Last week I mentioned that, with a project like this one, my intention is not necessarily to write a banger of a picture book that might get a book deal, but a draft, from start to finish. It might be bad. It might go nowhere. You may ask, why bother?
Because writing for fun makes us better writers.
When I started writing picture books, I believed deeply in every idea I wrote up into a draft.1 Each idea that made it into a completed draft and through a few revisions gave me that feeling of “maybe this is it, maybe this is the one.”
I’ve learned that the dance of being a writer is moving between that place of “maybe this is the one” and “what even is this mess?” The middle place is where revisions happen.
I do think a long and fruitful career can be built out of only working on stories I have great hope in. I could very well keep coming up with ideas from my walks outside and then sitting down to see if they turn into anything. But I also know my process enough now to know I need regular jolts into new and unexpected directions. Fun directions.
I realized at the end of last year that the reason nothing I was writing seemed quite good enough was because I was in the process of leveling up as a writer, and I knew the way to make that happen was to play – to write stories for fun.
My goal for 2023 was to play. Right now it’s midway through September, and let me tell you that I have failed so far at reaching that goal. Part of my reason for doing The Short Story Project at all is to force myself to accomplish this goal before the year runs out. I have written a lot this year, but it has all been like checking an item off of my daily list. None of it has been to just goof around and play with words and with stories.
When I expect every story to have the potential to be great, it puts a lot of pressure on the story. I certainly understand the process—I know first drafts start out terrible. I know my job is to get the story out however I can and see if there’s something good to expand on, some glimmer that hints at what the story could be. I find, though, that when I expect every story to be sale-able, it’s like I’m yelling at it, “Where is the glimmer, dammit?”
So sometimes writing is balancing between “this is the best thing I’ve ever written” and “wow this needs so much work,” and sometimes it’s walking between “this is only for me” and “this unexpected glimmer is actually good.”
I have had so much fun working on these drafts the past two weeks. The process of writing silly picture books that are primarily for play feels good to me. It fills me with joy. It feels necessary – exactly the creative balm my writer self needs right now.
I had a thought: “Why don’t I do this every week? It doesn’t take that long, really, to read a short story and then write something, and this kind of regular playfulness with story is exactly what I need to do to write better stories.”
Immediately my Inner Critic interrupted, “That would be frivolous.”
To which I responded (in my journal) (although out loud would have been just as good): “Yes, that’s the point.”
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