Magazine Memories and Kid's Books

    Life would be easier for me, if I only could sit and watch my kid's match and not think of a children's book plot line. Anything at all makes me think - hey, that would be a good kid's book. As I stir the oatmeal, I can see creatures ooze from each bloated bubble.
     Just today as we pull the yucky cover off the green pool, I wonder - what if we didn't clean it? Those slithery interesting little lifeforms could become frogs, lots and lots of frogs, and they'd dance. A Frog Fest. But, that isn't such a great name, so maybe Toad Abode, and you see it all goes from there.
     My kid is a teenager now, but when he needed me more, I quit the creative design job, so I wouldn't sing the, "Cats in the Cradle," song. Our days walking around the zoo gave me a character called Sherbo in Sherbo Will Manage the zoo. He came home from third grade and told me that the Principles eats Sardines with the kids - well, that I turned that into Sardines with the Principal.
     We did a happy dance together, with the cat, when Memory Magic magazine accepted a photography-essay column I entered, called The Camera Bag! I ended each piece with those three words.

The assignment didn't last too long because it was a bad year for magazines and they canceled it, which by the way it's always a bad year for magazines no matter what the year. I know, I worked at Petersen Publishing for ten years, and they were always trimming the fat and dropping titles. When I worked on "Issue," each one we produced was always our last one.

I also did a few things for the local publication - Murfreesboro Magazine.

 In this garden article the gardener is named Sharon, and Rose of Sharon is a flower - attemping cleverness.Took the article photos too.


A Murfreesboro Magazine Cover.

 

Writing and photographing Yard Sale Fridays! Answering the question - what can we find for $20?

Wrote a couple things here and there for the local newspaper Daily News Journal.

So, now that there's more time - I'm collecting, designing, finishing all the kid's books notions, and now I need to find a publisher. So how do you do that? I'm sure everything is electronic now and no more slush piles. So, I don't know. Maybe it's all for my kid to laugh at, but one thing's for sure, life would be much easier if I didn't HAVE TO process kid's book ideas.