Writing children’s picture books is hard. I make it harder on myself because my goal is to write award-winning picture books.

Over the last four years I have written 60 manuscripts.  Of those

• Four are hopeless. They’ll never see the light of day, including possibly the worst version of Cinderella ever written.  But, I did learn a lot about adapting a fairy tale from that story.
• Three are submission-ready
• Three are just about submission-ready
• The rest are somewhere in between.

Somewhere in between means:

• Checking the market to see if there’s still a need for that type of manuscript;
• Reading many other picture books for fun, and to see what techniques I might use in my work;
• Taking a good hard look to see if the best format for the story is a picture book. (At least two of my stories need to change to chapter books, one fits the category of short-story best, and one looks like it’s best suited for a graphic novel.)
• Rewriting the story from different character’s Point of View to see if the story becomes more interesting;
• Assuring that information that’s leftover from a previous edit, but is no longer needed, is purged;
• Reading the story about and retaining only words that are absolutely necessary (Some words can be replaced by illustration)  Please see this blog entry from The Quote Investigator for a fuller explanation) ;
• Reviewing illustration (art) notes to assure that they are not restricting the illustrator
• Removing illustration (art) notes that are not necessary
• Creating a color-coded writer’s storyboard that lets me see what’s lacking in each of these areas:

• • Action
  • Captivating page turns
  • Sounds
  • Humor
  • Heart
  • Sense-evoking (Sound, smell, taste, touch, and intuition as well as sight.) The more the better
  • Sufficient white space to make the story interesting
• Over 50 other items on a check list;
• Checking for grammar
• Checking for kid-friendly language
• Getting feedback from in-person and online writer’s critique groups;
• Possibly, paying for a critique from a professional editor.

Since I still want to write new stories, many of the manuscripts that are somewhere in between are unliklely to get revised.

Now, I just have to be assertive about letting the world know about the three or four stories that I feel are submission ready. It’s easy for me to sell someone else’s work than my own. Alas, I wish I were more inclined to sell my own work.