Well, my annual Christmas Cookie Exchange Party is over and 2014 is just about over too. Time to set new goals as a writer. I seem to have the same goals every year: write and read more, submit manuscripts to publishers, nurture myself as a writer, attend at least one writer’s conference or workshop, value my writer friends, attend critique sessions, keep the hope up. Of course, I don’t always get all of these done. Each year seems to go by faster than the last one.

The above is what I wrote a couple of years ago, but it still applies every year. I went over my journal to see if I had really read as much as I had hoped to in 2014. I keep a Reader’s Journal and jot down the titles of books I read and notes about the story and characters. I wish I had read more, but, oh, well. Many of the books I read were picture books because that is what I’ve been writing lately. I love reading historical fiction as well.

To help you get started in 2015, visit  Rachelle Burke’s Resources for Children’s Writers’ blog. She writes that her resources will “help you improve your writing, network with other writers, get published, and sell your work.”

Wishing you a Blessed New Year and great inspiration in your writing!

Search through your childhood memories and rediscover what it felt like to live in the world of a child; the joys, the fears, and the dreams.—Audrey Wood