Happy New Year! I’m spending the day doing absolutely nothing. I have so much to do–finish painting one corner of my office so I can reassemble the office and finally unpack all the books, and finally have a working workspace; fold laundry; read submissions; maybe even get some exercise in (boy, do I need some yoga after that snowshoeing the other day! so fun, but wow, does it make you sore!)–but today I’m ignoring it all and spending the day cuddled up with my kitties and catching up on things like Writing Excuses, the podcast about writing run by my friends Brandon, Howard, and Dan. They always have good informative things to say, but I just noticed that in particular they interviewed Brandon Mull way back several months ago about children’s literature.

It’s relatively basic–the things they
talk about are things that most of my readers would consider a given–but I think it’s a great place to point friends who are thinking about writing for children but don’t know the market at all, because they define children’s lit, discuss how content breaks down the age groups, book length, viewpoint, vocabulary needs, characterization, and other essentials to consider for someone new to the market.

If you haven’t listened to Writing Excuses before, check it out. You’ll be able to catch up pretty quickly–each podcast is only 15 minutes long, "because you’re in a hurry, and [they]’re not that smart."