Sunday, February 19, 2012

Hello again

It has been so long since I last blogged. There has been a lot going on in my life, but most of it is not what I want to write about. Work wise I have been busy experimenting with combining my own handmade paper with handmade paper from a great paper shop in Ann Arbor. I am dying to share my results, but then again I want the style to be a surprise when the books come out. I also am tweaking the cover of my next book which will be out in late 2012 with Beach Lane books. That book is a combination of pulp painting, pastels and copy transfer. I still will be working with Holt, as I have two books under contract there. I decided at this point in time I needed more than one publisher.  The publishing world has been constantly changing and then there was all of the "chicken little" thinking that PB were dead. It had me rattled for a while. And the fact that Holt became an imprint instead of a publisher did not seem to work in my favor. But, hey, life goes on.

People often ask me if I have an agent. I don't now and I never have had an agent. Agents can be great, it is just that I started without an agent and have continued that way. I place my own books, but I do use an attorney, Mary Flower, who looks over contracts and negotiates for me.

It is strange that with all the turmoil that has been going on in my personal life my creative writing side blossomed. Ideas were just floating around as I sat and stared and dropped out. Three of them became strong ideas/manuscripts. So even in difficult times, if you let your mind wander, ideas may appear, you just have to grab them. Sometimes I think I try too hard to make things happen.

Well, I will try to keep up on my blog and post exciting and interesting thoughts along with pictures.