Hi! Welcome to our final official NAPIBOWRIWEE 2013 blog. This is an extra blog to announce the winners of a special EXTRA contest we held last week with author JULIE HEDLUND (link here: http://paulayoo.com/napi/?p=613)
(Keep reading after the jump to find out who won!)
Welcome to Day 8 of our fifth annual 2013 NAPIBOWRIWEE (National Picture Book Writing Week) where we attempt to write 100 picture books in 100 days. It’s only Day 8 out of 100 days. I hope you are pacing yourself. Burn-out and fatigue usually happens around Day 32 and…
HAHAHAHA! LOL! 
I AM JUST KIDDING! DID I SCARE YOU? 
Seriously… NAPIBOWRIWEE 2013 is OVER. Done. History! We all survived! Some of us managed to cobble out 7 picture book first drafts in 7 straight days. Some of these manuscripts are inspired diamonds in the rough that promise to become polished revised final drafts ready for potential submission and even publication. Other drafts might be a bit more, um, questionable. And yes, there are at least one or two clunkers in the bunch that we will cringe at and stick in the bottom drawer of our desks, never to be seen again.
BUT… the whole point of this writing exercise was how to learn and train your brain to WRITE A STORY EVERY SINGLE DAY. A story with a hopefully interesting character and compelling storyline with a beginning, middle, and end and lots of conflict in which our characters conquered with clever and creative solutions.
(NOTE: This is a super long blog chock full of fun surprises, so please bear with me… thanks for your patience and reading through this super duper long blog!)
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Today’s blog will feature my Day 7 Experience, wrap-up thoughts, a final guest author blog with writer JULIE HEDLUND, and the announcement of our 2013 NAPIBOWRIWEE contest winners. Julie addresses the alternatives to traditional publishing for our theme of The Future of the Picture Book. She tells us about her success with storybook apps and digital publishing. It’s absolutely fascinating. Even if you are still interested in traditional publishing, Julie’s blog is a refreshing take and point of view of the Brave New World of Digital Publishing that we should all be aware of. Her blog fits this year’s theme of “The Future of the Picture Book” to a T!
SPECIAL NOTE: Julie Hedlund is also offering two copies of her story book app called A TROOP IS A GROUP OF MONKEYS. Link on iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id601767840?mt=8) It is the first in a trilogy coming out this year from Little Bahalia Publishing (http://littlebahalia.com/). The second app, A SHIVER OF SHARKS, will be out at the end of May.
Julie’s prize is an EXTRA CONTEST PRIZE. Because you MUST own an iPAD (or mini iPAD), this is a special prize for you. The rules for Julie’s prize? Please write a comment on this blog specifying that you would like to be considered for this prize BEFORE May 15th. Julie will then choose two winners. The two winners will receive her storybook app as a gift through iTunes. I will post a blog announcing the Julie Hedlund winners on Wednesday May 15th (by 6 AM PST).
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MY DAY SEVEN EXPERIENCE: Who knew what a rough 7 days this would be? I was juggling TV staffing season meetings, maintaining and updating these website blogs, writing my own 7 books, and dealing with an emergency roof leak on Day 6. Yet another memorable NAPIBOWRIWEE! LOL! (BTW thanks everyone for your kind words re: our emergency roof leak. Thankfully it was a quick and not too expensive fix. But New Roof 2.0 looms in the near future! LOL!) For my Book 7, I decided to finally write a rough draft of some research I had done on another historical figure. This historical person was one I had been wanting to write a picture book biography of for a few years but never got around to it. So I wrote a very rough draft. The writing wasn’t too hard only because I have read like four books on this historical person and have a bunch of notes already in my computer files. But in writing it in picture book prose form, I started thinking this might sparkle more as a potential middle grade historical novel in verse. I got carried away and started thinking about chapter ideas and topics for narrative poems. The result? I have a rough draft of a picture book prose biography that will now serve as a template for me to use later IF I decide to go with the novel-in-verse idea. So all in all, I’d say this year’s NAPIBOWRIWEE was successful for me. I haven’t always been able to write 7 picture books in 7 days every year, especially recently. So I was happy that I DID achieve my goal this year – 7 for 7! YAY! :)
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NOW WHAT? WHAT’S NEXT? For those of you who are wondering what to do now that NAPIBOWRIWEE 2013 is over, here’s another suggestion. Obviously you will revise your NAPIBOWRIWEE drafts to perfection. You will then have to get a second opinion. I know many of you have trusted friends, writing class teachers/students, and critique groups who help you with their critiques. But if you are interested in professional critiques, I highly recommend the amazing editor AMY LIN who runs one of the best professional editorial critique services in the kid lit world. Her website is here: http://www.editomato.com
I also recommend joining the SOCIETY OF CHILDREN BOOK WRITERS & ILLUSTRATORS (http://scbwi.org) if you haven’t already. They have great resources, including a PDF file for members only of all the professional freelance editorial services out there in case you want to pursue professional editorial critiques for your work as well.
