It’s Thanksgiving week, so my post today is on why I’m thankful for my writing journey.
Why write this post?
Because I generally spend a lot of time not thankful for my writing journey. There are so many reasons to gripe:
- Starting a new project and knowing I need to string together 80,000 words to draft a new YA manuscript,
- Then revise those 80,000 words multiple times to get them right (and how did those 80,000 words turn into 95,000?)
- Especially in 2020 when the pandemic and news make stringing together coherent thoughts more challenging than ever,
- And when I finish revising, the next step is querying and rejection.
Yet I keep coming back to the keyboard, so there must be something I love about kidlit writing. Here’s my list:
- The call of that shiny new story idea.
- Friends met along the way. Writers are the best people!
- Finding just the right word to convey a mood, capture a character’s personality, or make the dialogue ring true.
- Reading books counts as work!
- Virtual book events. While almost everything has gotten harder in 2020, attending a book talk is as easy as clicking on the Zoom link.
- Small successes: finishing a draft, completing a revision, entering a contest, sending out a round of queries, or getting a request or an R&R instead of a rejection.
- Knowing that my awful 1st story (middle-grade sci-fi with aliens!) will never see the light of day.
- Knowing that I haven’t failed to get the story of my heart out into the world…I just haven’t succeeded yet.
What about your kidlit writing journey are you thankful for? Share in the comments below!
If like me you’re on the slow path to publishing a novel, you might like these other Winged Pen posts:
Master Your Craft – Take Your Kidlit Writing Skills to the Next Level
The 7 Stages of Writerly Grief
Write a Killer Pitch!
