2012 Training Camp

Greetings!

I hope all is well with everyone.  Me?  I'm well.

Training Camp.  It's the time of the year when I start working to get in shape and be ready for the season. 

The WRITING SEASON! 

Around this time last year I was going for an interview to try to participate in the Eastern Michigan Writing Project.  When I was accepted, I went to a dinner that introduced us to the family of writers that came before me in the EMWP.  It was also on that night that I received the black and green composition journal that lit my writing fire.  I look at that day as the start of Training Camp.  That day also led to the completion of 4 books in 6 months.  

This year things are different.  My first book, Wrinkles Wallace: Knights of Night School will be out in May and there are still things that need to be finished before then.  Yet, I cannot help but consider this time of the year to be my Training Camp for the writing season I intend to go through during the summer. 

So, what does this Training Camp consist of? 

Well, like any spring, many people are planting seeds and fertilizing in order to have a great lawn.  I've been planting seeds in my mind by reading the words of other authors/bloggers/educators etc.  I'm learning more about how creativity works by reading Imagine: How Creativity Works by John Lehrer.  I also just finished Eric Thomas' The Secret to Success: When You Want To Succeed As Bad As You Want To Breathe.  Both of those titles are helping me to decipher how my brain works and what my mentality should be like over the course of the upcoming season.  I've been reading the submissions on The Nerdy Book Club website to see what's going on in the minds of readers/writers/educators.  Lastly, I started reading the Guys Read Funny Business book that was edited by Jon Scieszka.  Honestly, I'm looking at Volume I in order to prepare myself to have the ability to be in a future Volume.

As for the fertilizing...  I finally broke out the large paper and did a little more plotting for The Misunderstanding of Alexander the Grate part 2.  I organized all of the 14 pages of writing that I've completed since December and I have a basic clue as to how to get going on this book.  Yeah, it does have a lot of holes and I have no clue how to end it, but this is the fertilizing stage.  Much of what I'm doing is preventing weeds and hoping that the good ideas grow bigger and stronger.  Hopefully this week allows me to fill in a few of the obvious holes so that I can determine where this book is going and how to lead it into M.A.G 3.  I already have the premise for that book and I want this one to lead into it really well.

Thanks for reading!

STEADY!