Speaking at Schools with Tania McCartney

A warm welcome to Tania McCartney - author, editor, publisher and founder of well-respected children’s literature site, Kids Book Review. 

Besides being an experienced speaker, magazine and web writer, photographer and marshmallow gobbler, Tania is also the author of the popular Riley the Little Aviator series of travelogue picture books, and is both published and self-published in children’s fiction and adult non-fiction.

I've invited Tania and Riley the Little Aviator to stop by Under the Apple Tree on their whirlwind blog tour of Riley's latest travel adventure, Riley and the Grumpy Wombat. And Tania has kindly agreed to share below some tips on speaking at schools.

Riley and the Grumpy Wombat Blog Tour

Riley and the Grumpy Wombat: A Journey around Melbourne

Tania McCartney

illustrations by Kieron Pratt

Ford Street Publishing

Riley has discovered a wombat in his nanny’s garden. But why is this furry creature so grumpy? Join Riley and his friends from books one, two and three, as they zoom around the stunning sights of Melbourne in search of a wombat that simply needs a place to call home.
Featuring gorgeous black and white photos of Melbourne and surrounds, Riley and the Grumpy Wombat combines photos, illustrations, adorable characters, humour and an adventuresome storyline in a travelogue-style book that showcases Melbourne at its very best.


Congratulations, Tania, on the release of the latest Riley the Little Aviator adventure. Riley and the Grumpy Wombat is the fourth book in the series. You must enjoy taking your books out to schools and introducing the characters to new readers.

One of the best things about being a children’s author is reading to kids. Sure – it can be exhausting and I always have a stash of headache tablets on standby! – but I honestly have never enjoyed the children’s book process more than when I am reading aloud to a bunch of poppets.

Riley and the Sleeping Dragon was the first book you wrote in the series. How was it received the first time you read it to a class?

I remember the first time I ever read Riley and the Sleeping Dragon to a class of school students. The thing that struck me the most was that they just GOT IT. They understood. They reacted EXACTLY – to the precise points – I wanted them to in the story. Watching their eyes light up, seeing their light bulb moments flash behind their eyes, seeing their brows knit in curiosity – oh! – sheer literary heaven.

I've just experienced my first Children's Book Week as an author visiting schools. Do you have any advice on keeping up with the kids?

Although they are a joy, you need a lot of energy to read to kids, especially younger ones. A lot of stamina. And you must be prepared for curly questions. I’ve had them all. My favourite to date: “Do you ever have writer’s block or mental breakdowns?”

My answer?

Yes.

His eight-year-old response? “How do you deal with them?”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t say “vodka”, so I rambled something more appropriate – about “just pushing on through”.

My other favourite questions have been: “I like your dress.” and “My cat pooped in the laundry basket.” (True!)

All funnies aside, reading your books at schools is not only a glorious way to get your work out into the community, it’s incredibly rewarding and loads of fun. Here are my tips for making your school visit the least headache-inducing.

Approaching schools

You can either approach local schools directly or go through a speaker’s agency like CreativeNet http://www.fordstreetpublishing.com/cnet/. Your local writers’ centre may also help, as can your local CBCA branch.

Book Week is the perfect time to visit schools, especially if you are new to it. If you are not well-known or have not developed a reputation yet, you should understand that teachers and librarians may be wary about having you speak at the school. I have heard enough horrors stories to know not everyone is born to speak to kids in an entertaining or appropriate manner. You may struggle to ‘prove’ yourself, but if you present with panache, energy and commitment, you’ll soon develop a positive reputation and be asked to speak to more schools.

Insurance and background checks

You will need pubic liability insurance to speak in schools – $10 million dollars’ worth. I know. But there’s no getting around it. I go through AAMI, which offer affordable cover on a monthly debit basis. Some states may require you to provide a Working With Children police background check. You can ask the school their requirements.

Who are you speaking to?

The most important thing to ascertain before your talk is who you are speaking to. What age group and class size? You may want to start out small and speak to a handful of kids to start – or you may feel confident with a larger group. Schools want to maximise your time with them, so you will probably find yourself talking to over 100 children at a time. This is easy to do with powerpoint presentations. You can even put your book pages on a powerpoint screen to project for the children – I always do this.

