Last Monday I had the pleasure of speaking at the Abbotsleigh Literary Festival. I was a little nervous prior to the event as I was going to present Get a Grip, Cooper Jones for the first time and wasn't sure how Cooper would be received. I felt like the mother of a kindi student about to send her precious child off for his first day at school. Will the other kids be kind? Will he make any friends? Will the kids like him as much as I do?
As is often the case, I need not have worried. Cooper held his own and I had numerous students milling around me after my sessions asking the question author's love to hear: "Where can I buy the book?"
It was a wonderful event, the students were fantastic and I had a great time.
During one session, I had a question from a student (Miriam) that I couldn't think of an answer for at the time and I promised to think about it and get back to her. The question was: "If you could be a character from any book, who would you be?"
I have been mulling over this ever since and I haven't yet been able to come up with a female character that I sincerely would want to be. This troubles me slightly.
If I look to my own books, I think I would want to be Sasha from A Strange Little Monster because she has a kind heart, but is also strong and courageous and true to herself. If I look elsewhere in Children's Literature, I guess I am partial to Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series - for similar reasons, and also because of her intelligence.
When I look to adult literature, I really can't get past Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. I love Atticus because of his honesty and integrity.
I'm sure there are plenty of wonderful characters out there that I have overlooked. Any ideas? (Thanks for the great question, Miriam.)
Tomorrow is the first day of Book Week, and to mark the week, I have set myself the task of writing a blog post about each school/library I visit. Book Week is exhausting at best, so I'm not sure if I will be up for the challenge, but I will give it my best shot.
Congrats to all the winners in the CBCA Book of the Year Awards - especially the wonderfully talented bunch from Walker Books : Glenda Millard, Rebecca Cool, Sally Murphy and Heather Potter. You rock, gals!
Happy Book Week everyone!
Showing posts with label A Strange Little Monster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Strange Little Monster. Show all posts
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
The Three Ps of Publishing - Part 2
This week my Aussie Nibble, A Strange Little Monster, illustrated by Stephen Michael King, will be released. YAY! And this release provides me with my second example of the three Ps of Publishing at work.
This story started with a first line that just popped into my head:
"In all of Grotty Hollow, there was no stranger little monster than Sasha."
I had no idea where the line came from, but it immediately intrigued me and I wanted to know more about this strange little monster. What made her strange? How did she cope with her strangeness?
A Strange Little Monster started out as a picture book manuscript and I honestly felt that this was the "one" - the one that publishers were going to be falling over themselves to publish. I was sadly mistaken. I sent the manuscript to eight publishers, and eight publishers rejected it. (This was in 2002/2003.)
But I was not deterred! (Cue: PERSEVERANCE.) I reworked the manuscript as a chapter book, a short story, a reader ... I sent it back out into the world and again it was rejected. (And I was sorely dejected, I have to say.) So I put the manuscript in my bottom drawer where all lonely homeless manuscripts go, and got on with other projects.
Five years later (cue: PATIENCE), I stumbled across it quite by accident and had another read. Hey, I think this could work as an Aussie Nibble, I thought. I pulled out my previous chapter book version, and with clear eyes and five years further writing experience behind me, I could see its flaws - and there were many! I could also see just what it needed to work in this format. So I set to work, and as they say, the rest is history!
When I was a primary school teacher, come September/October of each school year, I often found myself worrying that my students weren't making enough progress. At this point, I would always go back and look at examples of their work from the beginning of the year, and nine times out of ten, I would discover that they had indeed made loads of progress.
I often feel this way with my writing. Am I progressing? Is my writing getting stronger? Am I doing enough to improve my craft? It is so hard to know and often I find that writing seems to be getting harder for me rather than easier. (I suspect this might be because I am being increasingly harder on myself.)
Fortunately, the rewriting of A Strange Little Monster really brought home to me that yes, my writing has benefited from the years of PRACTICE. All that writing and reading and thinking and workshopping and analysing and critiquing has paid off. Like my primary school students, I have, thankfully, progressed. When I looked at my original manuscript, five years on, I could see why it was rejected. It simply wasn't strong enough. It started off relatively strongly, but wobbled into a meandering middle and fell splat into a limp ending. And it was a wonderful experience for me to rework it to a point that it was accepted rather than rejected!
So the lesson for me with this book is to never give up and to continue to practise my craft: to read and read and read; and write and write and write. It is, I believe, the only path that leads to PUBLICATION.
Oh, and by the way, that opening line that I loved and adored - I gave it the chop! It didn't work for the Aussie Nibble chapter book genre.
This story started with a first line that just popped into my head:
"In all of Grotty Hollow, there was no stranger little monster than Sasha."
I had no idea where the line came from, but it immediately intrigued me and I wanted to know more about this strange little monster. What made her strange? How did she cope with her strangeness?
A Strange Little Monster started out as a picture book manuscript and I honestly felt that this was the "one" - the one that publishers were going to be falling over themselves to publish. I was sadly mistaken. I sent the manuscript to eight publishers, and eight publishers rejected it. (This was in 2002/2003.)
But I was not deterred! (Cue: PERSEVERANCE.) I reworked the manuscript as a chapter book, a short story, a reader ... I sent it back out into the world and again it was rejected. (And I was sorely dejected, I have to say.) So I put the manuscript in my bottom drawer where all lonely homeless manuscripts go, and got on with other projects.
Five years later (cue: PATIENCE), I stumbled across it quite by accident and had another read. Hey, I think this could work as an Aussie Nibble, I thought. I pulled out my previous chapter book version, and with clear eyes and five years further writing experience behind me, I could see its flaws - and there were many! I could also see just what it needed to work in this format. So I set to work, and as they say, the rest is history!
When I was a primary school teacher, come September/October of each school year, I often found myself worrying that my students weren't making enough progress. At this point, I would always go back and look at examples of their work from the beginning of the year, and nine times out of ten, I would discover that they had indeed made loads of progress.
I often feel this way with my writing. Am I progressing? Is my writing getting stronger? Am I doing enough to improve my craft? It is so hard to know and often I find that writing seems to be getting harder for me rather than easier. (I suspect this might be because I am being increasingly harder on myself.)
Fortunately, the rewriting of A Strange Little Monster really brought home to me that yes, my writing has benefited from the years of PRACTICE. All that writing and reading and thinking and workshopping and analysing and critiquing has paid off. Like my primary school students, I have, thankfully, progressed. When I looked at my original manuscript, five years on, I could see why it was rejected. It simply wasn't strong enough. It started off relatively strongly, but wobbled into a meandering middle and fell splat into a limp ending. And it was a wonderful experience for me to rework it to a point that it was accepted rather than rejected!
So the lesson for me with this book is to never give up and to continue to practise my craft: to read and read and read; and write and write and write. It is, I believe, the only path that leads to PUBLICATION.
Oh, and by the way, that opening line that I loved and adored - I gave it the chop! It didn't work for the Aussie Nibble chapter book genre.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
How gorgeous is this?
This is the cover for my Aussie Nibble, A Strange Little Monster, out in June 2010. Pretty gorgeous, isn't it? Stephen Michael King is a bit of a genius, don't you think?I have only seen his roughs for the internal illustrations so far - but they made me laugh out loud! He has created some pretty zany monsters for Grotty Hollow. Nothing like the monsters I imagined - but, oh, so much better!
Can't wait to share this one with kids.
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