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This fun illustration was sent in by Melissa Iwai. Melissa has illustrated over twenty picture books, and her first picture book that she wrote and illustrated was, Soup Day. She was featured on Illustrator Saturday on October 13, 2012. Click here to view.

In the past couple of weeks I have realized that there are always new writers and illustrators stopping by in hopes to learn more about the children’s book publishing industry. I have been blogging everyday for the last five years and so many subjects have been discussed, but many of you have not been following me for that many years. Example, I was afraid to blog about the formatting issue thinking that writers would think I wasn’t covering a important topic, but it turns out that many of you thanked me for clarifying  the subject. I breathed a sigh of relief, because I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.

This lead me to wondering if you had more questions that you would like answered. If you do I would be willing to collect them, answer the ones I know and get editors and agents to weigh in on others. Why don’t we give it a test run? I am going to the March Writer’s Retreat that I put out there at the end of last year. Steve Meltzer, Associate Publisher/Executive Managing Editor of Dial Books for Young Readers, Dutton Children’s Books, Kathy Dawson Books, and Celebra Children’s Books and Agent Sean McCarthy from McCarthy Lit are the two faculty members for our small group. We will be spending the weekend with them, so I could get answers to anything you want to know.

If you have a burning question, please send it to Kathy.temean(at)gmail.com. You can ask more than one question and it can be about any aspect of the children’s publishing industry. You can be a completely new writer or illustrator, or an author or and illustrator who has published many books. Just make sure you put ASK KATHY in the subject area of the email, so I can search on that. I look forward to reading your questions and sharing the answers later the month.

Had to share the picture below with all you winter weary people out there. Nanci Turner Steveson move from New Jersey to her dream state – Wyoming. Maybe you will feel a little less weary after you see all the snow at her house.

Now that is snow. It brings the words, “Cabin Fever” to my mine.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

I'm definitely a more character-driven author. I live in awe of people like Daniel Silva who can create best-selling action novels with complex plots. I am plot-impaired. But it's been something I've been really trying to work to improve. I wish there were a "Plotting for Dummies" course I could take, but in the meantime I've been trying to read some books, and I've just found one that I'm finding very useful and practical as I'm working on a new WIP. It's called BUILDING BETTER PLOTS by Robert Kernen (Apologies for linking to Amazon but Indiebound didn't list it. It's old.)

Remember the new idea I decided to play with last week? I've written 6,000 words so far, which is half of what I wrote on the other project in two months. But I decided to take a break today and do a few of the plot exercises in Kernen's book before I go too much further. I want to try making myself stop and think about where this is going. Part of me is afraid of stopping the flow - the old, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". But I'm forcing myself to do it anyway, because what if it works? What if it means I don't get to the middle of the book and find myself in some sticky morass because I haven't thought through the arc of the story clearly?

I let you know what happens. Meanwhile back to the book and my Scrivener drawing board!