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by Daniel and I started developing picture books as a team back in 2004. Our earliest picture books were practice vehicles, helping us learn how to create a picture book as well as how best to work together. Our third collaboration landed us an agent and our fourth got us a book deal. Along the way, Daniel and I have discovered a few best practices for successful creative partnerships.
1. Give each other space.
When we started out, we thought we had to muddle through every detail of the development process together—from idea to execution. Soon enough, we felt suffocated by the project, and frustrated with each other. So we changed it up. We’d ruminate on our current task independently and then come to each discussion meeting with solid recommendations on hand.
2. Check your ego at the door.
Even giving each other ample space, our discussions can become quite heated. Naturally, each of us is convinced our approach is the right one. We’ve learned that we can’t hash things out immediately. It’s most harmonious if we present our recommendations with minimal commentary, and then each go back in our respective caves to consider all angles. After some reflection, I often realize that Daniel’s proposed solutions for the story are better than mine, or something he brought up leads me to rethink and rewrite for the better.
3. Try to have fun!
Sometimes we make the mistake of approaching our sessions with too much seriousness. Yes, publishing is a business, but the ideas flow best when we relax and let our creative sides go off on tangents. One of those tangents could be exactly what we need.
Lenore and Daniel Jennewein live and work together in Frankfurt, Germany. CHICK-O-SAURUS REX is their debut picture book as a team. Daniel is also the illustrator of IS YOUR BUFFALO READY FOR KINDERGARTEN? and TEACH YOUR BUFFALO TO PLAY TO DRUMS, both by Audrey Vernick. Lenore also writes novels for teens under the name Lenore Appelhans, including THE MEMORY OF AFTER and CHASING BEFORE.
Visit them at LenoreAppelhans.com and DanielJennewein.com.
The Jenneweins are giving away a signed copy of CHICK-O-SAURUS REX plus a personalized illustration by Daniel.
This prize bundle 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 Bad news for me: Tara asked me to write about inspiration. I’m not sure if it’s the dreary November weather or my travel-fried brain, but I feel neither inspired nor inspiring.
Good news for you: You don’t need me, not when you’ve got the collective human experience at your fingertips. When I type the word “inspiration” into Google, I get over 130,000,000 hits. Everything you could possibly want is there: dictionary definitions, memorable quotations from Eleanor Roosevelt and the Dalai Lama, Scripture verses, YouTube videos of TED talks, and, last but certainly not least, Kid President.
Lest you think I’m making excuses to avoid writing about inspiration, I’m not. I am going to write. It’s just that I’ve decided to tell you that it’s okay not to feel inspired.
I’ve learned that for me, writing has little to do with inspiration and everything to do with hard work. Don’t get me wrong–there IS inspiration, if you define inspiration as the source of those ideas that seem to come out of nowhere, and I’m happy when those moments come. But that kind of inspiration comes in fits and snatches, and flits away as quickly as it comes.
That word Inspiration is a tricky one. Define it too narrowly, in the sense that Inspiration conjures up Muses and magic and sparkly things, and you might be setting yourself up to wait far too long between productive writing times.
Of course, there’s another way to see inspiration other than as the occasional blessing from a capricious Muse. Let’s define “inspiration” as “something that makes you put your butt in the chair.” (Butt In Chair, or BIC, as you probably know, is from Jane Yolen.)
Here are some things that make me sit my writerly butt down:
Hope
When I started writing, almost all submissions and responses were handled via the U.S. Postal Service. More days than not, nothing came in the mail. Nevertheless, that moment of reaching for the mailbox door every day and pulling it open always felt happy and hopeful. And sometimes there was something lovely in there! I like that hopeful feeling (even though these days I get it when I check CallerID to see if it’s my agent) and I don’t get to have it if I don’t do the work first.
Deadlines
My 18-year-old daughter, faced with a looming deadline the other night for one of her college applications, whipped out an essay in about forty-five minutes, and it was actually quite good. Deadlines mean you don’t have the luxury of feeling inspired; you just have to do the work.
