THE FIRST BOOK'S BIRTH

What's it called again?
The first picture book I wrote remained title less for quite some time. It wasn't till about a week before I was due to send it off to the writing competition that it got itself a title. I couldn't think of one at all but luckily Rhian came to the rescue and garnished me with a lovely title. I really like the title because there are lots of words and its detailed. That sounds a bit odd, but it sounds slightly older, like a book from 60 years ago or something. Anyway, its title is 'The Day the World Turned White'. A simple story of a boy who knows there are no such things as monsters creeping up the stairs and bogey men hiding in his wardrobe and when he wakes up at 4am one morning, something he has never done before (yes I know parents, if only that were true!), he's determined to stay calm and think of a logical explanation for why there is nothing outside his window but white.

Structure
It's pretty simple in its structure and repetitive in rhythm. I always remember books like that being good for that transition period between being read to, reading with, and then reading alone. So it's a slightly younger audience that the book is aimed at as such, but what does it matter what age group reads it? As an avid reader still of picture books, I'm hardly about to start pigeon holing my potential audience. I noticed I'm not the only one to think like that thankfully. Half of the authors/illustrators in 'The Magic Pencil' think the same thing http://www.amazon.co.uk/Magic-Pencil-Childrens-Illustration-Today/dp/0712347704/ref=pd_sim_b_4


Hacker
The text on this book has actually changed quite a bit now I've come to illustrate it. It's amazing how small an amount of words you need if you've got pictures. So I became quite a harsh critic for my over wordy story (when I originally did my very first draft of this book it came in at 1700 words, when actually I was after 700 or less!) and hacked the poor thing to pieces. It thanked me for it in the end.