Tag: Storystorm

Posted in Agents, Picture Books, querying

Querying: What It’s All About (At Least for Me)

Posted on by beckylevine

Even before January, I knew what my word for 2022 would be. In the midst of all the chaos, anxiety, and uncertainty of the past two years, writing has been the eye of my personal hurricane. I know, for many writers, the pandemic and their own experiences with it have made writing hard, if not impossible. As in so many other ways, I’ve been lucky. My ideas, my stories, have stayed with me, and I’ve been able to make steady progress toward my goal: to get enough picture book manuscripts to the place where I feel ready to query them. To be honest, this has been my goal for 2 or 3 years, but this is the first year I’ve felt certain enough to name it.

My word for 2022 is Query.

I’ve been musing on this for the past couple of weeks, and I’ve decided that–as part of this querying year–I would come back to my blog. Primarily for my own accountability, I want to use this space to set out the process I’m following, including some of the specific steps I’m taking, to get my work out there for agents to see. I’ll be using tags so that anyone specifically looking for this kind of conversation can find the posts, but I’m going to hold off on linking to them on social media. If I start to feel like I’m writing anything truly useful for others (and if I stick to posting at all!) then I’ll revisit that plan.

Anyway, if you’ve found your way here…

Photo by Henri Mathieu-Saint-Laurent on Pexels.com

I hope you discover something to help you or, at least, to make you feel less alone on this stage of your writing journey.

To get started, here’s a summary of where I am, followed up by the next big steps I’ll be taking.

I have three picture book manuscripts “this close” to ready. I have sent them all through my excellent critique group multiple times, and I have workshopped them with other writers & a few agents. (One agent ended our conversation with “keep me posted” and agreed that, assuming I could revise the manuscript as we discussed, I should query her. Guess who I’m sending it to first!)

I will be sending these three manuscripts through my critique group one more time. I am hopeful that, even if they don’t shout, “OMG, SEND THIS OUT NOW!,” the changes I will want to make from their feedback will be minimal. I am not going to restart any of these three or make any changes that mean an entirely new revision pass. I truly believe that it is time for me to get these stories out into the query world.

What do I base that belief on? Well, all the things I’ve noted above, but there’s one other big factor: the feedback I have gotten, and my own sense of the stories, tell me that I will not be burning any bridges by send them out. They may not resonate with everyone who reads them; some agents may feel like they need more work than they’re willing to contribute. I may get no requests for more; I may get no response at all. But nobody will be putting my name onto a list of Never Read Anything from this Writer Again.

My critique group meets monthly. One of the manuscripts is in their hands for January, and I’ll send the other two to them in February and March. As I get feedback, I’ll do a pass to integrate their comments, and then each manuscript will go into the Ready pile. (Oh, yes, you can bet I’ll proofread each again before I send it out!)

While all this is going on (and I’m trying not to be buried by my day job!), I need to also be working on these steps:

  • Set up a spreadsheet to track my queries. I’ve done this before–I queried a middle grade manuscript YEARS ago, and I sent out a couple of picture book manuscripts when I first made the shift to this genre. Still, it’s fun to start fresh & someone on Facebook posted about how they code their lists with idea for different colors of hearts. I may steal that!
  • Start populating that spreadsheet. I have been playing around in query tracker, and while it’s a good place to see a list of agents, to see who’s open and who wants what, it’s a little clunkier than I want to use for actually tracking things. I’ll start my list off with the agent who said to query her, of course, and in second place is an agent I took a fantastic workshop from, who also represents one of my critique partners. I’ve also done research on both of these that confirms I want to query them. Hmm…maybe I’ll do a post on research. 🙂
  • Work on my pitches for all three manuscripts. Honestly, I hate this part, but I’m going to make myself do it. Different agents say different things about pitches & query letters in general – some read them and weigh them, some seem to skip them completely. But I’m not going to put out a sloppy pitch and risk having the agent stop reading before they even get to the manuscript. I just signed up for my second year in 12 X 12, and I will be posting my pitches in the forum for feedback (and giving feedback to others, of course). I may also post some on the Sub It Club Facebook page.
  • Keep revising. Keep writing. I have a fourth manuscript that everyone has “liked,” but it has a major darling that has to be killed before I do the next revision. After final revisions on the other three stories, revising this manuscript is the next writing work on my list. Last year, in 12 X 12, I managed to writer or revise a draft in 10/12 months, and I will be keeping up with that as best I can. I’m halfway through Storystorm, and I already have a few ideas that are actually calling to me.

