scbwi france

SCBWI France Seaside Retreat

2009-03-24T07:33:00.001+01:00

Hi Everyone,

Please find below a brief summary of the SCBWI Seaside Retreat that took place on March 5-8, 2009 in Moelan-sur-mer, France. If you participated, please feel free to add in your memories and to fill in whatever hasn't been mentionned.

Dana Carey

On the Monday after our long weekend retreat, I returned to my drafting table with a newfound energy and desire to take my work on in a different way. The perfect outcome from this type of creative retreat. Was it the sound of the waves lapping the beach? The supportive environment provided by the faculty and fellow attendees? The time away from my own four walls?

Yes, all that, and a whole lot more.

As the weekend unfurled we noticed how right it was for our retreat to be spread over four days. We realized that we weren't rushing off after a workshop, we had time to reflect and then discuss it from another angle later. Tomorrow is another day! After a good night's sleep we were ready for more. We had time to get to know each other and hear from everyone in the group; the exchanges evolved as the days went by. One moment we were doing writing exercises led by Lee on creating characters through dialogue and the next we were taking a yoga class led by Sarah, a fellow attendee. The ebb and flow of activity and leisure time gave us a chance to connect, disconnect and reconnect.

Mealtimes gave people the chance to share or approach subjects that weren't on the schedule. Conversation flowed and we touched upon topics that turned out to be important to all of us: we discovered new things; saw old things in a new way or simply realized "I'm not alone: I feel that way sometimes too!".

Lee Weatherly was our wonderful weekend-long resident faculty member. She generously shared her knowledge of writing and the publishing business as well as her own work and writing process. We were able to see the magic being made up close. On Thursday, Lee led a roundtable discussion called "Magic or Planning: How does a good story happen?" Turns out, it's a little of both; we need to let the magic flow through and lead us through what we've planned. Structure, inner and outer journeys, talismans, beginnings, middles and ends, laying out, trimming, notecards, tension, raising the stakes... all part of the plan.

Friday morning we were awakened by the delicious aroma of Tioka's buttermilk pancakes which we all dug into with gusto. The sea air was making us hungry. Or maybe it was the stimulating group critique of the night before? (We'd listened as Sarah shared a picture book text she's written then Lee and other members of the group gave advice, encouragement and praise.) The pancakes were followed by the workshop "Creating Characters through Dialogue and Action" again taught by Lee.

We learned about the importance of characterization in children's fiction, to create a main character the reader will want to read about. In order to create the character and her emotional arc you must know, not invent your character. To that end, Lee distributed 6-page handout, an in-depth "Character Chart" that writers fill out to really get to know the characters in a story. This worksheet can be used over and over and demands that the writer know as much as possible about their protagonist by answering questions spanning from eye color to habits to the character's greatest strength and biggest vulnerability. Lee shared with us many examples from children's literature illustrating ways of showing not telling and using dialogue in characterization. Then it was our turn to create some characters using these techniques.

Jan Ormerod and Sue Porter breezed in for lunch bearing beautiful fresh shrimps for our starter and that's not all. Their animated conversation gave us a new spark after our busy morning: workshop, yoga, one-on-one sessions or walks along the coast.

After lunch, Jan and Sue met with attendees for more one-on-ones then headed the roundtable discussion "Fountain of Ideas". Jan started with a question she is asked often, "Where do you get your ideas?" She feels it's more apt to find out "What do you do with them once you have them?" and then she and Sue continued by offering lots of "places" to look for ideas: family history, public domain materials, while driving the car or riding the train, in language, your surroundings... leave no stone unturned and take notes! They encouraged us to "delve down into what's already there". Sue and Jan gave us a lot to mull over and the exchanges between these two prolific author-illustrators were lively and thought provoking, not to mention just plain funny at times.

Saturday started out with a nuts and bolts discussion led by Lee: "Pitches, Queries, Synopses & Portfolios". She shared her extensive knowledge (having worked at one time at a literary agency) of the more practical side of our creative endeavors namely, cover letters, synopses and portfolios. She gave us examples of good and bad presentations of work stressing the importance of the cover letter, your chance to make a good first impression. She explained submissions and gave information on websites to help research agencies and publishers as well as the basics for synopses. After a break in the afternoon we came back and tried out our own cover letters, synopses and "elevator" pitches on Lee who played the role of the agent very convincingly. We all learned that it's not easy to get your point across quickly and effectively but it isn't impossible either.

