Write a Children's Book in 7 Days or Less

1. Welcome to the Class: Hello and welcome to how to write a children's book with children's book author Barbara and Burgess. That's me. I have the voice in your ears. That's also me in the photo there. I am a writer, I am a children's book author. You might know some of my work. One of my books was featured as a prop on the CMT show Nashville. If you solve for Nando learns about asking on that show, that was me, me and my business partner duncan. We made that book and it was on television, which was super cool. But I also have experience doing other kinds of writing. So I've done ghost writing, short stories, essays, poetry, and I have to novel slash novella is that will be released sometime this year, 2019 as a record this. So now you know a little bit about me. Let's get to know the information that's going to be in the course a little bit better just so you can know what to expect and how this is going to play out. So the first thing you need to know is that yes, by the end of this class, you will have completed a children's story, no biggie. If you follow these steps one by one, then you will have a completed children's book by the end of this class. This class is broken down into days. You could also call these steps if you wanted to, but you can finish an entire children's book and have it ready for illustration and then ready for production in seven days. Now I've been told time and time again not to tell you that because it sends some kind of a message about the class that may not be true for everyone. But the truth is that if you set aside the time, you do this in seven days straight like I will in this class, and I'll show you exactly how I do it. I'll do the work along with you. Then you can actually have a book done. I will be writing a book alongside with you. I don't have a pre-planned story idea. I will write down, I'm sure some story ideas that have been floating around in my mind for a while, but that's okay because I'm asking you to do the same thing more on that as we get into step one. But I'm going to show you everything as much as I can. You can't see into the mind of a writer. But what you can do is watch them work and you can learn from their work patterns. I think the most helpful thing that I've ever done was sitting in a room. And it was a writing class sit in a room with other writers and just watched everybody think and how slowly then how rapidly the words came to see all of that was very informative to me as a writer. One more thing before we go, we will not be covering any part of the publishing process or the illustration process in detail. This is just a writing class. There's a lot that could be said about the publishing process in the illustration process, but that would take a very long time for me. And I just want you to get the words on the page. No story, no book. If you do not get the words on the page, you will not have a book, period. So let's get this part finished first. And then you can go through the steps of hiring an illustrator, publishing and stuff. And at the end of this class, I will give you some notes on all of these things. I will give you enough information that you can actually start the process of turning your children's book into a physical book that will be for sale in bookstores. If you are ready to dive in, finally, get your story written, get it on paper and get it ready for the next step in the process to become a real physical book? Then let's go to the next video. 2. Day One - Brainstorming: Welcome to day one. And on day one we are going to be doing brainstorming. So all we're focused on today is doing the actual brainstorming portion of the story creation process. This is not gonna be like the brainstorming you've done before because we're going to keep it super-duper, simple, no diagrams, no pictures, no color-coding. All you need is something to write on to write with and a timer. I used my phone for this. Sometimes I use my Alexa device for this as well. Here's what we're going to do. It's going to be super easy. We're going to ready our writing implements. We're going to set a timer for ten minutes. And then we're going to list all of the story concepts floating around in our heads. So that includes character ideas, setting ideas, scene ideas, or maybe you just have a question that you think answering would create a good story. So just all of that stuff, big old brain dump right on the page. A quick tip before we do this, it helps to number your page one dash 20. This helps because sometimes will list two or three ideas and we think we've nailed it. And truth be told, the good ideas generally don't come until you've listed about tin. Tin items. Really dig into your thoughts, dig into your daydreams, your nightmares, all of it. And list everything you can. If you don't make it to 20, don't stress out, you could always set another timer. So now we're gonna go over to my screen and I'm going to show you how I do my brainstorming list and I'll just let you listen to and watch me think. And hopefully that will give you a little bit more insight into the writing process. So let's switch over. 3. Watch My Brainstorm Session: do a little brainstorming. I have set my timer for 10 minutes, and I've set up my bullets to be numbered. And I've set my phone to 14 which is what I like, and I guess we're gonna get started. There will be noises in the background, and I do have a glass of water here. So you might hear me sip every now and then and I'm going to start the timer now. So the goal is to just dump everything out on the page that I have floating around in my mind when it comes to Children's books specifically, and my goal is to reach 20 items. And I'm going to talk you through my thoughts and all of these videos as much as possible so that you can get a clear view, the clearest view possible without actually being in my mind. Um, the first thing that's on my mind is owed to a peanut, but her and jelly sandwich. This is a poem that I've written, and, um, it's partially written. It's not fully written, and I was going to include it in a collection of poems for very young Children, and I still may, but I thought it would also be really good as a standalone book. Um, I like I like the idea of kid learning to, uh, share food with hiss toy dinosaur. Um, I can kind of I can see pictures of that in my mind. I can see the toy dinosaur standing in the middle of a garden. That's the picture. I see. Um, something about maybe something about a kid on an airplane, maybe. What else? Oh, I had this title. His titles been floating around for a while. How to build a monster. I could have fun with this. I can see, um, kid in a lab, but the lab is really the bedroom. You know of the child. You know, that could be fun. Let's see, what else do we have? Um, I want to do something with camping, but I don't know exactly what, So as I record this, it's spring. And let's see, I've done my first outdoor runs of the year this week. Anything about running kids and running? What about a fast snail that compete? Good? Um, 1/2 character named Grateful Gary. Grateful Gary is a snail. I have one story written about grateful Gary already. I'd like to resurrect grateful Gary somehow and maybe write that story again and do it better. Um, that might be something that I work on, but he could also do something else. You could be grateful for something else, Uh, instead of the, uh, flu, which was the premise of the first book. All right, let's see. How about a when I'm president? I like that. And I see, actually, when I when I see this, I see, uh, each page of being, uh, each page is a different kid saying what they do if they we're per resident. Okay, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Um, so when you're thinking about Children spokes to write and you think you don't have a lot of ideas, it's good to tap in to skills that you have. So I just started thinking about I just asked myself, Literally, I asked myself, What do I know? So I know how to type. Kind of, you know, I detect pretty well. I just mess. I make a lot of mistakes. Um, I say pretty well because I can fix them and make them, uh, make all my mistakes. Go away and correct everything without losing a lot of time. Um, maybe typing, Um, maybe something with typing. I'm not sure. Um some some kind of coding for kids to make it understandable. I know a few languages, Few computer languages, Not not many. And to, um I've also been a yoga teacher for a long time, and everybody keeps making keeps. Asked me to write yoga for kids of some kind storybook yoga. That could be fun. Um, each story is a Siri's. Opposes. That could be a thing. Uh, this is how my family meditates. That's a That's a storybook idea that I had a while ago that I never followed through on because I just didn't. It wasn't that interesting to me. Um, but maybe I could do something with it. Okay, We've got four minutes and 11 seconds left on the clock, and I need a few more ideas. Let's see again. I'm thinking about all the things that but I know how to dio cooking. Might be something interesting. I don't know. I just don't know. Um um maybe a list of outdoor activities. So this is how I play outside and list all the different things that kids can do outdoors. That might be fun. Maybe a. A mouse that makes pizza. I don't know why, but that could be really cute. Um, you might hear Children playing in the background. It's a nice, sunny day and neighbors Children are riding their bikes outdoors. Um, what about an adventure? What kind of adventure can I put into a picture book? Oh, there's a story that I thought of a while ago. Moth on a windshield doesn't sound very interesting, but when I just write mouth at a windshield, the entire story idea, uh, is in my mind and I'm I'm in it. I think I could do that one. That one could be good. Um, what else? I tend to write books that have some sort of moral lesson to them, And I'd like to kind of get out of that and either right some actual hell twos for kids or write something just silly. Like what if you're a teacher is a cat and you are the only one that knows like that? Oh, I like that a lot. We've got two minutes left. I've got a bang out some results. Let's see else Something to do with pen pals I'm fascinated with, um, with the Post. I like. I like mail. I like male a lot. Um, I like paper and postage and pens. Something about a hair cut or yeah, or a trip to a salon. That might be fine. Okay, Uh, two more items, and then we can call it adventure. Walking is something that I do with my step person. So we'll go in adventure walks, and she'll come back with all kinds of plants and rocks and things, and we we can't along them somewhat. She enjoys that. Maybe something about an adventure walk and last but not least, us to one more 30 seconds. Uh huh. Oh, goodness. I have just drawn a blank 20 seconds. C Oh, yes. Um, I have ah, planet book that has been in the works for years, so I'm gonna leave that on there. Very cool. Is this the end of the brainstorming session? So here's the deal. If you did not get 20 items on your list, take a little break. Look at 225 minute break, and then come back. Set another timer and give it a go try to have 20 items on the list so that you have a multitude of options before we start to narrow it down and began to to see if you can fill in anymore if you need to, and then I will see you in the next video. 