David Valovcin, children's author, Assoc. VP for Software Engineering, & Father
Children's books have a special magic, don't they? Today, we're thrilled to have David Valovcin, a children's author and software engineer, sharing his journey with us. His debut book 'A Desk to Lean On' speaks to children about the fear of change—an important theme in today's fast-paced world. David's faith and family, his pillars of strength, can be seen reflected in his work, and his experience with writing the book provided some fascinating insights.
Did you know that crafting words for a children's book requires a particular finesse? In our chat with David, we delve into the mechanics of writing and publishing a book—the nuances of language, the collaboration with an illustrator, and the role of outlining methods. If you're an aspiring author, you'll appreciate the practical advice David shares. The conversation doesn't stop at writing; we also talk about book reviews, their importance, and where they can make the most impact.
Finally, we discuss David's exciting upcoming book and the lessons he's carrying forward from his debut publication. As a bonus, we spotlight the Writer's Parachute website, a goldmine for authors seeking information and support. So, whether you are an author, a parent, or a lover of children's books, join us for this enlightening journey with David Valovcin. You'll leave with a newfound appreciation for the art and joy of children's literature.
David Valovcin considers his faith and family to be the most important parts of his life. When he is not staring at his computer screen while working as a financial services technologist, David can be found playing with his daughter and taking family trips to the local bookstore. He also does not mind bending to the will of his daughter and adores her every second of every day. David lives in Connecticut with his loving wife, Laura, and their beautiful daughter, Grace. A Desk To Lean On is his first children's book.
✨🎙Subscribe to our channel to join our writer community for tips, tricks, author interviews, and more. We can't wait for you to join us as you embark on your writing adventure!✨🎙
🎙📖✒️ 👉 All episodes are available to view on YouTube and listen anywhere where podcasts are played every Wednesday!👈
➡️ Check out our website to learn more about us, our mission, podcast episodes, be a guest on the show, and follow us on social media. ⬇️ https://thewritersparachute.com
As always, we hope this podcast is a helpful landing on your unique, creative journey. 🪂
Children's books have a special magic, don't they? Today, we're thrilled to have David Valovcin, a children's author and software engineer, sharing his journey with us. His debut book 'A Desk to Lean On' speaks to children about the fear of change—an important theme in today's fast-paced world. David's faith and family, his pillars of strength, can be seen reflected in his work, and his experience with writing the book provided some fascinating insights.
Did you know that crafting words for a children's book requires a particular finesse? In our chat with David, we delve into the mechanics of writing and publishing a book—the nuances of language, the collaboration with an illustrator, and the role of outlining methods. If you're an aspiring author, you'll appreciate the practical advice David shares. The conversation doesn't stop at writing; we also talk about book reviews, their importance, and where they can make the most impact.
Finally, we discuss David's exciting upcoming book and the lessons he's carrying forward from his debut publication. As a bonus, we spotlight the Writer's Parachute website, a goldmine for authors seeking information and support. So, whether you are an author, a parent, or a lover of children's books, join us for this enlightening journey with David Valovcin. You'll leave with a newfound appreciation for the art and joy of children's literature.
David Valovcin considers his faith and family to be the most important parts of his life. When he is not staring at his computer screen while working as a financial services technologist, David can be found playing with his daughter and taking family trips to the local bookstore. He also does not mind bending to the will of his daughter and adores her every second of every day. David lives in Connecticut with his loving wife, Laura, and their beautiful daughter, Grace. A Desk To Lean On is his first children's book.
✨🎙Subscribe to our channel to join our writer community for tips, tricks, author interviews, and more. We can't wait for you to join us as you embark on your writing adventure!✨🎙
🎙📖✒️ 👉 All episodes are available to view on YouTube and listen anywhere where podcasts are played every Wednesday!👈
➡️ Check out our website to learn more about us, our mission, podcast episodes, be a guest on the show, and follow us on social media. ⬇️ https://thewritersparachute.com
As always, we hope this podcast is a helpful landing on your unique, creative journey. 🪂
Welcome back everyone to the writer's parachute. We're guiding author and writer dreams to a perfect landing. Today we have with us a very special guest. We have David Valo Valo Bison. I am so messing that up, so could you please say the name for us again?
Speaker 2:
Velo-son.
Speaker 1:
See so simple and I can't get it out. But anyway, he's a children's author. I'd like to talk to him about his book A Desk to Lean On. But of course we always have the housekeeping to get done out of the way. So of course, we would love for you to hit that subscribe button. Go ahead and hit the bell so you get a reminder when we have new episodes out. And, of course, don't forget to hit that like and share button. Also, we are on all podcast channels. You can follow us on social media. We are on Facebook, instagram, twitter, tiktok and now on threads at writer parachute. That's writer parachute without an S. Also, if you would like to get an update of new episodes every week in your email inbox, so please feel free to go and sign up to sendfoxcom. Slash the writer's parachute and you can get our weekly updated episodes right to your email. So we'll have all the links for that in the show notes for you. So don't worry, you don't need to run and grab pen and paper. Of course, anytime we mention a link, we will include that in the show notes for you. So of course, we start the show at the top with a topic of the week.
