Okay, now that I have your attention. Ha!

I used to collect funny, random, obscure greeting cards and found my small pile of them the other day. The cartoon on this one was particularly funny. Maybe hitting a little too close to home. :)  Sometimes I still feel like that.

Okay, just had to post. I am in love with my new necklace. It's the BACK SPACE key from an antique typewriter. I saw this woman's jewelry at my local art and wine festival.

Here's a photo.

And, because I am so nice and don't mind other writers having such a cool thing right along with me, AND I want to support local artists, I've included Renee's website below. You too can have typewriter jewelry! ;) 

You will notice it is on what she calls a bicycle chain. And under it all....yes, my novel, which I am currently revising. How appropriate!


www.monkapaws.com

It's been a long stretch of time between blogs - which is a direct result of an insanely busy summer with very little 'self-time.' We had a great summer - camps, camping, lots of day trips, but the erratic schedule made me just shy of a nut-job mommy.

And if I thought getting back into a school routine would somehow alleviate that nuttiness, I was very, very wrong.

First grader goes 8:20-2:40. Preschooler goes 12:30-3:40. Mommy goes CRAZY. Playdate swaps. Pick-up swaps. Anybody want to swap schedules with me????

During the summer I thought, hey, it's only one year - I can handle it. My preschooler needs the extra year, but this afternoon dealio is just not cool. It's the perfect class for him and my first-grader is loving first grade. It's just me who needs more time to adjust to the new schedule.

But the good news, is that because I had so little time this summer to write, when I did write, I powered. And I FINISHED MY NOVEL.

Mostly, I finished it because of the SCBWI L.A. Conference that was coming up fast August 7-10. Which I've been chomping at the bit to blog about. I had signed up for Finding Your YA Voice master class taught by the fabulous Krista Marino of Randomhouse. She said, bring your completed first draft to work on. Now, did I think she would be walking around asking to see if we had any gaps, missing scenes, or lazy fluff/filler in the pages so we could say we were done? Of course not. But I made it my own personal goal to finish the first draft, so I could come home and apply what I learned to my novel. And it worked. Even if I did finish it only a few days before the conference! I had to send her my first 20 pages in July, which she would hand back during class. Nerve-racking.

Thursday August 6 - barely make it to airport, run for flight. Get to L.A. and take cab - next year I will know to take the shuttle for $12. My cab driver got no tip becuase he took my last $47 and the fare was $48. Hit an hour of traffic (L.A.!) and got to the hotel at 9 p.m. instead of 8. Cab smelled like pepperoni pizza. Nice for 5 minutes. Try 75 minutes of that smell. Met up with my friend and online critique partner bluemalibu Meg. So, so happy to get there.

Friday, August 7 -breakfast and coffee in lobby with Meg. Collect my conference packet. I had signed up for a 30 minute individual critique and saw that I was scheduled with Krista Marino. At first I panicked - she'd already seen my first 20 pages - now I"m paying an additional $100 for the same critique? I was frustrated. Kim, one of the conference coordinators, tried to switch me. She switched me to what she thought was a great match.....an agent who had already rejected me - and already had seen my novel! So, I told her it was meant to be - I will keep my 30 minutes of one-on-one time with Krista. Now let's just hope she doesn't hate my novel or it would be a long 4 days.

Friday lunch - at the Pink Taco with Meg and new friend Christy. We sat down and I said, I don't need to see someone super famous, but a small star-sighting might be fun. Not 5 minutes later, Magic Johnson sat one table away from us. Yes, we got our picture taken with him, thanks to gutsy Meg.