4. Day Two - Mining: Welcome to day two. On day two, we start the mining process. So in mining, this is how we do it. We're going to read over our brainstorming list and we're going to dig in for details. We do this by adding little notes in any tidbits that come to mind as we read the list. But we also do this by asking ourselves questions. As you're reading through. If nothing pops to mind, if no additional details come up for the story, you want to ask yourself some questions such as, where does this happen? Who is this character? And what if, I don't know? What If this, that and the other? What if we're just gonna go ahead and dive into this? So you're going to need your brainstorming list, of course. But here's exactly what we are going to do. We're going to ready our writing implements. We're going to set a timer for ten minutes. And we're going to add any details that come up. A quick tip before I show you my screen is, I don't want you to be precious about grammar or spelling during this part. Sometimes we get hung up when we add details on sentence structure or the best word choice, don't worry about it. If in your mind, you're seeing a purple striped tiger eating a baloney sandwich. You might want to just write down purple tiger sandwich and you can add in other stuff later. You can use that in your story if you want to add one thing, I'm going to use it. Now let's pop over to my screen and I will show you how I mine my list. 5. Watch My First Mining Session: So it is time to do a little mining. So I have my time or set. I have my glass of water and let's just see if we can get any more details out of these concepts and ideas. So I'm gonna start the timer now. Okay? I'm going to start at the top. So what I have for this is I wanted to be a poem. And it is, uh I love poem, uh, about, um PB and J. There's this is a straight through very linear linear idea, because at the beginning of the story, someone's telling us they love peanut butter and jelly and then they're going to tell us why. And it will end with a profession of love again. And this is why I love peanut butter and jelly Says is kind of an explanation. Explanation. So how you spell it? Okay. A kid learning to share food with toy dinosaur toe. OK, so this umm came from an idea that I had a few years ago and I never saw it through because story changed direction so much, and I wasn't quite sure how wanted to handle it. So I like the idea of um they're being a garden. I see a garden. I see a toy dinosaur. Um, one day, the toy dinosaur this appears and it's found in the garden. Found in the garden beating all the broccoli, right? I don't know. I just feel broccoli. Here we go. But that's as far as I got in my mind. So, kid on a plane, um, I don't really have anything else there. Honestly, So let's go to the next one. How to build a monster. That's just a really good title. And it might be a book already. I'll have to dig it up after dig through the Internet and see if it's already a Children's book. But I don't again. I don't know how I would approach that. I could see this is a pin Powell letter. Um, for how to maybe, um, even better. A misguided how to That could be fun. Um, fast nail. I think I pilfered that from never ending story. Can't use that grateful Gary. Okay, So grateful. Gary, in the first story that I wrote of grateful Gary, um, he got the flu and he was miserable for a week. And at the end of it. He said he was grateful he had the flu because it gave him time to sit in bed and play games with his dad so he would play video games and played card games with his dad. So that's why he was grateful for having the flu. And I think I like this character enough to turn him into a Siri's. But I could again, right the flu story. Um, may be grateful. Gary is grateful for chores. Why is he grateful for chores? Grateful. Gary is grateful for not a school pally things that other things have to think about it. I was grateful for, um, his broken iPad. It can't be an iPad in this story to be a tablet, but I like I have, ah, good feeling about it. But the grateful Gary stories they do feel a lot like the Fernando stories. To me, Fernando is the main character of my Children's books that are out there, so I'm trying not right exactly the same thing. But when it comes down to it, if you're good at something and it works, you should probably keep doing it. Um, let's see when I'm president, each page is a different kid, saying what they would do if they were president. Um, I like the idea of each kid having a different different goal at the end of the book, that all say, uh, they'd all say they'd make the world a better place for everyone. I'll be cute. It's a little We are the world moment. So typing this could be a how to book. Um, coding again is a how to book. I don't know if I want to do that. I don't know how interesting I could personally make. HTML probably couldn't make it very interesting. The yoga for kids telling a story in a series of yoga poses. That could be interesting. Um, I don't have a story that pops into mind the moment, so I'm just gonna leave that there. This is another Ah, this is a book that's meant to highlight differences. I thought about this a while ago. It would highlight differences. Um, while I guess, while proving similarity, um, there's a better way of saying that showing the differences air Okay, everybody can meditate differently. Uh, this is how I play outside. Have the list of outdoor games. I don't know I'm not feeling that one at all. Um, mouse, that creep that makes pizza. So there's a game called Overcooked, and it's available on steam. And if you don't have it, you totally should. It's a cooperative game and you are a chef and you're making all these different dishes, and I think that's where that idea came from. Um, this story has been cooking in the back of my mind for a long time. There's a moth that lands on a windshield and stories being told from the perspective of the mouth. Um, and I he's taken on an adventure from the country to the city and back again. You know, it's a lot of fun. Ah, this is just that I think would be hilarious if I were kindergarten would want to read that teachers a cat, but nobody else nobody else knows. Maybe the main character in the story is trying to prove to his friends that, uh, the teachers a cat. Nobody believes him. Maybe that's the thing. I don't know. There's a lot that could be done with that. The pen pal thing I could see this is a syriza's. Well, um, maybe two characters writing letters to each other. Half the book could be a letter from one kid the other half to be a letter from the other kids or back and forth. Uh, just number them and make sure they're in the right order. One kid lives where my life. I live in Nashville, so maybe one kid is in Nashville. And where else if I lived, I've lived a lot of places. Technically, I've lived a lot of places, but not really. Let's see, I've spent a lot of time up north. Um, I haven't spent a lot of time or any time honestly out of the country from being perfectly honest. So what if I put the kid in some other location? I don't know where we'll find out. That could be fun, though. That would be a nice little Siri's, and they could talk about things and learn about each other, the haircut or a trip to a salon. I see an opportunity for some beautiful images, so maybe I see a lot of like hair dryers and, uh, those funny seats with the with hair dryers. It's that cover people's heads. I also I can imagine, um writing it from the perspective of a child that's getting their first haircut first riel , big kid haircut and, um, Perricone Word. And they're thinking that all the thanks that could go wrong. And then they go and it's not so bad. Um, adventure walks. This could be kind of Ah, documentary. It's a fake documentary. But you know, maa que minnery? Uh, no adventure walk. I see this being in the, uh, ST Barbara Cooney style that'll that'll give me a clue as to how I want to write it. When I look back at these notes and these notes, they don't have to mean anything to anyone else because no one's ever going to see these. This is a special occasion just because I'm showing you how to do all this stuff. Nobody ever sees this part of the story or the story writing process. Normally, we felt 37 seconds the planet book, have 1/2 written book about plu toe, which is not a planet. I do want to visit that, and maybe I will. So we've got 20 seconds left. Um, I'm not going to elaborate on these anymore, because I'm really not sure where to go from here. Not yet, anyway. So when this timer goes off, I'm going to take a few minutes and stretch and get some more water. And then we can move on to the next part of the mining process together. And there's our timer. I will see you in the next video. 6. Narrow Down Your Options: Now that we're finished with the first part of the mining process, we're going to move on to the next part in which we will choose three items from our list. These items need to leave you feeling like you have more to say. And they need to be interesting to you. And this information must be easy for you to gather. So don't choose items that sound more interesting than another item. If it's hard for you to generate more details about it, choose the ones that have an easy flow of information from your brain to the page. Here's what we're going to do. We are going to ready our implements, set a timer for ten minutes, pick three items from the list and then pow, we'll move on to the next step. A quick tip before we move on. If you finish choosing your three items before the end of the ten minutes, see if you can add a few more details to the items that you've chosen, it will make the next part a lot easier. So let's move on to my screen and we'll watch me go and see what happens. 7. Watch Me Choose Three: Okay, so now we are going to choose three. And in case I didn't make it clear in the previous video these three items that were choosing our potential stories that were about to write So we're not just picking things because they're pretty and shiny were picking them because we're gonna work on them. So again, every time you see my screen, you should just automatically assume a few things. First of all, that I'm going to be drinking something that you're going to hear me ramble because I'm letting you in my brain and also that there will be outside noises because I'm doing all of this at home at my dining room table where I do all of my writing. That means sometimes you'll hear my dog. Sometimes you'll hear air conditioning and coffeepots, and sometimes you might hear neighbors. So just a little heads up there. So I'm going to set my timer for 10 minutes and took a sip of my water. Okay, here we go. Perfect. So I've hit start and let's see three stories. Stories that right themselves, This the ode to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I think I'm going to include that in a larger collection, but it's a maybe. So I'm going to underline it as it's a maybe kid learning to share food. This I'm going to pass on right now. I'm going to pass on this one because I've been working this idea in the back of my mind for a while, and I still haven't quite found a place for it. Kid on a plane that could go in too many directions. I don't have any details on that. Actually, make a story. This is a good visual. This could be a story just for fun. This is a maybe. I'm gonna underline that one. Um, the camping. This could be funny. Um, describing in a letter from one child to another child what camping is and, uh, have it all be wrong. Somehow I imagine the kid telling a delightful story about the kid and the kids wilderness , troop or parent went on a camping trip and while the kids explaining how everything went really well, you see, Troop leader, parent guardian in the background, um, like fighting snakes off or something. That could be funny. Um, fast Nail. I think I said this in the last video where a shared my screen That totally reminds me of a never ending story. I'm not going to use that. I think, uh, I think I'm just thinking about the racing snails from never ending story. Um, if you're familiar with never ending story in the racing Snail, let me know You can pop over toe to Instagram. You can direct message me. And just if you just type fast nail I know exactly what you're talking about. Could be a thing. Maybe it's a hashtag. We could start this 37. Too old to start a hash tag. Grateful Gary. Uh, man, I love this. I love grateful Gary. Um, I have the flu story written, but I think I