Okay, so that turned into a long post, but I’ve laid out where I’m at and where I want to be going. If you’re new to my blog and want to know who I actually am, you can read a bit about me here. If you think this post or upcoming posts would help someone you know, feel free to share.

Happy New Year and Happy Querying!

Posted in 2021

My Word for 2021: Surf

Posted on by beckylevine

My word for this year, Surf, started off as a joke on social media, when I was commenting on the challenge of picking a word for a year that seems filled with unpredictability. Once I’d tossed it out there, though, the word kept coming back to me. And the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. That very unpredictability we’re facing makes me want a word that will help me do a better job of taking things as they come, riding whatever wave I’m on at the moment, and not taking a header every time a big one hits.

Last year’s word was Happy, and I thought about taking a do-over on 2020 and using the word again for 2021. But there have been plenty of times in 2020 when I was happy and–along with that–very aware of how my happiness was in direct contrast to the lives so many other people have been living. Happy has a weight for me right now that it didn’t at the beginning of the year. It has layers that are hard to deal with, layers that–when I am tired or stressed–I’m not up to looking at directly. So, while I expect and hope for more happiness in 2021, for everyone, Happy is a word with too many tangles for me to re-choose.

2021. I am fairly certain that we will have a new President & Vice-President on January 20th, and I am fairly certain that vaccines will continue to be distributed. But beyond that, I’m not making any guesses. 2020 has been a sharp reminder of how much I need to work on staying in the moment, because the rabbit holes I could, and did, go down were more dark and twisted than any I remember. For me staying in the moment means being staying flexible and looking just far enough ahead to make choices that will help me stay balanced. So…Surf.

In her post today, Erin Dionne broke out a few areas of her life where she wants to direct her word (Invest). I liked that a lot, so I’m stealing her idea for my post. In 2021, here are some of the waves I want to ride:

News and Politics

The past four years, I’ve been more aware and more involved than ever before. And, for all the stress, this has been a very good thing for me. It’s important to me that I don’t drop this engagement. I have all my fingers and toes crossed that Georgia will elect Warnock and Ossoff to the Senate but, even if they win, it’s going to be a hard, hard road. I want and need to stay on top of things, to step up whenever I can, to speak out and be heard. But this is also the wave that, more than any other, challenged me in 2020. I may not be able to hang 10 on this one, but I think I can keep from being bonked in the head with my own board.

Family and Friends

I have been incredibly lucky–my family and friends are staying healthy, and they’re staying financially stable. It has been hard not seeing them in person, but I am grateful that they are all taking this pandemic seriously and doing their very best to be safe. With the vaccines out there, I can feel my hopes rising–I’ll be able to visit my parents and sisters in 2021! And I can feel the hopes dip–maybe I will, maybe I won’t. We have Zoom, we have telephones. If/when the numbers decrease, I may feel comfortable doing socially distanced walks with a few friends. But this is a wave like no wave I’ve ever been on, and I need to ride it gently.

Writing

I know so many writers who have struggled with getting writing done this year. For me, after the first few months, my writing became the gentle wave that felt almost like standing on the sand. It gave me something to escape into, to spark my mind, and to feel hope about. I came up with ideas and stories that are stronger, in their foundations, than anything I’ve written before–it is so reassuring to know that I am actually learning and strengthening my craft. I’m staring 2021 off by paddling my writing board out to the bigger waves. Tomorrow is Day 1 of Storystorm, I’ll be signing up for my first year of 12 X 12, and I’m starting a multi-week picture book workshop in a couple of weeks. It’s going to be a windy ride, but it’s also a wave that, if I wipe out, I’ll know I’ll land in warm water and easily climb back on my board.

