Thoughts on Writing Poetry

Gleams When Wet cover

I’m strug­gling to write a poet­ic pic­ture book. To fill me with the metaphor, imagery, rhythm and meter that I’m striv­ing for, I’ve been read­ing oth­er books of poet­ry. Two inter­est­ing things hap­pened dur­ing today’s readings…
Gleams When Wet cover
First, I was read­ing Gleams When Wet by Debra Spencer. I had picked it up at Half Price Books on a whim, since I’m most­ly search­ing for ideas that have to do with water. Inter­est­ing­ly, it’s most­ly set in the Monterey/Santa Cruz, Cal­i­for­nia, area, which is where my old­est child is cur­rent­ly study­ing marine biol­o­gy, so that was a fun con­nec­tion. There are some beau­ti­ful and intrigu­ing poems in here, as well as insight­ful com­men­tary on life. It made for quite an enjoy­able after­noon. (Yes, sit­ting and read­ing poet­ry all after­noon is some­times actu­al­ly my job. How lucky am I!?) What par­tic­u­lar­ly struck me, how­ev­er, is the inscrip­tion from the author (“To XXX, anoth­er adven­tur­ous father, with love from Debra”) and the hand­writ­ten card still tucked inside: “Hap­py birth­day, XXX — I think you’ll enjoy this. Her poems are won­der­ful! See page 54! I also love Old Sailor’s Man­i­festo (p. 34) — and many oth­ers. Enjoy! Love, Mom” (*Note: Name changed to XXX to pro­tect the innocent. 😉)
When I first read these words, I was instant­ly sad­dened. His mom had poured so much love into this thought­ful gift (not to men­tion it was per­son­al­ized by the author)! How could he have giv­en it away to end up on the shelf at my local HPB? But then I thought, self­ish­ly, how lucky I was that he did, else I would nev­er have hap­pened upon it in my ran­dom HPB trea­sure hunt! Then I thought, maybe he read them and they just did­n’t con­nect. It’s kind of sad that Mom missed the mark, but hey, it hap­pens. Hope­ful­ly, he appre­ci­at­ed the thought, at least. Or maybe he read them and loved them, tak­ing pic­tures of or typ­ing up his favorites to file them away dig­i­tal­ly rather than clut­ter­ing up his phys­i­cal space. In the end, I’ve decid­ed, it does­n’t mat­ter why he did­n’t trea­sure it. The real gift was in the giv­ing. No mat­ter what XXX felt about the gift or his rea­sons for pass­ing it on, it warms my heart to think that his mom loved him, that she also loved words, and that she want­ed to share them with him. As I strug­gle with my poet­ry project, I have often thought that per­haps it’s not worth it, per­haps it’s too far out­side of my wheel­house and I should stick to what I’m good at, per­haps no one will ever read or care about my words. Per­haps Debra thought that, too, before Mom came to get Gleams When Wet signed for her son. Per­haps, if I keep strug­gling, some oth­er Mom will lov­ing­ly buy my poet­ic pic­ture book for her child, and I’ll to get sign it, “To XXX, with love.”
River of Words cover
Anoth­er book that struck me was Riv­er of Wordsedit­ed by Pamela Michael. It’s a col­lec­tion of poems writ­ten by young people–many as young as 6 or 7–about the nat­ur­al world. And. it. is. so. good! Not only did it do exact­ly what I was hop­ing for–filling my artist’s well with even more water images and metaphors to poten­tial­ly use in my own project–but it was incred­i­bly inspir­ing as well. Yes, these young writ­ers are clear­ly very tal­ent­ed, but they are cer­tain­ly not pro­fes­sion­al poets.  Yet, their poems sing with mean­ing. The depths of what they are able to say with so few words reminds me why I’m try­ing to com­plete this project in the first place, to con­vey some­thing that is deep and mean­ing­ful to me to young read­ers. And the suc­cess the poems achieve in con­vey­ing each indi­vid­ual author’s essence gives me hope that per­haps my poet­ry can one day make that kind of con­nec­tion with read­ers, too.
So, thank you to the poets out there strug­gling to make your words and mean­ing flow. Thank you to pub­lish­ers who still believe in cre­at­ing beau­ti­ful poet­ry books for chil­dren and adults. And thank you to every­one who buys books to share with those you love. 💛

Emmanuel’s Dream wins CA Young Reader Medal!

