At the suggestion of my grandma, I took an aptitude test for the Children's Literature Institute. If you read It's a Journey 2, you'll know that I got in there and studied writing for children. What I didn't mention last post is that I failed to complete the course. I can honestly say that it's one of the most important failures I made on my writing journey.
Yep, and I would encourage people to try this course because I learned so much from it. Are you asking why I quit yet? I'm totally going to tell you, but in a minute because I've learned that tension keeps people reading....
In the course, I learned a lot about developmental levels and how to write an article or short story and have complete characters. A lot of the links on my about page to where I'm published has a lot to do with what I learned. I also their marketing and querying instruction is so important and worth far more than the cost for the materials.
Okay, fine, enough suspense. I quit because I realized novels are my first love of writing. The shorter forms are wonderful and I will never stop writing short stories, but what I learned was that some of the stories I had to tell belong in a much longer format, novels. So, I didn't finish the course because I only have so much time and energy to write and I wanted to pursue traditional publishing with an agent for my novels. I knew it would take a long time to do and I wanted to throw all of me at it. So, I did. And I still am.
I wouldn't have learned that as fast if I had kept messing around with whatever on my own and didn't get serious about writing. I'm very glad my grandma lived to see me get my agent and keep following my passion for writing. She won't see much of my journey as it continues, which is a bit sad, but sharing how she helped me hone my focus and learn a lot makes my heart smile.