After all that hard work, we needed more food. Direct from England, Lee brought authentic scones and cream (she whipped it up fresh!). If that wasn't enough, Tioka stirred up the richest hot chocolate ever. Soon after that we headed out to dinner at a local creperie for dinner. Later, back at the hotel we got comfortable and enjoyed a wonderful session where attendees read some of their work or showed illustrations or dummy books. It was an incredible moment of sharing. Everyone participated and it was overwhelming to take in all the work, the energy and emotion. After the time spent together learning and relaxing, it was a perfect way to cap off the evening: appreciating the work of our new friends.

So, here's to SCBWI France's Seaside Retreat for next year!

(Thanks again to Tioka Tokedira, Sarah Towle, Susan Perez, Domini Mudarres, Blake Mills, Amy Tortue, Adrienne Heim, Lee Weatherly, Jan Omerod and Sue Porter)

____________________________

Hereafter are bits and pieces that were discussed during the retreat by attendees which have been added here for everybody's benefit:

Note from Blake:

Here's the quote by Marianne Williamson used by Nelson Mandela in his inauguration speech.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful--- beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Shine on!
Blake

Self Doubt

Link to Sally Murphy's blog entry on self-doubt.

Onward writers and illustrators!

Interview with Petr Horacek

2009-02-04T07:53:00.000+01:00

My two-year-old introduced me to Petr Horacek. I had bought one of his picture books, When the Moon Smiled, by chance on the Internet. The very first time I read it to my son (then aged one), his eyes lit up, and I had to read it again and again and again. So I looked for other books by the same author. My son loved all of his books, and they still keep him busy for hours on trains and planes. I love them too, because of their simplicity.

I thought I had discovered a hidden talent. In fact, the board books Strawberries are Red and What is Black and White? won the Books for Children Newcomer award in 2001. Silly Suzy Goose won the Washington Post Book World Best Children’s Book award and Parenting Books of the Year award. Horacek’s books were chosen for the BookStart project, which aims to give free books to all babies and toddlers in the UK. While browsing in a bookstore in London’s St Pancras train station lately, I came across five of his books.

I wanted to know more about how he got the ideas for the books I spent so many hours reading, and how a Czech artist had ended up as a picture book author in the UK. I contacted Horacek through his website, and he responded immediately. As he lives in Worcester and I was going to be in London, we decided to meet up in Oxford. Over numerous coffees, we discussed his creative process, playing tennis, stories about flies, and why drawing animals is so much easier than drawing children.

Petr Horacek was born in 1967 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. His latest book Elephant will be published by Walker Books in spring 2009.

Q: How did you get started as an author-illustrator?

A: When I was 15, I went to an art school. We had all the subjects you could think of: sculpture, painting, photography, design paper, working with plaster. I could try everything. It was then I decided to be a painter.

At this school there were lots of children from artistic families, which mine was not. Meeting their parents and being introduced to artists was completely new to me. I remember one of the parents asked me, “do you prefer drawing or painting?” and I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought drawing and painting was the same thing.

I wanted to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, but I didn't get in so for two years I worked at the State Advertising Agency, which was really funny. There was no work really. Everything was done on posters which were printed there, but the people who worked there were really nice. They introduced me to books I’d never heard of and I started to read more.

Then I got into Academy of Fine Arts. The first year I was there it was still under communism and the school was very academic. Life drawing would start in the morning and we would draw for five hours. Then in the afternoon we would draw a still life to life-size or have a lesson like Marxism. I would never have dared show my professors the kind of painting I do now. I would keep them in my studio but never show them.

So I did a year of this and then it was the revolution, which was fantastic. I was elected from my studio to the strike committee so we made posters and travelled around the Czech republic and talked to people. During the revolution students occupied schools, and I slept on the top of a cupboard. It was a great time. Then the revolution finished and new professors came to teach us. They were mostly really good artists who hadn't been able to exhibit during communism. On the one hand it was great, because talking to someone who is a great artist for one hour is better than talking to someone else for a year but at the same time they were not always great professors.

I met my wife Claire while she was studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. We lived there for a year until I finished the Academy and then we moved to England because she was homesick. The Czech Republic was changing so rapidly that I was leaving a country that I didn't recognise anymore in many ways.

In Worcester, I worked as an art technician in an art school for two years, helping prepare canvases for children and helping them paint. I couldn't speak much English so that was only work I could do. And then I got my first book published.

Q: How did you get your first book published?

