Keila Dawson,
author of the delightful picture book The
King Cake Baby, invited me to participate in this Writing Process Blog
Tour. When I met Keila at our local SCBWI, I knew she'd be a writing
success! Be sure to check out her responses to the writing process questions on her blog.
And here are
mine:
What am I currently working on?
I'm also working
on a middle grade novel about a spunky girl nobody wants. Progress is slow because I
work on it sporadically, and I'm experimenting with writing without an outline.
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
There are lots
of great faith-based values education materials, but Tackling Tough Topics is different in that it uses fiction. Kids
connect with stories in a different way than they do with nonfiction. They get
emotionally involved, relate to the characters, and wonder how things are going
to come out in the end. All that opens them up to receiving the good message
you're trying to get across.
Why do I write what I write?
I was a special
education teacher for many years, and I view writing as another way to teach. I
hope to help kids lead better lives, make good moral decisions, and grow up to
be the people they want to be.
How does my individual writing process work?
It's a torturous
process of writing then deleting then rewriting then rephrasing then moving
along a while then realizing what I'm doing is not going to work and deleting
then rewriting and so on and so on until I "rassle" the story into
submission and feel really good until I start the next project! It's not
pretty.
To continue the
Writing Process Blog Tour, I'm tagging writer and illustrator Virginia Wright. (She
is a fascinating person. Read about her below!) Virginia's answers
to the writing process questions will appear on her blog on June 9.
Besides
writing and illustrating, Virginia loves taking photographs of everything that
catches her eye -- oddities, nature, and food. (Yup, she's a foodie, too, and
has a recipe blog). She stated that she had hundreds upon hundreds, no, into
the thousands now, of photographs and illustrations on her computer files. One
of her favorite hobbies is creating artwork from her photographic
images--combining real life photographs with digital painting. (She calls this
"digital artistry.") Her current WIP, writing and illustrating, is a
book for toddlers titled: Wild Animal Sounds.
