Perhaps a little dramatic, but I have been horrible in neglecting my poor, silly little blog. I really should be better at keeping things updated, if only to always have something that I have written when writer's block strikes. That, or some way to get the billion ideas coming from all different directions out somehow before they explode. No one wants to see that. It's gross. Word vomit everywhere.
So, I suppose I should give a quick update. For now, I have put sending out my completed middle grade on hold, mostly because I think I have a few stronger contenders that I can come out with, and I really want to put my best foot forward. I still have a soft spot for Shortcut and little Charlie, but for now he's going to have to step aside for more big kid things.
Mostly, he's stepping aside for Ellie and her historical YA fiction that is about 2/5 of the way completed, if I make it a bit on the longer side. Curiouser - tentative title - is currently sitting at ~40k words and I am hoping to get it to 50k by July 1st. Actually, I have to have it to 50k by then or I owe some people a round of drinks. Therefore, there are four others who are probably rooting for me to fail, but, ALAS, this should make me feel more competitive. Right? Right?! Oh, dear.
Now that you've been updated, I should share a thought that came to mind this past weekend. I am not sure how most of you work, but sometimes getting a title is one of the most difficult parts of writing. It perhaps ranks up there with battling the characters when my set plot idea tells them to do one thing and they do another. You want something clean and neat, but in just a word or small phrase gives the reader a huge idea. No small task.
Then, rarely, there are those times when all you need is a title, then a story just starts falling out. This weekend, I was walking with two of my friends at Figment, an art festival they do on Governor's Island in New York every summer, and we saw a boy and his father riding on a tandem bike. The father, we saw, was doing all the work, and the boy was sitting along for the ride, his feet resting just above the pedals to ensure he did not have to feel them in the slightest. One of my fellow Figment adventurers encouraged the boy (quietly, and from afar) to continue to ride on his father's coattails, jokingly saying how this is how he would get through life. Then a wonderful phrase came from nowhere:
Life Lessons from Tandem Bikes.
I know, I know, some of you are probably wondering why in the world this phrase means much of anything, but it's funny what a simple word or phrase can spark in people. Before the night was over, I had ideas swirling around in my head about what these life lessons could be, if the tandem bike was metaphorical or real somehow, etc. Now I sit here with Curiouser opened and ready to inch closer to 50k, but also with a new document open with a measly 87 words. A happy little seedling of a potential idea, and a mental outline with nothing more than the very bare bones of a story. Still, this all came from a small phrase spoken in the heat and humidity of a May afternoon at a quirky art festival.
This makes me wonder if anyone else has come up with stories or even just ideas in general simply after hearing a word or phrase, and having that word/those words develop over a short period of time into something like a story. Have random sayings turned into random novels?
Moving on, something I am tempted to do for now is just to keep an update on projects I am working on. Perhaps it will keep me accountable if I see the lack of movement on a few of them...
Open Projects:
Curiouser - YA Historical Fiction - 40,181 words
Potentials - YA Fiction - on hold, changing certain aspects of story
Life Lessons from Tandem Bikes - YA or Adult Fiction - 87 silly little words
No comments:
Post a Comment