What goes first when writing a book?

After you have a draft as good as you could possibly make it, the next step is to find an editor. I found an editor on Upwork.com with the criteria that they were experienced in Childrens’ literature. They did not disappoint me both times in working with my first draft! Just when I thought there would be minor edits, my editor thoughtfully pointed out inconsistencies in character dialogue, places for greater emphasis, and thought towards illustration impact. An example was that I had written about penguins whizzing by, but the editor pointed out that I should be consistent in my description of how penguins move. And thus, the penguins went back to waddling by quickly!

I am taking my time going through each of my editor’s notes. In the meantime, I had the illustrator draw the 3 new characters so that I could start to picture them.

Tip: When sending a draft of a childrens book to an editor, you not only send the text, but you should also plot out the story on a storyboard to send to them too. This allows them to see the flow of the story on the page, even if without illustrations.

Stay tuned for more about storyboards!

it was World Penguin Day recently, and I made this graphic to depict how much I dream of impacting young kids towards kindness through the story of Dottie. Let’s change the world for the better, Dottie!