Let's Ask - Question 11

This week's Let's Ask question 
was for the lovely Carter Higgins!

Me- What advice would you give to an aspiring picture book writer/illustrator who wants to turn their hobby into a career?

CH- First, HI! Fun to be here today, Jen, thanks for having me!

   I love this first question because at first glance it seems irrelevant to anyone who is unpublished. Which I am! But then I started to think about the differences between a hobby and a career...and I think the traits that bind and slice the two are ambition and discipline.

Sure, I have goals in my hobbies (like the elusive pirouette!) and I work hard and focus on making those goals happen. But the ambition and discipline in driving a career includes necessity. If I can't perfect that darn pirouette, fine. I'll work on a better arabesque instead. When it comes to cultivating my career as a picture book writer, I absolutely just have to do it. It's a part of me, deep inside, completely attached to every cell in my body and each beat of my heart.

So while hobbies and careers are fluid in their 'job description,' turning your hobby into your career takes stone cold desire. If you can't separate that hobby from who you are, if they are so stuck together that you just can't NOT do it? Welcome to your new career. The clichéd advice that's jumbled around in all of that is to just do it. Here's a story for you of what that might look like...

Me- Have you had any personal experiences that you now know should have been avoided or have you had any important revelations on your journey that you could share?

CH- It was the winter of 2002 (or maybe 2003?!), and I was a school library media specialist. My roommate and I were snowed in, and so we wrote. Any subject, any style, just whatever came to mind. We had never done anything like this before, so it still strikes me as the beginning of some serious kismet. Of course, since I was a librarian, I knew everything about writing picture books. Right?

Ha.

I had some good instincts and ideas, but I had no idea what I was doing. I thought it was the greatest creation of all time. It was so amazing that I never even tried to write another manuscript. That over-800-word-entirely-written-in-limericks (seriously) manuscript sat on my computer collecting digital dust until last summer. I found out about SCBWI and just weeks before the summer conference in LA signed up for a roundtable manuscript consultation. That was the greatest decision ever made on a whimsy. The agent wrote smily faces on it and called it 'unique' and 'fresh,' even though the story was a clearly a dud.

The positive feedback was exhilarating though, which was a comforting realization that I was doing all the right things to learn about this industry, and also taking the time to get serious about my craft. This is where I took a long forgotten hobby and began shaping it into a career. In the year since, I've completely rewritten this little piece of history, and when I'm ready to begin submitting, this is not-so-secretly the one I love the most.

So the revelation here is twofold. You have to spend time on your craft in order for it to be fruitful. I'm not sure what I expected an eight year drought to produce. And also, there will still be some duds along the way. Ask me about the story I wrote from the perspective of a shoebox banjo. Huh? Exactly.

Me- Also, why is the book, The Stinky Cheese Man such an inspiration to you?

CH- This question makes my toenails smile.

I got this book sometime in the fuzzy years between high school and college, and carried a copy with me each time I made a move in those years. It's college, and temporary is the name of the game, so that was a lot of STINKY CHEESE MAN packing and unpacking.

I don't have strikes of lightning to prove it, but I really think that this book carved both of my main careers. The book drove me to be a librarian, to read rowdy stories with little ones, and to marvel at the intricacies of the book, its characters and its innards. And then later, with a more developed sense of design, I started to notice how the design of this book helps tell its stories. There's the page with the text getting smaller and smaller and smaller until you can't even read it. There's the title page that's upside down and my brain instantly perks up: why the heck is it upside down but that's hilarious and I don't even care why but I'll strain my neck anyway.

This book is just everything I love about stories and words and graphic design.

And it took 10 months, but I finally have both Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith's autographs. Such a treasure.

Carter Higgins is a motion graphics designer and a former elementary school librarian. When she is not creating graphics for TV, writing picture books, or making book trailers, Carter teaches design courses in color, layout, and composition, as well as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects. All of these interests combine in her blog at http://designofthepicturebook.com/, or you can find her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/carterhiggins.

Thanks for your visit!

Let's Ask - Question 10

This week's Let's Ask question was for the talented Rena J.Traxel.

RJT- Thanks Jenn for having me on your blog today.


Me- Hi Rena! I'm so glad you agreed to help me out - thanks so much for the fantastic answers.

Me- You are a writer of more than one genre. Would you advise others to try to write in a totally different genre to improve their craft ? If so, why would that be constructive? 

RJT- YES! Take a look at the books on your shelves. I bet you that some of the books you own mix genres and form.  The Wolves of Mercy Falls by Maggie Stiefvater mixes fantasy with romance with a dash of poetry. The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade mixes historical fiction with fantasy. Frankie Pickle series by Eric Wright mixes the graphic novel with the chapter book. Hugo Cabret by Brain Selznick mixes the art of the picture book with the art of a novel.  I could go on. The point is all these books are bestsellers.  Perhaps that picture book, or whatever project you are working on, needs a touch of horror or romance to make it stand out to publishers.  Perhaps your picture book would be better if it was a novel. Studying other genres will help you add in dashes here and there and will likely make your writing better.

Plus dabbling in other genres will help you assess your strengths and weakness. I can’t write romance to save my life unless of course it’s a satirical piece or a poem for a loved one. You will learn what you like to write. Maybe you have knack for writing humour or romance, but you’ll never know if you don’t give it a try.

Me- Which genre do you find to be more challenging to write for? Why?  

RJT- Every writing project comes with its own challenges.  One of the challenges I face is switching between projects. Most of the picture books I write involve animals and pre-school age kids while the novel I’m working on is for eight-and-up and is a fantasy novel/graphic novel hybrid. Going from the mindset of a three year old or a dog, to a mindset of a thirteen year old, or going from a picture book where you don’t typically tell the illustrator what to do to writing a graphic novel where you are suppose to give instructions to the illustrator can be disorienting.  Recently I was working on a concept series involving sounds. While I was writing this series, my novel set on the sidelines because I was stuck in non-fiction mode and couldn’t get into fantasy writing mode.

Writing for adults is much harder than writing for kids, at least when it comes to writing fiction. I find that there is more room for creativity when writing for kids versus adults.  Trying to find the balance between what a parent wants and what a kid wants to read in a picture book can be difficult versus MG novel where I’m only thinking about the kids.  Writing fantasy is much easier than writing non-fiction. I can stretch the truth when writing fantasy, but in non-fiction you have to stick with the facts.

Fantasy of the fairy tale variety is my preferred genre with poetry coming in second. Writing anything outside my preferred genres presents a challenge for two reasons—1) I don’t get enough practice writing in other genres. 2) Most of the books I read fall under the fantasy or poetry genre.

Me- Where does your inspiration come from while writing for children? Older audiences?


RJT- My inspiration comes from three places. 1) From the material I read. I generally like to spend a bit of time reading in a particular genre before writing in it.  I mentioned above that I had a hard time switching from non-fiction to fantasy well this usually doesn’t happen because reading in a genre before writing in it helps get my head in the game.  2) My husband. He is my muse.  I’m constantly bouncing ideas off him, which usually sparks new ideas.  3) Being challenged. Writing to me is about solving a problem akin to algebra (I know I’m one of the few writers out there that actually likes math).  Recently a writing friend posted a picture of basket full of socks. She said something along the lines of I bet you will think of some sort of monster story. Sure enough a week later I had produced a poem about a sock monster.  

Bio: Beware of the fiery haired writer that calls herself Rena J. Traxel. She spends her days brewing up a batch of fantastical stories. She also blogs about writing, shares poetry and downloadable activities @ www.renajtraxel.com

Thank you for your visit today!