Evolving Stories

How does a story evolve? aka Where do you get your ideas? We’ve heard lots of answers, and they all sound pretty convincing. However I think the honest answer from most authors and illustrators (and perhaps the other creative sorts) is that we really have no idea where ideas come from. For me, the only…

Bats Rule!

It was a very long winter and spring working on “work for hire” writing projects along with the usual spring gardening, greenhouse and yard chores. I have eight (8!) books coming out in August, which you can find by searching my name as the author. My latest Boxcar Children Mystery was released in March, which…

Book Design Portfolio

Recently I’ve been doing some design work for a fellow author – a book cover, interior graphics and design, and a bookmark. The project reminded me that I like doing this kind of thing! Maybe someone else will hire me? So I found one lead and they wanted a “design portfolio.” I created one and…

Not the dummy!

I can’t remember the last time someone requested to see a full mechanical for a picture book, also called a mock-up or a book dummy. A mechanical isn’t requested much anymore for a proposed picture book since we submit most of these tentative projects via the internet. A storyboard might be appreciated if the story…

Yay for Lighter Days!

This winter has been busy with contracted projects plus a couple of requested outlines and proposals that also take up a lot of time – hey, here’s to hope! Anyway two of the subjects I’ve written about during these cold, dark, dreary days are pandemics and hurricanes. While the research has been interesting, these are…

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.*

Today I encouraged a friend on Facebook to credit the artist when posting a copyrighted image. It’s just a little quest that I have. Yah I know you found it on a site, or another friend shared it first, but I don’t care. I located the artist and posted the link to their work. To…

All in a Day’s Work

This week I finished a pretty horrifying but interesting proposal that was requested based on a query. Here’s how it works much of the time for nonfiction projects: you pitch an idea to a publisher that is accepting queries only. First you make sure they haven’t done anything like it and yet you feel it…

Spacing out in our space

A friend asked his artist friends to share photos of their work spaces for a presentation he was working on. When I sent him mine, his comment was, “I love ugly offices.” That’s what I have. My office is situated in a dilapidated mobile home across the road from my house. We call the old…

Restoring Old Stuff

What Do They Dream? is one my ideas that’s been rejected by a small number of publishers, most 4-5 years ago. Several rejections were very nice, just “too many dream books.” So after filing it away for a few years, I decided to try to make the text more unique, and continue working on collage…

Sharing Our Stuff

Some of us are old enough to remember what a lonely job this is: creating stuff while sitting in a dark attic using a single candle for light. The family occasionally tossed up a bone and told us to sell something soon or we’d all starve to death. We’d send off our latest brainstorm in…