JUST SAY NO TO NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS WITH THIRTY-ONE JUST FOR FUN

I offered my first THIRTY-ONE JUST FOR FUN CHALLENGE in 2012. Each year since, I have modified my original post and reposted it. Before I share the modified version, I’d like to thank everyone who has supported my blog throughout the year. I wish you all a very Happy New Year. May the new year bring each of you all that your heart desires.

Now for THIRTY-ONE JUST FOR FUN. . . .

A common question in life coaching is, “What’s the difference between a life coach and a therapist?” The answer goes something like this: Imagine you are driving a car through life with a psychotherapist as your driving instructor. The psychotherapist will spend a lot of time instructing you to look through your rearview mirror at where you have been. A “life coach” driving instructor will encourage you to look out your windshield at where you are going.

A NEGATIVE DRAIN

Today, I am going to swim against the life coaching current and ask you to look back at where you have been. New Year’s resolutions often have roots in the past. We look back, with a certain amount of regret, at what we failed to accomplish in the outgoing year. Focusing on our shortcomings, we resolve to make up for them in the New Year; usually with bigger and better plans than before. Although setting these goals can leave you feeling hopeful, looking back with self-judgment can sap your confidence and drain your spirit.

ENERGIZE YOUR SPIRIT

Instead of looking back at your shortcomings with regret, look back at your successes with confidence and gratitude. Looking back and acknowledging your accomplishments will give you the opportunity to celebrate your successes and energize your spirit as you look forward to your new year.

THIRTY-ONE JUST FOR FUN

Over the next couple of weeks, take some time to reflect on 2015 and list 31 things that you accomplished throughout the year. I hope you will celebrate your successes by coming back and sharing some of your discoveries in the comments section of this post or share them on your own blog. The most important part of this challenge is recognizing the positive, energizing events of 2015. Even if you are unable to list 31 achievements, come back and celebrate with us by bragging a little about your year.

QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU GET STARTED ON YOUR LIST

• How did you grow personally, professionally or as a writer?
• Did you have a positive impact on others?
• What writing skills did you learn or strengthen?
• Did you improve organizational skills?
• Did you find the secret to time management?
• Did you complete any writing challenges?
• Did you join any groups?
• What personal strengths did you gain?
• What goals did you achieve?
• What unplanned accomplishments did you achieve?
• What character qualities did you strengthen?
• Have you improved your communication skills?
• Have you gotten better at saying no to others, to yourself, or to activities that drain you?
• What acts of kindness did you share?
• What special, memory building moment did you have with family, friends, writing groups, by yourself and so on?
• Did you submit any of your writing? If you want to challenge yourself to submit more in 2016 join my Sub Six private manuscript submission support group on Facebook.
• Did any submissions get accepted for publication?
• Did you get any rejections with encouraging notes?
• Did you find a positive way to accept rejections?

For tips on celebrating your achievements see CELEBRATE YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS BIG AND SMALL. Be sure to scroll down to the section about the achievement jar, so you can celebrate all through 2016.

Below I share ten of my thirty-one achievements.

1. I started 2015 with my first SCBWI annual winter conference in New York where I met many of my friends in person for the first time, including four out of six of my Penguin Posse critique partners.
2. I developed a highly detailed picture book writing course. This was a long and challenging process that I must celebrate by sharing. I consider it a huge achievement. Yay!
3. I completed Renee LaTulippe’s fantastic course  The Lyrical Language Lab: Punching Up Prose with Poetry
4. I attended the excellent SCBWI workshop, Tammi’s Top Picture Book Writing Secrets with Tammi Sauer and Janee Trasler
5. I started art classes.
6. I completed Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen’s and Kami Kinard’s Kid Lit Summer School: The Plot Thickens
7. I helped as many fellow writers as possible with their manuscripts.
8. I learned to practice one of my favorite survival skills, which is write from the heart – submit with detachment.
9. I completed my 4th 12 X 12 writing challenge and my 5^th PiBoIdMo challenge.
10. I ended 2015 with a very successful launch of my picture book writing course ART OF ARC: How to Analyze Your Picture Book Manuscript (deepen your understanding of picture books written with a classic arc).

I’m already planning for next year. I recently signed up for the 2016 Big Sur at Cape Cod, Andrea Brown Literary workshop. This is doubly exciting for me because I will be meeting up with some of my Penguin Posse sisters once again.

Best wishes in 2016!

Read Full Post »

WIN A FREE POETRY COURSE! THE LYRICAL LANGUAGE LAB LAUNCH AND POETRY FRIDAY

My friend, Renée LaTulippe, is hosting Poetry Friday this week. Poetry Friday is a weekly meme in which lovers and advocates of children’s poetry share their own kids’ poems, poems by major kids’ poets, interviews, videos, and more. Join the fun! Click here to learn more about Poetry Friday and to find the hosting schedule.

