March is Reading Month -- and Author Visit Month

Aside from whenever the tight book deadlines fall, March is my busy time. In Michigan, March is Reading Month.
That means in March lots of schools like to bring authors in to talk with their students about writing and reading.
Ohio's big month for school visits is in May, so we'll be busy then, too.

Charlie and I do a great workshop presentation.
It's interactive and educational and -- bonus! -- kids always, always, always exit our sessions excited about writing. That's because we create an illustrated story right there with them, with their help.
We also leave all the papers with the school so the students can revise the story or create something new, and they have all the tools and knowledge they'll need.

Last year we were at a new school pretty much every day in March (sometimes more than one school in a day).
This year we encouraged teachers to schedule our visits in the other months, Sept through February and also in April and May, so we'd be less busy in March. It's rewarding to connect with kids all through the year -- I'm sure it helps me understand my kid characters better.
And we love the work!
Kids respond well -- we change our presentation to fit any level, age 3 up through high school, always with fabulous results. Teachers give fantastic testimonials.
Charlie and I have the best job I could imagine.

Here's a sketchbook page from our visit to Frankenmuth, Michigan, at the end of February/beginning of March. Our hotel lost water and internet service for part of a day so Charlie and I bundled up and explored the town.

One completely unexpected, amazingly great thing happened in Frankenmuth Thursday night: I thought of a brilliant new picture book idea. It's one of those stories that comes complete with a title already thought up, and the characters almost fully developed. It'll take a while to be ready to share with the world, but I'm excited, and I'll always remember this book had its roots in my school visits.

SCBWINY14

Just returned from the big international SCBWI conference in New York (or, as I keep telling people it's supposed to be pronounced, "nyork"). 

I'm motivated and inspired and excited. I have a full sketchbook of 150 sketches of the journey -- both to, from, and in New York, and also my personal, emotional journey to new and renewed literary friendships and improved work.

Three great things I heard at the VIP party -- all from editors:

- You can DRAW! I love your card! 

- I know Ellie McDoodle -- YOU do that series??

- I am THRILLED to meet you!

That last one is my awesome editorial team at Bloomsbury! I have a new editor and she introduced me to some of the great people there. Really, seriously, fantastically great people -- it was a thrill for me to meet them, too.

(I wrote these things down verbatim in my sketchbook because I want to remember them forever.)

I'm sharing two spreads of sketchbook pages here.

This page is one of the most exciting moments of the conference, on the left. It started small and turned into a life-changing opportunity. More on this in a future blog.

And on the right it's one of my favorite little bits of the national conference, where Lin Oliver talks about the funny contest entries and Tomie dePaola talks about the Tomie contest entries (YAY for Michigan writer-illustrator Nina Goebel who placed and who also came to this conference) and the air is buzzing because of all the great stuff that's already been shared in the previous days, and Sunday's our last big day at the conference.

This is a little part of the return trip to Michigan

I pushed myself at the conference. 

I acted like an extrovert even when I didn't quite feel like one.

I walked miles around the city every day even though I'm still nursing a Hapkido knee injury from a year ago.

I worked -- volunteered -- as SCBWI-Michigan's Illustrator Coordinator, even taking on extra jobs at the conference, and pushing myself to become more familiar with the people who (expertly, beautifully, sacrificingly, exhaustingly, fantastically) run the show.

I made up a great postcard before coming and handed it out everywhere, with this image on the front and an Ellie McDoodle image on the back (and of course all my contact info) --

After 9 years of concentrating on 

highly-illustrated middle grade novels,

I'm getting into picture books now.

I introduced myself to everyone around me again and again and again (not the same people three times!).

All that pushing paid off.

I'm so thrilled to have gone to NYC and this conference and I got SO MUCH out of it that I have vowed I am ***definitely*** going to the next international SCBWI conference in Los Angeles, this summer.

First order of business: Sell a book. I have 5 great picture book ideas percolating. Some of them my agent loves. I have a plan. :)

It'll be tricky working on books while I'm doing school visits -- we're at a new school 4 times per week and sometimes on the weekends. But I am motivated!!

