A children’s book is a collaboration between an author and an illustrator brought together by a publisher. Publishers rarely provide an opportunity for collaborators to discuss the text and pictures. So what magic takes place to produce a successful book?

The author paints pictures with words. The illustrator pays attention to the words to create a visual painting that works with the text. Hint: “PAY ATTENTION” TO LIFE. Use your power of observation for your stories and pictures. Examples:

• Bush-tits are tiny birds that travel in groups. Why? Aha! A folktale is born. The lost bush-tit becomes a metaphor for a lost child or lost adult who never fit in. The journey back home becomes the child/adult finding a real home.

• Helping a friend to plant cactuses along a bank led to folktale about cactuses and stones. “Why do you keep moving rocks close to the cactuses?” she asked. I made up a reason on the spot. An everyday event led to a question, that led to an interesting story.

Often a story is “framed” using similar words, repeated phrases, or a circular plot. Just so, an illustrator will frame a painting by using repeated shapes or a border that encloses the picture.

A rough draft is a sketch. The tools of writing are not unlike the tools of painting. Writing practice is the same as drawing practice. An author’s “voice” is an illustrator’s “style.” All artists are very much the same, only the details of our crafts differ and may fool us into thinking we are different.

Then, somewhere along the way, during the struggle to create, something happens—another “reality” takes over and begins to express itself. All writers have felt it. All painters have felt it. It is the place where an artist steps beyond the everydayness of their lives with jobs and families and communities into a place of creative, run-away energy.

It is THE MAGIC. THE MAGIC is not fiction. It really happens.

I had to give a speech to a writer’s group. I was nervous, and thinking about what I would say, when I ran into Frank. Frank is an old man who makes pie-in-the-sky backgrounds behind hand-painted/constructed dioramas of wood block houses with mirror lakes and cotton-ball trees. Painted slices of apple, cherry, and blueberry pie float among his clouds. The first thing Frank said to me when we met was, “Life is a metaphor.”

METAPHOR: A figure of speech in which a term is transferred from the object it ordinarily designates, to an object it may designate only by implicit comparison or analogy.

“Nothing is real,” Frank said. “At least we don’t know if it is or not, therefore, pie-in-the-sky.” Then, he asked, did I know that there were only two kinds of words in the dictionary? “Verbs and Nouns,” he declared. “All the other words modify them so they are verbs and nouns too. Verbs are connectors, catalysts. They freeze and direct the action just like a producer puts actors and action together, like a publisher puts a writer and an artist together.”

Later that evening, I was telling a friend about meeting Frank and we discussed my nervousness. “You?” she said. “Ha! You’re the most playful person I know. Go play!”

That weekend, I went dancing with friends. After the third dance, a man seated at a nearby table waved me over. “I’ve been watching you dance,” he said. “You make me want to take all my clothes off and roll in the mud!” (I’m not sure what he meant, but I am sure it was a perfect metaphor.)

LIFE. Life is a METAPHOR. Metaphor creates BIGGER PICTURES!

Star Trek—The Next Generation aired an episode with an alien race that spoke entirely in metaphor. Say, “Romeo and Juliet on the balcony,” and we will understand the idea. “Darmock and Jalad at Tanagra,” the alien captain said. A powerful story to him, but no human knew it so they could not communicate. That was the challenge posed by the program. THE BIGGER PICTURE.

Look, listen, observe the truth and use it. Frank might say there are two kinds of truth—verbs and nouns. Facts and beliefs are probably the verbs (freezing and directing the action). Heart-truths are another reality, probably the nouns. We live two lives as artists. Play with your truths and create MAGIC in your stories and paintings.

PORTFOLIO—photographs or color-copies of your original work. Send them with a cover letter to art directors. Then follow up with new images as you create it. Keep your “file” ACTIVE. If your paintings are large, remember you can “stitch” together color copies to create larger samples.

PUBLICATION—self-publish your book. You can do it for $15–$30, bound, with illustrations. The difference in cost is because of the difference between black and white versus color. Print posters of your art. Make cards and puzzles, exhibit at arts and crafts fairs, promote yourself any way you can. Create a website!

PUBLICITY—Picturebook publishes artist’s work. Modern Postcards makes postcards from your photographs, a great hand-out to leave behind where ever you go, with whomever you meet. Exhibit at Licensing Trade Shows for art used on products, at art galleries, or hire an agent.

