I actually miss the challenge of brainstorming a picture book idea every morning, but it is time to get on with doing something with all of those ideas now. Many of my ideas were about sharing Native American philosophy with children, and now I hope to do a series of children's books on that subject to follow the one I have already finished. Since I have yet to send the finished one out to potential publishers, I will now be able to add the idea of a forthcoming series to my queries, which hopefully will be viewed positively.
      My novel is also getting ready to hit the road. I have two people (OK, friends) reading it right now to offer me feedback, and have finished a complete edit of it myself. I submitted it the The Big Moose new novel competition last week, but unfortunately I did that while it still had a bad first paragraph. Already I think it was bad enough to get it tossed out immediately. I have been reworking the first paragraph this week, with the kind-hearted mentorship of Hallie Ephron. That slaughter of some of my ugliest babies will be the subject of my next post.
     I wrote one new poem this week which I will probably post after it is work-shopped in class tomorrow. I do like it though and was glad to get it down on paper. It had been percolating in my mind for a long time. Funny, there was a little Native American influence there too. Right now I am tweaking on older poem to read at the PPLP hoot this evening. It is one of my poems that I actually like and have read in December before; Mary's Travail.
     Finally, sent out one proposal this morning for The Prickly Pear Poetry Project (my non-profit foundation) to present our workshop at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in April. Stay tuned...