Introduction

Welcome to my blog, it will document my quest of becoming a picture book Author and Illustrator.  I am an Artist, Teacher and Mother with a couple of manuscripts and picture book dummies on the go.  I expect that Blogging will help me learn things, share more and give me accountability for anything that I say that I will do.  Most importantly it will help me connect with the friendly and helpful children's book (kidlit) community as I embark with them on the following online adventures:

• Start The Year Off Write - Shannon Abercrombie's kidlit writing challenge lasting 21 days, beginning on January 5th.  It features authors and illustrators sharing insights into their practices and writing prompts and exercises to complete, all with the opportunity to win prizes.  (I started it but life with two little ones got in the way) 

• Julie Hedlund's 12 x 12 which runs all year round beginning in January, where the aim is to write twelve picture book drafts in one year, one per month.  

• Dr Mira Reisberg's Children's Book Academy course on writing children's picture books in  February.  Mira is known as the picture book whisperer, so I'm hoping for great things to come from this one.

And possibly:

• Meg Miller's ReviMo, a week of revising tips from authors and illustrators.  I signed up for this but didn't complete it, next year I will after all of the work I produce this year : ).

• Twitter chat thread, KidLitArt's Picture Book Dummy Challenge - a six month challenge, to create and submit a picture book dummy, that runs between January and July.

• Paula Yoo's NaPiBoWriWee a challenge to attempt to write seven picture books in seven days which runs in May

I'm also a member of:

• SCBWI, the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators, a fabulous support network for published and unpublished children's book writers and illustrators.  They provide lots of essential information and events relating to the industry.

• CBI, the Children's Book Insider, a paid subscription website and Facebook group all about writing children's books.  If I am honest this website is a bit of a let down for me as I find that lots of their pages are randomly offline.

• I have also just successfully completed PiBoIdMo, Tara Lazar's Picture Book Idea Month which runs in November where the challenge is to come up with 30 picture book ideas in the 30 days of November.  I'm pleased to say I achieved it on this, my second attempt.  I am now using some of these ideas to draft up for 12 x 12.

• At least once or twice a month, you can find me in Seven Stories with my two children, I used to work at this wonderful place that is the National Centre For Children's Books. They have fabulous exhibitions, author/illustrator events and a wonderful bookshop.  It is also the venue for the SCBWI crit group that I belong to. 

My interests that I will blog about are:

• Picture book creation
• Picture book analysis and study
• Picture book apps
• Art and drawing process
• Education and training
• Books on the craft of creating picture books, writing and art
• Recommending good online resources (linking to things I like and that have helped me)

Other things that may crop up could be:

• Freelancing
• Productivity
• Parenting
• Venice (my favourite place on earth, where I lived for a while)

I've learnt so much from blogs, websites and communities online over the years, maybe My blog can help someone else too. I will not openly commit to how often I will be blogging yet but I have made sure that I have started with a few posts already written.  Perhaps you'd like to subscribe to be notified of my next post where I will ask whether you need a degree to become a professional artist.  If you'd like to connect further with me you can like my Facebook page, follow me on Twitter and add me on LinkedIn and Google+ and I will happily do the same for you.

Thanks for visiting, please post your own comments below as an introduction to yourself so I can follow your blogs too.