Friday night - the night of my critique. It was in the middle of the wine and cheese social. I only had time for one or the other. I had the choice of standing on a long line for cheese, and then not having a beverage or standing in the long line for wine that I could drink a little of and bring to my critique and not look messy. Wanna guess? Right, I got wine. Poor Krista was in there eating beef jerky when I sat down. Had I been thinking straight and had more $$ on me, I would have bought her a glass of wine. Alas, the critique began. Off the bat, her comments made me smile. She was very complimentary - to the point of me thinking - wow, I would have written this myself as an ego boost! Then, as is usually the case with these things, I waited for the other shoe to drop. For the bad news. For the 'you need to overhaul your novel' news. But it never came. She actually had very positive things to say about my novel and only encouraged me to make sure I did a few key things for my mc throughout the rest. She said, 'do you have any questions?' to which I answered, "so you mean I haven't wasted the last 2 and a half years of my life writing this?" We both laughed. Then she asked me to tell her more about the novel and at least looked interested. Whether or not she really was, time will tell, but it was enough for me. Then we talked about our embarrassing dads a bit and I practically skipped back to the social.

Dying to tell someone - the first person I start talking to is a very nice agent whom I will query in the next few weeks. We were chatting and she said, you seem happy. so I told her I just got a very nice critique from KM. Which prompted her to ask me to tell her about it and she wants to see the first 3 chapters. Yahoo!

A MAGICAL Friday.

Saturday was great - sessions were inspirational and educational and I took good notes. Some of the editors spoke quicky, but they had very important things to say. Frank Portman came to speak during our class, and he even serenaded us as Dr. Frank. Video to follow if I can figure out how to post it. Saturday evening Meg and I escaped to an Italian place...Via something, and ate a yummy meal. And we saw Jessica Alba and Cash Warren walk by.

Sunday - similar to Saturday - but started the day with mushy, doughy, pancakes. Not good. But great sessions. Matt De la Pena also visited our master class and told a funny story about a boy and his Dad on the subway, which inspired one of his characters in Mexican White Boy. Sunday evening ate at the Pink Taco with Christy and Meg. No star sightings - didn't care. Came back from that and met three very cool editors in the X Bar at the hotel. One of them is looking at one of my picture books now. Fingers crossed!

Monday - woke up thinking I might want to dip my foot in the pool, only to see signs all over that the pool and lobby outdoor area was closed all day. Bummer! Until I saw that the reason was because Fox was filming Lie to Me - that Tim Roth TV show, directed by Tim Busfield. Ha! And they were all just on the other side of giant glass windows, so we watched them for awhile and took some photos. see below. Sessions were good, but I had to dash after the Simon and Schuster one to catch my plane. Next year I'm just going to stay for the whole thing and get in a bit earlier on Thursday night.

Overall - FABULOUS conference! And I will definitely be going back next year! I met sooooo many new people and made just as many new friends. It was really fun. Thanks to a wonderful husband to let me pursue my dreams!!!

These are the hippos I bought and dressed in shoes (from a craft store), to celebrate my picture book coming out in 2011, which is tentatively called Shoes for Me, but may be called Shoes for Hippo, as the main character is a little girl hippo...I saw the artist's character sketch, and the hippo in the book is much cuter and sweeter, but, as far as hippos go, these are pretty cute.

I sent the one with the black shoes to my wonderful editor, Marilyn, at Cavendish, and I kept the one with the white shoes...enjoy!

It's probably all in my head, but I am feeling like I'm carrying around a lot of stress lately. Some of which I put on myself, no doubt.
I'm just going to list the things I'm stressed about right now, in the hopes that it will free me from it in some way. Maybe writing it down will make it appear less intense? Or will it make me say - wow, I have a lot to be stressed about. We shall see...

• 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.

Okay, I guess those are the most major things. The other things are essential, but smaller, like having no clean clothes because I'm behind on the laundry, etc.

I guess I'm freaking out about being the only one in this YA class who hasn't completed her homework. No one wants excuses...but I just can't be supermom all the time, and be a full-time writer.

Let's list some positives:

• 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.

With all I have going on, is it surprising that when my  6 year old son's art camp teacher yelled at my 4 year old this morning for disrupting her class (for 2 minutes he didn't want to leave), I was actually on the verge of tears? And then her words made him start bawling, so I was crying as I was driving him to his camp....

