Writing is hard, hard work; that's just the way it is.
— Marissa Moss
History is exciting because it's true.
Ages ago, when I published 'Amelia's Notebook,' I'd sent it to traditional publishers I'd been working with, but nobody knew what to do with it. Tricycle was this small publisher who didn't know any better, and they took a chance.
When I'm working on historical books, I'm much more organized. I usually read about 100 books to get the depth of knowledge I need.
More than conventional picture books, the notebook format allows me to leap from words to images, and this free-flowing back-and-forth inspires my best work. It reflects the way I think - sometimes visually, sometimes verbally - with the pictures not there just to illustrate the text but to replace it, to tell their own story.
Long before 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid', 'Dork Diaries', and the graphic novel explosion, only a small press like Tricycle was willing to take a risk on such an innovative format.
You write, hoping to write a good book; that's it.
With the big publishers, they publish 50 books and promote five.
Amelia shows that it's not what happens in life that counts, but rather how you frame it, how you talk about it.
Notebooks allow for all kinds of record-keeping, and I kept one myself as a kid. I was attracted to mixing up words and pictures freely, since that's how I think.
My memories of being nine or ten years old are especially vivid, since this is the time when you have a real sense of who you are - before the self-conscious preteen years start.
I sat down and wrote what I remembered about being nine, and that eventually became 'Amelia's Notebook.'
Not only is writing more important than ever, but visual literacy is vital. We don't teach enough design, art, visual things. We have to recognize what we're seeing. It matters if you send someone a cluttered design. It matters more than ever.
New York publishing is about, 'What's the next Harry Potter? What's the next Twilight?' When I've approached people, I've asked, 'What is the book you've been dying to do, but New York won't do?' I want the books that they think won't sell - because I think they will.
Every kid has a story to tell!
I loved playing with the mix of fantastical inventions and real ones. I hope kids will start logbooks to record their own creations.
Once I opened a book, I felt compelled to finish it. I was drawn into a world, and I had to know what would happen, how it would end.