A: I was working as an art technician in a private school in Worcester. One of the students’ mothers had written a story. She had been working with an illustrator but wasn't happy with the illustrations he had done. Her son said, “Our technician can draw, ask him”. So she came to visit me and decided to do the book. She wanted to publish the books herself and she paid me for the illustrations. I illustrated five books for her. She never did well with the books; they never really appeared in the shops. But I realised I was really enjoying myself. It was just at that time my daughter was born, so I started to think about stories.

The very first book I did it was about a fly. When I was a child, I stayed with my auntie in her country cottage. I remember watching flies in the morning flying in the room and sitting on the ceiling and flying around the lamp and I thought “great – a fly”. My daughter was at the age where she was learning colours so I did a book about a fly and colours. The fly was sitting in a bowl of fruit, but too close to see anything but the colour. The fly was trying to guess which fruit is red or orange or yellow.

I made a dummy and sent it to different publishers. Most of them rejected it but Random House and Walker Books were interested. Random House gave me some ideas on how to improve the story but Walker Books said, “come to see us” so I ended up with Walker Books. The editor said, “We like the book. We like the colours. We like the idea. But we don't like the fly, so do a book just about colours”. I didn't want to do it, but they said “if you do it, you'll get a contract” so that's how Strawberries are Red got published.

They asked me to do another board book to go with it. I was so excited on the train from London to Worcester, I made up seven board books. One of them was What is Black and White? I remembered from when my sister was born that the contrast between black and white is all babies can see. So I thought I would do a black and white book for babies. And what is black and white? A zebra. So it should be about zebras. So I got the idea for the zebra on the train home from my meeting.

The funny thing is that I didn't give up on the fly. This summer when I had nothing for weeks, I suddenly remembered the fly. I did a book about a fly again, and I really enjoyed myself. I finished the mock-up and gave it to my publisher as a joke thinking she will look at it and say, “We are not doing a book about a fly”. In fact she looked at it and said it was great and gave me a contract. So at the moment I'm working on a book about a fly. Having a first book published about a fly was probably a little bit risky. Parents who buy books don't like flies; that's a fact. But I still think it can be done in a funny way.

Q: Where do you get an idea for a book?

A: Every single book I’ve done came from an image. I think the picture is the first thing. There is always one picture which started the whole book. In Silly Suzy Goose there is a picture of penguins sliding on the ice. It was my favourite picture from the book and it was the picture that started the book. I did this picture and then I knew how I would do the rest of the book. In When the Moon Smiled, there is a page with moths dancing in the sky. Again it was the first picture I did for this book and I knew how I would finish the other pictures.

In my new book about an elephant, it started with a little drawing of somebody trying to get an elephant into a house. I did a drawing of a boy pushing an elephant through a small door. Then I looked at it and started to think about the story. Why is the boy pushing the elephant into the house? And what happens when the elephant gets into the house? And then I started to think about imaginary friends and then the story goes around the picture. That's why I like to play with illustrations, because I get a story from them.

For Look Out Suzy Goose, I saw drawings of the woods by a Czech artist and I decided to do a copy. Sometimes I take somebody's drawing or a child's drawing and I think it looks really nice and I do a copy of it. I love the woods. I miss it in England. I like walking in the woods. So I did a black and white drawing of a quite realistic wood. I placed the goose from Silly Suzy Goose into the woods just for the colour aspect. I looked at it and I saw a goose in the woods and I thought, “I will do a book about a goose lost in the woods.” So I had the woods and I had the goose in it, and then I put the fox in too and that's how I got the idea for the book. Then I realised the realistic background didn't give me a chance to put in text, so I tried to simplify it more and more. I ended up with an abstract background, which feels like a wood but is not realistic at all and has nothing to do with the very first sketch of the book.

Q: How long does it take to complete a book?

A: When I get an idea and I feel like it's a good idea, I have it in my head. Whenever I go for a walk I start to think about it. Then I forget about it and I don't even sketch it for a long time. If it's in my head for months then I know it's good enough to think about it seriously. Then I may go somewhere else, for example to my mother-in-law's house and I sit in an armchair and start to write down the sketch. Summer is a good time for me. I always come up with book ideas during the summer.

Q: Do you show your work in progress to anyone?

A: I have no problems with showing it. I have so many artist friends who won't show their pictures to anybody until it's done, but I can't see why not. When I do a proposal for my publisher, I bring the first sketches. When I show it to them I believe it is the best I can do. But when I look at the sketches I thought were so brilliant three months later, I can't believe how bad it is. I'm almost embarrassed.

Q: Why do you write books?