Gifts of art, gifts from the heart

I'm an artist and author. My books haven't cracked the NYTimes best sellers list yet. My husband worked retail for 25 years. We've lived well and we've lived tight. Right now we're in a modest income bracket. I'm also on deadline for the next Ellie McDoodle book.
That's typical this time of year.
And so, most years I make as many of my Christmas gifts as I can, at the last minute.
Most years my aspirations are much higher than my actual reach.
That's why it's been about a decade (or two) since I mailed out a Christmas card.
(I feel terrible about this.)
One of these years I'll have the perfect confluence of time and means. Watch out!
In the meantime, homemade gifts.
This was for my mom and her siblings, and any cousins who wanted them.

This is my dear Grandma Ruth and Grandpa George Codd, getting married:

 They loved to travel.

 This is the swimsuit fashion of the late 20s and early 30s, when I like to think they packed up and played at the beach of Saugatuck or Grand Haven:

 They took the entire family (their 10 kids and all their families) to Bob-Lo Island Amusement Park every year on Labor Day. Some of my best childhood memories are Grandma Ruth and Grandpa's parties.

Grandma Ruth was a golfer. 

I did not inherit that love. 

I've never tried golf and I'm terrible at miniature golf.

My grandson's favorite part of Grandparent University at

Michigan State University was the miniature golfing.

Grandpa and Grandma had a big Irish Catholic 

(part French and Swiss too) family.

That little one with the teddy bear is my mom.

I know Aunt Marj's arm is too long. This is just the

rough art scanned into Photoshop.

Are weddings predestined? 

Is it prearranged by the lovers before they are born?

Destiny or not, I am lucky to have been born into the Codd family.
My Grandpa Codd became my best friend in the years before he died; after he'd lost Grandma Ruth to dementia my cartoony notes to him became more important to him and also to me. I've started a blog elsewhere about them. I'll share it widely eventually.
I miss my grandparents.
My love for them makes me try harder to be a good grandma to my own grandkids.

The Ellie McDoodle Diaries: Ellie for President

This book comes out in September, 2014.

Here's the first page in the first draft:

Here's the first page a few drafts later:

Astute readers will notice Ellie's relatives from book 1 are in the crowd scene on page 1 in book 6.

I figured it was time to bring them back for a visit. 

Ellie McDoodle, Book 6: Four *more* first draft pages

Here are four more first draft pages from my Ellie sketchbook for book 6.
There are 170 pages in one Ellie McDoodle book.

^^ Pages 12 and 13 comprise one two-page spread.

^^ Pages 14 and 15 comprise one two-page spread.

Only 155 more pages to go!

It'll be worth it. :)

Ellie McDoodle, Book 6: Four more first draft pages

More pages from my Ellie McDoodle book 6 sketchbook.
I like constraining my sketches to a journal/book format in the planning stages. It adds a layer of challenge.

 ^^ Pages 8 and 9 face each other on one 2-page, open-book spread.

^^ Pages 10 and 11 face each other on one spread.

Ellie McDoodle: Book 6, more first draft pages

Four pages from book 6's first draft sketchbook:

Pages 4 and 5 are one spread.

Pages 6 and 7 are the next spread.

Ellie's grandpa (who, um, doesn't quite have a name yet) is a big supporter of her art. 

My Grandpa George was a big proponent of my work. I'd send him my hand-scrawled cartoons and he'd put them on his fridge and make his visitors read them. I know this because they'd tell me at family parties. I know they didn't mind. 

It felt great (still does!) to know he loved my work, especially since I don't always feel confident about it myself.

Ellie McDoodle: book 6 draft 1

When I talk with kids in schools, they seem to think authors write their books from beginning to end, perfectly, no revisions, and then the books are published.
It's not that simple.
After that perfect writing there's a revisions process that for some authors can take years.
I love revising because a) I know my early drafts are not very good, and b) I know the finished manuscript will be *much* better after lots of careful revisions.

I'm in the revisions process right now for Ellie McDoodle, book 6.
Here are some of the first draft scribbles.

When Life Hands You Lemons, Draw Them

It was almost exactly 38 years ago that my high school art teacher took me out in the hallway and gave me a little blank book to draw and write in. It was hardbound, maybe 200 pages, and I'd never seen a book like that before in my life. 

I'd used diaries (hated, HATED the lines and confining dates in them) and I'd used sketchbooks (loved the textured paper, disliked the spiral binding that always let go of the pages) and I'd used scribble pads (loved the smooth paper and low price, disliked the poor binding that fell apart; I never filled them). I'd never seen a blank book that I could fill however I wanted.

