IT'S NEVER TOO LATE!

I got back from the SCBWI-IL retreat late on Sunday night.  It was so nice being out by a lake and forest preserve that I hated to come back to Chicago, but I did miss Tweeter who lost his long tail feathers while I was away.   New ones will grow in but I don’t know how long it will take.  I’m still in the habit of using masculine pronouns when I talk about the bird even though I believe it is a female.  Sometimes I do use feminine ones.

But, back to the retreat.  My roommate and I met with one published children’s book writer, (neither of us are there yet but hope to be) for a manuscript critique discussion.  She like both of our stories and had helpful suggestions for us and she took advice that I gave her about the one she was working on but I was not the only one who had made that suggestion, some others in a critique group she belongs to also felt that way.

After our meeting on Saturday afternoon, I came back to the room and began to rewrite my manuscript, not entirely from her suggestions but from a new idea I got too.  I didn’t go to the bonfire.  I read the revision to my roommate when she got back and she liked it better than what I had read at the  meeting and I think it is better too.

I just got back from having my pictures developed.  For some reason, even with new batteries the flash did not work on my camera so I did not get the indoor pictures I tried to take, but the outdoor ones came out pretty good.  I just took some random shots to use up the firm at the end because I did not know how they would look.  I would have done better had I known they would be as good as they were.  I got two good pictures of our group, minus a few people who left early and the two men who did not come out to get their picture taken.