A few weeks ago I was hon­ored to trav­el to Pasade­na, CA, to the Cal­i­for­nia Library Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence to receive the Cal­i­for­nia Young Read­er Medal for Emmanuel’s Dream. This is a very spe­cial award because the win­ning book in each cat­e­go­ry is cho­sen by the kids themselves.
First, the award tea itself. There were teas and sand­wich­es and all kinds of yum­mies, and look at the love­ly decorations:

stage decorations
The edge of the stage, with the book cov­ers and oth­er images inspired by the stories.

cup and saucer with tiny bicycle and horse
Bicy­cles for Emmanuel’s Dream, hors­es for The War that Saved My Life.

It was fun hear­ing the oth­er speak­ers and get­ting to chat with the librar­i­ans dur­ing the book sign­ing. And it all came with an hon­est-to-good­ness medal!

front of medal
The front of the medal.

back of medal
The back of the medal.

After the cer­e­mo­ny, I had some time to walk around and explore the city. The weath­er was per­fect, and Pasade­na is lovely.

Quote on electrical box
I loved the quotes paint­ed onto the elec­tri­cal boxes!

I stum­bled upon a street fair in hon­or of Day of the Dead. There were many tal­ent­ed artists sell­ing their wares, ven­dors, music, danc­ing, a pup­pet show, and chalk art! There were a lot of peo­ple out and about enjoy­ing the fes­tive atmosphere.
chalk artist at work
A chalk artist at work dur­ing the street fair.

A beard­ed drag­on named Robert, enjoy­ing the street fair with his pet boy.

I, of course, had to vis­it the local inde­pen­dent book­store, Vroman’s!

bookstore shelves
A nice dis­play at Vroman’s

The nice young women work­ing there rec­om­mend­ed Tre­jo’s Can­ti­na for din­ner, and it was so delicious!
Mexican rice bowl
Deli­cious din­ner at Tre­jo’s Cantina!

The Vro­man’s gals also told me not to miss the new ice cream shop in town, Wan­der­lust, which fea­tures fla­vors based on exot­ic trav­el des­ti­na­tions. They had me at ice cream! It was well worth the walk. I chose hon­ey laven­der, and it was divine.
So many inter­est­ing flavors!

As you can see, it was an amaz­ing trip. Thank you so much, Cal­i­for­nia young readers! 🙂

What I’ve Been Up To This Month

The month isn’t even over yet, but so much has been packed into the last few weeks it feels more like two months already! That’s not exact­ly an excuse for neglect­ing the blog, but, you know, life hap­pens. Anyway…

Beachside Nonfiction Workshop

I start­ed out the month at the Beach­side Non­fic­tion Work­shop with Can­dace Flem­ing & Jen­nifer Swan­son. It was amaz­ing! The fac­ul­ty were all stel­lar, the loca­tion was gor­geous, and the atten­dees were love­ly. It was fun hang­ing out with oth­er non­fic­tion geeks for an entire week­end. We all strug­gled to answer the “So, what do you write?” ques­tion, how­ev­er, since we can usu­al­ly just get away with “Non­fic­tion,” and have that be the end of it! I did­n’t take near­ly enough pho­tos, but here’s the view from my hotel balcony…

Yes, it was hard work. There were a lot of ses­sions, and they were most­ly mas­ter lev­el, plus net­work­ing and cri­tiques. I came away with so much use­ful infor­ma­tion and new ideas to apply to my works in progress. There were obvi­ous­ly some oth­er perks, too! 

Seattle Reading Council Appearance

In the mid­dle of the month, some of the mem­bers of my cri­tique group (and all agency-mates at Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary, as it turns out!), did an appear­ance at the Seat­tle Read­ing Coun­cil. It was a billed as a “Books and Choco­late” event… what could be bet­ter?! We each talked about our books and process and then took ques­tions. The crowd was most­ly teach­ers and librar­i­ans, so it made for a won­der­ful evening of shar­ing book love (and choco­late!) among like­mind­ed new friends. 