What are you speaking on?

Talk to the teacher about their needs. What are they looking for in a presentation? Do they want you to cover a certain topic, like story structure, or can you have free reign? Make sure you clearly outline what you will perform, how you will perform it, how long it will take and what is involved.

Equipment

Check in advance what equipment the school will provide and what you will need to bring. Most schools can provide a smart board or projector, so all you will need is a USB stick with your presentation on it. Check they have the capabilities for your software.

Ask if the school can have a techie on hand to help you set up the smartboard/projector. Up to eighty per cent of the time, there’s a technical glitch – without a word of a lie – and you don’t want this drama, especially if you are on a time schedule.

If doing multiple sessions, ask the school to provide ONE venue for your presentation, to save you moving around.

If you are doing an activity with the kids, ask the school about providing resources. When I fold paper planes with younger students, the school happily provides red A4 paper.

Timing

If I have multiple sessions, I always ask the school to book them back-to-back, with little break in between. This means I may be at a school only 4 hours all up rather than an entire day (which is a lot of time when you have other things to do, like write more books or wash your hair!).

Don’t hesitate to negotiate a time that suits you when visiting schools. Most of the time, I’m happy to accommodate schools as I know timing is hard for them, but if I need to travel far, I request a later start time to avoid traffic. I always request to be finished by 3pm, too, so I can be home in time for my own kids.

You will need to add 15 – 20 minutes to the end time of any session, just to factor in autograph requests from kids or any delays.

What to prepare

I always take a few books with me when I visit schools, even if they have requested no book signing. The school often asks to buy a few copies and I use them for display purposes and to show the children during my presentation.

I take my USB presentation stick and any extra paraphernalia, like printouts, but more often than not I email these through beforehand. I also email through my web links, book covers, an author photo and bio.

I take easily-gobbled, non-messy snacks, a large bottle of water and some peppermints.

I take my Riley doll, the appropriate soft animal toy, my Riley aviator scarf, the red tin plane and any other props I can find, as well as any giveaways I have on hand.

I take my Grumpy Wombat mini cards with the book cover on the front and a blank back so I can use them for autographs.

I take books and change if I am going to be selling. If I’ve had heaps of book orders, I sign some books in advance, then add a personal message later.

Lastly, I take a printout with all addresses, contact names, phone numbers and session times. Oh – and a street directory. If I’m doing multiple sessions, I print off pages from the directory for quick and easy directions.

Your presentation

At the moment, I present a visual powerpoint presentation on how I quite literally put Riley and the Grumpy Wombat together, but I change it up every 6 to 12 months as new books come out.

I create the presentation in a way that allows me to do lots of talking in and around the pictures (visuals are the focus). This allows me to not only engage the children well but to tailor the same presentation to suit the age group in question. For younger kids, I can whiz through the pages without elaborating. For older kids, I can pause and go into greater detail.

There is nothing worse than text-heavy presentations for kids of any age. Make them interactive, fun, fascinating and funny.

Presenting tips

Be animated when you talk to kids. The younger they are, the more like a monkey you will need to act. This helps engage the kids and keep them focused and entertained. Yawning kids or kids that wander off = bad.

I have been known to bring on a headache with my presentation antics, especially when it comes to really young kids. Talk loud. Yell. Whisper. Use funny voices. Change your voice frequently. Clap your hands. Jump up and down. Dash. Run. Leap. Crawl on the floor, use props – do whatever it takes to engage the kids.

If kids begin to talk or giggle or lose focus, teachers should step in, and most of the time they do, but I’ve presented at schools where teachers have done nothing to help me. Thankfully, this is rare because it makes presenting extremely difficult. I usually stay silent and put one hand in the air, fingers outstretched. Kids usually respond and go quiet. Ask teachers to step in, if you need to.

Fees

The ASA has a list of industry fees on their website that you may like to follow but I have never achieved these kinds of rates. Schools simply cannot afford them, alas. If I am in book launching mode and heavily book-promoting, and the school will allow a book signing, I visit for a call out fee to cover petrol. During Book Week, the CBCA take care of my payments and I am able to charge a very decent amount.

If the school isn’t willing to have a book signing, I charge a set fee to cover my time – and you would need to set and/or negotiate your own fee. If you find no one is booking you, you may need to lower your fee but you can’t compromise your time, either. The fee has to suit you and what you are putting in.

