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| Photo by Taylor Heery on Unsplash |
What genre would I like to try but haven’t yet?
Does it count that I’ve dabbled a little in this genre? It’s not that I’ve never tried it. I’ve just stopped at one story: a picture book. But this summer I’ve had a few more picture book ideas fly into my brain.
My one picture book is a project I don’t quite know what to do with. My husband loves it. I’ve gotten some critiques and recently entered a SCBWI grant for it.
But I keep thinking I’m a middle grade writer. What business do I have writing a picture book?
Yet, at one point middle grade was a great unknown. I had to learn about voice, the market, the genre, etc. I read and continue to read a ton of middle grades. Being a teacher and having to read 100 children’s books to get my degree did give me a good start.
Why don’t I do the same thing with picture books?
I tell myself the market is crowded, so I won’t be able to stand out. At our SCBWI events in Oregon, there’s always ten times as many picture book writers as middle grade and YA. I have heard that agents/editors are not interested in the type of picture book I’ve written. (And, no, it’s not rhyming.)
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| Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash |
But all this is self-rejection.
An unfortunate character trait I often display with my middle grade work too.
Why do we do this? We let ideas languish in notebooks and manuscripts waste away in our computer files.
But maybe after I finish this never-ending revision on my current middle grade manuscript, I’ll see if I can turn some of those ideas into picture books.
Maybe instead of self-rejecting or staying in the place where I’m a picture book newbie, I could take a class or read more picture books. I could do what I did to make middle grade come so easily to me now:
Learn as much as I can.
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| Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash |
What about you? Is there a genre you haven’t tried yet? What is holding you back?
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