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by Cece Bell
Several years ago I was at a really low point in my career as a children’s book author and illustrator. None of my published books seemed to be doing all that well, and every new book I submitted seemed to get rejected. I was stuck. My writing came to a standstill. I didn’t even want to draw anymore! Good grief!
Eventually, I got off my pity pot by realizing that I didn’t have to get a publisher interested in my stories and drawings in order to work. I just needed to start working again—for FUN, not profit. So I decided to hire myself. Here was the assignment: Ask friends and family for adjectives and names of animals. Write adjectives on separate slips of paper. Fold them up and put them in a cup. Write names of animals on other separate slips of paper. Fold them up and put them in a different cup.
Now for the good part: Each day, for over one hundred days (and I didn’t skip any days, not even weekends), I selected a slip of paper from the adjective cup, and I selected a slip of paper from the animal cup. What I selected was what I had to draw—in no more than two hours. I couldn’t put anything back and hope to get a “better” combination—all combinations were good. The more challenging, the better!
I ended up with pairings like “victorious chinchilla” and “lost ocelot.” “Glittery manatee” and “theiving sloth.” “Bashful anteater” and “uncomfortable ostrich.” “Maniacal anemone!” It was great fun to illustrate all these animals I didn’t normally draw; it was especially fun to come up with stories (not written, but implied in the illustration) for why the chinchilla was victorious, for why the ostrich was uncomfortable. And what would the sloth steal?
I was a cheap boss. I didn’t pay myself a cent. But the rewards of my little project were copious. My brain loosened up. I learned some new illustration techniques. I began to love being an illustrator again. I GOT OUT OF THAT FUNK. And guess what? When I decided to submit “mustachioed fly” to my agent to turn into postcards, I got hired to illustrate Diane Mortensen’s picture book Bug Patrol for Clarion. This job led to a relationship with Clarion that made my picture book with Tom Angleberger (Crankee Doodle) possible, and then that helped me loosen up to do El Deafo. Now I’ve got more work than I can shake a stick at!
My little project was focused on illustration—but it could work for writing, too. TOTALLY!
So, my humble two cents (I happen to have those cents because I didn’t pay myself earlier, remember?) is that if you pursue this line of work—or any line of work—do so because you love it. Try not to lose sight of that love. And hopefully, that love, plus a lot of hard work and little bit of luck, will get you where you want to be.
Cece Bell lives in an old church with her husband, author Tom Angleberger, and she works right next door in a new-ish barn. El Deafo, her first graphic novel, is a slightly fictionalized memoir about her childhood, her hearing loss, her first crush, and her quest for a true friend. She has written and illustrated other books for children, including the Geisel Honor book Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover; Itty Bitty; Bee-Wigged; and the Sock Monkey series. You can read more about her at www.cecebell.com. Follow along on Twitter @cecebellbooks.
So do you have 30 ideas?
YOU DO???
You can qualify for one of our AMAZING PiBoIdMo prizes just by taking the following pledge. Put your right hand on a picture book and repeat after me:
I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully executed
the PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,
and will, to the best of my ability,
parlay my ideas into picture book manuscripts.
Now I’m not saying all 30 ideas have to be good. Some may just be titles, some may be character quirks. Some may be problems and some may create problems when you sit down to write. Some may be high-concept and some barely a concept. But…they’re yours, all yours! Give them a big, fat, juicy smacker! SMOOCH!
You have until Dec 4th at 11:59:59PM EST to sign the pledge by leaving a comment WITH YOUR FULL NAME on this post. PLEASE COMMENT ONLY ONCE.
The name you left on the registration post and the name you leave on this winner’s pledge SHOULD MATCH.
Again, please COMMENT ONLY ONCE. If you made a mistake, contact me instead of leaving a second comment.
Remember, this is an honor system pledge. You don’t have to send in your ideas to prove you’ve got 30 of them. If you say so, I’ll believe you! Honestly, it’s that simple. (Wouldn’t it be nice if real life were that straightforward.)
If your name appears on both the registration post AND this winner’s pledge, you’ll be entered into the grand prize drawing: feedback on your best 5 ideas from a literary agent. There are TEN grand prizes! Check out all the agents here.