School visits

I had an ele­men­tary school vis­it where I got to talk to sev­er­al third-grade class­es about my writ­ing jour­ney, grit, and writ­ing with emo­tion, as well as sev­er­al fifth-grade class­es about eval­u­at­ing sources and spot­ting fake news. It was an awe­some vis­it with super-engaged audi­ences, but alas, no pho­tos. You’ll have to take my word for it!

I have anoth­er vis­it com­ing up ear­ly in June (the last one of the school year!), so I’ve been mak­ing sure every­thing is ready for that one, too. 

SCBWI-WWA Spring Conference

Final­ly, I attend­ed and helped with the SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton’s spring con­fer­ence, Imag­ine That! It was a great week­end: hear­ing from inspir­ing speak­ers, get­ting feed­back on one of my works in progress from a pow­er­house edi­tor, and catch­ing up with author and illus­tra­tor friends in the indus­try. I’m still soak­ing it all up and pro­cess­ing what was said! Good stuff.

Book Releases!

Along with all of that I’ve been get­ting ready for the Two Truths and a Lie: His­to­ries and Mys­ter­ies paper­back release on May 21 AND prepar­ing for the upcom­ing new release of Two Truths and a Lie: Forces of Nature on June 25th! I’ve designed and ordered post­cards and swag, sched­uled social media announce­ments, and made oth­er plans to get the word out. 

TTL: Histories and Mysteries cover
TTL: Forces of Nature cover
 

Works in Progress…

And, of course, there are those works in progress, too! Ear­li­er this month I sub­mit­ted both a non­fic­tion pic­ture book revi­sion and a graph­ic nov­el pro­pos­al to my agent. I’m cur­rent­ly revis­ing a non­fic­tion pic­ture book, a fic­tion pic­ture book, and a mid­dle-grade non­fic­tion man­u­script. I’m also work­ing on a brand-new non­fic­tion pic­ture book draft and a young-adult non­fic­tion pro­pos­al. Busy, busy!

Yes, I do love my job. More so every day, in fact! =D

2018 CYBILS Round 1 judge

2018 Cybils Round 1 Judge logo
2018 CYBILS, here I come! I’m excit­ed to share that I’ll be a CYBILS judge again this year. The CYBILS Awards rec­og­nize authors and illus­tra­tors whose books for chil­dren and young adults com­bine both lit­er­ary mer­it and pop­u­lar appeal. In the past, I’ve always helped with judg­ing the younger non­fic­tion cat­e­go­ry (Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Books in 2011 and 2012, and Elementary/Middle Grade Non­fic­tion in 2014). This time around, how­ev­er, I’ll be a Round 1 Judge in the Junior/Senior High Non­fic­tion cat­e­go­ry, along with the fol­low­ing tal­ent­ed bloggers:

Nom­i­na­tions will open on Octo­ber 1st, and our short­lists will be due in Decem­ber. There are usu­al­ly around 70 entries, so I’ll be doing a LOT of read­ing in the com­ing months. (And hope­ful­ly a lot of blog­ging, too–get ready for those reviews!) Final­ists will be announced in Jan­u­ary, and win­ners are announced in February.
2018 Cybils logo
 

On fear, and how writing is like a guitar

Fear is fun­ny. Not fun­ny, real­ly. Mad­den­ing, frus­trat­ing, debilitating.
Ortega acoustic electric mini bassAfter a busy month or so, I had­n’t had time to prac­tice my bass gui­tar at all. I want­ed to. I missed it. So I took it out of the case and sat it next to my chair so it would be easy to grab when­ev­er I had a few free min­utes. And from there it mocked me. I was afraid to pick it up. Afraid I’d for­got­ten every­thing. Afraid I would suck.
Writ­ing is like that, too. I think the writ­ers who advise oth­ers to “write every day” do so for this rea­son most of all. The longer we go with­out doing some­thing the more room there is for doubt and excus­es, so we go even longer with­out doing it. It’s a vicious cycle that can be dif­fi­cult to break out of.
Some­times, the miss­ing doing the thing becomes greater than the fear and over­comes it. Oth­er times, we force our­selves past the fear. We have been here before and can see it for what it is.
I final­ly picked up the gui­tar today. I can still play. In fact, I think I played bet­ter today than I have in months. It felt joy­ous, both the abil­i­ty to make music and the let­ting go of the fear.
Soon, my sched­ule will allow me to get back to writ­ing again, too. And I am not afraid. In fact, I’m look­ing for­ward to it.
What goals are you avoid­ing because of fear? Per­haps it’s time to begin.
Begin

