Some Advice
Writing Picture Books
Books for young children are usually short. Young children aged 0-7 are themselves short. This leads to an assumption that children have small brains and writing for them is easy. The reverse it true. Young children have active, lively brains, and writing for them is difficult.
Writing Do’s and Don’ts
DO read recent picture books over and over again.
DO make friends with a bookseller or librarian or storyteller: their advice and guidance can be enormously helpful.
DO be original: try not to copy the ideas or structures of recent well-known books.
DO become familiar with the nature of rhythm. Understanding brevity, rhythm, and cadence in prose will keep rejections at bay.
The Folly of Jolly Old Phonics
Once upon a time in Australia there lived three children. Their names were Sean, Justin and Josephine. Sean lived in Hobart, and still does. Justin lived in Melbourne, and still does. And Josephine lived in Adelaide—and still does, around the corner from me. Each of these children learnt to read before he or she went to school, without any lessons. How this happened is fascinating. And challenging. And ultimately, confronting for those of us in literacy education.
Notes from the battlefield
I’m a writer. As such I often see myself as a bloodied and wounded soldier staggering around a battlefield in an attempt to conquer the blank page. As a soldier in the thick of it all I will try to explain from the battlefield why I write and why other write around me. I’ll also try to puzzle out, from the perspective of a war correspondent who stands back and observes, why there are so many deserters out there, refusing to take up their pens and write alongside me. Is it becausethe wages aren’t good enough? Is it because there’s nothing worth writing for? Is it because it’s only a pretend battle with pretend rewards for pretend winners? We’ll see.