Book signings

There is no harm in asking schools if they will host a book signing. Many oblige but many don’t. It’s about 50/50. It may help if you offer an ‘easy’ solution to host the signing. I offer pre-designed book order slips (in Word format so extra info can be added by teachers) that kids can take home, asking parents to send in the correct money and the name of the child they want the book signed to.

At the end of my presentation, kids who have ordered a book line up for signing and I take care of the money and change, if need be. It’s actually a lovely way to chat one-on-one with the students.

Book signings are a truly lovely bonus for authors who often earn little from school presentations, but you can’t rely on them. Consider them a bonus. As a thank you, I offer a free copy of my latest books to school libraries who allow a book signing.

Other Tips

Email or phone the school a day or two before your visit, to confirm you are good to go. Be sure to provide a mobile phone number.

Be sure to ask the school about parking and clear directions to the front office. I have spent 20 minutes wandering school grounds in the past. Seriously. Also ask for a mobile phone contact in case of emergency.

Each visit you make will be as unique as the school you visit. Sometimes you will be introduced to other teachers who will welcome you with a lovely chat and make you a cup of tea, sometimes you will be taken straight to a hall and left to fend for yourself. Each visit is completely different but all are enormously rewarding.

You will also find the students enormously different, but always a delight.

Consider travelling to remote or country schools in your region. These students are rarely treated to author/illustrator visits, and they backflip at the opportunity. Country towns also readily buy books, which is great.

I hope these tips and ideas help you on your own school visit journey. They are truly one of the highlights of my career as an author. If you have some of your own school visit tips – leave a comment below!

Thanks Tania! I so agree with the need to take lots of easy to nibble snacks. There never seems to be enough time between sessions. Your practical advice is invaluable for those authors who are venturing out into schools for the first time. 

Follow Tania and Riley on tour here: Riley and the Grumpy Wombat Blog Tour Dates


For more on Tania’s work, see http://www.taniamccartney.com/ and http://www.fordstreetpublishing.com./

Riley and the Grumpy Wombat - Ford Street Publishing A$22.95, hardcover

The Calamitous Queen with Special Guest Ian Irvine

I am so pleased to have Ian Irvine, writer of fantasy series for adults and children, visiting the blog today.

We're celebrating with Ian the release of 'The Calamitous Queen', the final instalment in his four part humorous fantasy series for 10- 14 yo children, 'Grim and Grimmer'.

Welcome, Ian. Thanks for stopping by as the last port of call on your 'The Calamitous Queen' blog tour. I've been enjoying reading all the blogs leading up to this one and it got me wondering where the ideas for the series 'Grim and Grimmer' came from.



Good question. It’s hard to remember, because I’m not the kind of writer who suddenly has a flash of inspiration in the shower, or while walking in the garden, and thinks, ‘Wow, that’d make a great idea for a story.’ Nor do I often go through the newspaper clippings, random scribbles on coffee napkins and hieroglyphs on pieces of paperbark that pass for my system of notes around here, in search of a brilliant idea I had last week, month or year. When I do delve into such uncertain troves, I end up scratching my head, wondering, ‘What the Dickens does that mean?’

But I did have a framework in mind. I wanted to write a fantasy adventure series for readers roughly 9 - 14 years. I hadn’t written for this precise age group before. My Runcible Jones books, http://www.ian-irvine.com/runciblejones.html, are much larger and more complex books for older readers, while the Sorcerer’s Tower, http://www.ian-irvine.com/sorcererstower.html, comprises small books with simple storylines, aimed at reluctant readers in the 7-10 range. I had a lot of great feedback from librarians about the latter books and wanted to write more, but this time I wanted to do larger books (45,000 words versus 10,000) for slightly older readers.

And I also wanted to write funny stories, because I felt this would make them more accessible to readers, particularly reluctant readers. Reading is incredibly important and I want to encourage it any way I can. Writing humour was a new adventure for me, and one I wasn’t sure I could pull off, since I’d never attempted it before. However there aren’t a lot of funny fantasy novels around for this age, at least not ones with strong, compelling plots, and since strong plots are my forte I thought I’d have a go.

