Dummy for Children's Books

See what I did there? Did you catch that oh-so clever reference to the decades old series of how-to books? That is the quality of cleverness that you can continue to expect at the In the Studio with E. Bell blog. And you are welcome.

Today, and tonight, I'm working on getting the dummy of my new book ready. Why the rush? I need to focus on something, so why not this? Did I just answer a question with a question? I don't know, did I? Back to the dummy though - the dummy is a fully paginated, layout of a full picture book with text and sketches, so a person can start to understand how a picture book might read as a whole. This week I finished my sketches, and I got some feedback, and I made a couple of edits, and not I'm going to get it all into a digital format for easy reading and sharing. 

Tomorrow morning is my monthly meeting of the critique group that I belong to through SCBWI, and I'm excited to share. They are an incredibly insightful group, so with their help I can polish and get ready for the next big steps.

I take pause her to consider something - this is the fourth or fifth time I've been at this point. Different was really my first children's book that I drafted, but I didn't feel confident enough to pursue it. I shopped Sometimes I Make Things around a little, and when my one lead fell apart, I got discouraged. Eugene's Monsters was a pandemic experiment, and though I learned a lot about process during that, I'm not exactly sure it's ready for public viewing. 

Things feel a little different now. Scrapped hasn't been rushed. It's been carefully considered and reviewed. It's been sketched with lessons learned factored in. It was created by someone certain that this message is what he wants to communicate. 

Whenever I'm deep in a creative endeavor I don't know if the path has lead me to something special, or not. I guess time will tell.