How I started writing picture books

I’ve always wanted to write a book. But I never had any good ideas. That is, until I just started writing for my kids around 18 months ago.

At the time, I was spending hours each day sitting in a chair nursing my baby and my mind would wander. There was a Christmas story that had been in my mind for a couple of years and I thought I’d try to write it down, with a goal to read it to my kids over the holidays. I balanced bub on my left arm and I carefully started typing on my phone with my right hand.

It was tricky to get started. So I decided to write about my day to get the words flowing. That’s when I wrote my first rhyming picture book, which was a story about three cheeky boys waking their sleepy parents up in the morning.

Once I had written my first story, I wasn’t as overwhelmed about the idea of tackling another. And so I wrote another. And another. And another. I wrote four pictured books on my phone within 24 hours.

I was hooked. There’s something really satisfying about using your creative mind. About starting a story and finding your way to a clever ending.

A couple of weeks later, I revealed what I had been doing to my husband and I was brave enough to read a few stories out loud. He liked them and encouraged me to keep going. My kids started coming up with some creative ideas of their own for me to write about too.

That’s when I decided to seriously pursue the goal of getting published.

I completed the Australian Writers’ Centre Picture Books course. I attended some Larrikin House workshops during the evenings, listening on my phone while I tried to rock my baby to sleep. I listened to bookish podcasts non-stop and started submitting manuscripts.

I still haven’t tackled the original Christmas story. But I’ve come up with a lot of other fun ideas.

I hope you enjoy following my updates during my journey to publication.