It’s week 34! I was writing about some of my experiences here in Mexico. There was the possibility of a cute story sitting right here in front of me.

Right away, I could tell my story was going to be long and rambling. I started again. On the second try, things weren’t going much better. So I tried a completely new tactic.

I wrote by numbers. I looked at the story from a technical/structural point of view. I looked at the story as if there would be 24 written pages on 12 spreads. I numbered a page from one to twelve. Then I made a quick outline of the plot, dividing it into twelve sections. This took some manipulation and moving of items around until I had a structure I liked. Next I took another page and divided it into twelve sections of four lines each. This was the space I had to write my story. I stared writing. I would simply look at my first list and write whatever section was next. The section could be shorter than four lines, but not longer (a couple did go longer, I’ll admit).

Good things that came from this.                                                                                                                    1. I got the story written and it was pretty easy.                                                                                        2. I was able to get to the meat of the story without a lot of fluff.                                                      3. It was easy to see how the plot was progressing and to see my character arches.                4. It helped me create reasons for the reader to turn the page.                                                          5. I could visualize the illustrations.                                                                                                                6. I was more economical with my words.

Not so good things that came from this.                                                                                                      1. I didn’t feel as free with my writing.                                                                                                           2. The dialogue suffered.                                                                                                                                     3. My voice and the characters’ voices were stifled.                                                                               All of this can be worked out in rewrites, so they aren’t big problems.

I don’t think this is a technique I will use very often, but it was certainly helpful in this case. I can see trying it again if I feel my story is getting away from me.

The art supplies came out folks. Hurray! And it feels so good.

When I first started traveling thorough Asia, seven months ago, I brought paper and colored pencils. I intended to create some art. Nope. I rarely saw those pencils. I need time and space with my art. On my trip I had neither.

Now I have time and space. I have a table that I can devote to my art supplies. I started drawing. I then decided I would enter the illustrators showcase when I went to the Los Angeles SCBWI conference this summer. This is a big decision for me. I don’t have a prepared portfolio. A lot of work will be involved. I toyed with waiting another year, but why? Do it now, give it a try, then do something even better next year. I’ll get some mistakes out of me, then I’ll be that much more prepared for the next one.

Besides, preparing for the showcase gets me drawing. I have created a list of illustrations I would like to include. Already I have finished two of them. And I’m going to create not one, but two dummies books. Plus I need post cards to put next to my portfolio at the show. Ok, now I’m thinking I might be crazy. Yikes!

What else? I’ve had a very productive week. I wrote my weekly first draft. I will admit that I really love it. I started with a strong character, strong premise and a unique look at the world. I let the characters do what they wanted and the story just popped out, wrote itself as they say. I love it when writing is easy and fun. It encourages me to do so much more. The story is long, over 1000 words, but it needs a lot of work so that could change drastically .

Also I worked on a book of poems I  wrote years ago. I knew some of them could be better, so I sat down and changed them. And I dug out another rhyming story to I wanted to fix. I found a new beginning and ending that really ties everything together.

And I got out one of my first drafts from earlier this year. It’s really grown on me. I tightened it up and sent it off to my critique group to get some feedback. I’ll be interested to hear what they say. I’ll admit that it is a little odd, so it could be hit or miss.

Wow! I’ve surprised myself with how much I’ve gotten done. How long can I keep up this pace?

Oh, and how about all the stuff that comes with living in Mexico? 100+ degrees for weeks on end. A possum just died under the fish pond. We’ve just discovered that very large scorpions run all over the place at night. More to write and draw about I guess.

I’m at a loss as to what I should write about this week. I’ll just wander about this page and see what comes out.

The visa for my stay in Mexico is 180 days. Since we plan to be in Mexico more than 180 days, I have to leave the country at some point before our time is up. I’ve decided to use the time to go to a writer’s conference. The big one. The SCBWI summer conference in LA. I’m all signed up, I have a place to stay, and now I just need a flight. Unfortunately, all of the flights have just jumped up hundreds of dollars from when I looked a few days ago. Oy! I’ll wait a little to see if there’s a drop in prices.

