Party x12

12 months
12 first drafts (and a few revisions)
12 reasons to party

Well I certainly didn't make it easy for myself to complete this challenge, falling more than half a year behind.

Since October however, I really floored it, putting the pedal to the metal and coming home with a wet sail (and thankfully reserving the flurry of cliches for this blog post rather than polluting my precious manuscripts).  Thanks to #FirstDraftFriday (which had an official participant count of 1), I've managed to sneak in with my 12th draft just before the year ended and now it's time to party!  Actually, I think I missed the official party, but that's the beauty of the internet... celebrations can be asynchronous.  So in the words of Bill & Ted:

PiBoIdMo 2012

Picture Book Idea Month was a little more difficult this year (as compared to my debut effort last year) but I'm not one to give up on a challenge and got there in the end, so here is the pledge:

I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully executed
the PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,
and will, to the best of my ability,
parlay my ideas into picture book manuscripts.

Time to get unbogged

My 12x12 Draft Mobile well and truly bogged in the mud

I knew I had left this blog without a post for a while, but I didn't realise it was quite this long!

*Blows off cobwebs*

For a very brief summary of what I have (or rather, haven't been up to), you can have a look at my very first guest blog as a recent Tuesday 12x12 author on Julie Hedlund's blog.

Thanks to Julie's prompt to submit my guest blog and the support of my fellow 12x12ers helping to push, pull or prod me out of the mud, I am looking forward to embracing a new bog-free writing experience.

Today, I decided that if I really am to catch up on the commitment I made to 12x12 in 2012, I really need to rev up the engine.  To that end, I've decided to schedule a First Draft Friday into my calendar.  If you're a fellow 12x12 laggard, feel free to jump aboard the Draft Mobile and the new  #FirstDraftFriday hash tag on Twitter and check-in with your progress.

What is First Draft Friday?  Exactly what the name implies... committing (to yourself) to get the first draft down on paper for at least one story.  And staying up as late as necessary in order to do it.

Manuscripts on display

A big thank you to Georgie at Creative Kids Tales for the honour of being selected as this month's featured emerging author.

CKT is a great initiative for Australian kidlit and I am thankful that I managed to get in on the ground floor.  The manuscript for Scruffy McPaw's Chasing Tale was my submission for the site's launch and my January effort for the 12x12 in 2012 challenge produced this manuscript for School Teacher vs Zoo Keeper, which is my latest submission to CKT.

1 down... (at least) 11 to go

So PiBoIdMo 2011 was a barrel of laughs and now it's time to roll up the sleeves and get stuck into more serious fun and possibly even <gasp> some revisions.

Thanks to Julie Hedlund for extending the picture booking writing challenge... 12 manuscripts in 12 months.

More about 12x12 in 2012 here.

I'm happy to report that month 1 has been a resounding success.  One new manuscript, built on a PiBoIdMo idea, has been drafted, reviewed, gone through critique group, tweaked a little more and securely backed up in triplicate.  Wish me luck for the other 11 months... might even run off now to get a head start on the February manuscript.

Too many email accounts?

Think you've got too many IM and twitter accounts, email and snail mailboxes?

Spare a thought for dogs. They have a pee-mail inbox at every tree, shrub, lamp post, bin, etc. etc. in a 5 block radius (plus a few stowed away at holiday destinations) and they just have to check each and every one, each and every time they go past. Not negotiable.



Checking pee-mail



Okay, so pee-mail doesn't really exist, but it makes us humans feel better to anthropomorphise their behaviour (just as we do in so many picture books) just so that we can understand it ourselves. 

If you're interested in a more scientific theory of why dogs pee on trees, I found one here:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-puppy-my-self/201001/why-do-dogs-mark-their-territory

Happy Christmukah

During the week, my family attended the Chanukiah lighting ceremony at our local shopping centre. This was on level 2. Directly below on level 1, Santa was posing for photos with the kiddies.

Of course, there was only one eventuality for a Jewish family in a commercial Christian society... we attended the Chanukah ceremony and gave in to our daughter's demands to say hi to Santa on the way out. 'Tis the season.

Happy Christmukah everyone.