Anyway, anyone else a little bit stressed? Tell me about it - comiserate, please!

This one's pretty good. Only thing missing is the Executive Editor at the end of the line of editors saying, "I MUST have that book!" Click on it to see it more clearly...

Enjoy!

Okay, I'm not a scrapper, scrapbooker, whatever you call it. But I do like to make photo albums so that my kids will have photo memories of their childhood. But  I'm feeling so overwhelmed...I have not done a photo album since 2006! And no plans in the near future to do them. Instead, I am working on another project that's been nagging me. I'm paying a friend to salvage all my amateur wedding video footage (too cheap to pay a videographer at the time, so I'm paying for it now), and she said she could include up to 300 photos for a slideshow on the dvd. Well, my friends, my wedding was PRE-digital cameras, (I know, don't choke on your pirate's booty)...so what did I just spend 2 hours doing? Yes, SCANNING pre-wedding, wedding, reception and post-reception photos onto my computer. Ugh, my eyes is goin crazy. First 20 pictures were sweet, then I just wanted to be done.

And.. after 2 hours, not even done. had to take a break and check email and blog about it. Much more fun! 

The good news is that hubby and I will be celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary in September, and this is my gift to us. We'll finally have some cool thing to watch instead of the album we never ever take out.

Tomorrow...working on my novel from 9:30-12, while kidlets are at camp. That is my plan, at least. Will post later tomorrow to let you know if I managed that!

but I am.

Had a girls night out with maybe a little wine, so excuse my typos. I will not be using spellcheck tonight.

got rejected by my editor today on a manuscript -but it was expected, so don't feel sorry for me. It's a hard-sell. In fact, I'm not sure I'll ever sell it, unless parents completely loosen up and realize it's just something boys do - crash their toy cars. Anyway, not even remotely upset by it. But my editor did give me 2 new ideas for books - topics they may consider - and if I'm willing to write them, they'll take a look. Perhaps I'll dust off thoseold ideas afterall.

Still waiting to hear from what I think would be a wonderful agent. Pinged her yesterday - still no response. I know I shouldn't lose hopeso quickly, but in this busineess ,  you get a gut feeling. gut feeling this time? not great.

BUT, on a better note, I think I'm MUCH closer to being done with my novel than I originally thought. I have to write a key scene where mc takes a road trip to his potentially new digs only to find disaster and that there is no way his plan is going to take shapeif these are his newdigs, etc. And then I need to finish a few scenes where I left it at: NEED TO FINISH THIS SCENE type of note. And I will, at the very least, have a very rough first draft. which is my goal for August 5. Yay.

Hubby's in NYC til Thursday. Why does my 6 year old choose to wet the bed when hubby's away? Never fails. Sitting here writing, son comes out - MommyI'm wet.

Took care of it and now I should really go to bed. BC next thing I'll hear is "mommy, wake up. I want breakfast."
and I'll be on duty.

It seems like so much time is spent waiting. Right now I'm waiting to hear back from a wonderful agent who seemed very interested, but now 3 more weeks have gone by since she asked me to send her my entire writing portfolio. I know 3 weeks isn't long, and I don't plan to follow up for another 2, but I'm just anxious. There was this flurry of excitement and then silence...of course, best case scenario, it took her time to read all my stuff, she had her co-agents read it too, and now they are discussing me. Or, she's just uber busy, and has many more and bigger fish to fry than look at my writing. At the same time, if it's going to happen, I don't want to continue to submit my stories and then find out I've stepped all over the agent's toes by ruining possible sales. I feel a bit immobilized. Each week I say, maybe I'll hear from her this week...

I also sent a revised manuscript to an editor in late May and just sent her a 'did you like the revisions?' note June 3. Waiting to hear from her. Not feeling all that optimistic about it, though.

