You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Mike Boldt’ tag.
by Dev Petty
Ideas are funny things. They hang around. They nag. They sit silent and unused, waiting for their moment like that sassy, sequin sweater tank top I got (for a steal!) about eight years ago and look absolutely divine in, which has never, ever been worn. I think about wearing it. I even try it on for special occasions now and again. But I can’t pull the trigger…back into the closet it goes.
We all have a drawer of ideas, some that we’ve worn, at least a little, by writing them into stories which may not have worked out. Others are impossible to even try on, too bright, too weird, too…much. But once in a great while, you get up the nerve and the stars align and you put that sequin sweater on everyone compliments you about it and you feel like a million bucks and now it’s your favorite thing in the world.
So I’ve maybe taken this metaphor too far. So let me tell you about shopping in my own idea closet.
Back in high school, a pal of mine relayed something a pal of his had said (honestly, it was pretty inappropriate) and I thought it was really, deeply funny. It was really just ONE WORD said with spot-on timing. It crept into my general banter over the years. I never forgot it. Over these last years of writing picture books I tried no less than four times to wrap a whole story around just that line, it delighted me so. Nope. Nothing.
I put it aside. For years. But then I was working on my next book: DON’T EAT BEES (Life Lessons From Chip the Dog) which will be out from PRH in May, and I realized that it was the perfect setup for this line, this single word, which teases through the book and creates just the perfect ending (you’ll have to read it to find out what it is). The book nearly wrote itself after that and I couldn’t be more excited about it—Mike Boldt and I are back together again, this time with a dog (not a frog).
Sometimes a story idea is just a line. It’s not a title or a character. It’s not about friendship or bravery or anything specific. It’s a line, a word, a mechanism, a perfect pause in response to a visual gag. It’s a monster at the end of the book, a fish who most definitely didn’t take a hat that he totally, absolutely took, a seagull who was carrying a bucket of paint, though “no one knows why”. Forget plot-ty superhero movies, we’re talking Newhart, Buster Keaton, The Far Side, Jack Handey here. Small, might-be-insignificant-to-others-but-you-write-picture-books, idiosyncratic oddities which shine a light on the human experience.
Sometimes the biggest ideas aren’t elaborate, they’re simple—because those simple things can reflect bigger ideas about how we process the world, our inclinations, our conflicts. They cut down to the core that we all share and remove themselves from more specific experiences like family or school or doctor’s offices. Sometimes these little idea fragments can have whole stories wrapped around them, or become just twists, endings, or story structures. My most successful stories have come from things just like this. Truth? This can take a little more time, or at least “different” time than a more traditional approach. You may not know who your character is, or what their problem is, or any of the usual stuff. But I’m a big believer that boundaries and edges create the best work, and if you DO have a concept you’re trying to work in, you let that lead and you follow.
Now, how do you find these odd little conceptual thingamiggies? Surely, the best ones will come from your own life. They will come from your own vernacular, stories told over dinner about funny happenings, misunderstandings, mistakes. They come from your childhood, your family and your friends. They come from television shows and films, I’m a particular fan of lines from songs and I might be able to retire on my former coworkers’ quirks alone! When you stop looking for whole stories and just start seeing the world as concepts and twists, surprise endings, odd moments, you can turn those things into rich, layered stories with wide appeal because they aren’t so specific to one person or their experience. Even if you have NO idea what to do with one of these little fellas, just write em down. They may even nag you until you try them on.
So go dig around in your life-drawer. You may find your sequin sweater in a forgotten, half-written manuscript, or a childhood story your kids have heard you tell so many times they can tell it themselves. Try it on and look in the mirror. It might just turn into one hell of an outfit!
Dev Petty writes books for kids. Hopefully ones which make you laugh a lot and think a little. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, daughters, two dogs, one mean cat, and a snake named Boots. You can read Dev’s work in two upcoming books this spring, DON’T EAT BEES, Life Lessons From Chip the Dog, illustrated by Mike Boldt (PRH) and HOW OLD IS MR. TORTOISE?, illustrated by Ruth Chan (Abrams). Visit her at devpetty.com and follow on Twitter @devpetty and Instagram @devpetty.
