Wednesday Q & J: April 19, 2023
Q: What do you love most when you’re writing about each of the different genres of children’s books?
J: That’s a tough question, but first let me tell you what I love about all of them: that first burst of an idea, the first words I put down. Of course, then there is a long slog where I might have a thrill here or there when something comes together. But when it is finished the first time, I am in love with the piece……Until I re-read it. And then it is slog time again. Good books are re-written, not just written.
Poems, because they are shorter, have all that condensed. But a good poem, like a good picture book, delivers on the promise of the opening at the end.
Picture books–when I get an idea, I want to sit right down and write the whole thing all at once. But I know from long experience that a picture book can take as long as a single sitting or twenty years (How Do dinosaurs Say Goodnight was written as a poem in a single sitting for an editor’s child who hated to go to bed and loved dinosaurs and the editor told me it was a book. Truly! Owl Moon took twenty years to write–it was a family story of ours and I had trouble deciding who was going to be the narrator, among many other things.). So, I no longer get depressed if it not a one—sitter. But what I love about picture books the most is they are usually totally lyrical, condensed, and end with a big pow or revelation at the end.
What I love about writing novels is the surprise every few pages when something seems to reveal itself to me. I am not a plotter, but the kind of writer who (especially in novels) flies into the mist. And the surprise of what always seems to happen at the end is my favorite part.