Life Lately: kids and writing

It's been about a year since I posted anything here!

 My life lately:

 Spending fun days at home with my two year old, with the occasional outing.

Having a second grader in school, where I wish I could be more involved, but since you can't bring siblings to most school visits, it doesn't work out well.

 In between the above roles of motherhood, my mind has been focused on writing. I am in the process of formatting my middle grade(typically for 8-12 yr olds) children's fiction manuscript. I should be done in a day or two. I have learned a lesson, you should really type it all in manuscript format to begin with! *wink*

I have edited it over and over, had five family members/friends read it (thank God!), and am debating what to do with it next. I'd love more readers, people I already know, but the time commitment of reading it is not for everyone. I haven't had to beg for readers, and I don't want to do that. I want it to be someone genuinely curious and tell me that they are available to read it, which is what happened with my wonderful first five readers. I do have other relatives ready to read it, but I want to finish the formatting first.

Right now it's at about 75,000 words, yes that many thousands! Set in a time like late 1800's, where electricity is rare. I have given Earth a different name so that I could create new country names and change the geography. The twist is that there is interaction with visitors from another planet, where they are a little more advanced. So imagine someone like Mary or Laura Ingalls (Little House on the Prairie) meeting interplanetary travelers, and what an advanced society would be thought of in the year 1899, for instance.

I love period stories, but I also love futuristic or space travel stories. So I sort of combined them in my fantasy/scifi story.

I hope I'll have more to share about it soon!

I've also been reading a lot. I try to read a couple books a month, at least. I read that it's important to read the genre you are writing in, even though reading outside of your genre is helpful too! I have been reading one middle grade book after another, with an occasional memoir or cookbook in between. One of my favorite places to be is in the middle grade section of the library.