Dev is giving away a half-hour zoom to talk about PBs, plus 3 copies of her new book DON’T EAT BEES (when released).
You’re eligible to win if you’re a registered Storystorm participant and you have commented once below.
Prizes will be distributed at the conclusion of Storystorm.
Thank you, everyone, for your outstanding doggo photos! If we had to choose based on appearance alone, it would be a tough call. We loved Bear’s homemade floofers and Library Dog’s regal aura. But we picked our two winners randomly with random.org, and we are pleased to announce them: KENDALL and WILLOW!
Kendall (Jyn Hall)
Willow (Lyn Jekowsky)
Mike Boldt will BLOOPIFY them both! Congratuations to owners Jyn Hall and Lyn Jekowsky! I will touch base with you on Twitter!
And now, here’s a gallery of all the BLOOP-lovin’ doggos! What good boys and girls!!!
Ellie
Chili & Layla
Hank
Rosie
Library Dog
Maylo
George
CuzO
Bear
Today for BLOOP’s book birthday, illustrator Mike Boldt and I have cooked up something amazing.
This is Mike’s dog, Tula. And this is Tula on BLOOP:
You can win a custom BLOOP-IFED portrait of your fluffy bestie by illustrator Mike Boldt!
Mike will provide you with a high-quality digital illustration print.
We’ll randomly select one winner from Twitter and one from Instagram. TWO WINNERS! YEAH!
All you have to do is take a pic of your canine BFF with a copy of BLOOP, like this:
(That’s Rollie enjoying a good read.)
Then post it on Twitter or Instagram. Please include the following hashtags…
#BLOOP #HarperCollins #picturebook #BLOOPIFY
…and tag @taralazar on Twitter or @taralaser on Instagram.
Your mission lasts exactly one week!
You have until Tuesday, July 13th at Midnight PST to post your photo. Two random winners will be selected on Wednesday the 14th and announced here!
Let’s get BLOOPING!!!
Good luck!
If you’ve been paying attention to the picture book scene the last few years, you’re sure to recognize this fella…
No, not that fella! He’s new!
I mean this fella…
…drawn by this fella…
…Mike Boldt!
So you’ve no doubt heard of him…he’s got several hit books under his pencil and now I can introduce that OTHER fella, because he’s the star of Mike’s brand-new book!
Say hello to Fergus!
Mike, how did Fergus first find his way into your head?
My ideas come from all sorts of places. The idea of Find Fergus literally came out of a conversation that I was having with my friend, Dan Santat. In jest, I said I was going to do a knock off of Where’s Waldo?, but where Waldo was terrible at hiding. We laughed, and then Dan told me that was a really good idea, and I should make it. I thought about it, and decided he was right! So I did!
Was Fergus always a bear?
Yes! It was very quickly decided that Fergus was going to be a bear, since actually doing Waldo in my own story wasn’t really an option. I thought a large bear would be funny, and then I tried to give him a Waldo flair with the glasses to pay tribute to the “original”.
Let’s talk about the color scheme. Why bright yellow?
I found the bright yellow background for Fergus right away. Originally, when I was working on the pitch, I did up a couple samples of a finished cover and a finished spread, and I used yellow in the background as a placeholder. But I instantly liked it so much it just stuck. There was one option where we tried a different color background, but it definitely was not right for this book.
Why do you think Fergus likes to hide so much? What’s going on beneath that big ball of fur?
Well, I believe Fergus is a character who has a rather childlike care-free approach to things in life. So whether he knows how to hide or not, he’s a bear who is going to have fun doing it. I really wanted to not only make sure that the theme wasn’t “Practice makes perfect” but rather “Practice makes progress”. I think with that approach we can have a lot more fun, like Fergus, even if we aren’t very good at something and enjoy the process. Besides, who doesn’t love a good game of hide and seek?!
