Project Kids Book Update 4

     Rough draft number 5 is hot off the press and I'm pretty pumped about it. Up until this fifth revision, I was working with a messy, bulky, uneven blob and revising was about as effective as fitting a couch cover over a leaking toilet; it's a small improvement, but it still reeks like shit. I'd move things around and work on the phrasing of certain things, but the story was still far from finished.
      That being said, I decided to draft from scratch. Instead of mercilessly ripping my draft to shreds with my stubby red colored pencil, then trying to figure out what the hell I was talking about later when I'm translating my blood red scratches into the typed copy, I simply started from scratch. I keyed in each scene on a bran-spankin-new document screen and only used rough draft number 4 as a reference if I really reallllly needed it. It took about 3 hours longer than I would've liked, but you know what? I think it did the trick, because on my desk lies the stapled embodiment of a draft that I'm not totally embarrassed about. Now I just gotta do at least one more focus group sesh with the kids from work before I can even think about the illustrations.

P.S.
All the characters have names and I've even sketched out most of them, I'll post a picture when I'm not so sleep deprived. Cheers.

Project Kids Book update 3

     The project had taken residence in the back seat of my priorities this past week, but I'm back for the most part and ready to get this drafting thing over with. Of course, my story is still chunky in all the wrong places, but I did manage to get some helpful criticism from some readers and I'm (hopefully) going to apply some of that to the story this weekend. I looked up some kindergarten and first grade vocabulary words (which are pretty impressive) what I'm gonna try and squeeze into the rough spots of the story. But the good news is that I'm on the detail side of revising now. Like at first, Gadget the Robot, was going to be the only character that wasn't a human, but after my mom read my latest draft, she suggested that I make all the characters some personified animal or whatever. And I think I like that idea, it's more kid-friendly, and frankly, I'm terrible at drawing human faces (win/win). Now I just gotta decide which animal I'll chose for each character. So far, I have; a dancer, a musician, a magician, and Gadget's friend. The dancer should be something light and nimble, probably a rabbit. And I've decided that the magician should be a fox, because it's sly and mysterious, but I'm still drawing a blank when I try to think of an animal to be the musician. Whatever, I'll think of something. But that's about it for now. The month is about halfway over, which means I better pick up the pace if I want to complete this goal by July. Better get on it.

Project Kids Book update 2

     The past week has been nothing but a blur of drafting and revisions of the story. I'm proud to say that it's better than it was, but it's still not great. It's still awkward and bulky sounding at times, but it's getting better. I've renamed the robot as well. From now until the next time I rename him, he shall be known as Gadget.
     I've also been forcing myself to face a big fear of mine with this project; criticism. I've been actively asking others to take a look at what I've gotten so far and even asking them to give me their honest opinion. And when I think about it, there aren't many other things in life that are as uncomfortable as waiting for an opinion while someone evaluates something you created. Watching them as they read though is nerve-racking, but I figure it's the only way to make a book that isn't terrible. So far, I've received a bunch of helpful criticism, and I could always use more. So if you're in the neighborhood, and you'd like to have a peek at it, please let me know, I'll thank you for it later.

Project Kids Book Update 1

Storyboard 

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     Since my last post, I've punched out one hell of a rusty rough draft. I've gotten the bulk of the story drawn out, now comes the time for me to trim it up till it looks nice and dapper. Not having a name for my shining star had been annoying me, but today I think I may have stumbled upon a winner. To come up with a name that would fit the personality of my robotic main character, I did what I always do when I have a problem, I asked the internet. Fortunately, the all mighty Google answered my prayer and I found myself on a website called the Internet Anagram Server (which cleverly anagrams to "I rearrangement servant"). I spent some time searching possible anagramable names from words and phrases like "robot" and "talented bot", but it wasn't until I searched the results for "Scared Robot" that I received my gem. "Scooter B. Rad" is the name that caught my eye. I like it, it's simple and it's fun, and I think it's got potential for my scared little robot. So say hello to Scooter, the newly named robot.
     Oh and one more thing. I took my really rough draft into work today for a little focus group time with the kids. I read them the parts of the story that I had typed up, and I made up the parts that I didn't, and I showed them the concept sketch of Scooter to see if they were feeling what I was selling. Both the beauty, and the downside of pitching a story to a group of first graders, is that their criticism is nonexistent. It was great to hear that they liked the idea and the drawings, but I didn't get much feedback as far as the mechanics of the book (and yeah, I realize how dumb that sounds). But I would like to polish up the draft a bit and go reread it to some of the little ones to make sure that all the words are first-grade-friendly.
     So from here, it's just a bunch of drafting (which is surprising, considering how short the book is) and a lot of illustrating. Cheers.

Project Kids Book

My main character- the unnamed robot

     Project time! I've recently taken on the task of writing and illustrating my very own children's book. Here's how it began; I work with children, and I've spent quite a lot of time reading kids books in the past 9 months since I've started here. Within these few months I've read hundreds of short stories to the kiddos and every time I finish I think the same thing every time, "I could totally do this". So for the month of June, I will attempt to write and design a children's book from the ground up, in hopes that it doesn't suck as hard as some of the books I've come across.
     So far, I've gotten the basic concept and some of the characters penciled in. It's the story of a young robot (who will remain unnamed until I can think of a name that fits) and his struggle to find his own unique talent for the talent show. My goal is to have the actual story punched out and finish all of the illustrations by the end of the month. We'll see how it ends up. Cheers.

James- the facemelting guitarist

Concept sketch