November 19th was a Friday.
I was in Concord, CA for work.
And then I have school after.
Yes, I work full time, go to school Friday nights and Saturday mornings, and am still trying to commit some time to writing.
Now that we’ve established all that…
To be fair, I did have a coffee.
But only in the morning! (my ideas are known to take over when I have coffee!)
Anyway, I finished up some work for work and school and started searching around on the internet, and that’s when I found this:
Yes, the Vermont College of Fine Art’s Master’s program in Writing for Children! I cried in Borders. This is exactly what I wanted. My dream program because it is a mix of residences and work from home, with most of the load on the work at home end.
HOORAY!
Then I realized it was going to be about 40,000 dollars.
I’m surprised that I didn’t cry again.
But I looked some more. And sure enough…
So there’s a certificate program.
Translation: not as much money!
So that was the first goal.
But how was I going to get started on that?
Clearly by buying books on how to learn Spanish and Portuguese.
I know. You don’t follow.
That’s the way it is with me sometimes.
I got very excited about the writing for children, then, randomly, felt the need to learn Spanish and Portuguese. Which is funny, because previously I have held tightly onto my French and had a very hard time learning any other languages. Not that I really tried, but I really wasn’t interested.
So I went out and bought two books, one on each of the languages. And I went to school, so excited that I could barely sit still. In the days that followed I bought new moleskines for notes and researched stuff at the library, mainly looking for all the books that the VCFA Writing program recommends….
And now I’m down to it.
- I’m reading three books on writing/creative craft at a time and taking extensive, neat, colored all over notes (pictures to come when I get a new camera…donations accepted…)
- I’m copying down stuff from my language books into another moleskine
- And I’m starting this blog.
So there you have it. Where it all started. Just another day.
But now, how many days later? Some would say 10, I feel like that day was a turning point.
Something or someone was trying to tell me something. I think the message was:
“Kathy Ellen, you need to be a children’s book author. That does not mean you get to stop at writing a story idea down on your computer. You need to work through them. You need to take this seriously. Because it is serious, and you’re gonna be great. Also, learn Spanish and Portuguese. And drink coffee more often.”
All good advice.
Well, except the coffee bit at the end there.
