I have completed the first draft of my children’s story! It is tentatively titled “A Day Away” and meant for the infant and toddler crowd. It took longer than I expected to get the notes done for the illustrations, and overall that part was much more challenging than I had expected. I’m interested in getting some feedback on those notes as I just kind of shot them off to give ideas.

So now I need some help! Does anyone want to test drive a prose-only copy of the story to their kids and give me some feedback? I’m not looking for literary criticism, just an idea of how the flow works and if the kids liked it. Mini-b seemed to dig it, as long as I pretended the characters were all dinosaurs.

Similarly, if anyone has friends that do this kind of illustration please feel free to point them my way. I’d like to hand them off the noted copy for that feedback and maybe some hit them up for some concepts.

Writing | No Comments »

So I was enjoying a nice walk with my hererosexual lifemate today, discussing the important things in life. We successfully determined that a) Batman is undoubtedly less gay than Superman, b) World of Warcraft is more fun than Lord of the Rings Online, and c) Rhode Island really is too far from Boston.

Inevitably these discussions touch on writing, and this was no exception. I was explaining my irrational fear of starting to write again- it went so smoothly last time, what if it doesn’t now? -
and I was reminded of something Neil Gaiman recently said in a Podcast. When asked what he told aspiring writers who came up with a ton of excuses for not writing, his response was:

“Okay.”

That pretty much sums it up. Neil doesn’t care if you write or not, and neither does the universe, your dead grandpa, or really anyone else. If you do you’ll find the time, if not you won’t and should go do something you do care about.

We continued walking and talking, and it occurred to me that I was also afraid of the project I’ve been working on, for much the same reason. I love the project and don’t want it to fail. It occurred to me that the writers I respect most are all generally working on several different projects at once, and that I really haven’t done anything much else since starting this one. I opened myself up to new ideas and they immediately poured right in. On cue the sun broke from behind the clouds and warmed me up on the outside to match my happy inner-bits.

The idea to write something as far from what I normally do as possible popped up, and so tonight I’m writing a short children’s story. Shut up. I’m really looking forward to it, so I’ll get on with that now.

Anyone out there have an illustrator handy?

Writing | No Comments »

Finally made it to my feet last night and managed to get off a punch. Not a knock-out blow by any means, but something of great personal significance. Momentum is gained, but most importantly I’m back on my feet.

Felt so very good to start off with one random sentence, and find myself just cranking out, by accident, the first rough draft of the story I’ve been working on with . It’s not great, but it’s there. More importantly it’s done.

Ahhhhhh.

Writing | No Comments »