New Year Reflections on 2016

Well it has been three years since I actively started blogging and as it is January it is a time for reflection upon what I got up to in the last year.  In general I have blogged less this year, probably due to returning to the world of work after an extended maternity leave, but I have still endeavoured to become a picture book Author and Illustrator, which is what my blogging aims to document.

So this year I started my Instagram account after hearing that it is how a lot of illustrators get spotted by agents.  I like it as a platform and it brings my work to a new audience judging from the likes and follows.  I treat it as a sketchbook showcase and show different work from what I show on my Facebook page and Twitter.  I’ve have not been approached by any agents yet though.

Speaking of agents, after going to the brilliant SCBWI Workshop; Getting Your Picture Book onto the Page with Elizabeth O Dulemba, I chatted with Sheila Averbuch about how she found Writer’s Digest Webinars (the live ones with access to editors and agents) very valuable in her path to publishing.  So I decided to try one and bought How to Write a Picture Book That Sells complete with a critique from a US agent .  While I found the webinar itself to be just okay (useful content but delivered by reading from slides) I was more interested in getting a professional critique on my current ‘best’ manuscript.  For the money I paid, I was initially disappointed with the four lines of feedback that I received.  The first two lines were positive and then I read these comments;

“I wish there was more of a story, though.  The picture book market is so competitive 
that I wonder if this story has enough in it to make it stand out from the rest.”

I couldn’t believe it, especially as I had just added more conflict to my latest draft, in truth I felt a bit despondent and stopped writing for a little while.  A few months later there was an opportunity to have a 121 session with Skylark a UK literary agency, organised by SCBWI BI NE.  So I got that manuscript out and read it again, I still thought it was good until I analysed it using Alayne Kay Christian’s Art of Arc self-study exercises .  The agent was right there wasn’t actually any story there at all.  It was a bittersweet moment of realisation that I need to revise that manuscript more before I can send it out for submission again.

So I didn’t submit this Picture Book manuscript to Skylark as it obviously wasn’t ready and because they are mainly Young Adult and Middle Grade agents.  Instead I decided to submit an old comic script that I had recently re-drafted.  And I was very surprised to get great feedback from Joanna Moult. Find out what she said here in Em Lynas’s write up of the event.  So I now feel encouraged to continue working on the both the comic a bit more and the picture book.

This year I have increased my volunteering duties for SCBWI, not only did I hang the SCBWI Illustrator Showcase in Seven Stories again, I am also now co-Network Organiser for the North East alongside Marie-Claire Imam-Guitierrez.  You can read an interview with me about the role in SCBWI's Words and Pictures, online magazine.  So far I have learnt a lot from watching Marie-Claire organise the wonderful Creating Believable Characters Event and I will be organising an Illustration event in the next few months.

The SCBWI BI Illustration Showcase at Seven Stories

My artwork output has diversified this year and now includes Caricatures and Comics!  Both as a result of doing Inkotber. I’ve done three Inktobers now and for Inktober2016 I wanted to do something a bit bigger to grow my audience.  I thought I’d draw and ink a page of my comic manuscript everyday but realised how ambitious that would be in the timescale of a month.  Instead I adapted Kate Bush’s song Under Ice into a 16 page, one panel per page, minicomic.  I am a massive fan of Kate Bush and was lucky enough to go to a concert of hers during her 2014 residency at the Eventim Apollo.  Under Ice is a song from a suite called the Ninth Wave on her 1985 album Hounds of Love.  It is a very visual suite of songs that I interpret as being about a woman falling overboard a ship and slipping in and out of consciousness before she is finally rescued.  Each song is either a dream or an account of what is happening.  As you can see from my  drawings, I imagine the song to be about Kate skating on a frozen river when it cracks and she falls in the water and dies, the ending sequence is her seeing herself under the ice and emerging as a spirit.

So did this grow my audience?  Yes it did!  And if you follow this blog you will find out when my next post is live, and I will tell you how.

