Reflection

It's been quite a year, 2013.

I am looking back now, although I really don't want to look too hard because it is late and I am tired.

But before I sleep, I want to think about my writing, the highs, the lows, and all that jazz.

The Highs--I wrote a LOT of stuff.  And I have some exciting news about some of it, but I am not allowed to share yet, which makes the whole mention of it seem kind of mean, so forget I said anything.

The Lows--I do not think I have ever been so tired as I have been this year.  Ever.  Not necessarily because of writing, but because life just doesn't slow down.  And because Honors Geometry is hard. Very.Hard.

Hmmm...well....maybe it is too much to ask of my feeblish brain to coherently reflect on the whole year--that's 365 days.  Maybe I ought to just come clean about my NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo projects instead. That's only 30 days.

Soooo....er...um...my NaNo project got off to a swell start.  I hadn't hoped to finish it, but thought if I got around 20k I'd be feeling pretty great.  HA!!!!!!  (That was the loudest, most explosive HA you can imagine.)  Needless to say, I did not get that far. Oh....um...  you want to know how far I got?  Well, starting a book is hard sometimes, you see.  You need to make sure you begin it the right way, or the next thing you know, you are skipping down some path you never intended to go and it turns into a forest, a dark forest, with gnarled trees and witches and you are thinking Hey, I am not writing about trees and witches!  How did those things get in here?  And the story you wanted to write is gone, gone gone.

Well, that did not exactly happen to me, the witch part and all.  But I did discover at about 10k that I was dreading the writing of it.  I had such a hard time "getting into it" each time I sat down to work.

Not good.

So I tinkered a little, tried a section in a different point of view and BAM!  I realized the story couldn't be told in third person.  It HAD to be told in first.  So, back to the drawing board.  But better to know by 10k, right?

Yep.  Still working on it. I call it MYHP or TULOTA. Both are acronyms for possible titles.  Okay, only one is, the other is a little inside joke I have with myself. You can guess which is which.

As for my Picture Book Idea Month challenge, I was supposed to come up with an idea each day for a month.  I was finally brave enough to open the file today to see what I'd come up with.

It's not pretty, folks.

Out of 30 days, I managed only 20 idea.  And 17 of them stink.  I mean, really, truly stink.

But there are three that are workable, which is three more than I had at the beginning of November, so there is that. My possible stories are M, C and P, and B.  I wish I could tell you more, but if I start to talk about them and they sound dumb, I will never write them.

So, I've got some work to do in the next bit--continue on a Middle Grade Novel, and try to flesh out three picture books (although one might be an easy reader....how I'd love to do another easy reader!)

Okay, so more soon--and more coherent, I promise.

xo--

Shelley