almost ready to submit

I have received a few NOs from agents for my manuscript (my king story). I still have a few queries out there to a few more agents. In the meantime I have another story that is almost ready to submit. I should be ready to submit by August. I'll keep you all posted.

A year of critiquing and other happenings

Wow, it's been way too long since I've blogged. I know it seems like people often remark in their blogs about how they haven't blogged much.

With that said, I haven't had much to blog about. Since my last entry I received a no from one agent concerning my latest picture book manuscript. I still am awaiting a response from a publisher and agent about the same manuscript.

I also had a really great May meeting of my local writing group. We did a few writing prompts. And despite my best efforts to chalk up any writing done on the spot at this meeting, I actually wrote something that soon after turned into a new full picture book manuscript.

I also have recently spent a couple 1/2 periods in a 2nd grade classroom across the hall in the school I work at. I went in to do some reading of my stories after being referred by a friend of mine in my critique group. You see his daughter is in that class and so kindly did some free PR work for me and then I volunteered/was invited to also read in that same classroom. So today I went in for the 2nd Tuesday in a row.

The first time I went into the 2nd grade classroom I talked about my process of writing, the writing industry, where I get my ideas from, etc. as well as reading one of my stories. Today I read two of my stories including the one that came from the writing prompt at May's meeting of my local writing group.

One last bit of news. On May 20th two exciting things happened. But I'll save the best for last. First of all my critique group went out for dinner to celebrate our 1 year anniversary of meeting as a critique group (our first meeting was on May 21, 2009). We followed up dinner with our usual critique meeting.

The second bit of exciting news is my niece was born that night! Katherine Elizabeth Russell was born around 8:30 and weighed 6 pounds 1 ounce and measured 18 1/2 inches and has a full head of dark hair!

agents

I just recently submitted my picture book manuscript to two literary agents. I came to the conclusion that I am willing to submit my work to agents since many of the publishers are no longer taking unsolicited manuscripts. That doesn't mean I won't submit to any publishers in the future. It just means that in addition I will be seeking out agents to represent me and try to help get me published.

weekend push

Today I have been working on researching publishers to submit my latest picture book manuscript to. I know I will at least be submitting to Charlesbridge (since I met an editor from this publishing house at a conference in January) and Barefoot Books. I was going to submit toFarrar, Straus, and Giroux, but found out some disappointing information. In case you didn't know, FSG (for short) is an imprint of Macmillan Publishing. Here's what I discovered under the contact information of FSG's site:

"As of January 2010, Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, in compliance with The Macmillan Children's Publishing Group's policy, does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. We recommend finding a literary agent to represent you and your work. "

So my search continues for more publishers to submit to that accept unsolicited manuscripts. I may try Peachtree and Clarion for the heck of it since I submitted my last manuscript to them. Only 5 days before my (personal) deadline to send out my manuscript.

meeting a deadline

I am still working hard to meet my personal deadline of April 1st to send out my 2nd picture book manuscript of my young writing career. I am making some final edits, researching publishers to send it to, and hopefully by the end of the week will have a cover letter drafted for the respective publishers I will be submitting my manuscript to.

award-winning books from 2009

We had our annual RACWI awards meeting the other week. What this means is we review the Newbery and Caldecott winners from last year (2009). I wanted to be able to review the Newbery winner, which is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I was going to write an in-depth review here on my blog, but I just can't get motivated to. There are many reviews you can find online. Here are my brief comments on the book in list form:

- For a Newbery it isn't accessible to an elementary age audience as much as it could be and is borderline YA material because of its content. The book starts out with a man killing a toddler's parents and sibling while the boy escapes to a graveyard nearby where he is raised by ghosts.

- The book has some very clever language, story development, and twists and turns.

- Many of the minor characters didn't interest me. I just didn't see the point of some of them and they seemed to be random.

- The book is very episodic, which lends to a lack of time markers, especially when it concerns the main character, Bod (short for Nobody) Owens.

- Much of the world created by the author is not explained enough and the "rules" if you will of how the different creatures interact in the world are unclear. This is most obvious with different "categories," if you will, of the dead creatures and humans.

- The story comes full circle, which is great. However, the explanation for why Bod's family was murdered was too sudden considering a great action buildup in about the last 100 or so pages before the reason is revealed.

- Lastly, based off the content, seeming lack of explanation of some plot points, and the fact that this book is more accessible to a YA audience, I would not have awarded it the Newbery medal. This doesn't mean that I don't think it has some good points to it, because it does as I hope I have explained earlier in this post.

I also spent time in a group discussing the Caldecott winners (the winner and the honor books). My opinion is that while The House in the Night is a well-illustrated book I would have given the Caldecott to one of the honor books, A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, for its very clever use of multiple mediums in the artwork.

getting closer

I have been working on another picture book hoping to submit it to publishers by April 1st. It hasn't even gone through ten revisions, but it is very close to being ready. After getting some great feedback from our RACWI critique meeting last Thursday and my two critique groups this week I am getting excited about meeting my personal deadline goal of April 1st. A major edit I had to make brought the word count down from around 600 to about 400. This seems crazy since that is less than half the length of my last story. But I am learning a lot about "bare-boning" my writing.

"Bare-boning" means looking at each and every word and asking the following questions:

"Does this advance my plot?"
If the answer to this question is "No" then I should probably cut it.

"Is this something the illustrator can take care of?"
"Is this my voice being inserted into the story?"
If the answer to these questions is "Yes" then I should probably cut it.

"Is there a shorter way I can say this?"
"Is this text showing rather than telling?"
If the answer to these questions is "Yes" then I should probably re-work the text.

With that being said, I am well on my way to submission.