.

Listen to the Mustn'ts, child, listen to the Don'ts.
Listen to the Shouldn'ts, the Impossibles, the Won'ts.

Listen to the Never Haves, then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child, Anything can be.

-Shel Silverstein

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Welcome Back!

The Ballou Book Club is back! I know you have all been waiting anxiously for the last year and a half. Wow, I can't believe it's been that long. I am very rusty so this will be a lame-o blog entry. I promise they will get better!

For now, I plan to blog on Tuesdays and Fridays but we'll see if we need more or less "me" time.

During my sabatical, I am pleased to say that I finished my first book ever. It's called INSIDIOUS and it's basically eipc, if I do say so myself. Okay, not really. Truthfully it sucks rocks...but that's what revisions are for, right? It was hard but I pulled it together thanks to Melanie Jex and National Novel Writing Month. I am in the process of revising so I can send it off and start racking up the rejections.
In the meantime, I have started writing a new novel. I'm 14,000 words into it. It sucks rocks too but I'm having a lot of fun writing it. I hope to workshop the new manuscript at this year's Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference. I've signed up for Cynthia Leitich-Smith's class this year. Is anyone else coming? Who's with me? Let me know so I can start getting even MORE excited.

Tune in on Friday for the announcement of a big contest to kick off Ballou's Book Blog. Don't miss it!