could rewrite it. But this is not the time for that. We're writing a story from scratch so I could write a chore story. I think I could do that. That's a maybe two when I'm president. I think this is good, but I think I want to save fax. It's not easy typing how to coding how to the coating the coding, how to maybe, um I just don't know. I think this generation of Children. Uh, we're going to have to instill the knowledge of computer code into these younger generations. And, uh, yeah, yeah, everything is dragon dropping. You've got this handful of a handful of people that know why everything can be and drag and drop, you know, has nothing to do with age. Timo. Html. So I was thinking of anyway, all this rambling is my brain. So if it seems confusing to you, don't worry, that's confusing. Me, too. This yoga for kids think I could dio um, I think I could tell a story in yoga poses pretty easily. I've taught yoga for over 15 years. I think I could do that. This is how my family meditates is a little bit more on the serious side, and I don't know that I want to write a serious, serious book right now. This is how I play outside. That wasn't a good idea anyway. A mouse that makes pizza sounds cute, but there's nothing there. I really want to write this book, but I think it's one of those that, you know, I'm not gonna underline it because I'm not going to work on it right now. I really want to write this book, but, um, I can only in my mind, I can see images, and I don't have words yet. I don't have words for it. This right here would be hilarious. Um, teacher is a cat. You're the only one that knows. But how do I write that? I don't know how to write that yet. I like the pen, pal. Siri's, um I just don't know if im ready to begin a theories right now. Haircut or trip to a salon? Uh, I don't know. I don't know. Adventure walks. I could see this. This might be easy. And this I have partially written. Okay, So I'm going to look at everything that I have underlined and make some choices here. I want all of this to be on one page while I do it. If I can't. Oh, magical. Magical. Okay, so we've got Let me check my timer here. We've got four minutes left. I have too many things underlined. I need three. I cannot have more than three because I've made that mistake before. How to build a monster is on hold. 234 56 seven. Okay. Uh, Pluta book is on hold because I think that's actually not going to be for pre K. Um, I think that's going to be more of 1/3 4th grader book adventure walks this I could do. And I could probably illustrate that one myself. Um, because I imagine watercolor images going in the adventure walk book so that one might be that might be interesting. Um, this is the cash. This is so funny. The teacher. I really want to write this one, but I don't know if it will be easy. Maybe instead of a pen, pal letter? Yeah. It's just a how to guide how to go camping. Yeah, well, it will save grateful Gary, And I know I I'm being a little, um, or I'm lacking ceremony with Thea removal of items from my list. But I can do that because I know that I can come back to everything on this list later. So if you are afraid that you're going to remove the wrong story idea, don't worry about it. You can't do that because this list is yours. No one's ever going to see it. You can always come back to it just to make sure that you don't come back to it until you finished with the first project. OK, finish your first book all the way through. Which means just get all of your part written. You're the writer, right? The whole thing. And then you can come back and you can write one of the other ideas. So we have a minute in 55 seconds left. Okay, let's do this. We can do this. This is fine. 123 450 bollocks. Okay, PB and J out. This is funny. This would be easy. This is funny. I think I want to spend more time on the adventure walk. Siri's, um I want to think about it a little more. So 12 30. I've got three, So we've got one minute left. Um, I'm gonna compare this kind of to captain Captain underpants. Something like that. It kind of it would be nice, but we're comic book E, but I like that kind of humor. Um, do impose per page on this one. And the cautions, this teacher is a cat. Think it's so funny. This also I could see as a captain underpants humor been capitalize him been? What's his name? Clanton. Big Ben Clanton. Humor as well. If you're not familiar with the Ben Clinton Children's books, you really should familiarize yourself with them. I think that's the gold standard for humor writing for Children right now. His books are hilarious, and I don't know him. This is not a promotion by like a paid person. I bought his book for myself and, ah, I reluctantly gave it to my step person after she saw how funny it was. But I'm buying all of his books just for me because they're funny. Okay, there's our time. Perfect. So I have selected three items from my list. You, of course, should do the same. And then I will meet you in the next section and we'll talk about what's next. 8. Choose One Idea: Okay, we're almost finished with the mining process. We've chosen three, so now we have to move on to the next part. This part might be kind of difficult, but we're gonna do it anyway. We're going to choose one of the three items. Yes. You want to choose the item that writes itself. Most of the items on your list may have simply been story concepts, just characters, situations and scenes and settings. And you may have been able to elaborate on those items and give them a little bit more detailed, but they didn't turn into stories necessarily. So when you're looking at the three that are on your list, you want to see if you can find the one that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. If it's not super clear, you should see a path to the beginning, middle, and end. You can always go back and write every single story on your list. But you can only really write one thing at a time when your pen is moving across the paper, when your fingers are typing on the keyboard, you cannot be typing into stories simultaneously. Just pick one and finish it, and then you can move on to the next one, finish it and so on and so on. That will be your life. My friends. Here we go. We need to read your writing implements, set a timer for ten minutes, and then we're going to pick the one item we're going to work on for the remainder of the course and a quick tip before we go. Of course, if you finish before the time is up, good on you for being decisive and go have a cookie or cupcake or an extra cup of coffee or something because you deserve it and you're done for the day. Now we're gonna move to my screen and we'll see what happens. 9. Watch Me Choose One: okay, Time to choose just one. So I have taken the three items that have chosen for my longer list and move the motor smaller list so that I wouldn't be distracted. And now I'm going to take my 10 minutes and really find out and ask myself which of these is going to be right for me right now. So I've already started my timer in nine minutes and 50 seconds remaining. Let's see what we can do with this list of three. So the camping, the camping I'm going to delete these notes because I have them on the other page. So now I'm going to try to find the parts of the story in my mind. So right now, everything that you're seeing on my list is there they are just story concepts, that's all. They're not story ideas because you cannot see a big beginning, middle and end. Here you can just see chunks of what could be a story. Little pieces of what could be a story camping, uh, concept totaling yoga. For kids. Each story is a syriza poses. That's clearly a concept. You see, that sentence has no or it's not even a sentence. This phrase has no beginning middle and end to it. He Pardon me? Teacher is a cat in your anyone who knows. So it's just that's a circumstance which is just a story concept. So now I'm going to take these few minutes to try toe find this story that has the easiest find the idea that has the easiest story inside of its toe. So camping. I can imagine, um, a kid writing a how to book. Um, something I can I can imagine. You know how Children are arrogant when they've done something one time. So something like a since I've been camping, who won whole time in the backyard and basically an expert expert. Here are some camping tips it can use the next time. Next, Tim, while the next time you for clues when? So I see. I see the kids starting out like that and well, I can see in the background I see an image of, um, a dad covered in pug bites, holding spray can while the kid is just taking in the fresh air. So this is this is what I'm saying here. So the beginning, middle and end of it All is the narrator has gone camping. Narrator teaches camping. Uh, narrator invites you took to go camp. So that's the beginning. Middle and end of it. All right. So let's pop down here to the yoga for kids, Each story is a syriza poses. So the problem with this one is that I have to make a story within a story. Kind of, um Well, it's not. It's not even a story within the story. Um, this is just a structure, really, That I can use using yoga poses to move my story forward, but I don't have Ah, I have no idea right now. Honestly, what that would entail. I can imagine a few yoga poses that could start a story out because they're animals, you know, You have lion pose, and maybe that's it. Maybe it's, um, go on a yoga safari. That would be fun. Um, maybe huh? Make a quest maker to go on a quest. Gosh, I really want to write this teacher is a cat thing. Um let's see. I can't. I'm hearing a narrator's voice in my mind. Tried. I'm hearing like something like, Have you ever have you ever noticed something that no one else has noticed. Right? Something like that. Have you ever I noticed ever. This might be for older kids. Piece of wallpaper doesn't quite line up. Were two cups that look the same, But one is slightly. Or maybe like William, you've noticed a teacher. Is it no one else his noticed? That could be fun. Okay, I think I got it. Um, that's a good in true. Good idea, but where is it going? Right. So what's the middle and end of it? All right, that's the question. So let's say let's see. So I think for the entire story, William is trying to tell everyone the teacher is a cat. No one believes him. But what happens at the end? Like, what is what is he trying to get to once he wants to not be alone? His goal is to make people aware to not be alone in this knowledge. And, um, I don't know if he wants to fire. The cat doesn't want the cat fire. Um, but yeah, he wants people to know, but I don't know how that wouldn't. So I've got two minutes and I need to pick one of these. And I think I don't know, See, they're going to be this one or this one. Truth be told, I think this right here, um, will be longer than the 32 page format that I like to use. So I think this is going to get saved for something a little longer. Not a hot too. How to, Um, I think this camping book, the camping book, especially with it being spring right now. And I'm kind of in the mood to go camping, so I think that's the one. OK, we've got one minute left on the clock for me. I have chosen to write about the camping, and I am done. Yes. Okay. So you should do the same. And tomorrow when you come back for day for if you pop over and just watch the fourth step , um, we'll take this a step further. All right? Thank you. And, um, if you're finished to go get a cookie, cause we finished early. Whoa, 10. Day Three - Summarizing: Welcome to day three. Today we are going to be summarizing. This is going to seem counter-intuitive, but today we are going to be writing a fake sales description. Yes. The reason it seems counterintuitive is because you haven't even written a book yet, but that's not a problem. We're just going to pretend that the book is written. Imagine it's written and we're going to try to sell it to someone. And it needs to be one to four sentences. And all you're going to do is imagine that your book is on Amazon, your website, or a bookshop site and sell it to an imaginary person. No problem. Again, keep it short and simple and just see what you come up with. This is a fake sales description. No one ever has to see this. This is just for you. Here we go. We are going to read your writing implements, set a timer for ten minutes and we're going to write our fake sales description. You will most likely have time to write two or three of these in a 10-minute session. So if you can, you should. Now we'll go over to my screen and see what happens. 