So what should you do now? Start fleshing out your best ideas! Write them as elevator pitches. Get ready because YOU might be a CHOSEN ONE.
Other prizes include picture books, manuscript critiques, art prints—all the stuff you saw during the month. All winners will be randomly selected by Random.org and announced NEXT WEEK.
And guess what, PiBoIdMo doesn’t end here! From today through Dec 9th, stop in for Post-PiBo, which offers daily posts about organizing and prioritizing your ideas.
Plus—you can claim your first prize now: a winner badge for your website, blog or social media site, designed by Vin Vogel. You can make it larger or smaller to fit anywhere. And if you want it on a mug, don’t forget to stop by the PiBoIdMo shop where every purchase benefits Reading is Fundamental (RIF).
Congratulate yourself on a job well done, PiBoIdMo’er. Take yourself out to brunch. Buy a new infinity scarf. Browse a bookstore. Pat your head and rub your tummy. Do what you want, you deserve it.
Go ahead, sign below and cross the finish line!
And remember, stay tuned for Post-PiBo!
***To everyone who completed the PiBoIdMo Challenge, the Pledge for you to sign is coming later today. In the meantime, enjoy our first Post-PiBo guest blog with a very talented illustrator!***
When I was going to school, I attended a community school that had been created by the parents and local writers, artist, musicians, and poets. It was a special school because we could not go to white schools. We had some of the best teachers ever! One day, I met this wonderful teacher named Miss Russell. Miss Russell had the biggest, orangest afro I had ever seen in my whole entire life. It looked like a cloud. She wore the shortest dresses and the coolest shoes. I loved Miss Russell. Once she set me on her lap and shared a beautiful book that has stayed with me all these years. It was about a young boy who wore a red snow suit and lived in the hood as far as I was concerned, LOL! The thing that stood out about this boy was that he was brown just like me!
He was beautiful!! His mom and dad looked just like my parents. Even the wallpaper looked like the wallpaper in my own house. I was excited and thrilled. Surely the person was who created this book must have been watching me from his studio window. The book left me feeling some kind of way. It conveyed all my feelings and thoughts through its beautiful, colorful pictures and collage. I couldn’t remember all the words to the story, for you see I am dyslexic. There was nobody who really understood what that was. The words didn’t make sense to me but the pictures told me the story.
Everybody is now talking about diversity in children’s books. In 1963 there weren’t many books that had a black child as a main character, and when they were drawn in children’s books of old, black people were drawn very cruelly and just plain ugly. The book moved me so because it would be the first time I would see a black child that looked like me, dressed like me…might have even been me, LOL.
I loved Peter—he was my little brother in my head. Peter was beautifully illustrated and I related to his story because I had experienced the same thing. Countless other children experienced the same thing. Many years would pass and I would end up in a Barnes and Noble looking for picture books to inspire me as I began to illustrate children’s books myself. I came across “The Snowy Day”.
Now as I told you, I am dyslexic. Reading for me sometimes can be a struggle. The words seem to dance on the page. Numbers seem to move and float around. I push myself constantly to read out loud, and while I make it look effortless and fun, it is a struggle for me still. I took “The Snowy Day” and sat on the floor of B&N and I read it through tears. Every wonderful and magnificent word.
Finally, words and pictures came together. Comforting memories from the first time that the book was read to me spilled over like warm beach waves. I looked for books written and illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats. I began to do my own study on his work. I copied the man. I wanted to somehow do for other children what this awesome man had done for me. Ezra Jack Keats made me feel so special because he thought that I should have been in a children’s book all along. I wasn’t an afterthought!
It is important that not only Black, White, Chinese or Indian children be seen in picture books, but that all children see themselves in picture books. That all children get to experience another culture so that their minds broaden. Diversity is needed if we are going to grow as writers and illustrators. I like to call myself “The Multicultural Illustrator”. It is reflected in my work. I come from a very blended background—African American, Asian, European, and Jewish decent—it’s all in there. So if you are thinking that diversity is not important, take it from a little brown girl who was effected by someone’s beautiful pictures.
