Since right
after the 2013 SCBWI Summer Conference, I’ve been deeply entrenched in creating
a new picture book. I’ve taken two versions all the way to fully-realized
dummies - because I couldn’t tell if they’d work or not until I saw them on the
page. This is not a very efficient way to work, considering that, at least for
this book, it took me a month of solid work to complete each of the dummies.
So is there a
way to streamline my process? Is it even worth trying to do, since I’m still
learning about my own process? Shouldn’t I be focusing more on the final
product itself, and doing whatever it takes to get the best possible book out
there? I don’t have an answer. I suppose if there was an unceasing demand for
my books, then yes, I’d have to work on streamlining my process. But right now,
so much of my work feels like new, untested experimental methods, and it’s only
at the very last minute that things start to feel rote – and when I say very
last minute, I truly mean when I’m taping the printed out dummy together, and
only concerned with trying to line the pages up right against each other, and
I’m no longer thinking about the art.
Even cleaning
up the art in Photoshop or laying in the text feels experimental, like I’m
still figuring it out and scared I’ll mess it up. I guess that’s what keeps it
exciting for me.
At any rate,
two months in, and I have a third version of the story (to say nothing of the
countless drafts and attempts that didn’t make it past the thumbnailing stage).
I’m really hoping this is the one. The goal was to have the dummy done in time
to submit to agents before the holiday slowdown, but now that looks unlikely,
since I have to redraw everything, do final art pieces, and refine a query
letter. It’s possible, but because I was foolhardy and signed up to do
NaNoWriMo for a different manuscript, and I have a revise and resubmit request
from an editor for another picture book. Honestly, I’ve got my hands full. I
guess that’s better than the alternative, which is not having any ideas at all.
But every time a new story idea pops into my head now, I meet it with a bit of
trepidation because I know how overextended I already am.
If this sounds
like complaining, forgive me. And please believe me: I know how lucky I am that
this is what I get to do with my life, even if I don’t yet have an established
career. Or maybe that makes me even luckier, since I’m STILL able to practice
at it, and not be defined by inferior work in the marketplace. I’ve heard that
there’s a better opportunity for a debut author or illustrator than there is
for one who is midlist (i.e. Didn’t earn out on their advance).