Mexico is lovely. The woman who’s home we are watching just left for Canada this morning. Robb and I are now on our own. Now we have about six more months of keeping a small heard of dogs and cats happy and healthy. With the temperature already floating around the 100 degree mark, I think we’ll have many lazy days with lots of water involved.

As far as writing goes, his was week 32 of 52 weeks. 20 left. the topic for this weeks first draft was similar to one I wrote just a few weeks ago, so I won’t bore you with the details. I do find that not being on the road, having a single location to call my own, makes the writing so much easier. More productive. I have been writing, rereading some of my old drafts, getting ideas for changes, rewriting, and editing. I think my time here in Mexico will be good for my writing.

I’ve also been filling my time by “reading” more picture books. It helps me to see how other authors do it, what I like, sometimes what I don’t. I see what gets published. I say reading in quotes, because I have no access to books here. Luckily, online, there are many places to find picture books being read. This week I’ve been looking at ones done by the Screen Actor’s Guild’s (SAG) Storyline Online. I just listened to one of my all-time favorites, Library Lion, written by Michelle Knudsen, Illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, read by Mindy Sterling. Gosh, I love that one!

What a week! So many changes, and all of them so fast.

Just two weeks ago Robb and I applied to be house-sitters for a home in Mexico, a home with 2 dogs and 8 cats. We were accepted, and now I am sitting under a palapa with a warm Mexican breeze blowing across my keyboard and a cat wrapped around my feet. It’s truly lovely, the house, the dogs, the cats, everything. We’ve signed on for 7 months. It will be interesting to see how many Mexican influences show up in my writing.

As you can guess, I didn’t have a lot of free time this week, so I cheated a bit. Instead of writing a whole first draft, I only wrote half of a first draft. The second half. Over a year ago I attended the SCBWI Winter Conference in New York City. It was an inspiring week. I found myself coming up with lots of ideas for picture books. As they came to me I wrote them down in my notebook.

Today I was going through that notebook, remembering all of the wonderful things I had learned. One thing I found was a half finished story. I had started writing it on the bus ride  home from that conference, somewhere between NY and Washington DC.

It was cute. It deserved to be finished. Since my other idea would be a lot more work, I opted for the easy way out. My other idea will be happy to wait till next week.

This all made me take a fresh look at my unfinished story file. There’s some good stuff in there. I feel like there are too many unfinished stories out there in the world.  Poor things.  I’ll start giving the ones I have a chance. Who knows, the book of my career may be hiding in there. They must have some promise or I wouldn’t have started them in the first place.

How many of you have stories that could use a little love? Maybe it’s time to give them another look.

So, I entered my first writing contest this week. I found out about it through one of my critique group members. It was #PBParty  sponsored by Michelle Hauck and Sharon Chriscoe.

I entered a story that I had written in my third week of the 52 First Drafts Project. The story had gone through my critique group and been rewritten and refined many times. It was ready to see the sun.

Authors had the opportunity to submit a query and first 50 words of a picture book. These were reviewed by Michelle and Sharon. Their top 21 were displayed on Michelle’s blog so they could be seen by agents and editors. The process took about a week. This is where the party part of #PBParty came in. Many of the participants gathered each day on Twitter to exchange ideas, wait for contest updates and offer each other support.

How did I do? Well, I was not chosen as one of the top 21.

Was I disappointed? A little. I’m pretty good with rejection having been an actor for so many years, but it’s still nice to be recognized for your hard work and ideas. I’m not saying I deserved it more than anyone else. The top 21 were terrific  and I’m sure that everyone who entered worked just as hard and believed in their manuscripts.

Even without being selected, I learned many things.

1. As children’s book writers, we belong to an incredible community. The enthusiasm and support that poured out of the participants, tweet after tweet, was heart warming and inspiring. It made me want to write more, and participate more.

2. There are amazing, dedicated people out there like Michelle and Sharon who truly want success for all of us. This contest was not about competition, but support.

