... of being a picture book author who can't draw worth a lick
is when the greatest,
most fabulousest,
hilariousest
IDEA
falls into your lap and your mind, fully formed and ready to go,
and you realize:
it's wordless.
Sigh. What's your hardest part?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The hardest part...
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10 comments:
The hardest part of being an author for me is knowing exactly how my whole novel plays out in my head - like a movie - but getting stuck finding the right words to convey my mind images to the reader. Oh, and being all ready to sit BIC and write and discovering your child may have strep so the day will be spent w/ BIC at the dr office instead.
Time, Jacqui. Time. Day jobs stink some days.
Rejection.
Laura, when you make that mind-to-paper-directly machine, I want one.
Thorp, yes. Particularly when your day job gets a fever and has to miss school. I find it hard to write with Mary Poppins singing next to me.
And Ann, ugh. Yeah. Pbbblt.
Losing sight of the whole while stuck in the minutiae. And then reading it SO MANY times that I can't tell what it says anymore.
Elise, the re-reading is especially hard with picture books, since they're so short. In novels, I lose the voice in the details.
*sigh* It's so hard to wait for answers...and when the answer is not, it's even harder.
But it is NOT going to beat me.
CW, I love your spirit. As you know.
For me, worse than any of the various frustrations that come along during the writing process is the deep valley of despair that comes after completing a project. First you get that nanosecond of complete satisfaction over having finished something you're proud of. Then, boom, comes the despair: you know in your heart of hearts that the project you just finished is the last piece of non-drivel you'll ever write and you say, "Well, that's it. I'm officially dried up and over."
I've never remained permanently lost in the valley, but I've had some longish stays...
Jacqui,
I struggle with not being an illustrator at every turn. Feel free to commiserate with me anytime.
I do take heart in the fact that Paul Fleischman "wrote" a wordless picture book (SIDEWALK CIRCUS), so there is still hope for us. :)
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