Keep reaching for your goal

I'm listening to a video chat from the national SCBWI conference about setting and achieving your career goals- and it occurred to me that I have actually done this. I had a full-time job in a library (around wonderful children, wonderful co-workers, and books books books.) I also wanted to write books. I ended up writing many books and over 40 of them were published. We won't talk about the ones still filling drawers in my office filing cabinets. And for about a year I was a famous author. :) (then I went back to being a working mom who wrote books in her "spare" time. :) )

I also reached my goal of performing as a musician and hanging out with other musicians (in college) and later with music fans. (followed the Moody Blues for a while and even got to meet them for a quick minute backstage with a friend.)

I got very, very tired of shoveling snow (one year we had over 4 feet of snow - in Maryland!) So I now live in the land of eternal springtime - southern California coast.

I wanted more instruction about writing, so I went for a second masters degree (the first was in Library Science that I attended with my husband), at VCFA - Vermont College of Fine Arts, writing for Children and young adults.

Have I reached all my goals? nope. If you stop reaching for goals, you shrivel up and die.

So I keep reaching.

SCBWI Annual Conference

If you missed the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators annual conference (they now call it the International Conference, recognizing that a lot of writers come from Canada, and other countries), then you can hop on over to the wonderful Lisa Yee's wonderful blog to see pictures. (She calls this entry, Where authors and agents and editors collide.

She also has a link to the official SCBWI conference blog where you can read summaries of ALL of the workshops and events -- almost like you had been there.
Go
Enjoy

Win a Free Scholarship to the SCBWI - LA conference this August!!!

This just in:
Scholarship available to the International Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrator's gathering in Los Angeles this August!
Open to all members of SCBWI
All you have to do
is write a little haiku.

(Hey, even I tried to do it -- and I can't write haiku)


FAiRy gOdSiStErS, iNk ::::: fAiRy gOdSiStErS iNk :::::

anounces
Our 6th Annual SCBWI Conference Scholarship!


wHo can apply:       YOU with your shiny SCBWI membership 
(Make haste to www.scbwi.org to join/renew if needed)

wHaT:      $1,000.00 toward conference tuition, manuscript or portfolio critique, and a bit of mad money during your LA stay.

wHeN:      Conference runs from August 2 -5, 2013

wHeRe:      The Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles CA

wHy:      We are five very fortunate authors for children and young adults who have been generously mentored, guided and supported by a host of talented individuals. We can't think of a better way to thank them than by easing the way for others. The National Conference is a game-changer.

hOw:      To enter, write at least one but no more than three haiku telling us why we should pick you for this year's conference. (A haiku is a three-line poem, featuring a total of 17 syllables: 5 in the first line, 7 in the second, and 5 again in the third.) Have some fun with this!

(the three haiku can be one connected poem)

Email your entry to  
fairygodsistersink@gmail.com 

by April 15th. 

Winners will be announced on May 1st. 
Questions, just ask!

Please feel free to share this info with your SCBWI buddies everywhere.

Best of luck to you all!

The big SCBWI Conference is going on now -- and you can attend Virtually

If you want to find out what's happening at the National/ International SCBWI in Los Angeles this weekend, simply click here on the link to the Official SCBWI Conference Blog. They have a team of bloggers frantically typing away during each speech, panel, and workshop, bringing those words to you.

Granted, some reporters seemed more fixated on the speakers clothes than the talk itself last year, but I have hopes to be able to learn more about the program this year.

Bruce Coville was the Keynote speaker.

Judy Blume, Henry Winkler, Harold Underdown, and more, much more.

On the other hand, I think I'm going to go blind from being forced to look at the wild background stripes of that blog while I read it. I wonder if they can tone it down.

-wo

More posts about writing

I was browsing Ingrid Sundberg's blog today when I discovered she had compiled a list of tidbits she carried away from our 10 day Residency at Vermont College of Fine Arts for Writing for Children and Young Adults. Something I had meant to do, but never got around to it. Click on the link to see.

She also has links to a multitude of writing articles done by faculty and students at Vermont College, otherwise known as VCFA-WCYA. That list is here.

Click on over and enjoy.

Then tell her how much you liked her blog when you see her at the SCBWI conference in LA this weekend. (She'll be one of the authors with bright PINK hair.)

-wo

Blog -- Alice Pope's SCBWI Children's Market Blog

Those of you who belong to SCBWI (the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), and if you don't belong YOU SHOULD, should be familiar with the name, Alice Pope.

She runs the SCBWI's Children's Market blog. Now, don't go thinking that all she talks about is markets, although that's good too. She also talks about conferences, writing, books, and authors. Her current post talks about some of the author/ speakers and the SCBWI-LA Conference coming up in August. Click and enjoy. -wo

You don't have to be in LA

Did you attend the huge, HUGE Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' Summer Conference in Los Angeles last weekend? (okay it was a 4-day weekend)

No?
Then click on over to the Official SCBWI Conference Blog and read the notes from every workshop and event, done by a team of tireless (and now very tired) bloggers.

Unfortunately, since this is a blog, you'll be reading the events backwards --
Monday, August 2,
then Sunday, August 1,
and so on, until you reach the opening and pre-opening events.

enjoy -wendieO

SCBWI-LA live! On your Computer

Don't cha wish you were in LA right now?
At the SCBWI Summer conference?
(Los Angeles, CA -- Century City. Near Hollywood for you out-of-towners.)

What's that, you ask?
Oh -- it's an intense 4-day conference for Children's book writers/ agents/ editors/ etc.

Well, now you can sneak a peak at what's happening and discover the most important thoughts of the speakers. Just click here and go the the SCBWI-LA blog. A bunch of reporters are blogging everything. Not only that, but many, many more are Tweeting, etc.
-wendieO

blocked?

I apologize to anyone who tried to enter my butterfly guessing contest (see below) and couldn't get through. For some reason, that I don't understand, blogger blocked my blog. (I love alliteration, don't you? I guess blogger does too.

Is it offensive to talk about writing and butterflies and libraries and books? You tell me.

(If you can see this message, it means that blogger has unblocked me and you can begin guessing, again. Hint -- as of today, August 2nd, none of them have emerged.)

----I'm free! Unblocked!
In celebration, I invite all of you to mosey on over to Alice Pope's blog. She is at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' National conference in Los Angeles and is blogging about the sessions she attends.
-wendieO