Five Things on a Friday

Fryeburg, Maine. Photo by my husband, John

1.  I'm off to spend the weekend with some writer friends today. It'll be so nice to see them and have work time and fun time together.

2.  I'm almost done my first draft of my chapter book. I've found that I really like writing for that age. There's a sweetness to the child and a lightness to the writing that really appeals to me.

3.  My two contracted books are speeding along toward their early 2014 publication dates. My novel editor said she line-edited my draft and didn't think it would take very long for me to address her concerns. And I've seen most of the art for our next Hamster book and it's adorable. 

So yesterday, I felt the switch flip inside me for both of these books. They're changing from being something I'm working on to preparing them to go out into the world. There's still a year between now and publication for both of them, but it's starting now and I know from having done this before how fast that year goes.

4.  Thank you to the librarians of Iowa for putting Touch Blue on the 2013-14 Iowa Children's Choice Award list. It made me smile to think of kids in Iowa reading about lobster fishing, but I also think that fishing families and farming families probably have many things in common.

5.   Happy Birthday to my husband!  We celebrated yesterday with Chinese food and birthday cake, but today is his actual birthday. I'm so grateful that he was born. :-)