📌 "32 Flavors...and Then Some"

Like Ani, we've got more in us that we sometimes give ourselves credit for

My dad has given me a lot of advice over the years; some of it even asked for. 😂 Because we don’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on the political, artistic, or relationship-related, some of it awaits use, resting in a dusty pile of good intentions. But there is one piece he gave me long ago that stuck with me, that I think more people should hear. I was considering studying law-related topics as an undergrad, but I worried there were already too many lawyers. And what he said was:

“There’s always room for one more good lawyer. And you can always get good.”
—My Dad

Though I ultimately pursued a pretty strange (but very rewarding, #noregrets) major¹ instead, and he definitely would NOT have given the same advice if I had said I wanted to be a writer, 😂, the advice really did click. “There’s always room for someone who’s good—and you can always get good.”

What I know now, decades past when he gave me those words of wisdom, is that the reason it struck me was less about the words themselves (though they ARE important), but more about the fact that he, a pretty curmudgeonly guy who would best be described as Ron-Swanson-esque, believed it. For our disagreements over the years, I can honestly say my dad never gives a piece of advice he, himself, does not wholly believe to be true. If a guy who didn’t believe in all that much believed it to be true, maybe I could, too. I could get good. There is always space for someone good.

I think a lot about bravery and how often it seems to come from not so much doing one big thing² but from allowing people (including yourself) to see you for who you actually are. It’s a crazy-vulnerable thing. When we share our true selves with others, we essentially say, “If you are going to decide you dislike me, here—let it at least be for these authentic reasons.” It’s not for the timid. But it’s freeing, too, isn’t it? To be oneself? To work on getting good, in the ways YOU identify as good?

Anyhow, a lot of that train of thought has to do with the current state of our State. And to the other creators, and especially to the marginalized among us, I just want to say: You ARE good. There is space for you. If it’s a truth that both my dad and myself can agree wholeheartedly on, then I think it’s as close to a universal truth as we may have.

NOW! Back to picture books, and specifically, picture book writing. To continue to try to “get good,” here are some things I’m pushing myself more on these days. While we are all 32 flavors (and then some), having many fresh options in our spice kits never hurts.

32 Questions I Could Ask Myself (When Something I’m Working On Feels Bland):

1. If I had to cut this in half, what would be the first stuff I’d take out?

2. If I had to double this, what would I look at beefing up first?

3. What’s going on with my verbs?

4. What is going on, dialogue-wise?

5. Where is this set?

6. What do I want to be the ‘third rail’ here?

7. Who might be the perfect illustrator for this story—and what would it take to make that illustrator possibly agree with that assessment?

8. What visuals have I “written” that can be removed, or adapted into another sense?

9. What other POV might I try?

10. What word bank might I create to add vibrance?

11. What if I removed any adults? (If already no adults, what if I removed the most milquetoast kid/kid stand-in?)

12. Looking at each imagined spread, what could I “punch up”?

13. What beliefs or biases might a reader bring to this story, that I could play with?

14. What beliefs or biases am *I* bringing to the story, that I could play with?

15. What’s my intended take-away? Am I conveying that in a light-touch way?

16. What other picture books do I see this book pairing well with?

17. How can the page turns here do anything unexpected—or at least unusual?

18. What song is this most like? What does that tell me?

19. Have I conveyed the joy I felt writing this?

20. If this is in rhyme, how can I add interest to the established meter?

21. How could the refrain (if used) be as meaningful—whether through performance or emotion—as possible?

22. Have I dummied this out recently (yes, again, Elayne)?

23. Re: heart: if I had a public reading of this, and Michelle Obama was somehow in the audience, would I be thrilled or embarrassed to read this story?

24. Re: humor: if I had a public reading of this, and David Sedaris was somehow in the audience, would I be thrilled or embarrassed to read this story?

25. How could I improve any onomatopoeia?

26. What are secondary characters experiencing while the story progresses?

27. Are there clear cause-and-effect threads throughout the story, including the emotional ones?

28. What’s the worst thing that could happen to my MC, at least in their eyes?

29. Have I tried anything risky (remembering only yes is acceptable)?

30. What can I make more specific, in order to make it more universal?

31. How can I inject a little more melodrama?

32. What purposeful white space have I left for the reader?

Let us enjoy this open-door helicopter ride of creation.

Your “to all my neighbors: you got much flavor” friend,

Elayne

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1. My undergraduate degree was a Bachelor of Science in a no-longer-offered program called Graphic Communications Management. It was basically a graphics-industry management program, and I loved it. We did a lot of legacy printing-specific coursework and field trips (we went to D.C. to see the Washington Post’s press, for example) and also a lot of early Internet startup coursework, such as how to code simple educational and adventure games (at the time, using a product called Macromedia Director) and to create web sites. The pitch for the degree is that we would be able to run a startup or an ad agency. At the time, it felt like stuff I would use in marketing (and I did!), but it’s so funny now to think that I was one of the last book-production majors, using all my electives to take either literature and writing courses in poetry and playwriting, or design coursework (like letterpress and rapid prototyping), and never once did I think: maybe I want to, you know, be an author or make books, myself. #forestforthetrees

2. Of course, it can also come from that! Even there, though, I think people who make everyday bravery a habit are more likely to be able to call on it in times of genuine danger.