A Letter to Running

Dear Running, 

 I have a love/hate relationship with you.  

Things I like about you:

• You make me feel good, refreshed, energized.
• You make me lose weight. (or fat, actually)
• Feeling proud to say, "yeah, I run."
• Seeing the beauty of nature around me.
• Jammin' to my 80's cardio playlist.

Things I'm not so fond of:

• You make me sweaty.
• If I've been away from you for a while, you make me feel old and creaky. In other words, sore.
• You are time-consuming, and I already have trouble with managing my time.
• I'm sure you make me look ridiculous. (I have a feeling I am an awkward runner...)
• Did I mention the sweaty part? Yeah, and I turn super bright red. NOT attractive!
• Also, when I am home with the kids alone, I can't get up and go while they are sleeping, they have to go with me. They throw off my pace, and we always get distracted and stop a few (hundred) times.

Well, no matter what our relationship, I have decided to become buddies with you again. I am participating in the Blue Bell Fun Run 10K tomorrow, (http://www.bluebellfunrun.com) and I am wondering if I am ready for it. We'll see come tomorrow... In my "training" I have only run for just over four miles, the 10K is 6.22 miles. Hmmmm, slightly worried. I just haven't had enough time to run the full six, take a shower and continue with my day, you are just difficult to fit in! Here's the course: what do you think?

My goal this weekend is to finish in 60 minutes. Then, as a reward, I will get to eat all the Blue Bell ice cream I want. That's fair. Don't even try to make me feel guilty. I am taking my mother-in-law and the boys with me up to Brenham and Spencer is participating in the kids 1-mile race. I am pretty excited for him. I have a feeling he's going to have the same torrid relationship with you as I do. He is pretty sure he's going to win the race, but when I see him run (especially lately, in baseball) it's as if he's going in slow motion. I really do hope he does well and likes you after this event.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know where you and I stand. It feels good to get some of this off my chest. Please be good to me and I will try and keep you in my life. We are good for each other, you know.

Yours Truly, 

Jennifer

I'm not UNpublished, I'm PREpublished!

So, I go to the SCBWI Houston conference last Saturday and I loved it! We have SUCH a great chapter here and I am SO thankful for all the hard work they put in to pull together a winning bunch of speakers and presenters.  WOW! I learned a ton.

Here are some of the highlights, because, I if I can do one thing well, it's ramble. Here goes the cutting it short:

Conference Speakers
From left to right: Susan Sherman, Kathleen Ortiz, Jenne Abramowitz,
Dan Yaccarino, Heather Alexander, Connie Hsu, Jennifer Rofé

First off, the keynote speaker was Dan Yaccarino, he was simply fabulous. He has written or illustrated over 13 children's books, worked on children's TV shows, and is just plain cool. You can visit his website here: http://www.danyaccarino.com  He was extremely funny and talked about how the simple word "yes" took him great places in his career.

Dan Yaccarino

We had two agents speak this year one was Jennifer Rofé, from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc. and the other one was Kathleen Ortiz from Nancy Coffey Literary Agency & Media Representation. They talked about the "So What?" Factor and Author websites respectively. Both presentations were VERY well done and gave me a lot to think about and more for my to-do list. (GET A WEBSITE!!!) Also, both were very fun and made me think, "I want an agent!"

Susan Sherman is an Art Director for Charlesbridge Publishing and she had a nice presentation about How Pictures Make the Words Work. I couldn't agree with her more. How I wish I had some sort of artistic talent and then maybe I could be the author/illustrator that so many "just plain authors" wish we could be! :)

We were lucky enough this year to get three top-notch editors to come and give us the low down on what is going on in the children's book market. Again, I loved them. They just oozed information that I desperately need and want to hear. Heather Alexander, from Dial Books for Young Readers, had a presentation entitled "The Hard Sell: How Publishers Sell Your Manuscript In-House and Out" It was a great insight into what editors are looking for and how they pitch your manuscript to the rest of the company.

Heather Alexander

Jenne Abramowitz is an editor for Scholastic and she is a native of Houston. I really enjoyed her talk about writing and publishing chapter books. Chapter books are the next step for kids who have moved past easy readers and are ready to read a bit more, but aren't ready yet for the middle grade novels. I have a feeling that someday soon, I might try my hand at writing a chapter book or two.

The last to speak was Connie Hsu, a bubbly, smiley young lady who's presentation was about "To Do or Not to Do: Knowing the Basics of Children's Book Writing" It was great, since I am still learning a lot of the basics and all.

I turned in a manuscript to be critiqued by a local author, Kathy Duval and an editor from the conference, Heather Alexander. Both of them had good things to say about my picture book. Many things they said I already knew weren't quite right yet and have to tweak, other suggestions were just what I needed to hear and still other suggestions weren't quite right for me. If I have learned anything so far in my journey it's that everyone has their opinions and you can't change what you are to please just that one person. Whew! So, no...no one offered me a contract for my book on site, so back to writing...my journey continues!

I will leave you with the reason for this title. Dan Yaccarino came back and closed out the conference with some great inspiring words. He said that by being at the conference we were doing what it takes to become published. He told us to keep learning and working at our craft because we aren't UNpublished, we are PREpublished authors and illustrators. I truly believe that quote was meant for me. I'm gonna run with that one!

Panel discussion with the speakers