“Something Good” Sunday
This week there have been quite a few “something good”s. Work was still super slow which means that I got a lot done around the house. I have been sticking to my running routine of getting up early and running the 2-mile path around my neighborhood. I opted to make yesterday my rest day so I could enjoy at least one day of sleeping in. Today, Josh is going on an overnight fishing trip. I’m excited that he’s finally getting to go out and fish after all of his prep work preparing the reels and lures and all the things he’s been doing to prepare. In his absence, I will delight in eating food that I know he’s not fond of–probably something with lots of garlic–and I will sit on the couch with a new knitting project and watch back-to-back-to-back girly movies. I’m thinking “Practical Magic” might be one of them since they’re making a sequel and I’ve never seen the original. A true faux pas for someone who has a reference to another Sandra Bullock movie permanently tattoed on her body.
All of those are good things, but here’s the really good one that got me super excited yesterday evening. I was telling Josh about how someone in my online knitting group was commenting about my blog and my writing. She and I got to conversing and she suggested that I write a children’s book. One where I teach my younger self all the lessons I wish I had been taught. That was an interesting idea! I’m no good at writing fiction, but writing a fiction story based on parts of my life would be neat.
After I told him about this suggestion, I got quiet. We were in the car driving across town after dinner to go to a sporting goods store for a few last minute things he needed for his trip. In the silence, I thought about the children’s book suggestion and then I thought that I could make it less a picture book for children, and more a novel for young adults. As I have been transcribing my journals through the time I was in high school, there is a LOT of teenage drama. I keep reminding myself that my book is not about the drama. It’s about how that drama affected me and what that did to me as I grew up. So I don’t need to include all the details about all the angsty problems I had. But in a YA book, the drama is the point.
My brain went on and on from there. When I came home I had to open my writer’s notebook and jot down everything I was thinking. Thoughts like, perhaps it could be a series, one book for every year of high school. I would have to carefully construct a problem so that there is a typical problem/climax/resolution structure. And maybe I could incorporate some journal entries in there because the main character copes by writing in a journal. I could also fictionalize some things so that what I wish I did or said, in the book, I do it or say it. Sort of like the guy who takes traumatic movies and shows and uses AI to put himself in the scene and change it so it’s not so traumatic. Like stepping in before certain people are killed in Game of Thrones, or putting Jack on the door with Rose in Titanic so they both survive.
All I would need to do is peruse my journals and craft my story based on what happened. I would also need to be careful to modernize the story. All of this is taking place in the 90s before social media and cell phones. For this to appeal to today’s youth, I would have to use relevant references. I have a couple friends with teenagers, I could pick their brains and see what social media apps they’re using these days, etc. It would be interesting too because I have always said that I’m glad social media wasn’t around when I was in high school. Now I get to explore what my experience would have been like with social media because it will have to be a part of the story.
This is a huge relief to have this idea. It allows me to connect with the younger generation in a way that I was hoping my other book would. This is still me sharing my story but in a way where I’m almost literally having a conversation with the younger version of me. I want to tell her so many things, but since I can’t, I can tell the young readers of my book.
Also, as an added bonus…this would be fiction. So I would pitch it to publishers in a much different way than I would my non-fiction book. With fiction, no need to have a huge social media following. As I’ve read up on this, the story sells itself. I won’t have to worry about selling mysefl as a writer. The story will do that for me.
I have a renwed vigor for writing now. I have a shiny new idea and one that will allow me to get straight to the writing. With what I was doing previously, I had to transcribe all my journals first and that was frustrating because I wanted to hurry up and get to the actual writing part. This new idea allows me to dive right in. And that is definitely something very, very good.
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