Ellie McDoodle: New Kid on the web

This is so cool. One of my dear writer friends is new to blogging and her first post is a review of my second book, Ellie McDoodle: New Kid in School. And it's a well-written review. She happens to like New Kid in School -- which is nice -- but I especially like how she wrote the review. You can tell she's a writer.
I love it when I read something that's so well-written it makes me wish I'd written it.

And, I have to say, it's very nice hearing an opinion on the second book.


I worked in a vacuum for so long, tweaking the book and trying to make it better than the first, and all this time I've been craving feedback. Something other than my editor's comments.
Not that I discount my editor's words - far from it - but she's working on the book, not just reading it for pleasure.
I wanted to hear from a reader. Someone who isn't looking for typos, art snags, or a better way to convey a scene. Now I have, and I am happy.
And, incidentally, this lady is in the book, on page 7, with the rest of my wonderfully amazingly talented and skilled critique group.*

The final copyedits went to press just a couple days ago.
I'm done. The book is done. For better or for worse, it's done.
So now I'm working on the next book. :)
And I just finished my taxes, my kid's FAFSA, the flu, Family Night, some heavy-duty March is Reading Month author visit planning, and I put in some quality time as a parent. That last bit is not to be underestimated. I'm not yet allowed to announce the life changes affecting a few of my kids, but lets just say it's all happy and it doesn't get any bigger.
So now I finally have a window of opportunity to upload the SCBWI Conference sketches from two weeks ago.
That'll be a huge job, but not as big as some of this other stuff has been.
Ahh, life is good.

*except one whom I love dearly, who moved to another state. I felt there were too many people on page 7 and it started to look self-indulgent and I hate that in books and comics, so I pulled her out and put her name on page 10 instead. I'll probably always beat myself up about that. Would one extra person on the page really have been too much? O, the incessant self-analysis. It's proof I am alive. I breathe, therefore I analyze. Anyway, maybe I'll draw her into the next book...