2010 segue into 2011: Respect!

2010! Pretty good, after all, when you think I started a blog, something I thought I'd never be able to do. How would I ever write a blog? I viewed writers of blogs like the uninitiated in ancient times must have viewed the monks who created books closeted away in their little cells. Come to think of it, the process may not be far removed. I found a voice which was me; I wrote about things I wanted to write about. Initially shy, I had to say to myself every now and then, 'It's your blog! You can write about what you want to write about'. I have also been able to indulge my childhood delight of having 'pictures illustrate my thoughts', words. Discovered how to move images about; in the process, discovered that you can also lose them when you are moving them about.


So thanks to those who read my blog, and also to those who commented; nice comments. I have not identified any filtering system attached to my blogging process, so maybe I'm lucky that the comments were nice. But really, thanks for hearing my voice on children's literature.


There were other things I wanted to write about, but having limited myself to blogging dates, once a week, as opposed to blogging time (time can be a whole half day to edit; time you put in pictures, time you lose them, find them, etc), these topics did not materialise. Perhaps in 2011!

2011! Here we are! Happy New Year to all of us! Wishes that we will all achieve and exceed our writing desires.

My resolutions are usually very flexible, a work in progress, which is why I guess the same things keep appearing year after year. However one resolution, made long before the New Year, somewhere in 2010, no doubt after some epiphany, was, 'respect you' talent', 'use you' gift. This actually translates for me into write 'even if you don't feel like it today'. And do not hide behind the free-lance work! It's so easy to say, 'What you expect? Well, I have to work! (as if nobody else does) getting increasingly dramatic; usually a bit over the top, wounded and self-righteous. Therefore, must make time for creative writing amongst time for freelancing writing, and if there must be drama, put it into the writing.

So along with things about finding out about marketing/finding publishers, etc., for 2011, paramount is, 'Respect my gift'.



I hope that in my blog, I'll write things that you will find interesting; I hope that some of the things I write will resonate with some of you who are writers and know the anxieties, the passions, the writer's block times, the times when you're writing and the words are coming so fast that you're up on the ceiling, and have to pull yourself down from that high, and try to sleep. (It usually happens at night, it seems.)





And yes, the images. Symbolic of the girl, and her first published book, who did not know then how many more she would eventually write, and who is now the woman who can write a blog about writing children's books. (However, it's mostly because there must be pictures.) The Funny Grey Cloud, published by Ministry of Education, Publications Branch. The artwork is done by Donny Miller. Love the trees! Love the colour!






Glorious writing to all of us for 2011.