The Silver Lining

These pictures say it all:



Asilomar is right on Monterey Bay--Meg and I could hear the ocean from our window!



This is me and Cassandra. We look like we're having fun because we ARE!

 

The beautiful redhead and silverhaired lady next to her are none other than Linda Joy Singleton and Verla Kay! 



And here's Meg's beautiful face along with Cassandra, Linda Joy, and Verla in the background.

Asilomar is gorgeous! It was reminiscent of Chautauqua in that you could eat and talk with editors and authors all you wanted. Some of the best moments were sitting around a fire at night chatting with everyone about children's writing. Wow.

I can't wait for next year!

Oh, and about tidbits--I guess that's strictly forbidden, so, you'll have to come and experience it yourself! If you can't afford Chautauqua, this is the next best thing. I'd love to see you here!

I'm going to Asilomar this weekend--I'm driving with Meg on Friday and am SO EXCITED!!! 

I know Cassandra, Verla Kay and Linda Joy are going. Anyone else? 

Hopefully, I'll come back with some nuggets of wisdom, but maybe not. I'm going for the fun!

You've made my day!

MWAH!!!

I'm home and very tired. I've spent too many hours in a hospital, but all is well, hopefully. Hubby is sleeping with pain killers. One of my daughters hemorrhaged and her bleeding is stablized but she's very weak and anemic. Please keep praying for her. She has the flu on top of it all. And one of my other daughters has the flu as well.

Thankfully, my son is at a camp with his school this week and I had a neighbor take my five year old today to and from school.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. They mean a lot to me.

CYNTHIA LORD!!!!!!!

Lyrics

Meg asked me to come have lunch with her and to see her "in action" and oh, btw, why not read your book to our whole first grade class! HA!

We had so much fun and I was sent home with a bundle (80) thank you letters. There's nothing sweeter!

I wanted to share a little of Meg's life with these pics:



Meg and me! (Notice those wonderful winter scenes behind us!!! Meg's so creative with her class!!!)



The left hand corner of Meg's first grade classroom. There's the "author" chair where I read the story.



Here's Meg at her desk. Isn't she so organized? 

You should have seen her students--they were all very respectful and full of joy. They love her! AND she writes thousands of words on her novel a day. She's a superwoman!!!

Thanks, Meg

bluemalibu

 for letting me see your kids!!!!

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...