Category Archives: middle grade

Related to my middle grade writing

Shazamski (Goodbye Stress Version)

We are selling our home. I’ve read that the 3 greatest causes of stress in a relationship can be: $ $ Moving Antidote(s)=deep breaths, low-salt diet, always the ocean, ordering at least 3 crispy tacos from a food truck on … Continue reading

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Dav Pilkey in Redondo Beach

Whenever it was tickets first went on sale for this event? Stayed up until 12:01a.m. so that I could be one of the first to nab them. Can I just say–I’m glad I was a night owl as the event … Continue reading

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Lost Time

Yesterday I was driving home from Trader Joe’s, my mind deep in my novel. I am SO close to finishing it I can see the end and I was excited about what I was seeing. Then a street sign yanked … Continue reading

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Crucial Weekends (Moaning Myrtle Edition)

  There is still only finishing my middle-grade novel (see previous post).   However, life outside writing continues to happen– my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday AND Mother’s Day, during which I was presented with a Hufflepuff hoodie, a Mother’s Day card … Continue reading

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THIS HAPPENED

I won runner-up (there were only two of us who won in the Middle Grade category). SCBWI-LA Writer’s Day, Skirball Cultural Center . I pitched an agent, connected with a dream agent, dashed around assisting the totally-on-it RA’s, made new … Continue reading

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Writer’s Retreat: What Was It Like?

SCBWI Working Writer’s Retreat, September, 2017 The “working” aspect in Working Writer’s Retreat (for me)=the retreat provided printers, so there was no excuse (for me) for not sprinting to my sparse (sweetly existential) weekend bedroom after a workshop, whipping open … Continue reading

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Where I Discovered Poetry Last Weekend

Here: And here: How my family inspired me last weekend? Via this: And this: And this: What it feels like to finish a pre-mini-vacation writing goal and move to the next? This: Came down with the flu upon returning from family shenanigans. However, today … Continue reading

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Inspiration (Mother’s Day Edition)

What inspiration looks like. Feels like. That guy, reading me his MDay card.

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Heat Wave Revision

Today’s spring temperature high is predicted as: 86F. Which, in my sweltering valley, probably means: at least 90F. If not more. The MG novel I’m almost finished revising (this time around) has everything to do with global warming, pollution, the (mis)use … Continue reading

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SCBWI

Have you registered for the (Los Angeles chapter) SCBWI Writers & Illustrators Day 2017? It’s happening February 25th at the Skirball Cultural Center, a venue I once frequented in order to exercise my former toddler in the  intriguingly lit Noah’s Ark … Continue reading

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Tropical Impression

I thought: I’ll blog every day. But then we landed, left the sweetly palms-infused airport and drove straight to the ocean. I know as well as anyone how distracting ocean is—sunrises, sunsets, all the dancing, lightening blue in between those hours–and … Continue reading

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Never Fails

Text conversation with my writing mentor as I attempted to send her crucial re-written novel pages before her plane took off, pages I was anxious for her input on so that I could meet a writing deadline ASAP, pages she … Continue reading

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Mornings Become Them (Birds Edition)

615am–I get out of bed to let the dog outside and get back in bed forgetting to let the dog back in and he barks and I shoot out of bed not wanting the dog to wake the first grader … Continue reading

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Spring Break Snoozing (Wide Awake Edition)

During this luscious week of no school for the Kindergartner, we snooze well. Except when we are awakened from chasm-sleep somewhere between 2a.m. and maybe 4:30a.m.—after the bars have closed, but before the rooster across the alley busts its lungs—after we’ve … Continue reading

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Spring Spirit 2014

We’d hoped to leave our valley by 10am. 430pm we were finally on the road. The little boy erupted in sneezes and coughing fits at the top of the Grapevine. When we stopped somewhere on the other side of the mountains … Continue reading

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Discoveries (Balancing Edition)

The huge benefit of being thrown by a horse and not being able to exercise for over a week or lie down on the bed without screaming in pain or do anything in between carrying on as a mother except … Continue reading

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Article At ‘Through The Tollbooth’!!!

My writing mentor, Kathryn Fitzmaurice, was interviewed by Catherine Linka (I’ve heard Catherine speak at SCBWI events–she is positively famous in our SCBWI Los Angeles circles) over at Through The Tollbooth. The interview is about Kathryn’s mentoring experience–er, of me! … Continue reading

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The Women’s National Book Association

I was made aware of the WNBA/LA thanks to my middle grade writing mentor, Kathryn Fitzmaurice (ask me if I am lucky to have her as my mentor and you will hear amplified hell yeah’s). She gave one of this … Continue reading

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Notes From The Retreat #2: Critiques

Yes, I am going to go here. Out of the 10 copies of the first 25 pages of my novel returned to me, scribbled on by the writers in my core group at the SCBWI retreat, I kept 4. Those 4 … Continue reading

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Notes From The Retreat #1: Books

At last weekend’s SCBWI retreat, 4 editors imparted useful information–and shared book titles they love–Picture Books (PB), Middle Grade (MG), Non-Fiction (NF) and Young Adult (Y the effing heck A). I know what the abbreviations mean. YOU know what they mean. But, … Continue reading

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Bathroom Reading (Scouring Edition)

While holiday cleansing the bathroom, on my knees scrubbing corners usually in my blind spot, I glance up and notice books also, apparently, usually in my blind spot. I have no idea when Dylan Thomas arrived. Definitely wasn’t me who … Continue reading

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The Truth Is…(Maintenance Edition)

The truth is, I’m way too busy to blog—sprawling on the couch eating bonbons takes up a lot of time. And let me make this extremely clear: NOT milk chocolate bonbons with cherries tucked inside them. If I was even … Continue reading

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Chirp

The colony of house finches thriving in the trees outside our bedroom windows begins the chirping frenzy around 530/6am and they never fail to wake me up—but I beat them to their cacophony this morning, fueled into consciousness by thoughts of Big … Continue reading

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In the Wake of a Rejection

The last day of July hurtles into focus as I prepare for mini-break #4: single-mommying 3 kids for 3 days. Will be intriguing to see how I fit in writing time. I’m thinking between breakfast and the day’s planned outing, all outings … Continue reading

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Mini-Break 2: Undertow (with Wheels)

Children blinking through binoculars, squealing at scuttling lizards, swinging very, very high on playground swings, holding hands, but running too fast towards crosswalks, scaling small boulders, building sandcastles for naked Barbies and a collection of Skylander figurines that should never … Continue reading

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