Good Friday and New Beginnings

I'm in Manteo with several members of my family this week-end. We have birthdays to celebrate and, of course, Easter. I'm always amazed at how much my nieces and nephews have grown. It reminds me that I have such a gift in front of me every day in the wealth of material for writing. I keep a journal full of things the kids say and do, but it's not the same. Yesterday I brought my niece and nephew to our cottage in Nags Head and my husband met me with our four children to spent the night before going to Manteo this morning. When we awoke this morning (rather late thanks to Ny-Quil, our allergies have been beastly), we could hear all the kids playing together in the living room. They had created a candy store complete with price tags, play money and so on. They were having such a great time. when I ventured out, I saw that some of them had made a list of ways to have a good "busness". "3 Things: 1. Sell good toys 2. Make good prices 3. Let everyone come" Wow, send it to the Harvard Business Review.

Yesterday I ran an errand for the Easter bunny and picked up a copy of Katherine Peterson's picture book LIGHT OF THE WORLD. It's so beautiful and fabulous. I can't wait to read it to the kiddos a BUNCH of times.

Do you know magic when you write it? I mean, sometimes I write something and I'm, like, "Damn, that's good." Or put something aside, come back to it, and think it's much better than I remembered. Of course it goes the other way, too. But somehow I need to make the leap from ME thinking it's good to SOMEONE ELSE thinking it, too. I can't help but dream that ONE DAY that agent or editor or someone will say those three words: I LOVE IT.

I've been working on some drawing lately and my daughter said,"Now you're ready to illustrate your book." I wish. But I am pretty good at fences, so maybe I can write a picture book about a fence or even a whole fence family. Maybe they have boundary issues. ha ha Or they're constantly leaving people out. You're laughing, but I think it could be done. (Nobody steal it now! Dorothy, you MUCH better artist than me!) Anyway, wouldn't that be cool?

So I'm off to envision my fence family. Picket, of course, because they make things look perfect from the OUTSIDE. I'm still taking suggestions for my 100th Blog Party. Remember it's Good Friday. Reflect, my friend, reflect.