The Ticking Clock
I’m not old-old; I’m not even sure I’m quite in the middle-aged category. But I probably have fewer days ahead of me than I have behind me. As Rabbi Hillel said, “If not now, when?” I’m pretty sure he wasn’t referring to me finishing my hippo manuscript, but it works for me.
My Kids
My four teenagers may think they’re too old for picture books (though they respectfully read mine when I ask them) but they definitely are not too old to see me setting and reaching new goals. When I feel like quitting (generally because I’m depending on a visit from a Muse who has taken off on a one-way trip to Tahiti) I remember I don’t want my kids to see me quit. They can see me struggle, and they can see me change my direction, but I don’t want them to see me quit.
Kid Readers
This. Yes. More addictive—and more important—than chocolate to my writerly soul.
This list is incomplete, of course. I didn’t list the embarrassing ones or the ones I should probably save for a therapist. (I own those; I just don’t think you need or want to read about them.) I’m curious—what’s on your list? What inspires you to sit down and write when your Muse is on Mars?
Despite the oft-quoted adage to write what you know, Anne Marie Pace has never been a bear, a vampire, or a ballerina. She is the author of NEVER EVER TALK TO STRANGERS and A TEACHER FOR BEAR, both published by Scholastic Book Clubs; and the VAMPIRINA BALLERINA series, illustrated by LeUyen Pham, published by Disney-Hyperion. Someday, she hopes to write books about what she does know: whistling, baking blue-ribbon-winning chocolate chip cookies, and schlepping teenagers around in a minivan, if she can find a way to make any of that interesting. She lives with her family in Virginia. Visit Anne Marie online at AnneMariePace.com or the Vampirina Ballerina Facebook page at Facebook.com/VampirinaBallerina.
And that’s why we have PiBoIdMo!
You’re halfway through the month. How are you doing with the challenge? Check in by commenting below!
by Recently, I had a bout of writer’s block. It didn’t last horribly long, but as any writer who has been through it will tell you, any amount of time spent struggling to write can be extremely frustrating. Yeah, yeah. I know. What does this have to do with inspiration? I’m glad you asked. Or, more to the point, I’m glad I pretended that you asked. I thought I would talk a little about the lack of inspiration.
Why? Because I like to do things differently, but also because it is something that we all deal with at some point in our writing career. Every writer has a day when they sit down at their desk and stare at the blank page, the computer screen, the tablet and think, “Oh, god! What am I going to write?” Well, I’ll tell you. Anything.
There can be a lot of reasons that inspiration goes missing for a while. It is important in times like these not to lose sight of the smaller goal as we strive for the larger. In this case, we aren’t trying to complete the project. We are looking for inspiration, so that we can get writing again.
How do we do this? We get back to the basics. An artist may spend 5-10 minutes drawing quick sketches to get their creative juices going. We, as writers, can do the same. They don’t have to be good, or interesting. We don’t need to keep them around, or show them to anyone. We need to write them.
So, to that end, here are my 10 ideas for jump-starting your brain.
- Describe a photo. What happened just before it? Just after?
- Draw a picture. It doesn’t matter if you are an artist or not. Draw something you see. Remember we don’t need to show this to anyone.
- Describe yourself without using the pronoun I.
- Write down 10 questions about your project.
- Describe your writing area using only adjectives.
- Look up the lyrics to a favorite song. Try to write the story it tells.
- Describe what you ate for your last meal.
- Take a favorite story and change the ending. Happily ever after? Not any more. (Insert maniacal laugh here)
- Create a list of your favorite heroes from film, TV, or literature and describe them. If you’re not into the hero thing, make a list of villains.
- Change your perspective. If you write at home, go to a coffee shop or library. If you write inside, go outside. If you write via computer, try writing on a notepad, or vice-versa. Try writing while in a closet or under a bed. Remember: you never know when inspiration will strike.
Most importantly, keep writing. Don’t worry about what comes out. Ten minutes of writing today could lead to that brilliant story tomorrow. Happy writing!
