Writing for Kids (While Raising Them)

by Mirka Hokkanen

Before we get into the post, I wanted to say thank you for having me, Tara! I’m excited to be back, after my Storystorm post from January.

I launched my first book, MOSSY AND TWEED: Crazy for Coconuts soon after my January post, and have since then launched my second picture book KITTY AND CAT: Opposites Attract, with sequels for each book coming out this month!

In this post I thought I’d answer some questions about creating series and how I manage working on multiple books at the same time. (I also have a third series debuting Feb 2024, that I have been working on alongside these first two.)

Let me give a quick rundown of the series that I’m working on, so we have a point of reference for the rest of the post:

MOSSY AND TWEED: Early reader graphic novels. 4-8 years. Feature two gnomes who have adventures in a forest setting with a cast of animals and magical creatures. Published by Holiday House. Slapstick fun and adventure, easy to read, great for reluctant readers.

KITTY AND CAT: Concept picture books. 2-5 years. Features grumpy Cat and energetic Kitty, doing what cats do best all while teaching us basic concepts like shapes and opposites. Published by Candlewick. Lots of giggles to be had, invites multiple readings, sparse text, lots of story packed into illustrations.

LITTLE SEASONS: Nonfiction picture books. 2-6 years. Funny and informative books about life cycles in nature for little backyard explorers. Published by Odd Dot. Fun, engaging, clear & informative text and illustrations, lots of backmatter for further exploration, works with school STEM curriculum.

How did you create your book series?

I don’t purposefully go in search of series ideas, but all of them turned into series fairly early into their creation. I think for a book to have series potential, it needs to have a strong central character (or characters) with interesting/flawed personalities, so that we can see them in different adventures, and there’s room left for personal growth (think Piggy and Elephant, Olivia, Grumpy Monkey). Or, a series can also evolve around a strong theme, like the Questioneers by Andrea Beaty. All my series fit into one or both of these categories.

I had the idea for MOSSY AND TWEED first. It was a picture book idea, but I didn’t develop it right away, and it sat in my notebook while I had the idea for KITTY AND CAT: Opposites Attract. KITTY AND CAT started out as a funny concept book about opposites with adult cats, but once I decided to add the friendship storyline of a cat and a kitten for depth, and the book became more fleshed out, I felt like one book wasn’t enough from a reader’s point of view. My experience as a reader was, if I find a great concept book for my toddler that we both enjoy reading, with fun characters, I want to learn all the concepts with my kid through these books. So it was a natural progression to create a series with different concepts. When my agent pitched the series, I had a series of four books done, of which two got picked up and we hope that there is a possibility for two or more in the near future.

Once KITTY AND CAT was out on submission and we were waiting on contracts, I pulled Mossy and Tweed out. The book turned from a picture book into a graphic novel and if I remember it was almost ready to pitch when my agent mentioned that it had series potential and we should pitch it as a series.

For the pitch, we had a complete pitch packet with script, dummy etc for MOSSY AND TWEED: Crazy for Coconuts, and then I came up with around five extra story ideas for potential series sequels that were written as brief paragraph summaries.

While I was working on MOSSY AND TWEED, an idea for a book series about different kinds of life cycles that we find in our backyards was bubbling in my head. It came to me more as a series idea, because I was really excited about it and my mind couldn’t help but bounce around to all the possibilities like tadpoles, caterpillars, seeds etc. I love finding interesting facts about things around me and learning new things, and felt like there was a gap in age appropriate nonfiction books about nature that I could read with my (then) 3-year old.

While I was working on the garden cycles idea, and formulating it into a book dummy to pitch, I was working on KITTY AND CAT books, and we pitched, and sold MOSSY AND TWEED books. We pitched the backyard books as a series, but instead of picking butterflies and tadpoles, my editor wanted to go the route of seasons and plants, so we went with seeds from the original pitch and added leaves into the contract.