11. Watch Me Write My Sales Copy: Okay, so let's write a quick sales description for this book. So let's see. I'll start my timer. 10 minute timer here we g o. So we know that he wants to. Who wants to share the main character? He wants to share his campaign wisdom. Uh, now that he's been camping in his backyard, you see, So I think his name is Steven. Stephen. Sounds like a good name. Maybe Steven, Like Stephen Fry. Steven. Steven. Uh, Let's see. Stephen is an expert in camping. That's a terrible sentence for a sales description, but I'm just trying to put some ideas. Day, um After completing his first full night in the wild in the wilds of his backyard, Stephen has written, Ah, camping guide for uh, let's see. Let's try this again. After completing his first full, there should be a common there, his first comma full. Uh, maybe No. Maybe it's this. This is the thing we'll have to check later. After completing his first full night in the wild of his backyard, Steven has written a camping guide for young adventurers looking to brave the wilderness, looking to take life by the scruff and brave the wilderness in this guide, Stephen, we'll tell you, um, we'll tell you secrets to tell you the secrets to becoming one with nature, and uh huh. Two. Okay, so Stephen will teach you secrets to becoming one of the one with nature and survival techniques that you'll need to get you through. Excuse me. Ah, to get you through What? I don't know. Let's get that part. Okay, so there's one sales description. Kind of. After completing his first full night in the wilds of his backyard, Steven has written a camping guide for young adventurers looking to take life by the scruff and brave the wilderness. In this guide, Stephen will tell you the secrets to becoming one with nature. And let's do this and he'll share his tips for, um, I want to say something, like making the perfect s'mores or, um, something is something like that. I can I'm trying to think of a situation where I can put the dad in, like, in a sticky mess of marshmallow, right? Uh oh. His tips for, uh, hunting Bigfoot will be good. That's what I was thinking. That's not gonna work. Uh, his tips for Oh, I don't know There needs to be something there, though. Get your copy now and start adventuring. I need to think of something to fill in that blank for sure. So it's four minutes and 40 seconds. That's what's left on our timer. Let's see if I can. Let's write a 2nd 1 may be using the same vocabulary, maybe even using the same words and see if I can make this sales description a little bit more detailed. But the sales description that I've written here, even though it has a big blank in it, is good. It works because it tells the person who could potentially be buying the book What's inside . And it also sets the tone. So just the tone in in my copy, uh, shows you that it's a little It's tongue in cheek, right? So I would like to keep the first sentence similar to this, but maybe not exactly the same. It's a long sentence. Let's see. Let's say safety looks, um, seasoned adventurer Stephen. He needs the last name. Ah Kimball. Sure. Kimble Kimble. I don't know how to spell these names. Uh, seasoned adventure. Um, off Stephen. No. Last names. Makes it too weird. Stephen. It's an experienced outdoor adventurer. Nope. So most of writing is like this. Um, something sounds great in your head. The moment you put it on the page. It sounds terrible. There are people that will tell you not to edit as you go. And there are people that will tell you not to delete something once you've written it. I'm not in that camp. It all, Um I have burned and deleted mawr. Excellent writing than than most probably, but it just wasn't the right time for it. If it was really good, it will come back. I keep certain things, but when I'm writing something like a sales description, that sentence did not work for copy or anything, so I'm just not gonna keep it. I think I'm just gonna keep what I have. Uh, maybe let's rewrite it and see if anything changes. So after completing his first night in the wilds of his his first night camp, how about his first overnight camp? His first overnight camp? Yeah. After completing his first overnight camp in the wilds, his backyard, Stephen has written a camping guide for young adventurers just like you. If you are tired of the usually? Yes, You're tired of the usual playground playground visits and walks in the park. If you're right, if you're tired of the usual playground visits, walks in the park, let's see, Just like you If you were ready to throw caution to the wind Uh huh. And grab life by the score if and brave the wilderness, This book is for you. Ah, in this guide, it's got what a Stephen Dio. Oh, time result timers up. So, um, I'm not going to continue writing this. I have a general idea. This feels pretty good. Um, I like the tone that this story is taken on s so far, So I'm digging it. Yeah, pretty good. Pretty good. So now you need to do this. It's the first of three exercises that we're going to be doing today to get us into our story a little bit more. So if you haven't done this to your story yet, please go ahead and give it a go. I'll see you in the next video. 12. Write a Quick Summary: Now that we have completed the first part of the summarizing process, Let's move on to the second part. The next part is writing a spills. So I call this spill and all it is is a brain dump, but this is the first of two spills that we'll be doing. So this is spell one. A spill is a quick summary. You're just going to quickly tell the story, get from the beginning to the end as efficiently as possible. That's it. Sometimes this will be one sentence, sometimes it will be several. For children's books, it tends to be one sentence and that's okay. Just write the story as quickly as you can. And don't worry about putting in a whole bunch of details that's not important at this point. We're just going to write the spill underneath our sales description. We will ready or writing implements. We're going to set a timer for five minutes this time and just tell your story right now as you see it. It does help if you pretend that you're explaining the story to a friend. Just give that a go and we'll pop over to my screen and see what happens. 13. Watch Me Write My Summary: Okay, let's do a spill. Let's do the first spill. Spill one by typing. It's just not the best today. Let's see. Sorry. That was probably really loud. Just clapped my hands right around my mike. So we're going to set a timer for five minutes. Uh, this timer is really more, um, a ceremony timer. Thanet is an actual time limit. This will probably not take five minutes at all. So I've started my timer. And so the story is that, uh, we have Stephen. Stephen went camping, and now he's writing a camping guide. And while he is explaining camping things to the reader, we'll see his dad in the background doing silly things. Um, so that's that's it. That's all I would say. Um, well, actually, let me add one more thing. A silly things. At the end of the book, Stephen suggests that you the reader, go camping. Boom, period. That's it. So we have three minutes and 51 seconds left on the clock. I'm not going to take it because I'm done. This is it, um, when you write your spill, I said to keep in mind that you're telling a friend in the earlier video. When we're doing our second spill, that's going to be a little bit more. Um, that's gonna be a little bit more guiding for you because you're going to actually tell the story and as much detail as possible. But we'll go over that in the next video. But for right now, you just have kind of, Ah, a little a little brain dump of what happens in the book really fast directed to the point . That's all you need. So let's go into the next video, learn about spill, too, and then we'll come back to this and ah, we'll see what happens, okay? 14. Write a Longer Summary: Now that we have completed spill number one, it's time to read the final step of the summarizing phase and that is to write a second spill. We'll call this one spill two. It's the same idea as before, but we're going to add in just a little bit more detail. So maybe this one will be a full paragraph length instead of just a sentence or two. All we're going to do is ready are writing implements again, we will set a timer for ten minutes this time and you're going to tell the story. Just pretend you're telling a story to a friend. Or even if you're writing for someone, let's say a five or six-year-old, imagine that you're telling the story to a five or six-year-old, your own child, your niece and nephew, your cousins, your neighbor's kid, whoever. Tell them the story and see what happens. So we're going to pop over to my screen and see what happens. 15. Watch Me Write My Final Summary: Okay, here we go. Spill to. So I think I said extreme detail that's built to was extreme detail. I think I said that earlier. That's wrong. It's just more detail. So I'm going to tell the story to the best of my ability right now and literally, I'm going to be pulling this story out of thin air. As you can see, this is all the work I've done so far. So upset myself. My timer. For 10 minutes, I've hit the button. Let's do this. Um, so we want to open the book, this book, uh, with Stephen telling us that he has gone camping. Maybe he wants to tell us. So let's say it's him narrating the story. Hi, I'm Steven, and I am an expert camper. I went camping in my backyard, and when I look up in the morning, I was still in the backyard. Oh, that's funny. Uh, let's see. The sign of success is going camping in one place and waking up in the exact same place. Good for Stephen. Hi, I'm Steven, and I'm an expert caper. I went camping in my backyard, and when I woke up in the morning, let's do this. And when I woke up, I was still in the backyard. Camping isn't hard. Anyone, Anyone can be a camper, huh? Anyone could be a camper. So now I want him to say something kind of sales pitch you to, like, get you to buy his book. Right? So, uh, well, I kind of wanted to sound sales pitching. So maybe he says something like anyone could be a camper. Even you Let me tell you how I became an expert camper. No, I can't say that because that implies that we're talking about his camping trip on Lee. Um right. That's I don't know if that works. Even you Let me tell you how I left. Even you. Even you. Let me tell you how to do it. Let me tell you how to do it. Even you. Hi. I'm Steven, and I am an expert camper. I went camping in my back charter. When I woke up, I was still in the backyard. Camping isn't hard. Anyone could be a camper, even you. To be a camper, you need to learn how to pitch. Attempt. Oh, see, pictures in the background is gonna be amazing. We'll see you've learned how to pitch a tent. Keep your foot away from bears. Oh, bug tip. You don't bother bugs. They won't bother you. Um, that's funny. It's not funny to read it. It's funny. It's funny right now, because in my mind I can see like a drawing of his dad, the background spraying bugs covered with bug bites. And And he's spraying his son. His son doesn't even notice. Uh uh. I need to keep food away from bears. It's good. Maybe this. Maybe the Bears thing could be a picture of, um, his dad playing tug of war with a bag of potato chips with a raccoon. That would be really funny. He thinks the record is fair. Um, bring enough water with water. You'll never no hope when