Three at Once

Am I crazy, or what?

I'm working on three major projects at the same time. I didn't set out to do it that way, the planets just aligned and the timing was right for all three to hit exactly at once. I can now sympathize with mothers of triplets. While I'm not getting the full effect to be certain, I at least have a glimpse at being tugged in three different directions.

Books are needy little children. They really are. They demand their rightful time, even the runt of the litter, my twenty-four page picture book. I started it when my first grandchild was born and people wanted to know her name. After a while I began introducing myself as Gracie Griffith's Grandma Gretchen Griffith, and the seeds of the book were planted. I reworked it through the years (she's ten now) to come up with a tongue twister of a picture book, Gracie's Grumpy Grandma. Ten years!

Is this grumpy enough?

The other two projects are nonfictions that demand more than their fair share of my hours before the computer. If I'm not fact checking for one, then I'm photograph hunting for the other. I interview a person for one book and mix in questions pertinent to the other. To confuse things even more, one I'm writing in present tense, and the other in past. I force my mind to change time zones more than I care to admit.

One project is on the verge of being completed. The only steps left are tweaking the back flap and a few issues with the interior. When I saw one particular picture, I knew it would be a perfect fit for the cover of the book. It embodies the title, Back in the Time, showing my co-author riding a cart on what he calls a major thoroughfare near his home back in the time. I can't wait for you to see how we incorporated it to form the cover. Trust me, we fixed the age related issues.

There's even a set of triplets in this book!

Which brings me to the third child of my threesome. It's not nearly as far along as these other two, and I'm not ready to share photographs as yet. I will toss out a teaser and say it's about motor racing here in western North Carolina, back in the time. Once again I'm co-authoring the book. I've worked with the author before on the Wheels and Moonshine book and even back then in the time he was working on this manuscript. I'm helping him to make it a reality, filling in the gaps with research and pictures beyond what he has on hand.

Birthing three books so closely together might be driving me up the wall (or in circles as in my racing book), but in the end, as with birthing anything new to the world, it will be so worth the effort.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen