Saturday, June 5, 2010

Does this count as published?

I just emailed my niece's birthday invitation rhyme to my sister.  She's turning 10 this week and we started this tradition on her 6th birthday.  Back then the theme was bugs; this year she's having a softball party (after school gets out so I'm delivering it right under the wire).  Here's a snippet:

Swing for the fences in the batting cage,
Then we'll have some wiffle ball fun.
Whistle a fast ball across home plate, 
Then score the winning home run!

My sister will print it up on some cute paper and send it out to Regan's friends and their moms will all RSVP with gushing comments about how cute and clever the invites were.  I'll demur with "oh that, I whipped that up in 15 minutes..." but the reality is that I will eat it up with a spoon.  Brian says I'm a little bit of a praise whore (and that is truer than I like to admit), but now that I'm caught up in an industry where there is often so much rejection and negative feedback, it's doubly important to find outlets that help buoy your spirits and inspire you to keep creating.  And these invites, which I also do for her younger sister, are really how I got my start in writing.  Conor's birthday invitations were some of my best work.  My favorite was his fourth birthday where I seamlessly melded a dinosaur theme with a gymnastics party.  It was genius ... and really wowed the other four year olds :-).

My nieces, though, are among my biggest fans and since they live far too far away, I love that we have this special connection once a year.  They understand that I go to all this trouble on their invitations just because I love them.  With the rest of my projects, I need to remember that I go to all this trouble just because I love writing.  Anything else (praise, publishing, etc) is just gravy!

2 comments:

  1. Yes, this counts as published (in my world). But on a more serious note, you should really talk to Karyn who has lots of info and contacts where you can publish cards. You could recycle your old projests and get quite a few out there (or is it their?) for sale. Then you can get very rich and quit your day job and keep on writing. Oh, it sounds perfect. Take me with you.......

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  2. So cute Alison! And don't feel bad about eating up the praise. You deserve it!

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