Once Upon A Time, a little girl wished to be an artist. So, she took her fantastic box of Crayola crayons and drew on the sides of her mother’s clean white stove and white walls. When her mother prepared dinner that night, the crayons melted in a beautiful puddle of waxy deliciousness. She was thrilled! Her parents? Not so much. They made that almost-famous artist get some soap and water and remove and clean up her fantastic masterpiece. Her mom and dad got her a pad of paper and she has been drawing ever since. Vanessa is agented by Painted-words.com. She lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband, daughter and a friendly cat named Stripes. Visit her at Oohlaladesignstudio.blogspot.com and follow her on Twitter @nesterb.
Her latest book is ONE LOVE, based on the song by Bob Marley and adapted by Cedella Marley.
by Tara Lazar
When I was growing up, there was an entire section of my home that was roped off. Like a nightclub, a velvet rope draped across the threshold to the living and dining area, off limits to my grubby little hands. A plush sectional beside the picture window always beckoned me, and I’d sneak there to read a book. Many times I’d crawl into the dining room and sit criss-cross-applesauce under the table, where no one could find me, and where I could get a glimpse of our house the way I rarely saw it. It was wondrous, under the table and dreaming (sorry for the borrow, Dave Matthews). I could pretend I was somewhere else because the perspective I had, under that glass and chrome 70’s behemoth, was unique, unusual. I was at home, but also somewhere else.
So now, every once in a while, I sit underneath my own dining room table. To me, it’s the perfect kid’s perspective. I see the world as a child might, peering only at legs and loafers. You know how you never see an adult’s face in Charlie Brown? How they’re just an unintelligible trumpet waah-wahhh-wah-waaaa? That’s the childlike mystique I’m seeking when I sit beneath the table. I see the world a little differently, but yet it’s still familiar, as it is my own home.
This is an early Peanuts strip. Schulz later said that showing adults, even just their legs, was a mistake.
Go ahead, take up a spot in your home where you rarely sit to rest: the closet, the corner, the stair landing. Make it your nook, your secret hideaway. Look at everything as if a child might, looming larger above you. Grab a blanket and pillows and make a fort. Steal away. Remember those fantastical childhood moments when you were somewhere else, but yet safe and protected at home. It’s a feeling you can recreate to help you delve deeper into the heart of your tale. You’ll be changing your perspective to that of a child—visually and emotionally.
And, if you’d like, sneak some cookies and milk with you. I won’t tell anyone where you are.
Image via threadless.com
And now, a special announcement!
This is the final day of PiBoIdMo! I hope you have 30 ideas! (or that you’re very, very close!)
But don’t worry, the event IS NOT OVER. There’s still Post-PiBo to come–a week-long series of posts designed to help you prioritize and organize your ideas.
Tomorrow I will post the PiBoIdMo Pledge. If you have 30 ideas, you sign it and YOU WIN! Don’t worry, you’ll have a few days to sign it.
In the meantime, if you enjoyed PiBoIdMo, may I ask that you nominate this blog for the Top 10 Blogs for Writers?
Head on over to Write to Done to make the nomination.
Every nomination counts!
And thank you for your support!
by Before there were words, human beings communicated with pictures. In pre-verbal times, stories were drawn out in picture form. So, the picture book, which uses pictures and words, touches something deep within all human beings, regardless of age.
I think the picture book is a most unique art form. It brings together both the visual and the literary. Children who cannot read words yet will be reading the pictures. That is why this unique art and writing genre deserves our highest efforts, our most original thoughts and ideas, and our most sincere work. Picture books are teaching the next generation to read!
Of the over 30 books that I have published, the one which fits the picture book genre best is The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate The Wash, illustrated by Steven Kellogg.
Because I am also an illustrator, I write visually, and Steven’s art fit my story perfectly. It is included in the Houghton/Mifflin Readers that are used throughout the country to teach reading to second graders.
When I first started in children’s literature, books for young children were divided into two categories: the picture book and the storybook.
In a storybook, the story was all there and the pictures just enhanced and embellished the story. In other words, I could read you a storybook over the radio, without seeing the pictures, and you would understand it. A good example of a storybook of mine is The Orange Shoes, illustrated by Doris Ettlinger. [Insert photo of cover here] And, Apple Tree Christmas, which I both wrote and illustrated, will show you how organically the art and the story are intertwined, mainly because one person created it. 
