Transition – Becky Levine

As I type this, my son is stretched out on the futon in my office, the cat asleep beside him, and Terry Pratchett’s Soul Music in his hand. This weekend, a cousin is coming to hang out, there will probably be band practice, and there will definitely be Shakespeare.

And on Monday, school starts.

It’s been a wonderful summer, the recharge and relaxation being so wonderful, I honestly haven’t missed the productivity. This is the first August in a long time that I’m not seriously antsy about needing fall to GET HERE.

Here are a few things this school year will bring.

1. Driver’s Education. Oh, yeah. Did I mention he’ll be sixteen in the spring? Luckily, his dad wants to take charge of the driving lessons. I have NO problem with that. None of us need me in the passenger seat at the start of this big step.

2. A mix of determination and hope that I will have something on submission by the end of the fall. I feel like I have one more hurdle to get over on the picture book, and then it’s word revision, which I’m seriously looking forward to at this point. And then this book will be in the pile of all those trying to find their way out into the world.

3. More picture book ideas and drafts. I’m determined to participate in Tara Lazar’s PiBoIdMo in November. After all the work and learning I’ve put into my first picture book, I’m darned well going to find some more stories to play with.

4. Please, please, please, a completed draft of the Historical YA. My biggest battle with this book is NOT getting discouraged at how long each draft is taking me to write. I’m choosing to look at that as evidence that it will be a better, stronger, deeper book than other manuscripts I’ve worked on and completed. Yeah, that’s it!

5. Growth. For my son and for me. There’s something about seeing my son head into his sophomore year of high school that makes me very aware of how much things have changed and are still changing for both of us. Watching him is an experience made up of equal parts wonder, awe, and hope. And a reminder that I, myself, don’t want my own life to stay the same, that I need to be looking for the places I want to, yes, mature. That I need to be pushing myself to take the risks that will let me do that.

What’s shifting for you and yours, as summer vacation fades out for another year?

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been pretty darned immersed in revising my picture book. People talk about which stage of writing a book we like best–early drafts, major revisions, final polishing. I’ll take any and all of those, as long as I get to a point where I can be and am totally immersed in that project. Where I go to bed thinking about it, wake up on the same path, and–whether I react with excitement or nerves–know for certain that this is the fictional world I’ll be stepping into today.

And then came “the end”–at least the end for now. The picture book has hit the email & the snail-mail, on its way to get critiqued by a couple of people in the publishing world. Despite the fact that I’m not querying or submitting yet, there is a wonderful wing-like feeling to thinking about the story out there, being seen, being read. And I’m letting myself enjoy that feeling.

In pretty much every other sense, though, I’m closing the door on the picture book for a while. I won’t be getting those critiques back until April, probably, and I’m going to wait to see what they tell me before I take the book back to my critique group. I’m also not revising a word of the story until then.

Which means, back to the other stuff. Time to shift gears.

In a way, the transition comes at a good time. My son is out of school for a week, which always throws life onto a different schedule. I’ve got some editing to do, along with prepping a few Power-Point presentation for a local SCBWI workshop series I’ll be doing. That’s the plan for the next week. And then, when my son heads back to school, I’ll head back to my historical.

I said that this is a good way to shift, in some ways. In another way, because I pushed these other things out to get the picture book done, they’re going to pretty much take up this week, which means I’ll be away from Caro & Chicago for that much longer. I’ll be away from the segment of my brain that thinks in terms of creating worlds with my own words. Sometimes, when you’re gone too long, the bridge back can look spindly or like it’s missing a few planks.

I’m thinking, to keep that bridge stronger, I’ll be getting back into my research during non-editing/powerpointing time. If I can’t write about Chicago in 1912, I can read about it. And immigrants. And automobiles. And photography. Obviously, research is its own form of immersion.

What do you do when you’re moving from one project to another, or when you’ve had to step away from the fiction altogether? How about sharing some tips in the comments!

Tag: Transition

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