you need a little extra. And I want to see the kid with this feat in a bowlful of water with two empty therm assists beside him, that would be funny. Um, a quick side note here. We've got about five minutes left on our timer. This dialogue seems dry. This this storyline seems try, but I can see the images in my head and the images It's the juxtaposition of chaotic images to, um, mundane language that's gonna make this so funny. So I'm laughing and I'm giggling a lot because I can 100% see what's going on here. And it will be funny. I think I'll add a few more things, and I'm not quite sure what they'll be. It, um, let's let's add something about going to sleep because we need to put them in there. You'll never know when you need a little extra. Uh, when it's time. Go to bed. Um, you see, trying to think of when I've gone camping things that have happened. Um, someone left really smelly shoes Instead of sleeping with their shoes on. They took their shoes off and stunk up the tent. And that was awful. But you don't have to camp with your shoes on. It was just situation we're leaving your shoes on would have been nicer. Uh, okay, so maybe, um, something about she's He's with his dad. May be sharing a tent with his dad. Um, maybe he takes up most of the space in the tent. That would be funny. Sleeping on top of this sleeping bag with this little limbs all spread out. Oh, that would be funny. Sleeping on top of this sleeping bag and using his dad sleeping bag is a blanket. That'd be funny. Eso when it's time to go to bed. Something about sleeping bags, man, I could see the picture, but how would he say it? I can see the image in my mind. The Kurds? Um, no. Soon you out of bed. Oh, this is better When it's time to go to bed, zip yourself. Sit yourself into a sleeping bag when I try not to disturb your fellow campers. Now that's funny, because instead of having him like pulling on the dad's sleeping bag, maybe it could have the kid laying on his back, snoring really loudly with one leg outside of his sleeping bag and all spread out maybe his hand on his dad's face. Oh, that would be so funny. Do you have serving fellow campers? We have one minute and 27 seconds left. I'm gonna wrap this up right here by saying, Before you know it, son will rise and you will have slipped outdoors, making you and an expert it's a camper. Perfect. I'm done. That's it. That's good. That feels good. I like it. Eso we've got 59 seconds to go. I'm gonna go ahead and kill the timer because I'm finished. And ah, you should do this with your story. Do your second spill. Good luck. I hope it's as entertaining as mine was to me. And I will see you in the next video. 16. Day Four - Mapping: Welcome to Day for today is all about mapping. We're going to take everything you've created and we're going to plug it into a book map that I created. Here is a simplified version of the book map for you to look at. When we're talking about children's books that are for pre-k, kindergarten and first grade ages. Those books are around 32 pages long, so this book map represents a typical 32-page picture book. You'll see that pages one through four don't contain any story, and pages 28 through 32 don't contain story either. So really we just need story enough to plug in pages five, plug into pages five through 27. So let's take a look at a bigger version, the actual version of this book map and talk about it just a little bit more before we start playing with it. The first page is going to include your title, author and illustrator credit your copyright statement and your ISBN when you get ready to publish. Page one is the page that you see when you open the cover. That's the first page you see the first leaf in the book is going to be our page one. When you flip the author page, the back of it is page two, and it will be blank. The third page will be a dedication. If you don't want to write a dedication, you certainly don't have to, but you can leave a space for dedication or a quote that you enjoy. When you flip that page, the back of it will be blink. Then the story will begin on pages on page five. Excuse me. Keep in mind that not every single page has to have words on it. Some pages can include simply an image that would be fine. But most pages will include image and words. Image of words, image or just words. Any of this we'll work on pages five through 27. Page 28, which will be the back of page 27, will be blank. Page 29 is the ending image. If you decide to leave an ending image of your main character or just a little bonus image at the end, or just the words the end will do. Or if you have a big final sentence statement that closes the story, that'll be fine as well. The back of that page will be blank. Page 31 is therefore an author's note or a list of other books that you've written or other creative endeavors. Maybe. Maybe you're writing this children's book to promote an app. You can put some interesting details about the children's app that you've created, but you've got a lot of options there. That's a page for you to promote yourself. The back of that page will be blank. What are we going to do? Let me tell you. We are going to ready our writing implements. Once again, we're going to duplicate the book map on our page and then we're going to set a timer for ten minutes and we're going to fill the map. Here's the deal. You don't want to be precious. Grammar is not super important right now. Spelling isn't super important right now. All we want to do is fill in our book map to the best of our abilities with our story pieces. And maybe if you have in your mind a vision of how you would like the images that are going to accompany your story to look, you can plug those in as well. I'll show you this in more detail when you watch my screen. So let's just go ahead, pop over to my screen and take a look at what goes on. 17. Watch Me Apply My Story to the Map: Okay, so I've just returned from walking my dog, and it's time to plug him a story, put it into the book map, and that clicking noise is my dog back there. She's panting and tired. We had a good long hike. You can always find pictures of river on instrument if you're interested in my Alaskan malamute husky mix that I rescued from the animal shelter. Okay, so here we go. I need to set a timer for 10 minutes. It shouldn't take longer than 10 minutes to do this part if you run out of time. If you legitimately just run out of time, give yourself a five minute break and then come back and fill it in some more. But you should only have to do this for 10 minutes. So I've already started my timer, and I'm gonna flip back and forth between all of my sheets that I've created during the process of getting this course together. And I'm going to start plugging in details into my book map. So there's there's really no more explanation need. I'm just going to show you. I'll just show you I'm not going to fill in any of this right now. It's an important dedication is the last thing that I write. It might be the first thing. You right. Um, but let's start with Plug in its own story. Let's see time. I'm Steven. I'm an expert camper. This could be two whole pages. This one sentence, two whole pages. That's how pre K books work. So let's see. Hi, I'm Stephen. So maybe for some image detail. Steve Hand Steve Fan. Hi, I'm Steven. Toe add image details. You just open some parentheses and then close them when you're done typing some details about the kind of image you see in your mind for this particular page, I imagine seeing just a little of portrait of Stephen. And maybe he's waving right. So maybe he's waving at the reader, and I'm a camping expert. This actually, you know what I think? I think this is gonna be one page with a picture in the middle so I could see this at the top. That was my neighbor. Sorry, this is the top, the portrait in middle. And then these last words of the symptoms of the bottom underneath. That could be cute. And let's see what we have here. I went camping in my backyard and when I woke, I like I like the idea of this sentence being this whole long thing being on one page. Oh, that cutting cop that copy didn't didn't work very well, did it? But cutting, pasting. Well, um, I wouldn't camping in my backyard. And when I woke up, I was still in the backyard giving my I woke up, I was still in my backyard like this crowning achievement as a camper. Um, I could see this is being two pages, and I could see it being on two pages like this. I went camping in my backyard and we see, um, a little a picture of a tent and camp, fire and fence to show that it's a backyard. And when I woke up, I was still in my backyard. Um, maybe a view from inside the tent. This this image I pause there because the image that I'm seeing right now for this page conflicts with this image because I imagine the tent in the camp fire on the fencing and I was seeing a sunrise behind the fencing, but I could just take the sunrise out behind view from inside the tent. Um, seeing sunrise over house, That network, this is pretty much all I'm going to be doing the entire time writing in a few lines of dialogue or a few lines of story and adding in in parentheses what I'm imagining for pictures, um, pictures, pictures do some of the heavy lifting. Not all of them. If you choose the wrong words or if you and your illustrator don't communicate clearly, then your image will end up contradicting the words. And the same is true for the rivers. So just get some ideas, stories down while you can. Camping isn't hard. Anyone could be a camper. So camping isn't hard. Anyone be a camper? I could see that at the top of the page and that even you actually will make these two separate pages, even you. And then we see his little I imagine he has a chubby finger, little chubby finger pointing right at the reader. Maybe a prideful, prideful look. Hands on hips, maybe for that line. So we'll see. So far, so good. Um, I've got four minutes left on my timer here. I know that's not going to be enough for everything that I'm going to write. Um, well, I say that. Let's just let's just keep going. See what happens to be a camper. You need to learn how to pitch. Tent. So what kind of picture to SC here? I don't know about the picture for this yet, so I'm gonna move on. Um, I need to keep your foot from Biggers. You need to make sure bears can't get your food. That's more right. You don't have a pitched it. Need to make sure bears can't get to your food. Can't get to your food. Um, I want to see pictures of him, uh, taking food out of the perfectly fine cooler and stuffing it under the tent. Um, and maybe Ah, Dad hoisting a food bag. Suri, this this thing may not be familiar to you If you are camper. If you camp anywhere around here in Tennessee where I am from, if you can't, especially in the in the mountainous areas, you have to keep your food off the ground. You put to the food up high, hide it from them bears. Okay. I need to get you a bug Tip this fund buck tip. If you don't bother bugs, they won't bother you. Okay, Bug tip. I want this to be, like, an important announcement type of image. If you do not bother bugs, they won't father you. So we'll see in this picture in the second picture Will see Dad spraying bug spray from from afar from afar, just behind behind his son springing bug spray on him. And we'll see in the first picture a picture of Stephen looking closely at a bug of the bitey variety. Um, with curiosity. But when we when we is it, it'll be a zoomed in picture zoomed in. Put that note in their zoomed in. Um uh uh, Dad covered in bugs, covered in part. That's another Tennessee problem. We have all the mosquitoes, if you all wherever you're from. If you're missing mosquitoes, come here. We will give them back to you. We don't like them. Um, bring enough water. You never know. Wouldn't need a little extra. Um, bring enough water. Oops. That's my long. Okay, that was 10 minutes. I genuinely did not think it was going to take me 10 minutes to fill in this entire