Messy Messy

I got my muse back. I’ve been struggling the past few weeks in being motivated and inspired to write my new book. Part of the reason could be that I’ve had a lot going on the recently with teaching this college course and releasing my last book. But part of the problem was the book itself.

I went to Starbucks this Sunday for my writing afternoon (thank God for that or I would never get writing!) And I read over the last few chapters and realized they weren’t working. I totally rewrote chapters 2-5. You might think what a shame all that work in writing the first drafts of chapters 2-5 was. But I realized that was all prewriting for these new chapters.

It reminded me of a keynote speaker at the SCBWI conference I went to in August. He was David Weizner (author/illustrator of the picture books Flotsome and Art & Max and Tuesday). He took us through his creative process of writing/illustrating his books. It was amazing how many ideas he scrapped, how many changes he made, and how many great lightning bolts of ideas came. His message was that the creative process is messy, but you must follow the story.

He was right. That’s where I am right now. I’m following the story and getting messy along the way.