SCBWI Workshop Report - Getting Your Picture Book onto the Page With Elizabeth Dulemba

Last weekend I escaped my duties as a Mother and took a train up to Edinburgh to join the South East Scotland SCBWI Network for a Picture Book Workshop with the wonderful Elizabeth O Dulemba.

Sketching at the station

Elizabeth is an amazing writer, illustrator and teacher from the US, who we are lucky to have access to here in the UK (and the North especially!) as she has recently moved to Edinburgh to further her studies. Watch her inspiring TEDx talk about how she sold or gave away nearly everything she owned to pursue her dreams. 

I had heard of Elizabeth before this workshop by listening to Katie Davis’ Brain Burps About Books podcasts; the one about how she turned one of her books, Lula’s Brew into an app and then a later one about her lovely historical fiction middle-grade novel A Bird on Water Street.  She is a prolific blogger and provides many useful resources for writers and illustrators and weekly colouring in pages for children.  I have previously mentioned her on my blog in relation to my Picture Book Anatomy tutorial.

The Workshop

It was a really useful and productive workshop, with a mixture of exemplar picture books, story analysis, folding paper, lots of folding paper, writing, pitching and drawing.  There was a lot of information crammed in and I was surprised to find that by the end, I’d roughly storyboarded the manuscript that I took along.  It was a pleasure and enlightening to see the collection of professionals’ storyboards that Elizabeth showed.  I now want to check out the gorgeous work of Ruth Sanderson whom I was previously unfamiliar with, click on that link, you won’t be sorry that you did.  Elizabeth brought along some of her own picture book dummies (mock ups) which were exquisite.  Sadly we ran out of time at the end to make our own dummies but Elizabeth has a pdf resource on her website to help.

Folding a zine

My Storyboard

So what I will take away from the workshop is a way to look at my texts to define the essence of them, then break them down into four key structure parts, and from there into a further eight parts and then finally seeing them as a whole of 14 spreads/32 pages to eventually taking them to dummy for reading out loud and page turning in the real world.

Sociable SCBWIs

It was a fun-packed, educational time and as SCBWI’s are a sociable lot I joined them for a post-workshop drink to talk even more about children’s book writing and illustrating and despairing at how long it takes to succeed.  It was lovely to hear about Sheila Averbuch’s journey and her signing with her agent.  Sheila highly recommended doing Writer’s Digest courses with access to editors and agents so I’m strongly considering trying an appropriate one to me, if I do, I’m sure to report back.

October / Inktober 2015

October is my favourite month of the year as it is my birthday month and because of Halloween, I just love spooky things.  I’ve been working on some portfolio pieces and this one is appropriate for the season; a witch taking a night flight as a swarm of bats spirals by.

Night Flight by Claire O'Brien, 2015, gouache on paper

I took part in #Inktober again this year.  Just to recap, Inktober is a drawing challenge to make one ink drawing a day for the entire month of October.  Inktober was started in 2009 by an artist called Jake Parker, who set himself the challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits.  I am pleased to say that I made a drawing every day except for the last.  

Doing Inktober was as fun as last year, I even took some requests this year for subjects to draw which added to the challenge. Inktober really motivated me to draw every day and the quality of drawings ranged from throwaway sketches to not bad, I even sold some prints and have been commissioned to draw in my ink style.

You can see all of my Inktober drawings on my Facebook page but here are are some of my highlights:

"Playing in the Garden" by Claire O'Brien

"The Gentleman" by Claire O'Brien

"I Found a Fox" by Claire O'Brien

"Kate Bush - Before The Dawn" by Claire O'Brien

"Halloween" by Claire O'Brien

There was also lovely a meet up of some sociable SCBWIs, Top, 2016 Carnegie long-listed, YA author Teri Terry was in town for writing research so a gang of us had dinner and viewed the SCBWI Illustration Showcase exhibition at Seven Stories.

Geoff Lynas, Maureen Lynas and Janet Foxley outside of Seven Stories

Teri Terry, Geoff Lynas, and Maureen Lynas

"Maureen and Teri" by Claire O'Brien

Up month is Tara Lazar's PiBoIdMo - Picture Book Idea Month a where you come up with an idea for a picture book every day of November.  

