Comments are welcome but please have the courtesy to sign your name. Unsigned comments will be deleted.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Looking Ahead

Christmas 2015 is behind us and we're wrapping up the year. As usual, we wonder how it could go by so quickly and where the next year will take us. I'm glad we can't see the future but hope 2016 will not be as rushed as this year was. At least it looks like a slower start.
I usually have a list of things I want to do during the winter months and this year's list is short. I chalked off three things this fall and am not planning to start any new major projects. At the top of the list for January is scrapbooking my 2015 pictures. I hope to write some short stories for children but do not plan to start another book project. Have I written my last book? I don't know, but I don't have any ideas simmering that I want to develop.
It's not that I don't have any suggestions, but none I'm ready to pick up. Most people don't realize how much work it is to write a book and what is entailed in getting it published. The first requirement is that there must be a purpose or a point. If you want a memory book of your mother, do it yourself. Don't ask me to make it into a story.
If I do accept your request, whose book is this? Yours or mine? Are you going to publish it yourself? That means investing the money in having it printed and selling the book. How would I be paid for the time it takes to write a book? Am I expected to do it as a favor? If you don't want to self-publish, what is the message in the story? Is it something with enough marketing potential for a publisher to want to buy it? If not, I have other things to do with my time. Just because a book is written does not mean a publisher will accept it.
I enjoy writing stories and think it's one of the best ways to teach truth. But I can't write all the books people have suggested that were worthy of being written. I was glad to see other writers pick up some of them. I don't plan to quit but will leave it to the Lord to show me where I should go from here.
And now, I'll stop jabbering. I have an idea for a short story I want to try to write today.

No comments: