My Journey to Publication

Instead of my usual blog post about the technical aspect of writing and submitting to agents, this post will be a bit more personal.

When I was in elementary school I did okay in Reading class.  Why?  Because I did not like the books we read.  Looking back, I still do not like them, so it wasn't me being a lazy, I just knew what I liked and what I didn't like.  English class didn't thrill me that much either.

While learning nouns, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs were a bit dull to me, I did enjoy writing short stories.  I even wrote them in my free time at home, on one of those old typewriters with the big bulky ink ribbons.  My mom wanted me to write for a living because she saw how much I enjoyed it, but I never journeyed down that career path.

About five years after I graduated from high school, I remember saying aloud that I "would write a children's book one day." Ha!  I thought it would be as easy as just saying that I'd do it, as if there were no agent opinions or publication market.  Then, years later, I glanced over at the children's book section at Barnes & Noble and wondered why I hadn't tried to move forward with my plan.

The next thing I knew, I signed up with an online critique group and I threw my manuscript out for the vultures to tear apart critique.  That's when I realized that writing picture books are as hard as writing anything else, and why?  Well, because as adults, we forget the voice and the thought process of children because it's been so long since we were children.  We write for young minds that are not yet as sophisticated as our own, and we forget that children have microscopic attention spans.  We are limited in word count and are forced to make every single, tiny word count.

So, now I spend every day writing, editing and brainstorming for new and unique plots.  It's not easy, but I know if I keep pushing, I'll eventually get what I want.

What's your story?