book map, but 18. Watch Me Continue to Add the Story to the Map: OK. Had a little technical difficulty there. Sorry. We're back. I really didn't think this was going to take me longer than 10 minutes, but apparently it's going to take me around 20. No problem. So I am going to take a little break. Step away from the computer for just a moment to stretch. I don't like to sit for long stretches. If I can avoid it, then I will set another timer for 10 minutes and fill in the rest. So I will not record that segment because you have the basics, right? You have the idea. This is how it works. You pop over to your spill, you take bits from your second spill May be your 1st 1 If some details didn't make it into the 2nd 1 and you just plug it into your book map. Pardon me? So it's that simple. You add in any kind of image details, and I think I've said this a few times already, but I'm going to say it again. Normally, people won't see you do this. This kind of work. I'm not going to see you doing this kind of work. Don't worry about spelling or punctuation. or anything, get the ideas down in a way that you understand. You can always clean it up later. I do like to kind of clean and editors I go. So when I finish adding in the second half of the story, if I have any more time left over, I might go through and make a fuel edits. But that's because that's that's the way I do it. So this is how you plug in your story into your book map. Your turn. You go do yours. And then I will see you tomorrow for the next section, which is all about drafting. Okay, so, um, finish this up and then take a nap, because why not? 19. Day Five - Drafting: Welcome to day five. Today we're going to be doing all the drafting, all the drafting in case you could not tell by the book map. You've basically already written the first draft. You've plugged everything into your book map and it's a little more than an outline. It's actually a draft of your book, so you're already ahead of the game. Now we have to start diving into the three-part system of drafting a little bit more cultivating the story and making it readable for a wider audience. The first part of the drafting system is to do a slow read. All you're going to do is read your story aloud at a slow pace just to find missing words. That's my biggest problem. I leave out a lot of words, clunky sentences, and any other issues that you might find. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to read your writing implements, open up your file and we're going to just perform the task at hand, no timer today. So let's pop over to my screen and we will do just that. 20. Watch My First Round of Drafting: Okay, Welcome to my screen. Three quick things before we go through. And, uh, do the slow read of my story. The first thing is that I did go back in and said another 10 minute timer and I filled in the rest of my book map that way. Second thing is the book Mathis kind of a trick. It is a way for you to write your first draft without any pressure. Um, I'm sorry for tricking you a little bit, but I call it the book map, even when I'm working on stuff because it does kind of tricked me into getting the work done, which is nice. If it works, I say Just use it. So the third thing is, I'm going to address the timer here. The reason we're not using a timers because some books are longer than others, and that doesn't necessarily mean in pages. You could be using the 32 page book map, but maybe you were writing a book that was more exploratory or nonfiction for a younger audience. But even a pre K kindergarten first grade book can have 1000 2000 words in it, so you know it'll take however long it takes. But you're just going to read the book, start to finish, And as you do, you're gonna fill in words that you missed your gonna fix your grammar. You might even have some different or better image ideas that you want to write down. And that's exactly what this slow breed is for. So here we go again. I'm gonna be the first monkeys. You could see what I do. All right, let's go. So it starts on Book five of Court, Our own Page five. Excuse me. Hi. I'm Steven. The Portrait Stephen waving. That's gonna be cute. And I'm a camping expert. I went camping in my backyard. I don't normally read this slowly. Just a heads up again. This is a slow read. Truth be told, I should be reading a little slower than I am. So I'm going to try to slow it down, going forward. But I see the Senate starts on page six and it continues on page seven. And when I woke up, I was still in my backyard. Yes, camping isn't hard. It's funny if your camper listening to this, you know, sometimes camping could be very difficult to anyone can be a camper. That's true, even you. I put a couple of pages in here where he's got the Uncle Sam. Suppose I'm gonna have to find ways to change those up. To be a camper, you need to learn how to pitch a tent. Um, I'm not sure about this image. I like the idea of Stephen pitching a bowl to attend while his dad is desperately trying to stake it up. And he's being hit on the head with soft balls and stuff that I don't know if it's going to go, how you need to make sure bears can't get to your food. That sentence doesn't sound right. Let me say it at speed and see if that works. You need to make sure bears can't get to your food. Get your food, Get your food. Maybe that Hi, that some place. Hey, hide it someplace. They'll never think to look. Hide it someplace safe. I think that's simple. That's simpler. Simpler. You need to make sure bears I cannot, should be. Cantor cannot fix it later. Hide it someplace safe, so menopausal really quickly. Just for a moment. The reason I said I will fix this later. It's because I'm going to wait and see. Uh, if it makes sense when I hear that word read back to me and we'll get to that in another part of drafting bug tip. Okay, it says important announcement. I kind of like him. Maybe like a like, Oh, I didn't need to hit that. Here we go. Um, the bug tip I can see it is like a news flash. If you do not bother bugs. If you do not bother bugs, they won't bother you. That's not entirely true. Bring enough water. Plenty of water. You'll never know when you'll need a little extra. I like the idea of Stephen having a spa day while his dad's tryingto just get a drink. It's water also. Let the grown up. I think growing up is a hyphenate. Build a fire. Getting food for the fire is your job. Collect some twigs and dry leaves to keep the fire going. Okay, I'm going to be doing this all the way down. So if you get the gist and you want to turn this part of the video off, you certainly can. I'm annoying myself. Speaking this slowly makes me nuts. I'm a fast talker to be somebody from Nashville, so I'm just gonna keep going. When it's time to go to bed, zip yourself into your sleeping bag. Okay? That's good. Trying not to disturb your fellow campers. This image is gonna be hilarious. Before you know it, the sun will rise and you will have slept outdoors. But we aren't finished camping yet. The best part of camping is hot cocoa and breakfast by the fire. That's my favorite part. After breakfast, it is time to clean up. I think this image will go in the middle. Okay. You have to tear down the tent, put out the fire and get all of your things back in your pack or all of your things. Yeah, I guess. Back in your packets. Fine. This part is in port and port. Well, see, that's why we read slowly. This part is important, so don't forget. Don't forget it. Look at that. Always leave the campsite better than you found it. When you are finished cleaning up you, our Maybe when you get home. Yeah. Ah, I don't know. That's that was a mistake. That sentence didn't fit all that is left to do. Men, this isn't working. The sentence isn't working out for me at all. Uh, go home and playing your next adventure home to plan your next adventure. Always leave the campsite better than you found it. That sounds nice. When all of your camping chores are finished, you get to go home and plan your next adventure. Now, you know everything about camping, get out there and have an adventure. Perfect. Okay. All right. That feels pretty good. So you'll see how I left outwards, and then I plug them in and how I even I think I changed an image here. They're here, and they're so, um, our image placement. That's really all we're doing with this draft. So just go and do a slow read on yours, and I'll see you in the next video. 21. Second Round of Drafting: Now that we've finished with the first part of our three-part drafting system, we're going to move on to the second part where we record and listen. In this section, you are going to record yourself reading your story at a normal pace as if reading to a child and listen to the playback. And you're just going to listen for clunky transitions, weird word choices and other issues. To do this again, we're just going to read your writing implements. We're going to just perform the task, no timer necessary. Just a tip for you. If you know how to make your computer read to you, you can add that step into this part as well. You should definitely read the story, record yourself and listen back. But if you wanted to, you could add a second part where you have the computer read the story back to you and see how that treat Jim. Let's move on to the next slide and we will watch what I do and see what happens. 22. Watch My Second Round of Drafting: Okay, so now it is time to record myself reading this story. So I'm going to be in my phone for this, and I'm going to take my phone and opened the voice recorder after I get a sip of water. And I'm not gonna choke this time. Right before he hit record, it took a gulp of water and it was down the wrong way to have tears in my eyes. It's going to be delightful. This is a casual learning experience, you see? Okay, I am here. They were cord now. Oh, here we go. Hi. I'm Steven, and I'm a camping expert. I went camping in my backyard, and when I woke up, I was still in my backyard. Camping isn't hard. Anyone could be a camper, even you. To be a camper, you need to learn how to pitch a tent. You need to make sure bears can't get your food. Hide it someplace safe. Bug tip. If you do not bother bugs, they won't bother. You bring plenty of water. You'll never know when you'll need a little extra. Also, let the grown up handle who also let the grown up build the fire. Also let the grown up handle the fire. Getting food for the fire is your job. Also let the grown up like the fire. Getting food for the fire is your job. Collect some twigs and dry leaves to keep the fire going. When it's time to go to bed, zip yourself into your sleeping bag. Try not to disturb your fellow capers before you know it. The subtle rise and you will have slept outdoors. But we aren't finished camping yet. The best part of camping is hot cocoa and breakfast by the fire. After breakfast, it's time to clean up. You have to tear down the tent, put out the fire and get all of your things back in your pack. This part is important, so don't forget it. Always leave the camp site better than you found it when all of your camping chores air finished, you get to go home and plan your next adventure. Now you know everything about camping, too. Get out there and have an adventure. Both done. So that was two minutes and 11 seconds of reading, with a few alterations on that one line that I can't find now. And so now I'm going to just hit the playback button and I'm going to listen to it. I don't know how well you'll be able to hear it through the mike that is currently attached to my headphones, but we'll try it. So now I'm gonna hit, play and see if there's anything that feels clunky or anything that I need to change that I did not already handle. Hi, I'm Steve and I'm camping expert. I went camping in my backyard, and when I woke up, I was still in my backyard. Camping. Is it hard? Anyone could be the camper, even you. To be a camper, you need to learn how to pitch a tent. You need to make sure bears can't