Imaging

This has been one of the best phrases I've seen recently (from the book, The Council of Dads):

"We went for a stroll down Park Avenue, where daffodils bobbed like chicks and tulips sprouted like fistfuls of crayons."

I could immediately see what the author was saying and I hope that I can match that amount of rich imagery one day.

Has anyone else seen something they loved lately?

I've been reading to my daughter at bedtime since she was born in 2009 and we've so far made it through the "Wrinkle In Time" series and are halfway through the "Narnia" series. It's funny that only one book out of each of these series of books ever made it "big" because it's the same author dealing with the same content at the same tempo throughout each of the series--I would have assumed that all the books in the series would have been proclaimed raging successes. I suppose that it's good that the "one" book hooked me and I wanted to read the rest of the series, at least...

Book-A-Week Challenge

My husband challenged me to write one book a week in order to fuel the process of becoming a bona fide children's book author. At first, I was intimidated, but after thinking about it for a few days, I realized that I find inspiration all over the place and I already jot down my ideas on sticky notes. Why not set aside time to expand those notes into a complete outline each week? After that, a hard and soft polish is needed and it's ready for submission!

Homework Avoidance Syndrome

It's that time of year again, Spring semester has started and I'm back in school. This means a lot of little chores at home are going to get accomplished in the name of Homework Avoidance. So far, H.A. has helped me to clean the glass on the fish tank, organize some end-of-year receipts, write and send thank you cards for baby gifts, and clean my desk. Tasks I hope to accomplish in the future due to H.A. are scrubbing the bird cage, shovel the walks, and clean the fridge. And tomorrow I'm going to...

Just kidding. But I do seem to find a lot of little things to do that probably don't need to be done right now, but should be done eventually. These "lot of little things" prevent my homework from getting done until the last possible moment before it's due to be turned in. This can be frustrating, but the H.A. activities actually make me feel that I've accomplished something. It's a trade-off...