Health

I was going pretty well with keeping up my yoga practice for most of 2020 (thanks in good part to Adriene), but–as usual–I’ve slipped a bit over the holidays. I learned long ago that if I tell myself I have to do any physical exercise on certain days at certain times, my brain basically says, “No, I don’t,” and the surfboard just stays in the closet. I am aiming for 2 or 3 days of yoga, more days of simple things like push-ups and squats, and as close to daily meditation as I can get. But each day will be a choice, based on how I feel and what sounds best.

I had a mini-scare a few months ago when I did some routine lab work and my sugar numbers came back too high. I found a dietician who I click with. She’s knocked me out of the certainty that I have to eat fewer and fewer calories to be “healthy.” She’s gotten me to add a LOT of fiber to my daily eating (now’s the time to buy stock in beans, folks!). She’s checking my progress with BMI (pinches, not math formula), and I’m not getting near a scale. I’m finding that each meal is its own wave–one on which I make food choices that feel right at that moment, rather than deciding ahead of time that I have to eat this way or that. So far, the results have been good, and I haven’t felt deprived once. I am determined to stay on this board.

My life has been a progress from holding tight to what “should” be happening to learning to loosen my grip and face changes as they came. I am freer and more relaxed now than I ever was as a teen or young adult. 2021 seems the right year to take that progress a step further, ease up even more on the control, and respond to each wave as it comes.

I wish you all the happiest of New Years, and share my hope that 2021 will be a year of release and relief.

Posted in Chapter Books, Getting Organized, Organization, Picture Books, Progress

Sometimes Life is Like a Snow Globe

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, sometimes life is like being inside a snow globe. It’s an odd metaphor for a summer, but it’s a summer where things have been shaken up, settled briefly, then shaken up again. In July, we “hosted” my husband’s kidney stone about three weeks. (Go get a big glass of water. Right now. I’ll wait.) Then the heat wave hit, and now California is basically one big firestorm. I’ve been able to get things done at work and make some decent progress on a writing project, but concentration and focus haven’t been my friends for a while now.

When my snow is “settled,” I’m good with having a lot of writing projects up in the air. I can shift back and forth, letting one simmer while I move forward on another. When the snow is whirling, though, having that many first drafts and revisions in my head is like being in a blizzard. (Not that I’ve ever been in a blizzard.)

This morning, after I checked the news on the fires, I took a few minutes to sit and breathe (the smoke has been better at our house for a couple of days!). The wind in my head quieted down a bit, and my mind wandered over to my current writing projects: a new picture book idea I’m excited about, three revisions I have some good thoughts on, and whatever continued writing I want to do on my chapter book wip after the Highlights workshop at the end of this month.

Needless to say, the thought of all those projects waiting for me kicked up the wind, and my mind was back in the snowstorm. I reminded myself that, at times like this, it’s good for me to step back into a sheltered place, line up my goals neatly by the fire, and make some decisions about what comes next, then next after that, and then next again. A row of “nexts” is much better than a swirl of “NOW!”

I put my row in this order:

