My available writing time is slowly increasing. so I feel like celebrating, not just the birthday of our country, but my freedom as well. Yesterday I finished the draft of the third chapter of my historical fiction WIP, and received a draft of the layout for Adirondack Mouse and the Mysterious Disappearance. Looks like it will be coming out on schedule – can’t wait!
I hope all writers find cause for celebrating!

Rocky (before) and Mckeever

My daughter’s dog, Rocky, is our latch-key dog. He spends the day here with Mckeever while Susan is at work. I think he looks like a Cairn Terrier, or at least he used to. Poor Rocky! He had a surprise trip to the Groom Room yesterday and he came back looking great, but I’m not sure he enjoyed the process all that much. His demeanor reminds me of the way the sheep we used to raise behaved at shearing time. You would think they would have been happy to lose all that heavy wool before the hot summer, but they most definitely did not. They seemed convinced that the shearer was the grim reaper and when he was finished it took the flock the rest of the day to figure out who was who. Here is a picture of Rocky after his grooming. The new and improved Rocky!

The New Look

What a wonderful day. I spent my morning writing the next chapter in my WIP, Corn For Liberty. I am taking Richard Peck’s advice from his SCBWI Master Class interview – no, I don’t know him personally, darn it – that the only way to write with passion is in the 1st person. He’s right that 1st person places you, the author, squarely in the scene. He says that can’t help but draw the reader in as well. The weather was grey with rain from time to time, but that only made the day better. There was still enough light to paint by in the afternoon and the sound of the rain on the roof was so relaxing. My painting of my dog, McKeever, is almost done. Just a little more detail to the grass and it will be done. I can’t believe it’s turning out so well. Now it is Friday and I’m back to my hum-drum routine. Oh well, Thursday is only 6 days away. Kind of like counting the days until Christmas, isn’t it? Or your birthday, but who wants to rush the next birthday? Not me!

I posted all the winners from the 2008 Adirondack Center for Writing’s Literary Awards on my Contests/Workshops, etc. page. My article, A Lifeline in the Night, appears in the July 2009 issue of The Word Among Us. I recently received my copy. I have received a response to my status query – my manuscript is still being considered! I have completed my first draft of the first chapter of my latest work in progress. I sent it off to my critique group for their comments this morning. Now I need to get back to my great grandfather’s story; time to edit, flesh out and revise what I have already written and get started on the rest. I am feeling so much more creative now that I have Thursdays to look forward to. I spend the rest of the week daydreaming about what I will do on my special day. And this Saturday my DAR Chapter will present a new flag to the Black River Canal Museum in Boonville.

I attended the 3rd Annual Adirondack Center for Writing Literary Awards this afternoon. The Awards ceremony was held at the Blue Mountain Center in Blue Mountain Lake. This location was an Adirondack Great Camp called Eagle Nest, built by Durant and later owned by the founder of the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake. What a wonderful setting for the awards. The catagories considered for an award included Fiction, Poetry, Children’s Literature, Photgraphy and Non-Fiction, and in addition a People’s choice award. Books considered were published in or about the Adirondacks in 2008. March Toward the Thunder, by Joseph Bruchac, Dial Books won Best Children’s book for 2008. Other entries in this category were: Butternuts for Rexford by Tom Adessa; Skylar by Mary Cuffe-Perez, Philomel Books; Adirondack Gold II; A Summer of Strangers by Persis Granger, Beaver MEadow Publishing; Champlain and the Silent One by Kate Messner, North Country Books; Thomas Schneeberger, Publish America; When Thunder Rolls: The Underground Railroad and the Civil War by Irene Uttendorfsky, Spruce Gulch Press; The Adirondack Kids 8: Escape from Black Bear Mountain by Justin and Gary VanRiper, Adirondack Kids Press.
My book, Adirondack Mouse and the Perilous Journey won the 2006 Best Children’s Book Award.

It’s finally time! Time to send a status query about my middle grade historical fiction novel. I have been waiting for months, worrying that my manuscript may never have reached the publisher, perhaps lost in the mail, or buried deep in the tallest slush pile. It does seem odd, I mean, I have always been either rejected or accepted (mostly rejected) long before now. I wanted to send a status query two months ago, but a check of the blue boards on Verla Kay’s website told me, ‘no, not yet.’ But now that it’s time, I have more to worry about. Will the status query bring positive or negative results? In some ways, isn’t it better not to know?

The second book in my Adirondack Mouse series will be released in August. In this chapter book for young readers Adirondack Mouse sets out to find his friend, Melvin, who has mysteriously disappeared. There are many adventures along the way and many lessons learned. It is a fun read for ages 8 and up, and a good read-to story for parents and younger children. Talented young artist, Allen Kraeger’s magical drawings complement backgrounds of local photographs.

I have a good start on my historical fiction novel about my great grandfather’s experiences following his capture by Col. John S. Mosby near Charlestown in September of 1864. I have several chapters written and need to flesh out and rewrite some chapters before I can move forward. Writing this story is a labor of love, my tribute to my ancestor’s courage in the face of adversity. It is truly fiction based on fact since his service record is sketchy and lacking a great deal of detail. I am forced to reconstruct his probable location and experience at any particular point in time based on the documented experiences of others who were taken at about the same time and place. Here is a short exerpt: Darwin ran a hand through his tangled brown hair. In just a few days it would be three years. Three long years! More than three if you counted from his enlistment in Dowagiac. Too long! he thought. Maybe I should have gone home when my enlistment time was up. I wish now that I had, but how could I say no with the whole regiment so fired up to win this bloody war? How could I quit with victory so close? So I gave them a grin, scrawled my name with the rest of them, and added my voice to the regimental cheer. Hell, they probably heard us yell back in Michigan.

I took it back! One day now belongs to the creative me. It’s only one day, just Thursday, but I savor it’s approach with anticipatory glee every day until it arrives. All my other days are taken up with day-to-day chores and must-do’s, but in the back of my mind I am planning. Sometimes there are things I must do, you know how deadlines can loom and you have to complete a part of a project before you can set off on some new adventure. Like this past week when I had to use most of my writing time to do some final edits on my new Adirondack Mouse manuscript. But sometimes I can let my muse run wild with a new story. I have to stop for lunch, of course, and then I can devote my afternoon to painting. Even when things do not go well, when I still don’t have time to write all I had planned or when the brush strokes fall short of my expectations, I am refreshed and renewed by it all. I feel good, I feel free and creative, and that feeling is often enough to carry me through to next Thursday. I’m counting the days right now.

The society of children’s book writers and illustrators has made available DVDs of interviews with important writers and illustrators in children’s literature. I was delighted to find one of my favorite authors, Richard Peck (author of: A Year Down Yonder, A Long Way from Chicago, Fair Weather, The River Between Us, and so many more) had participated in a Master Class “ON WRITING THE NOVEL FOR YOUNG READERS.” Of course I ordered my copy and eagerly awaited its arrival. And when it came in the mail I couldn’t wait to watch and listen. I have to say I was not disappointed. This Master Class is filled with Richard Peck’s advice about Plot, Character, Setting, Writing, Revision, Creativity, and for those of us who absolutely loved Grandma Dowdel, a reading from his newest book about her -SEASON OF GIFTS . Has anyone else viewed a SCBWI Master Class?