Three thousand words about not writing, the sequel.
I'm not writing a novel, and I'd like to tell you about it. With the return of the inner critic.
Where were you? It’s been like forever.
It’s been a week. I said it would be a week. I’ve been working.
Real writers write every day.
No they don’t. And anyway, it’s not like I’ve been napping.
Uh huh. Get to work.
Now where were we?
When we left off, it was 2019 and I was excited about writing a middle-grade novel about a middle-grade boy, a girl from outer space, and possibly a flying house. I’d gathered my tools, turned off the phone, closed the door, and then…
And then you procrastinated.
Actually, I started reading.
Same thing.
When I begin writing a new book, which have all been picture books up to this point, I always re-read my favorite picture books for inspiration. Where the Wild Things Are. I’ll Fix Anthony. Sam and Dave Dig a Hole.
There are others. I’ll have a stack next to my chair, a nice comfy chair, and I can read most of them in a sitting. But re-reading one’s favorite middle-grade novels for inspiration takes time. I re-read Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, which might be my all-time favorite book. I re-read Kate DiCamillo’s Flora & Ulysses. It took a week. I was definitely inspired, but I was also intimidated. Can I actually do this?1
So I did what all beginning writers do: I read books about writing! Stephen King’s book and Elizabeth George’s, and John McPhee’s, and parts of Anne Lamott’s but also Jeff Tweedy’s book about writing just one song (which is really great, and I recommend it to writers of picture books especially, all the time).
I followed their suggestions. I made outlines. I wrote character backgrounds. I created diagrams of plots and arcs and intersections of nouns and verbs.
And me being me, I drew a lot of pictures.2
Maybe reading one’s favorite books and reading books about writing books isn’t really procrastinating, but I wasn’t writing. And this was taking weeks and months. And, well, the world isn’t going to stop for me, is it? I better get busy.
March 14, 2020
But then we all know what happened. The world did stop. Publishing stopped. Deadlines vanished. All we had was time.3
People started baking, and knitting, and learning guitar. And I started writing. Like, actual dialog and paragraphs and chapters. I spent entire days in the world of my book, writing sentences that were terrible, scenes that will never see the light of day. But now and then, like a chimp with a typewriter, something amazing would happen. I would write what felt like a pretty good chapter. Early one morning in particular, at 4:00am, I couldn’t sleep. I snuck out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen where I made a cup of coffee, opened the laptop, and began writing what I believe is the final scene of this perceived book, the last chapter of this story about a boy named Mickey and a girl from outer-space named Frida. (Yes, I began with the end.) And I wrote and wrote and hours passed and I knew I was onto something. Around 6:30am my wife came into the kitchen and asked if I was okay. I realized I was crying as Mickey was desperately running through his neighborhood in the middle of the night toward the climax of the book that I can’t even tell you about right now. “I’m okay!” I said as I waved her off. “I’m writing!” It was exhilarating. I loved how that felt. I want to feel like that all the time!
Creatively, for me at least, lockdown was great! And then I broke my ankle in late 2020 which made even biking and going for walks impossible. I got so much done! It was amazing! I have six chapters that I think are pretty good. I have this ending, and a beginning of sorts. Several disconnected middle chapters. My agent has read five of them and agreed that this might be something. He wrote some wonderful notes, some encouragement, that I read regularly to remind myself that this is worth continuing. I have that notebook sitting next to my bed. I have a great title.4
But sometime in early 2022 this work, this writing, ground to a halt. I can list several reasons this happened. The world getting back to work was one of them. A crisis of confidence spurred by a picture book I wrote not doing as well as I’d hoped was definitely one of them.5
So why are you telling me this?
It’s been eighteen months since I wrote anything toward this book. But I think about this story all the time, and it’s been sitting there hovering over everything else I do, sometimes like a ghoul. I have a note on my Notes app where I add thoughts and ideas about the story. Every new book I read, I read with a part of me thinking about voice and structure. I tell friends and loved ones that I am “writing a novel” so that they will at some point ask me “how’s the novel going?” And I have to have an answer. This is also why I’m writing about it now, and telling you, possibly a complete stranger, about this book of mine. It’s easy to put this project into a mental box under my bed and let it collect dust. But like a ghoul, it will scratch and scrape at the bedboards, waking me up at 4:00am.
