Rascally foxy scribbles
Rascally foxy scribbles have become a bit of an obsession recently. Rather worrying I’d say, but then a Tarot Card reader once said to me, you need to get obsessed!
Scribbling away at a picture book in my spare time, has resulted in my creating of eye-popping cats, crazy dogs and very rascally foxy scribbles. However I have now abandoned this particular story and have moved on to pastures sunnier. But it did make me realise it would make a great post.
Years and years and years…
Having spent years illustrating other people’s stories, I thought it was time to create my own. The experience has taught me a great deal. There are a few pitfalls one can encounter while writing. My first observation is that a lot of writers fall into the deep, dark, hole of rhyme (EVERYTHING MUST RHYMN, I AM CHANNELLING JULIA DONALDSON) and like Alice in Wonderland, end up down a peculiar rabbit hole. Rhyming very rarely works. It doesn’t translate into Russian, Mandarin or I dare say French too well, so your international sales are not off to a great start. You have to be good. In fact you have to be Julia Donaldson good. The problem with rhyme is that sometimes you find yourself trying to bend your story around words that, well, rhyme and the result in a muddled story, or worse a very dull one indeed with the musicality of an old bus bouncing over stones. I think the expectation, or more accurately, the assumption is that rhyming stories for children are the best.
Wow! Aren’t you being a little arrogant?
If you’re reading this and wondering why I am coming across as some know-it-all, smarty pants about rhyme, its because I’ve tried and FAILED! Failed quite spectacularly! I have therefore come to the conclusion that only well established writers that will guarantee sales can get away with that (and I strongly suspect your experienced literary agent knows that too).
Yep! That’s more like it, a humble nobody!
As a humble nobody, it is safer to write prose, because it’s easier to sell internationally. Anyway, I thought I would share with the Internet some of my foxy scribbles and friends. Hope you like them?
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