Moni Ritchie Hadley
  • Home
  • Bio
    • Interviews & Blog visits
  • Books
    • THE STAR FESTIVAL Lessons & Activities
    • ANZU AND THE ART OF FRIENDSHIP Lessons and Activities
    • MISO MAGIC Lessons and Activities
  • Illustration
  • School Visits
    • FREEBIES!
    • Diversity Handout
  • WKN! Scholarship
  • Blog
    • Cabana Room >
      • Writers' Nook
      • Teachers' Room
      • Parents' Planet
      • Students' Corner
  • Contact
    • SHOP

2019 - The Year of "It" Happening

8/7/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
Although I signed my book contract in 2020, 2019 was the "it" year. The events of 2019 propelled forward the culminating years of writing. If you've ever had that feeling of flying in a dream. That year felt like the moment of liftoff. There were some false starts - several of them, but momentum was gaining with the near misses of that year. 
With time permitting, I immersed myself in webinars, conferences, contests, and submissions. There was Julie Hedland's 12 Days of Christmas, a Picture Book Hook webinar by Emma Watson Hamilton, Picture Book Palooza, Vivian Kirkfield's 50 Precious Words contest, Making Room for Rhyme contest, PBChat, PBParty, and submissions to twenty agents that year. A few requested more work. I won one of those contests and was a runner up and a finalist in two others. But it didn't matter if I had won or not. The activity gave me the energy to keep moving forward. More importantly, the year felt like a dream come true. I was not published or agented, but I was able to spend every day doing what I wanted to be doing –writing stories!

There were a couple of big moments in 2019, the summer SCBWI conference, and a class I took with the Children's Book Academy. The summer conference was overwhelming, as I knew it would be, but the benefits far outweighed the exhaustion I felt afterward. My "aha" moment occurred after seeing editor, Alynn Johnston, speak. LAYERS! She talked about weaving the layers in a story, and she read stories with such enthusiasm! I thought about my manuscripts. How could I reach kids on many levels with such minimal text? 
The idea of LAYERS pestered me because I did not know how to make it work in the story I was writing. I then signed up for The Craft and Business of Writing Picture Books course. It was a six-week intensive. This course was key. It offered instruction and critiques, some of which I had heard before, but excuses aside, I buckled down and did the work. A guest editor's advice was to add a bit more plot to my concept book. She also wanted me to specify the festival. In my mind, "a festival was a festival." But I took her advice and began digging. As I researched the many Japanese festivals I had attended as a child, the layers of my story emerged. With the help of my critique partners and groups, the manuscript developed from a 200-word concept book called BABY UNDERSTANDS, to A 500-word picture book, then titled KAI AND OBA, later changed to KAI'S BRIDGE, and finally to a 700-word picture book called THE STAR FESTIVAL.
​
The class also offered exposure to agents and editors. My pitch caught the attention of an agent that I did not sign with (near-miss), and the editor from Albert Whitman & Company. My foot was in the door … "IT" was happening!


TAKE AWAY: 
Immerse yourself in your passion.
Persist!

Live life as if you ARE the person you want to be!

1 Comment
Manyak Translations link
8/23/2023 08:40:00 am

Awesome blog yyou have here

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Path To Publication

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    Inspiration is Infectious
    Booksellers Tell Us
    Miso Magic Cover

    Kidlit Creatives
    10 Ways to Support Authors
    Revision in a Hospital Room​
    ​Librarians Tell Us

    Kidlit Authors Trivia Quiz Path 2 Health-Plot Diagr​am
    Write Kidlit Scholarship
    ​Books 4 Indecisive Artist
    Top 5 Creativity Boosts
    ​Explore!
    Getting An Agent
    ​1st Draft to Published
    ​What's Next?
    The Year of Travel
    The Year of Change
    The Year of Critiques.
    ​The Year I Made It Back!
    ​The Year of Breakups
    The Year of Inspiration
    ​
    The Year of Firsts
    The Year "It" Happened
    Long Beginnings

    All

    By Date

    September 2024
    July 2024
    March 2024
    December 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    April 2023
    February 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020

    Picture
Photos from shixart1985, shixart1985
  • Home
  • Bio
    • Interviews & Blog visits
  • Books
    • THE STAR FESTIVAL Lessons & Activities
    • ANZU AND THE ART OF FRIENDSHIP Lessons and Activities
    • MISO MAGIC Lessons and Activities
  • Illustration
  • School Visits
    • FREEBIES!
    • Diversity Handout
  • WKN! Scholarship
  • Blog
    • Cabana Room >
      • Writers' Nook
      • Teachers' Room
      • Parents' Planet
      • Students' Corner
  • Contact
    • SHOP