Outta’ this world blog

(part 2, Serendipity doo da)

Toward a real live picture book

November 7, 2023 — With illustrator, Jenny Kalejs, on my team, we were ready to turn my manuscript into a real live picture book. This was really getting exciting! There were at least 28 illustrations needed and so, with Jenny already working a full-time job, we planned on her completing about one illustration a week. This was January 2022 and I was targeting a late fall 2022 release. 

I shared my manuscript and some of my ideas for the illustrations with Jenny. Generally, she’d draw a rough sketch, share it with me, and then she’d complete it with her own ideas, creativity and watercolor magic. As it turned out, Jenny worked better in clusters. So, all of a sudden,

Oct. 31, 2023 — Since How Happy Is a Lark was my first attempt at self-publishing a children’s picture book, there was lots to learn at every stage of the process. I won’t try to outline all of the steps here, not only because I won’t remember everything, but also it would be really tedious. 

So, to summarize core steps (interspersed with some related tangents):

First, you get an idea for your book.
Next, you develop your idea.
At some point, you start to write, and you write, write, write.
And then, you edit, edit, edit.

Serendipity touched my process a few times when, some 15 years ago, my phone rang at work. Even then, a ringing phone was a fairly rare occurrence, wi