08/09/22: This morning I had my final publication meeting with my publisher, Lawley, and my illustrator, Ryan Law for New House For Mouse. Carrie and Lara (owners of Lawley) had the book to show us. It has turned out wonderful. I can’t wait to have it in my hands!!! The pre-orders are now live so that has been exciting to see and share with family and friends. During our Zoom call, Carrie and Lara shared the great news that they will send me a book deal for my third Mouse book: New Friend For Mouse. I am very excited to see this series coming together. In New Friend For Mouse, Mouse has to say goodbye to his foster sister and hello to a new foster kiddo at Mama Bunny’s foster home. Now time to work on book four!
That wasn’t the only good news that Carrie and Lara shared during our call. They are also sending me a book deal for Party At Arnie’s!!!! I am SOOOOO excited. Arnie is a dog that I’ve known for over three years and is very close to my heart. Party At Arnie’s is fun, laugh out loud book that I can’t wait to share. Party At Arnie’s is another manuscript that has once again shown me that persistents counts. I had 14 “No’s” on this manuscript before I received a book deal. It’s a great day for sure!!
Also, my second book in the Mouse series, New School For Mouse, now has a release date, 07/04/23..woohoo!!!
08/06/22: Wow over 6 months since I last wrote a blog post! So much has happened!! New House For Mouse and Harry Can Hear have all been finalized (art and manuscript) and should be heading to the printers soon. My publisher Lawley and my illustrators have been amazing to work with. One HUGE thing that has happened is Lawley purchased my second book in the Mouse series. New House For Mouse will now be followed by New School For Mouse! That book deal happened shortly after my last blog post. I am beyond excited. I have also submtted what I hope to be the third book, New Friend For Mouse. Just waiting to hear from Lawley on this one.
Since my last post I have written several manuscripts including Tango, Living Somewhere New, and The Day Q Quit. If you’d like to see what these are about take a peek on the welcome homepage and scroll down. I am still hoping for an agent and/or more book deals, but haven’t been submitting as much of my work. Lately I have been focusing more on social media…even TiKTok..yikes. Those who know me know this was hard on me to do. I’m not one that likes to be in front of the camera, but I’m actually having fun with it. Well I better run…off to my next adventure. I’ll make sure not to wait 6 months until my next post. Thanks for reading.
01/25/22: Illustration Meeting Day: Today I had the pleasure of meeting children’s book illustrator, Ryan Law. He is going to Illustrate New House For Mouse. I can’t wait to see how he develops the characters. Then on Thursday I get to meet the talented Milanka Reardon who will illustrate Harry Can Hear. I am beyond excited to work with both of these wonderful artisits! New House For Mouse will be released 11/8/22. I will find out on Thursday when Harry Can Hear will be released. This journey is amazing. It’s even better than I imagined. I am so thankful to my publisher, Lawley Publishing. They are truely an amazing company.
11/3/2021: I DID IT!!! I am finally going to be a published author. Last week, 10/26 to be exact :), I was eating lunch when an email came through. The email was from Lawley Publishing. No big deal, probably another, “great job, but this story isn’t for us” kind of letter. But NO! The subject line read ‘Book Offer Agreement.’ They wanted not one but two of my books, New House For Mouse (previously You’re Not My Mom) and Harry Can Hear. I jumped up and down and screamed with excitement. My husband was out of town for work and my daughter at school, so that left my dogs and I to receive this great news. The dogs immediately thought something was wrong and sprang in to attention.
I quickly called my husband. By now the happy tears were flowing. When he answered he of course thought something was wrong since I was crying. He was so happy for me knowing all the hard work I had put in to making this dream come true.
In case you didn’t know, I’m dyslexic. So this accomplishment is something that some might have thought I could not meet. I’ve always loved to write, always having stories swirling in my head. I tend to think in pictures so this definitely helps when writing picture books. My lack of spelling and grammar skills made me think for a long time that writing really wasn’t something I should do. Though once quarantine hit I think many of tried things that we thought we’d never get a chance to do. From there my writing took off. I meet another picture book writer, Molly, and together we formed a great critique group with Debi and Jayne. We meet weekly and are always teaching each other new tips that we’ve learned. Writing is definitely an art that has to fine tuned, especially with picture books where every word counts.
