Is it too late for a 2023 writing wrap-up? I hope not because I have one for you! But first…a quick peek at what’s ahead for my author career this year. I started off the New Year super inspired and have been brainstorming new ideas all month with my picture book critique partners as part of Storystorm.
I’m working on a bunch of other things as well. I’m currently pushing through the muddy middle of the first draft of a young adult WIP, which is a love story (not a romance!) with a sci-fi twist. It’s too early to say if I’ll get this one ready to be released this year, but it’s not out of the question. If you follow me on TikTok, you might have seen me offer up a little teaser on this project!
I’ve also started the design process on my next children’s nonfiction. I was really happy with the response to my first nonfiction SELFIES FROM MARS: THE TRUE STORY OF MARS ROVER OPPORTUNITY, so I’m making this new nonfiction a priority. The new nonfiction is about the NASA Voyagers, which were the first human-made objects to reach interstellar space. I’m working on a fun idea for the official cover reveal, so stay tuned for that.
In Family Holiday Tales news (first two books are MOMMY’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS and DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS), I’ve begun working with illustrator Phoebe Cho on a third one. This one features a grandma and takes place on Halloween night! I’ve always wanted to do board book versions of these books, and this year might be the year I set up a kickstarter to accomplish that.
As for 2023, well I hit some author goals and missed on a few others. I released three books, which was a record for me! Most notably for misses, I didn’t finish the draft of the second part of a YA duology I’ve been working on for many years. There’s something about these books that isn’t quite working yet, but I’ll get back to them eventually. And if you’re interested to see what I read last year, you can check out my 2023 Year in Books.
How did your 2023 end up? What are you looking forward to in 2024?
My latest picture book DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS, illustrated by Phoebe Cho, releases today! Seeing it out in the world has reminded me how long it took me to write the first lines.
I’ve had people express the sentiment that writing picture books must be “easier” than writing novels because picture books are short. I wonder if these same people think that poetry is easy to write. Have they ever tried writing a poem or a picture book? Do they know what makes a poem or a picture book an effective piece of literature?
The months I spent writing and rewriting the first lines of this book would indicate it’s not easier. The months my critique partners spent hashing over different versions of these lines would also indicate that writing picture books is not easier than writing novels.
One of the things that made the first lines so tricky was that DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS is a play on the classic carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” So that meant I had an existing meter and rhythm to adhere to for the book. While it can be helpful to have a framework, there’s also the pressure to match it correctly.
As I’m sure most of you know, the first part of the song is: On the first day of Christmas, My true love sent to me A partridge in a pear tree
The first part was simple enough to modify to fit my story: On the first day of Christmas, My children gave to me
It was the that last part that gave me such a hard time. I knew what I wanted to say, something about a gift under the tree, but how to say it proved more difficult than I imagined. One thing that tripped me up was singing the line and speaking the line are slightly different experiences. Picture books are usually spoken aloud, not sung, and I wanted the line to work both ways.
The other thing that tripped me up is that I’m not very good at hearing poetic meter (which syllables are stressed and unstressed). Sometimes I just can’t tell which syllables in a word or a line are read with emphasis and which are the “quiet” ones.
Just like in the song, these first lines are repeated throughout the book, so I knew I had to get them right. I knew my first attempt didn’t quite work, but I couldn’t pinpoint a solution. That’s where my critique partners came in. First of all, they let me know the line wasn’t working, but, more importantly, they let me know why the line wasn’t working. The meter was off.
I tried saying the line out loud. I tried singing the line. I counted the number of syllables over and over again to make sure I had the correct number. I sent them several more attempts at the line. None of them were right.
Then they so very graciously started tweaking my lines and offering up other suggestions. Writing it was truly a group effort. The result is deceptively simple sounding, but it works in the way I wanted to (I think!?).
Even now, I’m singing it in my head and judging it. Usually this is the part of the post where I ask what you think. But in this case, I’d rather not know. The line is out there, so I prefer to stay in my bubble of believing it works. As for what that gift is, you’ll have to read the book to find out.
The lesson here is shorter ≠ easier, and perhaps ignorance is bliss. And also, find yourself good critique partners!
DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS is the second book in the Family Holiday Tales. Daddy receives a special gift from his children, but that’s not all he gets. From sweet Christmas cookies to frozen fingers while sledding, the kids “gift” Daddy twelve days of Christmas he will never forget. Sing along with this family of two dads and five kids as they create special Christmas memories in a celebration of love and families of all kinds.
Most writers, and probably many readers, have heard the phrase “write what you know.” There are a lot of different ways to interpret that, but a common one is to write emotional truths into your stories. So pulling from emotions you’ve experienced and infusing that into the work. Using your own life as inspiration.
But unless you’re writing an autobiography or a memoir, you’re generally not writing about your actual life. This can be a tricky line to navigate when using your own life as inspiration, especially if you’re pulling from emotional truths that are painful.
This was true for me when I was writing my YA novel ONLY DARK EDGES. I was writing about a teen who was dealing with the death of her sister, and though I was pulling from my own experience of losing my sister, I wasn’t writing about my own grief. The emotional core of the character was similar to my own, but they were not the same, and our experiences were definitely not the same. I will admit that it was a hard book to write, and it was hard to separate my grief from the main character’s.
This was one of the reasons why I chose to make it a very loose retelling of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Having the framework and themes of the play in mind helped give me some emotional distance from the writing. It kept me from getting too bogged down in my own emotions, so I could actually get the book written. In particular, I found it interesting exploring the themes of madness and indecision from Hamlet and incorporating that into my book.
Hamlet meets Six Feet Under in this YA psychological thriller that is both heart-pounding and heart-wrenching.
Delta’s spent the summer navigating the treacherous waters of losing her older sister, Gemma. Determined to brave junior year of high school without her sister, Delta finds solace in the arms of a new girlfriend. But grief takes a twisted turn when Gemma’s tortured ghost appears with a dire warning.
Beware the storm.
Plagued by the haunting suspicion that Gemma’s death involved foul play, Delta is plunged into a downward spiral of grief and paranoia. No one can be trusted—not her girlfriend, their friends, or her sister’s once-loyal boyfriend. Not even Delta’s own mind.
With a hurricane bearing down, two tempests collide at the abandoned Sea Glass Lodge. Accusations fly. Secrets unravel. And everyone is a target of the storm.
I’m excited to have author Gayle C. Krause on the blog today to talk about her latest release ZADIE AND THE WITCH’S TEA, written by Gayle and illustrated by Kate Talbot. I love Halloween books, and this one looks adorable. Welcome, Gayle!
Katie, thank you for having me on the observation deck.
I’m happy to share my latest picture book news with you and your readers. ZADIE AND THE WITCH’S TEA, a reimagining of the classic Cinderella tale, with a Halloween twist and no prince, has just released. Here are the links to Barnes & Noble and Amazon if you know a child who would love the fanciful illustrations of Kate Talbot and the whimsical Halloween story of little Zadie’s kindness.
My favorite holiday is Halloween and my favorite genre to read and write is fantasy. So, it’s easy to see the inspiration for this book. Also, my sisters were a huge influence. We often tease each other about our “witchy” powers. (When one calls, the other already has the phone in her hand.) So to celebrate our sisterhood and our sibling thought waves, we gather every summer for fun, food, wine, and of course, ‘dress-up.’ We call it our Witchy Weekend.
Add to that my love of fairytales, which I absolutely adored, as a child, and still do. My teaching career, training prospective educators for the Pre-K and Elementary classrooms, (I taught Children’s Literature at the secondary and post-secondary levels), and my Fairytale Seminar – BEYOND THE FAIRYTALE – which teaches prospective children’s writers how to reimagine a traditional fairytale and make it their own, and you can see how I love this little witch.
Book blurb: When Little Zadie’s sisters dash her hope of attending the biggest event of the Halloween season because she has no “witchy” magic, her determination and a surprising Fairy Godspider enchantment sends her as a special guest. The adult witches try to outdo each other by casting spells and chanting charms to become the assistant to the most powerful witch in the land. But a kind gesture from Zadie wins the night and the title, and her sisters learn that kindness proves stronger than any magic they possess.
Zadie’s path to publication took many turns. First written in 2016, it had too many words. Then I tried to illustrate it myself. I drew my version of the pictures but could do nothing else beyond that. In 2018, I signed with an agent, and she loved it. But when she subbed it to publishing houses, they said it was too long, and they’d like to see it in prose. So, reluctantly, I revised to write less words and no rhyme. But it hurt my heart to do that. Picture books come to me in rhyme. Asking me to write them in prose is like asking me to write them in another language.
