Thank you Anne of Green Gables for the perfect adjective

A quote from Anne of Green Gables has been running through my head repeatedly lately.  Anne is walking home with Diana after a failed attempt to walk the ridgepole of the Barry's house (on a dare of course). Anne sprained her ankle and Diana is helping to support her as she attempts to walk.  Of course in Anne fashion, she refuses to walk the regular way home so that she can make a point to Gilbert and Josie.  This results in taking a much longer way.  Due to the injury of Anne's ankle she decides that they should take a shortcut though the woods which are rumored to be haunted.  As they are walking through the dark, mist filled trees, with bare branches grabbing at their clothes and owls hooting in the background Diana tells Anne that she is scared.  Anne replies " So am I.  Deliciously scared."  

I am heading to the Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators big summer conference in LA tomorrow.  This will be my first big writing conference and I am going by myself, while knowing not a single person.  While I am not scared, I do feel nervous. Deliciously nervous.  I am so excited to listen and learn and soak in all that I can from esteemed authors, agents, editors, and other industry professionals.  I am having a professional critique done of my favorite piece, so far, called Under My Bed.  I am excited to see what is said about it and to figure out what my next step should be.  I have been researching the great agents who will be at the conference to see what they are like and what kind of work they represent.  I am thrilled by the prospect of meeting them personally so I can get a better sense of who I want to query for representation.  I feel like there is so much possibility and talent and inspiration to be had there that I have butterflies in my stomach in anticipation.  All this has been circling my brain over the last couple of weeks and as it has gotten closer and closer my mind keeps taking me back to that line; "Deliciously scared", I absolutely adore the use of the word as an adjective.  It describes my nervousness perfectly.  

Confession: Do I dare admit that as a writer and avid reader, I have never actually read the Anne of Green Gables series? Well, I confess, it's true.  I have only seen the movies.  I have a really hard time reading a book after I've seen the movie.  I'm not sure why this is, because I will read a good book many times, so it can't be that I know what will happen. Perhaps it is that I am no longer the creator of these characters in my mind.  Part of the greatness of reading is that you get to interpret the nuances of these written characters. The characters have already been cast in a movie.  I have no choice but to see them as the movie character. Which can make for all sorts of disappointment (in a reverse sense since it is usually the other way around) when the book character is so much more rich and fulfilling then the person in the movie.  

I do feel it is important to note that the line "Deliciously scared" was in fact a brilliant line only found on film. It was not in the book. 

Inspiration is always just around the corner

It's true that inspiration is always just around the corner.  Sometimes you just have to walk around the block a few (dozen) times.  It's been a crazy busy month.  I've been traveling quite a bit.  Some fun, some not as much fun.  One great place I went was Mexico with my husband.  It was fantastically hot, and also just fantastic.  We had our own private shallow infinity pool on our deck. It was awesome.  My husband referred to it as the naked pool.  Yes, for the exact reason that you would think.  Okay, maybe not the exact reason. It was so humid and hot outside that anytime we left our suite my husband was instantly soaked and miserably hot.  Therefore every time we came back to our room he would strip down and take a dip in the naked pool to cool off.  That's the reason you were all thinking, right? Luckily I grew up in humidity so it didn't bother me quite so much and I was free to enjoy every moment of time I spent there.  I knew before we left that I was going to use the time to get away, relax and most importantly write without the distraction of kids.  So I wrote, and revised, and revised, and wrote.  I pondered and read, and researched and pondered some more. I finally shelved what I was working on out of frustration. I just couldn't get it right. Then as we were sitting at the airport waiting to board the plane home, ideas for this particular piece started coming to me.  I worked through a few different story lines until I finally felt that the direction of the piece was right.  The piece that I was working on was none other than The Little Giving Stream that I posted here for all to read a few posts ago.  I told you that it would get revised and that it would look nothing like the original piece, which is completely true, except it's still about a stream. Now, however, I am stuck on a name so it remains untitled for now.  Fill free to leave me a suggestion as to what you think the name should be.  If I pick someones suggestions you will definitely get credit when my story gets published.  Here is the rewritten version.

Confession:  This piece still needs to go through another round of critique and refinement, which it has not done.  Since, however, I am not submitting it to agents yet, I feel okay showing you the unpolished version. I wanted to show the process of starting with something and ending with something entirely different and not giving up along the way.


M

Untitled (for now)

by

M.J. Thompson

Once there was a little stream that flowed through a grassy meadow.  

It shared its water with the grasses.  It watered the flowers and trees.  It played with fishes and watched the animals.

Still, something was missing.

One day it felt rumbling.  

It saw a tractor.  

The tractor moved dirt from here to there.

A house was built.  

A family moved in.

The family had three children who wandered down to the bank of the stream one sunny day.

“I’m bored,” said the oldest child, who was a girl.

“I miss my friends,” said the middle child, who was a boy.

“Water!” said the littlest child and he jumped right it.  

Tromp. Stomp. Slip….SPLASH.

The boy and girl laughed in delight and jumped in the water too.  

The stream smiled, the way streams do.

The next day the children found their way to the bank of the stream once again.

“There’s nothing to do,” said the girl.

“We don’t know anybody around here,” said the boy.

“Diamonds!” said the little one as he scooped up sand from the bank and watched it sparkle in the sunshine.

The older children looked at each other and grinned.

The rest of the day was spent sifting sand looking for hidden treasure.  

The stream sighed, the way streams do.

A few days went by before the children visited the stream again.  The stream had missed them terribly.  

This time something was different.  The girl said, “Hello friend.”

The boy said, “What fun do you have for us today?”

The littlest one looked out over the water at some twigs and leaves swirling in an eddy.  He looked up, a twinkle in his eye, “Boats!”  

And the stream gurgled happily, the way streams do.