Comments on my Blog

     I'd be happy to receive and publish comments on the blog, but I want them signed. I just want to say that I won't publish any comments that are Anonymous. I've been getting a rash of those. Some seem legitimate and others are spam. So feel free to comment, but if you want me to publish your comments, you'll need to sign your name to them.

      In May, I spent three weeks working on a Work for Hire book for a book publisher. It will be part of a series about the history of the United States for fourth-sixth graders. The book I did was on the Colonization and Settlement of the New World. Unfortunately, I was supposed to pack all that information into 4000 words, and I had to include 9 sidebars of 50-100 words each, which had to be included in the word count. That gave me about 250 words per colony! The hard part wasn't writing 4000 words - that was a piece of cake. It was getting it down to that word count. It was like writing 13 books with the word count of one! I did get it finished and turned in on time. Now waiting to see if I need to do revisions.

     When I got this contract, I had already planned to be away seven days of those three weeks. I had the three day SCBWI conference in Ft. Wayne May 3-5, then I spent four days camping at Lake Erie over International Migratory Bird Day weekend. Got some nice bird photos, as well as photos of a baby fox. Will post some.