Recently came back from the SCBWI conference in L.A., which was amazing. Loved Jon Scieszka's talk, and posted my "takeaways" on my blog
(
http://www.inkygirl.com/inkygirl-main/2010/8/4/2010-scbwi-la-takeaways-jon-scieszka.html ) but here's the text, for those interested:
Some takeaways from Jon Sciezka's keynote talk, "Tales Of A Picture Book Writer: Do's, Don'ts, Maybes":
- Look up the top 100 books listed by School Library Journal and read them.
- Don't do what someone else does. Do what YOU connect with.
- Read bad books, which can be educational.
- Read children's trade publications and kidlit blogs.
- Most picture book manuscripts by new writers can be improved by cutting length by half.
- Don't try to follow the market.
- Read everything in your field that you possible can: library, bookstore.
- Learn and read in prep but once you start to actually WRITE, then forget about trying to follow every rule and industry blog, and just focus on WRITING.
- In retrospect, Jon is glad that his early submissions got rejected.