Hi.

 

      I never meant to abandon my blog for more than a month. I think that's the longest I've ever gone without posting since I first began this blog.  Sometimes things just happen.  After I finished (HUZZAH!) the A to Z Challenge at the end of April, I was working on a guest post for my friend Guilie Castillo's wonderful blog, Life in Dogs, about my family's recent Circle of Life journey: losing our adored older dog in February, adopting a new dog in April. After that was done, it took me most of May to recover from those two intense writing experiences.
     And then the New Jersey SCBWI annual Conference was the fist weekend in June, so it seemed to make sense to wait until it was over so I could blog about my news.  But then when it was over, I didn't have any news.  I had two critiques with agents and neither one of  them asked me to submit anything. It's been years since that happened to me at a conference.  On the one hand, this made me realize how fortunate I've been, but then on the other hand, that realization didn't make me feel any less depressed.  It's never ideal to feel like you're going backward instead of forward in trying to achieve your dreams.
     Yeah, but I'm not giving up, though.  Over the last week I've sort of gotten a second wind.  Okay, maybe nothing as powerful as a wind.  Maybe it's more like a second mild breeze.  Still, I'm back.  And thanks for sticking by me.