No one doesn’t love hide and seek!
Mike, can you give us any hints about your upcoming projects?
Funny you should ask, Tara! I actually have two books coming out next year. A wonderful and silly book called GOOD NIGHT, ALLIGATOR by Rebecca Van Slyke, and another hilarious picture book called BLOOP (by YOU!) about a hilarious space invader. That’s about it for now.
Well, it’s a good thing we have a Mike Boldt book now to tide us over!
And blog readers, you can win a copy!
I’ll count while you go hide! 10, 9, 8…
Kidding! Just leave a comment below to enter and a random winner will be selected soon.
Good luck!
And follow Fergus’ Indie bookstore tour:
by Dev Petty
My first book, I DON’T WANT TO BE A FROG, came out last February and it’s been a wild ride this year publicizing and reading my book across the San Francisco Bay area which I call home. It’s kind of been the year when I went from “person who wrote and sold a book” to “writer,” if only because I now actually say “Writer!” when people ask what I do instead of coughing and pretending I didn’t hear the question like before.
My journey from Visual Effects artist, to mom, to writer was fast. I didn’t have a ton of time to consider what being a writer would mean or what it would feel like to read my book to a room full of eager faces. I’ve visited many schools, dozens of bookstores, a few libraries, workshops and panels too. I had a lot to learn, if only about engaging with kids, which even though I’m a parent, I needed some work on. What was surprising, and exciting, was how much I learned about writing FOR kids through the process of reading TO kids. It turns out, if you do the same sort of spiel and read the same book enough times, you start to notice some things and, like so many other experiences, those things inform the act of writing picture books…who knew?! So here are a few WRITING lessons garnered from READING.
Kids are power-hungry little critters. What do I mean? It means they like to have the information, fill in the gaps, answer the questions, even guess the question all before you, another kid or another adult gets a word out. Every time I read a certain page of I DON’T WANT TO BE A FROG, I get to the part where I say “Because you are a….”
and the kids all shout out FROG!
Which is infinitely more fun that me saying “frog” to them in my not-that-fun voice. Time after time, I realize that when given a chance to extrapolate and interpolate they’ll do it. What does this mean for writing? It means you can leave a little space. Kids can draw conclusions and they’ll feel good for doing so. It also means you can play with that phenomenon. It’s a fun technique to send ’em down one road and get them thinking they know the answer and then turn the page and it’s something else entirely…it’s kind of a safe way to be wrong about something.
Kids are smart. They OFTEN ask me about publishing, how a picture book is put together, how and where I write, etc. Unlike young Dev who spent a lot of time drawing some sort of hybrid human/hotdog people, these kids are sophisticated and curious and savvy. Spend an afternoon with a bunch of second graders and you’ll be jotting down words to look up when ou get home. I talk to them about paste downs, collaboration in a digital world, and revision. This ought to remind us writers to not dumb things down- it may take more than one read, but they’ll get it…and then they’ll teach you.
Dev’s required reading shoes
Kids are also weird and they appreciate weird. I’ve written about this before, but many, many readings have reminded me of the truth of this statement. The best readings I have are the ones where I am revealing of my own oddities, shortcomings and foibles. It may get back to the power-hungry nature of the little guys, but they do love to feel that you’re on equal footing, that the writer is goofball, kid-like participant in the process and not button-up preacher sitting in the adult-sized chair above. What does it mean for writing? It means I’ve learned the joy of letting go a little and using a big brush to write strong, strange things and hope that kids, if not adults, will get it. Or at least enjoy it.
Kids like pictures. Well, duh Dev—of course kids like pictures…they draw them ALL THE TIME…on paper! But seriously, I found when I incorporate images into my reading, even a simple 20 minute reading, they are much more involved and attentive. Examples: I used to just say Mike Boldt illustrated the book…but then I put a funny picture of Mike in a big flowery frame and started bringing it along…they love it. I bring the alternate language versions of my book and pass them around. I draw a little. It’s pretty obvious what this means for writing—it means, think about the pictures! It means letting the pictures do a lot of the work for you, it means present, don’t preach.
