Madelyn Rosenberg

I signed my first children’s book contract this year and in it I found about a dozen potential futures. Some of them were heady: there were clauses and line items about commercial rights and movie and television options. Some of them were scary: Law suits. The cutout bin. My book hasn’t even been published yet, but already there was discussion about what happens if it goes out of print and steps we can take to forestall that from happening. Seventeen pieces of paper. My signature at the bottom. And now I wait to see what happens next.

While I’m waiting, I’m working on my new web site and blog. I used my advance to help fund our new furnace, which gets installed this week. So for now, I’m calling this blog The Furnace. My writing really is heating my house, but it heats my brain, too. And I like the idea of a blog that makes reference to heat — of ideas as heat, or at least the ore or the spark that causes the heat. My ideas, sure, but yours, too. My old blog, The Poop Deck, will eventually morph into this one once I figure out what I’m doing. The new-and-improved blog will still feature interviews with other writers, craft projects, music playlists and the occasional rant. It will also include the inevitable discussion about the road to publication, an advice column, and MORE. I don’t know what the more is yet, but there WILL be more, and anyway, it’s a powerful word, more. I like it almost as much as maybe. But that is for another post.