Going to a Picture Book Revision Retreat

Last weekend I went to a writers' retreat hosted by one of my favorite authors, Michelle Houts.  This is Michelle with her newest book, When Grandma Gatewood Took a Hike.  When you go to a writing retreat, you also do a lot of reading, and I love to read!

Michelle used "Writing Picture Books" as our textbook.  We looked at it chapter by chapter and then applied it to our own manuscripts.  Staying at a Bed and Breakfast meant we could spread out and get comfortable.  I love being comfortable!  In one activity, we highlighted our story characters, one color for each character.  It was an eye-opener!  I discovered I had too many characters.  It’s an easy fix...eliminate a couple of characters.  Other eye-openers will take much longer.

Sometimes we did an activity and had a classmate repeat it.  It was interesting to see where our answers matched, but even more interesting to find differences.  This is where I learned the most, and can improve the most too.  I love improving, hopefully enough to see this picture book published!

Here are two class pictures from Michelle Houts’ Picture Book Revision Retreat, January 2017, where learning is a lot of fun!