KEEP A JOURNAL 

Author and poet Dylan Thomas  did!

This is from The Writers Almanac:

“Thomas kept a notebook for his poems as a teenager, and he continued to borrow lines and even whole poems from that notebook for his entire career. Almost every poem he wrote as an adult had an early version in that original notebook, written when he was 18 years old.”

I keep a journal, too.  Several of the poems from GIRL COMING IN FOR A LANDING are from my journals as a teen or young adult.  My journals remind me of specific details and feelings I’ve forgotten.

These days I keep my journal in one long word document so that it’s easy to search for one word…like “fireworks.”

My two cents about blogs: I am astounded by the richness of information in the blogosphere and am one of six authors who contribute to a blog, but I’m not a fan of blogs that are private journals.  I like to keep my private life private!

GOT WRITER’S BLOCK?

When I had terrible writer’s block many years ago, I realized it was because I was afraid of writing something really bad…or even something just ordinary.

What helped was when I decided that it doesn’t matter if I write something terrible…I just have to keep writing.  So, I put a sign above my desk that said: ASPIRE TO MEDIOCRITY…in other words, instead of running away from writing something ordinary, maybe I should actually TRY to write something ordinary.

I mean, I could do THAT.  And it worked.  I could certainly write something mediocre.  So I did.  And I was writing again.

The other thing that has helped me is to tell myself that I only have to write for one minute a day.  Just one minute.  I don’t have to write anything profound.  I just have to write for one minute.  That helped start my engine again, too.

Another thing that really cures writer’s block for me is to meet regularly with other writers.  I want to have something to read to them at each meeting.  That sure lights a fire under my chair!

I hate that feeling–that I have nothing to contribute, that I’m boring, that my writing is boring, so why bother.  It’s an icky place to be.  So—take a quick walk around the block.  Go get some oxygen right now—really.  Or if it’s too late to walk outside, walk around your house for five minutes.  Walk quickly.  Then come back, take four, deep, deep breaths.  Really breathe in that oxygen and feed it to your brain.  Now write for one minute.

As long as you keep writing (and reading works that inspire you), your work will bloom.

IS IT HARD TO FIND NEW IDEAS?

Yes, sometimes it is hard.  But I think every idea is old…Mark Twain said that Adam is the only guy who ever had an original idea!  So if every idea is old, each one of us has our own unique way of seeing something—a fresh way of looking at it.

Sometimes I read other people’s poems and imitate them.  Maybe their poem is from the point of view of a cat.  I’ll look around my house and backyard and write as if I am something else that doesn’t talk—maybe a flashlight or a snail.  I’ll copy the rhyme pattern and see if it works for my poem.

I’ve written more about how to copy someone’s poem here.

WHERE DID YOU GET THE IDEAS FOR YOUR BOOKS? 

It varies.  Sometimes I get an idea for a book from a phrase.  For example, my picture book, IT’S NOT MY TURN TO LOOK FOR GRANDMA! came from my three-year-old niece saying those words.

I thought, “Wow—that’s the title of a picture book!”  I wrote it down on a scrap of paper and left it in my “hot idea file” for several years.  Then I came back to it and tried to figure out what that story could be.  I wrote it and rewrote it over and over and over again for about eight months…taking it to my writer’s group several times for their critiques.

GIRL COMING IN FOR A LANDING was more like a quilt.  I had many poems from the same viewpoint—that of a teen girl.  My editor and I sat down and mapped out a year-in-the-life of a teen girl and I filled in the holes.  For example, there was a poem about a first date…so obviously the book needed a poem that shows him asking her out—so I wrote that poem.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE A BOOK TO GET PUBLISHED?

Well…every author is different.  And it depends on when you start counting. So, do you mean how long does it take me to write a book?  Some of my books only take a year, some take ten years or longer.  This doesn’t mean that I’m writing every single day for ten years.  Or even every week.  And I may take several months off writing before I come back to it.

Or do you mean once I start sending it out, how many years does it take before a publisher says “Yes!  We want to publish your book”?  Sometimes (but not always!) it can take years of submitting and getting it rejected before a publisher accepts my book for publication.

Or do you mean how long does it take once it’s accepted and the contract is signed?  This depends if it is going to be illustrated.  GIRL COMING IN FOR A LANDING has illustrations on every page.  In that case, they give the illustrator a full year to finish the illustrations.   The book may not come out for one, two, three or even four years.   If it’s a novel with no illustrations, it may come out in nine months or a year.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED WRITING?

I wrote in journals, just for myself, never expecting to be published.  Later I took classes in writing and joined professional writers’ organizations—both of which taught me how to submit my work for publication.

ANYTHING PROFOUND YOU WANT TO SAY ABOUT WRITING?

Ha ha.  Okay, I’ll try: look at the world with a poet’s eye…see it all as delicious.

Take notes.  Use your senses.

Yes, hug that tree, squish that leaf between your fingers, smell the green smell of it.

Did you know you can change the world with your words?  You can.

And we certainly need you to.