-
Doodles & Dreams
I meant to announce this sooner. I’ve been extremely fatigued this past week and before that I’ve been so busy.
Unfortunately, there won’t be any Smart Dummies this year. It’s something I wrestled with a lot. It’s been an extra busy year for me. COVID has really messed things up. Also, I feel like I need a break.
This year I’m running a relaxed event called Doodles and Dreams! This will be an event much like my Spring into Writing Event. I will be releasing the Smart Dummies booklet again this year. If possible I’ll also do a fun booklet for Doodles &Dreams as well.
Doodles & Dreams wont have prizes, but I’m hoping it will be a lot of fun! We’ll do some art sharing and maybe even have some chats. I’ll be talking more about this before September starts. I hope to see you there!
Sign up here: http://ngi.c96.myftpupload.com/doodles-and-dreams/
-
Wednesday Updates – QueerKidlit
I’ve been feeling better since my endoscopic sinus surgery last Monday. It’s been an experience. Right now I’m rinsing out my sinuses every hour (I know TMI, but I promise I’m not sharing photos). If you want to know what it’s like, it’s basically like having a sinus infection, or a head cold. It would be a bit worse though if I hadn’t recovered so quickly from the anesthetic.
I was really worried about the surgery before I got it. It wasn’t bad, and I hope to never have to do this again. Enough about my nose and on to creative and book stuff.
Creative Goals:
All of my creative goals have gone out the door with this surgery. I have been so busy doing nothing lately. Recovering is just so exhausting!
Currently Reading:
I dread this one most of all. I really don’t — just that it’s a long list of books. I finished Parachutes by Kelly Lang and The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding.
Parachutes by Kelly Lang is about two girls Dani who is Filipina American and Claire who is Chinese. Early on it’s decided by Claire’s family to send her to America because Claire refuses to cheat on one of her exams. Claire’s family is rich, so it’s nothing for them to send her to the US. Claire does not like this turn of events. Claire ends up living with Dani’s family. Unlike Claire Dani is poor and is on a scholarship to attend school.
This book comes with a big CW for Rape & Rape culture. Both girls are thrown into bad situations. Claire ends up in some bad relationships. Dani’s teacher ends up putting her in a terrible situation. The way that the school deals with both situations is disappointing to say the least. This story is very hard to read at times.
Though it is a hard read, I really liked the characters in the story. Both Claire and Dani were strong female characters. They had big personalities. There were a few times I disagreed with the character’s actions, but there was never a doubt of my mind that the characters involved felt like real people.
The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding is just a whole lot of fun! It was the perfect novel to follow up Parachutes. The story is about 17 year old Abby who has applied for an internship at her favorite fashion boutique. Abby is fat and is a fashion blogger and is just too fabulous (if I have any criticism of this book it’s that Abby is too fabulous). Abby is gay and I love that the characters in this book are all supportive of her being gay. Abby gets the internship, but is surprised that she has to share it with Jordi who is an extraordinary photographer. There is a job at stake at the end of the internship, and Abby has all kinds of doubt about the future.
Abby has a fantastic summer of eating burgers with a guy named Jax. She does not get to spend as much time with her friends as she’d like, especially her best friend. She also has a mom who is a blogger and a health food celebrity. Abby struggles with her relationship with her mother because her mother is all about eating low carb foods and the whole Healthy Eating with Nora has taken over their family’s lives.
Abby soon finds herself falling for Jordi Perez. This begins a wonderful sweet romance. Is this romance too good to be true?
I highly recommend the audiobook for this story. Abby is just so adorable, and hearing Cassandra Morris reading this story really brings Abby to life!
I’m currently reading We Use to be Friends by Amy Spalding and The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed. I’ll be talking more about them next week!
More Fun Stuff:
Please join me and Jeanette Bradley for Queer Kidlit tonight at 5:30pm PT/8:30pm ET. The LGBTQIA+ chat is every Wednesday night! All kidlit LGBTQIA+ and allies welcome. This is meant as a fun chat for all involved. Please be respectful of pronouns!
We will be talking about what you’d like to see in books, LGBTQIA+ book recs and censorship of LGBTQIA+ books! I hope to see you there!
