Two birthdays to celebrate becoming a tween

I don't think it's fair that kids get two birthdays and I only get one.
They get the 'weekend' birthday that their friends are invited to.
Plus, their birthday in the middle of the week for family.

The weekend birthday is nice.
The soon-to-be 10-year-old and her friends go to someplace interesting (interesting to kids -- for adults, not so much) and have an hour or so of fun, have cake and ice cream (or icecream cake like we do) and go home with a goody bag of funny toys. (This year we gave everyone small parasols, bubbles, and a ratchety noisemaker.) A lot of gifts are given to the birthday girl. Toys, dolls, and some really neat t-shirts that are too small, and some really neat t-shirts that actually fit.

Her favorite gift was actually three gifts from her best friend.
1, Three cats done by paper folding, representing cats now and those long dead.
2. A Puffle. (ask any 8 to 10 year old what a Puffle is. And then take a visit online to the Club Penguin village where they live.)
3. And a pair of Pajamas exactly like best friend's. Which both of them wore Saturday night while best friend and she had a sleep-over.

She's also looking forward to her 'family' birthday on Wednesday. Her Aunt Jen and Uncle Michael sent a padded package with a gift in it. What can it be? The suspense is killing her. (plus we have a few things planned for the big ONE-OH birthday.)
Double digits! She can't wait to become a tween.

In case you are wondering -- did I get any writing done this weekend?
Not much.
Chose a publisher and composed a cover letter for a manuscript. But my printer ran out of ink. Once I get the new ink cartridge, I'll be good to go.
-wendieO

Birthday party

Today the 8-year old had her 9th birthday party. Okay, that sounds weird, but when your actual birthday is on a school day, you have to have the party on the weekend. She liked painting pottery so much last year that we did it again this year, at Hot Pots. (they have stores all over. I'm sure you can find one near you.)

Every child got to choose a piece and painted it to the best of their ability. Take home treats for today were simple things -- glow necklaces (even for the boys) and the ball in the maze puzzle games. Next week everyone will come back to pick up their painted pieces. I keep telling myself that I'll come back another day with the now-9-year old and do some painting of pottery, myself.

The cake was an Ice cream/ cake from Baskin-Robbins and was delish! As far as I can tell I remembered to bring most everything, except candles -- so we did without candles.

Now there are two girls in our living room watching the Hannah Montana concert video (okay, it's a DVD. I don't think we'll ever stop calling them videos.) Supposedly having a sleep-over, although I'm not sure how much sleeping will go on.
-wendieO

December at last

Wow, it's December.

The 7-year-old is now 8-years-old.

Everyone seemed to like the paint-your-own-pottery birthday party and some want to go again.  (ME! Me!   I saw a butterfly that I really, really want to own.)

Editors seem to be clearing off their desks.  I've received several rejections in the past few days -- some for manuscripts I sent out last January and one for a manuscript I mailed out two weeks ago.

But I won't lose heart.  I've been kick-started into sending out manuscripts and will continue to do so.  I have two things almost ready to go which will probably go out Tuesday or Wednesday.

  Plus I think I've done as much as I can with my task of cutting Francis Scott Key in half.

Hmmm.  That does need some explanation, doesn't it.

I've been sending out a 4800 word picture book biography of Francis Scott Key, based on the design of TO FLY.  (see cover over there to the right?  The one that won all those awards?)

  One editor tried to gently tell me she wanted shorter. (We only do 32 page...)  I was determined to sell another 48 page book.  But it didn't happen.  So, when the critiquer at SCBWI-LA told me flat out that nobody was publishing 48 page books and that I needed to make it either longer or shorter, I decided that they were really trying to give me good advice.

Ever since then, I've been slashing and burning.  And now F.S. Key is almost half the size of what it once was -- and I can't figure out what more to take out.  So I'm going to bite the bullet and send it out.  Sometime this week.   Really.  Truly.

A friend once said that a work of art was never finished -- just abandoned.  And that's how I feel about this manuscript.  I think it is now the best I can do at this time, and I should stop fiddling with it and simply float it out there into publishing land.

If you are an artist (writer or something) and happen to be reading this blog -- do you feel this way when you send something out to be considered for publication?

wendieO