Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Now we know who you are, but what are you doing?

How does one go about starting to write a book? Do you open a laptop and sit staring at the bare blindingly white screen until you are suddenly blessed with an epiphany? Maybe you begin by taking out a pencil and paper and sprawling out any ideas for a story that happen to make their way into your thoughts. You could always revert back to your earlier years and use the tools you were taught in school; graphic organizers and outlines. I've seen some people even start by creating a character and then trying to develop a story line especially for them. None of these methods seemed to work for me, so I've decided to take a course in writing children's books.

The course itself is only nine chapters in length but the tasks set within them are vast and time consuming. I'll be working at this for quite a while and I hope that you as a reader and maybe even a potential writer yourself will continue to join me on this adventure.

One of my first tasks is to develop a serious writing habit.  How does one do that? By writing of course!  The text and companion workbook emphasize starting gradually and slowly building the length of time you spending writing. I have decided that I can and will carve out 15 minutes of uninterrupted writing time each day and that I am going to accomplish that goal using this blog. Each entry is dated and it will prove to be an adequate record of how often I write and how much I can accomplish within the allotted period of time. Once I can continuously meet the goal for two weeks I will add an additional 15 minutes to the session until I am confortable writing for a two hour time period.

Right now the objective is to develop a habit of writing that I can feel confortable with, so I will not be focused on writing an actual story within the confines of my blogger pages. I will however use my time with you as a forum to discuss other writing goals, to complete course assignments and to share my successes and failures as I work my way through each chapter.  Additionally I have chosen to read a number of books written by award winners to try to understand what characteristics may have earned them their place of honor. Therefore book reviews will be appearing from time to time in an effort to document what I found appealing about the book and how it was received by the children I shared it with.

Hopefully by now you have a good idea of what my intentions are in regard to this blog.  You know not only a bit about who I am but also why I am writing and how I plan to go about learning to be a better writer. I hope that is enough to peak your interest and that you continue to read my "writing on the wall."

Until next time.  ~K

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