Adam has traveled to six continents, performed on Broadway, and lived on a communal farm. He firmly believes that opening a book is a good thing, even if there are monkeys in it. Adam currently lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA, with his wife and two sons. In his spare time, Adam does a bit of writing. His writing spans multiple styles, from poetry to fiction to nonfiction, and is primarily geared towards children. Adam’s first book, Warning: Do Not Open This Book!, is available now anywhere books are sold. View the book trailer here.
Visit him online at AdamLehrhaupt.com, like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @Lehrhaupt.
© 2013 by Jane Yolen
I have a Muse who works overtime, or at least that’s how it looks from the outside. But I think about something my late husband once said. An ardent birder and, in his retirement, a bird recordist whose tapes now reside in both the Cornell Library of Natural Sounds and the British Natural History Museum, he was known in the birding community as “a lucky birder.” That meant he seemed to find more rarities and more hard-to-see birds than anyone else. But his response was, “I show up.” And that’s what I think the Muse actually is: the writer showing up every day and doing the hard work of writing.
If you write FOR a particular market or FOR a particular editor you will often miss the mark. But if you write because your fingers have danced across the keyboard, because a character has tapped you on the shoulder, because a story has settled in your heart, then even if you never sell it you have done the work you were meant to do. And sometime, dear readers, real magic happens.
Let me tell you about a picture book I recently wrote because of a haunting photograph I saw on line. If I had stopped to think about its saleability, I wouldn’t have started it. But I plunged in.
The photograph was of an apartment house in Paris on which a three story, three-dimensional angel with widespread wings had been carved on the facade. There was a newspaper story about how the angel had been built and survived World War II.
I knew there was a story there, and three things leaped out at me: angel, Paris, World War II.
Before I knew it, I was beginning to write a picture book (40 page picture book at first which I eventually got down to the more ordinary 32 page format), called “The Stone Angel.” It was about a Jewish family and the daughter about six or seven narrates. The Nazis come in, the yellow stars, escape to the forest where they live with Partisans, and then their escape across the mountains to Spain and then to Britain where they stay in the country till war’s end. And on their return, the father’s job is reinstated and he finds an apartment in, yes, the angel building.
A picture book? Really? Not a novel? It sounds like the plot of a novel. Yeah, I kept hearing that in my head and I kept dismissing the idea. I finished the picture book, sent it editor Jill Santopolo who was doing my fairy tale novels. It was not her kind of thing at all.
And in two weeks, she’d bought the book, found an illustrator, helped me shrink the text to a 32 pager (saying, “I love this as a 40 page book and if we can’t make it work at 32 pages with the same power, I can make the case for the longer picture book.”).
But sometimes the magic works.
© 2013 by Jane Yolen, all rights reserved
Jane Yolen is an author of children’s books, fantasy, and science fiction, including Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?
She is also a poet, a teacher of writing and literature, and a reviewer of children’s literature. She has been called the Hans Christian Andersen of America and the Aesop of the twentieth century.
Jane Yolen’s books and stories have won the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, two Christopher Medals, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, the Golden Kite Award, the Jewish Book Award, the World Fantasy Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Association of Jewish Libraries Award among many others.
Her website JaneYolen.com presents information about her over three hundred books for children. It also contains essays, poems, answers to frequently asked questions, a brief biography, her travel schedule, and links to resources for teachers and writers. It is intended for children, teachers, writers, storytellers, and lovers of children’s literature.
The best part of the whole picture book making process, for me, is that moment when the idea comes—that SPARK happens—and there’s ignition!
It’s mystical, it’s mysterious, it’s magical, it’s COSMIC!
But how do we get to that point where this happens—where “channel D” opens and the idea pops?
For me, it’s just one of those things that can’t be forced. I’m guaranteed not to think up any ideas when I tell myself I have to come up with an idea.
So how do I get primed for the muses to start singing? If I knew a sure-fire secret formula, I would certainly share it with you. But I do know two powerful “tools” that seem to work for me: procrastination and doodling. . . and the beauty of it is, you don’t have to be an artist or illustrator to do either one!