Speaker 1:
Here on season two, we've been talking about reviews, so we're gonna start wrapping it up and talk about how to create a review habit. Now, this is a little bit different. In asking you to write a review, this is about creating a review habit around reading books. If you read a book, you need to think about writing a review. So I want you to think about making notes, either directly after you read the book or if you're stopping in between. It's a longer book and you need to lay it down. Make some notes each time you read so that you have those to go back to when you write a review. Also, make notes as to when you're going to set a deadline to write that review.
Speaker 1:
Don't forget. If you can't remember where you bought the book or if the book was given to you, then you can always go to Goodreads. But then there's another place out there that I completely forgot about and I haven't talked to you guys about, so we're gonna talk a little bit about that one too. It's called Bookbub. You can find most authors and their books on bookbubcom. That's B-O-K-B-U-Bcom, and you can leave reviews there. There's no purchasing required. Also, if you sign up for their email list with Bookbub, they will send you alerts anytime books are on sale. You can select the categories and genres that you would like. You can also follow your favorite authors there. So let's not forget about Bookbub and, of course, goodreads is out there.
Speaker 1:
We hope that you will remember that how important reviews are to authors. They are how we get our name and our books out into the world. They are king. They are what get us forward. They find our readers, find our listeners. So if next time you read a book, remember to leave a review.
Speaker 1:
Reviews don't have to be complicated. They can be one or two sentences. It could simply be I like this book, or I didn't like this book, or I recommend this book for this group or this age, or something of that nature, or they can be much longer. And don't forget, most platforms will now accept video reviews. So if you're not a writer, but you have this handy-andy gadget that you carry around in your pocket, do a video review and post that instead. I'm sure that the author would appreciate it. And don't forget to share it out on your social media and tag the author. They would be so thankful to hear from you. This is one of the few ways that we, as authors get feedback from our readers, so don't forget review, review, review, review. All right, so we're gonna go ahead and jump on into the show. Of course we have with us David. I'm gonna try it one more time. But, david Velocin, did I get it right?
Speaker 2:
Yes, very good.
Speaker 1:
Yes, okay. He is a children's author and assistant VP for software engineering and a father, and he wrote this book behind me, a Destiline on which we're gonna talk about in just a minute. David Velocin considers his faith and family to be the most important parts of his life. When he is not staring at his computer screen working as a financial services technologist, david can be found playing with his daughter and taking family trips to the local bookstore. He also does not mind bending to the will of his daughter and adores her every second of the day. David lives in Connecticut with his loving wife and beautiful daughter. A Destiline on is his first children's book, and you can find David online at davidvelocincom and, of course, we will have that in the show notes for you. Welcome to the Writers' Parish, david, how are you today?
Speaker 2:
Doing well. Thank you for having me. How are you today?
Speaker 1:
I'm well, although you know tongue, twisting myself around.
Speaker 2:
No problem.
Speaker 1:
That's all right, you know. It just shows that I'm not perfect and I'm normal like everybody else. I don't mind a bit. So I read your book. I love the book, I love the idea behind it and I wanted to know why you thought that fear of change was an important topic to speak to kids about.
Speaker 2:
Because I think it's very common, especially in children. You know, some of them may be used to a routine, how they get their mornings going, how they get their days going, but you know, change new school year, new school, meeting, new friends whatever the situation is, sometimes children struggle with that change and I wanted to, you know, be able to help the children and the parents, if I can, by telling my own story, my daughter's story, on. You know how to handle change, whether it be like, for example, going to a new school.
Speaker 1:
Right, well, and I did love the book. So I think you just kind of answered my next question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So what was the actual inspiration behind a desk to lean on?
Speaker 2:
Well, it was definitely my daughter. It was definitely my daughter. She's an only child and that's why I adore every second of the day and you know I always wanted to write a children's book and she's the perfect inspiration for it. She is, she entertains me in multiple ways throughout the day and gathering the ideas and how she handled it at a young age with the new school. I wanted to tell that story.
Speaker 1:
Well, also, what I found interesting is was not only were you dealing with fear of change and basically fear of you know something new, but you're also talking about you know her kind of problem solving skills, which I thought was very interesting. And we don't see that a lot in children's books, where, you know, the main character is actually exhibiting the skills to solve the problem rather than going to an adult, and I do appreciate that, because we need to teach children how to solve problems or at least start on that journey to solving problems. Even you know, even if they're not successful, it's still a learning experience for them. So I want to know what you think you would like readers to get or gain from reading a desk to lean on.
