The End

I recently published my first edited book,  Labor of Love: A Literary Mama Staff Anthology ,  with  Small Harbor Publishing . It's an anthology of writing from  Literary Mama  staff over the past 20 years. It's a beautiful collection and I am proud of the writers and proud to share the book.  It seems a fitting moment, as I pondered sharing about the book here on the blog, to reflect on my life as a blogger, and acknowledge that it is time to officially end this blog.   I started blogging in about 2007, when my baby was learning to toddle, when I was learning how to be a mother and stepmother, when I was just starting to see my way as a writer. I needed it back then. I craved it. I had a variety of blog iterations--family, art, creativity, writing things I delved into. There's a freedom in blogging, a casualness, an easy familiarity that's lacking (for me anyway) in other kinds of writing. I loved blogging and the words came pouring out.  Ove...
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PiBoIdMo results

November is over and that means so is PiBoIdMo. I came up with more than thirty ideas for picture books this month, read some great blogs by people doing the same thing, and found some wonderful inspiration for writing for kids. 

The hardest part about this challenge is that I love so many of the ideas, I want to sit down and work on each one. But I just can't commit the time to that.  With kids full of their busy lives and needing so much, with a household to run, with bills to pay, and dinners to cook, the best I can manage is sitting down with one idea a little bit each day and starting the marathon.  In fact, I am doing just that.

One of my ideas from early in the month is in full fledged mid-draft mode.  It has even been to critique group already. After coming out of there alive, I felt a bit stuck with it.  I let it sit for a few days, when I suddenly got another format inspiration.  And this week my writing time has been dedicated to getting this picture book recreated.  It's still pretty rough, but I love it.  And I feel confident that after some serious editing, some more critiquing, and a little more love, it can turn into something fabulous.

I noticed that at the beginning of the month I had all these BIG, stellar, grande ideas.  Ideas I was sure would become bestsellers, and generate huge fame and fortune for me (well, as kid's book authors go).  But as the month went on, the BIG ideas got smaller, and I found myself looking more deeply at things, at my world, at what my mind was coming up with as ideas.  It became more interesting.  More complex.  And I find the ideas from later in the month to be much more dynamic that the earlier ones.  That intrigues me, and makes me want to sit down with those ideas and see where they lead.

One of the side effects of doing PiBoIdMo is that every day for 30 days I have set aside some time to focus on idea creation.  It has become a habit.  And now, there is no real reason to stop generating ideas.  I can't work on them all right now, but more ideas means more creativity, and that's what sparks the good writing.  One word at a time.

All in all, I'd say it was a good writing month.

Comments

Sharon K. Mayhew said…
Amanda, congratulations on getting over 30 ideas this month. Good luck with developing them into picture books. :)
December 1, 2011 at 2:10 PM
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