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I am loving this sweater weather. Fall is my favorite time of year. There’s a chill in the air and trees are beautiful with bright oranges and auburn red leaves. Warm Hot coco, sweet Carmel apples and fuzzy blankets are a few of my favorite things. Lol SWEET SIXTEEN FANTASY BALL Personally, September is always a busy month with my birthday and my wedding anniversary. But this year was special because my daughter turned 16 and she wanted a fantasy themed sweet sixteen party. And even though it was a lot of work, we pulled it together, and it turned out fantastic. Everyone dressed up, and we made the place look like an old tavern. THE SUGAR ACT Griffith Playhouse hosted another fantastic showcase on September 22nd. My acting students performed another original play called THE SUGAR ACT. I finally have enough short plays to publish another Volume of 10 MINUTE PLAYS FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES. Although I’m considering calling it Short Plays for Kids of Ages instead, since not all of them are 10 minutes. This will be the last showcase for a while since classes are on break until January.  SCBWI SO CAL CHAPTER FALL HARVEST CONFERENCE October 6th, I headed down to Fullerton, CA to meet with Bev, our Regional Advisor and fellow committee members. We planned on working out any kinks we might face with technology in preparations for SCBWI’S SoCal chapter conference. The conference was the following day at Cal State Fullerton. Afterwards, I met up with my friend and critique partner, author Tina Athaide. Tina was a guest speaker at the conference, and we opted to share the cost of a hotel room, so we didn’t have to wake at the crack of dawn the next day for the conference. It was such a joy to hang out with her. After meeting every Monday over Zoom for two years, we’d only met once before in person, but it was like we’d been friends forever. Later that night, we met up with the rest of our critique group for dinner. It was the first time we’d ever all been together in person. We had the best time. We visited for 4 hours. I was surprised they didn’t kick us out of the pub we’d gone to. Afterwards, Tina and I stayed up way too late, working on my pitch for the next day. I will be forever grateful for her helpful insight. The next day, October 7th, we headed over to Cal State Fullerton to attend and take part in the conference. It was a full day of learning, socializing, and networking with fellow children’s book authors, editors, and agents. You can read all about the event in an article I wrote for our SCBWI newsletter HERE. The day's highlights for me were when I moderated Tina’s author panel with fellow author Laura Taylor Namey. It was so much fun and informative. The other was my pitch to editor Courtney Stevenson at HarperCollins, who liked my idea and was interested in reading it. Cross our fingers, she likes it and wants to publish it! I will keep you updated. GETTING NOTICED I also have some great news to share. CJ FALLON, an education publishing house in Ireland, asked for the rights to publish a portion of one of my plays in their English books. What an honor! I’m thrilled to receive this kind of international attention for my plays. I’ll share when it comes out. But here is what it could look like.   SPOOKY BOOK RECOMMENDATION
The rest of the month was busy with editing, writing, critique groups and Halloween carnivals, Spooky movies and Trick or Treating. Speaking of fun, spooky entertainment, I discovered a fantastic MG book series from Author V.E. Schwab. I highly recommend them. I binged all three of the books in her series: CITY OF GHOSTS, TUNNEL OF BONES, BRIDGE OF SOULS. HALLOWEEN FUN For Halloween, I didn’t go all out like normal. I dressed up like a witch to keep it easy while passing out candy. I think the whole Halloween on a Tuesday really messed up all the fun of staying up late and getting your candy high on this year. Halloween should be on the last Saturday of October instead of Oct 31st. It’s silly that they haven’t changed it. November is set out to be another busy month, with my son’s 18th birthday, Thanksgiving, and another book signing event at Barnes and Noble on the 16th!
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SUMMER SUMMARY I can't believe the kids go back to school Monday and it's still soo hot outside. We've had a great summer. Here are the highlights:
BARNES & NOBLE MEET AND GREET JUNE 3, 2023 The Barnes & Noble Meet & Greet was so much fun! I loved chatting with readers and signing autographs. I sold several books and made new friends. It was truly a success. I'm so thankful for SCBWI letting us put this event on. Barnes & Noble Victorville loved us so much they offered to have us come again. Here are some pictures from the event.   SOCAL SCBWI SPRING WRITERS RETREATThis retreat was so worth it! I can't tell you enough how awesome this weekend was for me. I had so many opportunities to bond and learn from other writers. This picture is a group of fellow writers from in my cabin. We had such a great time hanging out and making connections. PURPOSE OF GOINGThis retreat is a yearly writing weekend that I only started going to last year. Not only did I get to hang out with some talented and amazing writers, published and unpublished, but I got to meet editors and agents from the publishing industry. Normally, it would make me nervous to talk to agents and editors from the industry, but in the beautiful relaxed setting of the San Bernardino Mountains it was much easier. Everyone talked shop (You know the stuff that makes your friend's and family get all eye glazy) and everyone was so approachable. It truly was a great opportunity for someone like me who's still trying to find an agent. PROFESSIONAL OPINIONSI finally had finished my Icarus story and had brought it to the retreat to get feedback. In my critique groups I got a lot of positive and constructive feedback. From the agents I learned that I still have some work to do if I want to get it published, but I'm almost there. Thank goodness. I had no idea when I started writing how long the process of creating a book would be.
Thus far here has been my process. I originally wrote Icarus as a short story of 2,000 words. And that created the bones of my story. After some encouragement from my husband and the short story submission feedback I decided to make it into a book. It's taken a year of flushing out the book. First with breaking it down into a constructive outline, making sure that I hit all the beats of my story. Then writing chapter by chapter, using my outline as a guide. I worked each chapter with my critique partners until I finished the manuscript. It's now approximately 80,000 words. It's so different from my original story. Now I'm looking at the whole picture and find that though I think it's good, it can be even better with a few changes. The whole process is daunting, but I know it will be worth it when I see it on the shelf.  THE WEBSITE
My original website was built with a website builder that limited my ability to sell items and receive comments from my supporters. This new blog/website will do both of those things. I'm also excited that I will be able to include media videos and live feed for when I interview authors or have show clips of plays I post on Youtube. I'd love to hear what you think of the site. Drop a comment so I can see if it's working or not. Using Weebly.com's Bluehost plugin, I was able to drag and drop art files and customize the site the way I wanted it to be. And I would've been lost without Canva.com. Oh, how I love canva.com! I'm so addicted and love how it allows me to be creative. I'm not an artist, except when it comes to digital art. I can get lost for hours in this online creative platform. Okay enough about my silly obsessions. What have I been up too? Well, the list is long my friends.
Well, that wraps it up for now. I mean of course I'm running my butt off with all the end-of-year school activities. My daughter is in the musical INTO THE WOODS. One of my favorites and my oldest son is GRADUATING this year. I can't believe he's old enough to graduate. Wow time flies. Anyways, I'd love to hear from you. Please let me know what you think of my site and give me your insights on how to make it better! Love ya, Carlene |
AuthorI'm an author, playwright, actress, and entrepreneur. Archives
June 2026
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