Yesterday I had my Publication Development Meeting with Lawley. I met with the owners Carrie Turley and Lara Law. These ladies are AMAZING! It truly feels like a partnership. They are allowing me to have so much input and decision making with the development of my books. Many times I’ve heard of the opposite happening, Publisher buys books and then they do what they want and the author has little to no say, but not with Lawley. This is going to be such a fun adventure. And I’ll make sure to blog about it all along the way…thanks for reading! 🙂
03/29/2021: Well it’s been a busy year so far of writing and querying, sometimes sending off up to 10 query letters a week…holy moly…busy. I’m loving it though. I now have a total of 10 completed manuscripts: You’re Not My Mom, Goodbye Scrappy, We Are Twins, Angels Are Watching, Harry Can Hear, Finding First Grade, Who’s In Your Heart, Football and Peas, Superpower Brain(NF), and Party At Arnie’s. I’m currently working on another Narrative NF about bees called Mama Bee. I’m having fun and loving every minute. The tired shoulders and back after a long day of sitting at my computer is all worth it. I still have the goal of getting published this year. Cheers to a great 2021!!!
01/14/2021 Cheers to a New Year: Those who know me well know I think 2021 will be my year. My year to have my work recognized and published. Maybe I’ll get “the email” from an agent, telling me they love my work and want to represent it. Or maybe the email will come straight from the publishing company. I am working hard everyday to try to make that happen. We are 2 weeks in to the new year and I have 4 new manuscripts I’m working on, We Can Still Be Friends, First Day of First Grade, Tango, and The Mystery of the Missing Shoe. My Families manuscript is still hanging on and getting a little better everyday, thanks to my critique group. My completed manuscripts from 2020 are You’re Not My Mom, Goodbye Scrappy, We Are Twins, Angels Are Watching, and Harry Can Hear.
I feel that 2020 knocked us on our butts and allowed many of us to regroup and figure out where we want to go from here. I hope you are also feeling pulled in a direction that makes you happy and brightens your soul. Life’s too short to not be happy…so choose happy. Find your piece of happiness.
12/6/2020, New Manuscript: Harry Can Hear is finally complete. Harry has a hard time hearing people when they are talking to him. Everyone thinks it’s just because he doesn’t listen. It isn’t until a school hearing test reveals that Harry needs hearing aids. Once fit with hearing aids he no longer misses out on what’s going on around him.
I worked in Audiology for 3 years. I loved helping children with their hearing test, hearing aids, cochlear implants and bone conduction hearing aids. I felt a book about hearing aids would be beneficial for kids going through the process of needing hearing aids for the first time. Also to be an eye opener for adults and other children, maybe that kiddo they think isn’t listening actually has a hearing impairment.
The Twitter Pitch event through #PitMad was a lot of fun on Thursday. Even though I didn’t hear from any agents or publishing companies one of the ladies in my critique group did and that’s just as exciting as being picked myself. I’m so happy for her and hope the agent decides to represent her work. With the holidays upon us a lot of agents are closing to queries until next year, so things are slowing down a bit. I did submit to two agents and one publishing company last week. Unfortunately the publishing company turned me down because they needed me to also illustrate …oh well, so many more fish in the sea. Also I am still waiting to hear back from my dream agent who represents books like mine that are sensitive topics. Until next year…Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! 2021 is going to be a great year!
11/30/2020, Twitter Time: Well, it’s almost that time again for Twitter Pitches on Thursday. This is where authors write a 1-2 line “elevator” pitch for each polished manuscript. Then we post them on Twitter with the appropriate hashtags and agents and publishers scroll through, if they like your post then that means they want you to send them your manuscript for further review….very exciting!!! This will be my second time participating. I’m going to pitch You’re Not My Mom, We Are Twins, Goodbye Scrappy, Angels Are Watching and my chapter book The Visions of Taylor Spencer. I just finished up my pitches, 3 for each manuscript, and sent them off to my critique group for some final polishing before Thursday. I’ll post an update. Best of luck to all of my fellow authors, especially the wonderfully talented ladies in my critique group.
11/18/2020, Good Morning: As I sit here, coffee finished and ready to start my day of writing, editing, submitting, I am thankful for all the support and encouragement from family and friends. I feel like my heart and soul are on the right path. Writing and querying is definitely not easy, but I’m loving (almost) every minute…lol. (11/18/2020)
fynisaengler.com 