The one that took my breath away, was a thick manila envelope with a return address of a school. Nineteen children ages 6 & 7 had the courage to work and draw little sketches after my book was read to them in class. As I gazed in wonder at each drawing, tears flowed. I couldn't choose just one, just like the potato-chips, I conjured up a story for each sketch.
Easy, right? Well the concept was clear in my head, but in front of the keyboard, only mud flowed. Back to basics, story line, character building, where do I want each character to be at the end of the story.
The job has been like writing an entire novel in only a few months. Thank heaven for organizations like The Next Big Writer, an online critique group. Thank heaven for an online program called AutoCrit; just drop your chapter into their window and hit the button. Like magic all those nasty hot words you always try to avoid are underlined. Dialogue tags are pointed out and sentence length is actually graphed (great way to catch your missing punctuation)
The message here. Not that I finished a book - I learned to trust and use technology! Yay Me!
Now onward and upward, find the next big goal.
I believe you roll over the pictures below to see the caption, this is another one of those technical things I'm learning.
Thanks for reading, feel free to comment.