I'm reading Cheryl Klein's The Magic Words and doing most of the writing activities she assigns.
One of them is to write down a list of the books you wish you had written, so I started making a list. First it's a hard list to make. Second I learned something about my reading voice that correlates with my writing voice.
I would love you to chyme in and tell me a few of the books you wish you had written and if you can tell something about your writing voice based on the books you love? I had to write the list to recognize the correlation.
Here goes my list:
Picture Books
Home Place by Crescent Dragonwagon
The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn
The Relatives by Cynthia Rylant
Sophie's Squash by Pat Z. Miller
Mostly Monsterly by Tammi Sauer
Middle Grade
Out Of The Dust by Karen Hess
With A Name Like Love by Tess Hilmo
Ice Dogs by Terry Lynn Johnson
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Young Adult
Caged Grave by Dianne Salerni
Dig Too Deep by Amy Allgeyer
The Boy in Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Bread and Roses Too by Katherine Patterson
Beautiful by Amy Reed
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Almost all these books have a very gentle voice or tone. Someone I admire very much, Stephanie Bearce, recently told me I have a gentle writing voice. It meant so much to me that she recognized what I had hoped for since I began writing. Now I need to do what all these published authors did...submit my work until I get an acceptance.
My goals for July and August are to submit my four polished picture book manuscripts, my middle grade novel and my chapter book to at least ten publishing houses. I also want to continue working through Cheryl Klein's book and work on my YA WIP.
What are your goals for the summer?
