Hopefully not a "master of none"

I guess that's what you get when you discover a passion late in life (relatively speaking). As followers of this blog may or may not know, I only recently started writing over a year and a half ago. At first it was an outlet, a way to relax and just drain my brain, but now has become a serious venture into the unknown and the terrifying (I'm submitting material for the first time very soon - Ahhh!).

When I started writing, it was after being bashed over the head with an idea that had been with me for most of my life. I guess I always carried this idea, or realization, around with me, not knowing exactly what to do with it. Now that I've found the way to put that idea forth, I'm really stoked at the possibilities.

That idea became a book idea, and I've been struggling along, like so many would-be authors before me, to try and complete it in a reasonable amount of time. However, what I'm discovering as I've tried to coax this new story into being, is that there are other forms of writing that interest me, and have unwittingly started to interrupt my original plan.

I've just recently finished writing some short stories that will be submitted in time for a couple contests. I never planned on writing short stories, and since discovering them for the first time all over again, I really enjoyed the fast paced, concise nature that they require. They truly are a challenge to not only write, but write well. I'm not sure if I've done the latter.

I've also had several children's book ideas flood my mind, too. I guess this was inevitable with having three young boys under six in the house. I have currently finished two children's book manuscripts with the plans of sending one out this month. I found that during the tough times with my novel, the simplicity and innocence of writing a children's story was very soothing to me.

Just when I thought that I had drained all the excess ideas from my mind - BOOM - I get blind-sided by poetry. Poetry? Yeah, that's what I said. The only time I can remember ever even having the desire to read poetry was in grade six, when the new girl was in town. I always saw here reading poetry, and figured hey, there's my in. Of course I couldn't get through one page of it in grade six - no girl is worth this!

But it was after reading a style of poetry called Pantoum that I discovered that poetry could be fun. Fun to read, and more importantly, fun to write. I'm really enjoying the strict adherence to the rules of Pantoum poetry. I hope none of my jock friends are reading this, but I think I'm hooked.

I will be back at my novel very shortly and will hopefully be finished the first draft by the end of this year. I guess that's what happens when you become a "jack-of-all-trades"; you just get caught up in all the possibilities, that you end up standing in one spot, waiting for something to happen. I just hope that there aren't any more cool things to write, 'cause I really want to finish my book.

Out.