Tag: children’s book writing masterclass

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Winner Gets an EPIC Prize for this Writing Prompt for Children’s Books

May 12, 2021– Today, we’re doing a fun yet challenging exercise in writing for children. Please write an 800-850 word story complete with characters, plot, setting, rising action, falling action, climax, and be sure to wrap it up with a bow using the above photo prompt. Here’s the coolest part, we’re going to choose the best submission, and that person will get to enroll in our Children’s Book Writing Master Class for FREE, a $400 value! How awesome is that? Stay tuned as we pick our winner next week! The winning submission will also appear on our blog. Remember, we want to see larger-than-life, chaotic, out-of-the-box ideas.

Happy Wednesday, Friends! Now get writing! Send your submission to pandapublishing8@gmail.com

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You Want to be a Children’s Author?

May 6, 2021– So, you want to be a children’s book author! What are your goals?  I often see that children’s authors don’t have any benchmarks for their book figured out or written down, and even worse, when I ask them who their book is for, they say, ‘everyone’. Well, you’ve heard me say this a million times before; if your book is for everyone, it’s for no one. You must be specific in who you’re targeting with your book, or you’re going to waste a ton of money and time on ineffective marketing. We’ll talk about niches and narrowing down targets in another monthly theme later in the year, but right now, let’s talk about how to set goals for your children’s book.

  • Define what success means to you-Success is different for everyone. By defining what success means to you, you’ll be able to know when you get there. What do you want to achieve with your book?
  • Get SMART-We all learned this in business school. SMART is a mnemonic acronym that stands for Specific (narrow down your goal for your book to be as specific as possible. If you said, ‘I want more money’ and I gave you a dollar, you would have more money…see what I mean?), Measurable (how will you measure your results of what you’ve specified in step 1?), Actionable (what steps can you take to reach your goal?), Realistic (Is your goal realistic for you? If you want to sell a million copies in 10 days does that seem realistic? If yes, get to work!), and Time-based (when will you complete your goal by?) The problem with not putting a timeline on reaching your goal is that you’ll take forever to reach it, or it will fall by the wayside, and you’ll never get it done. This is simply human nature. Also, the more time we give ourselves to achieve a goal, that’s the amount of time it will take, e.g., 5 years, 1 year etc. Parkinson’s theory explains in detail if you want to Google it.
  • Dream Big– If you knew that you would reach your goal, would you set a piddly little one? No, of course not. What would you do with your book if you knew you could not fail? Make that your goal!
  • It’s got to mean more than money-Listen, I know that money makes the world go round, but oftentimes, people don’t end up reaching their goals because they make it all about the money. I know that bills need to be paid and that you want to cover your investment and make a profit, but your purpose and your book’s purpose must be tied to something higher than that or else when the rough days come, you’ll be more likely to give up. What is your main purpose for your book? To be enjoyed by young readers in every country? To be used as a teaching tool for reluctant readers? To be used to combat illiteracy? Your purpose will remind you to keep going during the hard days.

Write it down, make a plan, and work on it every day. That’s how you reach your goals!

We hope you’ll join us for our Children’s Book Writing Masterclass; check it out here: Children’s Book Writing Master Class – Pandamonium Publishing House

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Pare it Down and Blow it Up

May 3, 2021– Today, we kick off a month-long series about writing kid’s books! We’re going to teach you what you need to know when writing for kids and this whole series complements what you’ll learn in our Children’s Book Writing Masterclass available here: Children’s Book Writing Master Class – Pandamonium Publishing House

Here are three not so typical ways to find inspiration for writing kids books:

  • Take an idea and pare it down to the bones. What is your child struggling with? What are they afraid of? What questions do they ask? Chances are that if your child is asking these questions and has these challenges, that other children are too. Take a complex idea like bedwetting and break it down into a single, simplified idea.
  • Blow it up. Make things larger than life. I’m talking about whales in swimming pools, pizzas that are so large they could feed an entire town, and seven-foot ants that are terrorizing a city. The bigger, the better.
  • Don’t be afraid to go there. Talk about death, talk about bullying, talk about step-siblings and any other issues that can be sticky but matter. Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for, and while we don’t want them to grow up too fast, we need to touch on subjects of importance to them. Keep it age-appropriate and speak to them in a way they will understand, but don’t dumb it down.

Using the above information, let’s do an example; feel free to write your own after brainstorming a few ideas!

Bare Bones Idea: Bedwetting

Blow it Up: A monster that struggles with bedwetting but has a solution (a checklist before bed), e.g. No drinks after a certain time, favourite stuffed animal, nightlight, a flashlight to check in the closet and under the bed, signing a nice song, and reading a fun book etc.