So in this year, I’ve sure learned a lot. I’ve come a long way since my first reading when my hands wouldn’t stop shaking and I had notes written on a scrap of paper so I’d know what to say. My writing has changed because of all these kids, parents, librarians and teachers who’ve welcomed into their rooms. In fact, these days when I’m writing a new story, I IMAGINE myself reading it to a room full of kids and I imagine the page turns and pauses and laugh lines, the open space for them to guess and wonder, and the possible reactions to things. Of course, in my head, the kids are all wearing overalls and red converse and yellow rain slickers and have rosy cheeks and bacteria-free hands and speak a little french and go fishing and think I’m terribly cool, like spy cool and that they might want to be like me some day. I digress…
Finally, in case you’re a new author and in the market for a few tips you may not have considered—here now a few Reading Your Picture Book Lessons I’ll offer for free:
- Don’t swear. Seems obvious, right? Harder for some of us than others.
- If you take questions, always ask the kid’s name before he/she talks.
- Bring along a little giveaway, not all kids can afford your book and you’ll feel good if you send em home with something.
- Show up early.
- Send a thank you note to the teacher, book store manager or librarian after.
- Connect with the parents and teachers, let them ask questions too
- .If you make a joke about something like eating bugs, be ready for the possibility that one of the kids in your audience has, and often does eat bugs as part of their culture and then be prepared to feel really, really awkward.
- Seriously, don’t swear.
- When signing books, bring scratch paper to write the names down before you pen them in your book. The kid might say “My name is Max” and that might have an umlaut and a couple h’s these days.
- Finally, remember what the whole point of this writing for kids thing is. It’s to delight, inspire, amuse…kids. I’m just the hired help–another reminder this is the best job on Earth.
Thanks, Dev. These are great tips. (And I second that umlaut warning. Also, don’t say another name while you are writing a name, otherwise a book for Marcie will wind up being a book for Autumn. True story.)
You can win a copy of Dev’s newest book, I DON’T WANT TO BE BIG. Just leave a comment below–include a reading aloud tip if you have one. A winner will be randomly selected in a couple weeks. US addresses only, please. GOOD LUCK!
Dev Petty is the author of I DON’T WANT TO BE A FROG, I DON’T WANT TO BE BIG, and CLAYMATES (L,B & Co. ’17). She is a former visual effects artist who loves writing picture books because they’re like tiny, paper movies. Dev is a Berkeley native, devout Californian, and she’s super good at word jumbles. She’s represented by Jen Rofé of ABLA. Visit her at DevPetty.com.
by Dev Petty
I wrote a whole post for this very blog some time ago about NOT writing and just thinking. I wrote about getting to the heart of your story idea in your head before you ever write a word. I believe in that process…big time. But it’s not how I wrote I DON’T WANT TO BE A FROG. That’s a different story. That’s the story of how a sort of basic story idea turned into one with legs…frog legs! In fact, it was the writing of FROG that taught me to slow down and think, to find the story thread before I started writing.
I knew I wanted to write a story all in dialogue. I wanted it to be funny. And I wanted it to be about a frog. I like frogs, it was that simple. Not much to go on, eh? Believe me, my first efforts on frog reflected just how thin the idea was. Frog went from animal to animal saying “I want to be like you…because…you’re furry (or you can fly or you can hop).” It was repetitive and a little hollow and NOTHING REALLY AT ALL HAPPENED. These are the sort of problems I usually suss out when I’m just thinking instead of writing, so I don’t usually have this situation. But there was something about the first draft I liked enough to keep at it.
This is when I stopped and realized I needed to answer my own critical, favorite story writing question.
“What is this about?”
