Well, now that sailing season is essentially over, my weekends stretch unendingly before me. So this past weekend I decided to drive up to Chicago to attend an SCBWI-sponsored panel discussion about writing non-fiction for kids. Laurie Lawlor, W. Nikolai-Lisa, Jan Gilchrist and Marlene Brill provided a wide range of insight and provided good reminders about persevering and being flexible. Nikolai, for example, talked about how he started spending part of his time publishing his own work and how much he’d been enjoying that. Marlene talked about the challenges and compromises that writers sometimes have to make. For example, sometimes she does not make as much money on a project as she might like but at least she gets to write about a topic she is passionate about. Actually, listening to her was kind of a bummer. And some questions from the audience also focussed on how hard it is to get published. Again, a bummer. Especially now for me, since I’ve got this contract and am feeling moderately optimistic about my success!

Laurie, who has written many books, including one on Rachel Carson, talked about her motivation for writing that biography. She felt like so many books about the environment were full of doom and gloom, like the ozone layer disintegrating and animals going extinct. Not that those books shouldn’t be written, but she was looking for a reason for kids to want to go outside and she thought Carson’s story would inspire kids to do just that. That comment got me thinking about the importance of motivation when it comes to picking a topic. Nikolai talked about being inspired by a particular question, which I think is an even stronger motivator or organizing principle. I’m going to think about that some as I consider what my next project might be. Another option is to consider anniversaries. For many years I’ve dreamed about writing another biography of E.B. White, so perhaps I’ll check to see if any big anniversaries are coming up for him.

It was fun to hear from Jan, because she is also an illustrator. Hearing about how an illustrator does research was especially fun. Jan also talked about helping someone condense an entire biography into a picture book, can you imagine?! The resulting book, about this woman who came of age in Zimbabwe, became The Girl Who Put Her Dreams in A Can. 

I liked also that Jan talked about being a kid at heart. What she actually said was that she was “immature,” but I think she was just being self deprecating. It got me thinking about how to tap into that “kid” part of myself. I’m not too good at that. I can remember what I liked as a kid, but I’m not sure that’s all that helpful because life has changed so much. We keep hearing about how kids have short attention spans and how they like bright and shiny things with lots of bells and whistles. Then again, I’m pretty good at ignoring this kind of popular wisdom. I have to believe that young people still like squirreling away with a good book every once in a while. So then it’s really more of a question of how to tap into my playful and curious side. How to do that?

I remember Alice McGinty telling me about a silly story she came up with after having taken some cold medicine, so that might be one way. Perhaps another is to set some time aside on a regular basis to just brainstorm. That’s nothing fancy or magical, I grant you, but maybe I could do it at, say, a library in the children’s department where I could tap into the energy of the kids there. 

My take aways from this past weekend were 1) it was fun to go to the city for just a day 2) brainstorm about good topics/pay attention to things you wonder about and 3) remember how you felt as a kid. It’s all about feelings, ultimately.