HOW MANY BOOKS DO YOU HAVE IN YOU?

 

The subject/title line is not frivolous. There are writers who feel they have one book in them, and after writing it (published or not) they have done the deed, had their say, and the bucket is empty.

 

I had that feeling with my first work intended for publication. A philosophical chapter book a la The Little Prince that I mistakenly thought was a picture book.

 

I couldn’t imagine ever writing another story. What more did I have to say?

 

No one offered to publish it, and I choose not to re-read it ever again. Mostly because I know now it was not ready for prime time by any measure, and I don’t want to be stuck in the mental space that made me write it in the first place. The state that asserted I have said it all.

 

It was a strange state lasting a few months, and once I got through it, the faucet just kept running. Sometimes it trickles and other times it gushes. But the game changer is that I know I will never run out of stories worth telling.

 

Even when I can’t think of any, I know they are there, just beyond the horizon, waiting for the rising sun to reveal their shape.

It’s called being alive.

RHYMING ZONE

 

There is a truth universally acknowledged that a picture book writer in pursuit of le mot juste, must not make it a rhyming one.

Picture books, the ones conceived for the youngest listeners who adore rhyme. Imagine that.

The reasons agents and editors give is that most of us think we can rhyme well, but most of us can’t. Add to that are commercial considerations with a long view to foreign languages editions. Translating rhyming texts is even harder than rhyming well in the original language.

All true. But still.

Rhyme has charm. Rhyme has beat. Rhyme tickles and tingles the bottom of feet.

Gotta get up. Gotta dance. Love to rhyme?

Take a chance.

So, as I just demonstrated, it is hard to do well.

But if you must, then do. Take a chance. Some texts just beg for it.

AGE? What’s that?

 

We do know that, up to a point, age does bring a certain kind of wisdom—

The reflective kind.

Which is why, especially in the thinking/writing arts, ageism has no place whatsoever.

We are not weightlifters or furniture movers, for heaven’s sake.

And so if you read one thing today, please read the article in this link.

[Debuting at the Age of 66 | Jane Friedman]

Can you tell I am ready, oh so-so very muchly ready, for my breakout novel?

WHEN CHARACTERS TEACH

 

Another writer, lamenting the steep odds to traditional publishing, told me she doesn’t need to write and will cease writing fiction if her journey doesn’t make an upward turn in the near future.

 

I was surprised. This writer is gifted, exceptionally so. She spends many hours at her craft. I assumed she, like me, writes for herself first. I told her that the writing process is a way of clarifying thoughts, and I couldn’t imagine not doing it regardless of what markets open (or don’t) for my stories.

 

She responded that Journaling, (=keeping a diary) serves that purpose for her. Fiction is a craft that is firstly labor, not a gift to self.

 

It’s different for me. Because, and this is a confession that could put me in the loony-bin in some folks’ eyes, my characters always surprise me with their insights. They say things I never knew, or never knew I knew. I grow and learn a lot from them.

 

Another way of putting it is the unconscious mind needed the conscious self to open a narrow portal and allow insights to slither out into the space that words inhabit.

 

 

Journaling has never served this for me, and I stopped keeping a diary many years ago. For me, the entries consisted of emotions of the moment that overwhelmed any chance for deep reflection.

 

In this blog I write of what I already know or hope to learn. In fiction, I learn what I didn’t know I knew.

 

So, to each their own. I am grateful for all that my fictional characters taught me, and while I’d love to share them with you, I will not abandon them regardless of who else chooses not to make their acquaintance.