3. Agents aren’t that scary. Ha. Being a fairly new writer, I’m just in the very beginning stages of looking for agents. Taking the time to read about some of these agents, and looking at their comments during the party put me at easy. They show themselves to be very supportive members of this community.

4. I learned to use Twitter. I had an account, but I never touched it. Now I follow a few people, make my own voice heard, and have even use it as a tool to look up folks in the  industry.

5. The query. I’m not disappointed with mine. It says what it needs to, but in reading some of the others, I have gotten ideas to make mine even stronger.

6. The first 50 words. This was a fantastic exercise I will use with all of my stories. When you put only you first 50 words out there with nothing to back them up, they have to be good. Mine should have been great in the first place, but his made me look at my story fresh and improve upon it.

7. Consider what the contest asks for. I am happy with my first 50 and with my query. I didn’t consider, however, how to effectively use them together. Mine both kind of said the same thing. A missed opportunity to offer more information. Next time.

8. My work is good. After reading the final 21, I didn’t feel intimidated. My thought was that I was on the right track. Persistence! I plan to keep my eye out for more of these contests.

By the way, I have reached week 30! My 30th first draft was tricky, I had an idea (More a concept) that I loved. I wrote it out and found it had a major flaw. I rethought it and rewrote it only to have a whole new set of problems. The idea is still good. I need to let it rest, then come back to it fresh. Maybe much later.

I belong to an underrepresented population in the world of children’s literature. There are very few books for or about being a gay kid. I was a gay kid. I know what it’s like. I should be able to write something.

I’ve thought about writing a gay themed story since I started writing. The thing is, it’s not that simple. I write when the story comes to me. I can’t force it. No story in this genre had come into my head and begged to be written before. I tried. I did. I’m no activist, but I feel it’s important for kids, both gay and strait, to become familiar with gay topics. Being gay should be seen as normal from a young age. Picture book are a perfect medium for this.

This week an incident from my second grade self made its way out of my pencil. Though not completely my story, it is the most autobiographical story I’ve ever written. I even, for now, gave the main character my own name.

I hope there are more. My childhood was not difficult. Not remotely. But I know not every child has it easy. It would be nice to create something that helps make a child’s life a little easier, safer, kinder.

Time to keep writing.

One technique people use when writing a first draft is to just let the words flow. Don’t stop. Don’t edit. Don’t overthink. Just get a rough idea of thoughts and words on paper.

I’ve never worked well this way. My approach is just the opposite. I may write out notes or an outline, but when it comes to writing my first draft, I work very slowly and deliberately. I think about each word, I go back to the start and reread, then add another sentence, then reread again. I change things around, start over, try to get things perfect. This is not what people often suggest for a first draft, but it works for me.

Years ago I worked with an amazing group of singers in Washington DC. Eight of us decided to work through Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. We worked through it all. We had weekly meeting to discuss our progress on our daily pages, artist dates and other assignments. The benefits were tremendous. By the end I was freed, inspired, grateful.

I couldn’t have done it on my own, having the group accountability was absolutely necessary. This was especially true with the morning pages. Every morning I would wake 45 minutes earlier than normal to write. Free flow thought. just write without stoping or editing. It didn’t matter the topic or even if made sense, just keep writing. I understood the purpose was not to write well. The purpose was to clear the mind and give you more consciousness for your day.

Even though I was faithful to the assignment, never missing a day, it didn’t feel right for me. Weeks of, basically, gibberish. I never saw the growth and self discoveries that other people seem to have. Please understand – This is no fault of the theory behind it. It was just against everything natural to me. My brain seems to have its own speed and path and does not like changes.

But This is how the morning pages worked for me. I saw that not everything works for everyone. Everyone’s brains works in different ways. My brain can’t focus without pauses to calm it. That’s my brain. Good to know, especially as I now embark on this journey to become a published author. Know thyself.

Why I bring this up … I was working on an idea this week which I really liked, but I was having trouble fleshing out the story. Even for me, I was having too many breaks. Too much stopping and starting. Too many changes. To much indecision.

