Author Skype Visit

I recently attended an author Skype visit with Suzanne Slade for my daughter’s 5th grade class. And let me just say, that it was amazing. My daughter’s teacher was blown away, and the kids loved it. Suzanne did such a great job, and kept the kids engaged the entire time. I, too, had a wonderful time, and I was so glad that I could attend.

As an aspiring author, I want to learn more about author visits, and there is no better way than by attending one. It was such a great opportunity for me, and I learned so much. It was fun to see what really got the kids excited, and what interested them. I also got to observe how an author sets up her visit, and things she incorporated and did. It was very informative for me, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Now I’m off to find my next opportunity.

Amazing

Kids are amazing. They can come up with anything simply by using their imagination. When my youngest daughter was sad because she couldn't go inside Minnie Mouse's house in Disneyland, my older daughter built one for her out of a cardboard box. The two of them played for hours in the makeshift house. It was amazing. And my youngest was never again sad about not being able to go inside Minnie Mouse’s house. To her, she had been there, and now she could visit it anytime she wanted in her own room. All it took was a cardboard box and imagination. As a writer, I want to do be just like them. I want to take my piece of paper and imagination, and create something amazing.

Student Council

This girl just got chosen for student council in her fifth grade class. She is so excited. Only two kids from each class were picked, so she feels very honored to be one of them. But the funny thing is, she almost didn’t even try out for student council. She thought she would not be picked, so why bother. She almost let her fear keep her from doing something she really wanted to do.

I told her that we do not do things just to win. We also do things just to try. Just to see what we are capable of. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but the important thing is we are trying. Failure only means that we are one step closer to our goals. And the more we try, the more we succeed. We can learn just as much from our failures as we can from our wins. And we never know what our potential is, or what we might achieve, until we take that first step.

I am so glad that she didn’t let her fear rule her. She put in her application, and she won. Now she is doing something she loves. What if she had let that fear keep her from trying? What if she had never applied, because she thought she might fail?

We can’t give up. We have to try. We have to overcome our fears. We have to keep working towards our goals. Only then will we know and become our very best selves.

Winner!

I am so excited! I just found out that I won an Author Skype Q&A visit for my daughter’s 5th grade class with Suzanne Slade. All I did was comment on a blog post on the blog, Picture Book Builders, and then my name was randomly drawn. So exciting.

I was thrilled to email my daughter’s teacher and let her know what I had won. She was equally as excited. And I even get to attend the day they do the visit. That makes me really happy, because I want to learn more about author visits, and how to best do them. This will be a great opportunity for the kids and me.

It just goes to show that you never know what can happen, so it is always worth trying. I didn’t really think I would win, but I thought it was worth a shot. I am so glad I tried.

Quirks

My son loves to collect rocks. Big rocks. Little rocks. Large rocks that I trip over on my front step. Rocks that go unnoticed in his pockets, and end up in my dryer clumping around. (That’s always fun.) Yes, my son definitely loves rocks.

The other day, I went upstairs to clean the bathroom, and I found a fresh set of rocks next to his bathroom sink. I assume he found them at some point during his day at school, put them in his pocket, and brought them home. He most likely remembered them when he was brushing his teeth, and put them next to the sink. So thoughtful of him.

But as I moved the rocks so I could wipe the dried toothpaste smeared all over the counter, I couldn’t help but smile. This is my son. It’s his quirk. And it makes him him. And, at the end of the day, I love this about him.

So what are the quirks of your characters? What makes them them? And what makes you fall in love with them?

Burned Toast

The other day my daughter asked me to make toast for breakfast. Our toaster had not been working all that well, and it would sometimes forget to pop the toast out. I would have to remember to pop the toast out myself by hand, or be stuck with burned toast. On this particularly morning, I was busy getting too many things done in too little time, and I forgot about my daughter’s toast. It came out black, and not very appetizing.

I told my daughter that I would make her new toast, because the first piece was gross. She told me that she still wanted it. I said, “No, you won’t like it.” She then proceeded to throw a tantrum (she’s two after all), because I would not give her the black toast. I tried to tell her again and again that she would not like it, and that I would make her a new piece. She was having none of it.

Finally, I gave up and gave her the burned piece of toast. She happily stopped crying, took her toast, and proceeded to eat the entire piece. I was shocked. I never would have eaten that piece of toast. But my daughter did, and she liked it.

As I thought about this moment with my daughter, it reminded me of my writing. Sometimes, as writers, we want to force our characters to act a certain way, because we think it is the way they should act. But we shouldn’t force our characters to do anything. We should let them develop. We should learn about them and understand them. And we should definitely let them decide whether or not they like burned toast. Maybe we wouldn’t eat it, but our character or daughter just might.

One of Those Days

Yesterday was just one of those days. You know the ones where your two-year old eats an entire container of Bubble Tape, because it tastes like candy, and then you have to spend thirty minutes googling whether or not it will kill her. And then, while you are busy googling that the massive amounts of pink bubblegum will definitely not kill her, she sneaks upstairs, finds a pen, and proceeds to write all over her tiny little body. Since I was still googling in a panic and hadn’t seen her artistic ability, she proceeded to find one of my beaded bracelets and managed to break it and send beads all over my bedroom floor and the hall. Of course, those millions of beads could not be sucked up by the vacuum, so I had to get on my hands and knees and try to pick up every single bead that conveniently blended in with my carpet.

It was definitely one of those days. But guess what? It was funny. Even as I am writing this horrible chain of events, I can see the humor in it. And that’s a good thing.

What!?

You are probably wondering how bubblegum, pens, and broken bracelets could ever be a good thing. But trust me, they can. By finding the humor in everyday life, especially the unfunny, I-want-to-pull-my-hair-out situations, we are taking an important step to becoming a great humor writer. We have to find the funny in everyday life. We have to find the humor in even the worst of situations. And when we do, we will better be able to write that humor into our stories.

But for now, you’ll have to excuse me, because I have to go find some invisible beads and scrub some ink off my daughter. And I don’t even want to think about what the next few diapers are going to be like.