Taking risks ...

I am not a fan of new year's resolutions. Which is a little flakey because even though the first of January is just another day, like the 31st of december, the beginning of a year still feels portentious and weighty with promise and possibility. Nothing has changed but everything has. There is no mechanism but the slate is somehow empty. So what of 2025? What promise does this year hold?

I tell myself I want to write more. I am doing my best to make the space for this. Wish me luck.

The year is kicking off with the release of the third book in our BatKiwi series. This book, BatKiwi and the Big Wet, illustrated beautifully  by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White, and published by Scholastic, is releasing in February and it is heartening to see a lovely first review here. We have also had an offer to publish My Elephant is Blue (Penguin Random House, 2021), in another territory/language which is very exciting. I thought our wee book had done its dash so it is very cool to see its journey continuing.

I saw A Complete Unknown the other day - the movie about an early phase of Bob Dylan's life/musical career. It was a very good movie. It's had me thinking a lot about creativity, about evolving your work within your art form; what it takes and how it might unfold, about the environment necessary, about how you respond to the market/your audience and how you are allowed to behave. Apparently people will forgive you/put up with a lot if you are a genius. In the movie there is a lot of ambition, selfishness and expectation on display. I am reminded of Henry Thoreau who talked of going to the woods to live deliberately, implying he was isolating himself to think deeply and philosophise, but his wife and (I think) his daughter went too to take care of him. When everyone else is meeting your needs, perhaps it is easier to devote all your time and energy to your craft. Do you have to be selfish to be creative? I certainly think about what is required to improve. Time working on your craft will see improvements. But how do you push through to new heights. What do you need to find another level, to push the envelope to challenge the form? I do think it means thinking less about what your audience expects. In Dylan's case (at least in the movie), he was evolving while his audience were still expecting more work like his previous songs. He took a risk that they would come along for the ride. Obviously we know how that turned out, with 55 albums over more than six decades. I imagine there are also many examples of artists who took risks that their fans couldn't accept. We don't hear their stories. Maybe their artistic endeavours were too avant garde, too experimental or niche? Or just bad. Plenty of experiments fail. I guess it depends what we want out of our writing. I have to accept that I don't always want to play it safe, and that my audience may not always join me on my creative journey. But understanding that and making that choice deliberately makes it easier to accept the outcomes. So maybe this year is a year of greater exploration, of risk taking and envelope pushing. I am kind of excited to see the results.

There's a great line in the movie when Dylan (played by Timothee Chalamet) talks about being asked the eternal question, and his response is a thought provoking tin opener on that can of worms - "They ask me where the songs come from. But what they really mean is why don't they come to them." Perhaps being brave (and maybe a little selfish) and stepping out in to the unknown is where we find the most excitng stories.

Focusing on the making rather than on the end product ...

I had some really good news recently. I have been around the traps too long to think it a done deal at this point, but if things do go according to plan I will have not two, but three picture books coming out in the second half of this year. Huzzah!!! This has happened to me once before, in 2021 and, I have to say, it was something of a strange experience, especially in the covid era. In all honesty it went very differently to how I imagined it would. I am interested and excited to see how it goes this time. And I will tell you more when there is more to tell :-)

I have come to realise how easy it is to get suckered in to the drive/obsession to keep being published. Getting a yes is a heady hit of the feel goods and you'd have to be an automaton to not want to repeat that boost of endorphins. Then follows the desperate efforts to write the next publishable thing. Is this it? Is this it? Maybe this one will be? Or that! But this can be an unhelpful road to go down. Don't get me wrong. I definitely want to keep being published. But I find it hard to create good work when I am focusing on what a publisher might think. I can't know what they're going to think. They don't know either. Not until they think it. Making good art - whether that's a picture book, or a novel, or a poem for adults, or for children - is the goal. And good art might not only please me, it might please the publisher as well. Of course focusing on the making rather than on the end product is easier said than done and I am working on some strategies to keep the focus where it should be. I think, in part, it's about slowing down and letting things breathe a bit more.

In other news, my book with Vasanti Unka, My Elephant is Blue (Penguin, 2021), is coming out in the US on April 11th and has been accruing some State-side reviews which has been rather encouraging. There is this lovely one in Kirkus, and this one in Foreword Reviews and perhaps the loveliest one I've ever seen here at Books Worth Reading . I'm also being interviewed for an American podcast, Reading With Your Kids, which should be posted up some time around the release date. Gulp. 

I'll also be running my all day Writing Picture Books for Children workshop on Sunday April 2nd. If you, or anyone you know, is keen to get the good oil on how to get started you can find registration details here. And if you can't make it in April I will be repeating the course in August.

