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The course finished at the beginning of July. What had I learned? Well, one thing was definite: I wanted to write picture books.
And there were three rather important things I had discovered about picture books.- A lot of picture books are pretty average and I really don't know how they manage to get published
- A good picture book appears very simple but is deceptively difficult to pull off.
- The best picture books are very clever, highly entertaining and extremely imaginative.
Mmm, could I turn my ideas into something truly excellent that would interest a publisher? I started the year thinking that this 'writing for children' lark was a piece of cake. I now know differently. Still, I make a good living by writing marketing copy, so why can't I earn money from writing children's books, too?
By Easter I felt I was making some headway, at last. So, not wishing to lose that momentum, I enrolled for the summer term. Most of my classmates enrolled again, too. It was great to see them, as we'd built up a real rapport over the course since September.
Listening them read their homework assignments out loud, I realised what a talented, creative group this was. Some of them were laugh-out-loud funny. Surely everyone here deserved to get published? This term, some story ideas finally came into my head. Hooray! So, over the course of the ten weeks, I wrote several picture book texts. I made little dummies of each one, to ensure they adhered to the structure and format of a picture book. I knew they weren't quite right but, with helpful suggestions from Susie and Alison, I was confident I could produce something that would have potential.
After all, I had the whole summer to perfect them.
I decided that what I needed was more practise. So, I enrolled for the spring term. And the good news was, so did most of the others. This time, we had a different teacher who was called Susie.
We were effectively doing the same course again, since it was 10-week syllabus. However, since there were no newbies in the class, Susie was able to help us build on the knowledge we'd gained with Alison. She was great at suggesting books we should read to see how they tackled the particular subject we were studying that week. She also came up with some really helpful suggestions on how we might improve the stories we had submitted for homework. As a result, I completely rewrote the story I'd come up with two years previously. Same idea, same characters, but I came at it from a totally new angle. It was still two spreads too long for a picture book, but this was something I'd just have to resolve.
A friend of a friend put me in touch with someone who used to work for a major children's publisher. I've been a marketing copywriter for many years but the publishing world was brand new to me, so she kindly spent an hour answering all my questions and helped me see things with a publisher's marketing and business hat on.
We discussed the possibility of turning my story into a series. "Publishers like series," she said.
This ex-children's publisher - and others - advised me to go down the agent route, because sending in unsolicited manuscripts direct to publishers would mean my work ending up (and unread) on a mountainous slush pile.
The Society of Authors was extremely helpful, as it sent me a list of children's agents. I also bought a copy of the Children's Writers' and Artists' Yearbook and drew up a list of possible agents who specialise in picture books.
My next step was to buy 'The Insider's Guide to Getting Your Book Published' which told me everything I needed to know about getting my submission just right.
I was ready to write my letter and post off my picture book text to the first agent on my list.
It all started towards the end of 2006 when I took part in a project which was a collaboration between members of 26 (a writers' group I belong to) and art students from the London College of the Arts.
Each writer was to team up with a student to produce text and illustrations for a children's picture book. The idea was that there would be an exhibition of our work in spring 2007, to which publishers and agents would be invited.
Hooray!!
With great enthusiasm, I bought a number of 'how to write children's books' and pored over the picture books in Waterstone's in Piccadilly.
Then, a great idea came to me and I wrote my story.
But the student I was paired with wanted to focus her efforts on her final year course work, so we didn't really get to the stage of illustrated spreads. Undeterred, I could still find another student who wanted to come into the project slightly late. And, if the worst came to the worst, I could always exhibit the text by itself.
But, the project organisers couldn't find anyone willing to fund the exhibition and the launch party, so the event never happened.
But, I still had my story. There was no way I was going to let it gather dust on my desk or fester away at the back of a drawer.