Today these things are everywhere. My favorite brand is Moleskine, but I'll use anything in a pinch, and often make my own.

Though I was immensely grateful, it took me a long time to get up the guts to ruin that book by writing and drawing in it. It helped that she wasn't going to grade or approve my work. I'd had a spotty record of turning in work in art class, just a couple short years earlier.

These days I talk about this wonderful teacher -- and awesome teachers who go beyond what's expected to help the most wretched kids, like me -- in almost every single author presentation I do. 

That's many hundreds, so far. Maybe thousands.

This teacher gave me a way out of the scary, ugly stuff in my head and in my life. She gave me a safe way to vent. She gave me a way to remember the good things for my whole life. And she gave me, ultimately, a career. Ellie McDoodle is my character who records her life in a sketchjournal. 

I still keep a sketchjournal with me almost all of the time. I'm not big on constricting, useless rules, so I don't make myself draw in it every day, and I don't keep it with me in the shower, and I sometimes make mistakes or leave blank pages or write or draw something that isn't my best. Eh, it doesn't matter. The perfectionist in me is muted now that I am over 50. And maybe my collection of about 450 imperfect sketchjournals from over the years will be useful to others someday.

For now, for me, they're a daily reminder of what that first book from Mrs. Elizabeth McCarthy taught me: 

- when life hands you lemons, draw them.

- keep track of both good and bad; someday you'll be glad you did.

- it's okay to make mistakes. Most mistakes are funny, years later.

- keep a sketchjournal. And then take good care of it when it's full.

Here's a sketch from that first sketchjournal, from 1975, in my 16 year old hand. 

I'm pushing my younger brother on the tire swing at a picnic.

 

Here's a page from one of my recent trips to the Upper Peninsula. That's my husband and me on a Lake Superior beach in Marquette. It's surprising to me that my art is so similar, almost 40 years later.

I tell kids to keep a journal. I think it's the single most important thing they can do to figure out their lives. And who doesn't need that?

I'll share more on great teachers in a future post -- I certainly have been lucky to know very many.
I'll share more from my sketchjournals in future posts, too. But maybe you'd like to see what others do with their Moleskine notebooks. Click here: http://moleskinerie.com

Book spine fun

My local indie bookstore's most recent Shelf Awareness issue features Nina Katchadourian's new SORTED BOOKS, an insightful and fun introduction to the idea of rearranging books to form dialogues, jokes, fragments, questions and poetry.
Buy Nina's book at your favorite indie bookstore, or from Schulers, where I sip tea and write books.

Travis Jonker at 100 Scope Notes (now part of the School Library Journal blog family) has been displaying book spine poetry for years, too. And he's put out a call for entries.

Every other time he called for entries I told myself I was too busy and couldn't participate.
Well, I am still busy.
(This is March Is Reading Month! Charlie and I trekked through rain, sleet, and snow to speak to zillions of schoolkids about how to become better writers. And I am on deadline for the 6th Ellie McDoodle book.)

But this time I heed Travis's call.

My book spine poem is about Ellie McDoodle and her love for taking a notepad into nature and documenting what she sees -- and the line at the end exhorts us all to follow her.
Click on the image to see it larger.
 

The book titles, top to bottom:

Picture This                                       (by Molly Bang)
The Call of the Wild                          (by Jack London)
In the Nick of Time                           (Ed: Anne Van Wagner Childs)
Someone Like You                            (by Sarah Dessen)
Ellie McDoodle                                 (by Ruth McNally Barshaw)
Alive                                                   (by Piers Paul Read)
Awake to Wildlife                              (by Tim Nowicki)
Go Girl!                                              (by Hannah Storm)
Loving the Earth                                (by Frederic Lehrman)
Thinking Visually                               (by Mark Wigan)
Pencil Sketching                                (by Thomas C. Wang)
Pictures of Hollis Woods                   (by Patricia Reilly Giff)
Great Expectations                            (by Charles Dickens)
The World of Incredible Outdoor Adventures by Field & Stream
Star in the Forest                               (by Laura Resau)
Now We Can Go                                (by Ann Jonas)

Try your own Book Spine Poetry! Tell Travis about it.
Take a notebook out into the woods. Tell me about it.
Now we can go!