A: I studied painting, but I wasn’t sure why I wanted to paint. I enjoyed doing it, but I was unable to make a living out of it. These days you have to be 70 percent businessman and only 30 percent is about your work. I like painting but I just couldn't sell myself. I couldn't go around to galleries and say, “look, I'm good.”

Why exhibit a picture? I guess one reason is you want to sell it and another reason is you want to tell somebody something. Or another reason might be that you want to show others you're not lazy and you're doing something. I didn't need to prove to anyone else that I'm working. I know if I 'm working or not. And I couldn't sell. So I asked myself what the point was. I couldn't work it out. With picture books, I'm still painting. I'm still living in my fantasy life. And I know why I'm doing it. I know who my audience is and I feel so happy now.

Somebody asked me some time ago if I think I will write for older children now my children are getting older and I laughed at the time, but actually it's kind of true. I'm doing more picture books, maybe because my children are older or maybe because my English has gotten slightly better.

Q: How do you write the text of your books?

A: Very badly. I write in not-very-good English, then my wife corrects my mistakes and my editor helps me with the story. But I think you don't have to speak perfect English. I like Czech. I like books in which the language is important. I believe I can hear it. I know how it sounds. So sometimes I argue with my editor about a sentence and then I think, “How can I? I'm not English.” But I know they take my opinion into account. Nobody ever says, “you're not English, you don't know” and often I could be right.

Q: Are the words important?

A: Yes. Writing is the most difficult part. I like repetition in the books and short sentences. There is a kind of rhythm I think the books should have. One of the biggest mistakes is describing in the text what 's in the picture. The text has to be a balance to the picture. The text should help where the picture needs it rather than the other way around.

When I'm making up the book I think about the text as well -- not as much as the images -- but I know how I will pace the text. I know roughly what will be said on this page or that page. Then when you're writing it down it's more difficult because you're dealing with things like not repeating words and trying to get a rhythm.

Q: Do you ever interact with your readers?

A: It's nice to go to schools and talk to children. It's very inspiring. Unfortunately I'm only invited to schools on book day, which means seven schools in two weeks and five classes each time. Talking to children is really good. I love children's drawings. Whenever I see a child's painting, I always look at it and try to learn from it. They are brilliant. They don't think there are things that are impossible. They don’t feel like they have to take into account perspective. They make the important things bigger than those that are not important.

They have a funny logic. My daughter drew a goose with four legs. It's not that she couldn't see that a goose only had two legs. I asked her, “how many legs?” and she said “four.” I asked “why?” and she said, “to keep the balance.” She drew a bumblebee with two legs, because it's similar to a bird. I think it's great. I keep all my daughters' drawings and sometimes I try and copy them.

Q: When does a child stop thinking that way?

A: When people start correcting you, when they start questioning, “how many legs does it have?”

Q: Do you have any rituals before drawing or writing?

A: I like to have things tidy before I start. I always clean up the studio. I'm quite organised so everything is tidy and in the right place. I wash the floor and the table and then I start. I used to play tennis a lot every morning but not any more. I haven't played for more than a year because I got injured and had to have an operation on my knee.

I listen to music when I'm painting. Or chat shows. When I'm doing drawings or etchings, I listen to chat shows because it gives me company. If I'm writing I'll listen to some very quiet music, but if I'm painting the papers for background or my abstract paintings then something energetic -- some really fast music. I like everything from classical music to really heavy metal.

Q: Do you ever start a book and get stuck?

A: Yes. The most difficult book was Butterfly, Butterfly. In the very first version the pages were shaped and the book was about me trying to find a beautiful butterfly in a garden. The narrator was saying “the butterfly had the colour of the leaves, the colour of the sun and the colour of the sky” and it built up until the last spread was a cutout, which spread over the previous pages, which showed the butterfly. But the editors didn't like it. And I had – without exaggerating – about fifteen versions of this book and then I gave up. I thought, “I can't do this. I can't get it right. It's a silly idea.” We changed the contract into a different book and that was published. Later my editor asked me if I wanted to have another go at it. So then I introduced the dog into the story and did a story about a dog chasing a butterfly. And my editor said, “look, it's silly, why don't you do it about a girl.” And that's when I realised there was no way to delay it any longer so I started to draw children.

Q: Why did you avoid drawing children?

A: You are more limited. If you draw animals, you can do whatever you like. You can make a fox walking as a human or dress him or do whatever you want. With people you are always limited to one head, two legs, two arms.

