Suddenly This Is A Familiar Story

Teacher/author/blogger Monica Edinger's book, Africa Is My Home, was recently included in a a New York Times Book Review column, 
a very positive response for a first book. But as Monica said in a comment to yesterday's post, Africa Is My Home is another picture book that took thirteen years to write, sell, and publish.

My observance of Picture Book Month is ending on an unexpected note. These stories of the realities facing picture book authors coming one after another like this are inspiring/reassuring for people well into a writing life. But I'm left wondering if people outside writing realize this is the way publishing can work. I think there's an understanding that it's a hard field to break into, but I'm not sure how many people know that just breaking in isn't necessarily getting you "in" to anything. At any stage in their careers, writers can find themselves with a decade or more of work and hurry up and wait on one project or another.

So my Picture Book Month is ending with a detour away from picture books themselves to a little coverage of the picture book writing life.

You'd Better Be Able To Work A Long Time

Earlier this week, I told you about Melissa Stewart (NESCBWI colleague, by the way) sticking with a book project for ten years. Then I heard about Anne Broyles (whom I also know) working on Arturo and the Navidad Birds for thirteen years.

Now I'm thinking that this should be the test for any project a writer is considering taking on: Do you think you could work on this for at least a decade, maybe more?

A Picture Book Artist's Obsession

The new issue of The Horn Book includes an article by Leonard Marcus called Northward Bound: The Picture Book Art of Isol. Isol recently won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in children's and young adult literature.

Yes, she's notable for that reason. But what I found interesting about her was this bit from Marcus: "The two most celebrated Argentinian writers of the twentieth century--Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar--share with Isol what the artist, in a conversation I had with her in Stockholm this May, spoke of as an Argentinian obsession with the role of chance in every aspect of life."

There's something I don't hear about at many SCBWI events.

December Connecticut Children's Literature Calendar

December is a slower month for author appearances than I recall it being last year. We do have two illustration exhibits continuing, though.

The Art of Picture Books: Creative Process In Visual Storytelling continues this month at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven's Sumner McKnight Crosby, Jr. Gallery, New Haven, Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM

 The Maurice Sendak Memorial Exhibition continues at the New Britain Museum of American Art.

Thurs., Dec. 5, Peter Lerangis, R. J. Julia Booksellers, Madison 4:00 PM

Sat., Dec. 7 Deborah Freedman, Byrd's Books, Bethel 2:00 PM

Tues.,  Dec. 10 Yevgeniya Yeretskaya, R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, 10:30 AM Story Time

Fri., Dec. 13, Chris Grabenstein, R. J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, 4:00 PM

Sun., Dec. 15, Adrienne Werle-Austermann, Byrd's Books, 1:00 PM

How Long Can You Work On Something?

Years ago, I met a guy in a hiking group whose wife had just had a baby. When he heard I wrote children's books, he said his wife was considering writing some children's books while she was home childrearing, to generate some extra income. I didn't know how to respond to that.

If only I'd had Melissa Stewart's timeline to publication for her picture book No Monkeys, No Chocolate. Ten years, folks. Ten years. You can be home with a lot of kids in that time.

Keep in mind that Melissa has written and published many books. Many,  many. And many of them were written and published during the ten year period she was working on No Monkeys, No Chocolate. Projects must be juggled. Sometimes for a long time.

Time Management Tuesday: A Case Study In Situational Time Management

I've written here frequently about situational time management and the need to constantly adapt how we manage time to the new situations writers (and all people who work for themselves) are always finding themselves in. Last week author Laurie Calkhoven wrote at Smack Dab in the Middle
about authors who work regularly for hire and their need to set criteria for the jobs they'll take on.  But I think her post also was a case study in how a writer's work situation can change and how rapidly it can change.

During a period when Laurie was working on a book of her own, she was offered a freelance job with a deadline that was only a month away. She accepted the job on a Friday, meaning her work situation for the next four weeks had suddenly changed dramatically. Then on Saturday she became ill. On Monday she had to quit the job she had accepted only three days before. Suddenly, her work situation had changed again.

I usually write here about more modest situational changes for writers: dropping everything to respond to a request for a proposal or an appearance inquiry or having to dedicate time to promotion, for instance, instead of generating new work. (Reactive vs. creative time.) But authors who do work for hire face these more extreme situational changes. Early this fall a Facebook friend posted about having just accepted a writing project with a Thanksgiving deadline and last spring I met an author/illustrator who had accepted a job that meant her next two years would be tied up illustrating another person's books. These are changes in work situation that can be sudden and intense, and the use of the author's time while in those situations has a big impact on their work output.

More Gender Issues With Picture Books

Last month I posted here about Barbara McClintock's presentation at UConn on the imbalance between the number of women illustrators in children's publishing and the number of women who win the Caldecott Medal. They dominate the profession but have only won 22% of the Medals, according to McClintock's figures.

