mommy Multiple Personality Disorder."  The psychiatrist found seven personalities.   Let me introduce them to you: "I want the cream cheese ON TOP of the jelly.  DO IT AGAIN MOM!" Best Mommy in the World - This mommy has a lollipop in her purse, plays tag at the park, and always says yes to playing Play-doh.  Best Mommy also gets the kids on their best behavior, because no child can resist a mom who is 100% engaged. Giant Exploding Blueberry Monster - This mommy cannot. Listen. To. Whining. Anymore. If you ask for the cheese balls one more time, Mommy monster's face will turn blue, her muscles will bulge out of yoga pants, and her mouth will explode in a fit of indecipherable yelling. Super Wife - Husband is greeted at the door by the aroma of lobster tail with risotto, a perfectly poured beverage, and a sweet peck on the lips.  The house is miraculously clean, so husband can relax and pl...

You CAN start writing with just $10!  All you need to write is a paper and pencil.  You can get those free at a street carnival, as long as the Governor's campaign slogan doesn't disrupt your imagination.  Then, you will have $10 left for soda and snacks. Sweet. Oh, you want to get published?  Well, this post isn't called Getting Published on a $10 Budget, though I did start my journey with a $10 budget.  I even looked straight into my husband's eyes and said, "I would like to write children's books.  I need $10 to get started."  Sure, I could have skimmed $10 off of a grocery trip, but creating a budget gave my venture a professional feel and a level of commitment. I even had a spreadsheet: I found a dime in the couch cushion and was good to go.     Where shall we start addressing my naiveté?  I suppose I will show you what I have spent five months later: Three Submissions ($10) First off, I blew the original ...

     Staying positive is a big challenge for writers.   Edit 20 times, feel nauseous licking the envelope, and then wait 4 months for a submission response.  A yes means a two year journey of editing, marketing, illustrating, and printing before your book is in your hands.  And then there are all the no's.          How do you stay positive in the face of so much negativity?  Enter the Energy Map*.  Picture a circle.  The circle is 100% of your time, energy, and potential.   Some amount of your time and energy is spent on the front of the circle (the positive side), and some amount is spent on the back (the negative side).      The front side of the circle is a beach.  The sun shines brightly on your hammock swinging between two palm trees.  Entertainment is provided by a lizard tasting the sea air with a flick of his tongue. The ocean is calm enough to wade up to your be...

Just like my kids don't see anything wrong with marshmallows for breakfast, I couldn't find anything wrong with my picture book manuscript.  Yet, it had been three months since my submission, and it was clearly time to pick up the ms for an edit. But I didn't know how to start. So I decided to try storyboarding.  A storyboard is simply the layout of all 32 pages of a picture book on one big diagram.  This isn't like an illustrator's storyboard which would be sent to an editor with pretty pictures.  This is my private tool, and no one gets to see it.  Well, no one except you.   My First Storyboard I decided to get crafty by cutting out rectangles of colored paper representing each spread.   I taped all the sheets together and hung them on a door.   On 3x5 cards I wrote the key action for that page.  Once everything was laid out, I took a step back to admire my work.   Hmm.  The 10 empty pages, um...

It may be a bad idea, but I like to listen to the sounds of the stools moving around upstairs for a few minutes before commencing investigation.  I hope letting the dirty girls practice their independence in somewhat controlled situations will prepare them for the future.  Or maybe this is how I get my thrills without hitting the casino.  Today I found this: People have always said books can take you places; why do my kids have to take everything so literally?   And you thought I was kidding about having dirty girls... As I opened my mouth to yell, I realized she was making a book spine poem!  How creative.  Unfortunately, mommy is far too lazy to type up such a lengthy poem.     Still I was inspired to write my own poem using some of her children's books- after removing her from the dangerous situation of course (well, taking a picture and then saving her).  This poem was inspired by a fun nakey run a...

I wished for a great picture for my blog for Mothers Day.  While we were fishing, I asked my 2 year old dirty girl if there were any more worms in the bucket.  Wish granted.  Unfortunately, I was too busy giggling hysterically to catch the one of her kissing a fish.  Probably just as well to avoid the fan mail from PETA and Good Clean Parents. The sacrificial worms were acquired as I dug up rocks in the yard- a daily activity due to a glacier pausing at our house to enjoy the view.  What do you find when you look under a rock?  Grubs.  Slugs.  Salamanders.  Millipedes.  And Worms.   The Dirty Girls love the worms.  They nurture the worms like baby dolls, wrapping them up in leaves and offering them milk. The situation caused me to create some rules.    I started with these three Rules for Worms:   No worms in the house.     Worms want to sleep in their moist, dar...

Yes, your words are beautiful, thoughtful, and mesmerizing, but people still like pretty pictures .  Pictures add interest to your blog post and pull in readers from search results.  Pictures help with SEO by letting search engines know you are a real person.  It works because robots do not like pretty things or something like that. So how do you get images (legally)?         Take a picture  of something beautiful or interesting or random, like these circus peanuts.   Once you start seeing all the opportunities to snap a pic, just store them until the right post comes along.       Draw a picture and snap a photo of it.  This one is easy to do while coloring with the kids. Robert Lee Brewer sometimes just writes something on a piece of paper; if not always artistic, it is always relevant.         Take a shot of your kids, but blur them out.   Your kids are super cute, but yo...

For creative writing exercise I thought I would try a little stand up comedy.  Then I remembered I am a really terrible joke teller, generally forgetting how the joke starts or ends or both.  I guess the only way to get my funny bone in shape is to work it out.  In sticking with the writerly blog theme, here are 10 jokes only a writer could love (or hate or both).  If you think these are bad, consider yourself lucky the other 20 got scrapped.  (#11- "Hey folks, I just flew in and boy are my tweeters tired!") 1.      Did you hear about the blue jay with the contract to write about nest building?  He was so busy tweeting, he forgot to write the book. 2.      How many tweets would a tweeter tweep tweet, if a twittertweep could tweet asleep? 3.  My literary agent asked me to add more nudity, but I told her I write romance novels - not teen lit. 4. Did you hear the one about the guy who walked into the bar...