Finally, you can always find a fun souvenir at our 2013 NAPIBOWRIWEE Cafe Press Store, featuring special notebooks, mugs, travel mugs, bags, and T-shirts! Link here: http://www.cafepress.com/napibowriwee2013
(Please keep reading after the jump for our Q&A with JULIE HEDLUND plus a list of our CONTEST WINNERS who will receive special autographed books and store souvenirs! And if you would like to be considered for Julie’s special iPAD app contest, please indicate so in a comment to this blog. Winners for Julie’s prize will be announced on May 15, 2013. Thanks!)
Welcome to DAY SEVEN of our 2013 NAPIBOWRIWEE event where we are ALMOST DONE writing 7 picture books in 7 days! For the past six days, we have somehow managed to write and finish six picture book drafts. And some of us may be behind – some folks have only written one book, or some folks have maybe gotten a few drafts under their belt. But guess what? You folks ROCK, too! Because you are fighting to write every single day no matter what! So give yourself a pat on the back for not throwing in the towel!
(For those of you who just happened to stop by and have no idea what’s going on, check out the official 2013 NAPIBOWRIWEE FAQs here to get caught up on on all the action! http://paulayoo.com/napi/?p=474)
I just want to say how proud I am of everyone’s efforts. It’s been so much fun to reunite with NaPiBoWriWee alumni (from the Classes of 2009 to 2012) and to meet NEW NaPiBoWriWee participants from the Class of 2013! I have enjoyed reading everyone’s comments and thoughts and had a blast getting to know everyone.
You can also find some souvenirs at our store: http://www.cafepress.com/napibowriwee2013 And don’t forget to come back tomorrow when I will post a follow-up blog after NAPIBOWRIWEE ends with some post-game thoughts and a list of the winners from our 2013 NAPIBOWRIWEE contest drawing.
And now, my update on my Day Six which was a DOOZY of a day…
MY DAY SIX EXPERIENCE: Let’s just say Day Six could be summed up as “PAULA AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY.” LOL! (And if you’re not familiar with the classic Judith Viorst picture book that I’m referencing, check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Terrible-Horrible-Good-Very/dp/0689711735)
Basically, it rained in Los Angeles last night. And we have been postponing re-roofing our house because well, it costs a lot of money. We’ve had problems with one leak in our house for the past few years, so we have used temporary patches until we saved up enough for a full re-roofing.
Well, I think we’ve hit the last of the temporary patch solutions. Our hallway was FLOODED! It leaked ALL NIGHT. I had to keep putting down towels on the floor and empty out pots and pans every half hour from midnight until 5 AM. I couldn’t go to bed, it was that bad of a leak. 
(Picture below…)
AUGGGGGHHHH. I had about 90 minutes of sleep and then had to stay up from 7 AM onwards for the roof repair guys to do one final temporary patch on our roof! But the good news – they fixed the leak! We’re safe from leaks for a few months, but hello new Roof 2.0 later this year. LOL!
