I absolutely love the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators). I've been a member for around 10 years, since my first attempts at writing for children were accepted for publication by Babybug and Ladybug magazines. But it was only in the last few years that I learned what a treasure it is as an organization.
It's funny actually, looking back on the way that I got started; I've always loved children's literature ( BTW, Shel Silverstein,Dr. Suess, and Madeline L'Engle...thank you.), I'd just graduated with a BA in English, and I was the mother of a newborn. My sleeping habits were completely off-kilter anyway, and one night I woke up with a bunch words in my head. And (yay!) they all went together quite nicely. So I got up and wrote three short poems. The next next day I consulted the Children's Writer's Market, found an article written by Paula Morrow, who was an editor at Carus Publishing at the time, and dashed off a letter, enclosing the three poems. A few months later, two of the poems were accepted for publication. Wow, this is so easy, I thought. I'm going to be the next Judy Blume!
Well, it took nearly two years for those poems to make it to print, and in the meantime I kept writing and stuffing (what I now realize were half-baked, poorly written) manuscripts into the mailboxes of editors.
Rejection. Rejection. Rejection.
I was frustrated. And I was now a mother of two toddlers, with another on the way. So I was pretty tired, too.
Thus I gave it up for awhile. A long while, actually. When I decided that it was time to start writing again (my kids were older and we were all enamored with Junie B. Jones and Pirates Don't Change Diapers), I turned to the SCBWI for guidance. I attended a one day workshop in Orlando... and that day I Got It. I realized everything I'd done wrong, and everything I'd need to do if I was going to do it right.
And I realized that it was a commitment. And a gamble.
But it was a commitment I was willing to make, and a gamble that I was willing to take. And the reason I feel so strongly about the SCBWI? Because of the people who make up the organization. It was the other writers, all of whom were in the same boat (at varying depths of the slush pile). They collectively stole my heart. The kindness, the willingness to help, to share, to open themselves up to critique, and their charm... I loved everything about the people at that workshop. The editors and agents who were there were fantastic, too. I learned so much from them. But it was the others like me who made me feel that SCBWI is such a treasure.
And then I went to the national conference in LA (2008). There my appreciation multiplied ten-fold, because my initial impression from the Orlando conference had been correct. Writers are fabulous... and children's writers are even more so. I had found "my people." (I'm not the only charmingly immature grown-up in the world? What a relief!)
So now I'm committed to 1. Finishing the manuscript I've been revising for the last year and a half, and 2. volunteering my time to the SCBWI, because if even one person is helped in their own quest for publication by the strength of the community of writers that make up the membership of the SCBWI, then I will have given back to the organization that has given that to me.
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It's funny actually, looking back on the way that I got started; I've always loved children's literature ( BTW, Shel Silverstein,Dr. Suess, and Madeline L'Engle...thank you.), I'd just graduated with a BA in English, and I was the mother of a newborn. My sleeping habits were completely off-kilter anyway, and one night I woke up with a bunch words in my head. And (yay!) they all went together quite nicely. So I got up and wrote three short poems. The next next day I consulted the Children's Writer's Market, found an article written by Paula Morrow, who was an editor at Carus Publishing at the time, and dashed off a letter, enclosing the three poems. A few months later, two of the poems were accepted for publication. Wow, this is so easy, I thought. I'm going to be the next Judy Blume!
Well, it took nearly two years for those poems to make it to print, and in the meantime I kept writing and stuffing (what I now realize were half-baked, poorly written) manuscripts into the mailboxes of editors.
Rejection. Rejection. Rejection.
I was frustrated. And I was now a mother of two toddlers, with another on the way. So I was pretty tired, too.
Thus I gave it up for awhile. A long while, actually. When I decided that it was time to start writing again (my kids were older and we were all enamored with Junie B. Jones and Pirates Don't Change Diapers), I turned to the SCBWI for guidance. I attended a one day workshop in Orlando... and that day I Got It. I realized everything I'd done wrong, and everything I'd need to do if I was going to do it right.
And I realized that it was a commitment. And a gamble.
But it was a commitment I was willing to make, and a gamble that I was willing to take. And the reason I feel so strongly about the SCBWI? Because of the people who make up the organization. It was the other writers, all of whom were in the same boat (at varying depths of the slush pile). They collectively stole my heart. The kindness, the willingness to help, to share, to open themselves up to critique, and their charm... I loved everything about the people at that workshop. The editors and agents who were there were fantastic, too. I learned so much from them. But it was the others like me who made me feel that SCBWI is such a treasure.
And then I went to the national conference in LA (2008). There my appreciation multiplied ten-fold, because my initial impression from the Orlando conference had been correct. Writers are fabulous... and children's writers are even more so. I had found "my people." (I'm not the only charmingly immature grown-up in the world? What a relief!)
So now I'm committed to 1. Finishing the manuscript I've been revising for the last year and a half, and 2. volunteering my time to the SCBWI, because if even one person is helped in their own quest for publication by the strength of the community of writers that make up the membership of the SCBWI, then I will have given back to the organization that has given that to me.