Speaker 2:
I want them to, you'll really understand that you'll. From my perspective as a parent, I wanted to give my daughter that freedom, like you had said, to solve the problem. You know, guide her initially, if she wants the guidance, allow her to make some decisions. It helps. It's the wrong decision, maybe it'll be the right decision, but at least allows them the freedom to try. You know, instead of putting what I think is the best path forward and kind of forcing it on her. You know that probably won't go so well, and you know. And so allowing that level of freedom to explore and try to figure it out on her own is really good here. And you know, I use the term in the book and I use it in my home life as well as Grace's. On the case.
Speaker 2:
You know, and so just giving her that level of freedom to do that.
Speaker 1:
Right and I love that, because you know a child's logic is not the equivalent of an adult logic. You know logic oftentimes is based on experience and knowledge and you have to. You know, look at what the experience and knowledge of you know a seven or eight or nine year old is compared to a full grown adult who's lived, you know, a very long life and experienced many things. So you know it is a difficult thing and sometimes it's hard as a parent to step back and let them go through that process when we can so easily just solve it for them.
Speaker 2:
Right, and sometimes they just they don't want you to solve it, or you know, at least you know or you giving your opinion. It just may not be the one they want to hear at this point in time Right and so, rather than dealing with the pushback and the tension, allowing some level of freedom for them to explore safely is an option that worked for me.
Speaker 1:
Right and because you know eventually they are going to, you know, push forward with their own independence and I think these small moments of allowing them independence helps them to handle it better when they do get into their upper teenagers, when they're really pushing forward for that independence. So I appreciate that and it's you know we need to remember, as parents we're not all knowing and seeing either, and it's really hard to look from everybody's perspective, especially when you know we're removed from being that age and the emotions and the thoughts and the knowledge and stuff around it. So I really do appreciate that. So if you could go all the way back to the beginning, when you first thought of this book and it was just a little idea in your head, what do you wish you had known? Or that somebody had told you about writing and publishing a book?
Speaker 2:
the steps, the steps on what to do, what makes most sense for putting your thoughts to paper and then going through the flow. From there I went through. I had the idea in my mind and I wanted to tell this story. But, upfront, day one, I have the computer screen in front of me and I'm like all right, what do I do? How best do I lay it out? And I found just a few formulas I played around with. Do I want to set it up as an outline? Do I just want to write it? What and do I want to? How do I want to break it out and tell the story and bring it from a start to a middle, with the challenges, and then bring it to a good ending?
Speaker 2:
All of that was a learning curve for me, and being able to experiment without any kind of time and straight because this was me initiating it this is something I wanted to do. I didn't put a timeline on it, because that's the only thing that worked for me too, is, don't say, all right, in September I'm going to finish this book and I'll be done. I didn't want to put any timelines on myself and I just wanted to get through the process on my own time in my own manner and come up with a formula for the writing that works for me. Of course, there were other learning curves that came with that, just in general, the overall publishing process, self-publishing process and what steps I had to do from there. But I wasn't worried about that from day one. I wanted to just get my thoughts onto paper in a manner that worked for me.
Speaker 1:
Right, and I understand that, and it's this is a difficult thing for new authors and writers, because there really are no rules to writing. There are only guidelines and guide rails. And, yes, you can jump over the side, but, as I always say, if you're going to do that, you better have a good reason. And again, there are as many ways to write a book as there are roads leading to Rome, and so you have to figure out what way you want to do it. And I say for myself as a writing coach the best advice that I can give to anybody is tell a good story. The rest of it is honestly a window dressing and it can be moved and changed to however you want it, but telling a good story is always the best place to start. And then we talk a little bit about where does a book start? Well, a book starts, I believe, either five seconds before or five seconds after something changes in the main character's life, because that's what sets the story in motion. So a lot of people want to set up that moment and it's like, especially in children's books, they're very short, they're very succinct. You have to maybe filter that information in there, and I think you did an excellent job of just jumping right into the problem, which is where you need to set the story off, because you want to grab your reader right off the bat. So I completely understand.
Speaker 1:
So what I would say to any of our listeners out there who are struggling with a similar problem find a writing coach, find writing groups to attend. Shut Up and Write has free ones online, in-person around the world, pretty much anytime, day and night. You can go to shutupwritecom and they have the entire list there for you. These are some resources that people are unaware of that might have helped you where you could talk to other authors, maybe other children's authors, and gotten some a little more direction. But I understand people want to keep that information close to their vest when they're working on a book. But I still think you could have maybe reached out to some of these authors or writers or coaches about the structural part of it, which seemed to be what you were struggling with here. All right, so what do you think or hope that readers will think about your book or will say about your book in 10 to 20 years from now?