However, in a picture book, the story is told in both the words and in the pictures. If I read you a picture book over the radio, you wouldn’t understand it without the pictures. Now, all books for young children are called picture books.
So, my challenge for you on this 29th day of PiBoIdMo, and I hope it is an inspirational challenge, is to think of your story idea in pictures. Think of the first page as a picture, and then imagine the next picture and the next. See if you can string together several pictures, almost like a movie, in your mind before you write any words. Or, if you are about out of ideas on day 29, perhaps using your favorite idea for this month and start seeing is visually, in pictures. Hopefully, by giving the visual center stage, you will capture the very essences of the picture book before you get involved in words. There might be a certain rhythm, a beat, and an energy that will find its way into your words by starting with the pictures first. Try to see it in your mind’s eye. Let it play, dance and flow across you visual imagination. No words, just pictures…and see where it takes you.
Best of Luck!
Trinka Hakes Noble is the award-winning author of numerous picture books including The Scarlet Stockings Spy (IRA Teachers’ Choice 2005), The Last Brother, The Legend of the Cape May Diamond, The Legend of Michigan and Apple Tree Christmas, which she wrote and illustrated. Her newest titles are The Orange Shoes (IRA Teachers’ Choice 2008), The Pennsylvania Reader, The New Jersey Reader, Little New Jersey and The People of Twelve Thousand Winters. Ms. Noble also wrote the ever-popular Jimmy’s Boa series and Meanwhile Back at the Ranch, both featured on PBS’s Reading Rainbow. Her many awards include ALA Notable Children’s Book, Booklist Children’s Editors’ Choice, IRA-CBC Children’s Choice, Learning: The Year’s Ten Best, plus several state reading awards and Junior Literary Guild selections.
Her latest title is The Legend of the Jersey Devil, and forthcoming in March of 2015 is Lizzie and the Last Day of School.
Ms. Noble has studied children’s book writing and illustrating in New York City at Parsons School of Design, the New School University, Caldecott medalist Uri Shulevitz’s Greenwich Village Workshop, and at New York University. She is on the board of The New Jersey Center for the Book and a member of the Rutgers University Council on Children’s Literature. In 2002 she was awarded Outstanding Woman in Arts and Letters in the state of New Jersey for her lifetime work in children’s books, along with letters of commendation from the US Senate, the US House of Representatives and the US Congress. Ms. Noble currently lives in northern New Jersey. Learn more by visiting her website at www.trinkahakesnoble.com.
Trinka is giving away a signed copy of THE ORANGE SHOES!
This prize will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for this prize if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
by “Where do you get your ideas?”
This is the question that kids and aspiring writers ask me the most. And the answer is kinda lame: I have absolutely no idea.
I recognize that many people think about ideas as elusive endangered species that love to play hide-and-go-seek with us writers. But I disagree. I think ideas are everywhere! They fill the air around us like hyperactive dragonflies, just waiting to be snatched out of the air, captured, and put to work. Our job is to collect them. The problem is…we don’t always.
Instead…
We JUDGE our ideas. And then we DISMISS them.
How many times have you done it? An idea buzzes your way at the most unexpected time. Maybe during breakfast. You’re happily eating away on your raisin-crunch oatmeal, not thinking about picture books at all, and suddenly you find yourself thinking,
“I wonder what would happen if this spoon….ATTACKED ME???!!!”
It’s just a blip on your imagination, and in the micro-second that it takes you to think “That’s stupid.”, you dismiss it and continue chomping.
HELLO? THAT’S A PICTURE BOOK!
(Not yours though. Hands off…that one’s mine.)
That little dragonfly of a idea buzzed into your head for a reason…it wants to be used. It wants to be put to work, to be brought into being. Your job was to capture that little sucker, but instead, you judged it and dismissed it as inconsequential. And then, horror of horrors, you forgot about it.
And the idea dies. Unused. And unwritten.
When I first got the idea for a story about a bunny being stalked by evil root vegetables, don’t you think my first thought was “Dumb idea”? It totally was. But that didn’t stop me from capturing the idea that later became CREEPY CARROTS.