Fortunately, while I've been waiting, I've written more in my YA - still not quite done, but getting closer. And I have written 3 more picture books! One was based on my editor's suggestion, another one I had pitched to her and she said she'd like to see it, and the third, well, I've never written anything like it before, so we'll see. could be fantastic or it could just be a silly idea that should have stayed in my head. The scary part is I was thinking of illustrating it, but that's getting more and more frightening to think about. I may try to sketch something this weekend to see if I just want to do the text and not embarrass myself. My critique group is looking them over now...

Just last week I got my homework assignment for the Finding Your YA Voice class I'm taking at the L.A. SCBWI conference in August.  I have to read 4 YA novels, watch 1 movie and rent the first season of a YA-esque show. Excited, but also stressing with everything I need to do this summer, coupled with the fact that my kids are not in enough camps for me to even keep up with the laundry. I shall be pulling some late nights in July! I also had to send the instructor (who happens to be a Sr. Editor at Randomhouse) my first 20 pages. Gulp. Here's to hoping she doesn't cringe when she opens it. I guess I'll know if there's assigned seats and I'm stuck in the back directly under the air conditioner or something.

My husband's company, Travelmuse, is hosting a travel photo contest for kids this summer. Check it out if you have or know a budding young shutterfly!

www.travelmuse.com/community/blogs/photography/2009/06/16/kids-cool-trip-pix-photo-contest
(note- best to view this link in with firefox, IE8 does not support it for some reason)

I spent 2 hours last night assembling an IKEA desk (this may be a record), that will be my very own workspace in our guest room. Guests won't have a lot of room, but, then, we don't have too many guests. Plus, I needed it. Now I can separate the family stuff from MY stuff. The bills, summer camps, medical claims, children's birthday party invites, school potlucks, can ALL stay on in our kitchen office. All my writing, paperwork, research, has its own home. YAY!!! 

But now I have no excuses.

Here are 2 pix: the new desk


I needed it to organize this:
(and this is just a portion of it)

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

On Friday, my editor sent me the character sketch of the adorable girl hippo that will be the star of Shoes for Me! I am thrilled with her. I'm not sure what I'm allowed to share, but if I get permission to post her up here, you'll be seeing her soon!

My kids have been very interested in death, dying and heaven lately. Not in a morose way, but in a way in which I have to word my answers very carefully. My 6 year old, O, is concerned with death as it relates to age. He knows that when we get old, we die. So, he has been asking everyone, including me and my husband, how old we are. I think it's his way of making sure we're not going to die soon. I have to find the balance between telling him it's out of our control, and giving him the security he needs that we are not going anywhere for a long time. 

My 4 year old, W, is more interested in heaven. Always asking me who's up there already, if God is there, how can he be down here, and finally, what heaven looks like...My answer to the last one is 'heaven is the most beautiful place you can think of in your mind. It will have everything you love.'

W's response? "There are magic wands in heaven?!!!"

Yes, there are, I say. He then asked if Snow White would ever die. I told him I didn't know. He said, "Well, if she doesn't die, I will use my magic wand and make her come visit me in heaven!"

If you had a magic wand in heaven, how would you use it? 

It's really true...my book will have pictures...
Today I found out from my editor that they hired an illustrator for my Shoes book. YAY!!! As the eternal skeptic, I do have to say that I STILL won't believe it's going to be an actual book until I see it all put together on a shelf. BUT, the thought that my 12 point font on white paper will have a whole new life, world, color, and personality soon, is so thrilling.

I mean, someone is trying to decide what my words mean to him and translate that into art. That's amazing to me.

They hope to have the first art in August. But it could be sooner. Will keep you all posted!

I'm contemplating blogging about my recent trip to NJ, NY and TN, but the thought is almost as exhausting as the trip itself was. But I will do it, just not yet.

Lastly, I have found a small handful of impressive agents and I can only hope they find me impressive as well. Will also keep you posted on that.