There are two, only two: Believe In Your Work, and Create. But, you say, how can I consistently do that? First, accept that you will have bad days. Work through them by seeking inspiration elsewhere, by distracting yourself, by treating yourself well. Never stop believing or creating. It enriches your life.

Second, when you want to learn how other artists and writers manage to do it, read books where they share the secrets they’ve learned about surviving the life of an artist. Below is a short list of my reading recommendations. Not all are “artists,” but all of these authors have greatly assisted me in believing in myself and improving my craft as I continue my job of being an artist. Enjoy!

BIRD BY BIRD, Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott, Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1994.

FINITE AND INFINITE GAMES, A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, by James P. Carse, The Free Press, A Division of Macmillan, Inc., 1986.

THE GREGG REFERENCE MANUAL, Seventh Edition, by William A. Sabin, Glencoe Division of Macmillian/McGraw-Hill School Publishing Company, 1992.

HOW TO ENJOY WRITING, A Book of Aid and Comfort, by Janet and Isaac Asimov, the Walker Publishing Company, Inc., 1987.

THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE, Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life, by Robert Fritz, a Fawcett Columbine Book, Ballantine Books, 1989.

“WHAT DO YOU CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK,” Further Adventures of a Curious Character, by Richard P. Feynman, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1988.

WRITING DOWN THE BONES, Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg, Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1986.

THE VEIN OF GOLD, A Journey to Your Creative Heart, by Julia Cameron, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 1996.

THOUGHTS FROM
THE ARTISTIC CONNECTION

The following passages are words of wisdom from Natalie Goldberg, poet and author of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. They are not exact quotes. I lifted passages that I think are important and I paraphrased others. Also, I have changed some words from“writing” to “create” or “art,” to connect the collaborative mediums of words and paint. I recommend this book for artists of every kind. My favorites are marked with an asterisk. My own remarks and thoughts are written in italics.

FIRST THOUGHTS: You will take leaps naturally if you follow your thoughts, because the mind spontaneously takes great leaps. As your mind is leaping, your art will leap. It will reflect the nature of first thoughts, the way we see the world when we are free from prejudice and can see the underlying principles. (p. 35)

• Don’t step away from the warmth and fire of your original images. Stay close to them. Stay with your original mind and create from it. (p. 31)
  
  First thoughts are the mind relecting experiences—as close as a human being can get. They can easily teach us how to step out of the way and use words (paint) like a mirror to reflect the pictures. (p. 68)
  
  LIVING TWICE: Artists live twice. They go along with their regular life, but there’s another part of them. The one that lives everything a second time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it. Looks at the texture and details. (p. 48)
  
  Use original detail in your art. Life is so rich, if you can create using the real details of the way things were and are, you hardly need anything else. Original detail creates a good solid foundation from which you can build. (p. 41)
  
  Original details are very ordinary, except to the mind that sees their extraordinariness. We must remember that everything is ordinary and extraordinary. It is our minds that either open or close. Details are not good or bad. They are details. (p. 75)

• An artist’s job is to make the ordinary come alive, to awaken ourselves to the specialness of simply being.
  (p. 99)
  
  HOW TO DO IT: Talk is the exercise ground for writing. We are trying to understand life. Talk, not with judgement, greed, or envy, but with compassion, wonder, and amazement. (p. 77) Question: Is talk also the exercise ground for painting?
  
  Making statements is practice in trusting your own mind, in learning to stand up with your thoughts. (p. 85)
  
  Tell everything you know with your art. Don’t worry if you can’t prove it, if you haven’t studied it. Own anything you want in your art and then let it go. (p. 29)
  
  Practice your craft. When you learn to trust your voice, your skill, direct it. In the process of creating, you will learn how. We learn to be artists by doing it. (p. 30)
  
  Go Further. Push yourself beyond when you think you are done. Go a little further. Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out. (p. 103)

• Obsessions. Your main obsessions have power; they are what you will come back to in your art over and over again. So you might as well give in to them. They probably take over your life whether you want them to or not, so you ought to get them to work for you. (p. 38) Quality of line. Both sides of a line become the edges of an “object.” The line does not divide two sections of space. Abstract art in nature is what I photograph. Lines and abstracts go beyond the normal view of the object.
  