So to characters. My huge fantasy epics, which are by far my most widely read books, http://www.ian-irvine.com/threeworlds.html, have often used strong female characters as the main protagonists, however in the Grim and Grimmers I wanted the hero to be a boy, and a hopeless boy at that, a tall, gawky kid who’s no good at sport and bottom of the class (in fact he’s just been expelled for a dreadful misunderstanding). Useless Ike. I’d not written about such a character before. I thought it would be a nice writing challenge to take this kid who’s totally cowed by life and his many failures, and no good at anything except drawing, and over the course of 4 books and 180,000 words, turn him into a hero.

A duffer of a hero needs a strong sidekick, hence I paired Ike with Melliflua di Sorrowgrove (Mellie), an apprentice thief who’s everything he’s not. She’s small, pixie-pretty, clever, hot-tempered and reckless, and has such a high regard for her own brilliance that she’s constantly getting them both into dire trouble – as when her failed spell blows Ike’s backside up to the size of an airship and he spends the next day bobbing around the ceilings of the dwarf city of Delf, being mocked by angry dwarves while Mellie laughs hysterically.

And of course, the book needs a cast of zany and bizarre characters, such as the malicious demon Spleen whose speciality is looking inside her victim’s heads (literally) to find out their deepest fears so she can take advantage of them. And the sweet but bloodthirsty old granny, Fluffia Tralalee, who lives in a cave carpeted in pink shag pile, with fluffy bunny wallpaper, yet is hiding an arsenal of weaponry large enough to start the next war. And the smirking conman dwarf, Con Glomryt, who could pass for the sleazy host on an afternoon TV game show.

There are four books in the Grim and Grimmer series. How did you know the story arc would unfold to four books?

Well, being a long-winded kind of guy who writes gigantic fantasy epics (The Three Worlds saga is 2.3 million words to date) I’d actually planned the Grim and Grimmers to be six books. But because of the GFC, my publisher was reluctant to commit to more than four, so four it became.

As it turned out, the story needed four books, because poor Ike suffers so many trials and failures that his first real success only occurs at the end of book 1, The Headless Highwayman, when he makes the firewyrm-dung fuelled balloon that carries him and Mellie to rescue the princess. And after all, if you start out with a hopeless protagonist, it takes lot of story to turn him into a believable hero.

Thanks so much for stopping by on your blog tour to answer a few questions, Ian. 

As a writer I've gained some valuable insight into the choices you make when determining character traits for your novels (27 to date). Ike is the sort of hero whose vulnerability kids will truly identify with.

You can find covers, blurbs, reviews and first chapters for the Grim and Grimmer series at http://www.ian-irvine.com/grimgrimmer.html.

And if you'd like to read other guest posts by Ian Irvine on The Calamitous Queen Blog Tour, here are the links:
 




THE CALAMITOUS QUEEN, BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE

DATE HOST BLOG URL TOPIC

May 27, 2011 Gabrielle Wang’s Blog http://www.gabriellewang.com/archives/how-writers-work-ian-irvine-guest-post/#more-4295

May 30, 2011 Onyabus, Omnibus Books http://onyabus.blogspot.com// Interview

June 6, 2011 Ian Irvine http://bloggingwithianirvine.blogspot.com//

Introducing the Calamitous Queen blog tour

June 7, 2011 Nords Wharf Public School http://www.blogger.com/goog_943567517


Questions from students

June 8, 2011 Susan Stephenson, The Book Chook http://www.thebookchook.com/

Literacy and writing

June 9, 2011 Catriona Hoy http://catrionahoy.blogspot.com//

Humour and writing

June 10, 2011 Kid’s Book Capers – Dee White http://content.boomerangbooks.com.au/kids-book-capers-blog/

Review of book and interview

June 11, 2011 Sally Murphy http://www.sallymurphy.blogspot.com/

The exciting (or otherwise) life of a writer

June 12, 2001 Claire Saxby http://www.letshavewords.blogspot.com/

FFF(fun, fantasy, fiction): mix and stire (or how it all comes together)

June 13, 2011 Alison Reynolds http://www.alisonreynolds.com.au//

Why Ian wrote this book

June 14, 2011 Dee White (deescribewriting blog)Tuesday Writing Tips http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com/

Tips on how to finish a series

15 June 2011 St Joseph’s Primary School http://stjyear52011.blogspot.com/

Questions from students

16 June 2011 Sheryl Gwyther http://sherylgwyther4kids.wordpress.com/


The 10 Best Things about writing 'Grim and Grimmer' + Things that Almost Drove You Nuts!

