Making books for ME
Selfishly finding my way back to why I love making picture books
When I started making picture books the idea was that they would all be about choosing happiness. When faced with a challenge to my happiness, I put myself in the book and create happiness for myself on the page. The big bonus is I get share my ‘choosing happiness’ revelation with other people through my books.
This is something I succeeded in doing with 3 self-published picture books that I’m very proud of putting into the world (check out The Girl Who Walked to the Moon’s kickstarter video on my website for a great nostril flarer). In 5 years I’ve sold over 2000 books, visited over 20 schools, and connected with people all over the world through these stories of choosing happiness. Pretty cool huh.
So where did the spark go?
Things started to change when I started the MA Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge. Whilst I still had the motivation to make books about choosing happiness for myself, I think my spark was less front of mind as I was more focussed on improving my drawing skills (and the million other awesome things we were being taught).
Then things really changed after I graduated last April.
Why so?
Well, I’d had a lot of interest from publishers at my graduate show and the Bologna and London book fairs (very very nice, well done me). But after a few emails and a few meetings none of my projects quite made it over the publication line. Lots of really lovely and very encouraging close calls, which were awesome as it was all way further than I’d ever reached before into the publishing industry. But I think the ‘not quite making it’ shifted something in me…and I started '‘trying harder to get my work published’ - and thus began 'making books for other people’. Cue my creative downfall!
Having received bucketloads of feedback from the book fairs I was well versed in everyone’s wants and desires. And I started to twist my work to fit the desires of publishers.
Nooooooooooooooooo.
Don’t get me wrong, feedback is super useful and I really connect with it and it aligns with my values and goals. For example I received a few comments that my characters could have clearer or more engaging facial expressions, which I recognised was a real area for development and I really enjoyed putting some love into improving my faces over the summer.
Other times I can tell I'm a bit uncomfortable with the feedback, perhaps because someone really loves something in my portfolio that I don’t think is that great (like the dogs I put in there as a last minute thing I’d spent hardly any time on and have no idea what to do with but everyone seems to be mad about?!).
Or perhaps they want my work be more something, and that's not something that I want to be (like I kept receiving feedback on my wild swimming book that it needed to include a child character…which would completely change the story, and wouldn’t make sense anyway because children don’t go wild swimming.)
I’m still SUPER grateful to receive any feedback and I value the time of people who’ve chosen to look at my work and share their opinion. I also understand that people have different tastes and different creative goals, all good with me.
But what doesn't feel good is when my brain tricks me into thinking that I want to be what they want. When I don't.
What happens when I make work to please other people?
Not much happens at all.
9 months after Bologna Bonanza 2024 and I’m starting the new year having made no significant progress on new book ideas. And Bologna 2025 is looming. Nothing I was making for my portfolio really felt that good to me. Nothing was terrible, in fact a lot of it was objectively good work, but I wasn't connecting with it. I couldn’t get momentum going and I did not feel enthusiastic abut drawing.
I was about to write that don't know what changed, because something did change. But I think I actually just got so fed-up with not enjoying my book work that I was driven to make a strong internal choice…I’m only going to make work for myself! That's what makes me feel good (and of course we all know that making work that we love is what makes the best work anyhow!)
At least if no one wanted to publish my work I would have created something that made me feel proud. And I would have learned something really valuable about happiness for my life.
What does making books to please myself look like?
Playing
Fast-forward a couple of months and I can't tell you how much I am loving making my new book, The Beast Club! I even did a few drawings lately that made me feel “YEAH! That drawing is so me, I really love that”. This is something I’ve only felt before with final artwork, never with sketches.
I gave my self a morning to have fun and draw my 4 characters in their jungle ‘dens’ (basically their bedrooms) to explore their personalities. It was purely a playful exercise and did not have the aim of making anything for the book directly. But lo and behold! These as some of my favorite in drawings ever, and are totally perfect for the book.
I cannot wait to see when this new emerging visual language will take me!
Following my (very random) gut
Making books for me also looks like wandering down story pathways that are really niche and might seem a little random to anyone else, but mean something to me. For example I want my characters to adventure through the book to find a blue rose tree, which is an important symbol for me about dreaming dreams and making them come true. I have no idea if this dreamy feeling will come across in the book, or if the blue rose tree will just be a nice visual, or if the whole thing will feel a bit random?
But something tells me (and it tells me in a nice way that feels good) that the best thing for them to search for is the mythical blue rose tree…and so be it.
Basing characters and events on real people from my life
A lot of The Beast Club is inspired by silly antics I’ve gotten up to with 3 girlfriends of mine. We’re all ‘nice girls in recovery’ and learning how to embrace our inner beasts to better serve our happiness. I’ve had so much fun thinking of wild times we’ve enjoyed together, like whizzing down a hill at 50mph in a tuktuk, making human washing machines in swimming pools, and silly spontaneous dance parties (“ANACONDA!!!!!”….w.y.k.y.k). Sometimes I wonder if these moments will touch the people that weren’t there, but I feel like everyone knows that feeling of wild experiences you only share with your nearest and dearest buddies. The ones you can just let go and be weird with.
Investing in new boujis tools
I recently bought a fancy iPad and apple pencil to streamline my process. And I thought it would allow me to be more mobile with my projects, get out the house and work in different places. Major bonus is that this investment (thank you apple 0% finance) has given my drawing a new lease of life and I am romping though The Beast Club’s storyboard and roughs at incredible rate.
Something about the iPad enables me to be more fluent with my character drawing. The ability to rub out or undo gives me a freedom to try many versions quickly and easily. As my style is quite loose I've enjoyed how the iPad has helped me to tighten things up and draw with a greater clarity. And I seem to think more about what I’m drawing and much less about how I’m drawing it.
Letting myself go on tangents
I'm on such a creative roll that the other day I was sat on a bench in Bath Abbey square listening to an incredible piano busker when the mood grabbed me to write a poem (this is a relevant mood because I’d just been at a spoken word event and was feeling very inspired by people’s lovely poems). I was watching the families in the square having a lovely together with the music, and the music was just so magical, and the moment really captured my heart. I wrote the whole poem in one go, and I reckon it will make a beautify soppy picture book. It's called "I Can't Wait.”
Sometimes when I’m deep into a project, like developing The Beast Club, I get very disciplined and I don’t let myself wander too much. This is mostly very useful for getting things done. But for emotional piano poem times I feel it felt best to just let go and go with the flow. And now I have a nice little side project to procrastinate with when I don’t feel like working on The Beast Club. Love a bit of productive procrastination. And it actually got me even more excited to finishing developing the Beast Book sooner so I get to start on my new shiny idea!
So here I am making books for ME again. How wonderfully selfish of me. I’m having a ball and haven’t felt this much creative momentum in a good while. Long may it flourish for me. Me me me.
If you’d like to read more about me and the books I enjoyed making for myself, do pop over to www.thehappybookcompany.com….a website that I made just for me (but I’m very happy for you to be there too).
Interesting! So great to see how you are getting around the pressure of being "published" traditionally and focusing on what’s important ❤️