Each one works in it’s own way. There’s research showing that procrastination can lead to creativity, and that doodling can help us think. Combine the two and you set yourself up for some creative thinking!
Certainly, there are merits to doing both independently, but I’ve found when I combine the two, my ideas—always in the form of characters—begin to appear. I call it procrastidoodling, and it’s what I was doing when I came up with the star of my picture book, HENNY.
A few years ago, I was assiduously avoiding an assignment for a class I was taking by drawing all sorts of birds. As I doodled along, I found myself thinking about how silly it is that some birds have wings that are relatively useless—birds like dodos and ostritches and chickens. . .
. . .when out popped a doodle of a chicken with arms! Much more useful, I thought. So I started thinking about all the things a chicken with arms could do…and Henny was born!
Since then, all sorts of characters have popped into my life—and all of them started out as procrastidoodles.
So try this: First, do something you think is frivilous. Waste some time watching a funny video, go for a walk, get relaxed. Then start doodling. Maybe listen to some favorite music while you do it. The trick is not to have any expectations about what you doodle. Trust me, it will free you up to get those ideas flowing. See how many Piboidmo ideas you get.
Who knows, maybe one of them will lead you, like the White Rabbit did Alice, down the rabbit hole to a whole new world—where your picture book will come alive!
Oh—and here’s a great TED talk on doodling. Why not procrastinate for a bit and watch it?
Thank you ! And thank you, Tara, for this opportunity to participate in PiBoIdMo. Have fun everyone!
Elizabeth grew up in Western New York State, studied art history in college, and went on to graduate school to earn a professional degree in architecture. While raising her kids, she kept herself sane by drawing portraits—mostly of other people’s kids—and did some fine art and scientific illustration. Upon completion of her maternal duties, she discovered that all of her architect- brain-cells had died, so she turned to drawing and painting full-time—FOR other people’s kids—and hasn’t looked back since.
Her debut picture book, HENNY (Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books), will be released in early January. She recently signed a contract for a new picture book, due out in 2015, about a little pig named Peddles, also with Simon & Schuster.
Elizabeth is represented by Joanna Volpe of New Leaf Literary & Media in New York, and is a member of SCBWI International, and SCBWI Western Washington.
Visit her at PensPaperStudio.com, her blog, or follow her on Twitter @penspaperstudio.
Elizabeth is giving away a signed copy of HENNY once it’s released!
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 Todd McQueen
Two weeks ago, I delivered the final art and text of my first picture book, BOB AND ROB AND CORN ON THE COB, to my publisher. What a great feeling that is; years and years of hard work—and a lot of frustration—finally coming that much closer to fruition. Looking back, I see that the trouble comes not from where to find inspiration, or how to get inspired, or even whether an idea is good or bad—but from knowing whether an idea is ready yet, and if I get into it, will it float?
After all, an idea is like a boat we intend to take to sea on a long journey. That boat should be sturdy, because the conditions can get rough, and sometimes the progress won’t be easy, and we’ll have to fight just to stay upright. There’s a lot riding in that boat, and we have to know (or at least believe) it won’t fall apart in the middle of the ocean at the first sign of adversity.
Now, I wish I could tell you that I had this image in mind all along, and my journey to publication was smooth and quick because I had spent the time developing that idea to its fullest potential. But no, I learn lessons the hard way, and equipped with only a title, I started swimming, figuring that the boat would get built as we went along. But it’s hard to build a boat while you try to sail it, so I had lots of problems, and things would fall apart, and I’d have to stop and rebuild, then sail a little further until things fell apart again… and again and again.
But because of these setbacks, I have a better perspective now. I see the creative mind as a shipyard and a harbor, and both should be a busy place. There should always be ships being built, (and built well, regardless of how long it takes), and the harbor should be full of them, ready for assignment, worthy of the challenge that lies ahead. And maybe, if I can get into the mindset that it is always picture book idea month, that today is the day for ideas, if I can learn from the mistakes I made during the journey of this first project, then I just might get to make a few more books before I die. And that, dear friends, would make for a very happy ending.
