For about two weeks now, I’ve been researching a new picture book tentatively titled “Cave Below.” No, I didn’t do all of the research in two weeks. This one has been rattling around in my head for a couple of years. I just finally got serious and decided to get it done so I’ve been reading about the history of a cave, the geology and the chemistry involved.
With pages of notes, it was time to outline. One of the best ways to outline a picture book manuscript is the storyboard. For those of you who have never worked up a storyboard, it is a worksheet, or board, that allows you to mock-up a picture book so that you can see the entire thing on one page. I don’t like working on something as small as a sheet of printer paper. My storyboard is a piece of cardboard that was used to cover a mirror in shipment.
Why bother with a storyboard? The great thing about using a story board is that I can see right away if I have enough scenes for a whole picture book.
But before I can lay things out, I need to transfer some of my notes onto post-it notes. I fill out a post-it note/or part of a note, for each scene. Then I take my storyboard and put everything in place.
Some people prefer to do this on a worksheet. I like this post-it note approach because I can re-arrange things as needed. When you’re writing a nonfiction book about a process, the order of the scenes is determined by the process itself. The problem is that no single source talked about the entire process depicted in my book.
Because of this, I’m having to mesh what one source gives me with another. In this case, it meant shifting what was initially scene 2, or the second speadk down the board so that it becomes spread 5.
Now that I have the storyboard, I’m ready to write.
–SueBE
u have a Twitter account, you do. All you have to do is search #MSWL. If that doesn’t look familiar, it should. It stands for Manuscript Wish List. 
About two weeks ago, I blogged about not being able to find time to work on two new projects — a novel called Iron Mountain and a nonfiction picture book about a cave. Since then, I’ve worked on these projects 10 minutes per day, Monday through Friday. Has that little amount of time been worth my while?
Way back in the olden’ days, translation: the early 2000s, I had some spiffy manuscript tracking software. It was written by someone in my critique group and had fields for manuscript title, editor/agent, and publisher/agency. It also pinged mercilessly to remind you when you needed to follow up on something. Unfortunately, my friend decided that it was a huge hastle to update the software every time Windows updated.
I currently have queries out to two agents. They’ve had my work for almost a week and my patience is waning. Yep, I’m a total three year-old that way. I’m pitching Puke-ology (chapter book nonfiction) and am eager to get a pitch out to another agent who represents picture books.
And, I get that. I reeeee-eeeeee-eeeeally do. But have we covered how like a three year-old I am? This agent is only taking work through the month of January. Pbbbt. In reality I should look and see if she’s a good fit for Puke-ology. I know she reps picture books but if she only reps picture books, she really wouldn’t be a good fit for me. See how nicely I’ve argued myself into agreeing with the agent. Yep. I knew she was right all along but my inner three year-old had to get a word or two into the discussion.
John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature:
Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children:
Medal Winner: March: Book Three by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell (Top Shelf Productions). 
One of my favorite home and how-to bloggers is Karen. She will tackle just about anything in her blog, The Art of Doing Stuff. She’s laid a patio, put in a pond, built a chicken coop and installed shelving with hidden storage. One of the things that she does every year, and challenges her readers to tackle too is to throw away 50 things.
Perhaps because I’ve been judging a series of flash fiction contests, I’ve been noodling over ideas for short stories and articles. In the last four years, my writing career has taken off and I’ve been writing a lot of books. I turned in my 11th right before Christmas. But before that I did a lot of shorter work and the reality is that I miss writing short.
It is so surreal to have a book out about the same thing as a major motion picture. I just had someone e-mail me a question about one of the women in the movie.
Seriously, my plan is not to report on only markets this week but when I see an announcement about a press or editor I love? Yep. You’re going to hear about it.
One Writer's Journey 