I’m aware of good rhyme vs. bad. I belonged to The Poets’ Garage for six years, was the assistant poetry editor for Beneath the Juniper Tree, and served on Angie Karcher’s Rhyme Revolution Committee, helping to write the rhyme rubric, and select the “BEST” Rhyming picture book in the U.S. for three years. And they wanted me to write it in prose! So, I took a break and used my creative time to design and sew Zadie, her sisters, and the Grand Witch.
During my time at the agency, Kate Talbot and I were agency sisters, in fact, we shared the same agent. Since then the agent left the business and Kate and I left the agency. But it was easy to reach out to her because her whimsical illustration style was perfect to bring Zadie’s story to life.
Kate’s work is beautiful.
If I have any advice for children’s writers, it’s to write what’s in your heart. If it’s rhyme, so be it. If it’s non-fiction biographies, go for it. If it’s board books or novels, the only rules to follow are know your craft, and give it your all.
ZADIE AND THE WITCH’S TEA is published by Trowbridge Books, a small, independent, traditional publishing house. www.trowbridgebooks.com
I am offering a signed copy of ZADIE AND THE WITCH’S TEA to one of your readers who comments on Zadie’s story, and shares news about my little witch on social media (please list where you shared). I also have Zadie swag that will accompany the book. (USA only)
Thank you for having me and letting me share Zadie’s story with your readers.
I have several other works-in-progress about space robots, including a fictional story about the real Mars rover Perseverance (and Mars helicopter Ingenuity) and a nonfiction one about the Voyager space probes. And it got me wondering, What it is about space robots that has sparked my imagination?
Considering the size of the universe, and even of the solar system, human space travel is–to put it mildly–very limited. The farthest we’ve been is the moon, on average 238,855 miles from Earth. That’s about the size of 30 Earths, and can be considered really far away in terms of Earthly travel.
How about Mars? Humans haven’t been there yet, but we’ve sent a bunch of robots there, and we might even get there soon. The answer here varies because of the constant rotation of the planets around the sun, but on average, Mars is 140 million miles away from Earth and it get as close as 35 million miles. A lot farther than the moon!
Looking at the solar system, it doesn’t really make sense to talk about it in millions of miles because it’s so large. So scientists use the Astronomical Unit (AU) to describe distances of that size. One AU is 93 million miles, which is the average distance between the sun and the Earth. Neptune is 30 AU from the sun, or 2.8 billion miles. The Kuiper Belt, where Pluto resides, isn’t even the end of the solar system, and that can be as far as 50 AU from the sun.
Depending on how you define the end of the solar system (and there isn’t necessarily consensus on this in the scientific community), our solar system can be measured from 122 AU (at the heliopause, the place where solar winds meet interstellar winds) all the way to 100,000 AU from the sun (at the Oort Cloud, the farthest reach of the sun’s gravitational influence).
So really, really large. And that’s just the solar system, never mind the mind-bending that is required to think about how big the universe is! Still with me?
That brings us back to, What does the size of the solar system have to do with my interest in space robots? Space robots can travel much, much farther than humans can.
Mars currently has two working rovers on it, Curiosity and Perseverance, and a helicopter named Ingenuity. The space probe Voyager 1 has been traveling through the solar system for more than 45 years. At 159 AU (approximately 14.8 billion miles from the sun), it is deeper out in space than any other human-made object, and has traveled beyond the heliopause. And there are numerous other space robots out exploring the sun, other planets, other moons, etc.
Space robots are our ambassadors to space! We can’t go there yet, so we send out these robots. Some of them even look a little like us, and they’re all robot scientists, communicating their findings back to Earth. We learn from them, but they also represent us.
Voyager 1 even contains a Golden Record with sights and sounds from Earth and mathematical instructions on how to listen to it. I love picturing aliens (or future humans) coming across Voyager 1 and listening to that record. What would they (or what would future humans) think of the humans that sent the record out into space?
Anyway, that definitely sparks my imagination. I think it’s also important to learn about those space robots that are out there representing humans in space: our interstellar ambassadors!