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Since my last blog post a goodly amount of excellent things happened. Here's a quick list.
(There were some un-excellent things also. But who the heck wants to hear about those?)
1. My application for the Princeton Book Festival, NJ Sept 2012 was accepted. I'll be there with 'HIDDEN NEW JERSEY' and the author Linda Barth :-).http://www.princetonlibrary.org/children/festival/index.html2. Charlesbridge Publishing invited me to do a presentation during their Children's Book Week Celebration ... if your in the area mark your diary - 12pm May 7. Now I have to work on my presentation!http://www.charlesbridge.com/client/ChildrensBookWeek.htm
3. I WILL be going to ALA summer conference after all! (Just like Cinderella). I get to sign the 'All Star Cheerleader' books with the author, Anastasia Suen on Kane Miller's booth and also will have a slot with Charlesbridge. Yippee! Come by and see me if you are going to be there.http://alaannual.org/ 4. I finished the artwork for the next in the cheerleader series 'Fly Emma, Fly' and the 4th book in this series will be available shortly (watch this space).http://www.myubam.com/ecommerce/Details.asp?ID=1117685. I went to New York and visited with the talented and prolific author/illustrator Roxie Munro in her stu
I'm going to get a bit personal and rant on a bit ... about me and about you. I'll tell you why. I just read a post that hit home with me, so first you have to go and read that:
http://twitpic.com/85rhv2
Right.
What I am going to talk about is debt and what it does to you. How it can twist up your whole outlook and limit your work. We are all trained to get into debt from a very early age. It's part of our culture. We can't function without it. When I was a kid, there were no credit cards. Maybe in your house there WERE credit cards or bank loans or overdrafts. Or maybe you had everything you needed because you were rich? However you lived, you probably learned that you could get what you needed now and pay for it later. In my life there was a man who came to our house every week with his little book to collect payments from my mother for the sofa and the TV and very probably Christmas presents. To get my new bike I ordered it from the shopping catalogue and I got a job in a corner shop after school to pay for it. (And I did pay for it). What it taught me was instant gratification. Now that gratification is taken for granted by nearly all of us. But do you ever consider what it does to your creativity?
The first writer's conference I went to I heard Sheldon Fogelman speak. And what he said has stayed with me for the last two years.
It was this: To do your best work you need to be in a secure place financially.
It struck me that this great agent, who I'd expected to talk about writing and submitting and the whole 'making it' thing, was laying into us (like a great headmaster on speech day) about finances. And it made a lot of sense. Something clicked into place in my head. Call me naive if you like, but I'd never been told me that to create to the best of your ability you have to be on the level financially. And I was 46 for goodness sake. I must have missed this lesson in college. (Probably in the bar). Or maybe I just wasn't at the right college. Maybe it was just how I grew up. Whatever. Somewhere in my foggy career I had learned that I had to be always striving, starving, fighting and then .. one day ... I would MAKE IT. What ever MAKING IT was. Possibly being plucked from oblivion, get the BIG DEAL, get all THE STUFF. Turns out it is not so. Turns out it took me nearly 3 decades to understand.
To understand that putting myself under STRESS financially is not helping me be the best, creative ME. POW!
Here's the irony - I'd put myself under financial pressure to get to a national writing and illustrating conference to hear this simple truth. And I am glad I did! It's probably written in a hundred books. I probably could've have heard it from writers and illustrators right in my back yard. On blogs. On Facebook. From my dentist! But I heard it at an SCBWI conference and I am thankful I did. To get there I maxed out what was left on my credit card. I ate cheap and filled up on the free pastries (oops) before the conference. I couldn't afford to stay in the conference hotel, so I stayed in the YMCA (somewhere in deepest NY miles away) in a foul room with a bed with wheels on that shot across the room every time I turned over. So give me points for not maxing out my my credit cards on expensive rooms. Of course, a million motivational speakers will tell you to do whatever it takes to get the information you need. I'm not knocking it, and hell I needed to hear what I heard. Even if I couldn't really utilize that information until now.
Alright, I'm not trying to tell you how great I was for doing this. I don't want to preach to the converted ... I know many of you are striving and scrimping and saving because you too need the inspiration to reach the next level, get you THERE, keep you going. And that is just fine! (Are there levels? Yes, we all have levels and we know them when we see them. But your levels and my levels are different,
The winner of the original artwork draw is ... Kim Ardelian! If you see this post before I message you, please send me your address for mailing, in an email. Congratulations and I will be doing more giveaways in the future.
We are deep in winter in Maine. The snow is sparkling and we hit the minus' this week, the only way is UP. I have a little pot of spring bulbs on my mantel and the green spikes sticking through give a hopeful promise of spring. It's a nice thought. But at the moment it's about keeping warm and the pipes unfrozen, the horses fed and gathering with friends in cozy kitchens for laughter and games.
I finished my showcase piece for SCBWI Winter Conference (Yeah!) Here it is ... it's the most complicated piece I have worked on in a long time and I had a good time. I hope it shows. Let me know what you think:
Wish me luck! I'll be leaving on the 27th Jan ... and if you are going to be in NY too let's have a drink!Just about ready to start on the Charlesbridge book ...yeah! I got a peek at the M/S.So I have a little breathing space. I've been thinking alot about my MG adventure novel. Perhaps I will get my writing head on and press on with it this week. It's been a long time since I visited it. Also thank you to everyone utilizing the 'KID'S CORNER PAGE' on my blog; it's success has been amazing, the pages are getting lots of hits!
For now - back to the drawing board ...
HazelakaThe Wacky Brit
On the bedside table this week:HOOKED - Les Edgerton (I am so enjoying this! A great book about Novel beginnings.)MIRROR - Jeannie Baker INTERRUPTING CHICKEN - David Ezra Stein
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Congrats! Whew, too!
Thanks!
These are indeed MOST excellent things! Congratulations!
Good things happen to good people...and about time too! *hugs*