17 June 2011 Braemar College,

Christine Wilson http://cawilsontl.edublogs.org/virtural-blog-tour/

Questions from students

18 June, 2011 Writing Children's Books with Robyn Opie http://www.robynopie.blogspot.com/

The How-to's of Writing a Series

19 June 2011 Angela Sunde http://angelasunde.blogspot.com//

Where Ian's ideas for the series came from and how he knew there would be four books in it

Last Day of the Blog Tour

Today is the last day of the Pond Magic Blog Tour and I'd like to thank my hosts and everyone who has been reading along with the blogposts. It's been a pleasure sharing the journey with you.

On this last day I am sitting on Sheryl's back veranda sipping tea and chatting about fairytales. We chatted for so long that we had to split the post in two.

So here is part two where I divulge the secret elements that make a true fairytale and Sheryl challenges me to a Fairytale Playoff!

There are 10 quotes from various fairytales. See if you can guess them all:

http://sherylgwyther4kids.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/once-upon-a-time-in-a-far-away-place-part-2/

Day 9 of the Pond Magic Blog Tour

Once upon a time in a far away place...

Find out the truth behind fairytales. There is a lot you don't know or your parents didn't tell you.

Join Sheryl Gwyther and I 'in conversation'... on her blog: SherylGwyther4Kids

Day 8 of the Pond Magic Blog Tour

The tour hits a high note today as I share my secrets on 'Promoting your First book' on the blog of Mabel kaplan - 'Tales I Tell'

Shhh...Don't tell anyone!

Day 7 of the Pond Magic Blog Tour

Ever wondered how to go about writing an Aussie Chomp? Today on 'Kids Book Review' I talk about just that.

Grab a coffee and join me.

Day 6 of the Pond Magic Blog Tour

Kids Book Capers has published a great review of Pond Magic on their blog at Boomerang Books http://content.boomerangbooks.com.au/kids-book-capers-blog/review-of-pond-magic/2010/10

Followed by an interview with me about 'Where Story Ideas Come From'.
http://content.boomerangbooks.com.au/kids-book-capers-blog/the-magic-of-pond-magic/2010/10

Hop on in!!

Day 5 of the Pond Magic Blog Tour

Today I'm visiting YA author Dee White at the Tuesday Writing Tips blog to talk about 'Writing a Book that's Less than 12,000 Words Long'.

I share my process on plotting and cutting back thousands of words.

Join me there!

Review of Pond Magic on 'Kids' Book Review'

Pond Magic is reviewed today on Kids' Book Review

Read what Tania McCartney has to say about my 'froggy' tale.

Day 4 of the Pond Magic Blog Tour

As part of my Pond Magic Blog Tour I'm magically appearing on children's author Catriona Hoy's blog today where I discuss 'What Girls Read'.

Join Catriona and I to find out the differences between writing for girls and boys.

Day 3 of the Pond Magic Blog Tour

Today I'm visiting Sally Murphy's 'Writing for Children' blog where I discuss 'Getting Published for the First Time'.

Sally is an award winning author of children's books such as Pearl verses the World and Toppling.
I am honoured to be invited to her blog.

• Toppling won the 2010: Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and the Children’s Book Mary Ryan’s Award.
• Pearl verses the World was the winner of the Children’s Book category in the Indie Awards, 2009, and is shortlisted for the Indie Book of the Year Award.
• Pearl verses the World was also shortlisted in the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, 2009.
• Pearl verses the World was named as a Notable Book and shortlisted for the CBCA’s Children’s Book of the Year Awards, 2010 (Younger Readers Category)

You see why I'm excited?

Day 2 of Pond Magic Blog Tour

I am talking about 'Developing Character' on the blog 'Write and Read with Dale'.

It really made me think in depth about how I approach character and I ended up getting out my Pond Magic notes, which were in storage, and going over them. I've ended up learning about myself. So glad I decided to go ahead with this blog tour.


