An old illustration of mine, 2003 perhaps?? Strawberry cake, yum!

Life is so crazy busy right now... Hubs is working lots. I'm a stay at home mom, trying to write. I'm also organizing a writing a writing challenge (ReviMo) and I've started Word by Word (thank you Marcie Colleen for help with the name and Blanche Baxter for help planning and running!) book club where we are studying Ann Whitford Paul's book, Writing Picture Books.

Then today I was asked by a wise woman to take a picture book manuscript and CUT THE WORD COUNT IN HALF. I automatically thought, but mine are well under 600, she doesn't mean me. But as I read on, she said, if your story is 200 words cut to 100. Darn.

But as I'm thinking about cutting my word count in half, I'm thinking, why don't I cut my clutter in half? Why don't I get rid of half the kids toys? Or if not half, at least a bunch. We have too many toys, stacks of magazines that I will never re-read or maybe even read, too many dishes, a coffee cup collection that could serve coffee to 50 people (and no 50 people around to serve) and then more junk. I'm going to donate what I can and trash the rest! Who's with me? :)

ReviMo!

Meg Miller 2004

Thanks to ALL of you for helping me get the word about about ReviMo! I'm so excited about this writing challenge.

The winners are *bummina bummina bummina bumminnna*

Angie K. and Dani D.!!!

Thanks to all your great help spreading the word, there are 121 people signed up for our revision challenge. This is gonna be AWESOME!

Word by Word Book Club

 

Some friends and I are studying Ann Whitford Paul's wonderful book Writing Picture Books. 

I tried studying it on my own, but didn't stick with it. Hopefully with a group we can power through.

I'm hoping that after Writing Picture Books we can move on to other great books. Here's the list we've compiled:

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne LaMottWriting Down the Bones by Natalie GoldbergWord Magic- Cindy RogersRIP the Page!, Adventures in Creative Writing- Karen BenkeBook Love, Creating good books for children- Juanita HavillWriting Magic, Creating Stories the Fly -Gail Carson LevineWriting With Pictures- Uri ShulevitzSeize the Story- Victoria HanleyAnatomy of Nonfiction- Margery Facklam and Peggy ThomasShow me a story, why picture books matter- Leonard S. MarcusYes! You can learn how to write beginning readers and chapter books- Nancy I. SandersHow to write a children's book and get it published- Barbara SeulingSecond Sight - Cherly Klein
Writing it Right - Sandy Asher
Writing Irresistible Kidlit - Mary Kole
Save the Cat - Blake Snyder

How to Write a Children's Book Vol. I: Structure - Eve Heidi Bine-Stock
How to Write a Children's Book Vol. II: Word, Sentence, Scene, Story
How to Write a Children's Book Vol. III: Figures of Speech

The Nuts and Bolts Guide to Writing Picture Books - Linda Ashman (Thank you Cathy Ballou Mealey!)

You're gonna hear me ROoAR!

A painting I did for my son's room! Rawr! I need to do more painting, I love it so much, just don't take the time to do it. :)

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It's ReviMo! Spread the word and WIN!

Hi friends, I'm so excited about ReviMo, we've got some wonderful prizes to give away. Can you help me spread the word? Tweet, Facebook or Blog about ReviMo and enter to win!

Prizes are a gift card (either Starbucks or Target) and a chance to be cartooned by me! Contest ends Monday, September 16th at midnight. You can enter once for a FB post, once for Blog post and everyday for Tweets. Thanks all!

a Rafflecopter giveaway