Art by Nate Wragg/Graphic Design by Sarah H. Kerstein
Happy National Bubble Bath Day to you from Rosie the dragon and Charlie!
We are eight days into the New Year.
We’ve had eight days of thinking about our goals, hopes, and intentions.
Eight days hoping this clean slate is “all that and a bag of chips.”
And hopefully, eight days of delightful bubble baths and/or other self-care.
While, it is true that we are the same people we were on Dec 31st, the new year, offers us an opportunity to actively put strategies and tools in place.
Each year, in order to hold onto that shiny and new “New Year’s” feeling, I choose a word or phrase to guide me through the year. This year, I’ve chosen “proceed with intention.”
What do I mean by that?
I mean that with each new possible project (whether it be developmental editing, guest blogging, ghostwriting, etc.), I am going to ask myself the following questions:
It means that I am going to ask myself many of those same questions about my own writing projects.
It also means that I am going to add self-care items to my daily “to-do list” and force myself to step away from my desk every single day!
And last but NOT least, it means I am going to support as many creators as possible. Want to join me? GREAT! Let’s see how many creators we can support in 2024! Together, we can boost voices, boast about books, and make the world a better place!
May 2024 enrich you and bring many moments of creativity and wonder!
No matter the genre, we not only need to know who our characters are on the opening page, we also need to know their backstory. What happened before the story began?
Ask yourself:
What is their ordinary world?
Who are their friends? Why?
Who are their enemies? Why?
What beliefs do they have about the world?
What misconceptions do they have about the world?
Were there particular experiences they had that shaped their world-view?
Who do they consider family?
What typically brings them joy?
What is their kryptonite and why?
Of course, not all of this will make it onto the actual page. And it certainly won’t be in the opening pages or you’ll have a brain-dump rather than a story. But, these are details we need to consider as we write.
I challenge you to write a backstory for each of your characters before you write. Get to know them. The more you know about your character’s backstory, the richer your story will be.
P.S. I need your help! Did you know that positive reviews make a huge difference for authors? If you read Remembering Sundays With Grandpa and liked it, please take a moment to review it. You can copy and paste your reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads. Let’s see if we can hit the magic number of 50 reviews on Amazon so my book will be included in “recommended” books lists. Thank you!!
I am swirling and twirling and shouting with joy! I can’t believe this day has finally arrived! REMEMBERING SUNDAYS WITH GRANDPA is dancing into the world TODAY!
YESSSSS! TODAY!
Please join me in singing HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Henry!
I couldn’t be more grateful to my agent, Deborah Warren, my editor Andrea Hall, my publisher Beaming Books, and the incredibly talented and brilliant, Nanette Regan. Nanette’s art is UNBELIEVABLY STUNNING! I also want to thank my critique partners and the super talented, Erin Dealey, for holding my hand after I pulled this book out of its ten-year long snooze in the proverbial drawer. You helped me in so many ways! Also, thank you to my launch team for your excitement and support!
I hope you’ll tune in to Great Day Colorado on Friday. Emme of Emme Beth PR Services, worked her magic and set this up for me.
And join me as I support Judi’s House at Grandpa’s Giving Party at Second Star to the Right Books. Please RSVP here:
Thank you to all who participated in my preorder challenge! It meant a lot to me. If you’d like a sticker or bookmark to go with your book, please send me a message with your address and I will be sure to send swag your way!
Did you know that reviews help authors SO much? If you enjoyed the book, and want to shout it out to the world, please take a moment to leave reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and even Goodreads. Thanks for your support, and thank you for celebrating with me.
REMEMBERING SUNDAYS WITH GRANDPA reminds us that even when someone is no longer part of the physical world, their love lives on forever.
May you always hold your loved ones in your heart.
WE ARE ONE WEEK AWAY FROM MY BOOK BIRTHDAY FOR REMEMBERING SUNDAYS WITH GRANDPA! HOORAY!
If you haven’t had a chance to participate in the preorder challenge, check out the details below.
Thank you for hanging out with us for #ReVISIONweek 2023. Whether you were able to revise or not, showing up to read the posts is a WIN in our minds.
Let’s work backwards from 2024 dates, additional opportunities to this year’s prize winners.
First, next year’s dates:
Additional Opportunities:
If you want an additional opportunity to win a prize, you can enter to win a Zoom critique from me by sharing next year’s #ReVISIONweek save-the-date graphic on your socials and tagging me. I will announce winners from this challenge on my Book Birthday on November 7th!
We hope #ReVISIONweek provided much-needed light during a very dark time.
We have lots of fabulous prizes up for grabs.
Here’s what you need to do to enter to win.
Be sure your name is in the comments on the sign-up post.
Read through each post, and comment if you wish.
