Winner's Circle Saturday: Fall 2011 Winner

The Lucky Clover Picture Book Contest is announcing the winner for the FALL 2011 contest. Thank you to everyone who entered. It was a lot of fun. You can now enter the WINTER 2012 contest (click above for details). The deadline is March 31, 2012.

Congratulations to...

Catherine Johnson!

Her early picture book manuscript, Big Al, is cute, funny, and clever and comes in at under 150 words (a feat I don't think I could ever accomplish). Big Al is an alligator living in the Everglades, but he's having trouble catching some lunch. Until he comes across an unlikely food source for an alligator. Hilarious! Hope to see this on bookstore shelves one day. And if this one becomes your debut book, I hope you'll interview with me for my monthly HIGH FIVE feature. Congratulations!

Check your inbox for your critique.    

Hope to see more entries for the WINTER 2012 contest throughout the coming weeks.

Keep on keepin' on...

A Book About Money, Books, and Hard Times

Published in 2003 (2020 words)

This week's Read-4-Luck pick (the feature that acts as a recommendation, review, teaching tip, and writing lesson) is The Hard-Times Jar by Ethel Footman Smothers, illustrated by John Holyfield.

"Emma, the daughter of poor migrant workers, longs to own a real book, and when she turns eight and must attend a new school, she is amazed to discover a whole library in her classroom."

Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Year: 2003
Word Count: 2020
Book Level: 3.1
Age: 4-8
Topic: Money
Theme: Doing what's right (integrity)

RATINGS
CHILDREN:  I was surprised that my son wanted this book a second time over another book we had previously read. He identifies with Emma's longing for something she loves. It's a great book with a good lesson, but a little long for younger children. 

PARENTS:  Teaches good morals. Fun to read in a thick southern accent, which isn't hard to do coming from North Carolina.

TEACHERS:  Great introduction to a money, saving, or social studies unit about migrant workers. Great way to incorporate values into a character development lesson. Activity: have children write a story on torn pieces of brown paper bags.

WRITERS:  This is a good one to study to see how the word count works. More than 2,000 words for a picture book is pretty rare, even for the year 2003. Comb through the pages and make a list of cool phrases and action verbs. It is such a wonderful story! THAT'S why it was published. I'm looking forward to reading it again.

YOUR TURN: Think of a time when you had to make a tough moral decision as a child. How did you handle it? What did your parents do? Now compare your story to that of Emma's.


Be sure to visit other perfect picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's blog.

Keep on keepin' on...

Spilled vs. Spilt

I wrote a story that utilizes a cliche, horror of horrors (no that's not the one), and it was brought to my attention the spelling of a word by one of my lovely critique partners. The cliche is "don't cry over spilled milk," but I wrote "it looked like spilt milk." So do I spell it S-P-I-L-L-E-D or S-P-I-L-T? 

So I thought I'd do a little research and share with everyone. According to The Grammarist, spilt was once accepted as the past tense usage for spill. Very interesting graphs that show when the change took place. Now it is more commonly accepted to use spilled.

Spill is actually considered an irregular verb. Among others. A regular verb is one that uses "-ed" as an ending to make the verb past tense. Such as end (I ended the game), jump (I jumped on the bed), or toss (I tossed it in the trash). Irregular verbs end differently, such as write (I wrote a story), run (I ran in a race), and eat (I ate all the grapes). It's no wonder we hear children say, "I writed, I runned, and I eated." (I'm constantly correcting my 5-year-old daughter. She's still learning). That's part of why we lovely Americans want to write spilled, burned, etc. because the regular verbs are easier to say and spell.

spilled - spilt

burned - burnt

learned - learnt

smelled - smelt

spelled - spelt

spoiled - spoilt

dreamed - dreamt

leaped - leapt

kneeled - knelt

These verbs are considered irregular. This is for the past simple and past participle form of the verbs. Both spellings are acceptable in both forms of English, however the irregular "-t" ending is more acceptable in British English, and the regular "-ed" ending is more acceptable in American English.

Part of the confusion, I believe, is that we sometimes like to pronounce these words with the "-t" sound and therefore want to spell it to match the pronunciation. Anyway, I have spelt my last word for this post because I dreamt about the toothfairy and I leapt for joy. I hope you learnt something. Have fun!

Keep on keepin' on...

Pot-O-Gold Blogger Award #12: The Word is My Oyster

Pixel Berry Pie Designs

It's time to award another lucky blogger with the Pot-O-Gold Blogger Award! I created this award for excellent blogs based on interesting and helpful content AND visually appealing and easy-to-navigate design. It's an award that says, "Look at this awesome blog! There's a wealth of information here! If you visit once, you'll want to return again and again." In other words, it's like discovering a pot of gold.


Today's award goes to Lydia Kang over at The Word is My Oyster. She is a doctor and a writer. Her debut, The Fountain, is a sci-fi YA novel due to be released in 2013 by Dial/Penguin. The most popular feature of her blog is Medical Mondays, where she discusses everything from Achondroplasia (whatever that is) to Willow Bark, by answering questions related to fictional scenarios. Lydia is coming up on her two-year blogging anniversary and has over 1,100 followers.

My ratings (out of 4):  Content  Design 


The Rules (you can copy and paste them):

1. Say thank you to the person who gave it to you.
2. Thank the giver (include image of award, link to the giver's blog and to WRITE WILD).
3. Award FOUR bloggers this award and tell why each is a Pot-O-Gold!
4. Share FOUR simple things about yourself: 
1. a time you had to exercise FAITH
2. something you HOPE for
3. something you LOVE
4. a time when you experienced LUCK.

Keep on keepin' on...

Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum by Lisa Wheeler

Little, Brown & Co. 2004

This week's Read-4-Luck pick (the feature that acts as a recommendation, review, teaching tip, and writing lesson) is Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum by Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith.