  ART IS . . . YOU ARE:
  Art does art. You disappear: you are simply recording the thoughts that are streaming through you. (p. 46)
  
  We think our art is permanent and solid and stamps us forever. That’s not true. We create in the moment. Every minute we change. The power is always in the act of creating. (p. 32)

• We are part of everything. When we understand this, we see that we are not creating art, but everything is creating art through us. (p. 118) Reiki, hands-on healing with universal energy, uses the “healer” as a conduit for directing energy, never as the source.
  
  We hear about people who go back to their roots. That is good, but don’t get stuck in the root. There is the branch, the leaf, the flower—all reaching toward the immense sky. We are not one thing. (p. 145)

• BE PLAYFUL: Writing (painting) is ninety percent listening (looking). You listen (look) so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you create, it pours out of you. Listening (looking) is receptivity. The deeper you can listen (look) the better you can create. (pgs. 52–53)
  
  Play around. Dive into absurdity and create. Take chances. (p. 67)

• Forget yourself. Disappear into everything you look at. Become everything you feel, become totally that feeling. (p. 82)

• Take in everything around you as prey. Use your senses as an animal does. Every sense is alive, watching, listening, smelling. Right before you create, become an animal. Move slowly, stalking your prey, which is whatever you plan to create. But don’t worry. If you miss the mouse today, you’ll get it tomorrow. (pgs. 83–84)
  
  LONELINESS: Artists spend a lot of time alone creating. Being an artist in our society makes us lonely. (p. 105)
  
  Art is communication. Taste the bitterness of isolation, and from that place feel a kinship and compassion for all people who have been alone. Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world.
  (p. 141)

• Loneliness always has a bite, but learn to stand up in it and not be tossed away. Creating art can be very lonely. Use it. Reach out of the deep chasm of loneliness and express yourself to another human being. (p. 140)
  
  To begin creating from our pain eventually engenders compassion for our small and groping lives. Out of this broken state there comes a tenderness for the cement below our feet, the dried grass cracking in a terrible wind. We can touch the things around us we once thought ugly and see their special detail, the peeling paint and gray of shadows as they are—simply what they are: not bad, just part of the life around us—and love this life because it is ours and in the moment there is nothing better. (p. 107)
  
  Anything we fully do is a lone journey. You can’t expect anyone to match the intensity of your emotions or to completely understand what you went through. You are alone when you write (paint) a book (a picture). Accept that and take in any love and support that is given to you. (pgs. 169-170)
  
  Years ago, on PBS Radio, I heard Saucer of Loneliness, a science-fiction radio play by Theodore Sturgeon, wherein a small flying saucer buzzes a lonely woman to deliver its message-in-a-bottle.

• “There is in certain living souls a quality of loneliness unspeakable, so great it must be shared as company is shared by lesser beings. Such a loneliness is mine. So, know by this, that in immensity, there is one lonelier than you.”
  
  BE BRAVE, TRUST YOURSELF: If they knock you down, you get up. If they knock you down again, get up. No matter how many times they knock you down, get up again. (p. 108)

• Don’t listen to doubt. It leads no place but to pain and negativity. Instead, have a tenderness and determination toward your art, a sense of humor and a deep patience that you are doing the right thing. (p. 109)
  
  Even when no one can quite understand what you are talking about, trust the energy behind your art. In life we have to be crazy, we have to lose control, step out of our ordinary way of seeing, and learn that the world is not the way we think it is. (p. 128)
  
  Give yourself tremendous space to wander in, to be utterly lost with no name, and then come back and speak.
  (p. 130)
  
  CONNECTING WITH YOUR ART: We have trouble connecting with our own confident creative voice that is inside all of us, and even when we do connect and create well, we don’t claim it. There seems to be a gap between the greatness we are capable of and the way we see ourselves and, therefore, see our work. (p. 154)
  
  It is not as important for the world to claim our work as it is to claim it for ourselves. That will make us content. We are good, and when our work is good, it is good. We should acknowledge it and stand behind it. (p. 156)

• All artists, at some level, want to be known. That’s why they create. In knowing who you are and creating from it, you will help the world by giving it understanding. (pgs. 145–146)