A Picture Book

Welcome back to Taylor Talks!

Well today was the polar opposite of our fun and exciting weekend. Everyone was completely exhausted, and my mom and I had so many plans for today that just didn't work out due to a lack of motivation. On the up side though, I did get air in my tires this morning, which I've been putting off for two weeks.

I did manage to get some work done while sitting at my desk as well. I figured I could at least try to accomplish something today, especially something that didn't involve any major movement on my part! This is a project that I've been contemplating for a while now, and I finally decided to get started on it.

At some point over the last few years, I believe during my sophomore year of college, I wrote a children's picture book that I was extremely happy with upon completion. I had put it aside after finishing it and it just sat in a file in my computer for quite a long time. I've re-opened it once in a while and read through it; I would consider changing things, but always left the story exactly as I already had it. I felt like it was perfect as is, and I never wanted to take anything out or add anything else into it. But what was I going to do with it? You can only re-read a story so many times before making yourself crazy, and while I know that editing and revising are a huge part of writing, I felt like I was done with this stage.

A few months ago, I decided that I wanted to look into self-publishing. I figured that while I was working on my Young Adult novel, I could at least get my name out there by putting out a children's book or two. I thought that this book that I had left alone for so long would be the perfect book to start with. My only problem? I didn't have any illustrations. You can't publish a children's picture book without any pictures!

My first thought was to go online and try to find a college art student who would be wiling to draw the illustrations for me. I thought that we could split all of the profits and everything would be all sunshine and rainbows. Unfortunately, I have since found out that splitting profits with an illustrator is not how you do business in the self-publishing world. So I had to come up with a new plan... I talked to my brother and sister about illustrating for me because they're both pretty good at drawing and I figured they would both bring something great to the table. Unfortunately, my brother wanted $100 and didn't understand that 12-year-olds are not paid that much money for illustrating! He laughs about it now and claims that he didn't ask for that money, but I just dropped the subject with him after a while.

Today, I decided to try my hand at illustrating my own book. I've always thought that I can't draw, but I started developing my drawing skills in high school and am actually much better than I once thought. A month or two ago, I drew all of these pictures for a sign language alphabet flash card set that I created, and they came out beautifully.​ So if I could do those 26 pictures, then I figured I could probably do illustrations for my book as well. I sat down at my desk with a pencil and paper, and I got to work.

By the time I had to get out of my bedroom so my sister could go to sleep, I had already finished two complete illustrations (which would cover four pages in the book). I actually feel like I can do this and I'll be able to self-publish this book while I'm working on my YA novel. It would be amazing to be able to get my name out there as an author, even on a small scale. I really hope that this turns out well!

Thank you so much for your continued support! I look forward to sharing more stories about my experience with foster care, and hopefully hearing from readers who have questions or similar stories to share. I'm always willing to answer questions and hear about other experiences! Please don't forget to like and share my Facebook author page as well!

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Thanks!
Taylor

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