Inspiration ignores me during the day and tears me out of bed when I’d like to stay sleeping.
I was laying in bed one night and instead of reflecting on the day I had, or going over what groceries I needed to pick up in the morning, an “ordinary” image of a girl standing behind a rippled piece of glass popped into my head. The story brainstorming had started without my permission. My head was to the pillow. Didn’t matter. My eyes were shut. Too bad.
Fine.
“Where is she?” I asked myself.
“Locked in a store”
“And no one will stop to let her out.”
I envisioned a bunch of funny animals who wanted to help her escape, while I pictured busy and cold humans either passing by this lonely street uninterested, or stopping to poke fun at her and make light of her misery.
The animals had to each be hard-shelled so they could potentially crack the glass.
I hopped out of bed and started writing my nonsense story, channeling Lewis Carroll.
By the next morning I had the first draft of a children’s picture book, minus the images. My mother is an artist and cartoonist so she is always the first person I call for help in bringing my characters to life. But all of her supplies are packed away because she is in the midst of selling her house. It would be months until she could start a new project, plus we already have one book series on hold.
So I rummaged through my drawers and pulled out a sketch book and a dull pencil, the only pencil in the house, and I started drawing. With no pencil crayons or paint I had to get creative and edit the picture in photoshop. And by accident, I created a unique style that I’m happy with. It gives the characters a dreamy fairytale look and it’s exactly what I imagined. I’m working away on polishing it up so I can share it with everyone and their children, and their children’s children, and their dogs and cats and pigs.
Can’t wait for you to get inside my head and read it.