A lion, a wolf, and a shark all feel terrible about their meat-eating ways. Until they get some great advice from a wise old owl…who then meets a grisly death at their hands. What a TERRIBLE IDEA for a picture book! But when that idea showed up in my brain, I was on it like a fat kid on Cinnabon (and being less-than-svelte myself, you’d be surprised how quickly we can move when frosting-drenched cinnimon is around). That idea became my book CARNIVORES.
I am a collector of ideas. And so are you. Every idea you can get your grubby little mitts on.
How you keep them is up to you. I don’t keep my dragonflies in a cage. Or even a journal. I put them under a rock. Literally. (I know…weird. Maybe it’s a boy thing.)
I have something in my office called an Idea Rock.
And EVERY idea that flits my way gets captured, no matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing. You can see in the picture…there are ideas captured on 1000-Island-Dressing-stained-napkins that I got while eating rueben sandwiches. There are post-it-note ideas. There’s even a wedding program with an idea on it under there (man, that wedding was boring). I go through life with the assumption that every idea holds book-worthy potential, that no idea is inconsequential, therefore, they all get captured. They get put under the rock, and from there, they’re going nowhere (that rock is really heavy). And so, even if they do get momentarily judged (as ideas and dragonflies will), they never get dismissed, so they never get forgotten.
I have hundreds of ideas under there…more than I’ll ever be able to write in ten lifetimes. They’re not all gold. They won’t all become books. But they are all CAUGHT.
So put your judgement away and get your net ready. Because that buzzing you hear may just become your next book.
Aaron Reynolds is a New York Times Bestselling Author and has written many highly acclaimed books for kids, including Here Comes Destructosaurus!, Carnivores, the Joey Fly – Private Eye graphic novel series, and the Caldecott Honor Winning Creepy Carrots! He has a passion for kids’ books and seeing kids reading them. He regularly makes time to visit schools where his hilarious hands-on presentations keep kids spellbound. Aaron lives in Chicago with his wife, 2 kids, 4 cats, and anywhere between zero and ten goldfish, depending on the day.
You can visit him at www.aaron-reynolds.com.
Aaron is giving away one signed copy each of CREEPY CARROTS, CARNIVORES and HERE COMES DESTRUCTOSAURUS!
These prizes will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for these prizes if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today is the 27th of November. For some of you, that means you have 27 ideas lined up like jewels on your desk. I have nothing to say to you. Keep doing whatever it is you’ve been doing. Never mess with what’s working.
But some of you have only 17 ideas or 14 or [sigh] 9. Let me be frank. It is now time to panic.
by John (Flickr: Panic button)
Panic can be a great motivator. But there are two kinds of panic. Only one is going to be useful here. We want nothing to do with the kind of panic that says, “See, I knew I couldn’t do this. I knew I wasn’t the kind of person who could have thirty ideas.” Stop. Immediately. No one wants to be around you when you are like that. Especially muses.
We are going for an entirely different kind of panic. We are going for elevated pulse, eyes wide open, “well let’s try something completely new today because we have to get 15 ideas in the next 3 days and isn’t that going to be crazy fun” kind of panic. We are going for a “get out of your comfort zone and go drink the world in until it pours out in ideas” kind of panic.
So, here are 5 ideas for creative panicking:
- Are you sitting down at your desk? Why? That B.I.C. thing can be taken to an extreme, you know. If the ideas are not showing up at your desk, why are you still there? Why aren’t you out kayaking or dancing or sitting in a bubble bath? At the very least, you should be running through the halls yelling, “December is coming, December is coming.” People will just think you’re freaking out over holiday shopping so you’ll totally get away with it. But really, you’re signalling to your brain, “Today is not business as usual. Get out of your well worn little rut. We are going for a ride today.”
- Are you putting yourself where you can hear rhythm? We’ve already talked about dancing but you could also find some kids to play jump rope with. Play a clapping and rhyming game with the kids at the bus stop. Or climb up a tree and pay attention for awhile. The world is made of rhythms. So are a lot of picture books.
