In anything you do in life, there's always a certain amount of angst when you decide to expand your repertoire. Whether you're a business person who's required to present to a new group of rather scary looking management-types, or a teacher who's facing a new grade for the first time, it's HARD to do something new.

I think there's a desire in all of us to do a good job, regardless of what we're trying, and it's quite likely some deep, ingrained fear of failure that holds us back. For me, I'm currently thinking about branching out into the world of "children's literature". Officially, I'm looking at a mid-grade novel, and it's taken a fair amount of research to figure out how to do that, exactly. There's a lot of really good advice out there on the World Wide Web (and a fair amount of not so good advice), but I was able to amass what I consider a good list of characteristics for my new upcoming mid-grade novel. But there are still a TON of questions left to answer. Do I want to pursue a traditional publishing contract, or do it myself? Do I want to hire a professional graphic artist for my cover? How do I go about marketing this new book, when it's outside of my current realm of readers?

There's still a lot to figure out, but I think that branching out is likely going to be worth it in the long run.