March 12, 2008

DOING THE HAPPY WRITER DANCE!

I just finished revisions on my new middle grade novel!

Can you hear my sigh of relief from there? I’ll be doing the Happy Writer Dance as soon as I do the following:

1) Introduce myself to my children. “Hi, boys! Remember me? I’m your mom.”

2) Catch up on the 500 plus e-mails I need to delete, er, um, answer.

3) Play outside. “Oh, look, it’s March already!”

4) Enjoy a long overdue game of Scrabble with hubby. (Yes, he’ll probably win. Again!)

5) Return phone calls, especially that one from Oprah. Don’t I wish?!

6) And most importantly . . . clean the house. Yeah, right!

Although I can’t show you my happy dance, I’ll share these smile-inspiring happy dances, courtesy of John and Hank Green, Nerdfighters extraordinaire.




I know someone else who should be doing the Happy Writer Dance: E. M. Crane. Her young adult novel, SKIN DEEP, came out yesterday. I read an advance reader copy and loved it so much I cried. No wonder it won the Delacorte Press Contest for a First Young Adult Novel, No wonder the only revisions she needed to make were changing a character’s name! And the people who populate her wonderful novel stayed with me loooong after I closed the book.





A big THANK YOU to Jean Westmoore, who wrote a nice review of my book in the Buffalo News. Here’s the last line of the review: “This entertaining novel offers believable middle school situations, a rip roaring finale and a funny, memorable heroine.”

Ah, more happy dancing.

Do you have something to Happy Dance about? A bit of good news? A recent accomplishment? Someone else’s accomplishment? If so, post a comment on this blog and YOU might be chosen to be a GUEST BLOGGER. Won’t that be fun?

Looking forward to reading your Happy Dance moments. For now, though, I’m going to celebrate finishing my new novel, E.M. Crane’s exciting novel release and my book’s review in the Buffalo News . . . by cleaning the house, um, taking a nap!

Keep those pages turning,

Donna

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Dancing, Happy Dancing (can you hear the tune, too, or is that only inside my own head?) lol :) Thank you for the wonderful words and congrats on the continued success of As If...I wish we could meet up for a coffee!
!!! :)
Eileen

Riley Roam said...

Congratulations on finishing the revisions and the great review! Instead of the happy dance, I'm going to do the hamster dance. It's just that kind of a day.

Jill

Obsessedwithlife said...

Congrats! My MRI was good-they think the 'spot' is something leftover from my last surgery (may 2004) and don't seem to worried about it! Yay!

Rach

Anonymous said...

Congrats!

I remember finishing up a large project for a client back in February '06. It was some crazy number of web content articles on mostly-obscure Internet technology topics. I was writing no less than 11 hours a day, 7 days a week for five weeks.

By the end, my youngest daughter had learned to read. No fooling. She was on the verge before, but she hit it that month, and I missed it. Reintroduce yourself, indeed!

Anonymous said...

Demanding clients? Overwhelming deadlines? Clueless men? Ha! I laugh in the face of adversity and will be doing my own happy dance all day long because it is girls night tonight. Nothing beats time spent with a good friend (especially when the homemade chips with blue cheese at Hops are involved!)

Christina

Anonymous said...

Hi Donna---I don't have an particularly happy news of my own, but I thought you might like to check out the blog of my friend and writing colleague, Nancy Sanders, at www.nancyisanders.wordpress.com. Nancy is the author of many books, most recently the well-received picture book, D is for Drinking Gourd, and right now on her blog she is headup a Book in a Month Challenge! I'm not part of this endeavor, but it sounds great. And, I think Nancy is a lot like you...enthusiastic, energetic, and very productive...and lots of fun, too. I know she'd love to hear from you!
Marjorie

Anonymous said...

hey, congrats on finishing the revisions!! i liked the video of the happy dance. But , i would really like to see u in a video, doing your happy dance. wahoo, you go!!! ur #1 fan :-)

Wild About Words said...

Thanks for all the comments! You're each on my list to be a possible guest blogger.
Rach, thanks for sharing the GREAT news. Eileen, hope you're enjoying launch week. Jill -- hamster dance? Too funny! Nice to meet you, Bob. Very useful blog! Christina, hope the girls night was fun. Marjorie, thanks for sharing that excellent blog; I intend to visit it often. And to my #1 fan, I'm you're number one fan, too, sis!

An update? Turns out our boys remembered me; they're just pretending they don't know me. Oprah hasn't called . . . yet, but I did spend a glorious half hour in a sunny spot reading her magazine. Beat hubby at Scrabble (this time). And is the house even a tiny bit cleaner? Of course not. There are better things to do!
Have a fun weekend,
Donna

Anonymous said...

I need to take inspiration from the Happy Dance entry to get myself pumped up to finish my own pending projects...for clients and for the 2nd edition of my greeting card writing book. Congrats to everyone who starts something and sees it through to a successful finish.