I didn't study illustration, and it's something I'm learning all the time. Every day I discover something new. So when I realised I had to draw a child, I looked at pictures done by other people to see how they do it. There was nobody I could say, “I really like his style”. Usually people have two dots for eyes and one dot in the middle and a smiley face and I just didn't want to do that. I tried everything. And of course I ended up with two dots and a smiley face.

Something really helped me. I did lots of different sketches of the girl trying to get it right. My editor, who is great, put a little sketch into the copy machine and blew it up really big. It helped me to see the character fully. So I took a very thick pencil and drew the girl and somehow I got to be comfortable with the girl. I could see what the quality of the drawing was at that size.

Q: How involved is your editor in the process?

A: Silly Suzy Goose was different from the others. My publisher said to me, “You always bring me a mock-up of the book which is almost finished but not quite there. Why don't we work on a book together right from the beginning for once?” So she started with homework. She said she liked the picture of the goose in What is Black and White? “Do a book about the goose.”

So I went home and did a book about a goose who found a ticket to the zoo. She went to the zoo and she tried to copy the elephants and kangaroos, and then she met a lion and the lion was sleeping luckily and then she went home to the farm. I thought, “this will be good enough, there will be lots of animals, lots of colours, and at the end she will go to the farm and see the domestic animals. It will be for children around three years old, introducing them to the different animals.”

I showed her this book and she said, “well that's good, but where's the story? It needs a bit more.” I said, “no, it's got nice pictures, and that's enough.” Then my editor said, “Wake up the lion.” That's how the story became the one it is now. It's about a goose that copies all the animals and then she meets a lion and she wants to roar like a lion. The lion gets cross and starts chasing her, and as she's running she does all the actions of the animals she saw before. She jumps like a kangaroo, she swims like a seal, she flaps her wings like a bat and runs fast like an ostrich. Suddenly the book had a good concept. My editor pushed me even farther.

Q: Your third book about Suzy Goose is due to come out. Why do you like her as a character?

A: She gives me so much freedom. She's so animated. You can make her sad or you can make her happy. She can fly. She can swim. She can do anything and she will always look funny. She is black and white so I can give any background I want. She could be in the jungle and she will look good. In the latest book, she's in the snow, in a snowstorm and all you can see are her orange feet.

Q: What artistic methods do you like to use?

A: I use acrylic, watercolours, and wax crayons. I use collage a lot. I draw the image and then I cut it out. One of the reasons is to keep it loose and flowing. It's very hard when you know you're dealing with a final picture. It makes you nervous, and it makes you tight when you’re drawing so it can end up as a very boring drawing. This way I draw about five images and then cut them out and choose the best one and position it on the paper. When you lift it up from the paper and try and glue it on in exactly the same spot, it never happens. It can't happen in exactly the same spot, so the final image has a quality – the quality of accident -- which plays a part. When you draw an image and you cut it with a knife, you don't exactly follow the lines. You are actually creating an extra drawing with the knife and I like that.

I like texture. I like printing. I use a pizza basin. When you buy a pizza in a shop, it's got a polystyrene basin. I don't like pizza but people are always giving me pizza basins. I draw some pattern on it and then put acrylic on it and I print from that.

Q: Which images were important to you as a child?

A: Josef Lada, the Czech painter. Every time my grandfather would visit he brought postcards of Lada paintings. He always asked me to copy the cards and I always did, at first to keep him happy but actually I loved it more and more. I learned drawing this way. Even today when I see paintings by Lada, I'm immediately back in my childhood.

Q: Why are picture books important?

A: It’s important for children to have physical contact with a book. A picture book is like an invitation to a story, the story between the pages. Until you’ve turned the page you can imagine any story. I always think of books being like a wooden toy. If you give a child a Barbie-doll that looks almost like reality, they can't do much with it. If you give them a wooden toy, their imagination has to start working. They have to imagine the character behind it. If you put on a DVD, the child can sit open-mouthed, and everything is happening in front of him. If you give him a book, his brain starts working. It develops the imagination.

Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring author-illustrators?

A: Try and see it as a game. Just play. Be honest to yourself. Enjoy writing it. Don't rush it. When it's finished, put it in a drawer for three months. If you still like it when you take it out, then that's a good sign.

It's important to know the basics, to know how many pages a picture book should be and what age your audience is. You shouldn't do pictures for younger children and text for older children. I say this, but I knew nothing about picture books and I'm still kind of uneducated. I often don't know the books or authors people are talking about.

Petr Horacek was interviewed by Natasha Leland in late 2008.