Terri at bestowed this lovely, Stylish Blogger award on me yesterday and I’ve been trying to decide how to respond. Check out her interesting list of things about herself. Thank you, Terri, for giving me this award and the opportunity to ponder a bit deeper.
Along with this award comes a few responsibilities.
1. Thank and link to the person(s) who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to five blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them.
Now for my seven things. I was going to do them about me but really, I’m not very exciting. So instead I thought I’d do it about some projects that are vying for attention in my writing brain.
I have seven projects of interest. Now the trick is, of course, to pick one, commit and finish it. But it seems I no soon pick and commit that another one is waving a hand and begging for my attention. Then there are the days when none of them are talking to me and I figure I’m just going to give up writing and become one of those statistics that didn’t live up to her potential which means, (according to Celebrity Apprentice) someone who isn’t doing their work. Anyway, here are some thoughts about the seven near work-in-progress projects I have.
1. A young adult verse novel which has me struggling with how to merge the inspiration of the true story, two sisters who never knew the other one existed, with the fictional reality of a book that would be interesting and meaningful to teens. What I love about this is the idea of doing a verse novel for teens and being able to push the envelope farther than I did with Hugging the Rock. What worries me about this is trying to tell a story in two voices and somehow tie it all together.
2. Max. A middle grade prose novel that deals with animal abuse and child abuse. So a dark, dark place to journey. What I love about this is the relationship between the main character and the dog in his life. What worries me about it is that it is so dark that it won’t work for the middle grade audience. And I worry about pulling myself out of the dark places this book will take me.
3. Plant Kid. A middle grade prose novel about a boy’s discovery of native plants and the man who mentors him. Of course I love the native plants and gardening aspect of it but I worry that there’s no plot and that it would be a total snooze fest for this age group.
4. Flyboy. A young adult prose novel about a boy who loves to fly and his search for where he fits into his world. Hmmm…sounds like the story of my life. I have loved Flyboy for 25 years. I am afraid I might have overloved him. Perhaps after finding my father, learning more about my family, maybe I don’t need to write this book anymore. But after having so many years invested in this story and becoming, I hope, a better writer over time, I would like to think I could still write it.
5. An adult memoir based on the poems I wrote last year, for National Poetry Month, about the father I never knew. I love the idea of writing a memoir in verse. I got some wonderful support in the writing of the poems last year. But I have also, in times since, gotten some really harsh feedback on them as a memoir project so I don’t know if I am strong enough to go there again.
6. Essays about dogs and writing. I want to do this, to do something with the essays I wrote in the series of blog posts, “Of Dogs and Writing” but I confess, I queried a few people about it a year or so ago, got some negative feedback, and dropped the ball. I don’t think a traditional publisher would buy this. But I am pondering the idea of self-publishing it through Lulu or CreateSpace or something like that. It’s just hard to convince myself it would be worth the time and effort it would take.
7. Some kind of art and poetry project, perhaps native plant poetry combined with some of my collage work. But again, this would probably have to be self-published. I think it’s wonderful that we have the opportunities to publish our own work when it is the right move for us but I worry, after being involved with the traditional publishing world for so long, if self-publishing would feel odd to me.
Hmm…I was hopeful that writing these out would help me focus but I guess it isn’t going to be that easy.
I’m going to pass the award along to the following people because I would like to know more about them.
All of your projects sound interesting! Are you thinking of putting something together about the oasis you created in your yard? Yet another project…lol. And I loved the Dogs and Writing essays you did.
I don’t know that I have any ideas around what we’ve done at our place. It might be an article for some where. I don’t think it’s unique enough to be of value to the masses on their own. But thanks for asking. 🙂
Awwwww. You’re so sweet! Thank you! And thank you for giving me something to blog about tomorrow! xoxoxox
PS – I feel like I already know many of your projects and I do love them all. Be kind to yourself – and it will come. xoxo
Thanks for the support!
Thanks for thinking of me. 🙂 I’ll see what I can come up with . . .
It was hard for me, Jama. Have fun if it works for you. 🙂
Thanks so much, Susan! My thinking cap will be on today.
I can’t help noticing that the reason you hold off from a lot of these projects is you don’t trust yourself to be strong enough to do them right.
It seems to me that every time you think you’re not strong enough to do something, but do it anyway, you always turn out to be strong enough after all.
Isn’t it time you embraced that?
Peni,
You’re right, of course. I’m frustrated with myself kicking myself that I can’t seem to do what I used to do, just sit down and lose myself in the work. Or just do it in a workmanlike fashion knowing I can revise it down the road.
But I have no trust in myself anymore.
Zero. Nada.
And I’m not sure how to find it again.
Well – where did you see it last? That’s the first place to look. 🙂
I’m not doing any better. But kicking yourself doesn’t help. Only work is work.
Looking forward to reading what you come up with.