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A real quickie for Illustration Friday.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Always. But wanting to be a writer is probably a lot like wanting to be a baseball player. Or a movie star. A lot of people want it, but most will settle for something else.

One thing that sets me apart from other people is I’m determined. Some might say stubborn. I’m also relatively patient. When I want something, I go after it. And I don’t give up until I get it.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have doubts. I’ve had a lot of doubts about my writing through the years. There have been times I wondered if I was wasting my time…times I considered giving up…times I wished I could look into a crystal ball and see whether I was ever going to get anywhere. Would I ever get published? Would I ever publish a book? Would I ever publish a book with my name on it rather than someone else’s? Would I ever publish a series? That’s what I really wanted to do…publish a series of my own.

Now that I’m more than twenty years into my writing career, I know the answers to those questions. If I could actually talk to a younger version of myself at various points my life, and offer some advice, this is what I would say:

Dear 21-year-old Dori,

Dori at 21

So what are you working on? An eight-book picture book series called Plato Goes to Obedience School. Wow. Eight books, huh? All about a cocker spaniel who goes to obedience school. You don’t realize this yet, but you don’t have enough story there to sustain one book, much less eight. You’ve got the start of a character, but no plot. No. I’m sorry, you really don’t.

Let me ask you this: What does Plato want? What is he willing to do to get it? What is he going to DO in each of these eight books to move the story forward? Where’s the conflict? Where’s the adventure? Where are the high stakes? You need to read A LOT more picture books if you think you want to write picture books. You need to learn the elements of a good story. In fact, maybe you should think about writing just one good story at this point. It’s too early to be thinking about a series.

I know you really want to write a series. But trust me, you’re not ready. And Plato Goes to Obedience School is NOT series material. By the way, six-year-olds don’t even know who Plato was, so you might consider changing the name of that dog. Yeah, I know…that’s really your dog’s name, but nobody cares. Please, do me a favor. Don’t send that series proposal out. Just keep reading, keep writing, keep learning. One day you will publish a series of your own. It’ll even be a series about dogs! But it’s not going to be Plato Goes to Obedience School. It’s just not. Put this away and don’t ever show it to ANYONE! You still have so much to learn…

–Middle