Princess of the Midnight Ball

    I have rekindled excitement for reading again. Which I am thrilled about. I finished reading Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George. And now I have a few new books sitting on my shelf just waiting their turn.
     This book is a retelling of one of my favorite fairy tales, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. A king has 12 daughters. Every night they go to sleep with beautiful dancing shoes, and every morning the king discovers that their shoes have been worn through. The king wants so desperately to discover his daughter's secret that he offers one of his daughter's hands in marriage - which would give the winner succession to the throne - to any man who can discover their secret. In the fairytale the daughter's love to go dancing, whereas in this book the daughters are cursed to have to go dancing each night, but have no way of breaking the curse. Until Galen, an orphaned soldier enters the picture. He becomes an under gardener to the king and falls in love with the eldest princess. Hand in marriage or not Galen is determined to break the curse and save the princesses from their misery.
     It was a fun read; interesting to take a short fairytale and turn it into an over 200 page explanation and background. Good read for young girls.

NaNoWriMo = PiBoIdMo

     Every November novel writers take on the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel from scratch starting on the 1st and finishing by midnight on the 30th. If you have the discipline and determination. It pushes them to take a kamikazee approach; take an idea and run with it without inhibition. It gives no time to over think your writing and second guess yourself.

    However, I write picture books. My books are 500-1,000 words and 32 pages long. So, I was looking for alternatives last year per a friend's advice in my writing group and we found one: National Picture Book Idea Month.  It started 2008. I started last year. Instead of us writing a novel we take the 30 days and generate a new idea every day. Some will stink and some, hopefully will be awesome! Some days we may only have a title and others we may write the entire story. Either way by the end of the month ... 30 new options. Which means: Yea!

    So, awesome. I did it last year and it worked out really well for me. So, I'm doing it again come November. I think it's just what I need to give myself a good swift kick in the butt and get back to writing again.