2017 in review, and a sneak peek at 2018 goals

2017

If you’ve fol­lowed my blog for a long time (or know me at all), you prob­a­bly know I can be a lit­tle obses­sive about set­ting goals and doing annu­al per­for­mance reviews. So, as 2017 comes to a close, I thought I should reflect on what I’ve accom­plished the past year and think about what 2018 might bring.
2017
One of my main goals for 2017 was to get more com­fort­able speak­ing in pub­lic.  It’s a good thing I was able to do that, since (and prob­a­bly because) I got a lot of prac­tice! Here’s a quick summary:

  • 24 keynotes, assem­blies, pre­sen­ta­tions, or work­shops for young people,
  • 17 Skype visits,
  • 7 pre­sen­ta­tions for adults,
  • 6 book­store appearances,
  • 2 round­table cri­tique sessions,
  • 1 radio inter­view, and
  • an 8‑week improv class.

The suc­cess I feel here isn’t so much from the quan­ti­ty, but from the qual­i­ty. First, it’s got­ten MUCH eas­i­er for me. I can do these talks in stride now and don’t stress out for a whole day pri­or and then need a whole day after to decom­press. That’s a big win! Also, the improv class was odd­ly ter­ri­fy­ing to think about, but so much fun and such a great expe­ri­ence in prac­tice. So, I’m real­ly glad that I pushed myself out of my com­fort zone.
I also had some suc­cess with major writ­ing goals and projects:

  • TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: IT’S ALIVE! was released in June, and I put a lot of time put into pro­mo­tion, includ­ing devel­op­ing pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als like cur­ricu­lum guides and swag, and cre­at­ing new pre­sen­ta­tions around it.
  • We’re just now putting the final touch­es on the sec­ond book in the series, TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: HISTORIES AND MYSTERIES, which we researched, draft­ed, revised, copy­edit­ed, and sourced pho­tos for all in the past year. This one is so good, I can’t wait to see it out in the world next June!
  • We have the out­line for the third TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE book just about wrapped up, too, so 2018 will see a lot of work (and fun!) on that front.
  • I wrote a brand-new pic­ture book from scratch, revised it, and it went out on sub­mis­sion! I’m hope­ful this one will find a home in 2018.
  • I revised my MG non­fic­tion project and sent it back out on sub­mis­sion. Alas, it looks like this one will need yet anoth­er fresh approach, which is also on the sched­ule for 2018. I’m mulling over a cou­ple of ideas about how to proceed.
  • I worked on revis­ing two oth­er pic­ture books, one fic­tion and one non­fic­tion, but nei­ther one is quite ready yet. More work to come on both of those in the year ahead, and hope­ful­ly they’ll be ready to send out soon.
  • I start­ed research­ing a new pic­ture book biog­ra­phy. I’m real­ly excit­ed about this one, and the research so far has only fueled my inter­est fur­ther. I hope I can com­plete a first draft in the com­ing year.
  • I had a new idea for anoth­er non­fic­tion pic­ture book and have start­ed research­ing that one as well. This one is still in the idea phase and will take some noodling to get just the right approach, so for now I’ll keep research­ing and think­ing and see what happens.

2018
As you can see from the above, I’ll have my work cut out for me in 2018 with one new book to pro­mote, one under con­tract to write, (at least) two pic­ture books to fin­ish revis­ing, the MG non­fic­tion to re-envi­sion, and the two new pic­ture books to research and draft. Phew — that’s a lot of big goals. Wish me luck! =D