Add your name and one #ReVISIONweek accomplishment you’d like to share in the comments on THIS post. (This is your way to enter to win a prize.)
That’s it! It’s as easy as 1…2…3.
We want to give you extra time to read the posts and revise so you have until Friday, October 27th to enter to win. Winners will be selected on Tuesday, October 31st.
Think of narrative arc like goal posts made up of:
Story Beats that touch upon:
The main character’s goal/problem
Attempts and failures to reach that goal or solve the problem
The deep, dark moment
Gathering moment/pivot point
Satisfying resolution that reveals character growth
Final moment that sings
Look through your manuscript. Make sure your goal posts are in place and make your manuscript sing.
Lynne Marie is the multi-published author of Moldilocks and the Three Scares, The Three Little Pigs and the Rocket Project, her latest release The Palace Rat, to name a few, and more, forthcoming. She wears many hats in the kidlit space, including Editor, Agent Mentee, Columnist, Reviewer, Judge and Director of RateYourStory.org. Visit her at ThePictureBookMechanic.com, www.literallylynnemarie.com
Lynne has generously offered TWO prizes: Two (2) one-half hour mentoring sessions!
Welcome to Day #6! It’s time to talk about setting.
Where is your character? What time period? What kind of place? Look around…what does your character see?
Setting is, for me, the most difficult piece of writing to pin down. It’s a huge variable, and can literally be anything – anywhere – that you can imagine. Big or small, Rural, city, suburbs, outer space, made up, real. Past, present, or future. It can even be a character in the story itself.
So where do we start when we are revising a story? Well, yeah, it depends.
Think of a place. Any place that you’d like to see your character in. A time that feels true to that person. And then narrow it down to the coffee cup on the counter (or smaller?), the café, the décor, the actual counter itself. Widen it out to where the coffee shop is located, what kind of neighborhood, where in the universe. Remember, in picture books, you will leave a lot of these details to the illustrator, while in novels you will include them in your text.
The setting works in tandem with your character. Why are they there? How did they get there? Are they comfortable or not? And what is the task at hand?
There are a lot of questions when you imagine the world of your characters and story. One thing to keep in mind: setting is the gateway to sensory details. Don’t forget as you think about setting to make sure Sight, Smell, Sound, Touch, and maybe even Taste are accounted for. It’s a lot, but a scan just for setting will make your final manuscript richer and give your characters an exciting place to explore.
Stacia Deutsch is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 300 children’s books (including books she has ghostwritten). Her career started in romance with a Precious Gems novel for Kensington and continued with several e-books. As her career morphed into writing for kids, she penned In the Stars, a YA Romantic Comedy for Simon and Schuster, and Cinnamon Bun Besties, a mid-grade early romance for Sky Pony. Currently, she writes mostly chapter books and mid-grade for licensed characters. Stacia loves playing with known characters in worlds that already exist. Whether it’s romance, or hire projects for publishing houses, Stacia pulls on her vast experience to craft quickly and produce strong work.
But seriously…should you? As a lover of all good rhyming stories, I will never tell a writer to abandon something they love. But I think it’s critical to be well versed (see what I did there?) in the following:
Meter
Rhythm
Rhyme scheme
Iambic foot
Anapestic foot
Stressed and unstressed syllables
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I think it provides a good foundation. If these terms make you go…
…then my suggestion would be to study up and write your story FIRST in lyrical prose.
Why? Well, I offer two primary reasons:
Your plot should always come first. If you’re writing a story in a format you haven’t yet mastered, then you’re likely to focus more on trying to make the story fit the rhyme, and less on the plot itself. And no matter how strong the verses are, they will never sell if they don’t tell a solid story.
Stories written in verse should entice the reader with more than just rhyming words at the ends of lines. Poetic tools like alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia increase readability and should be used in all lyrical manuscripts (whether they’re written in rhyme or not).
Remember, I’m not suggesting you don’t try writing in verse! If that’s what makes your heart sing, then go for it! But…if you write your story with lyrical tools first, I think you’ll find the revision process to be far less painful in the end.
Good luck, and happy revising!
Author Shannon Stocker is a fierce advocate for those with disabilities. She’s written picture books such as the 2023 ALA Schneider Family Book Award winner, Cybils Award finalist, Anna Dewdney Read Aloud Honor book, Comstock Read Aloud Award winner, and contender for the Maryland Black Eyed Susan Award and the Vermont Red Clover Book Award, LISTEN: HOW EVELYN GLENNIE, A DEAF GIRL, CHANGED PERCUSSION (Dial/Random House and Penguin UK), CAN U SAVE THE DAY (Sleeping Bear Press, 2019), and WARRIOR: A PATIENT’S COURAGEOUS QUEST (Sleeping Bear Press, 2023). She’s also a frequent contributor to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and she has several unannounced projects in the queue, including her debut YA novel! Shannon currently serves as SCBWI social co-director for Louisville and is a 12×12 ninja. In her spare time, she advocates for children with cancer (her daughter is a warrior) and, as a Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy patient and medical school graduate herself, she sits on the board for the RSD Foundation. Cool facts: Shannon survived a coma, and once performed two songs, including one original, as part of an opening act for Blake Shelton. The proud word nerd lives in Louisville KY with her husband, two children, too many critters, and a hidden stash of dark chocolate. Shannon is rep’d by Allison Remcheck of Stimola Literary Studio.