The answer, as written, was “A frog who wants to be a rabbit or a cat or an owl.” And after a ton of rewrites and rearranging, it wasn’t getting any better on the page. So I stopped revising. I stopped writing. As I closed the laptop and started thinking, I realized it was a little deeper. The answer really was, “This is a story about a frog who doesn’t want to be a frog.” It’s about wanting to be something other than what you are. Now THAT’S a little more interesting. When I started thinking about it that way, the story opened up and it wasn’t anymore about cats or owls, it was about nature, it was about accepting your nature.
That answer allowed me to start thinking about the frog, the good parts, the bad parts, the way we all sometimes envy things about others that we can never, and probably should never have. The story was getting deeper, but still…nothing really happened. The frog went from animal to animal saying he wanted to be them and then the book ended. You’re a frog. Get over it.
Confession. I’ve tried to write novels. A bunch of em. I am a Viking at writing three awesome chapters and then running out of steam, throwing the laptop across the room and eating ice cream for a while. But I do it often enough that I’ve learned a few things. Newsflash Dev, your story has to have a PLOT and not just be a rambling treatise on frog existentialism. So I decided to bring a new character in…a wolf…who would act as a bit of a therapist, a reality checker who would point out the good parts of being a frog through his own nature. Once something happened, the wolf, my story had a turn and a direction and something, albeit small, happened. I hope kids will read frog and realize that everyone has things they want to change about themselves, and that’s a totally okay, natural thing to explore. But you also sort of have to accept who you are, find the bright parts about who you are and work with what you have.
I guess the truth is, I sort of violated most of my own rules of picture book writing in the writing of the one picture book I have out there. I kind of teased a good story out of a pretty mediocre one. But that’s ok too, it taught me a lot about finding that thread. It helped me develop a process…find the thread FIRST! Remember to TELL a story and not just muse.
Since we’re talking story threads, I thought I’d put down a few tools I use to try to figure out what I’m getting at when I’m developing a story idea in my head, before I start writing.
- I write a poem. It’s not the kind of poem anyone would ever, ever, ever want to read. But the lack of rules in poetry allow me to explore an idea without limitations. I usually write pretty long, stream of consciousness poems about my story idea and most of it will be total garbage. But usually, when I read it through, somewhere in there is a thread I can hold onto and start crafting a story around.
- Imagine your story as a trailer. I’d never thought of this one until I started watching a lot of picture book trailers and working on my own, for Frog. But when you have to introduce your character, a story problem, a plot twist and a possible solution- you’ve covered a lot of story elements and it’s pretty easy to find where you need to go a little deeper.
- Ask yourself what your story is about. Sounds obvious, I know, but I forget to do it ALL THE TIME. And, while you’re busy talking to yourself, why not have a whole conversation?
“Dev, what is this story about?”
“Well, it’s about a frog who wants to be a cat or an owl or something else.”
“Gosh, Dev, that’s not very interesting.”
“It’s not? Crap. OK, it’s about not wanting to be a frog.”
“Getting there.”
“You’re bossy. Fine. It’s about not wanting to be what you are.”
“That’s sad.”
“Okee…it’s about accepting who you are.”
“Bingo!”
“I don’t like you.”
“I don’t like you either.”
Finally, Never throw anything away. Whether you save one giant list of picture books in Scrivener or text files or email drafts (I’m partial to that one), never give up on a story. Put it aside, let it steep, even put it in total cold storage, but don’t throw anything away. SO many of my stories come from little breadcrumbs of ideas I left myself along the way.
Dev Petty is the author of I DON’T WANT TO BE A FROG (Doubleday 2015, Illustrated by Mike Boldt) and CLAYMATES (Little Brown, 2017). A former film effects artist, she lives in Albany, California and writes funny books for kids and immature adults. Visit her at DevPetty.com.
Do you want to be a frog? No? Do you want to own a frog? Not really? How about own a SIGNED COPY of Dev’s I DON’T WANT TO BE A FROG? Plus bookmarks? Yes? OK then, leave one comment below and a winner will be randomly selected in two weeks! Good luck!
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 