John Micklos Jr. Writer

The Writing Life, Chapter 1

Welcome to my writing blog! Making a living as a freelance writer/editor/children’s book author/speaker is an interesting experience, and I hope to chronicle some of the joys and challenges with weekly updates about my progress on various writing projects, as well as other random thoughts that may or may not pertain to writing. I hope this blog will be of interest both to student and adult writers, as well as literacy teachers and friends who follow my writing career.

Recently I’ve been reminded about two keys P’s in publishing: patience and persistence. I’ve started work on two projects that were first discussed more than three months ago. One is a brochure for the Highlights Foundation; the other is an article for Teaching Tolerance magazine. In both cases, the initial ideas were generated in early April, but it took three months and several rounds of correspondence before the projects actually got going. So, whenever I start to fret about queries that remain in limbo, I take comfort in remembering that projects often do come to fruition–when the time is right.

I’m also juggling various stages of several book projects: a book of poems about the beach for young readers, a picture book titled The Sound in the Basement, and a young adult book about the ongoing attempts to solve the history mystery surrounding Amelia Earhart’s disappearance in 1937. I just finished taking a really interesting online course about self-publishing, and I hope to follow that path for some of my future projects.

I’ve also begun research for three more history-related children’s books. I’ll describe these projects in more detail in future postings when the ideas have taken a bit more shape. I’m a little superstitious about saying too much about a project until I “have my head around it.” Otherwise, I feel I may somehow jinx it!

That’s all for now. Watch for another update next week.

Random Thought of the Week: As I have watched our elected officials in Washington struggle to avert default on the national debt, I’m reminded of recess on my elementary school playground years ago. We often spent precious minutes arguing over the rules of whatever game we were playing. Sometimes we needed a teacher’s gentle reminder that if we couldn’t compromise there might not be any game at all. Maybe we need some of my elementary teachers down in Washington!