What Not To Do Wednesday on Being Organized (Or Not)

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So. I needed ONE little thing. A simple piece of paper.

Well, not just any old piece of paper. I was looking for a piece of paper from my radio days. The copy from a commercial, if you must know. And I looked EVERYWHERE.

And when I say EVERYWHERE, I mean I emptied the entire love chest of my life. There is a ton of stuff in that love chest, I can tell you that, grasshopper. But do you know what’s NOT in the love chest? The radio commercial copy.

Eventually, I stuffed all the er, stuff back in the chest (P.S. I still can’t get it to close). I moved on. To the filing cabinet, to be exact, where I was looking for something totally different. I suppose I don’t need to tell you what I found in a completely random, unmarked folder.

Don’t forget to mark your folders, grasshopper. And here’s a link to 30 very funny books, according to Gina Barreca, Ph.D., who wrote a handful of pretty funny books herself. Honestly, we deserve a couple laughs, right?

‘Cause if you can’t laugh at the crazy stuff in life (and filing cabinets), then you might as well throw in the (paper) towel.

Finding a Children’s Market Sooner Rather Than Later

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If you write for children’s magazines, then you know how important it is to get your work to editors well before the end of a submission deadline. If you’re just starting out, considering magazines, then you need to look at editorial calendars now and consider the themes.  A Fall theme might have a March deadline!

Even though I know all about deadlines, I’ve still been caught with my …er, pages down. I’ve had editors say, “Sorry! We’ve already  filled out the year’s calendar!” In July. So that’s why I thought I’d give a for instance today.

Take Guardian Angel Kids. It’s a paying market, and the editors accept fiction (which is getting to be a tougher and tougher sell in children’s markets), non-fiction, and poetry. Oh! And they accept work from children writers up to age 12!

 Here’s the golden link with the editorial calendar.  Check out a few back issues to get the feel of the magazine, then get right on your submission. The sooner, the better. ‘Cause honestly, the early writer gets the acceptance!