Freaky Friday

An Assortment of Topics

 

A writing challenge– There’s a Nudist Camp in CA that’s been accused of stealing water.

I don’t know about you, but I can see (no pun intended), all kinds of ways one could write a story with this idea in mind.

So why not?

Write a 500 word opening of a mid grade or YA novel. We’d love to see what you come up with.

 

Just finished Fiona Wood‘s YA called Six Impossible Things. LOVED it. I actually laughed out loud several times. That’s hard to do with me. What’s the best YA or MG you’ve read this summer–not including the one you’re working on? And that should becoming the best. FYI–I participated with Fiona and Marie Marquardt (Dream Things True–haven’t read it yet. Hope to soon.) yesterday on a panel for SLJ. We spoke about romance in YA. Those women are smart.

 

Ooops, be careful PW Daily. Can’t be good to spell Newbery wrong!
“Newberry Medalist Katherine Applegate’s new novel ‘Crenshaw’ features a fifth grader whose  . . . .”

 

School starts soon. I’ve got till the 31 to do whatever I want (as long as I do it here at home). I’m going to organize and write and clean and hang out with my girls. What would you do? Really. I want some ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

from Carol!

Always along with my goals for a New Year is the thankfulness in my heart for the people I have spent the last year with.

Thank you to our eight readers.

We love you.

Being able to talk to the few of you, to know you are there, has many times offered me great peace.

I wish you that same kind of peace in 2015–the peace of being loved, understood and supported.

I look forward to being with you for the next 350 + days. Yippee!

SO much love!

from Brenda!

In mid-December, Carol wrote about how she was writing her list of “200+ goals”.  Who knows?  She may be up to 300+ by now.

By contrast, I’m going to try to write 5 VERY simplistic (and GENERAL) goals.  See, my theory is, when you keep them “general” enough, maybe you can squeeze most of what you’ve actually done into one category or another and accomplish them all. Every day.  So:

1.  Write something (significant) every day.

2.  Read something (significant) every day.

3.  Do some (significant) exercise (AT LEAST) 6 days a week

4.  Clean or put away something (major) every day.
(I should really clean out some of the boxes from when I moved here.
Almost 5 years ago.
And from when Herb moved here.
Almost 3 years ago.).
5.  Do something (noticeably) (kind/good) (to/for) someone every day.

And my check list will be even simpler:
1.  Write
2.  Read

3.  Exercise

4.  Clean
5.  Kind

I’ll let you know how that works out.  Have you got your goals up and ready to go? Today’s the day, you know!  HAPPY NEW YEAR ! ! !

from Cheryl!

I usually do pretty well with New Year’s resolutions until I make one mistake. Then it doesn’t matter if I’ve kept the resolution for six hours or six months. Once I don’t have a perfect record, I feel like I don’t have anything.

So this year, I want to try to stay away from numbers. No daily word count. No set amount of time for editing.

Instead, I want to focus on not getting discouraged. No matter how much of a hot mess my novel might be, I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to get down on myself because my first drafts are terrible. I’m going to go back again and again, no matter what, and keep trying to improve.

What about you?