Join us there and leave a comment.

Day 1. Stories are Light

Pond Magic's very first review is up on 'Stories are Light', the blog of Sandy Fussell.

Sandy is the author of the extremely popular Samurai Kids series, the award winning Polar Boy and the recently published Jaguar Warrior.

Hear what Sandy has to say about Pond Magic here: http://www.sandyfussell.blogspot.com/

Pond Magic Blog Tour

Welcome to the Pond Magic Blog Tour


After a fabulous launch last Sunday Pond Magic is now ready to take on the online world. And Lily is thrilled!


Tomorrow is the first day of the Pond Magic Blog Tour. I'll be visiting nine different blogs to talk about my writing journey and how I wrote Pond Magic.

Four of the blogs will also be reviewing Pond Magic for the first time.

Join me on this trip around cyber space!

The schedule is below.

NB. Stay posted. Tomorrow I blog here about the Pond Magic Launch.


October 2010


21st October - Stories Are Light - Sandy Fussell 
Review
http://www.sandyfussell.blogspot.com


22nd October – Write and Read with Dale – Dale Harcombe
Review and Developing a Character
http://www.livejournal.com/users/orangedale/


23rd October – Sally Murphy’s Writing for Children Blog
Getting Published for the First Time
http://sallymurphy.blogspot.com


24th October – Cat Up Over - Catriona Hoy
What Girls Read
http://catrionahoy.blogspot.com


24th October – Kids Book Review
Review of Pond Magic
www.kids-book-review.blogspot.com


26th October – Tuesday Writing Tips – Dee White
Writing to this Length
http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com


27th October – Kids’ Book Capers – Boomerang Books
Review and Where Story Ideas Come From
http://content.boomerangbooks.com.au/kids-book-capers-blog


28th October – Kids Book Review
The Aussie Chomp Format
www.kids-book-review.blogspot.com


29th October – Tales I Tell - Mabel Kaplan
Promoting your First Book & Planning a Book Launch
http://belka37.blogspot.com


30th October – SherylGwyther4Kids
Once upon a time in a far away place…
http://sherylgwyther4kids.wordpress.com/

Drafting a picture Book

How do you cuddle a puggle? Very carefully.


Today I have a puggle on my blog.
I’ve been excitedly waiting for this moment for weeks and he is finally here. Would you like to see him? He’s cute and small and simply irresistible.
Here he is.

What is a puggle you ask? It’s a baby echidna, an Australian native animal from the monotreme family.



This little puggle is here visiting me in celebration of the launch of Catriona Hoy’s delightful new picture book ‘Puggle’, published by Working Title Press.

It tells the story of a baby echidna whose mother dies when hit by a car. With Catriona’s gentle words and wonderful illustrations by Andrew Plant we follow Puggle’s journey towards a happy outcome.


I’ve been just itching to ask Catriona about the process of creating a picture book; where to start when the idea comes into your mind and how to shape it into the required picture book format once the idea has formulated and the first draft of words are on the paper.

Fortunately for me I also have Catriona visiting my blog today as part of her Puggle blog tour.

Hi Angela!

Hi Cat! Glad you could make it.

From following your blog tour I discovered Puggle is a story from real life. When you sat down to write the first draft, was it the character of Puggle or the plot which inspired you initially?

Puggle began with the character. A gorgeous, helpless, blind little creature which looked like a chicken fillet. I wanted to write his story and there was lots of factual information but I knew that I had to weave it into a readable story. While Puggle was cute, things had to actually happen to move the story forward. I walked around with the first sentence in my head for about six months, wondering when the rest of the story would come. ..And ironically that first sentence ended up being dropped!

What form did this first draft take? eg notes/ mind map/ poem/ prose/ scribbles on a serviette.

I have actually written stories on many scaps of paper. I wrote my next book on pieces of supermarket dockets and bits of tissue box as we drove on a holiday to Ireland, through Wales. However, Puggle was different in that I knew that to be true to the story I had to get it factually correct. So there was a fair bit of research to do before I sat down to write the story. I developed a time line of stages in Puggle's life and went from there.

How did you develop the text of `Puggle' to fit the 32 page picture book format? Did it need lengthening or shortening? If lengthening, how did you achieve this?
 