Speaker 2:
That it's still relevant. It is a common theme, a common topic with regards to just a child being nervous for change or going into a new school. The child is nervous, but it's something that should stay relevant and could help at any point in time. And I just I'm not, obviously, a professional psychologist this is my first book but I at least wanted to take it just from a layman's perspective, as a father. This is how I did it. This is what the freedom that I allowed my daughter to explore, to solve the situation. And, as you'll find in the book, she does solve it. She does solve it in her own time, in her own manner, in her own way, and I think it worked out for the best it worked out.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I really enjoyed the book. It was not one of those books where you read the first page and you kind of know where it's gonna end. This one kind of lends you on a little bit of a merry chase, but it was a good chase and I did enjoy that. And I think that this would be the perfect book for parents to either purchase for their kids if they're gonna have to move or they're gonna have to go to a new school or any of those situations where they're going to have to deal with, you know, a kind of life change that they may find unsettling.
Speaker 1:
I think it's a really good book. There's very few of them out there and I think this would be a good one for any parent that is anticipating or changed or has recently had a change. I think this would help them deal with it and look at it maybe in a little more positive manner rather than fearful. So I do appreciate that. So we talked a little bit about what you wish you'd known, but I wanna know what you actually experienced as far as obstacles or challenges when you were writing and publishing your book.
Speaker 2:
Right. So, taking it from day one, I had the thought in mind, my daughter was the inspiration, so I had the material, if you will, to pull this together. My initial challenge was getting it to paper and what I found was that for me, initially I started the outline and, to be honest, the outline process didn't work for me. What actually worked for me is and of course I you know editing and re-editing when the words came to paper. But you know, I knew when I wanted to stop at page one, go to page two and then go to page three, and I had a goal in mind of. This is what I want to get the point across.
Speaker 2:
Obviously, I knew it was going to be a children's book, so I wanted to keep it short and sweet, into the point and knowing how I wanted to progress the story. The only formula or is quote unquote outline that I did upfront was making sure I call out each of the challenge and then the steps to my daughter's resolution that I put in a little bit of an outline form just so that it helps me know. All right, I'm going to start here, go here, go here. But the actual details of it I didn't put it all together. A detailed outline.
Speaker 2:
I just really just started writing it. Of course, that may or may not been the best way to go about it, but it's something that worked for me and I know people have different ways to put thoughts to paper but it helped me get through it. I knew the words. I just kept typing away. Obviously, the learning curves for me from there were editing and making sure that I didn't ramble on my obviously all the grammar, trying to make sure I was grammatically correct. All those little things of course required a lot of editing. But, like I said, I wanted to really just get the thoughts on paper immediately and then make my edits from there.
Speaker 1:
Right, which is good. You should always do at least, I would say at least three to four drafts your original draft, which is just getting the story down on paper, and I do appreciate that you did have the story arc, which basically was the middle, the beginning, the middle, the end, and honestly that's really all you need to have. There's outliners. There's people who aren't outliners. We call them crafters and creators. I'm a little bit of both. I'm like you.
Speaker 1:
I like to kind of write down the high points so that I meet those, but I don't totally outline. So I think that I lean more towards a creator rather than a crafter. A crafter is somebody that feels the need to plan everything out every step. And again, there's variations in that Some people just outline with an outline, some of them go into more detail, scene by scene, page by page, paragraph by paragraph. There's also some that you know they're not crafters in formulating their book, but they're crafters in writing their book, where each paragraph or each page has to be perfect before they move forward.
Speaker 1:
You know, and there's nothing wrong with those, it's whatever works for you. And you know, I tell people it is important to have all of these things, to be grammatically correct, to have the right in language for the age that you're writing for, to have the page count within what is considered the acceptable, the word count within the acceptable range. But all of those things again are details that can be dealt with, because it's so much easier to take things out than it is to add things and, as an editor myself, I will tell you it's really hard to edit a blank page. Even if it's garbage, go ahead and write it. It can always be made better.
Speaker 1:
So, yeah, I think the lesson here is just to write to, no matter how much you're struggling, how much you don't know. As you go through the process you're going to learn more, it's going to get better and then when you get to that editing stage, your editor is there to help you. We're not the evil people thing we are. We're not the language police or anything like that. I do as much work with my authors about language choice, about word phrasing, about rhythm and pacing, as I do about punctuation and grammar.
Speaker 2:
So Right and it's funny. Just a funny point to add here is that I figured I did my editing sounded great. I had my family read it just to make sure the flow was there and they said this is great, the flow was there. I start working with the illustrator. Now I'm editing again because what I found was a surprise.
Speaker 2:
And then it turned out to be a pleasant surprise is that when I'm working with an illustrator because the best that I can do is draw stick figures, that's all I can draw and so working with an illustrator, when we're talking about now, my words are becoming pictures. That was an incredible process for me to go through. I mean just seeing the pictures come alive based on the words that I'm putting on paper. I mean I can't explain how excited I was. I mean there really are no words to that.
