Saturday, April 17, 2010

Writing

I went to a children's writing luncheon today where we listened to an editor from a big NYC publishing house talk about the business. It made me realize a few things...

1. I'll never be one of those "amazing" transformative kind of writers that can write about a cup of water and make it sounds exciting. Nor do I desire to be, actually.
2. I'm more of an "ideas" person. A "hey wouldn't this be cool" sorta thing. But I'd like other people to actually carry it out. Hmm, maybe that's the editor in me. (Seriously, though. I have a GREAT idea for a young adult book, but I'll never write it. So if you need a topic, let me know.)
3. The publishing world is super tough. I need an agent. They hold all the power. (Just to put kids writing into perspective, I've been doing it for about 7 years and have one book to my name. And today at that luncheon, I bet there were more than 100 writers in the room. And that's Wisconsin alone.)
4. I'm still going to create. But I'll be highly selective of what I write about. These days, something has to be totally extraordinary and amazing to stand out. Some story about a kid learning to ride his bike or whatnot is not really cutting edge or interesting. So it's all about the cool and interesting.
5. I really hope this gardening trend stays popular, and that I can sell another garden concept or two before others jump on the bandwagon.

It is fun to create, though. And since Jack calls me an author and this makes him highly proud of me, I'm going to enjoy my moment as much as I can this summer when my book comes out!

1 comment:

Amber said...

I thought about you guys today. One of the books on display at the library was called "Jack's Garden."