Kara Parlin - Words & Pictures

I’m excited to announce that my husband and I are participating in two photography events in the coming months. While I’m keeping busy with writing and workshops, I’m also trying to dedicate some time each week to my photography. I’m curious to see if my participation will increase online interest in my work. We’ll see what happens!

8×8: Bending Pixels - Photography Exhibit and Fundraiser
October 24th, 7pm
This event includes 8 photographers each showing 8 images that exhibit some use of digital processing. I’ve been helping organize this event and my husband will be one of the exhibitors. Get more info and details here.

Open Studio Weekend
November 8th & 9th, 11am to 5pm
For the past couple years, we’ve attended Open Studio Weekend because our good friend and artist Damon Hellandbrand has exhibited. This year, we’ve decided to also participate. If you’re in the area, I encourage you to check out this city-wide event. Basically, several galleries and artist-in-residence buildings around Hartford open up for the weekend to show and sell art. You can walk around the artists’ lofts and meander around the hallways filled with artists. We’ll be set up in the Hartford ArtSpace building in one of the hallways (not sure which one yet) selling prints of both our work.

Check out some of the other exhibitors and get the details here.

Hope to see you at one of these events!

(Photo credit: MorBCN)

I visit the library at least once a week for my ritualistic haul of picture and chapter books. At any one time, I probably have around ten library books checked out. I’m happy to have such a great (free!) resource nearby, but I can’t help feeling a little bit guilty.

As a writer, I also want to support authors by purchasing their books. Unfortunately, my budget doesn’t allow me to buy books regularly. Still, I’d love to build a wall of bookshelves filled with colorful titles.

What’s a gal to do?

While I was in Cambridge, MA recently, I stopped into Barefoot Books to take a look around. It’s a sweet shop where you could easily spend a few hours. Since I knew I wouldn’t be back for a while, I did buy copies of The Gigantic Turnip and Emily’s Tiger. It was a great feeling to finally buy a shiny, new book to keep. I guess a few once in a while can’t hurt. It’ll just take a little longer to build that huge home library!

(Photo credit: wumpiewoo)

And to celebrate my 10-year wedding anniversary! Rather than exchanging gifts, my husband and I enjoy a day trip to take pictures and explore. Tomorrow we’re going to Boston with a stop in Cambridge.

I’m looking forward to visiting Harvard Square. It’s been years since I was there last. I’ve been trying to get to Mount Auburn Cemetery to take pictures for a while. It’s an amazing place filled with impressive monuments, architecture and historic burial sites.

I’m also excited to finally visit the Barefoot Books store. Although I’m still in the early stages of researching publishers that may be a good fit for my stories, Barefoot Books stands out because of their focus on core values. It’ll be fun to immerse myself in their culture for the day.

Monday’s going to be a writing day, so I hope to bring back loads of inspiration!

Since photography remains as much a creative pursuit for me as writing, I’ve decided to change the site to include my photography as well. I did give thought to creating a separate photo site, but honestly I can barely update this one regularly so having two means twice the panic attacks.

I’ve also been reading more on non-fiction markets that may also be looking for photography, so showcasing both my talents together seemed like the natural choice.

I’ll be tinkering behind the scenes for the next week, so that means you may see some random weirdness when you visit. Do not fear, all will be well soon!

As any writer knows, revision is an essential part of the writing process. But are there specific revision steps? What should you be looking for? And where does it all end? Since revision is the meaty (and sometimes downright painful) part of writing, it can feel like mind-jumbling vortex. Or worse, the fear of the revision process can be a barrier to getting published.

At this very moment I have two picture book manuscripts in different stages of revision. I’ve finished the first draft of my second book (Henry’s Coin) and am ready for the first revision. But my first book (Push Up, Poppy) is currently in train wreck status. It’s been picked apart, changed around and after about five re-writes is in a state I like to call craptacular.

How did this happen? I weighted every critique given equally and lost sight of what I liked and wanted the story to be. And I’m perfectly fine with that. Although the story is now relegated to the back burner, the experience made me realize I needed to create a formal revision plan before working with Henry’s Coin.

There’s no right or wrong way to approach revisions. For me, I knew having a documented workflow and checklist would help keep me organized and on track. It also needs to be a living document that can change as I fine tune my process. So what is my magic process? Well, it’s hardly magic but it goes like this:

Initial Draft
This is the first writing of the story. I like to just get the story out onto paper withou worrying about anything else.

1. Complete first draft
2. Research similar/competitive titles
3. Read through and tighten up
4. Start getting critiques

First Revision
After I’ve gotten a good number of critiques, I begin the first revision. Note that I don’t consider a revision to be a single pass through the story. Each revision consists of multiple passes, each focusing on specific areas of concern.

1. Break text into page/scene segments
2. Make a dummy book and read aloud
3. Fix any awkward parts
4. Address critique concerns
5. Make major cuts
6. Read through for story arc
7. Read through for plot
8. Read through for consistent POV/tense

Second Revision

1. Minor cuts
2. Read through for pacing
3. Read through for dialogue
4. Check word choices, find stronger words
5. Spelling/grammar check
6. Read story into recorder or to group for auditory feedback

At this point, there could be further revisions. But I believe those will be more story-specific so I’m not creating a plan beyond the first two for now.