-
Wednesday Updates
Creative Goals:
I’m getting really close to finishing up the images for this cat comic I’m working on. Just need a few more hours I hope. I’m hoping to finish the 3 I’m working on. I’ll have to finish the other two in my portfolio as well, but I’m happy I’m almost there!
Currently Reading:
I’m currently reading A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown. I just summarized the story for a friend so I’ll post it here. There is a minor spoiler in the text about an event that happens within the first few chapters. I’ve whited these areas out.
It’s from two perspectives. A magical being takes Malik’s sister as his prisoner. Malik enters a deal with a magical being to save his sister. The deal is to kill Karina who is the Crown Princess of Ziran.
Karina’s mother is murdered and Karina wants to bring her back using dark magic (which could end up with her killing Malik). She also has to contend with her council who seems to be working against her and undermining everything she does. She has to hide her mother’s death and deal with a unknown traitor.
Malik is chosen by a goddess to enter the Solstasia competition. This gives Malik a way to get to Karina, but everything gets more complicated when the two meet and start having feelings for one another.
I’m almost done with this story and I’m so excited to find out how it’s all resolved!
More Fun Stuff:
My son was asking for math worksheets to do over the summer. He loves math. I remembered my friend Evelyn B Christensen does some wonderful puzzle books for kids. She has logic, math, word and other puzzles in her books. Evelyn has all kinds of puzzles on her website for kids to do and sample sheets from each of her books. There is lots to for free on her site that will keep kids busy for hours. I printed up a bunch of sheets to see what my son likes so I know which books to order for him! http://evelynchristensen.com/index.html
-
Count on Fun with Dawn Young
Dawn Young is on my blog talking about everything writing and fun. That’s right, Dawn has taken on the spirit of Spring into Writing and is talking about her favorite ways to write. So grab a hot drink (or a cold one, I wont judge) and curl up with this wonderful post by Dawn!
You can read more about Dawn and her work here: https://www.dawnyoungbooks.com/
The sun is shining. Flowers are blooming. Birds are chirping. It’s springtime and here we are in Spring into Writing – a perfect time to take that “leap forward” and have some fun!
So how exactly do you have fun writing, when sometimes it’s hard to even start writing, especially when that blank page of paper sitting in front of you seems to be daring you to even try, staring at you as if to say, “So, whatcha got?” or, “Ha! I knew it! You’re as blank as I am!”?
But there are ways to start and definitely ways to have fun! I’m sure what’s considered fun is different for everyone, but here are some things that work for me to make writing fun and they may work for you too…
Humor. To have fun with writing, I go for humor. I love to write funny, wacky stories. In my books, The Night Baafore Christmas (WorthyKids, December 2019), Counting Elephants (Hachette, March 2020) and the soon to be released, The Night Baafore Easter (WorthyKids, January 2021), my goal was to make kids laugh. Since some of my best memories include reading to my kids while they were plopped in my lap, all giggling at silly, clever picture books, I wanted to create that experience for other children. In these books, I went for craziness and chaos.
Rhyme. I love writing in rhyme. To me, it’s fun to write andread. Some of my favorite books are written in rhyme. I love when the rhyme creates a rhythm that makes the words flow, as if your reading was set on cruise control. The Night Baafore Christmas is written in rhyme because, other that the fact that I think it’s fun to write in rhyme, I thought the rhyme created a rollicking rhythm which complemented the Christmas chaos.
Figurative language and specifically alliteration is fun to write and even more fun to read. Think back to being a kid. Remember how fun it was to try and say “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” and “She sells seashells by the seashore”? Although I wouldn’t advise that level of alliteration, otherwise you’d find yourself tripping over your own tongue, certainly some is fun. My book vThe Night Baafore Christmas is full of alliteration, like these lines:
“Bo reads them a story, they listen and look, till 10 licks a page and devours the book.
Sheep 9 scared of monsters hides under the rug, while 8 missing mommy, holds Bo in a hug. “
And “Bo races to rescue his mother’s new wreath.” The r sounds make the sentence roll off your tongue.
Wordplay. The Night Baafore Christmashas word play in the title. I used Baafore instead of Before because, as you may have guessed, there are sheep in the story, and many of them. The Baafore was a fun way to introduce the sheep without actually saying there are sheep in this story. Then in the story I have them discover the fridge and bellow “baaffet!” to add more word play.
