Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Book I Am Not Writing

In which I ask you to confess your indiscretions.

Shh. Here is a secret: I am cheating on Ant. Oh, I still love him and his story and I'm still working on his rewrite. But I have a new love, a sweet little picture book with shin-kicking and interplanetary travel and no thorny plot problems. And it rocks.

This always happens to me. The best books I write are the books I am not supposed to be writing. Picture books come to me so much more easily than anything else -- they're like my secret trysts in the middle of the much longer work of novel-ing. And unlike a real affair, everyone wins: I get a break and a great new book, and whatever I AM supposed to be writing benefits from my taking a minute to step back and have writing be pure fun again.

So, tell me. What are your illicit writing secrets?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can so relate, Jacqui. I have started/stopped my middle grade novel a gazillion times to work on a new picture book idea. They pop into my head and I must get them down.

And now I have to stop to submit, which I haven't done in months. Gotta get it out there!

cath c said...

lucky dog.

although i can relate. when working on my big kid fiction, i did get a bunch of little works out in the meantime.

Paul Michael Murphy said...

I write poems about farts. Or boogers. Or eye crusties. Or ingrown toenails. The list is endless, really.

Jacqui said...

I have my fingers crossed for you, Tara...

cath, lucky is right, I suppose. Never thought of it that way (gains perspective).

Paul, I am dying to write a poem about eye crusties now.

cath c said...

isn't there an old song, "hey, mr.sandman, send me a dream..."

oh, don't google the lyrics, only ones that come up are the metallica and other metal bands' versions and songs...gets very creepy.

Marina said...

Wow, we must be sharing secret thought waves across the miles. I just posted a letter to my WIP on my blog last night about how I've started seeing another story ...

So yep, I do this all the time too.

Amber Lough said...

Paul, you're wonderful. I bet your farts are wonderful, too. You and my neighborhood skunk could get together and compare your molecular additions to the stifled breeze oozing around my porch.

Jacqui, my illicit habit isn't writing, but reading books by writing masters who shame me into a temporary writer's block.

Today's word verification: vantiess.

That must be what they call "panties" in Romania.

Jacqui said...

Marina, ooh! You came out to your WIP? I'm hiding Ant in his drawer until my little fling is off to my agent.

Amber, yes, reading is always the ultimate sneak-away. As in "research."