2019 Successes

Each year I post about my successes for the year. This might seem braggy-McBraggerpants. But it’s part of a program I do each year called 12 Days of Christmas for Writers. Also, in general, I tend to be really hard on myself, focusing on all of the things I didn’t get done or obsessing about things that are out of my control. So it’s important for me to take this time to truly celebrate the successes!

2019 was unlike any year I’ve had so far. It was fast-paced, full of good things. I’m exciting by the all of the surprises that came my way this year. But I’m also relieved to see some good things happening, since it’s been more than 10 years since I’ve been taking my writing seriously. It’s about time!

A Debut Year

While WAIT, REST, PAUSE: DORMANCY IN NATURE wasn’t my first book, it is my first book that wasn’t a work for hire project. A lot of what I’ve done this fall has circled around this book and ushering it into the world. I’m thrilled with the way that the teachers, librarians, reviewers, and readers have embraced the book and I hope it will continue to find readers in the years to come.

Here is some of the attention it received:

* Kirkus Starred Review

* Kirkus 30 Most Anticipated Picture Books of Fall 2019

* Kirkus Best Books of 2019—Best Informational Picture Books List

* SLJ Bookshelf—featured book

Melissa Stewart named it on:

* 25 of the Best Expository Read Aloud Books

* Mock Sibert List for 2019

* Best STEM books of 2019

Betsy Bird had a lot of great things to say about it to:

* Favorite STEM books on Mixed Up Files STEM Tuesday

* 101 Great Books for Kids created by the Evanston Public Library

* 31 Days, 31 Lists—Fabulous Photography

* 31 Days, 31 Lists—Science and Nature

* 31 Days, 31 Lists—Nonfiction Picture Books

Events that I did connected to the book:

* One More Page Books—book launch party

* Scrawl Books—Double book event with Tracey Kyle

* Book No Further—Roanoke Book Launch Party

* Burke Centre Library Indie Author Day

* Politics and Prose—bookstore event and school visits in DC

* Signing at SCBWI Mid-Atlantic

* Hooray for Books—story time over Thanksgiving weekend

* Read Local presentation at VAASL

* SCBWI Local Writers presentation at VAASL

* NCTE Poetry Panel

Whew! And I wondered why I didn’t get as much writing done this year as I had hoped.

Notable 19s

My amazing debut group helped me through the year. I loved getting to celebrate our books together this year!

Writing connected to Notable 19s:

* SCBWI Highlighter article about debut groups in Fall 2019

* Introductory blog post

* 19 Tips for 2019 

Writing Publications that came out in 2019

* Four books in the Scholastic Get Ready to Code series 

These books also made it in the Scholastic Book Flyers—a dream realized!

* 2 new leveled readers (4 levels for each) for Nystrom

Online Writing

* ReFoReMo article on First and Last Lines in Picture Books—not a print publication, but still an article accomplished

* I wrote two biographies for a Women in Social Movements database on suffragists Elizabeth Ellsworth Cook and Mollie Best. They are available if you have a WASM database access.

Writerly Things

* Research—I did 10 different research trips (most locally) to prep for current projects or forthcoming projects.

* Did research for 4 different picture books.

* Completed 1 new picture book draft

* Did revisions on 3 different picture books

* Wrote 2 work for hire leveled readers (each reader had to be done on 4 levels, so this was 8 separate manuscripts)

* Submitted haiku to a contest (didn’t win)

* Wrote and submitted an article that will hopefully be forthcoming

* Did 3 big revisions on my YA novel.

Craft-Based Fun

I attended various conferences to help me with my writing in 2019.

* SCBWI Mid-Atlantic Annual Conference

* Nonfiction Beachside Retreat in Florida

* American Library Association Conference (where I saw my Scholastic books and Wait, Rest, Pause on display)

* Attended Newbery-Caldecott Banquet

* NCTE—While I also presented at this conference with some poets I admire very much, I loved getting to attend the Nonfiction get together headed up by my editor, Carol Hinz, and Chronicle’s Melissa Manlove.

* Webinars—I did SCBWI and 12×12 webinars from the comfort of my own house! Always a fun way to learn new stuff.

* Writing Retreat—I took a much needed writing retreat at the end of the year. I needed to refocus on my next steps for 2020. Many thanks to my hubby who didn’t hesitate at all when I suggested that I needed to do this.

Reading

Here’s what I read for the year, by the numbers. I was super-disappointed by some of these numbers and thrilled by others. I’m a member of a neighborhood book club (which keeps me reading adult fiction) and a Teachers as Readers book club at school. 

• 42 Middle Grade novels
• 296 Picture Books
• 4 Young Adult novels (I did read some nonfiction YA, which I included in my adult numbers)
• 4 Adult novels
• 22 Adult nonfiction books
• 12 Writing Craft or Productivity books

SCBWI

I am the Nonfiction Event Coordinator for the SCBWI Mid-Atlantic region and I put together or helped with several events this year.

* Nonfiction workshop with Candice Ransom

* 2 Workshop at the Library of Congress

* Workshop at the National Archives

* Workshop at the Smithsonian Libraries

Hollinsummer

I taught again at Hollins at a writing camp for teen girls. I’m the co-director and love getting to teach “big kids” in the summer while at my alma mater.

Day Job

I don’t write about my day job on this blog much, but I’m a librarian at an elementary school. Much to my surprise, I was honored as the Potomac Regional Librarian of the Year in March. The bonus was that I got to attend a banquet in Roanoke (where I used to live) with my parents to celebrate and Candace Fleming was the speaker.

Habits

Each year I like to tweak things to work better and more efficiently. Here are some things that were successful for me.

* Morning Pages

* 12 Week Year—I read this book in the fall and it really helped me structure my to do list differently.

* Weekly Review—I started doing a weekly review on Sunday evenings and afterwards, I plan for the week ahead.

Personal

This was one of the busiest years I’ve ever had! One of the promises I made to myself at the beginning of 2019 was that I would take care of myself and lost 40 pounds. There were lots of health reasons to do this, but an expected benefit was that I got to have enough energy to accomplish my writing goals.

I didn’t lost the full 40, but I’m ending 2019 36 pounds lighter than when I started.

It was a great year. Exhausting but great! One of my writing mantras is “Expect good things.” Many of the good things that came my way this year were wholly unexpected. I look forward to much more writing in 2020!