A variety of animals get stuck in bubble gum melting in the road.

Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.
Year: 2004
Word Count: 352
Book Level: 1.6

RATINGS
CHILDREN:  This book is so fun and does not get boring! Kids enjoy predicting the next animal and the rhymes.

PARENTS:  What parent wants to read a short rhyming book to their children over and over again? I do! I'm telling you, there is so much rhythm and word play in this book, it will not get old.

TEACHERS:  Can use this to help teach rhyme, animals, cooperation, or basic story-telling skills. 

WRITERS:  Analyze word play. A MUST for any rhymers out there.

YOUR TURN: If you were to write a line for your own bubble gum book, how might it read? "Bubble gum, bubble gum, juicy fruity bubble gum. Grow me a watermelon in your tummy tum." Anyone else?

Keep on keepin' on...

From Walking to Jogging in 4 Weeks Flat

Happy New Year! One of my recent goals is to start running again. Last year, I decided I would run two races a year to help me stay focused on my exercise. So, I set myself a schedule to get back up to speed. I thought I'd share a similar plan with the rest of the world.

If you can walk 3 mph for 20-30 minutes or more, and you feel like you could jog for 2 minutes at a time, then this is the plan for you. If you have any doubts, check with your doctor.

The Goal: to run (or jog) 20 minutes nonstop without a walking break by slowly adjusting your run/walk ratio over time.

The Time Table: EVERY single day for 4 weeks. Then you can scale your runs down to 3-4x a week.

The Speed:

• If you feel like a slow walker, choose 3.0 mph for your walk breaks and do 4.8 for your jogging. 
• If you can handle 3.5, do that speed for walking and do 5.0 for your runs.

The Warm-up and Cool-down:

• Always walk for a 3-minute warm-up. Do a quick 1-minute stretch (30 seconds for each leg). Start with your calf for about 6 seconds, then your shins, then your hamstrings, then hip, then quads. Switch legs.
• Cool down for 2-3 minutes at a slower walking pace. Slowly get your heart rate to come back down. Stretch again, but 1-2 minutes per leg, this time.

The Plan:
As seen in the chart below, here is an explanation of the plan for the first three days. Run for 2 minutes. Walk for 2 minutes. Repeat that 4-minute cycle five times for a total of 20 minutes.

Day #   Run-Walk   Repeat   Total Run Time

1, 2, 3       2-2          5x          20

4, 5, 6       2-1          7x          21

7, 8, 9       3-1          5x          20

10-12        4-1          4x         20

13-15       5-1          3x          18

16-18       6-1          3x          21

19-21       7-2          2x          18

22-24       8-2          2x          20

25-27       9-1          2x          20

Day 28!    20-0        1x          20

Congratulations! You've just walked yourself into 20 minutes of running! Now you can scale down to run 3 to 4 times a week and add time or distance to each run. Happy running!  

Keep on keepin' on...

Best Book of 2011, 2012, 2013...

2003, 2007. Third edition, 2009.

It's not even a children's book, but it should be part of the required reading in Civics/Economics classes in High School (and in college, too)! The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey gripped me from the very beginning. When I got near the end, I didn't even want to check my emails for a week!

This book is FULL of real-life examples of regular people who have gotten out of debt, saved for their children's college funds, set up for retirement, paid off their homes, and built wealth. It is SO awesome, and I'm only on step 3! If one of your goals for 2012 is remotely related to money, then please read this book. It will change your life if you choose to implement his 7 baby steps. The examples are the BEST part of the book. I'm thinking about reading it again!

I'm all fired up. I love to save money, even as a child. Once, I cried because my mom bought me some clothing. I didn't want her to spend all her money on me. I was probably 9 or 10. My sisters all came to me to borrow money (a big no-no, according to Dave, but hey, cut me some slack, I was only 16). $5 here and $10 there. I did a lot of babysitting. It wasn't until I was 18 and working, actually a couple years later, until I started to love to SPEND money. Learning to budget can be tricky. There are so many different ways to approach it. This book doesn't go into detail about how to set up a budget, but it is a very important component of it. The book's motto is "Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else." It's true. If that's what you want, then you have to make sacrifices, but only temporarily.

I'm looking forward to 2012 to see how much fun I'll have following my yearly budget. Hope it goes well. Another companion book is Suze Orman's The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom. She does go into detail about how to set up a budget. That's what I did, before I ever heard of Dave's book. I'm saving up to buy a "new" (3-5 years old) car in 8 years. Can't wait to pay cash for it! 2020, here I come!

Happy New Year!

Keep on keepin' on...

Merry Christmas! and a Wordless Picture Book

I'm still alive. Haven't blogged in over a month. Next year, I think I'll take December off. I visited my dad for Thanksgiving. We had a great time. For Christmas, we're staying home. I  think I'll Skype-visit family for Christmas. With all the visiting, decorating, partying, shopping, wrapping, baking, and caroling, I haven't wanted to do any blogging, although I have thought about it some. I've missed it, so I wanted to drop in and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas (or another happy holiday) and a Happy New Year, too!

Today, I'm roasting a turkey. Haven't done that since Home Ec. in 9th grade. I didn't sleep well last night, but not because of my turkey anxiety. My daughter (just turned 5) climbed in the bed with me and I had to sleep squished in the middle all night long. So I'm up bright and early getting ready for the day. Hope to get some laundry done, too.

A cute book to read this season is Peter Spier's Christmas! It is a wordless picture book. Published in the 80's and brings back some fun memories and a feeling of nostalgia. I hope a lot of families still follow these traditions. My family never used real trees, but I often wished we did. Either way, it's such a cute fun little book that honors family togetherness at Christmas. If you get a chance to view a copy, enjoy!

Merry Christmas, everyone!