Todd McQueen is a graphic designer and illustrator living in Phoenix, Arizona… which is strange if you consider the maritime theme of this article. His first picture book, BOB AND ROB AND CORN ON THE COB, will be released in May 2014 with Sky Pony Press. You can visit Todd, and meet some of his friends on his Facebook page, or on his website McQueenBros.com.
Todd will give away one copy of the collaborative schedule planner book he had a hand in creating, BE IN CHARGE see BeInChargeofYou.com). For every 50 comments after the first 50, he’ll add another book. Todd will give away up to 5 books, if he gets at least 250 comments.
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 Drew Daywalt
My muse can be a capricious, nasty little thing. A strangely seductive homunculus, she will appear one day for no reason at all, like a rush of air. She’ll fill my head with a zoo-full of creative thoughts, sometimes stay for another day or two so that I can express the idea into the acorn of a manuscript or an outline, and then disappear before I wake the next morning without so much as a note on my pillow.
It’s okay that she does this, because like all forms of inspiration, she’s fleeting. And once the inspiration is gone, then begins the hard work of building, letter by letter, sentence by sentence, a creative construct that, when done, hopefully recreates the same rush of excitement that I originally felt at the moment of inspiration.
It’s a hard dragon to chase, this moment of inspiration. I’ve given up to the fact that I can’t control it any more than I can control the wind. It comes, it breezes through, and it’s gone again. To continue the metaphor, the only thing I can do is put myself in a place where I know the wind blows.
That’s why, years ago, I created a sort of man-cave-writing room, almost Victorian in it’s styling, but with a fantasy twist, because I love fantasy and horror and really any form of escapist delights. I blame this love on Friday night monster movies from my childhood and all those Dr. Seuss and Sendak and Dahl books I read as a kid. Those other worlds were always so much more interesting than mine. I wanted to be a world builder.
And this writer’s cave has all manner of masks, talismans, tokens and souvenirs from my travels. I love travel. Travel inspires me, and little reminders of travel inspire me just as much. These things I would collect were items that I’d picked up around the world that inspired me at the moment I found them – a goddess idol in Bolivia, a handmade wooden toy from Tuscany, a tribal mask from the Pacific Islands, even a beer stein from Cologne. Worldly trophies and artifacts, representing other peoples’ moments of creative inspiration. I would find these things in some market or stall in some faraway land, I’d pick them up and hold them, and I’d feel the inspiration from the creator, and I’d take it home. I’d store that inspiration in this room, this writer’s cave. As years went by, I even began adding fascinating props and creatures from my films to this bizarre menagerie. I’d fill the room with amazing, strange little curios that would give me the same rush that I felt when I’d first encountered them.
And more often than not, sitting in my cave, waiting for the muse to strike, staring at these strange little items, I would feel the rush of an idea. Like a small breeze. A wind through my mind.
And I would close my eyes and know that my muse had arrived.
Drew Daywalt is the author of THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers and named an Amazon Best Children’s Book of 2013. Find him on Twitter @DrewDaywalt.
by Paul Schmid
I think, therefore I am stuck.
Or, how I tell my brain to shut up so I can be creative.
Joseph Conrad once asserted that thinking is “…a destructive process, a reckoning of the cost. It is not the clear-sighted who lead the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm mental fog.”
In my 30 years experience as a conceptual artist, I too have observed that more ideas come to me seemingly as a gift from my intuition rather than directly from mental effort.
In fact, I often think thinking to be a hindrance to creating.
I am fond of my brain, and it serves me well for most things, but it does have the habit of quickly pointing out the problems and inconsistencies in my ideas. It also asks annoying questions, and is quick to doubt. It often unfairly compares my efforts to others, sometimes telling me rather bluntly that I am stupid and have no business doing what I am doing.
When I am beginning to search for fresh ideas, the last thing I need to hear are problems and limits (however correct my brain may be). Problems can be solved creatively, but first you must allow yourself to create the problem.
