Cheers to the new year! It’s been a memorable one to be sure. Between the pandemic, having my first kid and making some significant revisions to my website earlier in the year, it’s hard to imagine what 2021 will hold. But I hope you and your loved ones enjoy it.
Here are my most popular posts from 2020:
There’s this scene in Love Actually that I really hate. Colin Firth plays a famous author working on a new book at his Italian villa overlooking a scenic lake. It always makes me cringe. Not the part where the wind blows his precious manuscript into the lake or the part where he dives into the freezing water to save it. What bugs me is the idea that somewhere in the world there are writers with lakeside villas.
As writers, we know that the first draft of our work won’t be…the best. Characters aren’t fleshed out. Plot hole are large and in charge. Spelling and grammar have taken the day off. But as an impatient, perfectionist picture book writer, I wanted everything I wrote to be publication-worthy on my first try. Since that’s impossible, I found myself putting off first drafts for as long as possible.
It’s a new year and a whole new list of reasons for Why I’m Not Writing!
If you’re not familiar with this series, just know that the only thing writers love more than writing is avoiding writing. And I am definitely no exception. Every Friday, I list five things that distracted me from my writing this week.
Lynda Bouchard is an original in a cookie cutter world of marketing. She has been working with, traveling with, advising and creating ‘outside-the-book’ marketing campaigns for high profile and emerging authors and publishers for over 20 years. She created a niche for herself in the publishing world by focusing on the Southern region. She’s the red M&M in a bowl full of brown ones. It’s a lesson for everyone.
Every story has a story – this is Lynda’s.
My standby playtime routine as a child of the ‘80s, when Disney VHS tapes were watched until you could only see tracking lines, was acting out Maid Marian being rescued by Robin Hood. I would swing from my bed, sometimes hanging off the stuffed animal clip chain attached to my ceiling (until it was no longer attached to the ceiling), in a flowing red polka dot dress properly adorned with a blanket veil and a long, twisting string of faux pearls.