I was REALLY TEMPTED to write a picture book about a leaking roof and other home ownership troubles. How about a picture book on refinancing? LOL!
And then a line popped into my head about a mouse living in a house with a leaky roof. And then I wondered about a fish dealing with a leak in his castle. And so on… And voila… Book No. 6! It was just a fun exercise in writing another picture book poem. Again, I look at my “7 Picture Books in 7 Days” as a way to sharpen my brainstorming skills. A lot of the drafts I written over the past five years will never become published books, but they have been fantastic writing exercises that have led to OTHER ideas that turn into real submissions. And honestly, this was such a cute poem. I am trying to become a better poet, so writing more poetry is a great exercise to improve in the craft of poetry writing.
I then took my very very VERY rough poem and laid it out in a “dummy” book form as I had suggested in my Day 6 Blog.
I look forward to your comments on Day 7!
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So ready for our final day? We’ve still got another 24 hours left. So here’s our last guest author/artist Q&A blog about The Future of the Picture Book with author/illustrator ERIN EITTER KONO (http://www.eekono-illustration.com). Please comment on today’s blogs with your thoughts about Erin’s Q&A and/or giving us an update on your progress on our final day together!
And remember – our contest winners and a final Q&A author blog with writer JULIE HEDLUND (http://www.juliehedlund.com) will be posted by 6 AM PST on May 8th.
(Keep reading after the jump for our interview with Erin Eitter Kono!)
National Picture Book Writing Week is this May 1-7, 2012!
HELLO?! WAKE UP! ARE YOU SLEEPING IN?
I bet many of you are either a) sleeping in or b) very exhausted and cranky from staying up late on Day 7. LOL! Congratulations to everyone who participated in my 4th annual NATIONAL PICTURE BOOK WRITING WEEK (AKA “NaPiBoWriWee”!)
Many of you successfully achieved the event’s goal – to write 7 picture books in 7 days. The purpose of the event is to encourage everyone to FINISH first drafts of book ideas you’ve had bouncing around in your head but had been procrastinating on actually writing out. Now you all have either seven (or at least a couple) first drafts that you can revise later in the year. YIPPEE!
Today’s blog is our wrap up blog. I am also going to announce the winners of our 2012 NaPiBoWriWee Contest! (Winners were chosen at random for a bunch of cool prizes!)
IMPORTANT NOTE: I normally post at my “regular” blog. The link for that blog is here:
(Another Important Note: If you want to comment on my regular blog, you have to have a separate login user name and password. The regular blog and the NaPiBoWriWee are separate WordPress accounts.)
Today, I posted a blog in my regular blog site about how today, May 8, 2012, marks the debut of the paperback release of my YA novel GOOD ENOUGH!
The news about that is posted in this link here:
http://paulayoo.com/blog/?p=1321
And now, let’s get back to our NaPiBoWriWee wrap-up blog and find out who won this year’s contest!
(Keep reading after the jump for all the updates & winner announcements!)
National Picture Book Writing Week is this May 1-7, 2012!
WELCOME TO DAY SEVEN!
It’s our LAST DAY of NAPIBOWRIWEE! Since May 1st, 2012, we have been attempting to write 7 picture books in 7 days! This is the fourth annual National Picture Book Writing Week that I started back in 2009 to promote picture book writing and to encourage both newbie and veteran picture book writers to stop procrastinating and get at least 7 picture book drafts down on paper so we could have the rest of the year to revise them. I also wanted this event to encourage folks to write every day no matter what, for I strongly believe that’s the best way to become a good writer.
Today’s blog is going to be rather short. I just wanted to remind everyone that if you have posted a comment on my blogs or emailed me (paula at paulayoo dot com) or registered a user name and password on this blog (http://paulayoo.com/napi), then you are AUTOMATICALLY included in our special prize drawing contest!
The contest blog winners will be announced in a special blog to be posted on Tuesday May 8th, so please come back tomorrow for that announcement. Good luck!
This year’s contest winners will receive the following…
(Keep reading after the break to find out more info about our contest plus other updates!)