Sociable SCBWIs - Rebecca Colby

I have written before here and here about how how friendly the world of children's literature is and I am going to do it again in this post.  Last month, when I asked my online friend, fellow SCBWI member and brilliant picture-book writer; Rebecca Colby, for some advice for things to do with kids in her hometown, she not only responded with some great ideas, we also decided to meet up and had a lovely time eating ice-cream and talking about writing.

Rebecca and I

I love Rebecca’s latest book "It's Raining Bats & Frogs", it is really well-written with some lovely poetic refrains and is a great example of picture book plotting.  I adore the art and have enjoyed reading illustrator Steve Henry’s blog posts on his working process on this book, covering concept design, final art and I especially love this post about layout.

For the aspiring children’s picture book authors and illustrators reading this, you must check out Rebecca’s guest Sub It Club blog post about querying agents.  She reads between the lines of her successful query letter for "It's Raining Bats & Frogs" to show what your letter is  actually saying to agents about you and your story.  It has certainly helped me craft my own query submissions. 

I know that we can expect a few more picture books from Rebecca in the future and you can also get her debut book "There Was a Wee Lassie Who Swallowed a Midgie" .  "It's Raining Bats & Frogs"
isn’t available in UK shops yet but it can be ordered pretty quickly from Amazon, I highly recommend it to you and if you get the chance to meet Rebecca, I recommend her too.

Promotion

I have had quite a fun-filled children’s book-related month so far, I have been to some promotional events, I have even been promoted myself and there are some great opportunities for more promotion to be had, not just for me but for other aspiring children’s picture book author and illustrators too!

Promotional Events

First up was Seven Stories’ Jodi Picoult talk and signing at the lovely Tyneside Cinema.  Jodi and her daughter, Samantha Van Leer, have co-written a YA (Young Adult) novel “Between the Lines” that is a book about a book, a fairytale book, with characters coming out of the page.  Jodi and Sammi gave a great talk, the pair of them in conversation, no compere!  The book also features striking illustrations by Yvonne Gilbert and enchanting silhouettes by Scott M. Fischer.  Let’s hope we see more YA novels with illustration adorning their pages in the future.

  

Next up was the launch of Gabrielle Kent’s Middle Grade novel “Alfie Bloom and the Secrets of Hexbridge Castle” at Stockton Library.  I’m so excited by the book because I’m a friend of Gabrielle. We met at Teesside University when she was my tutor and then, when I worked there, my colleague.  “Alfie Bloom and the Secrets of Hexbridge Castle” is her debut and it is the start of a series.  It was a lovely book launch with readings, signings and fun activities for children and Stockton Library looked like a really good libary.  I’m so pleased for Gabrielle and look forward to seeing how her writing career turns out and I know she is cheering me on in my own writing endeavours.

 

The last of the events that I went to were some illustrator talks that kicked off The Festival of Illustration in Hartlepool.  The talks that I attended were great, they were by Chris Riddell, John McCrea (comic artist) and Sara Ogilvie. The festival has been well-organised by Cleveland College of Art and Design and the main illustration exhibition and is held in the beautiful former church, Hartlepool Art Gallery.  The exhibition runs between the 4th June to the 4th July and it is well worth a look (and a second visit from me) as it features some top illustrators all-round and as well as children’s picture book illustrators.   I attended with some SCBWI friends and it was nice to meet Chris Riddell, little did we know he was about to become the Children’s Laureate, check out his five point plan for the role. 

 

Left to Right: Lucy Farfort, Claire O'Brien, Maureen Lynas,
Chris Riddell, Cathy Brumby and Katherine Lynas

Chris Riddell by Claire O'Brien 

Promotion of Me

This month saw the release of my first ever interview!  It was for the brilliant Kidlit TV who have featured me as their Community Member of the Month for June.  KidlitTV is a great community and YouTube channel that features original Kidlit content, particularly fantastic interviews with authors and illustrators in their ‘Story Makers’ series (a title I came up with).  As well as providing great content, the Facebook group is a mine of information about video creation and marketing, so if you make videos, you need to join.

