Spring has sprung!

Hi all! There are actual flowers in the grass in Central Park! And flowers on the trees. New York is like a living, breathing rainbow and I am in the greatest mood. Nothing can bring me down today--not revisions,or the need to enter that deep dark foreboding world known as outline hell. At the moment I'm writing two series simultanerously, (Katie Kazoo Switcheroo and How I Survived Middle School) which comes to a book a month. But hey, as all freelancers know, it's better to have feast than famine, and I have to admit that I love the idea that kids of all ages are reading my books. And I love writing them. Getting lost in another world, having kids who say what you want them to, and do what you tell them to, it's every mother's dream. (Of course, then my kids come home from school, and I remember what real kids are like! LOL)

And speaking of the kids, spring fever has definitely arrived at our house. Ian's got the whole cycle of baseball, tae kwon do, piano, trmpet, and hanging with his buds in the park going on, while Mandy is running around from audition to audition and from party to party. In fact, all we pretty much see of the kids these days are their heads as they walk out the door, or their hands when they ask for money. Smiles have returned to everyone's faces--even the dog's! (Hmmm. . .I wonder what effect all of this fun will have on their report cards!)

I'm smiling too, especially since I learned that A Katie Kazoo Christmas hit #40 on PWs annual kids bestseller list, which was sort of a late Christmas present for me. The series has been a real shock--who knew when I started with a three book contract that I'd someday be working on book 29? When I started Ian was a fourth grade kid just like the main characters, and now next year we'll be looking for high schools for him. Mmm. . .I wonder how I can mine his newly minted male teen psyche for more book ideas! Having a boy definitely gives you insight into a whole other world. Actually it's a pretty incredible world--you should see the seventh grade girls who hang around him these days!

Well I'd love to write more, but I've decided to take the dog for another walk in the park. I think there's a tree out there somewhere he missed this morning.

xxoo