get your food. Hide it someplace safe. Bug tip. If you do not bother bugs, they won't bother you. Bring plenty of water. You'll never know when you'll need a little extra. Also, let the grown up handle also let the grown up build the fire. Also, let the grown up handle the fire. Getting food for the fire is your job. Also let the grown up like the fire. Getting food for the fire is your job collection twigs and dry leaves to keep the fire going. When it's time to put a bed, zip yourself into your sleeping bag. Try not to disturb your fellow campers before you know it. The central rise and you will have slept outdoors. But we aren't finished camping yet. The best part of camping is hot cocoa and breakfast by the fire. After breakfast, it's time to clean up. You have to tear down the tent, put out the fire and get all of your things back in your pack. This part is important, so don't forget it. Always leave the campsite better than you found it when all of your camping chores air finished. You get to go home and plan your next adventure. Now, you know everything about camping, too. Get out there and have an adventure. Okay. Excuse me. Sorry about that. Clearing my throat in the in the mic there, but, uh, yeah. Okay. So everything sounded smooth. I addressed everything as I went along, like a normally do. So I feel pretty good about this. Um, So I'm going to leave it for right now and go ahead and move on to the next step so make sure you do this to your story. And just because I edited as I went along, it doesn't mean you have to do that. You could, of course, just read it straight through. Don't make any changes and then edit as you listen to the audio recording. That's totally fine. This is also a good time to have the computer read the story back to you if you want. If you have, um, image notes in here like I do, then when the story is right back to buy the computer, it's gonna be clunky anyway, just because of the picture notes. So, you know, choose your own adventure, see what happens and I will see you when you are finished with this step in the next video . 23. Third Round of Drafting: We have completed the slow read section of drafting, the record and listen section of drafting. Now we're gonna move into the part that no one likes and that's the phone a friend part. So now you need to have someone read your story to you. The reason we're doing this is to listen for areas where someone who's unfamiliar with your story might trip over words or maybe they stumble a little bit in places. You also want to take this opportunity to ask the person reading the story if it makes sense. So choose someone who has experience with children's stories. That means a children's teacher or a preschool teacher, or someone who has children or babysits, something like that. Someone who has regular access to children's books would be helpful. So you choose someone and you have read the book to you. So here's how we do it. We ready are implements, we'd perform the task and we see what happens. A quick tip before we move on, you don't have to take every suggestion. More often than not, people who have never done a thing like what you're doing will try to offer suggestions and they are ill informed. It doesn't mean that their opinions don't matter. It just means that not all of their opinions are going to be right for your story. If they think the name of your main character, for example, doesn't work. But the name of the main character works for you and it's important to you, then you should just keep the name of the main character, just little things like that. So let's move on to my screen and we will see how it goes. 24. Quick Note: Hey, everyone, Before you click over to listen to my phone a friend draft. I wanted to let you know that the audio quality is not going to be spectacular. Um, I did an interview style recording with my phone, and I have taken that audio file and put it over this image that you see here. But I was recording with my phone sounds that were coming out of my speakers. I had some technical difficulties, and this was the fastest way to get it done, so I got it done. So sorry about the audio quality, but you can still listen to it and hear exactly what's going on. The next thing I want to warn you about is that when I talk to my family, any member of my family, I get louder and more Southern. It's just the way it is. The third thing I wanted to let you know is that the person I'd call us my mother and I don't normally call her to do this part of my drafting, because she's so nice. I'm afraid she would not tell me if something sounded clunky. Um, but I warned her today, going into it that the goal was to find areas that were hard to read and even even though I told her that when she tripped over some of my word, she thought it was her fault. But it was my fault as the writer. So keep that in mind when you choose the person to do your phone, a friend draft. If it's someone who's really cautious with you, someone who's really careful with you, you may want to choose someone else. You want to stop people when they trip over your words and ask them immediately. Was that my fault? Or is it because you're unfamiliar with the text? Not a bad question to ask, Um, But as you listen to the next video, you'll hear that we made two changes and that was it. I asked her if she thought it was good. She said it was cute. That's all I need to hear, and I'm ready to move on. So go ahead and watch this next video. Um, I hope it helps you guide your phone offend process, and then I will see you in the next one 25. Watch My Third Round of Drafting: Okay, so we're in the phone, a friend version of the draft, and I've called my mother, and she is going to read my book to me and then tell me how wonderful it is because that's her job. This is the first thing he's going to do is just read it to me straight through, and then we'll just listen, Teoh, see if there any parts that air clunky. Any words that need to be changed. And I've got a pin and some paper to make some notes because if I switch over to my screen where my story is, she can no longer see me. And since we're face timing, that would be a problem. So here we go. Go ahead. Okay, here I go. Here you go. I'm Steven, and I'm a camping expert. I went camping in my backyard, and when I woke up, I was telling my backyard Stamping is hard. Anyone can be a camper. Even you could be a camper. You need toward how to pitch a tent and make sure bears can't get your food. Hide it someplace. Say, if you do. If Oh, yeah, that's that's what I'm looking for. Looking for stuff. Okay, that's mistake. If you do not bother Bugs, OK, I got it. Now, if you do not bother bugs, they won't bother you and my watch. Start over. No, no, that's fine. Uh, do you think I need to change that sentence? Is it? Is it hard if you do not bother us? No bother. You wouldn't read redder if I said if I If you don't bother bugs, they won't bother you. Would it be that if it was a contraction? Yeah. Okay, then I'll change there. Okay, go ahead. Okay. Okay. Uh, they won't mother you. They won't bother. You drink plenty of water. You never know when you have a need. A little extra. Also, let the grown ups like the fire. Getting food for the fire is your job. Collect some twigs and Dr. Wage to keep the fire going. Okay. You said getting food is your job getting food for the fire of getting food. OK, I'm sorry. Getting foods with fires, your job collects and twists and dry leased to keep the fire going. When it is time to go to bed, keep yourself into your sleeping bag. Try not to disturb your fellow campers. Read that. Read the pressure. Read the picture. The picture just cause it's funny. Read the picture description Teoh on that Put it on their own. That page. I want a picture of Stephen punching his dad in the face in his leg like squishing his teddy bear. I just to disturb your family. Campers, There you go. Prepare under leg punching back in the fight E Before you know it, the storm will rise and you will have slept outdoors. But we are finished camping. You get the best part of camping is hot. Coat out, cocoa and birthday. His father, Haidar after breakfast. Time to clean up. You have to tear down the tent, put out the fire and get all of your things back in your pack. His party's importance of Don't forget it. Always late campsite Better than you found it. When all your captain shores air finished, you get to go home and plan your next adventure. Now you know everything about camping to now. You know everything about having to get out there and having adventure. The end. Yes. Hey, is it terrible? Nothing is cute, okay? I paid her to say that. So I need to change the do not to a contract, and I need to make that. Don't Yeah. How's that bear sentence treating you up at the top? The Make sure that the bear the food is away from the bears. Okay, I think that feels clunky. You need my sure bears can't get your food that's clunky. Its body, some might say, is the first part. Clunky. Is it hard to read? Does it feel like too many words for such a small thing? No. You need to make sure bears can't get your fate. I make such good. Not Corky just changed the don't. Is there anything else that didn't feel right when you were reading it? I'm lurking. I mean, when you're unfamiliar with it, it's hard to read anyway. That's why I asked. You might want to read it to yourself first, cause it's hard to read something outright, but well again, turned for the fire is kind of throat me. I was going to use the word fuel. I was going to use the word fuel. Maybe you should to that, or should I say your job is to collect twigs and leaves to keep the fire going. Yeah, yeah. Just take the food out of it Here. Okay. Will change that twigs and leaves, twigs and leaves. And do not equals account double contractions. So anything else? No restaurant here. Okay, Cool. Thank you. Your voice is going to be on the internet. It's OK. Everything doesn't matter. She mess up. It's a new thing that it's here. I'm going. Teoh, let me a picture. We're gonna be good. The pictures. We're gonna be hilarious. The pictures. We're gonna make it because it sounds the text is really dry. But I imagined when I first set out to write this, I wanted to write a how to manual that gave you bad instructions. And then I thought, what if he gave good instructions, but he was doing it all poorly and doing it all wrong. And his dad was trying to make everything be smooth. Okay, Well, thank you so much 26. Day Six - Resting: Welcome to day six. So today is for resting. This is probably the hardest part of the whole process aside from having a friend read your story to you, having your document rest is kind of difficult. Some of the best advice that I've ever gotten about writing was from my writing teacher. I took a couple of her classes at what CAN School of Art and Design here in Nashville, Tennessee. Her name is Gloria Ballard. She is an established writer in her advice was to let your writing rest for 24 to 48 hours if it can. For me, 48 hours is a long time. I let my document rest at least overnight and a whole 24 hours if I can. So I'm going to give you the same advice because it's excellent advice. Let your document rest for a day and you can come back to it tomorrow for the finalizing process. So take the day off. Try not to look at your work. Try not to think about your work. Watch a television show, but you do have to come back to your document tomorrow for the final touches. 27. Day Seven - Finalizing: It's day seven, we've made it to the finalizing step. So here we go. No waiting around. Let's just do this. Today. You are going to read your story aloud one more time. If you find any errors, change them, and read the story again. Let's do that now. We're going to read your writing implements, perform the task, and then we'll move on. Let's go to my screen and give it a whirl. 