Go There: Nightmares. The monster has nightmares, and that’s why he wets the bed.

Synopsis: Cliff is a big, green, furry monster who needs help at bedtime. Some nights Cliff has bad dreams about giant slices of pizza chasing him, and sometimes Cliff has accidents. But with the help of his monster mom, he has a special trick for chasing the bad dreams away and making bedtime fun!

Of course, this was off the cuff and something that I thought of quickly. It would need to be refined, but you get the idea. So, start writing! What are you waiting for?

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Best Selling Author, Tonya Cartmell is Our Guest Blogger!

April 26, 2021– Our guest blogger today is none other than the one and only Tonya Cartmell! You know her as the author of the number 1, best-selling children’s bookThe 12 Days of Rescue! Available here: The 12 Days of Rescue – Pandamonium Publishing House

Let’s see what her take is for pushing the envelope in her writing:

How do I push the envelope in my writing?  That is an interesting question and one which being a new author with only one book published, I am not sure I can offer a lot of insight into.  What I can tell you is this:

Push yourself and believe in your ability to accomplish your dreams – For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a writer.  Several times a day I will see, hear or read something that makes me think of a story idea, an opening sentence or a “What if?” scenario.  The problem was because I never believed that I could create something that someone would want to publish, I never pushed myself to make my dream a reality.  I also did not invest in things that could help me accomplish my goal. 

Around 14 years ago, I decided it was time to go back and finish my university degree.  I took an adult leadership course and the final paper required you to analyse a situation and suggest leadership skills or strategies that could be used to recognize and improve employee satisfaction and workplace workflows.  There was a situation outlined that we could use however, it was close to Christmas and there was a song playing on the radio that I thought was a perfect example of unhappy employees about to mutiny.  If you have not heard Elf’s Lament by the Barenaked Ladies, listen to the words.  I decided to try and base my paper on that song and was able to apply the leadership skills and strategies I had learned about in that class to it.  Pushing myself to come up with something original made my paper stand out amongst the others.

In 2019, I faced turning fifty.  Not a big deal to many people but, to me it was the kick in the pants to finally push myself to stop dreaming and start doing.  I made it my goal to write a book and submit it.  I also signed up for a writing course.  The one I choose was offered by Pandamonium Publishing House.  It provided me with many writing tools and someone that I could ask questions to.  The next hurdle was coming up with something to write about.  How do I turn a few sentences or an idea into a book?  What worked for me was making myself write.  I have always been one who writes things in my head and then sits down to put it on paper.  While this worked well for school papers, it was harder for a book.  I started keeping notebooks everywhere to jot things into when I did not have my laptop and have even used the voice memo feature on my phone in the car.  I started doing photo prompts which I had never tried before and now love to do.  I even submitted one to Pandamonium in May 2019 and it was picked to be posted in their blog the next month.  That was the turning point that made me realize I can really do this.  From there I did write a children’s book, Twelve Days of Rescue which was published by Pandamonium in September 2020.  All because I finally believed I could do it and pushed myself to work for it.

Try new things – What better way to write and learn about things, then by trying new experiences that relate to the story you are going to tell.  The middle school novel I have almost finished is called The Second Hand Witch.  Another that I have outlined is Called the Dead Boys.  All I knew about witches and ghosts is what I have seen on tv, in movies, read about or stories I’ve heard.  Luckily, I have two friends who are always up for an adventure or whatever crazy idea I may have.  So, to push myself outside of my comfort zone, and to experience new things, I get them to come along.  Together, we have taken classes on crystal ball reading, witches broom making, spell casting, done gravestone rubbings, participated in a Samhain ceremony, slept in a haunted hotel and hostel, participated in the ghost investigation of a cemetery and Fort Henry and done many ghost walks.  I love paranormal things but would never do these things on my own. With them, I have met some wonderful people, learned new things, been scared and had tons of laughs.  You can be sure that some of our adventures will be in those two books.

Explore a new genre – I want to branch out from writing children or middle school books but was unsure what to move to.  One thing I love is the Irish history my husband and I have learned while visiting Ireland, so I thought I would try my hand at an adult historical fiction novel.  This is something I have never done or even considered before, so it is a big leap for me.  

The word count is a little intimidating, so I know I am going to have to push myself to be organized, create character sheets, and outline my chapters in more detail than I normally do.   I know the time period I want to set the story in and have an idea for some of the characters but learning how to tie a fictional story into actual events that happened makes me want to ensure I have my facts right.  To do this, I am going to have to do research.  With COVID, our local library is closed and there are not a lot of books easily available here on the event I am researching. 

