Over the weekend, I had a chance to really dig into my nonfiction project again. The deadline is coming up, and–yay!–the book is coming together. As I got into the flow, I remembered, once again, why I love this kind of work. Just a few of the reasons:
- I love trivia. One of my favorite board games is Trivia Pursuit. Even when I moan and groan about the Science and Geography questions (okay, honestly, about ANY questions that aren’t about books), I love hearing the answers that I don’t know. There’s something about findout that that tiny detail of information that intrigues me. As I write this book, I get that same spark when I hit on a cool fact or tidbit in my research.
- I like playing with words. On the first pass, I tend to overwrite–both on the amount of content and in terms of the reading level I’m using. That’s okay. Because I absolutely love fiddling around with my sentences to get rid of the excess material, make the wording more active, and smooth out the sentences into a simpler clarity. I’m not fond of the term wordsmithing, but it almost fits here. How about word-tuning instead?
- This kind of work is about as close as I get to instant-gratification. I know there will be revisions. I’m absolutely positive my editor will have changes for me to make. Cool. BUT…as I work, I can see myself getting closer and closer to Good. My fiction projects are all just so…big. Big in length, big in concept, big in pretty much any kind of unit of measure you want to apply. Can you say….overwhelming? There’s always that sense of how much work I still have to do to see it all turn into something I’ve done well. My chapters in this book have 3-4 paragraphs. Those paragraphs have 3-4 sentences. Give me a few minutes, and I can take a rough draft of one of those paragraphs and make it sparkle! Talk about positive reinforcement.
- I love my audience. I’m still not sure how much info I’m supposed to be sharing about this book’s subject matter, and, no, I’m not just trying to be mysterious! The main target audience, though, is kids who may not be the strongest readers, but who deserve to have a book with material they’re interested in, that’s presented to them in a way that makes them want to keep reading. How important is it to have books for these readers? And how cool is it that I get a chance to write one for them? Pretty much totally awesome-sauce.
It was definitely a weekend of happy writing. I hope you all had time for some of your own!
Becky Levine 
you make me almost want to go back to nonfiction….but I can’t imagine splitting myself in as many writing pieces as you do! I
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Believe me, Carol, I’m not always sure it’s the right thing to be doing!
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Hey, I feel like you just gave me a mini lesson in writing for kids. “getting rid of excess material…words more active…simpler clarity.”
Thanks!
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🙂
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You got that right, Becky. The fun of words & trivia and call me weird, but I love the process of research, too.
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Linda, me, too. Apart from those brief moments of Will-I-EVER-Find-This-Information panic!
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So many reasons to love non-fiction! And how wonderful that you’re working on something that will appeal to more reluctant readers. Such important work!
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It is pretty cool. And I love getting the word right for them. 🙂
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I love the idea of “word-tuning”, so much so that I might adapt it to “story-tuning” the next time I dread a rewrite. And, your book sounds really exciting! I can’t wait to hear more about it.
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Thanks! I was happy with the idea, too. 🙂
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