Back in the routine

The kids and I were sick for a week…then there was spring break…and now today we’re finally back into our routine. Preteen says he sort of had two weeks of spring break. Yeah…sort of (though being that sick was hardly a “break”). I expected him to have a hard time getting up for school this morning, especially because it’s a jazz band day, which means he has to be at school at 7:30, but he did pretty good.

I think I’M the one who’s having a hard time getting back into the routine. I know I’m going to be gone three or four days (depending on whether I drive all the way home next Wednesday or not) for school visits next week, so the concept of “back in the routine” is a temporary one, which makes it hard to actually get back into it. But I’m trying. I’m practicing my revised presentations, practicing my Toastmaster’s speech (I give my Icebreaker tomorrow night! Wish me luck!), finishing my outline for my new Boxcar Children book, thinking about my Truth About Truman revision (I’ve gotten some preliminary comments from my editor), thinking about my new YA…I’m going back and forth on POV for that YA…at first I thought I wanted to tell it from multiple POV, but then I got to thinking, “No, I should just tell it from Paige’s POV…she’s the one who’s caught in the middle.” But the more I think about it, the more I return to the multiple POV idea…it’s interesting, but I realized that even though the same things will happen in the story regardless of whether I stick to a single POV or multiple POV, it would be a VERY different book if I tell it in one POV vs. multiple POV. I’m not sure that would be the case with Truth About Truman. I chose to tell that story in multiple POV because I thought it was the best way to tell it…you get to see the story from the POV of the bully, the bullied and the bystanders. But it would be basically the same story no matter who told it (I think). Not so with the YA…I would truly be saying something very different if I told it from a single POV than if I told it from multiple POVs.

Ah well…I don’t think I’ll be writing that YA anytime soon. I did finally get the contract from Peachtree for the sequel to Do You Know the Monkey Man (and I passed it on to my agent! Yes!!!)…so now I have to actually write that book. And I’ll probably be hearing from my agent on I am Anna Winkler in the next couple of weeks, so I’ll be gung ho to plunge into those revisions…but that book is still very much on my mind.