Today author Laurel Snyder has a post at her blog relating to the Goodreads Best Picture Book of 2013 nominees, which are almost all written by men. (In defense of the list, this is the final round. There were more titles originally, though I have no idea how well women were represented.) She points out that the Goodreads' final round list was made by Goodreads' readers (after voting on that earlier list.) The earlier list that the final round list came from may have been determined through some kind of popularity figures available to Goodreads from its readers.

Laurel asks, "WHAT’S GOING ON? Do men actually just make better picture books than women? Do men get better marketing and publicity budgets than women for picture books?  Or… as I’m beginning to fear… do we, the (largely) women who buy and blog about picture books have a tendency to elevate books by men?"

She then lists picture books published by women this past year, recommended to her by readers posting in comments.

If you are a children's litblogger who belongs to the Kidlitosphere community, that group has been discussing this issue today at its listserv.

The Weekend Writer: Picture Book Edition II

Earlier this month, I offered my limited knowledge of picture book writing. This weekend I can direct you to a couple of blog posts that will offer you more. They're both at Writers' Rumpus, and they're both written by Joyce Audy Zarins.

Why Thirty-two Pages? deals with the length of picture books, at least in terms of pages, not word count.

3 Ways to Pace Your Picture Book is a very meaty piece of writing on pace, how drawn out or rapid  writing feels when being read.

Oh, Look. An Article About A Picture Book With "Adult Appeal"

The current issue of The Horn Book includes an article called Hey, Al and the Choice by Kathleen T. Horning. Hey, Al, illustrated by Richard Egielski and written by Arthur Yorinks, won the Caldecott in 1987, even though it is, according to Horning, "clearly an adult's fantasy."

The entire article deals with the issue of Hey, Al being signaled out for an award for children's books when its protagonist is an adult. Horning says, "...I'm not sure it's a completely satisfying story for children. Essentially, it's a retelling of their mentor's masterpiece, Where the Wild Things Are, told from the perspective of a middle-aged man."

It's not a definitive article on picture books for adults, in general. Think of it more as a variation.

Writer Talk

I often hear that networking is one of the big side benefits of any professional gathering. Wheeling and dealing and making connections with people who can help you is supposed to lead to all kinds of good things. Intellectually I get that. Practically speaking, you could make an argument that I don't even know what networking is. Though I do know not to follow editors or agents into an elevator or public restroom and "network" with them there. I've heard about that happening at professional writer gatherings, too.

Yes, I'm one of those folks who tries to time her arrival and departure at events so as to get as little of the meet and greet and fun evening stuff as possible. What I do really like at a writer gathering, though, are the bits and pieces of writer talk you pick up at odd moments. Examples from this past weekend's retreat:

Essays

On Friday night I met a writer who is also an Episcopal minister.She's working on a YA historical novel dealing with a Biblical figure. (I'm thinking maybe something like Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean.) We got into a discussion of sermons (of which she has written many) as essays. She pointed out that the formal essays of the nineteenth century involved making arguments, whereas many ministers today use story in their essay/sermons. (Creative nonfiction?) Church attendance, she said, is supposed to be a transformative experience. (Now that I think about it, I believe I've read that reading is supposed to be, or often is, a transformative experience.) She wondered if an essay developed as a story would be as transforming as an essay developed around an argument created to convince listeners. Seriously, if you're into essays, this kind of discussion is golden.

On-line Research

 

On Saturday morning, a writer in my critique group told us about using YouTube for research. She's working on a book that is set, in part, in China, and she found YouTube videos of Chinese factories. Just what she needed. This is marvelous news. Need some convincing? Laura Hillenbrand, who suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome and is extremely limited in how far she can travel and how long she can work, researched Seabiscuit on eBay. Before she wrote the book, Seabiscuit memorabilia was dirt cheap. The Internet is also golden.

Public Readings (Like Talking)

Saturday night, we had a sort of open mic night, with volunteers doing short readings for the group. We're gathering beforehand, and I start thinking, Oh, shoot. I keep forgetting. I don't like listening to readings. Should I run? But readings are much more enjoyable when you know some of the readers. And the readings are very short. And there's cake. Something to keep in mind.

The Hero's Journey Conversation

Finally, on Sunday morning I was walking to our meeting room with an editor, and we're talking about the hero's journey. The hero's journey freaks me out because of all the steps and charts associated with it. So I was telling her about a Salon essay I read in which the author argued that the hero's journey was a cliche, particularly in movies and YA literature, and that viewers and readers are getting tired of it. The editor said something along the lines of, "Oh, I totally disagree. The whole point of the hero's journey is that, if done properly, it fits every story. It's just more obvious in some than in others." Now, she didn't make me a believer in the ol' journey of the hero by any means. (Did you look at those charts?) But what struck me about that conversation was that it was a conversation.

Why Writer Talk Matters

So much of what I take in about writing, my work, is through reading. I don't get anyone else's take on it, because a writer can go a long time without being with another writer. And then you've got to find another writer who has read the same piece you read and cared enough about it to file some memory of it away. I like to think I'm a moderately analytical person with a data base of writing knowledge to apply to anything I read. But it's still just me, me, me. It's really quite marvelous to hear someone say something about the things I've been thinking about, even if I don't agree with it.