2024 Organization
January definitely lasted 100 days while February is flying by…at least that’s what it feels like on my end!
Mom Life: Baby is now two months old! We are adjusting to his leaps, sleep time, and trying to fit in life in between. We recently started going to the park everyday so we all get a break. He’s a great baby and loves to ramble.
Writer Life: I’m currently working on two story revisions both due at the end of the month. Trying to fit in writing time with a newborn + critique other’s work has been challenging but I’m trying to fit it in.
Work Life: I love what I get to do so I’m still part time at Highlights and hope to work soon on a book festival. Freelance definitely has its pros of working at your own time and cons of not taking leave.
I will say that motherhood has been beautiful and full-filling but also HARD. It’s been challenging being away from family and figuring all this out. I’m so grateful for a supportive partner. We’ve both had our low moments of being overwhelmed but at the end of the day we’re grateful for this new life and our little bundle of joy.
2024 Planner
Do you organize your day/week/month? Here are some of the planners I use to organize myself.
Daily tasks-Google calendar
Weekly goals- I use the Productivity Planner (linked here). This helps me plan out my day by time blocks, allows me to see where I’m wasting time, and also what’s the most important tasks to complete for the week. Inside page view:
Monthly goals- I like using a planner that’s not prefilled. I can fill in the month along with the biggest tasks I want to accomplish for that period. For example, last year when I was querying I had a monthly goal of how many queries to send out and how many manuscripts I wanted to work on monthly. Similar planner (here).
Book News
All three of the 123 Baila series made the Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Books of the Year in Spanish! 🎉
Mathical Selection Committee has chosen ¡1, 2, 3 Salsa!: English-Spanish Counting Book as an Honor book in the Grade PreK category for Mathical Book Prize. 🎉
Thank you all who have left a review! Book reviews help recommend the books so others (librarians, stores, schools, etc) can purchase. Posting a review can be as simple as a sentence or two! I would SO appreciate it if you could leave a review on Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, & Amazon (linked). You can copy/paste the same same review across the websites (hopefully a positive one ). Here’s the electronic copies of the books to check out:
https://www.edelweiss.plus/#keywordSearch&q=delia+ruiz&page=1
Currently…
🎶 Listening to Mariachi Jazz. Such a cool mix, take a listen here
📚 Reading THE FIRST TO DIE AT THE END by Adam Silvera
📝 Revising a PB manuscript, have to redo a Halloween manuscript, and hope to touch the YA novel sometime
That’s all for now! I hope to have some updates in April for the next newsletter.
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📚Check out more of my work here.
P.S. Excuse the typos, I promise there’s a human behind the screen and not a 🤖.
-Delia Ruiz @Aventuras.En.ESL