Children's Book Week & My Next Project

This story is both about and not at all about Children's Book Week.  It is simply the happiest of coincidences that this week and CBW happen at the same time.  Sometimes if you shake the puzzle box juuuuust right, the pieces fall together on their own.

Last week I began a new project and acquired a new co-author.  I will be writing a midgrade/young adult novel with the able assistance of my 12 year-old nephew Jared.

Yes.  You read that right.

We talked a bit and I ran an idea by him that he likes and we have a bit of a rough idea what we're doing and how we're going to do it.  It will be a contemporary fantasy with young protagonists, written to - at least in part - bridge the chasm of our respective generations but also the expanse of United States that lies between us.

I'm not sure how I'm going to approach blogging about this.  I love the genre and feel in many ways that the most exciting things currently happening in literature are happening in the areas marketed to these younger age groups.  And the constraints of the intended audience are that much greater and yet also that much less at the same time.

I love the idea we came up with, the first go at characters we're going to use to tell our tale and the fact that it gives us something to talk about when we don't see one another for such great lengths of time.  Jared is such an avid reader and really seems to love writing.  And I was about his age when I first got the bug myself so... family tradition?


This is going to be wonderful fun.


Anyway, happy Children's Book Week, everyone!  I was going to jokingly lament that Hallmark doesn't make a card for this, but it occurs to me that there are cards for this holiday.  They generally have more than two pages and they stock them in the kid's section of your friendly neighborhood bookseller.

Cheers!