Planning for 2008

Planning for 2008
I’m planning to take off blogging until January 3. It’s family time and I hope a time for me to plan for next year.
I’ve been blogging now for about a year and in that time, I’ve had about 50,000 visits to the sites, first on livejournal and now on my own domain. [...]

Writing for Children Publishing Resources

Organizations

Children’s Book Council
The CBC sponsors Children’s Book Week and Children’s Poetry Week. They have an online listing of member publishers and how to contact them.
Society of Children’s Bookwriters and Illustrators
The SCBWI is the professional organization for those writing and illustrating for kids. Look for the link to regional chapters to see what is [...]

Frosty’s Top 6 Writing Tips

Holiday Writing Tips
Frosty the Snowman’s Top 6 Writing Tips
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer’s Top 5 Writing Tips
Santa Claus’s Top 5 Writing Tips
The Gingerbread Man’s Top 5 Writing Tips
12 Days of Christmas Writing Tips
Frosty The Snowman
Read about the history of this song.
Oh, what a great 3-D snowman cake pan!

Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul,
With [...]

Rudolph’s Top 5 Writing Tips

Holiday Writing Tips
Frosty the Snowman’s Top 6 Writing Tips
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer’s Top 5 Writing Tips
Santa Claus’s Top 5 Writing Tips
The Gingerbread Man’s Top 5 Writing Tips
12 Days of Christmas Writing Tips
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, with a little help from UTube

Unique characters. Give characters a tag, a physical or emotional something [...]

Santa’s Top 5 Writing Tips

Holiday Writing Tips
Frosty the Snowman’s Top 6 Writing Tips
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer’s Top 5 Writing Tips
Santa Claus’s Top 5 Writing Tips
The Gingerbread Man’s Top 5 Writing Tips
12 Days of Christmas Writing Tips
Santa’s Top 5 Writing Tips
Just got an e-newsletter from the North Pole and Santa had these writing tips posted for the young-at-heart who [...]

Outlining Fiction

Throw away the English teacher’s outline (ETO) and try a shorter outline that is more appropriate to fiction.
Outline Structure
Jon Franklin, in his book, Writing for Story, proposes a different type of outline. Though he’s talking about non-fiction, he’s writing stories and his outline works well for fiction because he’s using scenes to develop [...]

Odds and ends

Having just done NaNoWriMo, Dori Butler muses about first drafts and her process of writing.
Sara Holmes writes about time and writers.
What songs does Janni Simner listen to while on revisions?
Chynna encourages writers (especially women) to stop their self-sabotage.
Wow! Book covers that pop.

10 Ways to Deal with Rejection

You’ve revised. You’ve submitted. Still no sales. Now what?

Consider your marketing
Target your submissions better. What? You only submitted to one editor? Today–not tomorrow–send the mss to at least three more editors. Study the market and target at least ten more. When the mss comes back from one, send [...]

5 Tips for Successful NaNoWriMo Writers

Calling all successful NaNoWriMo writers.
You’ve written your first novel. You’re facing your first revisions. Where do you start?

Read Self Editing for the Fiction Writer by Renni Browne and Dave King.
Revise everything that you can think of based on that book.
Attitude toward revision: After you’ve done that, do NOT think you are done. [...]

Times and Tides

A friend recently referred to the starts and stops of our writing life as the “times and tides,” and emphasized that each of us has different tide tables.
It’s true. I’m ready to pick up the threads of a revision this week. Another friend has finished the final copy editing of her most recent [...]