I'm signed up for the ReviMo challenge - 7 days of children's picture book revision- (full details at http://www.megmillerwrites.blogspot.com.au/p/revimo-2015.html) and can't wait to kick off on Monday 11th January.

That's right, next week I'll be busy with revisions. I have plenty draft versions of children's picture books to choose from and hope to have them in much better shape by the end of the week.

Let me know if you're taking part in the challenge too so we can cheer each other along.

Sid

When the puppy was 11 months old, my brother, Ike died of a heart attack and Sidney came to me, I was wrong. Snoopy and Sidney got along in their own way. 

Though this did not happen in real live, in The Spy Game I have my brother bring Sidney to my house to live.  ~J.D. Holiday

I think reading great stories was one thing that influenced me. There were books that I said to myself, how I wish I had written that. I think I was also inspired or conditioned, in some way, by watching my dad write his stories. He would type every weekend at our dinning-room table on his manual typewriter all my childhood. I publish my own books using my own publishing company, Book Garden Publishing. After years of submitting to publishers I decide I was my publisher.  Up to that point, though, I had some short stories and a Chapbook published, and had some editors interest in my stories, and I even had an agent for a time, but none of my children's books in print.

I always like to get to know other writers and especially those who share similar interests to mine, so it's my pleasure to be joined by children's writer Lily Stejskal for today's post. 

Tell us a bit about yourself

My name is Lily Stejskal. I am twenty-six years old and live in northern Virginia. I am an aspiring children’s author who hasn’t published anything yet, but I have two blogs that I would love to share. I am currently searching for places to publish my work, and if you have any ideas, please let me know.

As a writer I am very spontaneous, and I tend to write whatever comes to mind. As a result, I have completed works in many different genres with many different themes.

I am very passionate about educating children, something that I’m sure shows in my writing. Another thing I am passionate about is the environment, and so I am hoping to write both fiction and nonfiction with environmental themes. I have already written many different environmental poems, many of which can be found on my writing blog.

I was born with autism, and another passion of mine is helping autistic children. In addition to many of my memoirs being about autism, I am getting ready to submit some shorter memoirs to the Autism Society’s web site. After I have done so, I will post a link to those stories on my blog. Maybe I will even write fiction about autistic children someday!

When did you start writing?

I’ve been making up stories ever since I could talk, and I was about eight when I first started typing these stories on the computer.

What genre do you write and why?

As mentioned before, I write all sorts of different genres. Right now I have poems, picture book manuscripts, personal essays, memoirs, and book reviews on my blog, but I have also just started writing short stories and have lots of ideas for novels. I write for all age groups except very young children. While some of my writing is for adults, most of it is for children ages four and older. I don’t have much of an interest in writing for children under four, for a couple of reasons. One is that books meant for this age group tend to rely on illustrations, and I have neither an illustrator nor adequate drawing instruction to provide those right now, though drawing is a hobby of mine. Another is that I like to write lengthy, complicated stories, and children under four don’t usually have the patience for those. I am, however, able and willing to try out just about any genre for any other age group, adults included. For that reason, when you visit my blog, I would love it if you would leave ideas for other things I can try. If you have children, I am especially interested in what they would like me to try.

Where can people see samples of your work?

People can see samples of the work I listed above on my writing blog: http://lilyswriting.wordpress.com/

What else do you post on your blog?

My writing blog is strictly for my writing, but I also have another blog:

http://fairytalecastle.wordpress.com/ This blog is all about fairy tales. So far it contains analytical discussions of fairy tales, ideas for parents on sharing fairy tales with their children, and a couple original fairy tales I wrote. In the future I plan to also include fairy tale re-tellings and ideas for teachers to use fairy tales in the classroom. Just as with my writing, I am open to new ideas with this blog, so when you visit, please feel free to tell me what else you would like to see there.

Plans for the future?

I have lots of tentative plans for the future, and being a spontaneous writer, I never know which ones I’ll try when. I plan to write more short stories, but have no idea when I’ll have improved them enough to post on my blog. I also don’t know when I’ll have enough writing experience to start toying with one of my novel ideas. One thing I may do soon, though, is write more memoirs and personal essays.

Right now my biggest project is a screenplay for a possible children’s movie. This screenplay, which is almost complete, is a crossover story featuring heroes and villains from different musicals battling one another. This screenplay is too big to post on my blog, but I may find a way to make it accessible to the public once it is complete. Needless to say, finishing this screenplay is another plan for the future, as are publishing some of what’s on my blog. I also may post some additional poems, memoirs, and personal essays on my writing blog, but those I would like to first try submitting to web sites that publish only unpublished material. If I succeed in that endeavor, I will definitely post links to the web site(s) on my blog.