NaPiBoWriWee

NaPiBoWriWee went POOF! up in smoke, and all I have to show for it is one completed manuscript, one mostly completed manuscript, and one barely started manuscript.

But I'm not feeling too discouraged. Not yet. It was a rough week, so of course I wasn't able to work under the extra pressure. Getting sick didn't help matters either. BUT I do have one decent book that just needs reworking and one book that I think could turn into something great with a lot of time and effort. And that's two more books than I had when I started.

Some people who don't write picture books don't realize how hard they can be to write. Some of us who do write them do silly things like trying to write seven in one week because we know if we can do it then we'll be better than all of those people who didn't...

But what about doing it for yourself? For doing it because you'll feel good about having started seven or six or five new picture books? Shouldn't we be more concerned with how we're improving our craft than how we measure up to everyone else?

The Poet in ME?

I sometimes refer to myself as an ex-poet. I've had some people, mostly poets, give me strange looks and say that's not possible. Once you become a poet, you start thinking like a poet, and you can never think differently.

And I guess that's true. I have never stopped looking at the world differently than the average person. I still see the beauty in everything. I guess the difference is, I'm directing those thoughts into different places now. Instead of writing a detailed, descriptive poem about a young boy and his grandma riding a city bus, I work it into a picture book. I tend to focus my attention more on children than adults. I also tend to focus on the outside world, not inside my own head. My poems tend to be self-reflective, but my picture books and novels examine the larger picture. Of course, I still use my own experiences when I write for kids, but they are mixed with things I've seen or heard kids do while out and about in the "real world."

I wonder sometimes if my lack of poetic moments lately is because I'm not living enough. I'm not out doing things and experiencing the world as much as I would like. I spend most of my time teaching or writing.

When I talk about why I pushed poetry aside, a few reasons keep creeping up:

• The need to be someone other than "me" in my work. Persona poems couldn't do it. People still thought I was being me.
• The inability to please myself and an audience at the same time. The audience at that point was mainly professors and other students.
• The feeling of being confined in twelve or so lines. It's odd, I used to never be able to write poems longer than fifteen lines. Now, I can't seem to get away from writing whole novels worth of stuff. It's liberating.
• The realization that I probably will never make money off of, or even publish, a book of poetry. Sad as it is, it's true. Publishing poetry is one of the hardest things to do, and if I couldn't do it "right" then I wasn't going to do it.
• The feeling that I needed to fit a "mold." Poets are picky. As a poetry student, I was told to follow all kinds of unwritten, contradictory rules. It was frustrating, and it sucked creativity out of me. Writing for kids is much more freeing. Just think of all the areas you can experiment with: non-fiction, picture books, rebus stories, poetry, middle grade fiction, YA novels, chick lit, fantasy, povels, the list goes on and on.

So the fact that I haven't finished a poem in over year doesn't really scare me. That I'm moving beyond 6+ years of doing the same thing every day excites me.

Happy New Year!

For the past few years, my New Year's Resolution was to get published. In 2008, I did! Now, I suppose it's time to find a new resolution. This year, I've decided to start making writing goals for myself, spreading them out over the year at intervals I can accomplish.

I think this time of year is the perfect time for us all as writers to reflect on our past years, our successes, failures, and progress made with our careers. Today, I'll share some of my writing successes with you. Tomorrow, I'll make a list of what I hope to accomplish in 2009.

In 2008, I:

Published a picture book
Met Naomi Shihab Nye
Completed my thesis, my very first YA novel
Got my MFA!


Happy New Year, everyone! Let's make 2009 a productive one.