I’m It! Blog Tag
I’m It! Blog Tag
Mary Rand Hess tagged me so now I’m it! The game is blog tag and whoever gets tagged has to answers the following four questions before tagging someone else.
What are you working on right now?
How does this differ from other works in the genre?
Why do you write what you write?
What is the hardest thing about writing?
Mary Rand Hess is the multi-talented author of The Day I Met The Nuts and The Cowpoke Adventures of Slim and Haskell. She’s also an editor at Story Pie Press and a musician! To read Mary’s answers to the four questions please visit her blog. It’s the October 19th entry.
My answers’s to the questions four:
What are you working on right now?
At the moment I’m spending a large portion of my time preparing to illustrate a story for another author but I can’t actually get started because there are still revisions to be made to the manuscript. While I’m in a holding pattern I’m doing as much preliminary work as I can.
I know the main character is a turkey so I’m gathering as much turkey knowledge as possible. A few days ago I visited a turkey farm and interviewed Terry the turkey farmer. My idea was to ask her to answer my questions from the perspective of a turkey. I brought along a giant paper-mache turkey head and a microphone as props so I could stage some funny pictures, which I figured might be useful for promotion down the road.
I arrived exactly at 2:00, as we had planned, but realized immediately that Terry the turkey farmer had no intention of interrupting her work, and there was no way she was going to warm to the idea of a photo shoot with a giant, paper-mache turkey head. She was very busy making turkey sausage. I asked her if it would be ok if I interviewed her as she worked.
“Good idea” she said.
“Remember, you are a turkey,” I reminded her as we began. She attempted to smile.
This is how the interview went:
What do you do when you are excited?
I say gobble gobble and strut upright.
Angry?
Same thing.
Startled?
Same thing.
Hungry?
I don't ever get hungry at Thorton's Turkey Farm. They feed me well.
Do you like being near other turkeys?
Yes, I don't stray.
Other animals?
No.
Do you like being near people, or do you steer clear of them?
No, I don't really like people.
I had a dozen more questions to ask— much funnier questions — but I could kind of tell Terry wasn’t in the funny-question mood. At this point I decided perhaps it’d be best if I not ask her any more questions and instead purchased some things from her store.
Turns out Thorton’s have a great selection of locally grown produce and turkey sausage to die for. That night I cooked spaghetti sauce with some of Thorton’s farm-fresh zucchini and scrumptious turkey sausage meatballs. My family said it was one of the best sauces I’ve ever made.
“I’m glad you’re gobbling it up” I said with a wink.
Hopefully this doesn’t give the book bad karma.
How does this differ from other works in the genre?
This will be a prequel to two other picture books I’ve illustrated featuring the same character. I think it might be the only character-based picture book series featuring a turkey, although I base this on absolutely no research.
Why do you write what you write?
That is a great mystery. Earlier this year I went for a bike ride with the intention of mentally working through a story about a monkey in a classroom and when I returned home I wrote a story about a tree sloth. I have no idea why I write what I write other than I want it to be interesting to children.
What is the hardest thing about writing?
I tend to write overly complicated stories and have a hard time keeping within the outline.
Well that’s all for me. Now I’m tagging my friend Greg Pizzoli, the author/illustrator of The Watermelon Seed. If you haven’t heard of him yet, you will! His star is rapidly rising. He has all kinds of cool projects in the works. I’ll let him tell you about it.
Greg, you’re it!
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Mary Rand Hess