More Reading Material - Children's Books

I went back to the library yesterday to drop off some of my due books and picked up a few more. I decided to grab a few by Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein since I want to write more like them.

Jack Pretulsky: My Parents Think I'm Sleeping and My Dog May Be a Genius
Shel Silverstein: Where the Sidewalk Ends and Falling Up

I didn't want to deprive everyone of their books so I just checked out a couple of each. Though, there were quite a few with Jack's name on them. I know I have read him before, but I don't think I realized how much he has written. It is going to be fun to read through these poems again. I know I remember some of Shel's and I hope They are in these books. I was never good at remember where I saw each poem. I remember the Boa Constrictor one but haven't come across it yet.

Well, less writing and more reading now.

Side note: I remember Jack Prelutsky most for being on the kid's tv show: Arthur and reading "Jellyfish Stew".

Job Interview and Outdoors

I had a job interview today at SF Globe. I'm not sure it went very well. I think I presented myself well, but when it came down to do some work on the spot vocally, I froze up a bit. It would be an interesting job. I'll have to wait and see if anything comes of it. My upcoming short trip to Chicago could be a deciding factor, though, because the day I get back is the day they would want the new people (person?) to start training.

Random house I think looks cute.

As I was walking back, I took some pictures because it is just so beautiful outside. It is California after all and the weather has been pretty nice. This area is also just plain pretty too. Below are just two other shots I took on the way home. It is funny, there is this one house on this block I walk by that has all these tall palm trees along two sides of it (the sides by the road) and there are not any other trees this tall anywhere nearby. They must have put them up special or something. The other image is just this swing that is sitting in this little island area between two cul de sacs. There is also a bench. It is a cute little area. I'm not great at using my iPhone to take pictures. I'm hoping if I keep using it to take photos for my blog posts I'll get better. Hopefully. I get kind of embarrassed when I take photos with my phone, so I guess I should just get over that. Today, I did get over my fear of looking at books in the kids section of the library and actually checked some out. Not sure it counts, I guess, because I wrote down the numbers and ran over and grabbed them. So I didn't hang out there for very long. I'll talk about them when I've had a chance to look at them.

I start a lot of sentences with "I". Feeling a little self-centered. Maybe I should talk in third person.


Palm trees are tall
I like swings and this is a cute one

Reading and Writing

Image from Chronicle Email

Was busy for a bit, but I'm back to write again. I'm never sure what to write about, but since it is for myself, I guess it shouldn't matter. I thought I would write about some books I have been reading (and wanting to read). Since leaving my job I have been on the hunt for an editorial position. It's difficult. There are a few places I really, really want to work, but there are a lot of people applying and I spent the last three years doing community management which doesn't quite bump me to the top of the list. Anyway, I went to a talk at the Chronicle Books store last month and I found it really interesting. The two individuals from Chronicle that came to talk were Children's Publishing Editor Melissa Manlove and Children's Publishing Designer Ryan Hayes. I know I want to write, but I've never really known what I want to write. I never even considered children's books because I just didn't think of it. I used to write poetry in the past, but I fell out of it after college. And now that I look at children's books, a lot of it is fun poetry. After listening to the talk, it really made me want to get into writing and, specifically, writing for children's books. I have a few ideas I want to work with, but I feel I need to get them ironed out before I can even start writing them. To help get me started, I started looking into books on writing and books on writing for children's books.

Image from Amazon

I wanted to start at the beginning, so I went to the writing section of the library and found Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing by Mignon Fogarty. It was a really good refresher of the basics and had some good lists of other books and people to check out. After finishing that up, I decided to get more specific and found How to Write a Children's Book and Get It Published by Barbara Seuling. Another great book with helpful information and more names and more books to check out. It was a little old, but still had helpful information that is still relevant to children's book writing. It gave me a better idea of how children's books are broken up and how and where to focus. My plan is go get into writing picture books. If only I could do art too, that would be pretty awesome. I can't remember if I was able to finish this one, but I would love to get my own copy sometime. I think I've only made it through Chapter 9 so far and would like to read it all. Though, at the end of the book it talks more about submitting your manuscript and I know I'm still a ways off on that.

I've also been pursuing 88 Money-Making Writing Jobs by Robert Bly and How to Write Short Stories that Sell by Louise Boggess. You can see in the image there are more books, but I haven't gotten a chance to read them yet, so I have nothing to say on them. I got some other books from the library, but have certainly bitten off more than I can chew so I'm just working through what I can while I have all this free time on my hands. Which will hopefully be cut short as soon as I can get an editorial position.

I have also been reading Heat Wave by Richard Castle. I love the show and after picking up some of these books at the library I was just checking out the "What's New" section and saw some Richard Castle books. I didn't know any were actually published so I just had to check it out. I decided to skip Derrick Storm and skip right to Nikki Heat. The book was a little hard for me to get into at first, but I think as more has developed I've gotten more into it. Not done yet, but I'm hoping it is good so I can try more in the series. Guess it is back to reading for now!