It's RhyPiBoMo! Rhyming Picture Book Month -- time to rhyme!

My blog post is up!

This is RhyPiBoMo -- Rhyming Picture Book Month, designated and developed by Angie Karcher, author.

It's a month of blog posts about picture book rhyme -- written by authors who excel at rhyme (and then there's me, a newbie). You'll find lots of tips, ideas, how-to's -- really great stuff taught by people who know how to do it well. It's all free, of course!
So check it out!

Find my post here:
http://angiekarcher.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/the-tap-dancing-elephant-falls-down-wednesday/

And then go read all the other days!

I'm thrilled to be included in RhyPiBoMo. I've written lots and lots of rhyme, tried many stories in rhyme over the years, and, after all that work, I have exactly one marketable manuscript in rhyme.
The story is about music.
I'm not really a musician. I play harmonica pretty well, but that's about it. I remember a little from organ classes, I know how to put together and hold a clarinet and make awful sounds come out. On days when my voice isn't husky from allergies or exertion, I can sing moderately well. I can sight-read music well, though slowly. I can figure out how to play a song I heard, on harmonica, after a couple tries. I'm in a band composed of authors, and we sing and play music -- much of it original -- at agency retreats. I'm no musician, though.
My husband sings beautifully.
Our four kids are all musical. Two sang on stage in high school. One's a real musician, performing for pay -- he and his wife play duets together, songs they write and sing with their own instruments. It's beautiful, heartwarming, inspiring -- intimidating. Seeing how well some people play with (and work at) music makes me realize how far behind I am.

When this idea for a music picture book hit me, I first wrote it down. Then I emailed my son and asked for his help writing the book (really, I wanted him to write it and me to illustrate).
He said no.
He said I could do the job, and he would send a few ideas. His ideas were really great, but I sure was disappointed at first. The story was too big for me to let drop or give away, so I started to tackle it. Piece by piece, stanza by stanza, line by line, word by word, image by image... The story came together. I'm very excited about its potential.
I'm working on the art.

Figuring out one of the characters:

These are early sketches. I have no idea how much of this will be in the final book.

Just like the writing, creating the art of this book scares me.

You never know what you can do until you push yourself, right?

My whole life I've done things that scared me.
It's always paid off.

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My page on Angie Karcher's blog has my post and lots of great extras, collected and organized by Angie:
http://angiekarcher.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/the-tap-dancing-elephant-falls-down-wednesday/