One of the best things I’ve done in my new writing “career” is subscribe to a blog called “Coffee & Critique” – you can see it on my list. It keeps me advised of lots of writing contests that don’t cost anything to enter. The beauty of that is 1) it’s free and for a cheapskate like me, that’s great and 2) it encourages me to try writing a variety of different styles in order to find my voice. I believe writing is like learning to walk, to talk, to do anything. You have to try a lot of different ways before you find out exactly what works for you. I’m having a good time discovering my voice and looking for my accent. I am incredibly grateful to my EFW (Eclectic Fiction Writers) group which keeps me accountable.<\/p>\n

I am currently working on three different stories. One for Esquire (hah! didn’t think I’d go for that one did you?), one for Real Simple (describing a moment when I decided I was grown up), and one for Family Circle (a semi-romance story). In the meantime, I am attempting to write a youth novel targeting 8 – 12 year olds. Hmmm . . . sounds like my “voice” may have a mixed up accent!<\/p>\n

Speaking of accents, I am so ready to hear from my oldest son. He is in Normandy, France this week after being in London, England last week. I think he’ll be in Paris tomorrow and Thursday and then he comes home on Friday. I can only imagine the experiences he has had and the growth he has made. The real trick will be me letting him be more grown up. Why is it so easy to let other kids be “older”, but so hard to extend that to my own children? No one told me that parenting would be this emotionally complicated. However, I wouldn’t change anything. Life is good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the best things I’ve done in my new writing “career” is subscribe to a blog called “Coffee & Critique” – you can see it on my list. It keeps me advised of lots of writing contests that don’t cost anything to enter. The beauty of that is 1) it’s free and for a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7zbKo-RH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sheilascribbles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}