hello dear StoryClub Please send your girl some love...I've reentered the query trenches... sent 3 out yesterday...and have like 20 to go. One was to an agent who I live pitched to at the SCBWI summer conference who seemed excited about it... and of course, after I hit 'send' I started running the acronym in my head and realized how many times I've been calling it SCWBI (doesn't that sound better even though it doesn't make sense?) and also that I didn't put headers with page numbers on my writing sample. (side note: If anyone is looking for even more support, SCBWI virtual conference was actually really well run and super fun and easy to meet people). Anyway, I'm excited the actual writing is all me and the story is what I envisioned it to me years ago when I started it... and the query letter is so much better ... as for the synopsis? Well, that's still a beast of burden... Lastly, when i sent out a few queries earlier this year, for the first time, I broke out into hives. that hasn't happened...yet. 🍻to progress! What I learned for this time was to have something ready to go and work on so your not sitting there frozen in fear of rejection ... I mean of course we all want books that go big, but along the way, I've noticed that so long as I'm creative, I am well. and, if you're working on the next thing, it also has the added bonus of having something else to query. The other thing that's different is that I have since built up a writing/creative community that I'm not afraid to lean on. So, thank you all for this space, too! (and to @Angela Griffin for starting that neverending story at the perfect time!)

Guys, I sent out my first ever query letter this week! This is scary stuff 😬

I entered my first ever writing contest a month ago, the results came in today and I wasn't on the "podium"--which is totally fine with me. But my story was listed as an honorable mention! It was a fun contest, I'm not sure if I will or will not do it again. It was mainly just a means to exercise my writing muscles (or exorcize my writing demons, who's to say). 100 word limit, based on three prompts. I've attached a pdf of the story! If anyone is interested in giving feedback, please do! I was also given a rubric that showed me with scores how I did in different categories and I scored lowest in the Style category (meaning sentence structure, variety, and flow; as well as formatting). So if you need something specific to critique, I am looking to improve on that front!

I'm writing the climax of my novel right now and I had to share with someone what I accomplished today. I was dragging my feet a bunch this morning to get up and write something because I've been struggling with this climax. I have all of these scenes in my head and I'm terrified about getting the feelings wrong because I want it to be pretty emotional. I was kind of letting my perfectionist voice speak up a bit in my head and it made me nervous. But I sat down and got to work and a little over two hours later I have almost 3k words written. 😱 Might not be the best writing (YET) but I definitely cried so emotional scenes for the win! Now I have just a handful of thousands of words to my goal and a handful of days till the deadline. I'VE GOT THIS!!!!

My debut middle-grade novel is out. It's an action-comedy spy book called, Spy Sisters Versus Snake Ten Fangs. It's the first in a series, published by Shadow Mountain Publishing. It got good reviews from magazines like Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal and Kirkus. It's based on bedtime stories I told my kids.