Speaker 2:
But what it did show me was that I had a little more editing to do, because the flow of the pictures and modifying the pictures to make sure that they match the words and vice versa, and working with that illustrator to make sure that the pictures flowed besides the words, and that was something that was not it. I knew I needed to work with an illustrator, but I didn't expect that my flow of the book may get tweaked a little bit based on how the pictures looked and what made sense for what should be a picture versus what should not be a picture based on my book. So all I can say there is that that was an interesting experience, a needed experience, especially as a first full-time author, and it was something I highly encourage you. If you're looking for, to working with an illustrator to help with the flow of the book, definitely do so.
Speaker 2:
It's a really extraordinary experience when a writer is working with an illustrator and just seeing your words become pictures. It's just like there are no words to explain it. It's just fantastic.
Speaker 1:
Right, and you know and this is something that people do not understand Children's books are completely different than other books out there simply because of the illustrations, especially picture books, which is what yours falls into, where it's equal illustration to story. So the illustrations are telling the story as much as the words. It's a partnership. So what I tell my children's authors who are not illustrators and I'm with you on the stick figures in fact, my grandkids tell me not to even draw the stick figures that they're scary, but you know is when you're writing the story and when you feel like you have the story down, is to start putting in notes about what the illustration should be, because what you're gonna figure out is you don't need to describe certain things in children's books. You don't need to say she's wearing a red dress, because it's gonna show in the illustration. You know you're not gonna need to say that. You know she walked up the house, because you're gonna have the illustration of her standing at the door, so we're gonna have that. So there's some of these directional things and some of these describing things that are not technically necessary in a children's book because they are covered in the illustration. However, at the same time, the story must be able to stand on its own without the illustrations, because we do have non-site readers who cannot see the illustrations, so they need to be able to understand the story without the illustrations. So those are just some of the factors that you have to think about. This is some of the things that you might need a development editor for, and also your editors and your beta readers will help you with that. But in a good illustrator, we'll help you with that as well.
Speaker 1:
But I think if you go into the story after you have the story down, you feel like it's well done by you is to go back and start inserting those descriptions of your illustrations and that'll kind of help. You see flow problems that you ran into with your illustrator. But I understand as a first time. I mean, I remember my first book. I was completely clueless too. It's like meh, so it's like a lot of back and forth, it's like yes, we think we're done, and it's like oh no.
Speaker 1:
And in here's the thing. I want you guys to not rush your books. It's so much better to do it well, and if that means minor changes at the end, then it means minor changes at the end, because what happens is you don't generally employ a proofreader until the very end. They're not only looking at the text, but they're looking at the illustrations and how they all work together, and so if your proofreader comes back and they're like, meh, this is not really clear, this is not working, then you need to fix that, because if they caught it, then most likely your reader is going to catch it, and the only other thing I'll say about that is always think when you're going through your final copy, are there unanswered questions? Are you creating a situation where the reader is going to go huh, I wonder what they meant here, because if that happens, then they're not obviously getting what it is you're trying to say.
Speaker 1:
So always try to do that as the final run through. These are excellent ideas, it's like, and I've not really talked about them. So thank you for that, david. So leading you right into this. So what other? What advice would you give to new authors and writers about writing a children's book?
Speaker 2:
Be patient, I think, especially if you're a new writer, just be patient, unless your goal is to be like a New York Times bestseller. Just take your time, make sure that you're getting the story told the way you wanna tell it. I think that that's very important. It's obviously something, a topic, a message that's very important to you. Take that time to make sure that your topic, your story, your message is clear, and especially for a children's book, what I ended up doing is that I started reading other books as examples. This was my first book ever and I wanted to make sure that I'm writing in a manner that parents can easily read the book to the child if the child can not yet read, but also if a child can read using language that works for them. I don't wanna use complex words, lengthy words, where a child may not like. What does this word even mean?
Speaker 2:
I wanted to avoid that, and so I read other children's books for the aid group that I was looking to get the message across to, just so that it helps me with the verbiage and the terminology. That I think is very beneficial, especially if you're a first-time writer and you have a sense of the aid group you wanna convey your message. To look at other books, read them, see how they're laid out, see the length of the words per page and the length of the book itself to help guide you there.