Several months ago, if I had heard the words Poetry Friday, I would have ran in the opposite direction. But because I am one of the lucky few to beta test Renee’s new online class, I have mustered the courage to share a little of my poetry today. Before the ‘reveal,’ I want to introduce Renee’s course, THE LYRICAL LANGUAGE LAB: PUNCHING UP PROSE . . . WITH POETRY! 

I highly recommend this 4 week course. Editor, writer, and children’s poet, Renée LaTulippe, teaches the fundamentals of poetry for picture book writers, whether they plan to write in rhyme or not. The course covers basics such as meter, rhyme, and types of poetry, as well as techniques to bring poetic and lyrical language to one’s writing, both rhyming and prose. Renée will begin monthly classes in April 2014.

For the chance to win a FREE course and learn how to punch up your prose, just go comment on Renee’s giveaway post!

As you will see by some of my poems, I sometimes struggle with scanning beats or understanding stresses. But thanks to Renée’s course; her individual comments on each course participant’s work; her audio demonstrations of beats; and her great homework assignments, it is all starting to click for me. I finally have confidence that I can write rhyme, improve my poetry, and succeed in writing lyrical prose. Before this class, I had given up on writing rhyme and never dreamed of writing lyrical prose. Now, I dare to continue trying. The quatrains that I am sharing today show some of my first attempts in the course. They are from lessons two and four. The course offers 21 lessons. I thought it would be nice to show Renée’s excellent approach to helping her students understand what works and what doesn’t work and why. Therefore, I have included some of my poems that worked, some that didn’t quite work, and Renée’s comments on all.

LESSON FOUR

Alayne’s Anapestic Quatrain One

I see ice on my sill. Is this Texas?
It’s so cold, it’s so gloomy and dark
We had sunshine just yesterday noon
When we took a long walk in the park

Alayne’s Anapestic Quatrain Two

How I wish I had written The Elf on the Shelf
It’s a marketers dream to extreme
I am pleased my elf Blizzard arrived just in time
For some fun and some tricks – she’s a scream

Alayne’s Anapestic Quatrain Three

Can we mourn for a stranger, someone we don’t know?
Can a heart fall and break when a hero lets go?
Can a tear leave the eye on its own – will more flow?
I say yes, we are humans, our endless love grows

Renée: Well done, Alayne! You used headless and catalectic meter to good effect in the first quatrain with anapestic trimeter; a perfect mix of anapestic tetrameter and trimeter in the second; and perfect anapestic tetrameter in the third. WHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Alayne: Holy Moly! I got them all right, Renee LaTulippe????? A first. I know they aren’t the best poems in the world, but just to get my stresses right puts me on top of the world and gives me SO MUCH HOPE! It must be very rewarding as a teacher to see a student grow.

Renée:YES!!!! Alayne, it is exciting and rewarding indeed! And don’t worry about content now – we’re just working on stresses. It’s a big hurdle to get over, and you guys are all SAILING THROUGH!!!

LESSON TWO

Alayne’s Iambic Quatrain One

I have some friends who help me out
When I am feeling down
If not for them, I’d sit and pout
Instead, I am a clown

Alayne’s Iambic Quatrain Two

Although I’ve tried, I can’t write rhyme (Or: Although I’ve tried, I cannot rhyme)
I can’t hear stresses or the beat
I’m working hard and taking time
To study both iambs and feet

Alayne’s Iambic Quatrain Three

I write, not clean. You all know that.
Cobwebs are dangling. Soiled dishes are stacked
It’s time to feed my starving cats
My house is filthy, but my subs are tracked

Renee’s Comments for Lesson Two Iambic Quatrains

I hate to tell you this, but your first quatrain is PERFECT. Yup! That means you have to stop saying you can’t write rhyme! PERFECT.

The second quatrain is ALMOST perfect – just the last line is off because you have put a stress where it doesn’t belong on the second syllable of IAMB. The stress has to go on the FIRST syllable. You could fix that line with: to STUDy Iambs, MEter, FEET.

The first and third lines of the third quatrain are also correct. Lines 2 and 4 are where things get sticky. Line 2 starts with a stressed syllable instead of unstressed, and there are some extra beats. In Line 4, “my house is filthy” is correct, but then you have extra beats with “but my.”

Renee’s possible fixes.

I write, not clean. You all know that.
The cobwebs cling, the dishes stack.
It’s time to feed my starving cats.
A filthy house–but subs are tracked!

For the chance to win a FREE course and learn how to punch up your prose, just go comment on Renee’s giveaway post!

Read Full Post »