Works In Progress



On the picture book manuscripts that I’ve written thus far, I typically have not gotten “stuck,” per se.  I usually find that I’m able to craft a beginning, middle, and ending.  Not sure if they’re any good… but complete nonetheless.

I’ve been toying around with an idea for a picture book playing around with the use of color words associated with emotion.  As adults it’s easy for us to understand what it’s like to feel blue and see red.  For children, perhaps not as much.  I think expressions like this are natural to use in everyday speech, including conversations with children.  “Are you just feeling a little blue?”  Especially for the very young, how confusing must that be?!  Feelings are hard to understand and then the idiomatic expressions are even more cryptic!  Woah – poor confused kiddos!

Since my oldest has no shortage of feelings and needs all the help processing them, I feel that this concept of playing around with those expressions we use in picture book format has lots of potential.  But how do you end a story of that nature?  I’m not certain yet.  I’ve been thinking on this one for the better part of six months… and nada.  I hope it’ll come to me soon.  This concept of a story is just a work in progress, I guess.

That’s alright.  Certainly we all, the very young to adults, with all our colors of feelings, are all just works in progress.





#AnitaVP #workinprogress #picturebook #kidlit #writing #writemore #writing #feelingblue #seeingred


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Potential Book: Being Married To The Alpha Male

Image
My husband is a true man’s man – a macho man.   Physically, mentally, socially, emotionally, etc.   And I wouldn’t have him any other way.   He’s big and bulky and buff and gruff.   He has a beard most men would envy.   He makes grunts Tim Allen style and he may be convinced that a little snus has him turned into a sexual tyrannosaurus.   When asked what he wants to eat, the answer typically is “meat.”   He, and I quote, “[doesn’t] have to work out, [he gets] to work out.”   Little bit Paul Bunyan, little bit Spartan, little bit Teddy Roosevelt, little bit Marlboro Man.   From here on out, we can call him Macho Man.   Every fiber of his being is characterized by testosterone – a bona fide, red-blooded, he-man. I’d like to think my feminine charm is some form of black magic antidote.   Perhaps it is – at least in a small and sufficient enough way.   Nonetheless, my black magic or otherwise, we make a great part...
Read more

Bears & The Best Sound

Image
BEARS IN THE NIGHT has been a longstanding favorite in our house – you know one of those ones where your kid asks you to read it over and over again.   Out of the shelf, onto the chair, into the hands.   Yet, there’s something magical about BEARS IN THE NIGHT that allows us to willingly read this one as many times as requested.   Next to the kid, out of my mouth, into the air.   Arguably, this book thus embodies many qualities of the perfect picture book. Last week, we happily indulged.   And to our blissful surprise, upon hearing it for the first time ever, the baby laughed and giggled and grinned ear to ear.   He couldn’t get enough of it!   Sweet chuckles and smiles.   Babies laughing has to be the best sound ever. Hats off to you, Stan, Jan, and nighttime Bears.   We’ll be reading this one to both our bears for many moons. #AnitaVP #berensteinbears #bears #kidlit #picturebooks #Human#2 #baby #babygiggles #par...
Read more

Negative Prefixes – Be Gruntled

Image
          Pictured: The saddest-looking, distraught baby, who has become disgruntled over his mangos. Listen to (or read) this neat bit on the etymology of some common words with negative prefixes .   Most of us are familiar with the construction of adding prefixes like dis- to the beginning of words like “agree” to make the root word negative.   That is “agree” becomes “disagree”, meaning to not   agree. But what about words like “disgruntled”?   Or “disheveled”? The apparent root of the word is not a free-standing word, like in the case of “agree”.   Although the article doesn’t nerd out this far, generally these root “words” are considered to be bound morphemes .   The development of these words is logical, despite the fact that we don’t really “gruntle” or “shevel”. In addition to the words mentioned in the article , some words following this concept that came to my mind were: -    ...
Read more