Hearkening to the muse

I took on three resolutions on January 1 of this year that are daily tasks. One of them is to write something every day. Work stuff/grading comments/emails don't count. Blogs, yes. Stories, yes. Poems, yes. Narrative essays, argumentative essays, research papers, yes. Sure. Whatevs.

So I've been doing that and making lots of progress on my NaNo novel from November.

But yesterday, while I was working on another daily task, inspiration struck. I finished what I was doing, opened my laptop, and started a new story before I could forget my idea. It's an epistolary story. The characters, concept, setting, and main conflict all sprang seamlessly into existence. I don't know where it's ultimately going to go, but I'm terribly intrigued.

And I'm slightly worried about getting distracted from my novel. But maybe it's a good thing? If I'm writing every day, maybe it will be really good to have major projects to switch between while my ideas are brewing?

Anyone else have this worry of maybe having too many works in progress? Is it like yarn where there's a certain point where you shouldn't allow yourself to buy any more until you've knitted up what you have? How many current projects is a reasonable number of projects?

A) Somewhere between 1 and 10?
B) A writer is only limited by the space on her hard drive?
C) When you start forgetting who or what you're writing about, stop adding new projects?


Tell me!

A

P. S. I love the Don't Break the Chain printable (free!) calendars designed by Karen Kavett. My resolutions would be short-lived without this kind of accountability.

Awards Season

But not those awards. I'm talking about the American Library Association Youth Media Awards! You know, Newbery, Caldecott, Printz...all the fancy metallic award stickers you find on great books.

The ALA just announced the 2014 winners today. I always like to look over the list when it comes out because it gives me lots of great things to add to my reading list. But it's especially exciting to see a book you read and loved in the last year receive an award.

"Eleanor & Park" was awarded a Printz Honor this morning, and I'm so happy and overcome that I haven't been able to type about it.
— Rainbow Rowell (@rainbowrowell) January 27, 2014

Like, I'm not even sure I just worded that correctly. Or spelled Printz right.
— Rainbow Rowell (@rainbowrowell) January 27, 2014

I'm so grateful to the Printz committee, and to everyone who has been so excessively kind to my book (and me) this year. THANK YOU.
— Rainbow Rowell (@rainbowrowell) January 27, 2014

Eleanor & Park was an extremely painful and difficult book for me to write, and this kindness breaks me open.
— Rainbow Rowell (@rainbowrowell) January 27, 2014

I've mentioned Rainbow Rowell here before. I read Eleanor & Park a couple of months ago and have since then devoured everything Rainbow Rowell has published so far. I started following her on Tumblr and came to admire how kind and encouraging she is to her fans all the time. Look at her Twitter page at the time I'm writing this and you will see hundreds of individual responses to fans who have reached out to congratulate her. I'm so glad to see such a lovely, kind person receive an honor today, and especially for such a powerful and compassionate book.

And now I'm off to expand my "to read" list.

'Night!

A