the imagination travel guide
I said it when I ended Second Nature, but I'll say it again: one day, I want to write and illustrate children's books. Since I'm currently teaching, it's always been in the back of my head, always pushed back with ideas bouncing around my head but never doing anything productive about them.
Today, during my planning period, I was finishing up an oatmeal creme pie from my lunch and just started sketching on my yellow notepad (usually reserved for writing down the names of kids who are misbehaving). I was realizing how long it's been since I've drawn. With the comic strip, I was forced to draw every weekday, and because of that, I improved. I can't believe how poor my first drawings were when compared to my last ones. But most of all, through out the comic's existence, I enjoyed what I was doing. So, when juxtaposed against my current job environment, you can imagine how refreshing it was to just draw again. I started sketching the cover to the book that I've always wanted to make, The Imagination Travel Guide. Then I scribbled down ideas and pictures for the first few pages. By the end of the hour, I knew exactly how I wanted my first four pages to look.
Finally. Finally I had done something productive with the ideas floating around my head. And maybe it's just from the rush of excitement I got today, but I want to continue. I want to make a serious effort to create a full-fledged children's book by the end of the summer. Interestingly enough, teaching and children's books have a lot in common. Both are commonly perceived as jobs that anyone off the street could do. You look at a children's book and you wonder what's holding you back from writing a 25 page story about something as simply insane as any Dr. Seuss book (a cat in a hat?). I thought that too, but I got an aptly-named book last year called The Complete Idiot's Guide To Publishing Children's Books. Evidently, it's an extremely competitive industry. The book stresses over and over again that it's not a pathway for becoming rich and famous, but possibly a way to make a semi-decent living. It's actually sort of depressing to read, thinking that something you put so much time and effort into will statistically never go anywhere beyond your desk.
But I've always had a feeling that I need to sit down and write the book that's been in my mind, published or not. It's one of those "you never know unless you try" situations. It might just be a release for me at the end of the school day. It might just be to say hey, I made a children's book, I didn't think I would ever actually do it. It might be reduced to a line on a resume or a page in a portfolio. I know I need to create it, I just don't know why yet.
Thursday, January 2 at 2:08 PM
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