I turned in my Boxcar Children book this morning; now “all” I have to do is revise Truth About Truman. I actually told myself I would work on Truman in the mornings and Boxcar in the afternoons until they were both done, but that plan didn’t last. I found that I was making great progress on Boxcar and not a whole heckuva lot of progress on Truman. So eventually I decided why not just finish Boxcar and then I can put all my energy into Truman.
I have to say, I probably had more fun writing this Boxcar book than any of the others I’ve written! That’s because I got to take the Boxcar Children geocaching! After 100+ books in the series, it’s hard to come up with something completely new…but geocaching is new! It’s new to the Boxcar Children AND it’s new just in general. It was just “invented” in 2000. And a lot of people have never heard of it…but there are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of caches hidden all over the world! Wherever you are, chances are good there’s at least one within walking or biking distance. There are 20 within a mile and a half of my house (and no, I’m not responsible for any of them!), 87 of them within five miles, and about 500 of them within about thirty miles. And there are new ones being placed every day! I love being out someplace and running into other geocachers I don’t know. We’re like this secret club! And we’re everywhere!
I love the idea of a Boxcar Children reader picking up this book and thinking, “Hey, WE go geocaching…and now the Aldens are going geocaching, too!” I also love the idea of introducing Boxcar readers to the sport, too! (And yes, it IS a sport (hey, that means *I* have a sport! *I* do sports!)…just go to geocaching.com if you don’t believe me!)
So anyway…now that I’ve turned this book in, my friend K. and I are going to Cedar Rapids today to see the children’s book art exhibit at the art museum. She and I had dinner with our book group on Monday night and she told everyone we were going to “play” today. We’re NOT playing! When children’s book authors go to a children’s book art exhibit, it’s called “continuing education,” not “playing.” Sheesh!
