• L.A. Conference is just around the corner (August 7). Truly excited to go, but here's the rub. I am signed up for awesome YA Voice class and there is homework: Read 4 novels (that editor assigned), watch a movie, a bunch of Freaks and Geeks, and oh, that little item of bringing my completed first draft of my novel.
  • have read almost all of ONE of the novels.
  • am not done with first draft. Close, but not done.
  • watched the movie (easy), but not the shows yet.
  • fear being the bad student.
  • My only excuse is that it's summer and I'm home with my 4 and 6 year olds. I am averaging reading about 15 pages a night.
• My 6 year old may suffer from Anxiety and sensory integration issues. I've been trying to get him into a program, but we missed the summer cut off, so all 'remedies' have been whatever my husband and I can come up with on our own. We meet with a pshcyh. in a couple of weeks. Hoping to get him into the fall program and evaluated soon.
• We are having a German girl stay with us for 2 weeks as part of a short exchange program as she considers becoming an au pair next year. This should be a +, but she's staying in the guest room, which is BURIED in papers, mine, the kids', stuff to giveaway (did I mention we have ZERO storage in our home?), so I need to completely organize that room before she comes on July 31.

• I wrote a loveley little Halloween book and am hopeful my editor will like it.
• I'm SO close to being done with my dance book, I can taste it.
• In conjuction with my Shoes for Me book, in which there is a Hippo as a main character, I found a pink hippo and put shoes on it. I bought 2, and sent one to my editor, and one for me. She LOVED it. Hers has the little black shoes, mine has the white. Both have the Converse all-stars. Have a look:!!!! Well, I just tried 6 times to upload a photo - making it as small a file as humanly possible, and it's not working, so I will post these another time. GRRR.

Oh - and if you couldn't read what was written on the nifty white board part of my desk:

10. Your critique group will come and hunt you down for all the hours they poured into critiquing your novel that now sits collecting dust.

9. If you added up all the hours you spent writing your WIP, you may have been able to have a good night’s sleep every night for the last 2 years.

8. With the money you spent on getting your WIP professionally critiqued at conferences or outside editors, you could have taken a trip to Bora Bora.

7. You won’t ever have to see a disappointed look on the faces of people you had told excitedly, long ago, “I’m writing a novel!”

6. All the trees you used to print out chunk after chunk, will not have been for naught.

5. You learned something new during the process – and you get to use it.

4. You can put that annoying girl from high school in your novel as a villain. And send her a promo copy.

3. You told your story – and no one else could have done that.

2. Even if it sucks and it never gets published, you finished it. It has a beginning, a middle and The End. And it’s yours. You have every right to tell people, “Once, I wrote a novel.”

And the number one reason to finish your novel is…..

1. If you finish it, you can submit it, and it may even get published.

• I signed (officially) my first children's book contract and mailed it back. Am waiting for my final copy and my gigantic (ha) advance check.
• I tore (literally) through 12 issues of Bon Appetit and cut out recipes while my mom (who was visiting) organized them into a shiny new recipe binder. And, I'm happy to report, I've already made 3 new recipes from it! 2 winners, 1 will be thrown away along with the leftovers.
• I went through 4 bins of maternity and baby clothes, half of which I gave to my neighbor and sister, and the rest will go to my church for the annual rummage sale.
• I organized my children's 'craft' cabinet - which, if you'd ever seen it, was no small undertaking.
• I sent out 2 follow up notes to editors who have my mss.
• I submitted 8 picture book manuscripts to editors
• I was a substitute Sunday School teacher for the 3 and 4 year olds this past Sunday and think I did a pretty good job. 
• I organized a "Shoes for Me" binder so I can keep track of all the fun things happening with my book-in-progress
• I wrote up a new bio for myself and updated the bios I have out on the sites I freelance(d) for.
• I (just today) submitted all my content to the Author's Guild, so they can build me a great web site. (coming soon: www . suedouglassfliess . com)
• I booked a hotel room for a mini-writing retreat for this Sunday-Monday to work on my novel with my writer friend Megan. And I'm going to be disciplined and kick my novel into shape, I say!
• I signed my boys up for a bunch of summer camps and I don't have to think about that anymore!
• I made a significant dent in organizing my new 'office' area. The biggest part of that was moving my office from the dining room table to a desk in the guest room. Guests don't have as much room, but at least my piles of work is not the first thing anyone sees when they walk into my house anymore!
• I worked on a new picture book, but not sure it's going anywhere. But it felt great to write some new stuff.
• I critiqued the work of my critique group for tomorrow night and am humbled by the talent in my group.
• I met with a writer friend I hadn't seen in a long time and have scheduled 2 coffee dates with a local writer I don't know and a local illustrator I met at Kepler's last month. 
• I made a schedule for my life. We're talking - assigning a day for laundry, day to blog, day (hopefully more) to write, etc. I have yet to start using it, but I vow to do it!
• I am committed to blogging once a week, not this once a month, if that, crap I've been pulling.
• I am going to do a lot more doing and a lot less thinking about doing. Make sense?

