This week's vision

I'd like to start off the week with a renewed vision of what I want to accomplish. I feel as if I'm resurfacing after two weeks of craziness. Freelancing work has this feast or famine aspect: either I have no work at all or three to five times as much as I can easily handle.

Recently, lots and lots of freelance work came in--and the last and biggest project started before I'd finished other commitments, so I've spent the past week working the equivalent of two jobs. This weekend, I'm finally returning to whatever counts for normal around here. Busy, but I'll get decent nights of sleep again!

It's hard to balance children's writing with other freelance work, because the other freelance work pays the bills whereas children's writing makes deposits for a distant (and uncertain) payoff. I write for children with no guarantees of publication, and when, someday, I get a contract for that first book, the money probably won't be earthshaking! So money-wise, time spent on children's writing doesn't make "sense" if only viewed financially.

Most children's writers are in the same boat. At the start, we write to improve our craft; later, we write to gain publication credits; later still, we write in hopes of getting that book contract or series contract--but it's a long time before we quit our day jobs.

But. (Of course there's a "but.") Before we write for money or fame or credits, we write for something deeper: for self-discovery or to express a truth or simply because we have to write. This is the discovery I make anew each week: that I write for children, first and foremost, because that's who I am.

So for this week, I want to recapture that vision. I love the other project I'm working on (medical writing, where I get to learn about an amazing treatment for breast cancer)--but I commit to keeping time to dive back into the children's writing projects that have gotten lost in the busy-ness of the past few weeks. I challenge you to do the same!

:) Cheryl