SCBWI has launched a new email magazine INSIGHT, every month there is a drawing prompt for members, everyone who submits gets included in the gallery and two are picked to be featured in the email itself.  This email will reach agents and editors so it is worth submitting to.  You can see my entry for the ‘Bounce’ prompt here, leave me comment if you look.

Let’s Get Promoted

I have already mentioned being featured in SCBWI’s Draw This prompt, this month’s prompt is ‘Adventure’, here are the guidelines if you’re a SCBWI member and wish to submit, but hurry, the deadline is June 20th.

Another SCBWI opportunity is Undiscovered Voices, a competition for unpublished and unagented children's book writers and illustrators living in the EU.  Submissions are open on the 1st of July and close on the 16th August.  The illustration criteria give the opportunity for drawing some twisted fairy tales 

Here’s a contest to win a critique from talented illustrator, teacher and YouTuber Will Terry and $30 credit to his SVS online courses by submitting an illustration to the prompt of: “Amanda was so excited for her first day at the cottage until…”.  The deadline is 12:00 noon EST, June 25^th.

And just for fun and cool prizes there is Susannah Hill’s illustration contest on the theme of Discovery, you have until the 26t of June to submit.

Good luck with these if you enter, why don’t you post a link if you do, I’d love to see.  Thanks for reading.

New Year's Resolutions

Well it has been one year since I actively started blogging so I thought my first post of 2015 should be a review of 2014 and establish some New Year Resolutions.  In my very first post I stated that my aims were to document my quest of becoming a picture book Author and Illustrator, I still haven’t made it as an Author and Illustrator yet as it requires a lot of hard work, so this blog will continue along those lines again this year.

So what did I achieve last year? 

• I completed Dr Mira Reisberg's Children's Book Academy course on writing children's picture books where I came out with my best manuscript so far and an illustration for its first spread which went on to be selected for the 2014 SCBWI BI Illustration Showcase.  This was a goal I set for myself here. 
• I took part in Julie Hedlund's 12 x 12 challenge to write twelve picture book drafts in one year, one per month.  I didn’t quite manage twelve, more like six which is better than nothing.  It was really worthwhile doing it, the community there is great and they share their knowledge.  I’ve enrolled again this year too, at Gold level, eek!
• I 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.  So I have 30 more ideas in the bank than I did before.
• The most daring thing I have done this year was submit a manuscript to two agents.  One via a pitching webinar and the other via #PITMAD on Twitter.  Both came back as rejections, one with feedback too.  I’m not as discouraged about it as I thought I would be and I am looking forward to making more submissions soon.
• I’m still a member of SCBWI, the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrators, and I attend my supportive SCBWI crit group once a month at Seven Stories.  Once of the group was taken on by an agent so I’m looking forward to seeing how that develops.
• I released a free Picture Book Template for Scrivener and an accompanying video on YouTube which have been well-received and they have certainly raised the profile of my online platform.
• I was a member of the CBI, the Children's Book Insider, a paid subscription website and Facebook group all about writing children's books.  I didn’t renew my membership this year, if I am honest their website was a bit of a let down for me as I found that lots of their pages were randomly offline and the Facebook group was mainly full of members’ self promotion.
• New web adventures have included a few of my blog posts being featured in the SCBWI British Isles online magazine Words and Pictures.  And I loved getting my weekly email from Kidlit411, it’s so full of useful information to children’s authors and illustrators as is KidLitTV (I had the honour of naming their programme “Storymakers”).
• Regarding learning and working on my craft I have been using Craftsy, Linda.com, Skillshare and Udemy videos and the brilliant Path to Publishing with The Plot Whisperer, Martha Alderson and Agent, Jill Corcoran.
• Oh I went to the hottest ticket gig of the century when I went to see Kate Bush at her residency at the Hammersmith Apollo.  It was so amazing and inspiring, words don't do it justice, I'm still thinking about it!

