Where do I begin? Nearly a year ago I walked into my home office and sat down at my desk. I was interested in doing something constructive in the "author" part of my life. So, I sat in the chair behind my desk and contemplated where I should focus my energies. Looking across the room I spotted the splines of four 3-ring binders peeking out at me from inside a small bookshelf. Each binder's spline displayed a one-word title-summary of a specific story in a four-part children's book adventure series that I had begun in the early 90's: BEYOND, BENEATH, BETWEEN, and BEHIND. I hadn't even thought about any of these abandoned projects for years. I got up from my chair and moved across the room and slid the first 3-ring binder, BEYOND, off the shelf. Returning to my chair, I plopped the binder down and opened its cover. And that is when this spectacularly invigorating journey began.
Have you ever returned to something wonderful that you have forgotten about for ages? If so, you can identify with the avalanche of emotions within which I became immediately immersed. Creative-possibilities renewed their cheering admonitions for me to return quickly. Excitement beckoned me onward. Empty pages (of which the binders were chock-full) greeted me like hungry baby birds chirping frantically for mother-bird's offered morsel. "Feed me!" they demanded. What else could I do, I reasoned, than to surrender to the thrill of penning the next National Book Award recipient? And so I succumbed to the tug and once again invested myself in the all-consuming process of writing my children's book novel four-part series. For about ten minutes. And then I realized why I had stopped writing twenty years ago. It is hard work. Once again, I felt completely stymied in my writing.
That is, until one tiny, life-changing event that occurred not many days after I heard that 50,000-70,000-word-chapter-book siren call.
I want to tell you the amazing path that I have been on for nearly the entire last year. It all started when I opened an email from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) of which I am a member. That email had a link attached which highlighted a future guest speaker at an upcoming SCBWI event. Clicking on that link opened a "good and all-giving" Pandora's Box that I will forever be thrilled that I unleashed into my life. The content of that link - and where it eventually led me - will be the subject of my next update. I hope that you will return to find out what that "box" contained!
Have you ever returned to something wonderful that you have forgotten about for ages? If so, you can identify with the avalanche of emotions within which I became immediately immersed. Creative-possibilities renewed their cheering admonitions for me to return quickly. Excitement beckoned me onward. Empty pages (of which the binders were chock-full) greeted me like hungry baby birds chirping frantically for mother-bird's offered morsel. "Feed me!" they demanded. What else could I do, I reasoned, than to surrender to the thrill of penning the next National Book Award recipient? And so I succumbed to the tug and once again invested myself in the all-consuming process of writing my children's book novel four-part series. For about ten minutes. And then I realized why I had stopped writing twenty years ago. It is hard work. Once again, I felt completely stymied in my writing.
That is, until one tiny, life-changing event that occurred not many days after I heard that 50,000-70,000-word-chapter-book siren call.
I want to tell you the amazing path that I have been on for nearly the entire last year. It all started when I opened an email from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) of which I am a member. That email had a link attached which highlighted a future guest speaker at an upcoming SCBWI event. Clicking on that link opened a "good and all-giving" Pandora's Box that I will forever be thrilled that I unleashed into my life. The content of that link - and where it eventually led me - will be the subject of my next update. I hope that you will return to find out what that "box" contained!
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