Finding Another Voice

It has been a little quiet here in the writerland, but I am still constantly tinkering with words. I have been teaching literature and helping students find their passion and voices for the past few years.

In that capacity, I continue to read and edit and hopefully, sometimes, inspire. I am brimming with excitement over my postapocalyptic fiction class in Spring 2017, (#itstheendoftheworldasweknowit255) and excited to tinker with my syllabus for Writing 202--response to literature.

 

But what about the dawn chorus, and morning writing of my own?

What about creating my own characters, and watching them navigate a plot, and spout dialogue and spin theme and meaning, instead of just teaching it?

At the end of the last semester, one of the students questioned me on my recent publication history.

"Well..." I told him, "I had some foreign translations of my novel published in 2013."

He frowned and asked, "But, what are you working on?"

I listed three projects--a widow/widower love story for the book club set, a coming-of-age story about an elite tier one ten-year-old hockey goalie who feels the weight of the world on his shoulders, and a YA novel in a flawed, health-based utopia that my agent insists needs a female narrator, instead of the high school senior boy in the original draft.

(Out of superstition, I don't mention my current work on submission--a twisted tale of two women on either side of the same man.)

"But, so you are saying, it has been since 2011 since you've had an actual book published in the US?" he countered bluntly.

I nodded. The conversation ended.

The truth is, though I am still writing fiction, quietly, I am shifting my focus to creative nonfiction. I am writing more about our dogs and rescue kitten, about horses and our flock of chickens. As they grow and develop their own online lives, I tend to visit the topic of my kids-in-specific less, but still spend plenty of time on the subject of parenting in this strange new age. I am trying my hand at Hoffman's Natural, a lifestyle blog that celebrates the suburban granola family, lessons learned from a simple life during our year on an island, and products that we create, use and love.

If you care to follow me there as I try out a new voice of my own, here is the link: HOFFMAN'S NATURAL

And when there is fiction writing news, I promise to come back here and shout it from the ever-loving rooftop.

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