  • I want to write another chapter on the chapter book WIP. I’d been putting that on a shelf, because it isn’t required for the workshop, and who knows what direction I’ll be going when I’m on the other side of all that learning. But I realized this chapter is calling to me, I can see my MC struggling and coming out (temporarily) ahead by the end. This sounds fun, and fun is good. Assuming the snow settles a bit, that’s the writing I’ll do this weekend.
  • I’ll plot and think and brainstorm and get a first draft out of the new idea. When this year started, I had what I thought was four picture book manuscripts worth revising for (eventually) querying agents. Since then I’ve drafted and revised two new ideas into stories with a lot more potential. It’s clear to me that only one of those original ideas is good enough to revise right now, and the other three need to go on a shelf. I think this newest idea is another good one, and I want to get it drafted. Then I’ll be back to a stack of four, and a much stronger hope that I can turn them into something ready to show agents.
  • After the workshop, I ‘ll move into revision-only mode on my picture books. Four is enough, and I want to keep doing the hard work and getting more feedback from my critique group. I never say never, but at this point, I may not go on another idea hunt until Tara Lazar’s Storystorm comes around in January. (Which, the way time has been feeling lately, is right around the corner!) My goal is to start querying, and revision is going to be the best path toward that goal.
  • I’m not making any hard decisions about the chapter book until after the workshop. I may find out that this story idea just doesn’t have the potential for today’s market. I may find out that I’m on the right track, and I may “depart” from Highlights as or more excited about the story as I am right now. If the latter happens, then I’ll toss that ball into the air and have it handy to work on anytime I need to let all four picture books simmer for a few days.

Believe me, I’m perfectly aware that this list is my brain’s attempt to glue my snow globe to a shelf and keep anything else from shaking it up, and I’m even more aware that actuality is out of my control. But I’m looking at my plan as being like a snow shovel. If I don’t pick it up and do some clearing while I can, I’m never going to be able to get my car out of the driveway. (Not that I’ve ever held a snow shovel.)

How are you handling the chaos these days? Feel free to share any tricks and tips in a comment!

Posted in COVID-19, Kidlit, Kitlit, Uncategorized

Creatives in the Time of Social Distancing

Posted on by beckylevine

Crazy times, right? Hard, frightening times for some more than others–if you’re sick or know someone who’s sick, if you’ve lost your job or have to take time off without pay, if you’re trying to juggle anything with caring for children–homeschooling or not. I’m counting myself on the incredibly lucky side–I have work, I can do it at home, I’m being paid, and my family and friends are very much able to social distance and are taking it seriously enough to reduce my worry.

And in the midst of everything you/we might be going through, there’s trying to maintain some sense of normalcy, to stay committed and attentive to the things we have always tried to spend time with, keep focused on. For me, that’s writing; for you that may be writing or something else creative–painting, crafting, playing an instrument, cooking. It’s not easy, right? But it’s possible and–at least in the kidlit world–there are lots of creatives out coming up with ways to support us.  Because creatives create.

If you’re on social media, you’ve probably seen a lot/most of these opportunities. But I’m going to list a few here that I’ve noticed that may give you a few moments or even a few seconds of beauty, peace, inspiration. I’ll try to keep the list updated as I see more. Also, please add any of your own discoveries in a comment.

  • Erin Dionne has a couple of things going. If you follow her on Facebook (and you should), you may have seen her Captain’s Log posts the past few winters–posts that led to her recent picture book Captain’s Log: Snowbound, She’s started up the posts again, bringing humor and empathy to the current state of things. She’s also started sharing a Friday video on her Facebook post–unfortunately, I don’t seem to be technically savvy enough to post a link here. They’re definitely worth scrolling through her page, though.
  • Susan Taylor Brown has, for a while, been posting daily on Facebook about things that are making her happy. Recently, she’s been adding photos to share “a pause to breathe.”  Her work is lovely–follow her and start seeing them on a regular basis.
  • SCBWI is, as usual, making sure we’re taken care of during this time with a series of free digital workshops. They’ve also launched SCBWI Connects.
  • Not specifically COVID-19 related, just a tip from me to other picture books writers: If you write picture books, this may be a good time to go back and read through Storystorm posts at Tara Lazar’s blog.

We can also do a lot to support other writers and illustrators who may be hitting their own bumps right now. Book Riot has a list of ways we can do that. And you can always support authors, illustrators, and bookstores by shopping at your indie’s online site.

 

Posted in Picture Books, Storystorm, Uncategorized

Storystorm 2020: I’m in!

Posted on by beckylevine

I just signed up for Storystorm 2020.

If you aren’t familiar with Storystorm, it’s the creation of Tara Lazar–author of so many fantastic picture books. To name just a few you should definitely check out: The Monstore, Normal Norman, and The Upper Case: Trouble in Capital City.

