This week I wrote a children’s book! It’s very simple, told in Oscar’s voice, describing Charlie with the letters of his name (e.g. Charlie likes to chase me, Charlie hits his drum…). I even did some very simple, childlike illustrations which I’m really pleased with.
When we moved house, I bought seven large canvases from the cheap shop in town and the boys and their friends painted them in the colours of the rainbow. A really cheap but effective way to brighten up a boring wall, and I love that so many people contributed to it. Anyway, I used these for the backgrounds of the pages.
I got the booked printed by Tesco Photo (it was only £12.50 in total and came within a week, which suited my impatience nicely!).
The truest test of the book’s success is that Oscar loves reading it! He reads quite well but usually takes a lot of persuading, but he loves reading this one because he’s in it! Oscar draws wonderful monster pictures at school, so the next project is to turn some of them into a little book to encourage him to read more.
But the best thing of all about this? After I finished it, I said to Steve that I wished I could have come up with a proper story, something with a beginning, a middle and an end. I went to bed that night and came up with an idea (which kept me up most of the night!), which I typed up that morning. It’s not a children’s story, it’s a short story for adults, and I am so pleased with it. I really surprised myself.
30thirtythings 