A Milestone!

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I am an aspiring writer (that's code for someone who likes to write stuff but has never actually been published). Well, this week I hit a milestone: I submitted my first manuscript!! AAAAHHHHH!

Scary stuff. Anyway, it's an exciting step for me to take. I decided to send it to Deseret Book, an LDS (Mormon) publishing company because the material is about the Mormon faith.

It's a book called, "The Grocery Store Under My Bed and 50 More Fun Poems for LDS Kids." Think Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" meets the "LDS Primary Children's Songbook." It's been about a year in the making, and I wrote around 65 poems and just picked my favorites.

The title poem is about a kid whose family keeps their food storage in his room- Latter-day Saints are big on food storage and it's kind of a running joke in the Mormon community that we put it wherever there's space!

Yes, I did the "artwork" on the front cover myself. I sketched illustrations for most the poems, not because I'm an illustrator (or an artist) by any stretch of the imagination, but just so that the publisher will have an idea of my vision for the illustrations. They're all pretty cheesy.

Anyway, now that I've sent my baby off to the big leagues, I'm working on a new project- a YA Fiction novel. Exciting, no? Well, it's one of those things where the characters are constantly writing their story in my head and I can't get them to shut up. Yes, apparently if you hear voices in your head it doesn't mean you're crazy, it means you're a writer. Well, that's what I tell myself, anyway! Just go with it, people.

Fortunately, it's an incredibly fun project and so it will hopefully keep me very busy in the 12 or so weeks that it will take to hear back from Deseret Book. Hopefully.

By the way, remember that surreal video clip I posted a few weeks ago? Well, last weekend I got to meet Jason F. Wright! As luck would have it, he was a presenter at that Time Out for Women conference that I attended. He spoke at the Friday evening session, which I didn't get to go to, so I was a little bummed because I had hoped to meet him. Then on Saturday I was sitting having lunch with my mom and stepmom and suddenly he comes walking in to the food court at the conference center. I had that, "Do I risk appearing weird and pushy and go introduce myself or do I not and then regret missing a great opportunity?" Yeah, I went with weird and pushy. Well, he was very kind and friendly and I was able to tell him how much he had inspired my writing. I went to sit back down and then he brought his sweet wife over to meet me! Such a pleasure. They are a great family, I can tell. :-)

I just feel like God has been whispering in my ear my entire life that I was meant to be a writer, and for some reason I'm just now listening. I know it will most likely be a long road (I have an empty frame all ready for that first rejection letter!) but I am just happy to walking it, one step at a time.

Join me, won't you? :-)