I've decided to once again look into getting an agent. I usually start this process, find one to two that I like, query them and then lose steam. Especially after being rejected. This time I'm at least going to put forth a little more effort and come at it with a different attitude. That attitude being, well, I sold one book sans agent, I can do it again. I'm just realizing how much time I spend on submissions and would really like to have someone else do that for me. and all those other agent benefit. Will keep you all posted...(ba dum bum).

In other news, I'm so excited about my trip to NJ to visit my nephew. And, as is my style, I try to pack in as many things into a trip as super-humanly possible. One of the days I'm in NJ, I'm going into NYC to attend my husband's company shindig (what should I wear!). And since I have to go into the city (what a chore, I know!) I thought, well, maybe I'll go in early and meet up with some old colleagues from when I worked at Putnam. One will be in Paris, but there are a couple still there I think...

My editor is not in NYC, but I thought I'd email her anyway and see if she needed an excuse to come in. She did! So now I'm having lunch with her in New York too. And I may even have a little time to shop before the party. Then I get to stay in a nice hotel with hubby and return to my sister's the next morning. All the while, my mom, dad, aunt and brother-in-law will be taking care of my boys. Yay for me!

Just as I was beginning to think the picture book muse was taking an extended vacation, she visited me last Thursday night. I attended Valerie Lewis's preschool picture book round-up/review, and something she said during one of her reviews triggered a thought that had been bouncing around my noggin a few days before.

There was this great tree that we passed every day walking my kindergartener to school and a few weeks ago some men were there cutting it down. My 4 year old asked me why they were cutting it down. I don't know the real answer, but I told him it was likely that the tree was sick. He immediately asked, "Do trees throw up?" And that stuck with me for a long time, first just because it was amusing, but then I was struck by its innocence - and I'm constantly reminded of the literal interpretation of everything for children.

At any rate, it spawned a new picture book idea. The idea is now on paper in the rough form of a story and I'm trying it out on my writing partner. She'll probably hate it, but it felt really good to have a new idea and write it down!

Two weeks ago, my writing friend and I rented at cabin down at Costanoa (on Cali coast near Santa Cruz) and it was SO wonderful. Costanoa is basically a camping 'resort'. You can either rough it or do what we did - rent a heated cabin (which was great because boy was it windy and cool!) with Internet access, and then eat at their amazing restaurant. At night all you hear is the not-so-distant roar of the ocean.

We got there around 12, had a delicious lunch and then worked on our novels in the restaurant for about 3 hours until we could check into our lovely little cabin. Once we checked in, we worked again from 4-7 on our books. Dinner - scrumptious again (I had filet mignon with a twice baked sweet potato and fresh blue lake green beans - YUM). And of course some wine. I find the wine helps my creativity.(wink). Went back to the room and worked again from about 9-11. Next morning - breakfast (I don't need to tell you it was fabulous) and then worked for another hour/hour and a half until we had to check out.

That's a lot of writing. I fixed a lot of stuff - annoying stuff like taking my long distracting flashbacks into the present and turning them into conversations, actual events in the book or cutting them completely. I didn't write as much NEW material as I had hoped, but found that fixing the really slow or useless spots was just as satisfying. Now I need to go back through and write some new scenes. The finish line is around the corner. I can't see it yet, but it's there. Kind of like a par 5 - I know the flag is there, and I'll get there as soon as I can find my ball in the woods.

I'm Auntie Sue again today, to a 7 lb., 10 oz. baby boy, Jack William Connelly! How's that for a nice Irish name? Yay! And I get to meet him and hold him in four short weeks. It really stinks living on the other coast as practically my whole family, but what can I do? I'm so proud of my sister and brother-in-law and am relieved that the birth went well. They lost a night's sleep, but all are healthy, and that's what matters.

In my puny world, which seems puny today in light of the fact that my sister performed the miracle of birth last night, I am on the organization warpath.

In the last few weeks...

• 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?

whew.

I am anxiously awaiting news of my publisher finding an illustrator for my book. In the meantime, I'm following up and reading all my 'flagged' emails that I flagged to read once I had a book sale. Now the real work begins!