Final Checklist
The final checklist is a list of questions I’ll ask myself about the story to determine if meets certain criteria. Many of the questions are taken directly from the book Writing Children’s Books. My list is pretty long, but here are a few examples:

• Is there excitement to each page turn?
• Is the plot appropriate for the age level?
• Are characters consistent throughout?
• Does the opening hook the reader?
• Using active voice vs. passive?
• Is dialogue natural?

Critique Notes
I leave myself an entire page at the end of my revision plan for any ideas, questions or feedback that came out of critiques. This is the most helpful section for me because it prevents me from having to constantly flip through papers looking for notes. It also give me an at-a-glance overview so I can better decide how to proceed in each revision. Here are a few notes on Henry’s Coin:

• Awkward for Henry to be holding cupcakes one second then picking up coin another
• More description of Nigerian sweets or lose that part
• Add more detail about Anoka’s fabric, what she makes and why it’s important
• Work on improving dialogue

Questions
Finally, I give myself a little space to list any unresolved questions. This is a good place to also put alternate plots and “what if” questions should you need to scrap part or all of the first draft. I’ve found that the story often goes in a different direction during revision, so it helps to have places you can go.

Where will my revision plan go? Who knows! I’ll check back in after I apply it to Henry’s coin. Hopefully it will prevent the story from reaching craptacular status.

Every week, I’m going to feature a list of writing resources on various topics. Today’s topic is picture books. So here you are, enjoy!

30 Days to a Stronger Picture Book - Darcy Pattison’s site is filled with helpful information. Her 30 Days information is broken up into smaller posts that she adds to frequently.

Picture Book of the Day - If you’re looking for daily inspiration or suggested reads, Anastasia Suen’s site is the place to go. She shares a little piece of each text as well as suggested mini-lessons for educators.

Getting out of the slush pile - Harold Underdown’s article on how to make your manuscript stand out and get read.

Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators - I have nothing but praise for SCBWI. It’s a great resource if you’re a children’s writer. Their discussion board alone is worth the price of membership.

Today I mailed my first submission, a photo essay titled Let’s Take a Photo Walk, to Highlights magazine. It took me roughly two months to write and edit the story as well as take photos and edit them down to the seven I included. It may seem like a lot of work for a 500-word article, but I wanted to take my time with it so I could do it right.

And so, the waiting begins.

Not that I don’t have other projects to work on. In fact, I have to finish my first draft of my second picture book this weekend. It’s my turn to submit something to my critique group on Monday and that’s the one I want to focus on. Plus, I have to submit a draft for my class on Thursday anyway, so I may as well get it into revision mode sooner rather than later. Better get to it then!

The more I learn—through classes and research—the more intimidated I become about writing. Maybe this is why many beginning children’s writers think it’s easy. They just don’t know any better. I always knew the getting published part was going to be a long haul. But having been a writer for many years I guess I thought the words would come easier.

Writing stories for children is nothing like writing a magazine feature about business technology. Of course, I knew that already. Some strange interference happens, though, between when I have a great idea in my head and what ends up on the page. It just not me. Every time I read back what I’ve written, it sounds to me like something you’d hear if an alien impersonated a human—cold and deliberate. Those critiquing my drafts seems to enjoy them, but for me there are always too may areas that could be improved. Now that I’m more aware of them, that is.

Taking classes focused on children’s writing has made me acutely aware of things like point of view, voice, major dramatic questions and so forth. With so many things to consider it’s a wonder anyone publishes anything!

Luckily, one of my articles is in the polishing stage and will be ready to submit to magazines soon. It’s a photo essay that I’ve revised many times over the last month or two. As I tighten it up I’m also selecting photos to accompany the piece. I have one last shoot scheduled this weekend that should give me everything I need.

Hopefully sending this article out and starting to get responses will give the ‘ol confidence a boost! We’ll see…

No seriously, stop laughing. For as long as I can remember, my best motivation has been an approaching deadline. In college I would generally wait until a day or two before a paper was due to start writing. The 20+ pagers could get a little hairy, but I can’t remember ever missing a deadline. My ideas just seem to come together better at the last minute.

That’s one of the drawbacks of writing children’s books in my free time. It doesn’t matter to anyone else how long it takes me to finish and submit a story. But the longer it takes, the more unsolicited manuscripts there will be in the slush pile (at least in my mind). It’s a ridiculous thought, I know.

Luckily, I do have an actual deadline coming up that will help motivate me. I need to submit a story for critique on August 21st for my Gotham class. That will be my second submission. For the first, I posted my “third grade” story. But since I’ve pretty much flogged that thing to death with critiques, I’ve decided to write a draft of my second story to submit. At this point, I’m still a little more excited to work on that one since I believe it has a better chance of being published.

So what am I still doing typing here? I need to get started!

I’m glad I let my story sit, even if it was just for a few days. I’ve decided to switch my main character from an elderly man to a 5-year-old girl. Each time I sat down to create his character profile, I had trouble visualizing him and ended up just making stuff up. It was an inevitable change, really. I had no child character and more than a few of the critiques I received suggested I should have one. Besides the change in character, I will also change the tone and voice. I’m a little sad that it won’t have much in common with the original 3rd grade story, but I’m getting over it.

Thankfully, I’m still going strong with the two other projects I have in the hopper. Tomorrow I’m off to New York for a photo outing. I’m excited about all the shots I’ll get, but my main objective is to get the last shots for my photo essay. Hopefully, I’ll be able to put the finishing touches on that piece this week and get it submitted soon. Then it’s time to focus on my two picture books.

So much work, so little time!