So I thought I’d try the flow technique. Just write. Don’t stop. Don’t overthink. I did it. I wrote the story. Beginning to end. It was difficult, but every time I felt myself slipping into my usual writing style, I picked up the pencil and just started writing. If I thought of a change I wanted to make to an earlier part of the story, I’d make a quick note and just keep writing.

Now what do I have? A mess. A crazy convoluted story. There are bad word choices, awkward transitions, and poor plot and character development.

I know many people would argue that this is what a first draft is. But for me it is not any more useful than my normal notes or outlines.

Here are the good thing that came from this:
1.  I got the story out of my head and onto the paper.
2.  It only took me 30 minutes.
3.  I can see all of the things that don’t work.
4.  I can see all of the things that do work.
5.  I know there is a usable story hidden in there.
And most importantly
6.  I better understand my writing process.

For me it is important to feel good about what I get on the paper. That’s what keeps me motivated to continue with a story.

I would love to hear if others have more success with the stream of consciousness approach.

Toot-da-doo – Trumpets

Ka-Booooom – Cannon fire

Ahhh Ahhh Ahhhhh – Choir of Angels

I made it to the halfway point! 6 months. That’s 26 weeks of writing, and now I have 26 first drafts written.

But it’s really so much more than that.

In these six months, I’ve studied poetry, rhyme and meter. I may not write the best rhyming stories yet, but I now know how. I’ve dabbled in a dozen genres of picture books, fables, bedtime stories, adventures, songs, poetry, slice of life, multicultural to name a few. I’ve learned about my writing habits, when is the best time for me to write, what inspires me, what keeps me motivated. I’ve started a website for my writing. This includes a blog (obviously) that hase become a personal journal of this journey.

And I’ve gone beyond first drafts. Several of my stories have gone through my critique group and have been going through revisions. Not all of them for sure, but my favorites are moving forward.

The best part of reaching the halfway point is … I’m not done. By the end I will have 52 first drafts. Along the way, who knows what else I will learn and accomplish.

The decision to do this challenge has been the best decision I ever could have made for my writing. It’s changing the way I write, the way I see myself as a writer, and thus, changing my life.

26 weeks done! 26 weeks to go!

First I did something good. I worked ahead. At the end of week 22 I had written and entered first draft number 25 into my computer! I had some ideas come to me so I just wrote them out.

I had also worked ahead on purpose. We had friends coming to visit and I wanted to be able to devote all of my time to them.

Now the bad. It is now the end of week 24. Yes, I have 25 first drafts, but I have not done any writing in two weeks. Bad. Bad. Bad. Creating good habits is so difficult and requires so much time and dedication, that I feel bad about the slip. It’s like I was on a diet and just ate a huge slice of cake.

Will it be helpful to beat myself up about it? No. What is helpful is to write. So, that’s what I’m doing. Writing. Getting the pencil moving. Writing this blog post, then going on to write another first draft. Then another blog post. Then do some revisions.

Write. Write. Write.

I’ve made it to a pretty big milestone. Twenty first drafts in twenty weeks!

And you know what? I’ve hit a slump. I haven’t wanted to write. I haven’t had any good ideas. I did’t like what I was forcing myself to write.

So how did I battle it? I forced myself to write first draft number 21. A full week early, I finished my next first draft. And with it an epiphany.

Use my experiences to write.

I know this seems fairly obvious. I mean, hello. I am traveling the world, so why not use my experiences and observations. And I have been. Sort of. I’ve written many stories influenced by my travels, but only vaguely.

So for first draft 21, I sat down and made a list of all the countries I’ve been to (on this trip). Then I listed under each, thing that made that country unique. Thing I observed. Things that make that country interesting to me. Then I thought about how these thing affected the kids who lived in these countries.

I found this approach inspiring. Lots of ideas came to me.

The hardest part is thinking up stories that are relatable to children in the US or other parts of the world. Kids act the same all over the world, but can be in situations other kids wouldn’t be able to relate to at all. I’ve seen children steal a boat, get hit by a motorcycle then get up and run off, and play in and out of airport security. Not very common in the US. So, I focussed on just being a kid.

This new process may keep me going for a while. I have an amazing opportunity with this trip. I cant waste it!