I had a good weekend. I went up to Tahoe and did some snowboarding on Saturday. And Sunday I did some spring cleaning and touch up painting around the house. I didn't get much creative stuff done other then reading a YA book titled Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by ANN BRASHARES . (which I considered as research- maybe that's kind of cheating, but lets call it research anyway). I sent out a few more manuscripts and dummy books and still have a few more that still need to be sent out. They are hitting the mail stream in a trickle. I also met up with the Children's Art Director at Chronicle Books and personally handed her my story, so at least I know that someone there will definitely look at it. Hopefully things will go well.

On a whim I have decided to apply for the SCBWI Don Freeman Grant. The grant is given to picture-book artists to further their understanding, training, and work in the picture-book genre. It is available to all artists, seriously intended to make picture books their chief contribution to the field of children's literature. The "Prize" is $1,500. and one Runner-Up Grant of $500. Not a ton of money but every bit counts. And besides it would be pretty good to put on my resume.
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2004 Grant Winners: Matt Phelan and runner up Jaime Zollars
2003 Grant Winners: Anik McGrory and runner up Sarah Brannen
2002 Grant Winners: David J. Udovic and runner up Daniel Santat
2001 Grant Winners: Theresa Smythe and runner up Lisa M. Kopelke
2000 Grant Winners: Yuyi Morales and runner up Amy Loeffler
1999 Grant Winners: Lisa Cinella and runner up Beth Royalty
1998 Grant Winners: Sheryl Daane Chestnut and runner up Emmie Hsu
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Now as far as the current story I've been working on. Well to put it simply I'm in a RUT. I have the beginning written of 2 stories for my main character. But I don't have ends for either of them. I am having trouble coming up with the ending. I have been thinking about this for the last 2 weeks and feel like I've hit a wall. On top of that I'm suppose to share this story next week with my Tue. Night class (and am suppose to send it via e-mail to my instructor by Friday. --that's 2 days away!!). So you could say that I'm a little stress. Yes, I know that the class is suppose to help me brainstorm, but I feel like I need to show up with a little more then what I have. So I guess I'm going to be really busy tonight and tomorrow. Perhaps having motivation to get an ending by Friday could be a good thing. For some strange reason I always work better under deadlines.

Well I guess that' it for now. I'll let you know how it goes

 

 

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