Internal rhyme. Again, think back to being a kid. Remember how fun it was to say “The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.”? In The Night Baafore Christmas, I tried to add as much internal rhyme as I could, like “while Bo saves the angel, sheep 1, 2 and 3 nibble non-stop to the top of the tree.”
Unexpected twist. Well, I can’t reveal the twist in The Night Baafore Christmasbecause it would spoil the ending, so you’ll have to read it for yourself…
Write about things you love. Your natural love for the subject will inherently come through, so think of the things you like to do and use that as material for your stories.
Something I think is fun is math. As former mechanical engineer turned writer, I don’t get many opportunities to do math, except of course when I help my kids with their homework, which usually doesn’t go well, since they do not appreciate my math enthusiasm. We all know most kids roll their eyes at the thought of math, so I wanted to get kids to have fun with math. With Counting Elephants, my goal was to make the book fun to read so kids would feel that sense of enjoyment, connect that feeling to math and have a more positive view of math in general.
Shake things up. I’ve read counting book after counting book with my kids, but they were typically the same ̶ a number on the page and some items that add to that number. And that’s great for the really little kids, but I wanted to take counting to the next level. I wanted kids to do more than count. I wanted them to add and subtract. I imagined an addition character, counting items, while a subtraction character made them disappear. I put them together and Voilà! I came up with a Counter who tries to count her ten elephants while her magician friend – POOF! – makes it impossible. Ten, nine, eight… each time we get back to counting, one of the elephants has been changed into something unexpected. In Counting Elephants, kids are adding new things in and subtracting elephants out to come up with a total of 10. And what better way for kids to have fun than to have things go a little crazy.
Unexpected twist. Once again, but this time in Counting Elephants, I can’t reveal the twist or it will spoil the ending, so you’ll have to read for yourself.
Pay attention to what makes you smile, laugh and fill up with joy. Use what you’re passionate about when you write to take that leap and Spring into Writing and have some fun.
https://www.facebook.com/dawn.young.1865
https://twitter.com/dawnyoungPB
https://www.instagram.com/dawnyoungbooks/
Dawn Young bio:
Dawn graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, and later with an MBA. For years, Dawn worked as an engineer and, later, manager at a large aerospace company, until her creative side called her to pursue her dream of writing children’s books. After reading and writing hundreds of corporate documents, none of which were titled The Little Engineer Who Could or Don’t Let the Pigeon Fly the Airbus, Dawn is thrilled to now be reading and writing picture books instead.
Dawn is also a math enthusiast. When she’s not busy writing and reading, she can be found doing math problems, sometimes just because… In high school, Dawn’s dream was to have a math equation named after her, but now, she believes having her name on the cover of books is a million times better! Dawn lives with her husband, three children and golden retriever in sunny Arizona. She is the author of The Night Baafore Christmas (WorthyKids, Oct 2019), Counting Elephants (Hachette, March 2020), and the soon to be released The Night Baafore Easter (WorthyKids, Jan 2021).
Buy Dawn’s Books:
Counting Elephants: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/dawn-young/counting-elephants/9780762466931/
The Night Baafore Christmas: https://www.amazon.com/Night-Baafore-Christmas-Dawn-Young/dp/1546014586/
-
A Look at the Week: May 3rd-9th
Not yet signed up for Spring into Writing? Sign up here: http://ngi.c96.myftpupload.com/register-for-spring-into-writing/ Don’t forget to pick up a badge of your choice and the booklet!
A Look at the Week May 3rd – 9th:
Monday, May 4th: Kaitlyn Sanchez is talking about voice! She’s a writer and Intern at Olswanger Literary. Kaitlyn has generously donated a PRIZE! One lucky person will get a critique from Kaitlyn. https://kaitlynleannsanchez.com/
Wednesday, May 6th: Christina Myers is the editor of BIG: Stories About Life in Plus Sized Bodies. She is a journalist turned freelance writer and editor. She is talking about writing with kids! https://christinamyerswrites.wordpress.com/
Friday, May 8th: Larissa and Keith Marantz are a married couple who created the Clyde the Hippo books. They recently had a book launch for their new books. I am interviewing them about Clyde the Hippo, how they work together and future projects! http://larissamarantz.com, http://clydethehippo.com
Saturday May 9th: A Look At the Week May 10-16th.
There may be more surprises later this week. Keep checking back (or look in your mail) for more fun!
