The Big Idea

HEElllloooo world. This is my first ever blog. I’m going to be updating this blog once a week throughout this journey. I want to start by giving you a 1-minute background of who I am, and how this blog came about.
I am married and I have 2 kids. An energetic 10-year boy who loves playing hockey and baseball and lacrosse. He also loves playing Xbox. Which can drive me crazy sometimes (okay, often) because I’m constantly monitoring that. I also have a 13-year-old daughter who is a very good soccer player. She dreams of playing in college. She is also a very talented artist. We have a dog named Doug and a bird named Bob. They are both cuddlers, so they slow the blogging process down, but they also add to the fun! It’s not the easiest to type with a bird dancing on your keyboard, or a dog licking your face. I have a degree in photojournalism and advertising, although the majority of my career has been in pharmaceutical and medical device sales.
I have ALWAYS wanted to write a book. Since college I’ve wanted to be a published author. I have started and stopped 3 different books. Life always seemed to get in the way. Now the world is in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. I am laid off from my job, and job hunting in the middle of this crisis. The stay at home order just got extended until the end of May for Illinois. That’s another 6 weeks. There’s so much heartache and death right now, and people are nervous and anxious. In my own little world, I asked myself how can I keep some sense of normalcy, and what is something good that can happen during this crazy time in history? I decided I’m going to finally write and publish a book. Through my research, I couldn’t really find the “how to” in one place. I decided to blog about this process, and pass it on to all the other newbies! My daughter Izzy prefers to keep her artwork very private. Her art is just for her. She doesn’t like entering contests, or putting her art on line. I thought MAYBE she might get excited about creating a book with me. If I wrote the book, would she illustrate it? To my surprise, she seemed reluctantly excited. I decided that was a total green light, and I would run with it.
I never imagined I would write a children’s book, and for a couple days I agonized over what my characters would be. Then I remembered that during the school year Izzy would create doodles in school and pass the doodles to 2 of her best friends, Estelle and Anna. These doodles were food that was brought to life. For example, Deviled Egg. This character had arms and legs and a sneaky smirk on his face. Of course he had 2 horns! He would be my character that always got into trouble, or causing mischief. Sweet Potato would be his opposite. She’s happy and always good. She has big rosy cheeks and wears her favorite polka dot dress. Obviously her best friend is French Fry! Hahaha
Coming up with the characters wasn’t too hard. Then I went online to get some guidelines for the book. This book will be for kids 4-7 years old. I learned the book should be a minimum of 24 pages and should be between 400-1,000 words. All the sources were pretty consistent about these guidelines so that gave me confidence. The plot gave me more problems than I expected. Nothing seemed great. Every time I read a story I wrote; I knew it was lame. So, I googled how to write a book. Many authors created YouTube channels divulging their process. Many used outlines that answer simple questions like Who?, Why?, and When?. I created an outline too. My story got better, but still was not great and I knew it. My mother is the only person that we see in person during this pandemic. She lives 4 miles from me. The only place she goes is my house, and her house. Her and I spend a lot of time together but we are very different. We’ve never really collaborated or agreed on much. Planning my wedding had lots of ups and downs (Insert eye roll here). I love her so much, but we approach everything from different sides. I decided I would let her know about the book. She seemed genuinely interested and I started to tell her about the characters, and my lame plots. She was a teacher’s aid for 25 years in a grade school. She truly does have a love for kids and books. She was always the first one to sign up for Mystery Reader when the kids were little! The next thing I knew it was 3 hours later but it felt like 15 minutes. We were laughing so hard my mom had tears coming out of her eyes. By the end of the day, we had a really good story, and we felt like we actually knew these characters. They were now part of the family! Bahahaha.
When I checked to see how many words the book was at, it said 456. Perfect! My mom and I sat down and decided where the page breaks would be. The book ended at 24 pages. I told my mom I was excited she just co-authored a book with me that her granddaughter is illustrating! She requested her name be written as Nana Driscoll for the co-author credit. That seemed very fitting. Sure, why not!? She also said we should dedicate the book to my Dad. My Dad passed away 2 Christmases ago. Izzy heard us talking from the other room and screamed, “OF COURSE it should! He was a cool grandpa like French Fry!” My mom and I looked at each other and started crying. The whole thing felt like it was coming together.
We gave the story and page breaks to Izzy. Her goal is to draw 2 pages a day, and be done in 2 weeks. Izzy prefers not to be the center of attention, but at some point, she will join this blog and tell us about her perspective as the illustrator. Now for next steps. Izzy has to draw, and I have to go back to researching. I have no idea what format the book needs to be, or what the specs should be. I’m assuming we are going to self-publish, but I’ll let you know for sure next week! Until then, be well, keep safe, and find some joy!