I haven’t dropped off earth, just writing

I spent much of the summer balancing family needs and working on adapting Felix the Comet into a screenplay, not the easiest endeavor. I always envisioned this story as both a book and a movie. There is so much more editing to be done, but a few other avenues are presenting themselves, too… Time to wait and see how this may pan out.

Since school started back up last week, with one back to college, and two in school here, I have a bit more freedom for my own thoughts to collect and do something productive. I am currently working on the text for an animal characters picure book with a great artist. We discussed for years working on a book together, but my attention was involved in other projects, unable to devote time to a sweet little story. However, she and I have spent those years emailing back and forth developing the project on the side. We both know what we want the story to be, have a decent arc, I just need to actually write it, in one place.

It’s a real shift from pretty straightforward fiction to screenplay or picture book writing. The shift from screenplay adaptation to creating a picture book plot and dialogue isn’t nearly as far. I have conditioned myself over the summer by deleting a great deal of the descriptive elements from fiction, This task as prepared me to approach this smaller project more mindfully, not fill a lot of unnecessary detail that will show in Cathy J’s illustrations.

May this project move swiftly now from the working title “two cathys project” collection of notes into a viable draft by the end of this week, maybe beginning of next. Wish me luck and uninterrupted time, please! The other Cathy’s swift sketches are adorably inspiring!

Staycation

I swore I wanted to write this week before it started. Alas, the kids are home for Spring Break, and most of my writing has been puttering on paper. I am getting ideas out, but mostly lounging with kids, and going to my usual appointments. No big blasts of productivity as I felt on Sunday night to Monday morning that this week would be.

I am, at least, writing. They can’t all be gems, can they? But these sessions are like building blocks where I am figuring out where the story is going and exactly why certain characters are there. I really thought writing a small children’s tale would be easier than this, but I guess, in my way, I want it to turn out exactly how I see it in my mind. However, making the imaginary movie into a world of words is the same process, no matter how big the story, I suppose – every word matters.  Everyone in the story has their role to play, and it must be essential to the story, not just decoration for pretty pictures. The artist for this one has a lovely hand, she will make it beautiful. It was originally her idea!