Manuscript Accepted...Time To Do The Snoopy Dance!

I heard from Lonnie Hull Dupont (pen name Callie Smith Grant) this morning. She wants my story A Saving Transformation for her book--an anthology of true dog stories. The book (no title yet) is listed for release 9/1/2010. 

Lonnie's previous book A Prince Among Dogs was published in 2007 by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group.

With that great news, I'm off to Paris...Yes, the one in France. While conducting business in Paris in 1999, my husband Bob promised he would take me there.

I think I'll do the Snoopy Dance on the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Top 10 Tips for Children's Fiction Writers

The top 10 tips for writing fiction for children provided by Greenhouse Literary Agency. Make a copy and tape close by your keyboard for easy reference.

Number 6 can be a struggle for me. Once you set your POV keep it consistent. Number 11, however, is the best. If you embrace 11 and follow the 10, you'll have a winner.

Tell me which tip you found most useful. 

Writing For Kids — Alleluia!

He is Risen — Alleluia!

I went to the Mount Hermon Writer's Conference and came home with my mind filled to the brim. I made many new friends from all over the country. It was an incredible experience. Go to Inspire Writers to read more about my experience at the conference.

Writing for children is a particular craft all to itself. I took the Children's Writing track with Mona Hodgson who has written numerous children's books from picture books to middle grade non-fiction. With 21 years of experience, she packed a lot of great material in the 9 hours of workshop.

She revealed requirements we must possess to write great material for children and important aspects, such as: 

• Why write for children?
• Where to look for ideas
• What formats for each age group

Mona covered details about each type of book, the various formats and relevant age groups as well as all facets of story construction and how to submit manuscripts for each. She opened our eyes to others forms of writing for children, for example:

• Magazines
• Church take home papers
• Devotionals
• Curriculum
• Poetry
• Miscellaneous (e.g., rebus, puzzles, activities, cartoon, crafts and quizzes)

In future posts I will talk about a particular area about writing for children that I learned, for example, how to write a cover letter for your manuscript.

Tell me what you would like to know about writing for children. 

Manuscripts Received...I'm on My Way to Mount Hermon

Tomorrow I leave for a five-day writers conference at Mount Hermon in the Santa Cruz mountains. I sent two manuscripts ahead of the conference. One for editorial review by Nick Harrison, Senior Editor at Harvest House Publishers.  The other for critique by Barbara Curtis.

I'm very excited about the submission for editorial review. I submitted my picture book The Tail of Chessie--the Heart of God. It's been completely rewritten and critiqued. I am very happy with it. It's a great story about Dillon and his dog Chessie who endears herself to Dillon with an attentive personality and ever-wagging tail. Dillon learns about the character of God through Chessie.

I also submitted an adult article about personal growth through a tragic incident. I hope to get it published in a magazine.

I finished the manuscripts under duress of illness and mailed them off. Best of plans can be thwarted by being sick. My head was feeling foggy as I worked to carefully polish the manuscripts and get them in the mail. To my distress I noticed a blatant error on the first page of my picture book today as I was getting things ready to leave..Arghhhh! I'm hoping that it miraculously goes unnoticed.

Leave a comment and tell me your submission stories.