Writer Goals for New Year

Well, my Cookie Exchange Party is over and 2012 is just about over too. Time to set new goals as a writer. I seem to have the same goals every year: write and read more, submit manuscripts to publishers, nurture myself as a writer, attend at least one writer’s conference or workshop, value my writer friends, attend critique sessions, keep the hope up. Of course, I don’t always get all of these done. Each year seems to go by faster than the last one.

 

Cookie Exchange Party

The above is what I wrote a couple of years ago, but it still applies every year. I went over my journal to see if I had really read as much as I had hoped to in 2012. I could have done better, but, oh, well. Some of the books I read were: Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass, Wonder Struck, Dead End in Norvelt, The Silent Boy, Small Steps, Eggs, Tree by Leaf, The Hunger Games, The Story of Ferdinand, The White Elephant, Who Moved My Cheese?, Dear Mr. Henshaw, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Alchemy and Meggy Swann, Diary of Anne Frank, Wonder, Okay For Now, The Mighty Miss Malone, The Lions of Little Rock, Transfer (poetry), and Inside Out and Back Again (in verse).

 

I am presently in the middle of Summer of the Mariposas written by my friend, Guadalupe Garcia McCall and published by Lee & Low. 

 

To help you get started in 2013, visit  Rachelle Burke’s Resources for Children’s Writers’ blog. She writes that her resources will “help you improve your writing, network with other writers, get published, and sell your work.” 

 

Good news: the final art (illustrations) for my next picture book, Lupita’s First Dance, came via email a few days ago. The illustrator, Gabhor Utomo, did an excellent job. I can hardly wait to hold the new book in my hands.

 

Our prayers and thoughts to the people in Newtown, Connecticut.