Thursday and 14degrees

well it was 14 when I took daughter dear to school this morning. It was more like 22 when I collected her at 11am and what a lovely day. Sunshine, breezes, fluffy little clouds. Daughter dear is working on math and younger son is well negotiating. He will do fine in the industry he is planning on going into. They need negotiators.

Here is another flower for the 52 week challenge.

The offspring both enjoyed the first day back at school - well maybe. They both achieved several outcomes so that was good at least and they both practiced their instruments which was delightful.

I signed up for the February Picture Book Marathon and an online commitment thing so I will have to sign in fairy regularly to update my word count and daily activity. This picture also counts toward my daily sketch but does not fit in the 52 week challenge of sketching for 52 weeks each week on a different theme.

The marathon is an event in which the participants challenge themselves to come up with 26 picture book manuscripts in 28 days. There is no expectation that any of them will be even close to more than a first draft at best but the idea is that 26 new storylines have been explored with the potential for some to become fully edited manuscripts. I felt this was a good challenge to add to my 12 x 12 goals of 12 manuscripts in 12 months. I have my January story well on the way to being a polished piece ready to send into the big wide world. Maybe the marathon will produce many more great ideas to develop into picture book dummies with all the skills I expect to learn in the Picture Book Dummy Challenge which runs January to July. It is exciting to be involved in all these challenges particularly because of the people I am meeting.

I began a new YA novel yesterday and like where it is going. Okay I am going to eat my rice pudding before it goes cold.