Speaker 1:
Right, and just for reference, for most people a children's picture book is generally K through third grade, which puts you in about a four to nine range, depending. You know that's gonna be about the maximum range for it and they're typically a thousand words or less, with the sweet spot being somewhere between 650 and 700. So some people go over and I hear this a lot with this language and one of the things as an editor is I have to really be careful about the language being appropriate for the age group of the reader and I'll have authors go. But I wanna challenge the reader and I'm like I understand that and I truly do that you wanna encourage the reader to learn more words, but in this day and age we have a lower reading score than we've ever had. You know, some kids do well, but the majority of them are struggling. So I say that if you're going to give them a challenging word, make sure there's no other way to get that point across with simpler language or and to add a glossary or a reading list at the end of the book so that if they're stuck, you know, and sometimes with bigger words, especially if it's a difficult word, maybe think about including the pronunciation of it, like you would see in a dictionary, so that it's a little easier for the reader.
Speaker 1:
I used to be a reading specialist and sometimes some of the words in these children's books it's like it's really difficult and what happens when a child gets stuck on a word, they don't remember what they just read because they're so focused on trying to figure out that word that whatever they just read, and then usually at least the next paragraph or so after they don't remember it either because they're still trying to remember that word. So you've taken away kind of the information around that word. So you know, of course every situation is different, but I want you to at least consider those factors if you're thinking about using difficult words. So I do appreciate you bringing that up. So what keeps you motivated?
Speaker 2:
Being a father it's. I mean, my daughter keeps me entertained. You know, she really does. You know just the way she plays her own storytelling. She loves to play and her imagination runs wild and she has a little game table in the family room where she's got her little characters, her little figures, her plush toys, et cetera. Just the kind of story she's putting together herself and what her little toys are doing and how they're interacting with each other. You know I'm watching from a distance. You know sometimes she wants me to play with her, sometimes she just wants her time in her own imagination to play. You know, and when she's in that mode I still like to watch from a distance, you know, and it's just really incredible to see. It really is. And you know, I think you know it just as a writer or as aspiring writer. You know it just helps give me some more ideas and, you know, makes it that much more easier, if you will, to come up with ideas that people can relate to, both adults and children. Right, well, I mean famously.
Speaker 1:
You know, the Winnie the Pooh series was, you know, created by, you know, a child playing and the, you know the parent wrote the story Right, you know. And so you know I find this true. It's like my books, my books and book series were, you know, inspired by my grandkids. And specifically, you know, the start of it was one of my granddaughters was, you know, asking me about one of my cats. You know, it's like she would go out at night and say, you know, I'd be gone for hours and she'd come back and then sleep all day. And so my granddaughter was like, what do you think she does at night? And I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 1:
And then, you know, a few days later, I came up with a story about oh well, you know, she's a super, you know she's a secret superhero, so she's out at night saving her animal friends. And so, you know, came up with a longer story. But then we had to go back. It's like, how did she become a super, secret superhero? Well, she had to go to superhero school. So the superhero school series was, you know, invented. And it's so much fun to feel that inspiration from a child and I think it almost brings you back to that childlike wonder that we lose as we get adults. And it really does re-energize me when I talk to children about books and stories and ideas and you know I don't think my imagination has any limits, which I think is invaluable. And it's a muscle like anything else the more you use it, the more it's going to work well.
Speaker 2:
Right, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
That is amazing. So you wrote this book A Desk to Lean On, and here in season two we've been talking about reviews, so I'm going to put you on the spot as our guest and ask you to give us a review of your book, A Desk to Lean On.
Speaker 2:
Wow, okay.
Speaker 2:
Well, I loved the book, you know, and what I think you know. If I were to give a review on it as an adult, I would put the review as, as I know, I would have to give a review and review and and, and I think that's the best way to help you. I think I've picked how the author used symbols in the book. So the cover perfect example is the title and the cover image it's a desk to lean on and as somebody is reading the book, they'll see that the desk is really a symbol. It's a symbol. It's, you know, the desk is in the book and then she comes to find out that people can lean on her and so if I were to give myself a review, I would say I liked how this the whole desk, quote unquote is just a symbol and that it's nice to see family and friends supporting each other and in today's world and all the challenges of today, it's very important to show that love and support both from adult to child, child to adult, which involves both children and family members.
Speaker 1:
That's an amazing review. I'm going to give you five stars. The reason we are putting our guests here on the spot on season two about reviews is because we want to show you, we want to illustrate very clearly how easy it is to write a review. Now, writing a review about your own book is really hard because it's like your child. You don't want to say anything bad about it how do you describe your style, sort of thing but they do it and they do it well. As you can see, it's not complicated, it's not difficult.
Speaker 1:
A review is simply your opinion about what you liked or didn't like about a book. So the next time you read a book, the next time you check out a book that we recommend here on the Writers Parachute, don't forget to go leave a review Again. You can leave a review wherever you purchase the book. You can also go to Goodreads and to Bookbub and leave reviews. I guarantee you the author would be so thankful and appreciate it. Don't forget to tag them to the reviews. They will love you for doing that. So I want to know what is it next for David?
