*hurls self into thread*
*slat-lands*
Everyone.
I am a total noob at this kiddie-book-writing business. Honestly, I don't have clue. Last year, after the editor of my non-fic book had finished the editing, he called me and said that, if I had any ideas about writing/submitting children's literature, now would be time to do it. It just so happens that I do have something, I think.
Many years ago Eons ago, when my children were very young, we lived on a sugar plantation in Swaziland miles and miles, over badly-graded dirt roads, from the nearest town. The plantation did have a library, about the size of a small bedroom and stocked mostly with sexy books that were banned in South Africa at that time. The kiddie's section had about a dozen books, which lasted my children all of a month or so. Since driving all the way to Mbabane was not something that could be done frequently, I set about writing storybooks for my story-hungry youngsters. I used exercise books that had lines on one page opposite a page that was left blank. I hand-wrote the stories and used the blank page for illustrations. Between you and me, I can barely draw a check let alone illustrate a book, but my kids loved those stories. Possibly because the main protagonists were 'coincidentally' three little girls called Sally, Heather and Samantha who had amazing adventures with a little car called Aripudne.
So... you can see where this is going... after visiting an Indie Book Fair held here last month, and hearing about how our government is pushing strongly for early childhood development programs that include reading, and that there is a huge shortage of local children's books that cater for the ethnic and cultural diversity of SA, I got to thinking. (Not always a good thing for me, but... yanno, it happens.) What if I re-wrote the Aripudne series? Brought it up to date, structured it reflect the current milieu - it might be better to leave out the political corruption and crime stuff - and had a go at submitting it? I got all excited about this until I realized something.
Writing children's books is not nearly as easy or as simple as I thought. So. I have no choice but to throw myself on the mercy of all of you and ask a gazillion stupid questions about just about everything relating to kiddie's picture books. I will, however, do plenty of independent research but I might also ask for directions to the best sites/books for info, etc. For now, I'm still back-reading all the stickies and other threads.
Thoughts? Anyone else have fond memories of Pratchett's works?
Diehard Pratchett fan here
. I had the pleasure of meeting Sir Terry back in the '90's when he came out to SA to promote his latest Discworld book, the title of which escapes me right now. He was kind enough to sign a whole bunch of books for me and those books live on a shelf devoted to Pratchett's work. To be honest, he wasn't the warmest person I've ever met but that doesn't detract one bit from the brilliant author that he was. I'm about four or five books short of a complete collection but catching up.
