new normal

Last night I met with 2 friends who I use to see everyday and now we meet once a month.  I retired and everything around me changed.  Change effects everyone near or far from the center.  I'm still searching for a new normal.  I know it will come.  They are doing the same, finding a new normal.  Life keeps moving and so must we.

Sunny on a gloomy day

Today was a gloomy raining day and yet inside I'll feeling sunshine.  My head is filling with ideas because of PiBoId.  I read the daily guest blog and hear regular normal people talking about their writing.  Everyone seems to have the same beginning tale.  Today Kayleen West talked about how she started late with her picture book ideas.  That's something I've thought about, starting late in life to concentrate on writing.  When (I love my PMA) my book is published I'll be in my mid sixties.  Yikes.  Then I think about Grandma Moses and everything is o.k. again.
So I'll let my sun shine on.

Getting my second wind

I've been reading the Pre PiBoId blogs and feeling pumped.  I am always amazed, but I shouldn't be, how more alike people are than different.
I'm not sleeping well and it's because ideas are starting to ping around inside my head.  I'm going to forget them if I don't write them down.
It has inspired me to finish up some revisions of stories that I want to submit.  I'm off to the post office this afternoon.
I'm thankful for this new community.  It's filled with dreamers and cheerleaders.PiBoId is my hero.

PiBoIdMo

This is a really cool idea.  It is going to help me organize my ideas for picture books.  It's a committment that will give me some direction for future writing.  Learning from others is really what it takes.  I'm looking forward to some "ah ha" moments.

What I am learning about writing

I love to learn new  things.  That is one of the big things I miss about teaching.  The kids would always ask me something that made me wonder and search out the answers.  Now I am learning that writing is more than just putting words together on paper.  Writing is reading.  Reading the type of books I want to write.  Reading authors to find how they develop characters.  Reading about writing.  Reading submission guidelines for publishers and magazines.  Reading biographies of agents to find out what they like and what they are searching for.  Reading and rereading my manuscripts to find what needs to be changed to improve.  Reading about how to write a query letter.  Reading how to write a pitch for a manuscript. Read. Read. Read and write.

Santa is in the lobby

We pulled into the Days Inn parking lot.  Well actually we got stuck.  We trudged through 8 inches of snow to the front door, relieved to be safe and out of the growing blizzard.  The warmth grabbed us as we stomped the snow off our shoes.  Breathed a sigh of relief and met the jolly eyes of Santa?  Excuse me, is your name Claus?  Yes, S. Claus.  Here's my card.

My baby. My manuscript.

The manuscript is my child, my baby.  That first draft is a labor intense experience and seems to never end.  It possesses my strengths and my weaknesses.  When I hold my manuscript up to share, it is part of me that is being looked at.  She is an extension of me and so those first critiques are personal.

As I work with her, my aim is to improve her so that others will love her as I do.

With each draft I mold her and slowly step away from her so that I don't see as much of me in her as I did in the beginning.  I support her as she begins to stand on her own.

The rebellion teenage years are a struggle as she tries to find her place.  Through revisions and rewrites she searches to find her own unique self.  When at last she reaches adulthood, she is a whole, secure, fully developed, beauty inside and out.  She is prepared to last through the ages.  She looks forward to the aging of her pages becoming smooth and soft from being caress by her readers.   The cracks along her spin are evidence of love and the warm smell of ink on paper make her a memory that last.