Every January picture book writers sign up to participate in Storystorm and commit to trying really, really hard to get 30 new picture book ideas by the end of the month. Every idea counts–no matter how wonderful or horrible. Personal tip: Do not second guess yourself; just write that idea down! And Tara gives so much support–daily posts from authors and other publishing professionals to inspire, encourage, and kick your brain into gear. Plus prizes!

This year, along with coming up with 30 new ideas, Tara is suggesting we also pay attention to our creative process. 2020 is, for me, all about new ideas. I’ve been working for quite some time on revision, getting ready to query in the next month or so. Now I need to grow my pile of actual stories. So I’ll be watching how I do come up with those ideas, what I observe, what I remember, what direction my brain drifts, and when I hear that *ping* that tells me I at least have something to write down in my notebook for the day. Maybe I’ll post about it!

If you haven’t done Storystorm before and are wondering if it’s for you, I say go for it. The worst that could possibly happen is that you have no more ideas at the end of January than you do right now, as you read this post. And I can just about, 99.99999%, promise that won’t happen. So what have you got to lose?

Don’t forget to sign up for the Storystorm Facebook group, too. See you there!

Posted in Big Sur Children's Writing Workshop, Critique Groups, Storystorm, Uncategorized

Writing without a Critique Group: Looking Back

Posted on by beckylevine

When I published The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide in 2010, I wrote a lot about the process of finding a critique group and a little bit about waiting until you found the right one.

Maybe I should have written more about the waiting.

For various reasons, I was recently without my own critique group for a couple of years. One of those reasons was that I was making the shift to writing picture books, and I was looking for a group focused on that–one that had serious professional goals about finding an agent and getting their books published. One that was committed to digging deep into each other’s work and then digging even deeper into revising our own. I was lucky enough to find that this year, and I can’t even begin to describe how my work has grown in the past six months.

I wrote a book about critique groups–I know the power they have to help you transform your writing. And yet, somewhere between writing that book and starting to look for a new group, I apparently forgot it. I didn’t stop writing, and I didn’t stop revising. I worked closely with a freelance editor who had previously worked in children’s book publishing. I received wonderful comments and suggestions from her, and my stories got better. I got serious about reading picture books–frequently browsing through the new sections at bookstores and making regular stops at the library to pick up a pile. I did Tara Lazar’s Storystorm (and will do it again this coming January).  And it all helped.

Then last year, I went to the Big Sur Children’s Writing Workshop and sat in critique sessions with two groups of picture book writers. And I got a gut-slam reminder of what I had been missing. There is nothing like hearing five other writers read something you’ve written, tell you what they like, and then–of course–tell you what they don’t like (yet). Nothing like scribbling furiously into your notebook and their critiques turn into conversation–a back and forth brainstorming about each other’s suggestions for improving your story. Realizing that you’ve been hiding from some big truths about your manuscripts, facing those truths, and having immediate flashes of ideas for revision.

Nothing.

When I got back from the workshop, I started revising, but I also got serious about looking for a new group. It wasn’t easy. Okay, it was hard. It meant putting myself out there again–physically and emotionally. It meant facing rejection, and it meant restarting my search. Where I had felt cozy and comfortable in my revision space before, now I felt lonely. I had re-woken up to knowing that the revising I was doing on my own wasn’t going to be good enough, and I had to push myself away from the feeling that I was wasting my time to even try. And I had really big goals/high standards for critique partners; while that was right and important for me, it didn’t make it any easier to find a group I wanted to join.

As I said, I was lucky that I found a group. I also, though, worked at it. And kept working at it. And, I think, if I had a key to the Tardis, I’d probably go back to writing the critique group book and talk a little more about that. About the time it may take you to find a group, about the awkwardness and fear you’re going to experience, about how you have to juggle the search with continuing to write. And, most important: that once you find the right group–you won’t have a single regret about taking on those challenges.