I guess this is, to me, some kind of accountability. I’m not an artistic wallflower. I like to be asked about my work, reminded that I’ve got something I’m supposed to do.6
I’ve also made some changes to my creative life with the long-game in mind. I’m making collages, and doing some woodworking. I’m teaching again, at Tyler School of Art. I’ve also taken some classes. It’s been good. I’d been a hermit working alone in my studio for almost 14 years. I had to get out and talk to people.
And, I’ve started this newsletter, Random Orbit. I suppose I might be writing this entire post hoping to answer the question why are you writing a newsletter? I’m not sure if anyone other than myself has actually asked me that, to be honest. But I have wondered why am I giving myself yet another “job,” another deadline, a thing to do that will possibly keep me from writing the book. The goal is that it does the opposite. The goal is that it leads to my writing being something like my drawing. Just something I do, on the bus, after class, during halftime. I need to build that muscle. Open that valve. I need to make words work for me the same way that images do, where it’s not all scars and blood and sweat and tears to get a sentence down.7
Stay with me here. We’ll get through this. True story.
-Brian
And another thing:
I’m writing this in Bob’s Diner in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia, where they’re on day 36 of playing Christmas music. This reminds me that I should be “shopping” but also reminds I have great ideas for your gift-giving as well. Books and stickers and original drawings are available at my store, and prints are available at my Inprnt shop. Feel free to buy as much as you want! And happy holidays.
What is “this” anyway? Can I write a Newbery winner like Flora & Ulysses or When You Reach Me? Ha ha. Probably not. Can I write a novel that entertains and means something to someone? A worthy goal. Can I write a story that even makes sense? Hm. Suddenly it seemed overwhelming.
yes, the plan is to be a novel. But a heavily-illustrated novel. You know, for kids.
the fortunate ones of us, at least. We had time.
I also have a sequel, where things get darker and weirder, kind of how Harry Potter gets darker and weirder. Not that i’m invoking Harry Potter. I’m not.
This was My Hero, published in May 2022. The first book that I wrote that really came from deep inside, about things really close to me, and the first thing I’ve made since the 1990s that was completely illustrated traditionally, no computers. It didn’t do well, and I beat myself up about it. Maybe I’ll tackle this in an issue of this newsletter one day, maybe I won’t. It was a tough time. Suffice to write for now that I lost a lot of confidence in what I do and how I do it, and everything just got shoved into a drawer.
God forbid, however, you think I’ve not been busy. In this time, I have completed five new picture books, one of which I also wrote, and a chapter book with 45 drawings. I’m in the middle of illustrating three more. The point is that it’s easy to focus on the work with deadlines to the detriment of the work without.
Or maybe it is, but in a good way.
Hey Brian, another good 3k words. I noticed your link to collages and of course as a collage guy I had to check it out. So I ended up buying the print of the 4 bugs. Singularly my very favorite collage. You should make a bunch more of those bug collages, that one is great. Could be its own book. The Conference of the Bugs (instead of The Conference of the Birds by Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar).
Now, onto the book. From how you are saying it, it seems like you are taking that book too seriously (not that it isn't serious, I believe in taking our fun seriously). It is going to be great - how could it not - So just do it. I was thinking that, if you considered it as just one in a series then it wouldn't seem so important all by itself and then it would be easier to wrap it up and go to the next one like I am sure you do with all your other work. Now, in my own case, I'm an all in kind of guy. I figure you are made ready for the task in the course of the doing of it. Ok, granted, sometimes it doesn't work out so good on the first jump, but that is why there is always a new tomorrow. In which case you are even more equipped for the next in the series. Hence, I believe in serialism more that cerealism. Therefore, just get on with it. I am ready for book 2 already.
Thanks for sharing the details of you journey. It's a good reminder that creating is hard work. Joyful, at times, but hard work nonetheless. Like you, I have a few "benchmark" books that I pull out for inspiration; "Sam and Dave" could easily make the list. Speaking of which, if you haven't seen the British series "Detectorists" I highly recommend it. There's a definite parallel to "Sam and Dave." Also like you, I broke my ankle; though you beat me to it (mine happened in January '22). Unlike you, it put me in a deep funk and I stopped working for a few months. Thanks again for your insights and your art.