Shannon is offering prizes too! One lucky winner will win a 30-minute Zoom. And one will win a signed copy of any one of Shannon’s books. US only.
Welcome to Day #4! I hope you are finding moments to revise. If you’re adding humor to your manuscript, here is one big way amp up your humor:
Try to be as specific as possible.
For example:
1. Instead of “They played games at recess,” try “They played Hide and Seek during recess.”
2. Instead of “She made herself lunch,” try “She made herself a tuna sandwich with extra pickles on top.”
This immediately pulls the reader into your world.
Now, take an image in your manuscript and see if you can amp up the specificity. If it is a picture book, be sure to leave room for the illustrator. If it is a novel, be as specific as possible. If it makes you smile, giggle, or laugh, you’re on the right track.
Michal Babay is a former teacher and elementary school resource specialist. She is the author of I’m a Gluten Sniffing Service Dog, The Incredible Shrinking Lunchroom, and the upcoming picture book On Friday Afternoon. Michal lives in California with her husband, three kids, three dogs, one cat, and a bearded dragon named Gus Pirate Potato.
Michal is offering TWO prizes! A 30-minute open chat over the phone, and a signed copy of LUNCHROOM.
Hello, friends! Welcome to another exciting day of ReVISIONweek!
Revise, revise, revise!
I love the process! One of my favorite aspects to tackle in revision is emotion, because there’s always room for more emotional resonance in our manuscripts. But how do we make sure the reader feels exactly what we want them to feel?
After giving this a lot of thought, I came up with a simple answer: by choosing and placing words in just the right spot. Seems obvious, right? But it’s amazing how sometimes we fail to guide our readers’ feelings all the way through.
What kind of words do we choose? I’m listing what I typically use, but please add your own favorites in the comment section.
Sensory words: Adding words that relate to sound, smell, taste, sight and touch is a tried and true way to immerse the reader in the story. Make the reader feel by appealing to the senses.
Onomatopoeia
Alliteration
Verbs: Take a look at these isolated statements. How do you feel?
Mom walked to her room. – I feel nothing. Maybe boredom?
Mom tiptoed to her room. – I feel curiosity, fear, or amusement. Maybe something else?
Mom scrambled to her room. – I’d say all of the above and urgency too.
Mom waltzed to her room. – Happiness?
Mom crawled to her room. – Exhaustion?
How do we decide about word placement? One way is by reading out loud. It’ll help determine if the dialogue lines feel natural to the character and if the rhythm and pacing fits the emotion you want to evoke.
In the opening spread of BISA’S CARNAVAL I used imagery, music, and repetition with the hope that by the last line the reader felt as excited about Carnaval as the main character, Clara, feels.
Under a rainbow-bannered sky,
Trumpets, trombones, tubas,
And saxophones sing.
Louder, Faster,
Faster, Louder!
It’s Carnaval!
Further along, we’re still filled with excitement and anticipation as Clara and her cousins are preparing for the festivities, but there’s a sudden low point, where I talk about the problems people put aside during Carnaval. At that point it’s almost impossible not to slow down the pace.
Popcorn and ice-cream fuel us up.
In front of Bisa’s house, the parade bounces by,
Followed by hundreds of happy faces.
Faces that, for a few days, forget their troubles.
The lost job or the long hospital line.
The duct-taped sneaker, the leaking roof.
The end of summer, the back-to-school blues.
Or the paycheck that doesn’t last.
I hope these ramblings help take your manuscript to the next level and your reader having all the feels! Let me know in the comments about other interesting ways to tackle this topic. Happy revising!
Joana Pastro is the award-winning author of Bisa’s Carnaval and LillyBelle, A Damsel Not in Distress, the forthcoming Lucas and the Capoeira Circle, and more. When she’s not writing you might find her drawing at her desk, daydreaming outside or dancing around the house. Originally from Brazil, Joana lives in Georgia with her husband, her three extremely creative children, a rambunctious Morkie, and a needy Maltipoo. Visit her on Twitter @jopastro, Instagram @joanapastro or atwww.joanapastro.com
Joana is offering a copy of one of her books (winner’s choice – US only) and a 30-minute Zoom chat.
Insight and Inspiration 