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The ones that come back
Feb. 22nd, 2011 10:19 pmIt's being one of those breathlessly busy weeks where I don't know how I'll possibly fit everything in. Add to that the fact that the dishwasher has died, and that means a) washing dishes for a family of seven by hand, and b) waiting around to see if the housing repair guy ever gets the message I left and when he or she might come to check it out. Not what I want to be dealing with right now. Oh, and we have more snow. It's the really slippery stuff that hovers close to melting and fuses your snow into solid ice. Fun. I saw tons of people sliding on the roads today, and did a little fishtailing myself. Hopefully this doesn't last long. Either melt or freeze deep, but don't stick in the slick middle, please!
So I finished reading the (first) Percy Jackson series to my kids, as well as The Horse and His Boy. We're still in the middle of The Long Winter (boy, we sure are!! And I'm thinking Laura Ingalls Wilder knew some stuff, and maybe we should buy a copy for ourselves and stick it with our emergency supplies...). We've started The Magician's Nephew. But what to read for the third book? Well, Little Sweetie (the one who prays every day that her mom can publish a book, and I swear I did not put her up to this) has decided we're doing my cryogenically frozen novel. (As in, that's not what it's about--it's what I've done with it.) She will come and ask me sometimes to reread the picture book texts on my hard drive to her. They have some issues--maybe they don't have quite enough plot, or maybe some of the concerns aren't kid-like enough. I get it. I KNOW why no one in shouting range of the 212 area code wants some of these. But--despite that, I wrote them because something wanted to be written down. Because of a story that needed to exist. I very much want to write a book that gets published by a real publisher, a book that will speak to people I don't even know. Writing is, after all, communication, and if all you're doing is putting your words into bottles and throwing them into the ocean, well, that's awfully lonely. So--yes, I have clear publication goals. And no, I'm not planning to dive bomb publishers with stories not appropriate to what they publish. But as my girls settled down in that comfortable dream state of listening to a story--and as they begged me to read chapter after chapter--I realized something.
It's okay to love your stories. Even the ones that no one else will ever love.
Yes, I continue to write new (and hopefully better-suited) ones to send out. But you know what? It's okay to love the ones that have come home, too. And in a way, it's kind of freeing. I don't have to worry about what someone else might think of them anymore. I don't have to try to mind-read and somehow make my story fit that. I don't have to dread rejections on them anymore. I can just love the story I've written.
Someday, hopefully, a brain child of mine will actually move out and have a life of their own. *crosses fingers for current book* But in the meantime, it's okay to love those who have moved back into the basement.
So I finished reading the (first) Percy Jackson series to my kids, as well as The Horse and His Boy. We're still in the middle of The Long Winter (boy, we sure are!! And I'm thinking Laura Ingalls Wilder knew some stuff, and maybe we should buy a copy for ourselves and stick it with our emergency supplies...). We've started The Magician's Nephew. But what to read for the third book? Well, Little Sweetie (the one who prays every day that her mom can publish a book, and I swear I did not put her up to this) has decided we're doing my cryogenically frozen novel. (As in, that's not what it's about--it's what I've done with it.) She will come and ask me sometimes to reread the picture book texts on my hard drive to her. They have some issues--maybe they don't have quite enough plot, or maybe some of the concerns aren't kid-like enough. I get it. I KNOW why no one in shouting range of the 212 area code wants some of these. But--despite that, I wrote them because something wanted to be written down. Because of a story that needed to exist. I very much want to write a book that gets published by a real publisher, a book that will speak to people I don't even know. Writing is, after all, communication, and if all you're doing is putting your words into bottles and throwing them into the ocean, well, that's awfully lonely. So--yes, I have clear publication goals. And no, I'm not planning to dive bomb publishers with stories not appropriate to what they publish. But as my girls settled down in that comfortable dream state of listening to a story--and as they begged me to read chapter after chapter--I realized something.
It's okay to love your stories. Even the ones that no one else will ever love.
Yes, I continue to write new (and hopefully better-suited) ones to send out. But you know what? It's okay to love the ones that have come home, too. And in a way, it's kind of freeing. I don't have to worry about what someone else might think of them anymore. I don't have to try to mind-read and somehow make my story fit that. I don't have to dread rejections on them anymore. I can just love the story I've written.
Someday, hopefully, a brain child of mine will actually move out and have a life of their own. *crosses fingers for current book* But in the meantime, it's okay to love those who have moved back into the basement.