28. Watch My First Round of Finalizing: I have let my story rest and it's time to revisit it. So if you listen to the full conversation that I had with my mother, who was my phone a friend, then you know that I needed to change the do not online 13 to Don't, which I did, and I changed the sentence about the fire. Instead of rewriting it all together, I removed the sentence that was previously here, and I made a longer sentence and put the picture in between. So now line 18 reads. Your job is to collect twigs and dry leaves to keep the fire going. I also did something else. After I got off the phone with her, I went back to the bear line because if you listened to the audio, she tripped there, and I still thought she tripped there, even though she said it sounded fine. So I changed the more complicated sentence to a very simple one. Bears want your food, hide it someplace safe, and I think that just that drives the point home, and it's quick. This particular kids book that I'm writing here really showcases artwork, so I will either need Teoh dedicate the time to draw all the images myself, or hire someone to make some very expressive and, uh, narrative in style watercolors. If I could do that. So now it's time to read over the work, just like the video said. So here we go we're gonna read over the work just to make sure everything sounds good. Hi, I'm Steven, and I'm a camping expert. I went camping in my backyard, and when I woke up, I was still in my backyard. Camping isn't hard. Anyone can be a camper, even you. To be a camper, you need to learn how to pitch a tent. There's want your food. Hide it someplace safe. Bug tip. If you don't bother bugs that they won't bother, you bring plenty of water. You'll never know when you'll need a little extra. Also, let the grown up like fire. Your job is to collect twigs and dry leaves to keep the fire going. When it's time to go to bed, zip yourself into your sleeping bag. Try not to disturb your fellow came to disturb your fellow campers. Before you know it, the sun will rise and you will have slept outdoors. But we aren't finished camping yet? The best part of camping. It's hot cocoa and breakfast by the fire. After breakfast, it's time to clean up. You have to tear down the tent, put out the fire and get all of your things back in your pack. This part is important, so don't forget it. Always leave the camps like better than you found it when all of your camping chores air finished. You get to go home and plan your next adventure. Now you know everything about camping too. Get out there and have an adventure. Okay, so that's good. I changed two things. If you were watching this as well is listening to this? You see that I changed we to you because I wasn't being consistent as I was writing this by by having the word we in that sentence. I have been saying you this entire time and suddenly after we in there, it was kind of weird. So it changed that I change something else, but ah, yeah. Don't even know what it was. But it changed it, and I'm glad I did. Okay. Uh, so that's it. Let's go into the next video 29. Second Round of Finalizing: Excellent, So we've read through, we've made any changes if we stumbled. So that's cool. The next thing we need to do is read it again. And we're going to read through without stopping for corrections. So this should be, this should be at, we should've fixed everything. Everything should feel pretty smooth. Let's go ahead and do that. Ready, you're writing implements, perform the task. Let's go to my screen just one more time with feeling. 30. Watch My Second Round of Finalizing: Okay, I think everything has been corrected, so let's make sure that happens. Here we go. That has happened. Hi, I'm Steven, and I'm a camping expert. I went camping in my backyard, and when I woke up, I was still in my backyard. Camping isn't hard. Anyone could be a camper, even you. To be a camper, you need to learn how to pitch a tent. Bears want your food. Hide it someplace safe. Bug tip. If you don't bother bugs, they won't bother you. Bring plenty of water. You'll never know when you'll need a little extra. Also, let the grown up like the fire. Your job is to collect twigs and dry leaves to keep the fire going. When it's time to go to bed, zip yourself into your sleeping bag. Try not to disturb your fellow campers before you know it. The sun will rise and you will have slept outdoors. But you weren't finished camping it. The best part of camping. It's hot cocoa and breakfast by the fire. After breakfast, it's time to clean up. You have to tear down the tent, put out the fire and get all of the things all of your things back into your backpack. Excuse me. Put out the fire and get all of your things back into your pack. This part is important, so don't forget it. Always leave the campsite better than you found it. When all of your campaign chores air finished, you get to go home and play in your next adventure. Now you know everything about camping, too. Get out there and have an adventure. The end stumble. There was all my fault because I have read and re read the story over and over again. But I think that's pretty clean. And, um, yeah, there was one thing that I did not care for very much, and I believe I want to read it just one more time. When it's time to go to bed, you try not to disturb. Try. That's that's what it's trying to not disturb. Do not disturb your fellow came person. That's so much smoother. Okay, cool. Done. Good 31. You Did It!: Oh friends. The time has come. You can officially celebrate with a little victory dance because you have finished writing your children's book. Congratulations. You feel as good as that kid does in the picture there. He's really happy. 32. Parting Notes: So now you've taken the course, you've written your story, and you don't really know what to do next. And I understand that part's a little scary. So let me tell you what your options are going to be referring to a screen. So when I look away, That's what I'm looking at. Also, if there's a glare, I have blue light reflecting lenses, so there's that publication. You can go a couple of routes. You can do traditional publication, or you can go the independent route. With traditional publication. It might take you a little while before you actually get your book out there into bookstores. This is the main thing that keeps people from going for traditional publishing these days. But the good side of traditional publishing is that you don't really have to think about the business side of things. They will buy your book, they will pay you for your book, royalties and things like that and negotiated by a third-party. If you want to go that route, your first move is to find an agent. The Writer's Market guides are an excellent way to find an agent. You can also just Google literary agents in your area and see if there are any children's book representers in your area. Self-publishing is different. Self-publishing is for people who like to own their own businesses. If you want complete creative control over everything that happens with your freshly made book, then traditional publishing may not be your way. Self-publishing could be it, but keep in mind that you'll be doing things like hiring illustrators or illustrating yourself. You'll be learning about the back-end of independent publication, which means things like Katie, Amazon draft to digital. I mean, the list goes on and on. They're excellent resources online. I highly recommend the self-publishing podcast, and Joanna pins the creative pen podcasts for things like that. Excellent information out there all around. But it will take some research. So just be prepared for a lot of work, but I think it's worth it long-term. That's what I've done. Let's talk about illustrations really briefly. If you aren't a person that likes to draw or paint, then you want to hire someone. If you're not self illustrating, you want to hire someone, hire a professional. If you're going to hire a member of your family or friend, makes sure that they can do what you need them to do, which is to create artwork that will eventually be put into a book. Make sure you lay out the parameters like what color palette you want to use, the whole thing, It's all up to you. And if you don't want to make those decisions, work with your illustrator so that they can help you to make those decisions. I was lucky enough to have a friend who was a professional illustrator and we came to a business agreement between the two of us that worked out really well. Hiring a professional illustrator can cost anywhere from $1000 to $5 thousand per book, sometimes per page depending on what you're asking of them and what calibre of illustrator you're going for. So this is something that you would want to search people per hour or five or four if your budget is very low. But if you've got some money to spend, again, go to Google searcher area and hopefully you'll find someone that you drive with. If you're going the traditional route for publication, most likely they will assign an illustrator to your book so you won't have to worry about this problem. It's not even really a problem. You won't have to worry about this opportunity. Let me address the one thing that I get asked about the most aside from publication and illustration, and it's about this course in particular. The question is, why don't you cover structure and grammar in your course? And here's the reason why. If you can use a comma, a period, a question mark and exclamation point. You can write the great American novel. You don't have to know every other type of grammar out there. It's nice to get your verbs right all the way through. But a quick proofread will tell you if your verbs are in the right tense all the way through your book or not. You can also hire people for this as well. Proofreaders are available for hire on people per hour.com and Fiverr.com and other places. I've I've used people from fiber and people per hour and I've had excellent experiences. Shop around, find some proofreaders. They'll help you with the grammar part. It will be fine, especially with children's books using a period exclamation mark and a question mark. Those are the things you really need to know how to use. And if you're thinking about writing a book, I'm sure you know how to do that. Structure is different. There are hundreds of books, thousands of books on structure out there. Read a few, and then move on with your life. Don't do what I did. I read structure books and grammar books and how to write a novel books and how to write children's book books for years before I pulled the trigger and actually sat down to do the work. It's so much easier to just read a few books, decide that these are gonna be your guiding light, and then create processes for doing a thing. I hope this course for you as a process for making more books. And I hope that structure and grammar come naturally to you. But if they don't read a few books and then write another right? Another children's book, it will be fine. Yes. That's it. I don't really hold your hand very much through this, but I hope so much that being able to look over my shoulder has been enlightening to you about how easy it is to actually get this done. It's just a matter of putting your button that chair have a system in place, having a system in place, and getting the work done. If you want to check in on me and see what I'm up to, you can do that by going to hello, This is Barbara.com. I'll leave a link somewhere and you can always check in. That's my personal log. I don't just talk about children's books. There anythings on the table there? If you're only interested in the books, you can go to pilgrim fell press.com and see all the books that I'm working on and my author friends what we're working on there. So take care of you. Please write some more. And if you do write and publish a book or even if you just write the story and email it to your friends, please let me know I want to share your success with everybody. What you've done is no small thing. You should be very proud. Take care of you.