I am teaching Writing about Literature to College Freshmen This Year, and I Love My Job! But yesterday was the final date for 2 assignments to be submitted, and — you guessed it, I was forced to give some students the grade of zero. Keep guessing — Yes! Today, some of those students were begging…
Category: Inspiration
Women Who Run with the Wolves Quotes
Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly “Folklore, fairy tales and dream symbols are called on to help restore women’s neglected intuitive and instinctive abilities in this earthy first book by a Jungian analyst. According to Estes, wolves and women share a psychic bond in their fierceness, grace and devotion to mate and community. This comparison defines…
Don’t Give Up – Thoughts for Starting All Over Again and Again and Again
A Reminder to All of Us Who Did Not Succeed in PBPitch: Tip Number 8: Try Not to React Personally to Whether Your Pitch on a Twitter Party is Liked or Not Liked I have no idea how many picture books are pitched on Twitter parties, and I also have no idea how many agents…
I’m Planning My Secret Garden in January – A Garden Always Has a Point
Today, Facebook reminded me that a year ago, on New Year’s Day, I posted about the fact that I was both planning my garden and remembering the lovely Inga Moore’s version of the classic book The Secret Garden that was initially written by Frances Hodgson Burnett. You can read the 1911 Secret Garden online Free…
Making My Lists & Checking Them Twice – Setting Goals for the New Year
Many, many years ago, I saw an illustration with a simple, crude stairway stretched toward heaven, and the words were inscribed: I Want! It may have been a William Blake illustration. I saw it at about the time that I was writing a thesis on him, Today, it seems like that was a lifetime ago,…
To-Do Lists Help Me Deal with Procrastination
Procrastination is the bane of my existence, but over the years, I have learned that simply getting started is my best plan. After that, keeping To-Do Lists helps keep me on task. I actually write my lists either on paper or on my computer. When I am suffering a particularly stubborn episode of procrastination, I…
How My Intuition Wrote My Debut Picture Book: Writing, Painting, & Illustrating by Intuition
When I am painting and when I am writing, I consider it a great day when something within myself takes over and essentially completes my project for me. This gentle urging is intuition. It is the spark that helped Michelangelo release his sculptures from a piece of rock. Janis Joplin – Jacki Kellum Watercolor My…
Next Easter – Let’s All Get Together & Celebrate an Old-Time Easter
I guess that this year, most of us will miss the old, time-honored Easter celebrations that we associate with our pasts, but today, I am remembering the Easters from my childhood, and I am pledging that from now on, we must not miss another Easter celebration — TOGETHER. I was born in 1950 and although…
Give Me That Old-Time Religion. It’s Good Enough for Me!
Several months ago, I began preparing to move into a very old house, and although there are formal features about my place, it is just an old farmhouse. Long before the coronavirus had begun threatening Americans and had begun imposing a slow-down of life upon us, I had begun making plans to move into a…
Memories of Guatemala at Easter Time – Understanding the Parable of the Widow’s Mites
Because of the coronavirus, it hardly seems like it, but Easter is only a few days away. Life has been trimmed down for most Americans, but I am recalling the Easter that I spent in Guatemala and had the honor of visiting the village of Antigua at Easter. That was the Easter that I saw…