Photos from the Two Truths and a Lie launch party

Okay, so it’s been more than a month since the launch par­ty for Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive!, and this post is _way_ over­due. In my defense, we’ve been hard at work on the sec­ond book in the series, and a writer has to have her pri­or­i­ties, right? Alright, so per­haps there’s no rea­son­able excuse for how neglect­ed my poor blog has been late­ly, but I’m vow­ing to try to do bet­ter going for­ward. And I def­i­nite­ly want to share some of the high­lights from the launch par­ty, so in the bet­ter-late-than-nev­er cat­e­go­ry, here we go! =D
First, the cake! In the flur­ry of activ­i­ty get­ting ready for a launch par­ty, I always for­get to take a pic­ture of the cake at the actu­al event, so this time I took a pic­ture of it in the shop­ping cart when I picked it up. It’s a good thing, too, because this is, sad­ly, the only pic­ture I have of it.
the launch party cake
There were also gluten-free cup­cakes with dec­o­ra­tions that said, “The cake is a lie.” (That’s a geeky gamer ref­er­ence, in case you haven’t heard it before.)
Before we even start­ed the actu­al launch par­ty event, I got to sign a book for a brand-new fan who just hap­pened to be in the store when we start­ed set­ting things up. Fun!
signing for a new fan
After thank­ing every­one who helped make this book pos­si­ble (in broad strokes, because I could go on all day!), I did a lit­tle read­ing from the book. (You can’t have a launch par­ty with­out a read­ing, right?) Since we were in a book­store sur­round­ed by books, I select­ed the sto­ry about book scor­pi­ons and book lice. What are those, you ask? You’ll have to read the book! And then you’ll have to decide if they’re real or not. 😉
a reading from chapter 4
Then we played a game show-style quiz game, using our smart phones. To my immense relief, it worked! Peo­ple could answer using their devices and the sys­tem would let me see who answered the most ques­tions the fastest.
setting up the game
Kevan won the first prize–a Big­foot Air Fresh­en­er for his car. (Is Big­foot a truth or a lie?)
Kevan wins a Bigfoot air freshener
She looks wor­ried! I won­der what was in her bag? Ah, yes… I think it was the Grou­cho Marx Dis­guise Glass­es (so she can fake her identity).
what will she win?
Dan was so excit­ed to see what he won that he ripped open the bag and sent his prize fly­ing halfway across the store! For­tu­nate­ly, it did­n’t hit any­one. If I recall cor­rect­ly, he got the Enchant­ed Uni­corn Ban­dages. (Are uni­corns real?)
Dan launched his launch party prize
This young guest was clear­ly thrilled to win the Glow-in-the-Dark Jel­ly­fish Orna­ment! (It’s as close as I could get to a Pacif­ic North­west tree octo­pus (see chap­ter 5) or the Praya dubia (chap­ter 6).
winner of the glow-in-the-dark jellyfish
What did Lau­ra Moe win? Was it the Dr. McPhee’s Snake Oil Soap? I think so!
what did Laura win?
And, final­ly, the grand prize win­ner… Alan won his very own Mike the Head­less Chick­en (see chap­ter 5)! For­tu­nate­ly, this one is just plas­tic and does­n’t require food and water through an eye dropper.
Alan with Mike the Headless Chicken
It was a great launch par­ty and such a mem­o­rable day. Thank you again to every­one who helped make this book hap­pen, to Secret Gar­den Book Shop for host­ing my launch par­ty yet again, to Cur­tis Man­ley for catch­ing all of these fan­tas­tic pho­tos for me (except the cake in the shop­ping cart, of course), and to every­one who came to the event. I love being part of such a sup­port­ive com­mu­ni­ty of writ­ers, book­sellers, and readers! 💙

Launch Party for Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive!

Two Truths and a Lie cover
Two Truths and a Lie cover

Please join me for the West Coast Launch Party for
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: IT’S ALIVE!

 

Sunday, June 25th, at 2 p.m.


A trivia-style game-show challenge… with prizes!

Q&A, exclusive behind-the-scenes gossip, and outtakes!

Book swag!

Charitable giving!

Free snacks and drinks!

Books, books, and more books!

 

Where, you ask?

Secret Garden Books
2214 NW Market Street
Seattle, WA 98107
206–789-5006

(Click here for directions.)

** Come ear­ly to enjoy the fab­u­lous Bal­lard Farm­ers Mar­ket before the event!

If you can’t make it to the par­ty but would like to pre-order a signed copy, please vis­it http://www.secretgardenbooks.com/book/9780062418791 and put the ded­i­ca­tion info in the Order Com­ments box. Thanks! =D

Goals: looking back and pushing forward

Done!

