A Few Words About Words
I never considered myself a Writer, so when I set out to compose my own children’s book I went about it as a total novice because that is exactly what I was. I wanted to create a children’s book that I thought I would enjoy if I were still a child. Since I always loved stories that included beautiful pictures, entertaining verses, and rhyme, I decided early on that my book was also going to contain all of those elements as well. Based on the success I had with my comic strip, I knew that I was pretty good at writing gags–short, concise bits of humorous text–so I decided that I’d also break my children's book story down into short, easily digestible verses. From there I just started writing…
The Story
Dozi the Alligator would be a prologue to my comic strip, and tell the story of how my two main characters met. When I started writing it, I truly had no idea how the two characters would meet. The premise had always been that a little boy named Byron Hoxwinder secretly brought a baby alligator home from a family vacation in Florida. Since my strip didn't deal with that early part of the story, I never needed to explain it. Now I did. In my mind I always had a vague idea of how Dozi meets Byron, but until I actually sat down to write the story I really had no idea what I was about to write. Looking back, I’m fascinated by how the story seemed to naturally just write itself once I started brainstorming about how it logically COULD happen. The creative process is something else! I'm very happy with how it ultimately turned out.
The Story
Dozi the Alligator would be a prologue to my comic strip, and tell the story of how my two main characters met. When I started writing it, I truly had no idea how the two characters would meet. The premise had always been that a little boy named Byron Hoxwinder secretly brought a baby alligator home from a family vacation in Florida. Since my strip didn't deal with that early part of the story, I never needed to explain it. Now I did. In my mind I always had a vague idea of how Dozi meets Byron, but until I actually sat down to write the story I really had no idea what I was about to write. Looking back, I’m fascinated by how the story seemed to naturally just write itself once I started brainstorming about how it logically COULD happen. The creative process is something else! I'm very happy with how it ultimately turned out.
A Big Break!
After I finished writing the book, I reasoned that I should have somebody evaluate it and tell me what reading level it was best suited. A friend of mine was a teacher who knew an education consultant that leveled books for a living (yes that’s a thing). Expecting only to pay the fee and get a professional evaluation, I sent a PDF of my Dozi the Alligator manuscript (including the first handful of finished illustrations) to the consultant for review. The following morning, I was both shocked and elated to find an extremely enthusiastic response from the consultant–and an offer to help me find a publisher!
(the response from the education consultant who was leveling my book)
*Happy Halloween!