Creating is yearning, hoping, dreaming. Thinking is grounded, practical. When I am using my intuition, I am not listening to my rational head, but it’s more clever brother, the impulsive gut.
While the head doubts, the gut is eager to believe.
Brains like rules and order. Rules are dull. Obeying rules will not cause my manuscript to leap off the slush pile. As Susan Sontag remarked: “The only interesting ideas are heresies.”
My brain also tends to grasp at solutions, with a lazy preference for the first solution that shows up. But as a reader myself, I find surprises more deeply satisfying than solutions.
While creating stories I am often confronted with the power struggle between my gut and my brain. Since I use my brain most of the time, and am rational much of the day, it jumps first in line to help. It likes to be helpful. So, over the years I’ve acquired some tricks to lull my rational brain to passivity whilst inspiring my intuition to flow.
Have some pie and take a nap.
Thomas Edison was said to have sat in an armchair with two pie tins placed directly below the arms. In his hand he held two ball bearings. While keeping whatever project he was working on in his mind, he endeavored to nap. As he drifted into a relaxed state, his mind would begin to wander and flow in non-linear directions. Then as he became drowsy enough, his hands would relax their grip on the ball bearings, which dropped, clattering on the pie tins and rousing Edison. He would then immediately write down whatever thoughts he had at that time. It was his sneaky way of accessing his subconscious. It actually has a name: Hypnagogia.
I will sometimes set a timer for 20 minutes, lay on my couch and drift off thinking of any current project’s roadblocks. My thoughts will gradually begin to get wacky and unrestrained. Sometimes quite unexpected solutions will just flow by.
Deny you have a problem.
When ideas aren’t flowing like… umm… whatever flows really well… the frustration can cause flow to stop. The mind gets involved because I am having problems and the mind loves to solve problems.
I then persuade myself that what I am really doing is simply waiting for an idea to show up. I find my intuition is rather demure. It does not flow smoothly, but resists order and regularity. I must have patience, then pounce when it ventures out. The following are some ways I do that.
Sneak up on it.
When I’m feeling stuck, I will put a project aside and move on to another. After a while, and when I am mentally involved in this new set of problems, I will suddenly go back to thinking of my original problem. A fresh idea will often present itself, as if it was really there all the time, but wearing an invisibility cloak.
Take a hike.
I am certain that physical activity confounds linear thinking. My own train of thought will get befuddled while I am moving about, apparently unable to walk and chew ideas at the same time.
So when stuck, I get away from my desk and take a walk. Or make tea. Or fold laundry. And while my poor logical brain is overburdened and struggling, my intuition begins to frolic. Archimedes may have gotten his eureka’s in his bath, but most of mine arrive during a stroll in the neighborhood.
Loosen up.
John Cleese declares: “The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode (of thinking) quicker than anything else.” Just don’t spend too much time watching YouTube videos.
Try to fail.
Perhaps the most radical approach I use to thwart my logical mind set is to deliberately do something reckless so I can sit back smugly and see how bad it is. But many times I find myself putting down the bold solution I somehow knew it needed, but had been too afraid to attempt.
Let it be.
Similar to a flower, ideas can take time to blossom. Be a good gardener: get the dirt on the subject, lightly fertilize with inspirational work by others, firmly plant the seed, and then let things happen in their own sweet time.
I have become convinced that creative thinking is very like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it will be. Which allows me to end with Picasso’s words of caution: “Inspiration exists, but must find you working.”
Paul Schmid is an author and award winning illustrator of children’s books, including OLIVER AND HIS ALLIGATOR, A PET FOR PETUNIA, HUGS FROM PEARL and PERFECTLY PERCY.
In the fall of 2010 Paul was awarded a month-long fellowship with Maurice Sendak.
He lives in Seattle with his wife, Linda, and their daughter Anna.
You can visit him online at PaulSchmidBooks.com.
by Mike Allegra
My mom has a habit of mixing bad news in with the good.
