What a whirlwind this past week has been. I don't know where to start! I don't have any pictures to share with you because I forgot my camera (dumb!) but I should be receiving some pics from the school later.

The school visit was such a blast! I opened with a science experiment that was a controlled explosion. The kids loved it and of course, wanted me to do it again. I didn't have time, though. One of the teachers had a nifty device that I'm going to buy--it's a handheld mouse with a laser pointer--made just for powerpoint presentations. It was awesome! I closed with a math activity--I had them make Pascal's triangle and fill in Sierpinski's fractal. They had so much fun. Afterwards, I had lines of kids wanting my autograph. Kids are great at making you feel like a STAR!

In the question and answer time, I had lots of the same questions per group. Some made me think REAL fast. Here are some that may come your way. You might want to have the answer ready:

1. What was your favorite book when you were a kid?

2. What's your favorite book now?

3. What's your favorite author?

4. What author has influenced your work the most?

5. How many stories have you written?

That's all the tough ones. I wasn't really prepared for them but once I came up with my favorite author and books the first go round, I was prepared in the next sessions. Believe it or not, these questions have never come up, but before I came, I'd asked the teachers to have the kids prepare questions in advance so they'd be ready to ask me.

As for TLA--I'm VERY sad I didn't bring a camera because I'd love to have a pic of me and RR. We are very good friends now. I would LOVE to have her as my editor since we get along so well. She likes Southern folks--that's a plus. ;-D She also was really upbeat about my work and wants me to sub to her. Charlesbridge is opening the door to mg's now. We discussed my current WIP (not the one I'm sending to agents) and she absolutely loved the concept. She also wanted me to sub the one that's making the rounds, but it's at other places right now. She's read the first 3 chapters and really liked it--she did connect, so that, at least, makes me feel good.


At the TLA event, books were being sold at half price or lower. Next time, I'm going to take some money and have fun. I didn't have time to do that this year. I did go around to many booths. I looked for my friend's booths first. I found Bloomingtree Press. There were no ARC's, but they did give away a very nice sample! :-D Unfortunately, I didn't get a peek at Kay's book. I'm sure it wasn't available yet. Sterling had a VERY nice booth but he didn't have Lisa, Tammi, or Della's book, so I gave the marketing guy a hard time about it. :-D He was very nice, though. He DID have Sudipta's book, so I bought it. I didn't see any other friends books except Russ Nelson's Teach Me had a very nice poster. (I already own his book.) I'm sure if I'd had more time, I would have come home with more books. I'm definitely a newbie at this. :-)

Anyway, after I left from the week of feeling more like an author than I ever had before, I found an email waiting for me from innovativeKids. They want to know if I'm available to write a mystery series in a pb format for kids 7-9. Wow. I sent my resume and samples in a year ago and had written them off a long time ago. I emailed them today about it, but they haven't written back, so we'll see. They emailed last Wednesday while I was out of town. The way things go, they may have somebody else already, thinking my no response meant I didn't want it. Sigh...