Speaker 2:
Well, I've got thoughts for another book in my mind still in the mind, but now it's time to put to paper again. Again, main character is my daughter, and it definitely has a theme that everybody can relate to everybody, both adult and children, and so I'm really excited about this. It's all positive. Of course, there will be another children's book, but the message is very clear and I think if I were to take any lessons learned from book one to book two, I would say that my book one was I knew what I wanted to write at a high level. But book two, I know exactly what I wanna write and I know what I wanna put in the story, and I think readers will be very excited about it. And when I'm publishing this second book, I think my daughter is gonna find it, hopefully, really outstanding, because I don't think she'll be anticipating what I'm planning here and I think she will really, really love this book. So that's my goal at least. At least if I can win over my daughter. That's what's most important here.
Speaker 1:
Obviously, yes, friends and family are always the toughest critics, but I think you've found clarity in your writing, which is an amazing thing, so I'm gonna push you here Any little sneaks or hints you can give us about this second book. I mean teeny little hints we need.
Speaker 2:
Let's just say that it deals with family events. Okay, family events is the main theme of this book, and based on just that alone is where I feel that anybody should be able to relate to it.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. We all have family events and boy we all know that they can be strife with things to write about and talk about. So when do you have an anticipation of when this book will be available or?
Speaker 2:
I think it's a bit too early to tell for that Right now. I'm gathering the details in my mind. I have started putting it to paper but, like my first book, I'm anticipating with my second book. The longest part of the process would be the illustrations, right.
Speaker 2:
And but at least now I know the process by going through and going through, let's say, the interview process that's a point of that's I think it's important to convey is, especially, if you're working with an illustrator, going through the interview process, finding the right illustrator that works for you, letting them send you samples of what they've done. I think that's very important because if you just choose an illustrator, just to choose an illustrator, their output may not be what you expect or what you want. And so now, with the second book, I know what I want it to look like. I know what my daughter to look like and any of the characters to look like. So that's at least one advantage I have from the first book to the second book.
Speaker 1:
Well, and also, too it's you have to, also with illustrators, you have to look at their availability their timeline. It's like you may find the perfect illustrator, but they can't get to your book for a year.
Speaker 2:
Right, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
Or their pricing may be out of your budget. So these are all the factors. So I generally have like a checklist that I tell people is go and find at least 10 to 15 illustrators that you'd like to work, reach out to them. The first question should be what is your price range for a typical book, how many pages you anticipate and when is your availability? Cause that's going to pare it down and then go back for samples after that, because there's no point in getting samples from somebody that they're either out of your price range or they're too far out to be available for you. So those are just kind of the things that I always say. It's just good practice to have that. But again, a lot of people don't know that it's like, until you go through the process it's really hard to imagine that you need to do those things first. So I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:
So can we anticipate a release in 2024, or do you think it's going to be beyond that?
Speaker 2:
No, it should be in 2024. It should be in 2024. Like I said, the illustration is the longest, but the other point I just wanted to make, besides illustration, is book formatting. So one of the lessons learned for me was formatting the book and being able to self publish it through, for example, amazon, kdp and finding the hard way that the formatting that I did for Amazon is different than the formatting needed for Barnes Noble.
Speaker 2:
And so having to reformat little tweaks here and there so that it makes it for Barnes Noble. So those are kind of the lessons learned that hopefully I'll be able to get over it more quickly for the second book than I did for the first.
Speaker 1:
Right, and most of the time I mean not every illustrator, but most illustrators will also do your covers and your interior layout specifically for pictures books.
Speaker 1:
But if you're ever questioning the formatting and information that is necessary for your book on a particular platform, kdp, barnes, noble Press and IngramSpark all have a tools and resources section with a downloadable PDF that gives you all of the specific guidelines that, if you don't understand it, you certainly could pass it along to whoever is doing your layout and have them do that in the different formats. Yeah, that is something, and even your covers are all gonna be different.
Speaker 1:
It's like a hardback cover is different the softback cover versus an ebook cover and they may be different between KDP and Ingram and Barnes Noble. So you do need to have those guidelines. And again, for covers, I would suggest that you go to each of the platforms and get their template generator, which does help you with the cover sizing, Because the worst thing you can have is a great book but the cover doesn't fit exactly right or the print on it isn't exactly in the right place. So excellent, excellent, Always giving us way more information. So we appreciate that. So we know your books are available for sale. Where can listeners find your books?
Speaker 2:
What retailers Right now they can find it on Amazon. I'm actually finalizing the formatting for Barnes Noble so it should be published later this year on Barnes Noble, but right now you can find it on Amazon and there's a link on my website where you can find it when you do a search on Amazon.
Speaker 1:
Okay, awesome, and we will have the link for you to David's website and to his Amazon author page so that you can purchase his book and, of course, stay up to date with him on when this next book comes out. Don't forget, you can always follow authors on Amazon as well and get updates to your email about when they have new books available. So I know that you're on social media. Where can they connect with you on social media?
