How to let the ideas in… plus partnering with Chronicle Books

Photo Source: Artem Beliaikin

I’ve been pondering on my porch lately. We’ve had a mild autumn and I’ve been out there staring off in the middle distance waiting for that line of literary thought to reappear.

It’s been a minute since I “wrote wrote.”

“Writing writing” is when we make the extra effort.

Journal writing is writing, but “writing writing” is taking that journal entry and polishing it up.

Polishing it up to… gulp… share with readers.

Writing itself is very simple:

1. You have an idea or are in the mood to write.

2. You try to write it out.

3. Only during or after writing it out do you know if you have something worth “writing writing.” a

4. If it’s worth working on further, polishing it up as a finished piece.

5. Sharing it in its final form.

We think we will know if we have a good idea before we write it out but generally we don’t know until we are in the middle or end. Only then do we see ideas that work nicely together. Only then do we see the poetry in the words. Only then do we catch glimpses of genius. My invisible writing partner doesn’t show up for me often until I start writing. It’s off in the corner doom scrolling, especially lately. Only when I start writing does it waltz over and lean in to see what I’m writing. Then it whispers gems in my ear.

Or not.

But I’m not going to find out if I don’t write, and you might not either. More tips over at my writing courses.

So we have to write it first to see if it’s worth polishing up and eventually sharing. When I was writing PARIS LETTERS, by the time the book was done I couldn’t NOT share it. It had a momentum, a life of its own. It would have felt harder to hold onto it than release it to the world. It couldn’t NOT be shared.

But there are some books we write and cannot bring ourselves to release to the world. There is a hesitation. That’s cool. That happens. Some books are meant to only have the author as the reader. The end game for books is different for everyone. They don’t all have follow the trajectory of Writer to Publisher to Major Motion Picture to Awards Season. Sometimes they go from outside of our gut to the page and that is enough. That can be PLENTY.

I haven’t been writing lately because I’ve been… drumroll please…

Whipping up notecards for one of my dream publishers.

It’s a notecard collection with Chronicle Books.

THE Chronicle Books.

If you have picked up stellar notecard sets in the last decade, chances are many of them were published through Chronicle Books.

And now so will mine.

Let me tell you how it all went down… in a long list of sentence fragments:

Back in June I declared that June is for Janice. I was about to be looking after my kid full time for the summer. A daunting thought. So I sat on my porch for much of the month reading and staring off to the middle distance.

Somewhere in that middle distance, a thought came to me: Why not get a publisher to publish my notecards? Then I can get them in a fancy box.

I’m really treat-oriented. The idea of having a professionally published box for my notecards was a fun thought.

I whipped up a proposal for my agent. Side note: Agents won’t take anything you fling their way. I had to convince her to convince them. She said yes and sent it off to a few publishers who mirrored my vision.

“Mirrored my vision.” Honestly. I’m getting very writerly writerly now.

Chronicle Books lapped it up… sort of. They liked the one specific notecard design and asked me to make a collection based on it. I’d tell you exactly what it is but it really is too early to spill those beans. We can’t have any competitors getting a whiff of the grand schemes.

“Whiff of the grand schemes.” Do schemes smell?

Not sure, but if they did, this scheme would smell like freshly baked bread in a cottage surrounded my lavender fields.

So I’ve been “painting painting.” Once that project was handed in, I felt spaciousness. Also, a potential postal strike is on the horizon so I put my Etsy shop on vacation mode. I don’t want letters destined for Schenectady to get stuck in a hopper in Mississauga.

Off I went back to the porch to stare into the middle distance. Turns out November is for Janice, too. Whether I like it or not.

And that’s when that literary line of thought came back. Finally! So I’ve been writing again. We’ll see what comes of it. I’m not sure what it will be. I have to write it down to find out.

Janice

PS: The notecards will be out in 2026… yes, SIX… so in the meantime, get yourself a copy of the 2025 Paris Planner for a taste of Paris all year long. Full of art and photos of lovely Paris. I tossed in every gem I had. Loads more art than previous years.