Feet of clay...
I've been working at fiction writing most of 5 days every week since August, 2015 with only a half-dozen exceptions, but my MC's are complaining that I'm not doing enough.
Tough cookies!
I'm doing my best, imaginary people - for example, as a member of the SCBWI since 2014, I've attended many meetings in-person and virtually. I even attended writing "Boot Camps" where they shave off your hair as soon as you walk in the door, and a guy in his Smoky the Bear hat stands next to your laptop and yells, "YOU CALL THAT WRITING? MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER WRITES BETTER THAN THAT!"
So after learning all the written and unwritten rules of fiction writing and everyone that goes along with the process, plus working on four PB's (that I still need to polish), I started to work on my first MG draft in August, 2015, exactly one year later and as I discovered on the same day an Aunt passed away (for years I incorrectly thought she was my Godmother - much to the surprise of my actual Godmother). Talk about embarrassing.
And two years later another MG draft and another the following year, though both are still under construction.
So, MG-15-001 is complete from start to finish but has never been fully edited (I also need CP's).
Sometimes, on a bad day, I've wondered if there might be other options besides writing. I've searched that idea from time to time, though writing still floats my boat and I don't even like boats.
Before trying my hand at writing fiction, I was very interested in photojournalism, because people would often tell me I have a knack at taking action-type human interest photos, but to be good at that you must be where the news is happening - most of the time that means an event people normally go the other way from - more like fleeing - and with clay for feet I decided that wasn't for me.
In my 20s I learned to write weather summaries and press releases in the years when 24-hour weather was just getting started, but that kind of writing is usually based on forecasting or fact (some might say that's fiction writing too), but that part of my life ended long ago.
So all that aside, I've come to know my three MC's very well, all tweens and all of a similar voice and enduring a daughter-parent life, just the way agents and publishers like it, consistency counting for a large part of their opinion when it comes to first-timers, but - am I just too old or practical or just 2% crazy enough to bring it all together.
Being a long-distance bicyclist for 15 years, they say people who live the sport are 2% crazy, versus racing cyclists or downhill skiers who are 5% out of their minds, or skateboarders or mountain climbers or parachutists who are 5 to 7% crazy, so you get the picture - falling on your head too many times (even with a helmet) does not make for a creative mind.
Oh - some might wonder why I chose female tweens as MC's - as a male, my tween years were difficult beyond my control, so I find it easier to think about that time by looking at in a way that is different from anything I recall.
But - it's still hard to write (type) well when a person's mind is bent like a Manhattan pretzel or in my case when a person's mind also too practical (you can see the conflict), so sometimes it's hard for me to think creatively and why my MC's like to talk and talk - and talk, but that is what tween readers enjoy, so I'm on the right track and enjoy dialogue writing immensely (my one writing contest success so far was for comedy dialogue).
In the mean while for Amy, Judith and Dora, they wait and wonder if I'll give up just short of the goal.
Not sure, we'll see, time will tell, all the clichés and a hoping in the end it's as easy as a can of corn...
P.S. Amy just sent me a text - she's threatening to block me if I send this blog saying, "Telling people I talk too much is an insult to my dignity as a member of the world community."
Always the dramatic.
The last time she claimed I insulted her was after I tried to change her name, and for a month afterwards she opened her door only to hand me a plastic bag of dirty laundry to give to her father with a note, "Tell him no starch please, and I need them back in 1 hour" taped to the outside.
That and, "Go away!" when I'd give her something new to talk and talk about - that went on until I promised never to try changing her name again...
But I'm pressing enter anyway,
Frank
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