Hello fellow Children’s Writers and Friends,
It’s that time of year again, where everyone from business people to everyday tax payers to school students (not necessarily by choice) to writers review how they’ve done so far this year and plan for the rest of the year. As a writer that means reviewing word(s) of the year, in my case Wait! and Imagine.
So how have those words served me? Are they still valuable to me? Do they still have anything to teach me? Do I need new words? As it turns out, they’ve served me rather well as they’ve allowed, nay forced me to stop and rest, to stop and look more closely at my work and to stop and consider other possibilities- to imagine! Oddly enough or perhaps not so surprising to some, I had forgotten that imagine was my second word as I largely focussed on the much needed discipline and rest which comes from waiting. Regardless, they were a good pairing as one seemed to lead to the other.
I had got a little confused and thought my second word was create for a while and I have indeed been taking some time to create, but in a playful way, seeking only to learn. I will perhaps try to link those two now and I feel I have truly accomplished the Wait! aspect. That’s not to say I’m going to jump in and submit work that’s clearly not ready, but it does mean, I’ve learned to be more disciplined and objective about sharing what I produce creatively. So that word at least has served me very well and I intend to keep remembering to ‘wait’, but feel I’m ready to drop the capitals and exclamation mark from that word. I hope I’ve have learned now to naturally wait so I don’t need to Wait! So not quite a new word, but a new method and a new emotive response.
As for imagining and creating, they seem to have entwined themselves, and with the waiting as a backdrop, I feel I am producing fresher, freer, more original and hopefully better work. I have done some thinking about myself as a child and realised that I need to do a lot more to find what was once an excellent imagination and link it to creating the sort of work I have already started taking pleasure in and rather proud to produce. Is imagining still a valuable word for me, does it still have something to teach me? Definitely, I feel the need to go and lie on an old fashioned ‘broadboard swing’ (the forward and backward swinging type where you needed at least one other friend to operate) gaze up and the clouds, take gulps of fresh air and imagine castles and dungeons and magic forest portals through the grove of trees near the creek behind my house. I need to see dragons or sphinxes in the clouds and I need to laugh just for the sake of it. THEN I need to write, or draw, or paint, or….
So while, I’m not ready to let go of wait and imagine and still feel they have something to teach me this year, I do intend to add create seeing as it was hovering in the wings anyway.
❓That’s it from me for now, did you have words for the year? I’d love to hear about them, how they are/have serving/served you? Let me know in the comments below or perhaps by can and string telephone.
Fraewell fellow travellers,
Savour the quest,
Journeygirl
Journeygirl 