So, what does
having the job as a children's writer and illustrator involve
exactly?
Firstly, it
involves spending many hours sitting at my laptop typing ideas
for stories, activities and worksheets. Once I have all my ideas
I then write a Story Outline. This is a basic plan of
how the story unfolds and how its going to develop and also end.
Then, once
I've finished the story outline I will go to the library or search
the internet to research the subject I am writing about. It is
very important to have the correct facts both to make the story
believable and to give the most up to date advice. Next, I set
to work producing the actual story.
Once I have
a draft of the story I send it to my editor. He then checks through
the draft and makes any corrections or alterations he would like
to see in the story. The draft copy of the story is usually
called the manuscript. I will send this to my editor,
Steve, by Email.
Steve, will
then send me back a copy of the altered manuscript and I can
set to work on the next activity of producing the illustrations.
It is important to me that the readers of my books can identify
with or even imagine themselves as the characters in my stories.
I think the illustrations go along way towards me achieving this.
That is why I like my characters to look as life-like as possible.
To achieve this I take lots of reference photographs of models.
(This is all undertaken legally with the use of consent and release
forms. These forms are widely used in the field of fashion and
advertising modelling).
Now that I
have as many reference photographs as I need I can set about
illustrating the story. As you can see the illustrations are
quite large and take along time to draw. The illustration you
can see me wroking on below took about 14 hours to complete.
All the illustration are drawn in ink using special drawing pens.
As you may
have seen from other pages on this website I spend a lot time
working in schools, at playschemes and in libraries. In fact
I spend about 65% of my working week in schools. To see what
work I do in schools, visit the page.
Also, I spend
quite a lot of time as Webmaster of this website. This involves
writing all the pages, producing and also drawing a lot of the
graphics that you see and sometimes, but not very often as it
takes a up great deal of time and effort, create some animated
characters.
Well, there
you go. Now you have more of an idea of how I spend my working
days. Also, don't forget that sometimes I can be seen speaking
at conferences, promoting my books at special shows, leading
meetings in schools for teachers and governors, as well as answering
any questions or giving advice to anyone who emails me.
page.
