What I’ve Learned in Seven Years of Querying

A few weeks ago one of my writing friends posted a wonderfully inspiring tweet: And I replied: Technically, this statement isn’t true. If you’ve seen my posts on tracking my queries, you’ll know that I do keep track of my rejections. However, I’ve never totaled them up for all the manuscripts, and as I thought…

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The Benefits of Weekly Chapter Swaps

First of all, there’s still time to enter my fifth blogiversary giveaway for a $25 Amazon gift card, so if you haven’t done so yet, check out my post here (ends at midnight 5/11)! While I’ve been blogging for five years, I’ve been writing for many more years. The beauty of this journey is that…

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How to Stalk WriteOnCon Ninja Agents 2017

If you’re in the kidlit community, you probably know about WriteOnCon and missed it as terribly as I did in 2015 and 2016. Well, hallelujah, it’s back! I don’t have anything to query at the moment, but I do have a work-in-progress ready for some feedback in the forums, so I’ll definitely be dipping a…

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New England SCBWI Conference: So Worth the Trip!

This past weekend I traveled to Springfield, Massachusetts, for the New England Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators Spring Conference. It wasn’t my first SCBWI Conference. I’ve attended the Missouri conference multiple years, and it’s been very valuable. However, the New England conference is significantly larger and offered the draw of my long-time critique…

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6 Reasons You Should Critique for Others While Revising

Did you miss me? I know I threw that four years of querying post out there and then deserted the blog for a couple of weeks. My family went to the Lake of the Ozarks, and then I had a week of craziness catching up with some deadlines. But I’m back! So, I’m in the…

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Why Subjectivity Is Your Friend

Like many writers, I have a love/hate relationship with the concept of subjectivity. It’s the indefinable reason for countless rejections in the publishing world, many of them even quite complimentary. It’s also the source of invaluable opinions from other writers who provide feedback on your work. (I’ve blogged on the benefits of multiple subjective opinions before.)…

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Revising from Public Critiques: Baker’s Dozen Edition

Hi everyone! I took Monday off from the blog due to Thanksgiving (which also happened to be my birthday), followed by Black Friday shopping and Christmas decorating. It was a crazy but fun-filled weekend. Oh, and I participated in a little contest called Baker’s Dozen. If you’re not familiar with this annual contest, it’s hosted…

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WriteOnCon! With Advice If You’re Posting in the Forums

It’s WriteOnCon time! WriteOnCon is a free, online conference for picture book, middle grade, young adult, and (this year) new adult writers. If you fit into any (or all!) of these categories, you should definitely check it out! The information I’ve gleaned from this conference over the past few years is beyond measurement. One of…

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Thoughts on Revising from Public Critiques

Two weeks ago I was privileged to participate in #BLOGPITCH, a blog hop hosted by Authoress for the purpose of gathering critiques for my Twitter pitch and first 250 words. First of all, I want to say how much I appreciate everyone who stopped by to comment on my post. I really appreciated the critiques….

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A BOY COULD #BLOGPITCH Logline and First 250 Words

Last week I participated in a Twitter pitch contest through the popular Miss Snark’s First Victim blog (http://www.misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com/) and was selected as one of ten blogs to participate in a blog hop to receive critiques on the first 25o words of my manuscript. It’s a win for me because I’m at the perfect stage to…

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A Call for a Few Good Readers

Hello, lovely readers! I’ve never done this before on the blog, but I’m at the point in my writing journey where I don’t want to leave any stone unturned before I send out a manuscript. I’ve been through 2 1/2 rounds of critiques (I had one person read the first 90 pages before the first…

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How I Tackle Revisions: Synthesizing Feedback

Yesterday I received comments from the last of my second round readers (thanks, ladies!). I’m itching to jump right in and start revising, but I am forcing myself to take a few days to think through it all and figure out a plan of attack before I dig in. I’ve posted on patience before (here,…

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