I decided to try something I have not done before and requested to join a private Facebook group dedicated to the events I am trying to learn about.  From here I met someone with connections to that time period who has helped me find books on the subject as well as shared some stories with me.  This has increased my excitement for the project, and I am looking forward to seeing how it develops.

For me, these are the ways that I push myself to try and improve my writing. 

Awesome job, Tonya! Stay tuned for more guest bloggers as we wrap up this month’s theme of pushing the envelope.

To check out our writing classes, click here:

Children’s Book Writing Master Class – Pandamonium Publishing House 

Transitioning from Writer to Author (An Introductory Course) – Pandamonium Publishing House

Course: Get Your Book Noticed and Increase Your Sales – Pandamonium Publishing House

Novel Writing Course – Pandamonium Publishing House

Kids Creative Writing Course – Pandamonium Publishing House

 

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I’m All Out of Inspiration

March 25, 2021– Happy Thursday, Friends! We’ll be wrapping up our most asked questions in the next week, and we hope that you learned some new things. On April 1st, we’ll be starting a brand-new theme called, “How to push the envelope in your writing” and we certainly hope you’ll join us.  Let’s jump into today’s question.

Q: “Lately I’ve been feeling really uninspired in my writing. I want to write a children’s book, but I can’t seem to come up with any good ideas. You’ve written a lot of kid’s books, where do you get ideas from?”

A: Sometimes it’s hard to be inspired I agree, but if we look around, we can find plenty of ideas. A lot my children’s book subject matter comes from real life experience and people that I’m close to. My nephews and niece inspire me like crazy; they range in age from 17 years old to 3 months and the toddlers tend to have amazing ideas that make it onto my books. For example, most recently I wrote a book called Cakes for Snakes and it came about at my kitchen table in the Pandamonium Publishing House Tour Bus; my three-year-old nephew, Denver asked, “Auntie, who makes cakes for snakes?” I grabbed a pen and started taking notes. We’re formatting Cakes for Snakes in a whole new way as a full colour comic book for kids with the one and only Alex Goubar, stay tuned for more information on a release date! Check in with your friends and family (especially the kiddos) and think about changing your environment. You can head to the park, the outdoor bike/walking trails, the mall, and other places to find inspiration around every corner. Be sure to ask yourself questions. I wrote The Extreme! Supreme! Dogwalker, Darlene after walking my own pup, Luna. I thought to myself, what would make someone an ultimate dogwalker? What tools would they have to make their job easier? What would they do to keep the dogs occupied? Etc. Jot down every idea because you never know where it will lead. Keep in mind when writing for kids, the crazier the plot and the bigger and more exaggerated the story, the better. Another tip is to pick up books that inspired you as a child and read them once again; what did you love about them? What parts spoke to you the most? And so on.

If you need help with writing for kids, let me mentor you! Check out my masterclass here: Children’s Book Writing Master Class – Pandamonium Publishing House

Remember, discipline beats motivation every single time. Even though you aren’t inspired it’s important to sit down and write. Put the words on the page. Happy Writing! X LLB

 

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If You Play Small, You Stay Small

February 4, 2021– Today is a very special day! I’d like to wish our dear friend, faithful supporter, and our animals’ godfather, Alan Stapleton a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  Alan, we are so happy to know you and honoured to call you our friend. We hope you have an amazing birthday and wish you much happiness, health, and success now and always.

Where are my hockey fans? Have you ever noticed that when your team is playing and all they do is defend in their end rather than play the offensive, they end up losing? It’s like watching them chase their tails. It looks unorganized and like they’re playing scared. The reason why? Games aren’t won by playing small. Go after the goals on the scoreboard and keep driving toward the net. Shoot when you get the chance and don’t try anything fancy.

The same goes for your writing and business life. If you fail to get on the scoreboard and are constantly on the defensive, how will you reach your goals? You won’t. Plain and simple. Listen, everyone is afraid of losing and taking risks that don’t work out, but if you never try, you’ll never know. Plus, we never lose, we only learn.

I would like you to do the following exercise. Please list the ways that you’re playing small in your writing life. For example, maybe you’re not taking classes or investing in continuing education to better your skillset. Maybe you’ve stopped writing or have let your self-discipline slide. Maybe you’ve been making excuses for your lack of action and lack of success. Whatever ways you’re playing small, confront them, and then change them. It’s the only way to grow.

For more advice and techniques, check out my Children’s Book Writing Masterclass, here: Children’s Book Writing Master Class – Pandamonium Publishing House