Over the last few weeks I’ve been receiving rough drafts of the illustrations for the two Pictures Books I’ve written. They are both due out next year. The illustrations are now being adjusted and refined following reactions, comments and suggestions from my editor, my publisher and myself.
The drawings are still just black and white sketches at this stage, but both illustrators are doing a wonderful job of bringing the story and characters to life. It’s always great to see such talented people adding their own ideas, interpretations and special creativity to something you’ve written and making it better and more than it was.
I am in awe of picture book illustrators and it made me think of the very first thing I ever wrote and sent away. I even attempted the illustrations. Not always a good idea.
I’ve blogged about it previously so I’ve updated it a little and included it below:
My first and attempt at writing anything for possible publication was a picture book was called Joseph’s Discovery.
The story was about a little boy called Joseph (what a shock!) who was obsessed by dinosaurs and dreamed of discovering a dinosaur of his own. In the story Joseph attempts to draw his favourite dinosaur, a T-Rex, with some surprising and alarming results.
The book was inspired by my son Joe who loved dinosaurs and who, at Kindy, when others kids were drawing stick figures and mutant-looking cats and dogs, was drawing anatomically correct T-Rexes etc. At one stage he also started a journal where he was attempting to draw every individual dinosaur bone in every dinosaur known to science and label it with its correct scientific name. Joe was a constant source of amazement and wonder to Ard and me. He still is.
As well as writing the words I also added simple pencil sketches just to show how I thought the story would work. Here are two pages from near the beginning.
Every day Joseph read his dinosaur books, sang his dinosaur songs and played his dinosaur games. Sometimes, he even became a dinosaur.
And every night Joseph dreamed of discovering his own dinosaur …
I liked the story and it was fun creating it. Unfortunately though it was rejected (along with some encouraging words) by each of the four or five publishers I sent it to. I didn’t have the confidence to send it to any more.
Reading it now I think I know why it was rejected. Or at least, I can see things in it I would change to improve its chances of publication. These days too, I understand a bit more about how expensive picture books are to produce and why many are written but few are chosen. I realise too, that I’m no Shaun Tan. Or any of the illustrators my books have been blessed for that matter.
In the end, I made a special, one of a kind, picture book just for my special, one of a kind, son. And Joe’s always loved it.
Gotta be happy with that.
Cheers
Michael
Michael Gerard Bauer Author 