Flops, failures and inspiration

     Ok, so the contest was a colossal failure!  Not completely unexpected but whatever.  I see that MeeGenius has now listed Pajama Girl at $2.99, so maybe you'll wish you got your free app from me, but that's the end of that.  On to more interesting things...the sophomore slump.
Do you have any idea how much I've been agonizing over the next book?  Trust me.  You do not. 
I've got a few attempts at Pajama Girl 2...the continuing saga but it just doesn't feel like the first one.  (and the first one felt 100% cosmically aligned) So I've put that on hold.  An ABC book idea I've been carrying around in my brain for years felt pretty flat when I finally put it on that blank Word document, so back to the drawing board on that.  But the interesting thing, is that I started writing out picture book ideas this afternoon and wrote down one I'd thought of before.  Wouldn't you know it, that particular one, which had seemed like a good idea at the time, but with no spark of inspiration, winked at me this time and gave me the voice of the main character.  Aha!  That's the sort of thing I need to see more of!  So I wrote a couple lines from this character and liked what I saw.  Then I realized I needed a conflict so I unloaded the dishwasher and BOOM!  Another character popped into my head and told me she needed the first one to help her with a big problem.  There you have it.  The full arc of inspiration.  Now I just need to write the thing.  You'll notice that I'm writing a blog post instead.  Don't you worry.  While I seemingly do other things, my brain keeps percolating my stories and making them better before I have to put in any real effort.  Nice, huh?  So now, I just need this story to turn out really really good by July 16, at which time, I'll be attending an event that will introduce me to the Associate Publisher for TigerTales books.  This could be good.  It better be good.  I have to follow up the contest debacle with something outstanding.