"Do you do it for the money, honey? The answer is no. Don't now and never did. Yes, I've made a great deal of dough from my fiction, but I never set a single word down on paper with the thought of being paid for it... I have written because it fulfilled me. Maybe it paid off the mortgage on the house and got the kids through college, but those things were on the side--I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever."
Wow. It is really fun to be in the middle of my passionate upsurge. I had a breakthrough on my book. There was an aspect to the story that I was wondering how to incorporate and the inspiration finally hit! Did I tell you that my book is a science fiction novel? Actually that doesn't quite tell the whole story... maybe I'm inventing a new genre! Now that would be very cool. Also, do to ongoing requests (visit my facebook page any day to see this!) I decided I am going to put together a Jessie-ism book, "wisdom from my two year old" or something like that... this is not me writing, Jessie does all the work here but I will compile it in a fun way. Jessie turns three in April so the clock is running out on this precious time. Of course, a three year old may have even more fun stuff to say so we could have a series on our hands!...
Ahhh thinking big. I can't help myself. Particularly after my friend Jeff, fellow blogger conducting his own 365 day project (find the link to his My year of Cooking Fabulously here and in this blog's sidebar) was rewarded with an appearance on the Martha Stewart Show Thursday morning. Read his account of the experience here. Jeff was quite fabulous and it is thoroughly inspiring to see a fellow blogger fulfilling a dream. Of course using Ben Franklin as my inspiration provides fewer television opportunities then Martha but then again, that may not be entirely true as my book will explain. LOL how cryptic can a gal get?!! It will be a while before I am ready to share any of the book itself but perhaps my mysterious pronouncements will amuse until I am ready to unveil it.
I'm still experiencing a bit of the broken faucet feeling I mentioned in my last post so I have been finding it pretty difficult to write the blog. The book is a little better because I'm not that concerned with coherent sentence structure, yet! At this point I'm just getting ideas out on the page. As I mentioned, I've been thinking about this story on and off for over a decade so at this point getting it out of my head is the most important thing.
"No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft."
--- H.G. Wells
“I will do something yet that is purely for me but will create for someone in the future that passion that Blake and Keats did in me.”
--- Maurice Sendak
Next post: Final thoughts on the week
Your blog and project are amazing. I, Ben Franklin, would like you to know that I am honored to have been chosen as your inspiration, and if I were grading you, I would give you straight A's.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I know it may look like Jeff Blumenkrantz wrote this comment, but I'm merely using him as an instrument to express myself from the grave.
Carry on!
:-)