#Writer & #artist Laura Wilbourn takes us on a #picturebook journey with Asterion's Elixer

When I met Laura Wilbourn at a SCBWI conference a few years back, I was immediately struck, not just by her intelligence and humor, but by the unusual, etherial quality of the picture book she had brought to show everyone she met. When I learned that she was about to publish a new book, Asterion's Elixir, I jumped to invite her to join us here and talk about her process. And look at these wonderful illustrations, which Laura does herself!

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Creating Asterion's Elixir

by Laura Wilbourn

I have always been a fan of imagination. As far back as I can remember, daydreaming has taken precedence over anything that required academic attention. In one recurring daydream that I recall vividly, I had the ability to magically transform myself into a flying unicorn. At the time, I was in first grade at the International School of Bangkok, and in this fantasy, the classroom was on fire. I transformed into a mystical creature that flew through the window and saved my class from the flames. Even though it occurred at such a young age, I feel this daydream was very telling of who I would become as a person and planted a seed from which my children’s books would originate. 

In second grade, my family and I moved back to California. With the option of choosing my own wallpaper for my room, of course I chose unicorns. Between the daydreams and the wallpaper, it may not come as a surprise that my children’s book, Asterion’s Elixir, includes a unicorn! 

Not only is there a unicorn, but a lot of color as well! My ultimate favorite color is blue (with red a very close second). What better place than space to fulfill this color scheme? An interesting fact about another influence in my life at the time I was writing this book: I was taking an astronomy class at Texas State about the stars and galaxies. Reading all that material and seeing all those pictures definitely sparked my mind's adventure into the unknown. This book is unique in that it contains many bright and engaging colored images, but there is an abundance of text as well. This is exactly what I wished for as a ten-year-old girl. I was never satisfied with the illustration-text ratio. It was either a lot of text and few pictures, or it was very little text and so many pictures. How do you solve this dilemma? Make your own children’s book! Make it exactly how you wanted it as a child, so that every part of the inner-child in you is fulfilled. 

Though the influences of this story are easy to distinguish, my process is harder to explain. I don’t have a clear-cut path when I create a book. I do both the writing and the sketching at the same time. However, what is consistent is that the seed of a story begins with a drawing that eventually blossoms into character development. From here, a few more sketches are made which make room for plot development. It is a back and forth movement between the graphic and the literary art, and somehow I end up with a book and illustrations in the end. 

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Learn more about Laura Wilbourn and purchase Asterion's Elixir on her website. Follow her on Facebook.

Fantasy writer Gail Z. Martin shares her secrets for getting a book written

Writing is a very personal activity, and we each do it in our own, idiosyncratic way. My guest this week is fantasy author Gail Z. Martin, whose newest book, Ice Forged: Book One in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga (Orbit Books), launched in January 2013.  Gail is also the author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer series (Solaris Books) and The Fallen Kings Cycle (Orbit Books).  Here she offers some candid thoughts about how she writes.

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A Method to the Madness

Anne asked me to write about my process for writing.

Which made me stop and think: Do I have a process?  And if I do, can I explain it?

Here’s where I wish I could launch into a detailed explanation of my very cool, very “literary” (you have to say that word with a bit of a British accent and separate the syllables so it sounds very upper crust) process of wandering through the woods, listening to classical music and reading philosophy.

Ah, yes.  Ahem.  Except that I don’t really work that way.

Well, sometimes I listen to classical music. 

The reality goes more like this.  I get an idea.  I noodle on the idea while I walk the dogs and do the dishes and drive in traffic.  The idea expands.  I write an outline, which tends to make my agent and editor very happy.

I noodle on the outline and revise it. I start writing, and visualize the scene, so when I’m typing, I’m just transcribing the “movie” I see on the inside of my eyelids.  I keep on going this way, asking, “and then what?” and typing away, often with a glazed look on my face.  Family members complain that they can walk in front of me, speak to me, wave their hands and jump up and down and I don’t notice.  (This used to freak out my college roommates.)

This is especially true when I’m working on something new, like my new book Ice Forged, the first book in a brand new series.  It took a lot of noodling to get to the point where I was clear on where I was going in a whole new world!

I start out each day reading what I wrote the day before and making minor tweaks. I ignore the outline until I get stuck.  Then I dig it out and noodle on it some more.  I print out the first hundred or so pages and read over them, which usually gets me unstuck.  Every couple hundred pages, I’ll read from start to end point, which generates ideas, identifies continuity errors and reassures me that the project is actually turning out well.

Once I reach the end of the first draft, I’ll print it, read it, and mark it up.  Then I give it to my husband, who goes over it again and marks it up some more.  Next, I’ll sit down at the computer and make all the changes, then print it out again and start the reading/mark-up process.  We’ll do this seven or eight times.

Then I’ll turn it in, my editor will read it over and mark it up, and send it back.  I’ll revise.  Then the copy editor will do the same thing.  And I’ll revise.  Finished!

