Drawing on inspiration

My kids inspired some of my writing that had been published by Babybug and Ladybug magazines. I wish I could say they had inspired me to draw and do art more too. I really wish I had drawn a picture of them at least once a year.

Alas, I'm a slacker and could only find a handful of sketches I did of my (very cute…not that I'm biased or anything) sons.

One of the first sketches I did was of Son1 when he was a baby:

And because he slept a lot, I did another sketch of him napping:

Fast forward 14-15 years, Son1 again:

This was of my younger son when he was about 5:

And again at around age 12:

Not sure when this was from:

You can see the details better if you click on the photo to enlarge.

Do your kids inspire you to do creative things? Do tell!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

And the Un-Birthday gift goes to....

Because there wasn't a whole lot of entries in the Un-Birthday giveaway, I went and did a double-randomization drawing whereby I first printed out a list of the entrants:

Then, I snipped the names into strips and tossed them into a heap. Without looking, I drew out names one by one and numbered them by the order in which I drew them out:

Oddly enough, #10 remained #10...

Lastly, the fun geeky part, I went to Random.org and asked the site to choose a number between 1 and 10. It picked....(click to enlarge photo)

So, that meant the prize goes to...

Woohoo!! Sylvia Liu, come on down! You're the next contestant on The Price is Right!!

Ooops, did I just let slip how much time I spent watching that show when I was growing up? I blame my mom who watched game shows to learn English (I was rather shocked at how many of the dirty jokes she understood on Match Game!), so I had to watch them with her. ;)

I'm glad these contributor's copies

that have been sitting in my file cabinet will go to a new home. Hope you'll like them, Sylvia!

Have I been promising to tell you about the Wild, Wild Midwest SCBWI Conference I attended that first weekend in May, which now seems like forever ago? I think I mentioned it was fabulous, didn't I? Well, it really was. I thought my head was going to explode with information, and new faces and names to memorize, and trying to fight off Morpheus, the powerful god of sleep.

Some of my favorite talks were given by the one and only Lin Oliver (co-founder of SCBWI), the incomparable Jane Yolen, and the uber talented Peter Brown, of whom I am now a huge fan-girl.

It was great to connect with old friends like Alina Klein, Kristi Valiant, Cindy Kump, and my lovely critique group partner, Jo Branham. And it was equally great to meet new friends like Sheralyn Barnes and Troy Cummings, who are both fabulous illustrators (you should check out Troy's new book, Giddy-Up, Daddy!), plus fellow 12x12'ers like Lori Mozdzierz, Susan Halko, Val McCammon, and Shannon Abercrombie!

There are some gems in those talks too...but I've still not gone through my notes yet, so can't share any interesting tidbits. Maybe next time?

Hope your week is a good one; I have grand plans for an extensive Spring cleaning. Woohoo.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

An Un-Birthday Giveaway + more!

This is the week I turn 49. Yeah...yay. You can tell I'm just beside myself with joy. Rather than focus on my unfortunate predicament, I'm going to hold an un-birthday giveaway (since today is not my birthday). I'll refer you to Alice in Wonderland in case you don't know what an un-birthday is.

It's not a spectacular giveaway (I'll save that for my 50th un-birthday), and those without younger kids probably won't be interested, but it's my un-birthday and I can give away what I want to. ;)

The prize will be 3 Ladybug and 2 Babybug magazines that have my poetry (I don't think they're my *best* poetry, but Cricket Magazine Group editors thought they were good enough to publish, and that's fine with me).

Since I have no idea how to work Rafflecopter, I'll have to do it the old-fashioned way: you'll have to just leave a comment, or email me if you can't seem to get Disqus to work for you, and I'll put all your names in a container and pull a name out. Or if I get really organized, I will pull all the names out to assign each a number and then use Random.org to pull out a number.

I'll do the drawing on Sunday evening, May 19th, 2013, and post the winner on Monday, May 20th. This is opened to everyone anywhere in the world, not just U.S. and Canada.

So, I lied last week when I said I'd have some thoughts on the SCBWI Midwest Conference to share this week. I decided to pre-empt it for the giveaway...which will give me a topic to post about next Monday, after announcing the winner.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! (Did that make me sound like a cheesy infomercial?)

If you write non-fiction picture for kids, or want to, there is going to be an event running July 1-7, 2013, called WoW Non-fiction (Week of Writing Non-Fiction). It's like a 7-day NaNoWriMo but for writing non-fic picture books. It's totally free to join in the fun, but, and here's where it deviates in a great way from NaNoWriMo, you get to win fabulous prizes such as writing classes, critiques, and more!! It's like getting something for nothing, and how often in life does that happen? I'll be participating and hope you will too.

Okay, now leave me a comment; tell me anything that's on your mind. :) I'll answer any and all questions and put you in the drawing for those 5 magazines.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams