NINE MONTHS OF BUILDING MY WRITING...MY BABY!

Here's what I've managed to keep track of in the past nine months...good chance of missing something, but I'll do my best not to:

• Completed the 50000-word version of my YA mystery / thriller, ONE WAY TICKET
• Joined several writing organizations--SCBWI, CAA, FEDBCW, and PNWA. Have learned a lot from them already.
• Wrote a "dissection" nonfiction book about the writing technique found in the prologue of Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting.
• Wrote a novella called DATESASTERS that I'm aiming at Orca Books hi-lo market.
• Wrote two picture books--one that I changed to a prose form instead of its original verse form, IF VOLCANOES SPEWED TOMATOES, and the other, an updated fairy tale: JOANIE ARK: DRAGON SLAYER.
• Completed NINE new poems and several original mashups of older work.
• Completed major research and the first hundred pages or so of my new novel, a medieval fantasy, ARIETTA: SUMMER OF BLADES.
• Wrote a short story, "Black and White Negatives," and completed four different versions of it--3500+ words, under 3000 words, under 2500 words, and under 2000 words--to ensure it qualified for entry into different contests. An excellent exercise in culling, to be sure.
• Did research in a way I've never before attempted for a new novel I'm planning and have banged out about 10 000 words of: GANGSTER GIRLFRIEND.
• Did research in a way I've never before attempted for a new novel I'm planning and have banged out about the first 10 000 words for... STACK THE DECK: NEW DIRECTIONS.
• Did research in a--well, you get it by now--for another new novel I've been playing with: THE PRIMORPHIANS: MILLA'S STORY.
• Completed a 10000-word chapter book, THE ABRACADABRA AMULET, which is to be the first of a series entitled The Arkymalarky Adventures of Ackamarackus Artleby (Acker, for short!).
• Planned out a girl's chapter book series which I'm calling THE GALAXY GIRLS. First book planned, and in the process of being written now. 
• Wrote a cascade poem--a new form for me--and LOVED the result!
• Created two chapbooks of poetry to enter into contests: KALEIDOSCOPE: Bright Lives Broken, and ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN.
• Took Food Network's Spice Goddess  Bal Arneson's rough notes and story and rewrote it into a compelling memoir, VILLAGE GIRL. 
• Started submitting my work more seriously--my goal in 2011 was to enter at least 12 writing contests, at a rate of one per month. By the end of July now, I've entered 14! 
• Started submitting my poetry to higher level literary journals as of June 29th. I started with four different sets of poems to four different journals I love: Fiddlehead, Event, Capilano Review, and Antigonish Review. I feel it's at a level now where it belongs...maybe those rejections won't be so automatic...maybe some published works may result from it--we'll see...
• Oh, and I have one VERY exciting piece of news, although I'm not sure if it's too early yet to tell it...