I’m at a loss as to what I should write about this week. I’ll just wander about this page and see what comes out.

The visa for my stay in Mexico is 180 days. Since we plan to be in Mexico more than 180 days, I have to leave the country at some point before our time is up. I’ve decided to use the time to go to a writer’s conference. The big one. The SCBWI summer conference in LA. I’m all signed up, I have a place to stay, and now I just need a flight. Unfortunately, all of the flights have just jumped up hundreds of dollars from when I looked a few days ago. Oy! I’ll wait a little to see if there’s a drop in prices.

Mexico is lovely. The woman who’s home we are watching just left for Canada this morning. Robb and I are now on our own. Now we have about six more months of keeping a small heard of dogs and cats happy and healthy. With the temperature already floating around the 100 degree mark, I think we’ll have many lazy days with lots of water involved.

As far as writing goes, his was week 32 of 52 weeks. 20 left. the topic for this weeks first draft was similar to one I wrote just a few weeks ago, so I won’t bore you with the details. I do find that not being on the road, having a single location to call my own, makes the writing so much easier. More productive. I have been writing, rereading some of my old drafts, getting ideas for changes, rewriting, and editing. I think my time here in Mexico will be good for my writing.

I’ve also been filling my time by “reading” more picture books. It helps me to see how other authors do it, what I like, sometimes what I don’t. I see what gets published. I say reading in quotes, because I have no access to books here. Luckily, online, there are many places to find picture books being read. This week I’ve been looking at ones done by the Screen Actor’s Guild’s (SAG) Storyline Online. I just listened to one of my all-time favorites, Library Lion, written by Michelle Knudsen, Illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, read by Mindy Sterling. Gosh, I love that one!