Every writer I talk to has a different process.  Some write in absolute silence, while others need to be in the middle of a busy coffee shop to focus.  Some never read anything they’ve written until the end, others second-guess themselves at nearly every paragraph.  Some writers share their work-in-progress with a writing group or their beta readers.  And judging by the acknowledgements in the front of many books, some writers consult a huge team of experts, researchers and supporters in the process of birthing their book.

So how do YOU write?  There’s no right or wrong—it’s whatever works for you and produces a good outcome.  Does your writing process make you happy, or increase your stress?  Does it improve your productivity or slow you down?  The good news is, if your writing process isn’t working for you, there are lots of other processes you can try on for size until you find the combination that is perfect for you.

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For more about Gail’s books and short stories, visit her website. She's on Twitter @GailZMartin.

Read an excerpt from Ice Forged here.  Purchase Ice Forged at Amazon, BN, and many other sites.

No, No, NaNoWriMo

Happy November 1. I wish you all a happy and productive National Novel Writing Month. Please excuse me if I sit this holiday out.

I often consider why participating in NaNoWriMo is so unappealing to me, when so many writers find it inspiring. And I've decided it's because of the mantra that keeps me writing at least a bit every day:

Anything is better than nothing.

Yes, as a novelist and short story writer, those are the words I live by. If I look at a novel as a 70,000-word monster that needs to be created and cleaned up before it's worth anything, I'd never even start. But if I think of it as a building I can lay one brick at a time (and on really good days, ten bricks), then it seems completely doable.

For me, the very concept of NaNoWriMo makes me feel stress, not motivation. Too much needs to be accomplished in too short a time, so my mantra wouldn't hold up.

So no NaNoWriMo for me, thank you. But that's not to say I'm not working on a novel. In fact, I'm at different stages on two of them: I'm polishing a middle grade historical to ready it for an agent hunt, and I'm doing the revisions my publisher requested for the sequel to Green Light Delivery. I expect to have a very productive November. At my own pace.

And to those of you for whom NaNoWriMo gets your writing engines stoked, I hope it's a fantastic experience and you write up a storm!

Guest blogger: Picture book author Kelly Hashway

Special treat today! Here is the first of what I hope will be a series of guest blog posts. Our inaugural guest is Kelly Hashway, author of the picture book May the Best Dog Win. I asked her to discuss her process for writing picture books.
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First I'd like to thank Anne for having me today and allowing me to share what I've learned about writing picture books. I love to pass along information to other writers since I've been fortunate enough to get help from some very talent and multi-published authors. Pay it forward, right?

There are a few things you really need to keep in mind when writing picture books. Possibly the biggest thing to remember is that every word counts. You would be amazed at how many round of edits my picture book, May the Best Dog Win, went through before it came to print. I learned a lot from the talented editors who worked on the book with me. You have very limited space in a picture book, so you need to tell your story in the best way possible in just about the fewest words possible. You can do this by using specific verbs. What do I mean? One line in my book originally read, "Mom took the rope bone and put it in the garbage." In the final version of the book it reads, "Mom took the rope bone and tossed it in the trash can." There are subtle differences here but the final version more clearly and accurately reflects what takes place in the story; "tossed" and "trash can" are more specific than "put" and "garbage". So be as specific as you possibly can. When you revise, go through every word and make sure it's the best choice for that sentence and for the story as a whole.

Another thing you really need to consider when writing a picture book is the illustrations. I know you're probably thinking, "But I'm a writer, not an illustrator." Yes, that may be true, but as a writer you are only half of the picture book. A picture book is a partnership between the author and the illustrator. The illustrations are telling just as much of the story as the words, and you must allow them to do so. That means you need to give up some control, which isn't always easy for a writer to do. I had to take out certain descriptions because they weren't necessary to the story once the illustrations were in place. It's perfectly fine to write illustrator notes in parentheses to keep yourself from overwriting. I find that very helpful. One trick I learned is to take a well-known picture book and type up the text. Then read the text without looking at the illustrations. It will instantly become clear that the illustrations are telling part of the story. Your text will in some ways seem incomplete without the help of the illustrations, but that's okay.

Like I mentioned before, my book went through several rounds of revisions. And one of those rounds came after my amazing illustrator submitted her illustrations. I had to make changes to accommodate the illustrations. I told you this was a fifty-fifty between the author and illustrator. So be prepared to make adjustments to match your illustrations. You have to remember that the illustrator is the expert on the pictures. Taking their lead and adjusting little things in the text is worth it.

The last bit of advice I'll give you is to remember that kids are smart. They will pick up on the lesson in the story without you having to shove it in their faces. Don't talk down to kids or they will quickly put your story down and move on to something else. Really the most important thing is to have fun. If you enjoy writing your picture book, then it's more likely kids will enjoy reading it.

So there you have some very important lessons to keep in mind when you are writing your picture books. Happy writing!
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You can find Kelly at her blog and buy May the Best Dog Win at Amazon and BN.