Happy Fall, y’all!

Fall has been here for two whole days! 🍁 Who’s wearing sweaters, cooking chili, pulling out pumpkin decorations, and getting ready to watch football this weekend?? 🎃 🏈

Here in Florida, it pretty much still feels like summer, but the temps have been hovering in the mid-80s instead of the mid-90s, so I’ll take it!

I haven’t written a blog in awhile. Life has been a little crazy this summer. Sicknesses being passed around our household, travel, potty-training, preparing for my son to start preschool. There’s just always something to keep us busy around here!

But I thought I’d share a few fun writing/reading related things that have been going on. This summer, I received TWO full requests of my work from literary agents!! If you’ve ever been in the query trenches, you know a thing or two about rejection. And, believe me, I’ve received my share of rejections over the last year! So, to finally hear agents say, “Hey, I like this! Send me more of your work!”, is just an incredible feeling. One of these agents passed after about 6 weeks, which I know is common, but I’m still holding out hope for the other agent. She would be a dream to work with! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

I’m also anxiously waiting to hear about two stories I submitted to Highlights Magazine. Two of my submissions have been in an In-Progress status on their submission site for around 6 months now! I’ve submitted a few things to them in the past and gotten rejections quicker than this, so my fingers are crossed that maybe they will accept something I wrote this time around. I read Highlights as a kid and it would be so special to have something published with them!🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

As far as current writing, I’ve been a participant in Julie Hedlund’s 12×12 Picture Book Challenge this year, which pushes particpants to write 12 new picture book manuscripts in 12 months. So far, astoundingly, I’m on track! Just 3 more months/3 more manuscripts to go to hit this goal. We’ll see if I can pull it out!

And…I’ve recently started dipping my toes into middle-grade writing territory. I’ve written a prologue and two chapters so far, so I’m excited to see where this story might go. 🤓

I’m also preparing to participate in this year’s Fall Writing Frenzy contest again. I’ll be posting my entry here on my blog in about a week or so for that.

My son and I have taken lots of trips to the library, and Storytime has started back up, so we enjoy going to that a couple times a month. Here are some of the library books we’ve read recently:

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And a few of the most recent books I’ve read for myself too:

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Stay tuned for my Fall Writing Frenzy entry soon! Now go enjoy some fall activities for me! 🍁 I’m living vicariously through all y’all who live up north (even though I truly love the south! ☀️). 😉