- Author/Writer Interviews, Books. Books. Books., Interviews, Picture Books, Published Books, Tales of Whimsy, Writing
New Interview with Storyteller Academy + Another Giveaway!
I was interviewed about my journey to publication and advice for new writers/illustrators
Myrna Foster took time out to interview me about my new book WISHWEAVER and how it went from a picture book to a chapter book. We talked about why I write books for kids, marketing, advice for writers/illustrators, picture books and more!
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I’m a WINNER!
See my name three from the bottom… next to Eliza Wheeler. Yep! That’s me. I won, #PBCritiqueFest! I had no idea until my critique group started showering my phone with texts announcing their congratulations. It took me a moment to realize what it was they were congratulating me for.
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Twitter Opportunities for Writers: #PBCritiqueFest
There are so many Twitter opportunities for writers looking to get published. Why wouldn’t you participate?
Twitter hosts a number of pitching contests where you can pitch your story idea to agents, editors, even some publishers, throughout the year. These offer a quick way to get a feel for the interest in your story idea. Although I wouldn’t lose heart if you don’t get a like throughout the contest from an agent. There are so many people adding to the feed throughout the day, these contests just act as a way to get your foot in an agent’s door. An encouragement to send them your query, as they you have peeked their interest with your story pitch!
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The Waiting Game Begins: Query Writing (Part Three)
I got a wonderful response from my last blog post about Picture Book Writer Musings: Cutting Characters, so I thought I’d do another post for those interested in becoming a writer, or for those curious on how books get from the writer’s hands to the shelves.
Spoiler Alert: It’s not as easy as it looks!
When I’m asked what I do, as in what job I do, saying that I’m a writer and an illustrator brings about curiosity. The first question asked, like clockwork, is “Anything I would know?” but once I’ve made my way through that one, the other questions follow:
What do you write? How did you know you wanted to be a writer? What are your stories about? What do you do after you’ve written a book? Do you go online and sell it yourself? Do you find a publisher?
Those are just a few of the questions I’ve been asked in the past eight years since beginning my writing journey. The first three are easy ones. Those are related to my personal journey of becoming a writer, to which you can find out more about that
here
- Adeline and the Mystic Berries, Author/Writer Interviews, Books. Books. Books., Illustration, Interviews, Misc. Fun!, Picture Books, Writing
I was Interviewed for Storyteller Academy by Author/Illustrator, Arree Chung!
This writing and illustrating journey to publication is a tough one and it’s important to use all the resources and good advice we can get along the way!
I was interviewed not too long ago by the creator of Storyteller Academy, Arree Chung. You may also know him as the author and illustrator of the Ninja series, Out!, and my personal favorite, Mixed!
I took Storyteller Academy’sÂ
Making Picture Book Stories and Dummies
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Picture Book Writer Musings: Cutting Characters
A year ago, I wrote my first picture book.
- Adeline and the Mystic Berries, Books. Books. Books., Illustration, Picture Books, Querying, Writing
Seattle Writer’s Workshop – Pitching to Agents
So, I did it… I went to my first ever writer’s workshop/conference!
The short version of how the conference went…it was amazing!!!
Now, if you’d like to know more, here we go.
My mom and I went on this journey together, as I took my first steps in the outside world introducing myself as a writer/illustrator. We left for Seattle early enough to stop in Olympia for lunch and to see a bit of the town. We both agreed, the capital of Washington state is a beautiful place to visit!
We continued our journey up to Seattle, and made it to the hotel just before check-in, the night before the conference. We ate our meals at the hotel in their Cascadia Grill restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!
There was plenty of time to scout out the next day’s event locations and everything was very straight forward at the hotel. When Saturday came, I was ready.
I had my book dummy in hand for my first alliterative picture book, Benny the Bookworm, and had plans to pitch one agent that day, in-and-amongst going to five different workshops on being a writer and the business of writing (See post on second alliterative picture book, Wishweaver here).
I mingled at the event. I met one of the event coordinators, Brian Klems, and introduced myself. I got to meet several other writers of various genres and we exchanged our business cards.
Mingling…check!
The first class I took was: Book Marketing from your Couch: Social Media 101Â and I found it very informative. I was trying not to be nervous for my pitch that was taking place right in between that session and the next, but no such luck. As much as I love my story, and I am excited to pursue my career as both a writer and an illustrator, it was nerve-wracking to put myself and my work out into the literary world.
Would my illustrations be up to par with other illustrators in the children’s book market?
Would my writing catch the interest of others besides just my friends, family, and critique group?
What if I completely forget my pitch in the worst possible moment?
The doubts of we creatives can be high. They often call it “Imposter Syndrome” or that feeling of inadequacy because you haven’t “made it” yet in whatever it is you are trying to “make it” in. In the writing world, it’s feeling odd calling yourself a writer and/or illustrator when your credentials haven’t been built up yet. Saying you are an illustrator but not having had any illustrations printed in anything of major consequence.
I now have some illustration publishing credits with the
Theodore and the Enchanted Bookstore
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Picture Book in the Works! Process of Making a Book Dummy – Wishweaver
A New Picture Book is in the Works!
I’ve written a new picture book and Book Dummy #5 is now complete.
You may remember that I wrote a picture book late last year called Benny the Bookworm which is an alliterative story in which: Benny LOVES books, but being a worm has its disadvantages. He befriends Beatrice the butterfly to help with the heavy lifting but when Benny pushes Beatrice away to keep the books all to himself, he’ll end up alone in a bind without her there to help him.
While writing Benny’s story, I always had another alliterative tale in mind that could go along in a series. This time around, it was to be about an arachnid. A widow spider named Whimsy.
It was known around Weyburn that should you be in want of a wish, Whimsy was the widow who held them.
And so Whimsy’s story begins.
The name Wishweaver came easily to me, for that is precisely what Whimsy is. I was in love with Whimsy and her story from the minute she made her way into my imagination. So, now her tale has been told in the pages of my book dummy equipped with all of my illustration ideas that could be seen throughout the book (should future art directors so desire).
The process of creating a picture book for me starts with writing the manuscript. Then once I have that fleshed out enough, I take the words and begin separating the possible page spreads and deciding if the story fits better as a 32-page or 40-page picture book. So far, 40-page has been where my stories have ended up. I attribute that to the fact that I love illustrating and I want to show so much through pictures, 32-pages just doesn’t seem like enough!
Next up, comes rough…and I mean rough…sketches of each spread. “The messier the better!” is what my instructor from Storyteller Academy, Arree Chung, always says. Though the perfectionist in me finds this difficult, with Wishweaver I gave it a try. As you can see, Whimsy’s look changes from the rough sketches to the more polished illustrations but many of the spread ideas have stayed the same.
Once I finished up all the polished spreads for the book dummy, I went back just yesterday and completed the spreads for the end pages, title/dedication page, and the cover art.
The process for those is the same: rough sketch to start, pick a favorite, draw a more polished final sketch, and ink it in.
(This next paragraph is a bit technical with the process for making the book dummy hard copy, so you can skip ahead should you wish!)
Once all the sketches are finished and I’ve compiled a PDF through Genius Scan (amazing app to take photos of images/documents and save them together as a PDF), I open the file in Photoshop and overlay the text on each spread. Once everything looks good and all separate images are saved as .PSD and .JPEG files, I go back into Genius Scan and re-upload the documents from Dropbox into a new PDF of the completed dummy. I can email the file to myself and print it off and then tape it all together to make the book dummy as you see it in the pictures above and below.
This story is with my amazing critique group that I found through
Storyteller Academy