Sunday, August 17, 2008

Weekend wrap-up

Yesterday I went to an Austin SCBWI meeting and heard Helen Hemphill give a great talk on plotting novels. Very helpful info! She's also leading a plot workshop at the Highlights Foundation next month. It was quite a packed-out meeting, too, with more than 70 writers in attendance! While there, I picked up a packet of the 34 manuscripts that are going to be critiqued at next month's Editor Day. 

Skimming all the manuscripts today gave me pause, as did thinking about those 70 people at one little children's writing meeting in one city... I mean, there's a lot of competition out there! There are a lot of good writers with a lot of good manuscripts, and I just hope, hope, hope there's at least a little room left for my books! Some days I get so discouraged. I have been at this so long, and it's hard to believe it will ever happen for me. And yet...for some reason, I don't really know why, I keep having this little thought in the back of my mind that this is going to be my year. I don't know if my mind means this calendar year, or just the next one-year period, but it's a nagging hope that things are going to start going my way, and I hope it's right! 

Speaking of years, I've been a mom for 10 of them now. My oldest son hit double digits yesterday. We had a nice celebration at a mini-golf and arcade place with his two closest friends. Two mini-disasters (a storebought cake on which the frosting literally fell off, and my middle son forgetting to wear shoes to the arcade!) were handled without much stress, and everything else went well--my son thanked us several times for a wonderful birthday!

Now, one more week until school starts!

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