I am fearful I shall not make my self-imposed goal of Christmas for this book! However, I guess that is the benefit of being an independent writer...I won't be charged a penalty for missing that date. However, I shall still try.
I realized why though, the other day. Why I have not put the effort into progressing the book that is. I don't get writer's block and I don't say that to brag. As I write, the story plays out in my head and I see the story portrayed as a movie and I hear the voices as it plays out. I write down what I see and that becomes my story. For some reason the progression of the book wasn't there. I knew where I wanted it to go, I just needed to sit down and write it, but I didn't. The movie was in my head still playing...I just wasn't putting pen to paper.
So it seems that each book I sit down and write, I want to write for a 6-8 year old...at about 100 pages max or less. That was with The Marsh Adventures, and although I came close to the mark on this one, it was at over 150 pages I believe and most parents tell me it is really for 8-10 year olds, or maybe 10 year old and up. I do deal with insect death, much in the way E. B. White does in Charlotte's Web, or death maybe more so I would say as it is in Watership Down or Rikki Tikki Tavi.
Then came along The Sun Also Sets...the original 100 pager I read to my son may have squeaked by at 8 years old, but really it was probably 10 and above. The final product, with the 100 added pages after I read to my son, was clearly 13 and above...10 if read with a parent.
So here I am on A Band of Dogs...I want to keep it 6-8 years old...but I can't. There are elements of the story that must be told, thematic elements that may cause stress or fear in a 6 year old, not bad elements, just real life elements, that cannot be left out of the story. Well, it could, but it will never be the story that it was meant to be. So this story has now moved to the 10 and above category. And that my friend was the stall in my writing. Not writer's block, final admittance that to finish the story and make it what it was meant to be...I have to add these elements and tell the story as I see it playing out in my mind.
I thought of releasing two versions...a 6-8 and then a longer, 13 and above. However, that would kind of be like censoring my own books and I don't really want to go there. And now I just crossed 100 pages.
So, A Band of Dogs is moving forward again, just in the direction it was always meant to be. It will be an enjoyable book, just for an older set of kids and adults.
Read on and write on!
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