- Quick, who is your favorite illustrator? Go outside and look at everything as if it were one of their illustrations. What would that look like? What things would that illustrator notice or create out of what you are seeing? Try not to let yourself have words during this exercise. Just visuals. Then come back inside and pretend an editor has just called to say, “Edward Gorey/Diane Goode/Lane Smith/Pamela Zagarenski just called. They’d like to illustrate one of your books.” Write that book. Then pick another artist with a completely different sensibility and repeat.
- Wait, aren’t you going somewhere today to eat pie? This is perfect. Crazy relatives, frazzled toddlers, small children meeting Aunt Cora’s special jello for the first time. There will be stories there. Watch for them. Offer to entertain someone’s two year old. Remember what being two was like. Take all the young cousins out in the backyard and help them build a snowfort or rake leaves or play tag. They will love you for it. And you will find a story.
And if you aren’t meeting up with relatives for Thanksgiving, where are you going today? Because I’ll bet there’s a story there too.
- Look, the point is that panicking creatively is just about pulling out all the stops and flying at this task from some new angles. It’s about playing. So quit acting like such a grownup. When was the last time you sat down with some colored paper and cut it into shapes just because it was cool paper and you had scissors? When was the last time you laid on your belly in the grass and watched a tiny world go by? Have you drawn on your walls lately?
Loosen up a little. Grin like you have a secret. Play. Panic (creatively).
Mylisa Larsen has been telling stories for a long time. This has caused her to get gimlet-eyed looks from her parents, her siblings and, later, her own children when they felt that certain stories had been embellished beyond acceptable limits. She now writes children’s books where her talents for hyperbole are actually rewarded.
She is the author of the picture books, Instructions for Bedtime (Katherine Tegen Books, January 2016) and If I Were A Kangaroo (Viking).
You can visit her online at MylisaLarsen.com.
Mylisa is giving away a picture book critique!
This prize will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for this prize if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
Ruth McNally Barshaw grew up in the Detroit area. When she was little she wanted to be an artist. She thought books were written by companies, not real people, so she didn’t want to write books. She changed her mind in 2002, and three years later connected with a fabulous agent who sold the first Ellie McDoodle book to Bloomsbury Children’s Books. Then it became a series.
She is the author-illustrator of the six Ellie McDoodle Diaries (often compared to Diary of a Wimpy Kid). She’s the illustrator of Leopold is Lost, by Denise Brennan-Nelson, due out in 2015 with Sleeping Bear Press. And she is author-illustrator of several other picture books currently in various stages of development.
She and her writer-husband Charlie frequently take their story creation workshop on the road to schools, libraries and conferences. Otherwise you can find them at home or at a local bookstore, writing.
View Ruth’s artwork, books, and workshop details at RuthExpress.com and connect with her on Twitter @ruthexpress.
You can win a signed-and-doodled copy of Ruth’s latest Ellie McDoodle book! It’s not a picture book, but it does have art on every page.
This prize will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for this prize if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
by Recently, while discussing poetry with a bunch of 5th graders, I discovered a word that’s pretty much left our daily vernacular: loafe.
Whitman used it in SONG OF MYSELF…
I loafe and invite my soul
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass
…but not a single student knew what the word meant. There were jokes about loaves of bread, and one girl thought she had it, but it turns out she’d gotten it mixed up with loathe. Which, you’ll agree, is another thing entirely.
Image via becuo.com
Once I defined the word for them, they loved it. I said, “Pretty great, right? To be given permission–even encouragement–to loafe about?!” and everybody laughed with relief. (Except for one boy who said, “I try to loafe about a LOT, but my mom won’t let me.” 🙂 )
So I stepped away from the session with kind of a two-part reminder to myself, and since it’s fresh on my mind, I’ll remind you, too:
- Loafe about. Seriously. Creativity can’t be rushed. You need to absorb before you can express. You need to walk and garden and bathe and dream and breathe. These things are the stuff that art is made of, the places ideas come from, the source of a sustained head and heart. Really, loafing about isn’t just important when making picture books–it’s important when living life. Professor Omid Safi asked, in a recent column called The Disease of Being Busy, “When did we forget that we are human beings, not human doings?” We know this, right? Right. This is just a reminder.