Now that I'm more experienced, I have that 16 openings thing in the back of my head as I'm writing. Rather than work on what goes on each page, which can actually change quite a lot, I tend to focus on whether, in my own mind, I have at least 16 or so visuals. So I tried to structure the material into this framework. It was a more laboured story than some of my others.


Did you use any visual editing aids such as a storyboard or a dummy book? How did they help?


I'm not a big one for visual aids, I'm not a very visual person...but I'm getting better. Words are my thing. I tend to write my story and then try to see where the images are and rule a line at these point, and put suggested illustrations in the margins. I don't necessarily send these to the illustrator or publisher. In fact I didn't for Puggle. Often the illustrator will make these natural breaks themselves.

Once the words are on paper, the self-editing begins. With picture books every word counts, but with `Puggle' how did you decide what stayed and what was cut?


When I'm in the final stages, I read it out aloud a lot. I like the words to sound well together. Picture story books are mostly read out loud after all. I also checked the accuracy of particular words with experts. Writing magazine articles has taught me to be really disciplined, especially with articles with word counts of 200 words. With Puggle I had the advantage of being able to put additional information into a fact page about echidnas. So I didn't feel I was losing anything important. This fact page eventually became the endpapers of the book.

The placement of the page break can create page-turning suspense and heighten tension and curiosity. How did you choose where the page turns would be? Or did the illustrator?



Different editors and publishers have different thought on whether to include illustrator notes. I find that I'm being asked to add them more and more. However I didn't add these notes for Andrew, or the page breaks. Andrew requested these from Jane and she worked on those with him. If I have particular concepts or ideas in mind, I'll make these suggestions. The text was jiggled around a bit to allow for illustrations to flow and to show the passage of time.


Once the manuscript was contracted to a publisher, what happened next? Did you have any contact with the illustrator?

Jane asked me whether I had anyone in mind for illustrations and I suggested Andrew Plant. I had seen some of his non fiction work and he had captured the imagination of my year 9 students some time ago, when I'd hired him to give a talk on dinosaurs. He is a really entertaining presenter. At that stage I was also working on a story about dinosaurs and thought that I'd like to work with him one day.


Andrew has a background in zoology and for me it was important that the illustrations were accurate. I had confidence that Andrew would do a fantastic job. At first Andrew was hesitant as often illustrators who do animals don't do humans...something I hadn't realised before. Jane, Andrew and I discussed this and that is one of the reasons that we never see much of the humans in the story, merely as a pair of hands.


Although I was overseas at the time, I was able to have a long chat with Andrew as I interviewed him for Explore. And of course I was consulted at every stage of the illustration process and asked for my input and opinion. Which often wasn't much more than 'wow that's great!'


I've just signed a contract to work with Andrew on another book with WTP...this time it's the one about dinosaurs and we had a successful book launch at the South Yarra library. So we keep in touch although he is very busy.


Thank you so much, Cat. It's been a pleasure hosting you on my blog. I now better understand the whole process of producing a picture book from start to finish. And your experiences have been fascinating.


Thanks for having me Angela, it's been lovely chatting. I'm actually having to think hard about the way I write and it's been quite eye opening for me.


You're welcome, Cat. Good luck with the dinosaur book.


For anyone who missed part of Catriona's Puggle Blog Tour, here are the dates and addresses below:


April 12 http://scribblygum.wordpress.com/


April 13 http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com/


April 14 http://sallymurphy.blogspot.com/


April 15 http://www.letshavewords.blogspot.com/


April 16 http://orangedale.livejournal.com/


April 17 http://sherylgwyther.wordpress.com/


April 18 http://sandyfussell.blogspot.com/


April 19 http://katswhiskers.wordpress.com/


April 20 http://belka37.blogspot.com/


April 21 http://angelasunde.blogspot.com/


April 22 http://trudietrewin.com/blog-ramblings/

Dee White, author of Letters to Leonardo

Dee White, author of Letters to Leonardo is visiting Under The Apple Tree tomorrow as part of her Tuesday Writing Tips blog tour. Call back to hear her advice on understanding Point of View.

See you all then!

Oh and I'm baking a pie, so make sure you have a cuppa ready. We'll be in the garden...