Course notes

It's day two of the picture book class, and so far I love it. I can't talk too much about the course because that would inhibit Anastasia's ability to make money...you know, trade secrets and all that.

Here's a little tidbit though: each day, we have to read five books with various criteria. I've decided to keep an Excel file of all the books (I meant to do this two years ago!) to track the book, author, illustrator, publisher and topic. I'm sure I'll add more columns eventually. Right now, I'm using it to see who writes and publishes what. If I can figure it out, I'd like to try to add the editor and agent, but that may be a little tricky to uncover.

I had my SCBWI critique group last night. It went well. The new story didn't have as many problems...just little ones to fix. But, once again, I've been told I have a magazine story. I'm just having problems with this character thing. I can see the illustration potential is possibly limited, but I also see lots and lots of books that have the same limited picture potential where the illustrator was just brilliant. Research, research for me!