“Happy anniversary,” she joyously sang into the phone. “Ten years! Congratulations!”
Before I could thank her, Mom followed up her salutation with words that were far less joyous:
“I think it’s high time you got your crap out of my house.”
Ugh. In an instant, my plan to use my parents’ home as a storage locker for the rest of my life was dashed to bits.
It was under these circumstances I found myself alone in my old room facing my childhood closet, mustering up the strength to take a reluctant trip down memory lane.
Inside were stacks of sketch pads filled with primitive drawings; old machines I, once upon a time, had a penchant for hoarding; and lousy souvenirs from equally lousy vacations. Then there were the toys—lots of them.
There was so much stuff to sift through, I was confident the job was gonna be a complete nightmare.
But it wasn’t. Quite the opposite, really.
I both smiled and winced at my homemade comic books. After reading a few, I decided that, with a little bit of tweaking (OK, maybe quite a lot to tweaking), the storylines weren’t a bad jumping off point for a new story.
I marveled at the bigger-than-a-bread-basket adding machine I got from my Great Uncle Bill. By force of habit, I removed the machine’s olive green Bakelite cover to reveal its steampunky guts. It was almost comical just how many moving parts it had. I punched a few numbers and watched the thing spring to life. In that moment, my mind filled with ideas about a kid inventor.
Then I spied my Erector set.
Shortly after this discovery, Mom strolled into the room to check on my progress. What she found was her 30-something-year-old son lying on the floor constructing a racecar of his own design.
She didn’t even blink.
“Good,” Mom said with a sharp nod. “You’re taking that home.”
Indeed I was. The Erector set, the other toys, the machines, and my primitive doodles. I was taking all of it. I had barely begun working on my closet and my brain was already swimming with new ideas.
Toys facilitate play. Play is an essential component of the creative process. There is a reason why social scientists say that The Creative Spirit flourishes in kindergarteners and begins to sputter once those same children head off to middle school. As we grow up, we voluntarily—eagerly—purge the fun stuff from our lives.
That was certainly the case with me. I still remember being a 12-year-old who desperately wanted to be an adult. I gave away most of the stuff that had once given me pleasure and shoved the rest into the far corner of my closet. I thought these actions would speed the growing up process; instead, they just made me a sullen teen with an un-fun room.
With age comes a sort of wisdom, however. Almost in tandem with the launch of my professional writing career, I began to rekindle my interest in toys. I soon noticed that my best ideas occurred when I was horsing around with a hand puppet or had a box of 64 Crayolas within arm’s reach.
Unrestrained, unselfconscious play moves my mind in new directions; moving my mind in new directions helps me to discover new ideas.
I am well aware that a lot of grownups don’t feel comfortable playing with an erector set without a grownup reason for doing so. Fortunately, many of us have children—or if we don’t, we can easily borrow some. Kids need Quality Time, and Quality Times gives us the justification we need to build with Legos, squish Play-Doh, and color Snoopy green.
You couldn’t ask for a better situation. You’re being a good parent and you’re mining for inspiration. You’re multitasking! Well done.
That kind of multitasking was exactly what I had in mind when I loaded up the trunk of my car outside of Mom’s house. I’ll bring this stuff home to my young son, I thought. We’ll play with it together. We’ll pretend together. And, in so doing, my little guy will become my unwitting picture book collaborator.
It doesn’t get more inspiring—or wonderful—than that.
Mike Allegra has earned his living as a writer and editor for the past 17 years. His first picture book, SARAH GIVES THANKS, was released in September 2012 by Albert Whitman & Company. The book has earned a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, is an Amelia Bloomer List selection, and is now in its second printing.
As a playwright, Mike has had his work read and performed around the U.S. and was the recipient of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship. He is also the editor of The Lawrentian, the alumni magazine of The Lawrenceville School (Lawrenceville, NJ). During his tenure, The Lawrentian has won a dozen regional and national awards, including Gold and Silver honors from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Mike also likes waffles.
Visit him at MikeAllegra.com.
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 