I did have a child, and I was reading a lot of picture books to her, but at the same time writing a children's book was something that I'd been wanting to do for many years, pretty much since the start of my career.
I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.
A man's action is only a picture book of his creed.
And that's why any of my picture books exist: They all seem to be built backwards from a simple, emotionally optimistic story beat.
With twins, reading aloud to them was the only chance I could get to sit down. I read them picture books until they were reading on their own.
In terms of age, I think I've covered about as wide a range as is possible, having written everything from picture books to early chapter books to middle grade novels to YA to one adult novel - and having been editor and lead writer for a magazine for retired people!
I'll be left writing picture books and fairy tales.
Whatever I'm thinking about has got to fit into thirty-two pages, the standard picture book size. So that's something. But the structure and the form for me are almost the most important, because these will express as much as words and images will the content of the work.
Whether it's music, loss of something, loneliness or friendship - if that emotion is heightened in some way and painted to fit in between the covers of 32 pages, that can become a picture book.
If it's just brushstrokes wrestling around, it isn't much of a picture book, is it? There still has to be a picture. And maybe it needs to be a picture of a dog named Daisy or a little girl riding a bike. So I have to be careful before I get too carried away in the manner itself.