Speaker 2:
So I have a Facebook profile. You know I'm on Instagram and you can send me messages from my website too. There's an email chat feature, if you will, on my website, where you can send me questions or comments.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so just Facebook and Instagram. New excerpt threads or TikTok.
Speaker 2:
I've got a LinkedIn profile too.
Speaker 1:
Okay, all right. Well, we will again have those direct links for you so you can go follow David and stay up to date on all that he is doing Any upcoming events, newsletters, blogs, sign-ups or giveaways that you would like to share with our audience.
Speaker 2:
I will do a Goodreads giveaway. I've done one some time ago. I think I will do another one. Like I mentioned, I've got a Goodreads profile. I'll do a Goodreads giveaway. I do have Bookbub as well a profile out there and they all link to the book. But probably a Goodreads giveaway will be coming. And then, you know, with a school session I've got a couple of schools coming up for a reading, a guest reader, and so I'm excited to do that as well.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so if we have any teachers, parents or administrators educators who would like to reach out to you for author visits or readings, can they reach you through your website for that?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, absolutely yes.
Speaker 1:
All right. Well, as I said, we'll include all of that information for you in the link and, of course, david's gonna send me the information about this Goodreads giveaway and we will include that for you so you can go sign up for his giveaway. So, was there anything else that you wanted to share before we jump over and do our typical week?
Speaker 2:
I just hope people enjoy the book. I found it a very rewarding process for myself, just as a father and a first-time writer. I just, I really hope that people enjoy the book. I hope it helps them. It helps them as a parent and it helps your children dealing with change.
Speaker 1:
I think you did an excellent job and I appreciate you being here on the Writer's Prayer. We'd love to have you come back when the second book is available.
Speaker 2:
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:
You're welcome. We're going to go ahead and jump over to our tip of the week. We talked to David about a whole bunch of things and it's like he was a wealth of information and I appreciate that. One of the things we talked about was how to deal with the two sides of the coin storytelling and formatting. Storytelling is the story itself. It's about telling the story. How do you tell the story? Does it start at the beginning? Does it start at the end? Where does it start? As I mentioned earlier, I think it starts where something changes and then it goes from there and then, of course, any backstory. You can kind of filter that in.
Speaker 1:
It's a little more difficult in children's books, so you got to be a little more succinct. That is the critical part of what the readers see. They see the story. They see the story through the words and, when you're dealing with picture books, through the illustrations. Formatting is the way you present that information. It's like where do you break the pages? Where do you break the chapters? Where do you set the illustrations? How many illustrations? This is all about formatting and again, I think this is more window dressing. Yes, it is something that you have to consider once you have your story down as to how you're going to break it out, how you're going to present it, I think it is a secondary thing because, again, the story can be adjusted to the formatting, but you cannot format it and then try to retell the story. You do need to tell the story first.
Speaker 1:
One of the things that we did talk about a little bit is there is kind of a story arc for almost all books I would say especially for children's books and fiction books is a modified hero's journey. A hero's journey basically says that something changed and the main character needs to either learn something, find something or learn a new skill. In this particular case we're talking about David's book. She had to learn something to be able to deal with the challenge that presented itself and she goes through a series of obstacles and challenges and learns more information so that at the end she can resolve the problem and pull it to a good conclusion, which is called bringing home the elixir. That means a satisfying ending, the happily ever after, whatever you want to call it. That is what a modified hero's journey is. It can be done in as many acts as you want to. I would say you typically need at least three. You need the opening, you need the middle, you need the ending. That's pretty common for children's books.
Speaker 1:
If you're writing larger books, you can expand that to five to seven, to whatever you want, but all books, and almost exclusively fiction books, will follow some kind of a modified hero's journey. Now it doesn't have to be a single character. There could be multiple characters, there could be multiple problems, but there's always an inciting event that starts your story and then we send the characters or the person in the book on a journey to solve the problem or to fix whatever is wrong. I hope that is helpful for you. Of course, there's always so much more we could say about storytelling, about formatting, about the hero's journey and more about writing reviews, about receiving reviews and best practices, but of course we have a limited amount of time here.
Speaker 1:
On the writer's parachute If you would like any more information or more discussion around the particular subject that we have brought up here on the writer's parachute, please feel free to reach out to us. You can contact us through the website at thewritersperissuitcom or you can leave us a comment on wherever you're listening or watching us, either on YouTube or one of the podcast platforms or you can email to us direct at info at thewritersperissuitcom, and we would happily get back to you. As always, I'm so thankful to be the host here on the Writers Parachute, guiding author and writer dreams to a perfect landing. We hope that you find this as a safe place for your dreams to land well too, until next time. I want to thank David for being our guest today and we'll see you guys next time. Bye.