On Collaboration

A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.

-James Keller

Procrastination

 Who was procrastinating this morning?  “Not I,” said the fly.  Okay, maybe just a little. It’s the last day of February and I want to get a jump start on March.  I have three stories that need revision and I want to write an application for a grant this month.  Plenty of time!  Let me just grab a cup of coffee and watch a little news.  Nothing exciting there… how about some children’s television to inspire me?  Hmmmm, Spongebob Squarepants?  Oh well, what could a few minutes hurt?  No way!  Walt Dohrn, Paul Tibbitt, and Mr. Lawrence are geniuses!  Why haven’t I ever watched this before?

Let me recap the episode for you.                                                                     Spongebob gets an 800 word writing assignment. (Sounds familiar doesn’t it picture book writers?).  He’s super excited. (You bet!).  He prepares his work space. (Smart.)  He dashes out the title. (Okay, good start.) “Funny,” he says to his pencil. “As my ideas roll, you shrink.” (This is great stuff!) Then…<cue the melodramatic music>…NOTHING!  (Uh, oh.) He finds other things to do in the house. (Feeds Gary, cleans the kitchen…this is my life.)  He finally sits down and works furiously for several hours.  (Ta-da!)  One word, only 799 words to go! (Tension! Suspense! Drama!)  Procrastination sets in. (Marco Polo phone calls in the middle of the night, choking on eraser shavings… really, how is one supposed to write with all this other activity going on?) He awakes from a nightmare. (Really… Walt, Paul and Mr. Lawrence, get out of my head!) He has an epiphany. (What all great writers experience.) He writes everything down at the last minute. (First draft is perfect of course.) He races to school and delivers it just in time, only to be told by his teacher that she has changed her plans for the assignment.   (Rejection! Take note authors… through no fault of his own, Spongebob’s piece was rejected simply because she changed her mind!)

New Old-Fashioned Card

Here we are at our first Christmas as friends, bloggers, and mutual-followers, and I don’t have a thing to give you!  You have all inspired me, just by believing in me enough to follow my quest to authorship, and I thank you.  I have found enjoyment, education, the encouragement at your blogs.

I would like to extend a holiday wish for peace, joy, and love for all of you.

You’ll have to open the link below to watch the card come to life.

http://www.americangreetings.com/ecards/christmas/crossing-the-miles/pn/3360588?source=agpinterest

Picture Book Idea Month – Day 10

Inspiration comes to us in many different forms and at different times.  I didn’t exactly get a story idea today, but I did get inspiration.  It came in the form of a bible reading at church this morning.  It probably actually started a little earlier than that, because I was one of the readers of the scripture, and I was practicing my passage last night and this morning.  I was reading from the second letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians, “God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.”  With this simple prayer, I am inspired and I wish the same for all my fellow writers of every faith.  For I truly believe that those who write for children do so with good deeds and words.  To know children is to know love.  And therefore, to speak to children must be to speak with love.  Peace!