10,000 Hours

Frogs have nothing to do with this post.

In the book outliers there is a chapter about how people that "outlie" (I don't think that is actually a word but you'll have to get over it.) in their particular fields always have 10,000 hours doing that thing before they really succeed at it.



At my recent illustration conference (I know I keep talking about it but this is my last post on it for now) I met a guy with at least 10000 hours drawing stories. He told a story about getting his first book published that went something like this:

 "My friend and I had this story we worked on and I did the illustrations and we showed it to an agent and he sold it to a publisher. Now I have a contract for my second book. The End"

My first thought was, "wow, I wish it would work like that for me."

My second thought was "Wait, there must be more to his story."

There was. It turned out this man was the writer and illustrator of a syndicated comic strip for about five years. He totally had 10,000 story writing hours in before he wrote illustrated and published a children's book, seemingly just like that.

His name is Mark Pett. Probably some of you have heard of him.

I'm pretty sure I have 10,000 drawing hours. But I also want the story writing and illustrating hours. Thus very soon. (although I don't have an exact date yet) I will be starting a new blogastory (that link goes to my first attempt). That's the plan.

On what do you want to get your 10,000 hours?


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100 Picture Books

At the BDAC illustration conference we got to hear picture book author Anne Bowen talk about picture book writing. (she's very good, check out her books)

This is the best picture I got of her. She is in the scarf.

She mentioned hearing somewhere that a person should read 100 picture books before they try to write one. Now, I am sure in my time I have read at least that many. But it can't hurt to do it again.

I decided to read the 100 books and pay special attention to the writing. Normally I pay most of the attention to the illustrations so this was a bit of exercise for me.

I started checking books out at the library and reading them. I picked books randomly off the shelves making sure not to judge by the illustration or how well known the book is.

I haven't gotten through the whole hundred but here are some of my over all observations so far.

First: I noticed that I don't like a lot of picture books.

Second: Books that have gotten, or are getting, a lot of attention usually deserve it, especially when compared to all the other books out there.

Third: The shorter the text the better I like it. When I look at a picture book I imagine reading it out loud to a child. If it's too wordy I don't think I would get through with out skipping parts. The shorter tighter stories also felt more fun and less weighed down by words. 

I also enjoyed the books that have a narrative story rather than those that were more of a list type book. But I think the list books tended to have a better rhythm and rhyme scheme in their writing.

Here are some of my favorites so far.



I felt like each of these books have fun tight text, told a great story, and worked well with the illustrations. 

What kinds of things have any of you discovered about picture book writing?


 Buy Prints or Cards and Gifts illustrated by Manelle.