Right then, I'm off to work on some poems. If I make some good ones, when the opportunities arise I will have things to submit.

Win a copy of My Elephant is Blue ...

I was meaning to write this blog post and then found myself reading an essay by Rebecca Chace about her poet mother Jean Valentine, and then writing a poem in response instead. Go figure. 

Sorry I have been so absent. It has been a busy old time. I have had lots of things to write and do and organise although sadly, (for me) not so much creative writing of my own stories. I have a general policy of saying yes to things. Book adjacent events are an unpredictable thing so I know there will be plenty of quiet times down the track to balance out the busy times happening right now. If people are keen to have me visit their school or take part in a library event, or talk at length about writing/reading/books, I am IN! And sometimes all the invites come at once. This is how it goes and I am here for it. But when I am invited to do things, it's not just about doing the event. It also means preparing what I am going to say and sometimes creating material (handouts, powerpoints, exercises) to go with it. I take all these events very seriously. I want to do a good job. So I have been beavering away on lots of book adjacent things. And the occasional accidental poem. 

My latest picture book My Elephant is Blue is now out. Before it was even printed this wee story was wooing publishers overseas and it will be coming out in Germany, Italy, and China, and Spanish language rights have also just been sold. I have not had a book this translated before and it is très exciting. Fly little elephant, fly! 

Some lovely reviews have been coming in too (you can read one here or here ), and this Sunday we are officially launching the book at Time Out Bookshop in Mount Eden. Look at the lovely shop window they have created (swoon).

If you read this before Sunday and you want to come along - please DO! Here is the invite

And because I still have a bunch of book adjacent things to do I am going to run away and leave you with a competition to win a copy of My Elephant is Blue. To win a copy tell me in the comments (here on the blog, or on this post on facebook, or on twitter) which language you think the book should be translated into and I will pick my favourite answer. Entries close June 4th. 

You can't just eat the icing ...

 As progress is made on the picture books I have coming out next year, I am feeling super excited, and impatient to show you what they look like. When a story has made the big leap to become a book, sharing it with readers is the goal. Waiting for the moment to arrive when this can happen is like keeping a big secret, and keeping a secret can be very hard. Still, it's all part of the process and like so very much of the process it requires patience and perseverence. 

In the meantime here is a sneak peek of My Elephant is Blue, to be published by Puffin (Penguin), illustrated by the remarkable Vasanti Unka, and coming out in May 2021. Huzzah! I cannot wait to show you what it looks like inside. And now we can be tortured about it together.

If your work hasn't been published yet, I think there is a fairly common belief that the (print) book will publish across a range of international markets. In my experience, this tends to be the exception rather than the rule. IMHO there are lots of reasons why this is the case. 

1) Lots of children's stories don't translate well, especially if they are rhyming or have internal rhyme or word play that relies on idiom or cultural knowledge. 

2) Some stories don't cross cultures well. They make perfect sense to us here but have no reference points or relevance in a different culture. Sometimes that is the point. We want to share our experience with others so they better understand us. But other countries/cultures must first want to know. Is our story something other cultures want to understand and share? 

[Note: The irony here is that NZ is flooded with books from other countries and I know a lot about boarding school life in the UK, pioneer America, Scandinavian crime and policing, and more, and yet do these places get to (or want to) read about us?]

3) Other countries/cultures may already have enough books just like yours, covering the same themes and topics, with similar ideas, or voice. 

4) It may be culturally inappropriate. Or too sensitive.

5) Books that are particularly kiwi in flavour are less likely to be sold overseas. Books about Kiwi and Kea and Matariki and Kauri. They might be bought here and taken home to grandchildren overseas but an overseas publisher is unlikely to be able to sell sufficient copies in their home country to make it worthwhile.

6) While it is possible to write a book about a place you've never been and a culture you've never experienced, it is difficult to know what we don't know. We may be safer in a fantasy or speculative genre but it may still not cut the mustard with the country/culture we are trying to appeal to. Books like this can make the leap but it is not a given. 

7) Even when books are sold into other territories it is not always a big pay day. And the level of involvement and control you have will be at a distance, and possibly diminished, so it is not always a boost and I guess, it is possible, sometimes not even a good idea. 

Of course, books by New Zealand authors do get sold overseas, in all sorts of territories. But it is not every NZ book, and if it doesn't happen to you, you are in very good company with many other great writers and illustrators whose books haven't left these shores.

This writing business works pretty well if you love writing what you write. If this is the only outcome of what you do, that is a win. Anything else (getting published here, and/or elsewhere, being shortlisted and maybe even winning prizes) will be icing. If you only want the icing it can become a bit unhealthy. Love your writing first. Anything else that happens will be an interesting ride and with a bit of luck, you never know, it might also be rewarding too