You're probably wondering what me having a dream the other night has to do with reading, aren't you?
Before I retired from teaching, I started writing the draft of a middle grade chapter book. I finished it within 9 months of being retired. I had a few people critique it. Adults seemed to like it better than kids. I did revisions. Kids liked the revised version better.
At about the same time that I finished that draft, my youngest daughter needed to write a picture book for school project. I won't say I did the whole project for her... but I came up with the idea of the book, edited her draft and then proudly displayed the finished product on my coffee table. Until my daughter took it away. While the book was still in my possession, I read the guidelines for middle grade picture books and I revised the text to match the guidelines. If I (we?) were ever to attempt to publish the book, we might have a hard time. The audience for a middle grade picture book about the Spanish-American War is probably very limited. I don't think I've ever heard of a 3rd, 4th or 5th grade social studies curriculum including anything about the Spanish-American War.
I started doing research to see how to go about getting either of my books published, but then I had all sorts of family stuff going on and I realized that I didn't have the stick-with-it-ness to publish a book at that time.
What does this have to do with my dream from the other night?
I dreamed that I was sitting at my desk. I'd just shut down my computer and had a sudden urge to write another book. In my dream, I turned on my computer, preparing to sit down and write. Then, in a dream within my dream, I had visions of my main character. She was a single woman. Something tragic had just happened in her life. She was living alone in a walk-up apartment. While she went to the bathroom, someone walked into her apartment and knocked on her bathroom door. When she opened the bathroom door, there stood a woman holding an older baby. Perhaps it was a neighbor?
The dream was so vivid when I woke up. It was so vivid later that day. It's still vivid a few days later.
Do I want to be the type of author who keeps writing drafts of books and stuffing them in drawers? Do I want to be a published author? (Of course. Who wouldn't?) The big question remains. Once the writing is done, because I have no doubt I have several more drafts for several more books inside me, do I want to put in the hard work to get a book published? That's the part of all this that I'm just not sure about.
Do all readers yearn to write?
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