Achievement v. Inspiration, part 2

A few days after I made my last post, I realized that I'd forgotten to include my status update at the bottom.  See what I mean about it being hard to balance both achievement and inspiration, especially simultaneously?  Anyway, here it is below for those of you who are curious about the stats of how things are progressing.

And another quick update on a few accomplishments recently.  I selected the size of my book cover, which was actually much more difficult than you may think.  It involved researching printing options, including available standard and custom sizes, publication costs, and profit margin per book - as well as estimating how things like type and size of paper affects each of those.

It also required me to estimate the total number of pages in my unfinished book.  I should note that I think I am doing things in a slightly different order than most authors, since I chose to hire an illustrator before I finished writing my book.  I did this for two reasons.  First, I wasn't sure how far out I needed to book an illustrator, or how hard it would be to find one.  (I was lucky and found one easily who was available right away).  And second, I didn't know how long it would take the illustrator to finish the cover art, so I figured it would get my book to print faster if the final writing and cover illustration were happening at the same time.  Even though it makes it harder to estimate printing costs without a finished product, the process works fine for me.  I did, however, wait until the story and characters were developed enough that I knew the idea for the cover wouldn't change.

After the research, I also got out the tape measure and physically measured a bunch of comparable books for the same age group and style.  None of them were exactly the same as the standard sizes offered.  After trying to estimate the sizes in the air with my hands multiple times and failing, I finally went ahead and cut out two pieces of paper, one for each of the closest sizes to my comparable books, and held them up.  Having a physical copy to actually hold in my hands was invaluable.  Holding my cutout next to my comparable books, I decided to go with 5.25" x 8".  It will be almost exactly the same width, and just a little taller than most of the comparables.  And I'll have the option of printing on either white or cream paper.

(c) Amber Byers

My illustrator has been so patient with me throughout this process.  She is quick as lightening in her responses, but thankfully calm and patient with my slower response time.  It is a relief to work with her without unnecessary pressure.  And, speaking of her quick response time, here is the first round of color illustrations that she sent me already.  We are making progress!  As before, I'd love to hear your thoughts either in the comments below or sent to me directly.

Sophie and Spot

I've also had a great time writing lately.  I got inspired in my story all over again after reading some of it out loud to my target audience.  I got such great feedback that really rejuvenated my entire writing process!

As I near the end of my book, I am filled with such a mix of emotions.  Excitement, pride, and anticipation, of course.  But also sadness and a sense of loss, knowing how much I love the characters I've created, and wishing they were friends I could stop by to share a cup of tea with.  Thank goodness for sequels!

Status:  33,249 words.  Cover size selected.  First round of color illustrations in.

Achievement v. Inspiration

The last two months have been a different time for me in my writing journey.  I've been using a lot more of my executive, achievement traits and much less of my creativity.  It was good, and necessary, and I have an awesome website to show for it.  But it always feels good to come back to the writing, the creative process.  To me, it is calming in a way that few other things are.  To me, it feels like coming home.  Coming back to my true self.

I think there's a balance between that creative spirit and the get-it-done attitude.  I'm good at both of them, but the hard part is maintaining the balance so I can have both of them at more or less the same time.  The best way I've found to do this is to write for a few hours in the morning, then do business development and all of that other left brained stuff in the afternoon.  Because the minute I open that first email or draft that one to-do list item, my brain shifts away from the creative process.  And then it is ever so hard to shift it back.  I need to start doing this again more regularly.

As I've been doing less of my writing in the mornings lately, I've noticed that my blog posts have become sparser and more of a list of accomplishments.  So, in order to break that trend, I am going to tell you a story about when I was a kid.  Not that this story has anything to do with achievement or inspiration, but it is a good story, at least looking back on it.  And good storytelling, I've heard, is about as essential as good writing to making a good book.  Here's to hoping that I have both the necessary storytelling and writing abilities to make it work!

* * *

One night when I was about 10 years old, my parents went out for the night and left me at home with a friend.  Not a babysitter, but one of my friends from school.  I believe she was a year older than me, but still about the same level of maturity of firmly believing in magic and creating our own fantasies, which included scary ghosts about as much as it included . . . well, no, I can’t remember imagining anything except scary ghosts, devils, and deceased spirits come back from the grave.  Nope, definitely no fairy princesses springing forth from our imaginations.

Anyway, one of our favorite places to play at my old house was under the front porch.  You couldn’t get to it from outside, because the sides were fenced off with a white crisscrossed latticework.  The only way to get to it was to go through the house, go down into the basement, and then climb out of this window that was up really high in the wall.  It must have been designed by an adult who wasn’t anticipating the adventures that young children would have, so we had to stand on a tall chair just to reach it.  Then, because the window swung out into the basement, so you had to hold the window straight out while you climbed under it.

We frequently played under there, digging through the dried-up leaves and dirt that had collected and inspecting every rock or piece of wood to see if it could be a fossil bone.  We were determined to be paleontologists, and were convinced that we would make the next big discovery.

On this night when my parents were out, we did find a bone.  A real bone.  We brushed the leaves and dirt off and dug it out of the ground and found that the little bone sticking up out of the ground was connected to another bone, which was connected to a whole series of bones.  A baby dinosaur!  We had found a real baby dinosaur right under the porch of my very own house!  We were going to be famous!

It was about the size of a cat, which is how we knew it was a baby dinosaur.  Clearly not an adult dinosaur.  We dragged it up through the dirt, climbed back out through the window to drop down into the basement, up the long rickety wooden stairs, and around the corner to the bathroom.  We set the bones down in the bathroom sink, turned the water on, and filled the sink with water.  That was the obvious next step, of course - to clean the bones up.  What luck that all the bones were still connected, too.  The only problem was that there was still fur matted all along the body.

At some point in this process, things took a drastic turn.  Maybe it was the remaining fur.  Maybe it was the bright lights of the bathroom, such a contrast from the dark cave under the porch late at night, which had only been illuminated by the small basement window.  Maybe it was the way the baby dinosaur looked different soaking in a bathroom sink.  Or maybe it was just the sneaking feeling of fear that comes over a young child when they’re home alone on a dark, late night.

Whatever it was, our confidence and excitement changed from pride to be the youngest paleontologists ever to make such an important scientific discovery to . . . being completely afraid, creeped out, and well, grossed out.  So, what’s a kid to do?  We didn’t put it back under the porch or take it outside.  No, we left it exactly where it was and then locked the door.  The bathroom door at that house had a keyhole that locked with an actual key, one of those old fashioned looking skeleton keys, so you could either lock it from the inside or the outside.  Naturally, we locked it from the outside.  While we didn’t want to be near it, we also retained some small shred of hope that my parents would come home, confirm our miraculous discovery, and our paleontology dreams would continue as planned.  You never know.

Next, we probably went around the house and turned on every light we could find.  Beyond that, I don’t remember what else we did that night.  I don't recall what we did with the bathroom key.  I don’t recall if we washed our hands.  I also don’t recall if we were already asleep or awake huddled together in fear somewhere when my parents came home.  I do remember that they firmly fell into the “it’s a cat” camp, not the “it’s a baby dinosaur” camp.  I also remember that the responsibility of removing the cat and cleaning the sink did not fall upon either me or my friend.  I can only assume this was because we were either asleep or huddled together with such fear in our eyes that they took pity on us and let us off the hook.  I am still thankful to my stepdad, who somehow became the one to have the unimaginable duty of cleaning up after his budding paleontologist that night.  I can only imagine the conversation between him and my mom.