Alison's Journal

Thank goodness Hurricane Rita didn't cause the kind of destruction that was feared! I hope everyone who stayed in the affected regions is okay. We stayed up until almost 4 am watching the live coverage, but were relieved to get up and find nothing worse reported than what we had already seen.

As if I didn't already have too many writing ideas, today my husband & I came up with a concept for a humorous chapter book series, possibly mysteries but maybe just funny stories. We don't have actual plots, but came up with several titles and ideas. We cracked ourselves up, anyway.... I've just been experimenting with the possible voice for the books, trying to figure out whether first person or third might work better, and much more importantly, whether the main characters should be animals or people! It's certainly easier to write about people than animals, but the animal idea lends itself to more zaniness. Then if they're animals, we'd have to decide if they live in human-type homes, animal-type habitats, or what. It's crazy to even entertain this idea when I've got so many other projects, so it'll probably go on the back burner, but it seems like something that would be really fun to write. We read so many chapter books and chapter book mysteries to our kids that I'm at least much more familiar with the genre than I was a year or two ago. We're also considering collaborating on them, which is a weird idea in itself!

I also wrote more notes today for my possible children's play idea. That one poses some problems, too--should it be written for child actors or adult actors? I suspect it could make a difference in the size of the cast. I'm leaning towards a large cast, though that might make it hard to market.