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             Will this ever be mine?

Last month I nibbled on all kinds of pie: fudge, strawberry, blueberry, honey, country, American, apple, even whoopie and moonpie.

They all went down real easy.

But one pie keeps eluding me. I've tried all kinds of crusts, mixed up the ingredients, started from scratch many times, put it to the taste test with some genuine-for-real pie tasters, but it still comes out half-baked. 

Let's call it the I've Tried My Best But I Still Can't Sell This Manuscript Pie. 

Some have liked it. Even told me how to make it taste better. But when all is said and done, I'm undone. Some things are simply out of my control. Picture books have been a hard sell for the past 10+ years. Especially quiet picture books. Harder if you don't illustrate. 

The prize I want keeps taunting me, and seems agonizingly out of reach.

   
                   Do you know the feeling?

So recently I've been writing easy readers and chapter books. It feels liberating and exhilirating to have more space and words to work with. I don't have to try to define a character in a couple of words or just one sentence. For the first time, I am allowed to say what something looks like, if I want to. 

I've had a lot of fun working on a humorous easy reader series about a duck and panda, two chefs with entirely different approaches to cooking. All my foodie blogging has been giving my characters the sustenance they need. I submitted a couple of the stories (separately) and have received some positive feedback. One editor likes the characters, but would like to see them cast in a picture book. Oh, mama. Here we go again . . .

Anyway, this month I'm doing Laurie Halse Anderson's
halseanderson  15-minute-a-day writing challenge. I've been using this time to revise some WIP's, but I'm also going to work on a new story for my animal chefs, featuring, you guessed it -- pie! Of all the foods I've blogged about, pie is the most emotional.

I think my duck and panda chefs are up for the challenge, even though they know their final product may never be accepted by any of the bakeries who package it so everyone can eat it. Yes, I am finding the easy reader market is even smaller than the picture book market. *Significant hair pulling*

Writing has always been my pie in the sky. It keeps me reaching, my arms straight up, always wondering why this job chose me, why it never gets any easier; why, unlike other normal jobs people have, this one keeps shattering my self confidence, eroding my self esteem, and making me doubt every small and large idea, feeling, and fact I know that I know. Perhaps my biggest struggle is trying to accept that no matter how hard I work, the power to complete what I do lies in someone else's hands. I'm getting real close to saying no pie for them, but if I do, I'll be the only one who goes hungry.


                     

Well, I need to do my 15 minutes. 

Time to pick up my wooden pin and start rolling.

Best of luck with whatever you're trying to cook up!
 

By Kirsty OUP-UK

Just a short post from the UK this morning, but one that should really get you thinking. Our book How Novels Work, which is no stranger to us at OUPblog (as you can see here and here), is now coming out in paperback. To celebrate this, author John Mullan put together a few booky brainteasers, and here they are. The answers can be found here - but no cheating!

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