It only took three months, but I finally finished my duckling story. I am not too thrilled with the manuscript. In fact, I am wondering why I procrastinated for two months. The thing is my first drafts suck .. ALWAYS. But I don’t mind, I figure there is only one direction for the story to go and that is UP. The lesson I learned is that I should NOT procrastinate on first drafts, and that I just need to get the story out. I usually don’t like my stories until revision three anyways.
What else did I do? I finished Anastasia Suen’s class. I enjoyed learning how she dissects picture books. Some of the material was a refresher while other parts were new for me. For one of the assignments, we had to write down what the illustrations were showing and what the text was saying for every page in the book. This was really cool, I could see the symbiotic relationship between the art and text. I did this for Mac Barnett’s “Oh No! Not Again” and was in total awe of the craftsmanship. I highly recommend doing this sort of exercise on your favorite picture book or even your own work-in-progress.
As for my “Monsters in the Park”, I had a last-minute panic attack when I made a dummy and realized my story was 2-3 scenes too long and at least 1-2 rough spots. As a result I did not do the conference submit. But on the flip side, I was one of the winners in a query contest and submitted my Monsters in the Park manuscript to an agent at EMLA! (this happened before I realized my story was too long … eek) Now I am patiently waiting for a response.
I guest blogged at Rate Your Story on using their service as a litmus test.
Here is what I am doing next month:
- Going to Hawaii tomorrow for a week with the hubby, and unplugging. Only taking pen, paper, and books to read … and my iPhone. We’ll see how well I do with being off-line.
- Writing my August 12×12 draft, hopefully while in Hawaii.
- Catching up on posting book reviews.
Happy Writing to all of you!
