Anticipations

Things are changing. The weather kicked into fall gear last night as if someone handed in a calendar informing the storm patterns that most kids are either in school already, or almost. For us, we have one more week.

This morning as I helped my kids get ready for church, my first grader twins kept asking if school was tomorrow. They're so excited. The bus. Lunch at school. Friends, friends and more friends.

We've got the old tennis shoes replaced with new ones. All the boys have haircuts. The backpacks are waiting with baited breath. It's almost here.

They're ready.

And that's about how my contract for the second book of Alvor is right now. It's been edited, several times. Revised some more. And now, we're on our last go-through. Sometime this week I'll hopefully have the last editing suggestions. It's almost there.

Hmm, wish I could say the same thing for the book my agent is shopping out. Wouldn't that be AMAZING?! Someday. It will happen.

The SCBWI conference here in Boise is September 11 at BSU. Here's a peek at some of the guests...

Cheryl Klein, senior editor at Scholastic
Jill Corcoran, agent at the Herman Agency

And I get to present too. I'm excited.

And speaking of things I'm excited about, we're taking the kids to Idaho Falls in a couple weeks for my niece's wedding. Uhm, so, my kids will be in school for three days before we pull them out of school for a five-day weekend. Yeah. Oh well. Hopefully it's warm enough to use the outdoor swimming pool at the hotel.

I'm also very jazzed about the ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of THE SCORCH TRIALS by James Dashner. I still can't believe Random House sent me a free book just because I asked nicely. Totally cool. I feel like I'm cheating. I got a free book AND I didn't have to wait until October when it's going to be released. No guilt here at all. Nope. Just pure joy.

Be expecting a book review coming soon. I've never posted a review for any of James's books, so this will be fun. My son who is now in 8th grade did a book report project when he was in 4th grade of one of James Dashner's A DOOR IN THE WOODS books. Back then I had no idea that I would someday write books and that James would become one of my friends. Life is full of wonderful surprises.

Aaah. It's good to realize how many things I have to be excited about. And that's only a few. The more I think about good things, the more ideas start piling up in my head. I could write a whole book on it... don't worry... if I do, I won't make you read it.