I recent­ly wrapped up what I think will be my last in-per­son school vis­its of the 2015–2016 school year, and pro­mo­tion activ­i­ties for the three books that are out is start­ing to die down. This seems like a good time to pause and reflect on my goals and progress, espe­cial­ly since I was too busy at the begin­ning of the year to do my usu­al review and plan­ning exercises.
Since this time last year, I’ve done:

  • Done!1 high school presentation,
  • 13 mid­dle school presentations,
  • 4 ele­men­tary school presentations,
  • 6 Skype vis­its (includ­ing one to Hawaii, one to Brazil, and one more to go!),
  • 3 radio interviews,
  • 2 preschool storytimes,
  • 2 teen library events,
  • 1 adult library event,
  • 2 Girl Scout workshops,
  • 3 book­store sign­ing events,
  • 1 book launch party,
  • 1 blog tour,
  • 1 book trailer,
  • 1 sto­ry­time activ­i­ty kit,
  • the Texas Book Fes­ti­val in Austin,
  • the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of School Librar­i­ans (AASL) con­fer­ence in Columbus,
  • the Pacif­ic North­west Library Asso­ci­a­tion con­fer­ence (PNLA) in Portland,
  • the Inter­na­tion­al Lit­er­a­cy Asso­ci­a­tion’s (ILA) con­fer­ence in St. Louis,
  • one research trip to St. Louis,
  • Indies First! on Small Busi­ness Sat­ur­day at Secret Gar­den Books,
  • 1 guest lec­ture at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Washington,
  • 2 appear­ances at a chil­dren’s museum,
  • 2 sum­mer camp visits,
  • 2 Twit­ter chats (includ­ing one for WWE moms!),
  • 2 record­ings for TeachingBooks.net,
  • 1 SCBWI Crys­tal Kite Award pre­sen­ta­tion at SCBWI-WWA’s Inside Sto­ry event,
  • 1 mid­dle-grade book writ­ten and submitted,
  • 3 pic­ture books revised (but not yet finished),
  • 1 YA project edit­ed and revised (still in progress),
  • pre­lim­i­nary research for 2 new book projects,
  • at least 2 major web­site over­hauls (one here and one for Online Author Vis­its),
  • vol­un­teer­ing for We Need Diverse Books,
  • vol­un­teer­ing for SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton, and
  • 19 blog posts.

Not too shab­by! It’s so easy in this busi­ness to feel like I nev­er get any­thing done. I have a stack of in-progress man­u­scripts that I des­per­ate­ly want to per­fect so they can go out and try to find their pub­lish­ing homes, and every day that they don’t quite get there (or worse, don’t make any progress at all!) feels like a big fat fail­ure. List­ing out all of the things that I have done makes me feel a lit­tle bit bet­ter. I haven’t just been spin­ning my wheels, after all! I did­n’t get to fin­ish every­thing I had hoped to by now, but I did check off some big goals and also did a bunch of things I had­n’t expect­ed or planned on. And, many of the things list­ed were firsts for me and/or major high­lights, so there’s a lot of per­son­al growth hid­den in that list as well as some major accom­plish­ments to be proud of. So, all in all, not bad!
Still, there’s so much more I want to do! My goals for the rest of the year include:

  • TKfin­ish­ing up revi­sions for the first book in the Two Truths and a Lie series: It’s Alive!,
  • com­plet­ing the pho­to research for It’s Alive!,
  • attend­ing the ALA Annu­al Con­fer­ence in Orlan­do to accept the Schnei­der Fam­i­ly Award,
  • revis­ing my non­fic­tion pic­ture book until it’s ready for submission,
  • revis­ing one of my fic­tion pic­ture books until it’s ready for submission,
  • revis­ing the mid­dle-grade non­fic­tion pro­pos­al until it’s ready for submission,
  • revis­ing the YA project until it’s ready for submission,
  • final­iz­ing the out­line for Two Truths and a Lie, Book #2, and begin­ning the writing,
  • and writ­ing more blog posts.

There are sev­er­al oth­er man­u­scripts I hope to fin­ish revis­ing, as well as a hand­ful of new ideas I’m real­ly excit­ed about research­ing fur­ther and begin­ning to write, but those will all just have to wait until I com­plete the above. Revi­sion is one of those things that’s dif­fi­cult to pre­dict how long it will take, so I’m not sure if this list is even any­where close to doable. I’ll check back in Jan­u­ary to let you know how I’ve done! 🙂
 

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