Kate Bush - Before The Dawn - 2014

My New Year’s resolutions are to:

• Improve my portfolio via my critical findings
• Write more manuscripts and improve my writing craft
• Increase the frequency of my blogging, post at least 18 posts this year.
• Submit to agents with an aim of representation
• Produce more videos and develop my YouTube channel 
• Read more picture books

I wish you all the best with your own resolutions and I hope to see you back here soon.

The I in SCBWI - Illustrators!

Yesterday saw the visit of illustrators and SCBWI members Anne-Marie Perks and Bridget Stevens-Marzo to Seven Stories, The National Centre For Children’s Books.  They were here to hang the SCBWI Showcase exhibition that was launched as part of SCBWI’s annual conference last year.  Me and fellow north-based SCBWI members (Maureen Lynas, Cathy Brumby, Lucy Farfort and Alex Wilson were there to help, support and of course, socialise with them.

In front of part of the exhibition.
Left to right - Maureen Lynas, Alex Wilson, Anne-Marie Perks, Bridget Strevens-Marzo, Cathy Brumby and Me.
Photo by Geoff Lynas

The Illustrator’s Showcase is an annual selection of images by SCBWI member illustrators. This year’s features new faces and veterans such as Mike Brownlow, John Shelley and Gillian McClure (Gillian also has work in the brilliant Picture Book in Progress exhibition).  All SCBWI illustrator members are encouraged to submit, and those that make the shortlist of accepted entries are selected for exhibition by a professional jury panel. 

With twenty three varied works on display, the show is lovely and should be highly visible being in Seven Stories’ cafe.  Works that stand out for me are Heather Kilgour’s City Skyline, a gorgeous, monochrome fantasy cityscape with animals perched atop of the buildings. The hazy, melancholy of Yoko Tanaka’s bear and blanket, who are no longer needed and Alex Wilson’s evocative Rosie’s Rainy Day.

It was great to meet Anne-Marie for the first time, and it was the second time I’ve met Bridget.  Bridget illustrated a great rhyming picture book by Kristy Dempsey called Mini Racer.  It was a favourite of my son’s when he was about one and a half.  He had two favourite spreads, the first was the end paper of all the characters lined up, where he would identify the all the animals and then kiss the cats when he found them.  His other favourite was the spread where the dog falls off his bike, because there is a "DiggerDigger" there.  We often didn't get any further than this as we would have to go back to the end pages and start again.  I’m writing this in the past tense as he eventually destroyed the book, I should’ve got a new copy for Bridget to sign.

I showed Anne-Marie and Bridget my portfolio and latest manuscript and got some useful feedback on them.  Still a lot of work for me to do but I’m on the right track and judging from the standard of this exhibition I’d be honoured to get my own work in the next SCBWI showcase.

Sociable SCBWIs

I love how friendly the world of children's literature is, especially SCBWIs.  Last week I went to dinner with my SCBWI crit group friends as part of Teri Terry's trip up North.

From left to right - Maureen Lynas, me, Janet Foxley, Teri Terry, Marie-Claire Imam-Guttierrez, Deborah Court, Gill Hodgson, Cathy Brumby, and Beth Khalil

I have read Teri's Slated and can really recommend it.  I'm looking forward to reading Fractured, the second book in the trilogy when motherhood permits.  The third book Shattered is out in March.

The most dynamic SCBWI member I know, Maureen Lynas, was also there.  I have recently read her Florence and The Meanies - Cupcake Catastrophe (illustrated by her daughter Katherine Lynas), again I can recommend it, it's funny, charming and easy to read.

My current read Muncle Trogg is by Janet Foxley, who was also there, is so far so good and is in a similar vein to the book version of Cressida Cowell's How To Train Your Dragon.  Muncle might also make the big screen as an animation too just like How To Train Your Dragon as it has been optioned by Sony.  I wonder if they will change it as much as How To Train Your Dragon?

We also met two fabulously enthusiastic school librarians who are doing great work for reading by the sounds of it.  A lovely night.

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.