How did you manage your time working on several book series with different publishers at the same time?

The three book series sold within a year and a half of each other so I had books in various states of completion by the time we signed the last one. As we were negotiating the last contracts, I thought about how much time I needed for each book and we negotiated deadlines so I could slot and finish each book on time. Each deadline had some leeway to extend in case things got tight, and each editor was aware that I had other book commitments at the same time.

I also have three small kids, and in case someone fell and broke their arm or got sick and had to stay home for several weeks, I wanted to make sure that there was wiggle room for emergencies and the unexpected.

My general tactic was to be aware of my deadlines, and slot books around each other. I not only had multiple stages of illustrations going on, but also needed to develop manuscripts. Two of the sequels hadn’t been written when we signed the contract, so I had to write the books before I could start illustrating them. I had a little piece of paper next to my desk with due dates for each book and when things were the most hectic, I kept an Excel sheet of book pages that had checkboxes for when manuscripts, loose sketches, final sketches, and finals were finished and turned in.

Publishing moves sloooow and editors and art directors have many books on their plate. After you turn something in for feedback, it might take months before you hear back. So that would be my time to grab the next book in line and work on a different phase of something else.

I can concentrate and work most efficiently if I work in blocks of time. So I would give myself a deadline to finish something, and then work as hard as I could to meet that deadline, turn that in, and then move onto something else for the next period of time. You have to be self motivated to set and meet those deadlines, and keep things moving along. The bonus was that I could then also communicate those timelines to my editors, so they knew when to expect things from me. And hopefully it would make their job easier and less stressful.

Things were more challenging in the beginning as I was new to publishing, getting to know each publishing team and how they work. Some of them respond quickly and some of them can take months. By the time we got to the second book for each series, it was a bit easier to foresee how long each stage was going to take with each editor and how much time I could slot to work on something else before I could expect to hear back from them.

I think what surprised me a lot was how flexible the deadlines were in the end. We had set deadlines in the contracts, but in a few cases, the publishing team took a very long time to respond and turn around revisions, and projects stretched for months and months with no new deadline set. It made me very unsure in the beginning, because I didn’t know what the expectations were of me when we missed a deadline. Now I know my editors and just roll with it, and do my best to turn things in as quickly as I can when it’s my turn. But even when feedback was taking months, there were so many projects underway, that I’ve  never had to wonder what I’m going to do on a given week.

Closing thoughts…

I feel incredibly lucky to have worked on all these books. My life has been crazy trying to balance it all and I haven’t had a ton of time for creativity outside of trying to finish them up (and book promotions for when they come out). We are just now polishing off the last of the six books with one last round of tweaks (fingers crossed). We haven’t signed for more books in any of the series, but I hope if the books sell well, we’ll have good news in the future.

In the meantime, I have another book to illustrate, and with the new time that is finally opening up on my plate next year I hope to catch my breath and look forward to developing new idea seeds into blossoming book trees. Hooray for Storystorm sweeping in at the perfect time to water those seeds in January!

Congratulations on all your books, Mirka!

Blog readers, Mirka is giving away a copy of each of her new books: MOSSY and TWEED: DOUBLE TROUBLE and KITTY AND CAT: BENT OUT OF SHAPE (US addresses only).

Just leave one comment below to enter and two random winners will be selected at the end of the month.

Mirka Hokkanen is an author and illustrator who loves creating quirky characters. When not writing or illustrating, Mirka loves to knit, sew, be outdoors, make art and hang out with her family. Mirka is also a teacher on Skillshare, a licensing illustrator and a printmaker. Find her online at Mirkah.com. Mirka is posting free downloadable activity and coloring pages for her books around launch days. Find them under the Books tab in the menu on her website. And she is currently hosting a 30-day drawing tutorial series on all her social media channels to celebrate the launch of MOSSY AND TWEED and KITTY AND CAT sequels. You can find all the videos in her playlist at https://bit.ly/drawwithmirka.