@lonestarlit.bsky.social

I’m honored to be featured in the April issue of The Lone Star Literary Life Magazine.

This month’s theme is GROW, so I wrote about the growing and changing reader tastes I’ve seen in my son and how we need to pay attention to that on a bigger scale as writers.

Since my MG sci-fi will hopefully be published this year, I’m going to choose to believe the story of a kid taking on adult robbers and winning is a positive sign for the book and not a heads up that I should invest in a security system.

The #1 movie when you were 10 years old is how your 2026 is going to go.

Thanks! Every step of this is terrifying, but gotta keep pushing forward. Fingers crossed.

My past 3 mos? I came alive again after a soul-questioning hiatus. Decided to go the indie route. Began writing book 2 in a series. Started posting on socials regularly. Applied for an SCBWI grant. And my unpublished MG novel won the highest award in a (deliberately) low-tier contest. #kidlitchat

TOPIC: It's quarterly check-in time! Time to bask in the accomplishments of the last three months--or breathe a sigh of relief that you've managed to *get through* the past three months. Either way, share what's been going, career-wise, since September! #kidlitchat

There’s one I wish I could watch again for the first time. Curious to hear your thoughts after you finish the whole thing.

Wait, wait, wait — beginnings, middles, AND ends?

You guys! I don’t suck!

I had a college prof who loved to use a bicycle analogy. Every piece has an important function, and it's something you can learn by learning what each piece does. #kidlitchat

i imagine game development has to be really interesting because you have to think in so many... dimensions? I don't meant that literally, but hopefully you get what I'm saying. The story and the gameplay/etc. have to support each other in ways that traditional stories don't worry about #kidlitchat

I tried to replicate this in the outline for my current WIP by highlighting the various storyline beats in different colors when they appeared in the doc. My goal with the smaller ones wasn't to be super accurate, though, just to make sure I had a beginning, middle, and end to work with. #kidlitchat

I can't. I've tried, but if I don't have train tracks I tend to meander all over the place and never come up with anything coherent. My secret (that's still kind of a mess) is that I allow for track changes :) #kidlitchat

I mean, this is kind of what TV writers rooms do -- or used to, at least. Literally have a bunch of beat cards in different colors for the various storylines and put them up on a big board and move them around as necessary. It can be effective. #kidlitchat

My outline kind of IS my zero draft, which is why I want to keep improving it. The goal is always to focus on story, story, story, but lots of other stuff tends to seep in there. Not sure why I haven't done an actual beat sheet. Did them for scripts. They they feel wrong for novels. #kidlitchat

Interesting. Even though I have a separate outline file and draft file, I like copying the outline into the pages and then just kind of using/erasing as I go. (I also tend to insert dialogue and other lines that occur to me as I'm outlining, so it's useful to be able to refer to them.) #kidlitchat

Few things are more frustrating than breezing along with the outline, then reaching a point in it where I'm like, "Okay, that makes story sense, but from a practical standpoint how/when/where does this stuff actually happen?" #kidlitchat

I want to get better at including chapters in the outline. They may change in the draft, but the blueprint helps immensely. #kidlitchat

That being said, I both tend to stray from that structure as the work evolves and, no matter how thorough my outline seems at the start, find myself discovering frustrating gaps and things that stop me dead once I'm writing pages. #kidlitchat

So far I have been a Save the Cat person as far as structure, which probably makes sense with my formative professional writing experience in film/TV. Nothing will teach you story faster than writing a screenplay, because there's not room for much else... if you do it well. #kidlitchat

joshweissroessler.com/2025/10/29/k...

Last week I got to interview R.A. Consell, author of the MG/YA fantasy series Stealing from Wizards, about his books and writing life.

Check it out at the comment link.

#AuthorInterview
#YAFantasy
#MiddleGradeBooks
#WritingCommunity
#TeacherReads
#LibrarianLife
#BookRecommendation

To be fair, it was the lowest form of pandering 🤣. #kidlitchat

That I do not have a picture for. #kidlitchat

Not just a KidLitCat, a symbol of unity in these divided times. Dogs and cats living together indeed. #kidlitchat

It's the frustrating catch-22. I don't want to release a book into the wild without a semblance of an audience... but it's hard to get one when you don't have a book for them. I'm trying different things. Offering free shorts. Book recs. Interviewing an author I like later this week. #kidlitchat

I basically come here for the Tuesday kidlit chats :) Other than that, I might pop in once or twice a week. #kidlitchat

Whether it's finding people on social or wherever, I'm just trying to figure out how to build a mailing list when I don't (yet) have anything to sell. I JUST started giving away a free short, but I'm basically getting hundreds of people going to the form... and have had 2 friends sign up #kidlitchat

Agreed. It makes sense for followers to really not matter. I've "had" a Twitter account since 2012 or something, but barely used it until a few years ago and was shocked to discover I'd magically gained 700+ followers :) #kidlitchat