I was going to write about PiBoIdMo... but then this storm came along...

The news has been saturated with the endless coverage of Sandy and its aftermath so I'll keep this short.

We were lucky here in my little corner of Pennsylvania. We didn't even lose power for more than 1 minute! My parents were not quite as lucky. They just got their power back after two and a half days.

But a lot of people in New Jersey and New York, especially, were not at all lucky.  Their lives have been changed forever. Please take a moment to think of them as you go about your day.  Sometimes pictures really do say it best. The most haunting photos I've seen are these from Reuters.

In addition, if you feel moved to give money to the disaster relief, you can go directly to the donation page of the American Red Cross right here.

OR, you can bid on the wonderful auction items -- including critiques from some pretty famous authors -- at Kid-Lit Cares (all donations going to Red Cross relief effort for Sandy).  See Kate Messner's website for details.

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Good luck to everyone who signed up for NaNoWriMo. I can't handle it, myself. That's not how I write.

Maggie Stiefvater explained it most eloquently: I don’t have a problem with other people doing NaNoWriMo. If that’s what it takes to motivate you, go for it. If you work well that way, go for it (not that you were sitting around, waiting for my approval). But for my style of writing, for my creative process, it will literally never work. I cannot knowingly write crap. I just can’t. I can and do write crap, but I can’t realize that I’m doing it at the time. Read the rest of her Annual Dear John Letter to NaNoWriMo here. 

But after visiting Caroline Starr Rose's blog yesterday and finding out that she's participating in a different activity this November, I realized... hey, I can handle that!  I've done it before (in 2010).

This year's logo is by Ward Jenkins

What's PiBoIdMo?  Picture Book Idea Month! All you have to do is come up with 30 new ideas for picture books. You don't even have to write them yet.  PiBoIdMo was created by the one and only Tara Lazar. Visit Tara's PiBoIdMo page for all the details and to sign up.  Quick! While you still have time!

And you still have time to enter my two giveaways.  

Enter here for GEEKS, GIRLS, AND SECRET IDENTITIES. But hurry! Giveaway ends tomorrow night!

Enter here for TOUCHING THE SURFACE. Giveaway ends Wed November 7.

What about you?  Did you sign up for NaNo?  Or PiBoIdMo?  Or are you plugging away at a revision on your own?  Yay for you!