http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmCVll1yVrQ
(I hope I'm not breaking any rules by posting that URL. I'm sure some helpful person will let me know if I am.)
Thanks,
Tim
I do have a bit of an issue with Billy's mom shaking her daughter when she's been injured from a fall out of a tree. Shaking is a pretty scary thing to do when you don't know the extent of someone's injuries. Moving an injured person at all can be dangerous.
But you're going to need to find one heck of an artist to make it work. There are some points where the story is just too complicated for me to envision as a single illustration or series of such.
Case in point: when Billy thinks about the time Rondo got in trouble for accidentally shooting the woman's cat. It was somewhat confusing on film and I can't see how this situation could be broken down into one or two illustrations. Of course I'm not an artist.
I think I could assuage the concerns of folks like yourself by having Trisha wake up on her own when Billy returns with his mom. I don't think that would have any negative effect on the story- do you?
I don't really know anything about illustrating or working with illustrators. What you said makes it sound like I'm supposed to find an illustrator before I go looking for a publisher. I always assumed it was the publisher's job to find an illustrator after they picked up a manuscript.
The thing about this story is that, the way it's written, the text only does half the work of telling the story. The rest relies on the images. Good thing I made it into a movie, right? I didn't make the movie just so I coul illustrate the story though, if that's what you're thinking. I made it to watch at a church talent show. Folks from the church liked it...
Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. Does anyone have suggestions on what I should do to get from where I'm at with this story to getting it published as a kid's book?
Picture book authors are not expected to find or provide illustrations or illustrators for their books. It does help if the author includes notes about what kind of illustration might be best with which segment of text, but I don't think even that is necessary.