Posting might be sparse for the next few weeks as we visit two countries that rhyme with Shmance and Shmengland.

While I'm gone I will try and post pictures, but in the meantime here are books I read this summer in order of library fine amount that I recommend you read, too:

Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge
Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey
Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor
Reality Leak by Joni Sensel
Crictor by Tomi Ungerer
Petunia by Roger Duvoisin
Bend-the-Rules Sewing by Amy Karol
The Summer Book by Susan Branch
Weekend Knitting: 50 Unique Projects and Ideas by Melanie Falick
Spy Goddess, Book One: Live and Let Shop by Michael P. Spradlin
The Plain Janes by Cecil Castelucci
The Voyage of the Ludgate Hill by Nancy Willard and Alice and Martin Provensen
Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace
Austenland by Shannon Hale
The Problem Child by Michael Buckley
The Illustrated Letters of Jane Austen by Penelope Hughes-Hallett
A Time To Keep by Tasha Tudor
The Private World of Tasha Tudor by Richard Brown and Tasha Tudor
Nini Here and There by Anita Lobel
Watercolour Expert by Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours
Been to Yesterdays by Lee Bennett Hopkins
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Come to Tea by Stephanie Dunnewind
What's Cooking? A Pixar Ratatouille Cookbook for Kids with Thomas Keller
Bee-bim Bop! by Linda Sue Park
Ellington Was Not A Street by Ntozake Shange
Chowder by Peter Brown
The Fabulous Bouncing Chowder by Peter Brown
At Night by Jonathan Bean

Our super awesome SCBWI WWA regional meetings started up again on Wednesday ending a summer of bonbon eating and horse race watching for me. Back to work! And meeting an acquiring editor is a great kick in the pants to start getting dummies and portfolio pieces in top shape and ready for submission.

Sarah Cloots, Editorial Assistant at Greenwillow Books, spent two days with our group doing smart First Page readings, manuscript critiques, and a wonderful main session talk. I'm so sad she left! Well-spoken, well-read, bright and funny. Too bad she can't stay in Seattle. But all the better for Manhattan. It is thrilling to see young new editors that really know their stuff and can quote Ursula Nordstrom. Boo-ya!

And I came away with a great new exercise thanks to Sarah:

We all know about the importance of fleshing out characters in our manuscripts by knowing their extensive back stories. And I do character sketches--front, back, profile, three-quarter view--when I'm drawing my characters. But I've always contained my other practice sketches to what is happening in the manuscript.

Sarah gave us two 3 minute exercises during the meeting and one of them was to think of scenarios in which your character wouldn't be comfortable and envision their reactions. She asked us to write or draw this for three minutes. DRAW! Am I a thick thickie? Why didn't I ever think of that? We sort of did that in cartoon school, but it never occured to me to reach outside of my picture book story confines and draw my characters in a different situation.

So I thought of my character Tess, a Rosie-the-Riveter-esque big sister. She's very comfortable battling giants and rebuilding houses and wearing overalls. But stick her in a frilly frock and send her to a formal high tea and I'm sure she'd be completely out of her element. Add a snooty Chanel clad socialite requesting a tea refill and Tess would surely grab the entire samovar and lug it over instead of finding a demure tea pot or taking the tea cup TO the samovar as is (I assume) custom.

What fun! It is just a sketch, but this opens up lots of future plot possibilities to me and let's me know more about Tess. I owe Sarah a cupcake.

There's a new website in town from one of my favorite Portland peoples. The sassy gal who brought us Blackbringer has a new site that is Not For Robots about writing. It is going in my 'daily read' file not only for the content, but for the super duper robot art* made by Laini's man-sassy husband, Jim.

What a dynamic duo. Not only are they sweet and funny friendly people, but darn talented and freaking industrious. Check out their regular blogs and sites and now this cool site for writing thoughts and tips!

*Above is my cat as robot ala house/kitchen goods...Jim's robots are much better, no offense Bebop.