Tag Archives: march

A Beginning Reader for St. Patrick’s Day

I’ve been practicing creating picture books. I’m an artist, but I haven’t done illustrations before. My first effort went live just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. It’s called “A Pot of Gold” and it’s for the earliest readers.

Most early readers are created in-house, so publishers and agents aren’t interested in them. Kids love them, though, and there aren’t many St. Patrick’s Day books, so I decided to do the illustrations and post it to Kindle.

I learned so much in the process. I am now a master of the pen tool in Photoshop. I’ve also learned how to use Perspective Warp and Object Select.

I found out what the formats mean on Kindle and discovered free Google Fonts.

If you have a young reader in your house, take a look at “A Pot of Gold.”

Advertisement

The 2013 Chapter Book Challenge is in March

If you are working on a novel for children as I am, NaNo WriMo might not exactly fit your needs. This one is especially timely for me. I will be coming off a month of writing a picture book draft a day in February. (Okay, well, one a day sometimes and five in a day to catch up. Did I say they were good? Um, no, at least not at this point.)

March will be different. I want to finish a novel I have been working on for years and this challenge is perfect. Finishing it should just take a couple of weeks. I am very close. That will give me some time for edits I have marked. I know I shouldn’t do this, but I have been editing as I go, so when I finish at the end of March , I hope it will be ready to go. I plan to refine my pitch at an SCBWI regional mini-workshop. I am saying this now to commit myself to it.

If you want to finish or draft a book, click below. What do you have to lose? I have met some amazing people through these challenges.

Chapter Book Challenge: Line-up of authors, agents and publishers guest posting for 2013’s ChaBooCha.