I mailed out four manuscripts today! That brings me up to 23 submissions (including many contest entries) for the year, and I still have another picture book manuscript to send out this year. I also have another idea for a humor article, though I'm not sure if I'll write it soon or not. I probably want to get the picture book done first. I also got a letter from Once Upon A Time today, saying that my humor piece When the Muse Strikes (Out) will run in their next issue, to be mailed out next week.

I also had a very strange dream last night--basically I dreamed an odd concept for an adult literary novel set in Victorian England. I saw the parlor or drawing room where part of it would be set, and I saw the cover of the book in great detail... It was a moody and dreamy-looking cover with the title beautiful hands in lowercase script, in a text box in the center of a dark green book jacket, with a painting (very old and crackly-looking, like the detail from a classic painting) on the top half of the cover of several women's arms and hands extended, reaching up, above the book title. Like this was a novel I was supposed to write or something. But not only can I not figure out what it was supposed to mean, but it doesn't really even appeal to me (except for the book jacket design)! I write contemporary young adult fiction, not adult literary stuff or anything set in the past. (I imagined this as a lyrical, slow-moving tome of adult literary fiction, whereas I usually write fast-paced first person stuff about teenagers today.) Very odd. I can't figure out if I should be trying to learn something from that or not! ;-)

Woo hoo! I got my first actual writing check today!! I'm not going to cash it until I scan or photocopy it, and I am pathetic enough I'll probably frame that & put it over my desk...if I ever start using my desk. Now I have to figure out what to spend it on. It's not really even enough to go out to dinner on! (At least not with the kids.) So I can't decide whether to spend it on a small celebration dinner, or to buy some sort of keepsake with it. I did recently buy a Native American-style Storyteller figurine from eBay to replace one I got in New Mexico & can't find right now...but I doubt that should be my keepsake because I think it's an imitation and I'll replace it with my old one when I find it. OK...I just went to eBay again & bought a silver charm of Snoopy as the Literary Ace. Maybe that'll be my keepsake! And it was cheap enough I'll still have almost enough to go out to dinner, LOL.

I signed up yesterday to participate in National Novel Writing Month. It's a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. There's no obligation to finish & no prizes for completion...all they do is put up the names of people who got to 50,000 words and who are willing to submit their manuscripts to a word count. So, why not try it, if the fun of the deadline will motivate me to sit down & do something I want to do anyway? I do have one young adult novel in progress (or rather, in stasis!) but you are supposed to start something new for the challenge, so I plan to try to blast through a different young adult novel I have an idea for. I doubt I can do it justice in a month, and don't want to alienate my husband and kids, either, but figured I'd at least give it a try! I'll use the rest of October to finish up some short pieces I've been working on and send them out, and will switch into dedicated novel-writing mode on November 1. Looks like I've ordered a keyboard for my PDA (a lovely color Sony Clié I got for Christmas last year) just in time!