Best place to write

Writer's life:

Go to writer's retreat.

Good food and conversation.

Revise several manuscripts.

Read one at the last day's gathering. (We all did a reading of something we had been working on that week.)

Now sending it out.

Crossing fingers and toes that somebody buys it. 

Thoughts about writers and writing

Why are writers so insecure?
It's because we KNOW we can writer better. That vision in our head, those voices we hear in our mind dictating the story just can't be matched by the paltry words we manage to get down on the page. (or typed into the computer file) We feel we can't measure up to those who've gone on before - even though we're pretty sure they also went through revision hell and fought the muddy, muddy middle.

Children's Book Writers United

A lot (and by a lot I mean a whole lot) of children's book writers are for Hillary Clinton. If you click on the blue link, you'll see statements from many of them, including some of your favorite authors:

Writer's Quotes

You can't wait for inspiration.
You have to go after it with a club
------- ----- Jack London (1876-1916)

Wow, he died a hundred years ago.  And we are still enjoying his books.
How about that?

Attend KidLitCon

You have till next Friday, Sept. 26th to register for Kidlitcon 2014  (Sacramento, Oct 10th and 11th)!
If both days are too much, there's the option of registering for just Friday or Saturday....

Kidlitcon is awesome-  it is the most kindred spirit filled conference possible for us introverted children's book readers and writers.  Plus there will be great authors to meet, and scads of books and swag to go home with -- for instance, Chronicle Books  just wrote in asking "how many of each title should we send...."  And there will be tasty eats and drinks (thank you, Lee and Low for sponsoring refreshments for Friday afternoon's Author Meet and Mingle!).

Even if you can't yourself go, please feel free to spread the word to any book bloggers, or any other sort of people who love reading and talking about children's books, who are in the Sacramento area (loosely defined as the whole western part of the country)!
And if you are going, any mention of Kidlitcon in your own social media would be swell.

And you don"t have to be in the western part of the country to go!   Many people are flying in from other parts of the country.

If you blog about kidlit, work with kidlit, write PB, middle grade, or YA books or just love it, this is a can't miss conference. The program looks great, and since the theme is Diversity, it's a great chance to continue the conversations we've been having online about how to bring greater diversity to children's books.

And --  if you work with children's books, if you're an author, or even if you make money blogging about children's or YA books, you should be able to deduct the cost from your taxes!" (check with your accountant.  I deducted it, myself.)

How Book Publishing Has Changed

Christine Kohler talks compares her adventures getting books published in the "olden days" (my granddaughter's term for most of my own life experiences) versus what happened with her latest book coming out this year.  Click on over to her blog, Read Like a Writer, a Teaching Blog.

My, has the publishing world changed.

Say NO to Free

I've written several posts about the problems with self-publishing and the problems with places that say they edit your work and publish it as long as you pay them ooodles of money, but actually only copyedit your work and fall down on the marketing side of the business. (Vanity presses -- avoid them. Money should flow to the author, not away from.)

But what about places that ask you to do stuff for them for free?
Stephen Silver says, "Say NO to Free!"
Often,you'll discover that they expect you give up the rights to anything you post or send to them.
He's talking about artists and art, but there are "free" places for writers that do the very same thing.

What about doing talks or school visits for free?  Here's info about that, too.

Writers need connections

Think all writers are shy, introverted people busily tapping away in some small room in their home?  Think again.  Writers need connections with other writers.  (They're the only people who understand our joys and sorrows as we celebrate our tiny steps forward -- we finished a draft of our story, yea! -- or backwards -- but I'll have to cut out one of the characters to make the story make sense, ouch.)

Anne Marie Pace talks about how she wrote picture books wrong and other aspects of her writing career plus how she connects with other writers, on the Cynsations blog.

New Ambassador for Young People's Literature

Wonderful news -- Walter Dean Myers is the new National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, replacing the retiring Katherine Paterson.
Read it here in the New York Times.

And there's a longer article here in School Library Journal.