I'm sorry I'm not going to be able to stick around as editor for the Writing for Children site at Bella Online.

I've really enjoyed writing the weekly articles and chitchatting with some of you by email.

I simply have too much going on right now to maintain my own blogs and write this page, too. I have aging parents in poor health (who doesn't these days?) and I have two teenagers who seem to need almost as much guidance now as they did when they were toddlers. (Why can't they stay nine and ten forever—young enough to control and old enough to behave? I'm kidding. My kids are great. I'd be lost without them. But they do need to be carted all around and they are time-consuming.)

And I have my own novel that I'm trying to finish in the mix.

So I have to bid you all a fond farewell. If you want to visit me please come by my All About Children's Books blog. I'll be posting all my writing articles over there and I'll also be adding a new one each week. If you've written a book you want to promote, or if you have a blog where you review children's books, check out KidzBookBuzz.com and send me a note telling me you saw me over here.

This Bella venture was a great experiment. If any of you like to write "how to" articles, or have a passion for one of the open topics, you might consider signing up here. The weekly deadlines are great for getting you to write instead of talking about it, you'll learn a whole lot about writing for the web, and you'll meet some wonderful editors, besides.

I'd like to leave you with my top three tips for writing well.

1. Third best bit of advice: Join a critique group where there are some writers ahead of you and some writers behind you in the journey. You'll grow by critiquing others in both categories, you'll grow by being critiqued, and you'll grow if you'll read all the critiques, not just the ones of your work.
   
   
2. Second best bit of advice: Join SCBWI—it's the best sixty bucks you'll spend every year.
   
   
3. Best bit of advice ever: Read, read, read, read. Books in your genre. Books in other genres. Books in your genre. "How to" books. Books in your genre. Poetry. Books in your genre.
   

OK enough nonsense. I'm outta here. Come see me.