. - And here’s the other one. Let’s not let really great words like loafe go by the by. Let’s use them. I snuck the word kin into my book ALL THE WORLD, and strut into NOODLE & LOU. I used crimp in THE GOOD-PIE PARTY and hue in THINK BIG. These words are evocative and specific and rich and onomatopoeic–they’re too good to let go! And, as writers, it’s our duty to make sure that we’re not just left with a bunch of OMGs and LOLs on judgment day.
How about you make a list of words you used to hear and use, but never do anymore? What if you wrote down all the phrases your granddad used to say? And what if one of them gave you an idea? Picture books aren’t designed to dumb down; they’re meant to open up and out. 
They’re meant to expand the words and the world that a child has at hand. Lucky us to be a part of all that.
So go ahead, make that list.
And then, what the heck, loafe about for a bit.
Liz Garton Scanlon is the author of the highly-acclaimed Caldecott-honored children’s book All the World, illustrated by Marla Frazee, as well as this year’s The Good-Pie Party, illustrated by Kady McDonald Denton. Other books include Happy Birthday, Bunny; Think Big, A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes, and more. Her next picture book (called In The Canyon) and her first novel for young readers, The Great Good Summer, are both due in 2015. Ms. Scanlon is also a poet, teacher and a frequent and popular presenter at schools, libraries and conferences. To learn more, visit her web site at LizGartonScanlon.com.
Liz is giving away two copies of her latest picture book, THE GOOD-PIE PARTY! (YUMMY!)
These prizes will be given away at the conclusion of PiBoIdMo. You are eligible for these prizes if:
- You have registered for PiBoIdMo.
- You have commented ONCE ONLY on today’s post.
- You have completed the PiBoIdMo challenge. (You will have to sign the PiBoIdMo Pledge at the end of the event.)
Good luck, everyone!
by When I was growing up as a latch key kid in New York, two things formed my sense of place and identity in the world: my grandfather’s freckled arms and my picture books. There is something about visualizing a chosen reality that is so vital for kids as they transition from the Waldorf educational concept of the childhood dream-world to the brass-tacks world of adults. In a picture book, the world is presented as navigable, even through challenge. Whether the challenge is fear of closing one’s eyes to sleep, or losing a favorite bunny, or getting through the classic Grimms’ three-challenge arc, kids need to know that on the other side of something insurmountable is a green valley brimming with potential.
I am currently in the MFA program in Illustration as Visual Essay at School of Visual Arts, and most of the work I’m doing is a departure from my usual picture book work that you see here. I’m exploring my grandmother’s aging in one book project, and writing a love story set in post-Holocaust Germany which I will be illustrating this spring. I had a bit of a crisis about this, especially since I just signed with Rodeen Literary Management this summer and we’re just about to send one of my picture books out. But I realized that much of my work, even for kids, has to do with thriving after trauma, and that by exploring these more “adult” themes in my MFA, my picture book work will become more nuanced.
Far from being just about cute stories, picture books are the vehicle for survival for many kids as they were for me. That is why they are so, so
important. And…they’re gorgeous to look at!
Hopelessly lost among the wintry wardrobes of Pauline Baynes’ Narnia, Shaun Tan’s mysterious foreign lands, and the watery open spaces in Lisbeth Zwerger’s illustrations, Vesper Stamper’s calling as an illustrator began when she cracked open Hilary Knight’s Cinderella and spent the rest of her childhood meticulously copying each graceful page.
Vesper has a BFA degree in Illustration with Honors from Parsons School of Design. Her career has spanned fifteen years, dozens of album covers, four picture books and countless other exciting projects. Vesper brings a refined style and emotional depth to her work that pays homage to the rich illustrative tradition from which she comes.
Vesper was named the 2013 People’s Choice Finalist in the Lilla Rogers Global Talent Search and is the recipient of the 2012 Lincoln City Fellowship for her graphic novel, The Sea-King’s Children. She lives in Jersey City, NJ with her husband, filmmaker Ben Stamper, and their two children. She is the winner of both the 2014 NJ SCBWI Juried Show and People’s Choice awards, and is an MFA candidate in the Illustration as Visual Essay at School of Visual Arts, NYC.
Vesper is represented by Lori Kilkelly at Rodeen Literary Management, Inc.
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 