It's time for one of the Kid Lit world's favorite contests: #FallWritingFrenzy, hosted by Kaitlyn Leann Sanchez, Lydia Lukidis, and Ameerah Holliday. Make sure you check out this blog post to see all of the entries!
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The challenge: write a fall-themed piece inspired by one of several provided photographs, and keep it under 200 words while you're at it!

One image caught my attention because it reminded me of a phrase I've had in my idea notebook for some time. It was the nudge I needed to finally parse out the idea! Here is the image:

And here is a snippet of my entry, plus the illustrations I made to go with it for funsies!

Recently, my friend Susan's kitten was hit by a car and had to have a leg amputated.  To cheer her up, I created a little piece of art of sweet Franklin. 

Susan loved it so much that she asked me to do another piece featuring Franklin's brother, Gerald. 

Since then, five of Susan's friends have contacted me asking if I'll do something similar for their pets. If I've learned anything in the past year, it's to seize any opportunity that comes my way, so it looks like I'll be commissioning my first official artwork in the next few weeks! Who knows where that will lead? I can't wait to find out!

OK, so maybe it's taken me more than 7 weeks to do an illustration for each of my Mix and Match Challenge entries, but I've finally come to the last one!

This week's prompt gave a list of opening lines, a list of closing lines, and an optional list of onomatopoeia. Here's an excerpt, and my artwork!