• First week of October - Ran half marathon with my husband and didn't collapse.
• 2nd week of October - Ran a 10k, completely unaware of the hills, but didn't collapse.
• same weekend, survived and even enjoyed a family trip to Seattle to visit with friends we hadn't seen in a million years, but kept saying, we want to come up there. So glad we finally did.
• 3rd weekend (the weekend after Seattle), I flew alone (yes!) to New Jersey for the RUCCL conference. It was quite a whirlwind and I don't think I slept a wink the night before. I met so many wonderful editors! I have so many great contacts now and am working hard to sift through which editors to send which manuscripts to. Saw KL Going speak - totally inspiring. Not that I would venture to compare myself to her, but at the very least, it gave me hope to hear that she admits she's all over the place with her stories/novels. She is writing pbs, mgs, and yas and they're all so very different from each other. Which is like me. My mentor was Lynne Polvino at Clarion who was amazing. She gave me brilliant advice on the first 3 pages of my manuscript - basically, together we figured out that those 3 pages belong in the book, just not at the very beginning and when I read her the first paragraph of my second chapter, she said - "There's your beginning." Haven't we all heard that before? I guess I needed to hear it again. An added plus was that I was first paired with Linda Pratt of Sheldon Fogelman Agency. Since Lynne's original mentee was a writer for whom she just did a critique, she needed to swap mentees. So I got Lynne and this other woman got Linda. BUT, I still got Linda's thoughtful comments on my YA, so 2 critiques in one - bonus! And I talked to Linda afterwards and she is lovely and bright. Had lunch with another agent and 2 editors I'm submitting to, and discussed flimsy pickles with 2 editors from Candlewick who were very cool. The panel of editors was very informative and I can't wait to submit my stuff to one of the panelists. On the plane ride home I reworked the beginning of my YA and love it.
• Same weekend I saw my sister, brother in law, niece, my aunt and my lifelong best friend.
• Last weekend in October- did NOTHING.
• On page 94 of my YA revisions and am getting excited about pulling it all together
• Read Ellen Yoemans' RUBBER HOUSES last night in one sitting and cried my eyes out. Next to my husband who was reading TIME magazine.
• Hosted one birthday party for my now 4-year old son at a place called Pump it Up - filled with bouncy houses. 21 kids, 24 cupcakes, 1 homemade cake by me, two Excedrin.
• Will volunteer at my kindergartener's Halloween festival tomorrow, help with his school's H- parade, will take my preschooler through his 'enchanted house' at preschool and then will trick or treat with both boys, dressed as a witch, which I was told by my boys was silly because I was a witch last year. sigh.
• I just found out my sister's bun in the oven is a boy!
• Crossed off 8 things from my to-do list.
• Presidential campaigns are almost over
• I saw my 2 crazy girl cousins from Long Island who I haven't seen in many, many years.  So good to catch up. They're still as crazy as ever.

• I've never been so exhausted in my whole life.
• both of my 'hot leads' on two of my manuscripts were apparently on the bridge to nowhere. sigh. One even said she would have fought for it if it weren't for the terrible economic climate and the fact that they were finding picture books a challenge. So now I have Frannie Mae to blame too.
• I fell getting out of my car on Tuesday, spilling coffee all over my notebook, landing on my hip and knee, which both still hurt. I managed to save half the coffee. Fortunately, no one saw me or heard me utter an obscenity.
• I went for what I thought was going to be a 'short run' and took a wrong turn in a new neighborhood and instead of running 3 miles, ran about 5 1/2.
• Added about twenty things to my to-do list. Now I have a regular to-do list and a writing to-do list.
• I saw my crazy cousins this month and we talked about my other cousin, their sister who died a horrible death from cancer in August. I broke down during dinner and almost had to leave the restaurant. 
• My five year old stuck his foot in the minivan door as it was closing and it did in fact close on his foot. No breaks, but lots and lots of tears. His little bro was crying too - he was so scared for big brother.
• My baby boy is four years old - when did that happen?