by Kirsti Call

All three of my upcoming books originated from Storystorm ideas. MOOTILDA’S BAD MOOD, releasing September 1, was the result of a 2018 Storystorm brainstorming session with fellow author Corey Rosen Schwartz. Here a few of our notes:

  • Mootilda: Overreacts to small disasters…refrain “what a cow-tastrophe”
  • cowmooflage, mootif
  • Moo la la
  • Udder disaster into happy ever after
  • Moognificent

Our first couple stanzas started out like this:

Mootilda woke up late one day.
“My nightmare’s over! Phew!
Coyote almost caught me and
I couldn’t even moo!”

She hugged her Meemaw cow who said,
“You’re in an awful state.
You’re drenched in sweat, your bed is wet.
It’s nearly hoof-past eight!”

Needless to say, none of these words made it to the final draft. But they all are part of the Mootilda’s evolution. I love how our illustrator made her come alive!

I wrote COW SAYS MEOW from my 2012 PiBoIdMo list. Back then my youngest was a toddler and still laughed at mixed up animal sounds jokes. COW SAYS MEOW is filled with onomatopoeia, wordplay, and mixed up animal sounds that made all five of my kids laugh out loud when they were little.

And COLD TURKEY is another collaborative effort with Corey Rosen Schwartz.  We both put that title on our Storystorm lists independently. It was definitely meant to be!

I’m grateful for writing challenges like Storystorm—how else would I be known as the lady who writes mooooovelous cow books?

Ha! But out of the 30+ ideas you jot down for Storystorm, how do you select which ideas you think are most worthwhile to pursue as manuscripts?

I love pursuing ideas that hare generated by a great title. I’m working on “Love Stinks!”—I like the title so much that’s I’ve tried several iterations of this story. Right now it’s the unlikely friendship of a garbage truck and skunk. But usually I pursue ideas that have several layers and hooks—like a great title, stinkiness, and trucks for example. In the end I write the ideas that speak to me, ideas that spark more ideas, ideas that I hope will resonate with children.

How do you navigate through a story with a writing partner? Do you go back and forth? Do you write together? How do you make it work?

Writing with Corey is super fun. We meet on Google Docs and message each other during set meeting times. We also text randomly throughout the day when we come up with ideas and write asynchronously when we’re feeling inspired.Since Corey is a night owl and I’m always up early there are times that she’s writing in our doc at 2am and then I pick it up at 5am. There are so many times when we are writing together that we come up with the same idea or wordplay which makes it easy to write together. We also usually agree on what makes the story good or bad. Sometimes we talk over the phone; we laugh all the time when we’re writing together.

Do you have any fun behind-the-cow tales to tell about co-writing MOOTILDA?

Yes! In fact Corey is often in a bad moooood and I’m often in a good moooood.  When we were writing the book we joked about it all the time. We even made mugs that both of us use daily.

Love those! But who gets what mug?

(Kidding!) Thanks, Kirsti, for your success story. I hope it brings encouragement to other picture book writers.

Kirsti is giving away a copy of MOOTILDA when it releases in September!

Enter one comment below to enter the giveaway.

A random winner will be selected in two weeks.

Good luck!

Kirsti Call is the author of several farm-related picture books. She lives in Andover, Massachusetts, where she makes moosic with her husband and five children.  Kirsti is often in a good mooood!

She is the co-coordinator of ReFoReMo. She reads, reviews, revises and critiques every day as a 12×12 elf, a blogger for Writer’s Rumpus, and a member of critique groups. She’s judged the CYBILS award for fiction picture books since 2015. Kirsti’s picture book, MOOTILITA’S BAD MOOD (Little Bee) debuts fall 2020. COW SAYS MEOW (HMH) and COLD TURKEY (Little Brown) release in 2021. Kirsti is represented by Emma Sector at Prospect Agency. Visit her at kirsticall.com and follow her on Twitter @kirsticall.