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A  bit back, I told you about my science songs project. It's my latest work for hire assignment, and it sounds like a lot of fun. All I had at that point was the general assignment--no topics or songs yet.

But last week, I received my series guidelines and my four topics. I can't share the topics, because I'm not sure how confidential I'm supposed to be, and I'd better err on the side of caution. But to share a little bit of my work so far on the project, I thought I'd choose a made-up topic and share my process.

So, my made-up topic is why we need the sun. Everytime I say why we need the sun, you'll know I'm really talking about a different super secret subject for my book. It's like I'm a science song spy:>)

Monday, I sat down and looked over the four topics. The publisher gave me a basic list of facts for three of the four topics. I said that wrong. Actually, the fact lists were really the curriculum standards that these books will support. So, I started a Word folder for each of the four projects, and within those, a file for each called Facts. I pasted the listing of standards/facts into each file.

That's as far as I got on Monday. What can I say? The kids were out of school, and I had a million other things on my to-do list also. I tend to work on projects in small chunks. A half-hour or hour at a time. That's why I like to have lots of different things going on.

Anyway, yesterday, I chose one of the four books to start with. We'll call it why we need the sun. So I read over the list of facts a few times. Then I made a listing of key words that might be included in this K-2 song.

sun
light
dark
grow
sleep
skin
vitamin
gravity
warm
heat
plants
animals
energy

Then I started working on lists of rhyming words for each word that might be workable in some way into the book. Some words, like "light," naturally had plenty of good rhymes: "sight, night, bright, white, ignite, excite, delight."

Others like animals, had shorter lists. As in, no rhyming words.

But that's ok. Those were words I would just have to use internally in lines, not at the end of lines that had to rhyme with each other.

Next, I picked a basic structure. I decided that I'd have four sections to the song. One for plants, one for animals, one for people, and one for the Earth itself. And then a little summary.

I wanted a kind of refrain, and "This is why we need the sun" popped into my head as I was reading my possible song list and saw The A-B-C Song on it. I could just hear the ending, "Now my little song is done. You know why we need the sun."

OK, that's lame, but I don't have all day to work on this post of a made-up topic:>)

Then I went through the entire song, splitting the rest into four sections and seeing what information I could fit into each section while keeping the rhyme and meter of The A-B-C Song.

It was fun, but hard work! Balancing the need for content with the need to keep the poetic scan right, all in very few words (between 85 and 200, generally) was tough! There will be sidebars, too, though. So as I was writing, I was making notes by some of the facts that they would have to go into sidebars. I also highlighted facts as I used them so that I'd know at a glance how much content I was using.

And on my document with the actual song (separate from my facts file), I also highlighted the words from my word rhymes list so that I would know which ones had been used.

I ended up with a decent first draft of a song, which was more than I had thought I would get done. But we'll see how it sounds in a week. When you're singing a song, you can force a meter that isn't natural, and I'm really trying not to do that!

So that's my latest update on Science Songs! Hope you're having fun with your own writing projects!

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Reminder: I have two online poetry classes open for registration right now.

I rarely post about my writing projects under contract because I thought it would either sound like bragging, or it would bore you to death, or both. But I really like reading other writers' and illustrators' posts about their projects and processes, so in 2008, I plan to post periodically about the specific writing I'm doing.

A few weeks ago, I was thinking that I needed to round up some assignments for after the holidays, as I had no projects under contract (and, therefore, no projected income!). The night before I was going to email a publisher I work with regularly, I got an email from that very publisher offering me an interesting project. I jumped on it, because it sounds neat.

I'm going to write a set of four science song books. These are for young kids, around 2nd or 3rd grade. The publisher will give me the four science concepts, and I will create lyrics to go to some copyright-free (I assume) tunes. They are rhyming verses, but they aren't poetry. The books are described as "sing-along lessons."

The publisher sent a batch of sample books they've done on history topics (these will be their first science ones). They thought of me because of the poetry books I did this past year for Capstone Press. Anyway, the samples are fun. Some work better than others, and I'm going to study my favorite one or two...the ones that flow smoothly and are clever to boot.

Here's a sample (not the beginning, though) from Bring Us Water, Molly Pitcher!, to the tune of "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain." The book is about the Battle of Monmouth during the War of Independence. The text is by Michael Dahl.

Oh! The cannons crack
like thunder in the sun.
Oh! The cannons cook
like ovens in the sun.

Oh! The sun is hot as blazes.
A faint soldier up she raises.
Molly Pitcher lifts
that soldier in the sun.

"Molly Pitcher!
Your poor husband
has gone down!
Molly Pitcher!
Your poor husband
has gone down!

For a hidden British soldier
shot your William in the shoulder.
Molly Pitcher! Now he's lying
on the ground!"

Short sidebars on some spreads give an extra sentence of explanation or detail, and an introduction and a Did You Know section at the front and back give more background.

This will be like a puzzle. Fitting in enough content information to be a lesson, but matching lyrics to some folk song that kids will already know. What a cool learning device. I actually can't wait to get started on this.

Now, I'm off to research copyright-free music. The sample books used "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain," "Row, Row, Row the Boats," "Yankee Doodle," "This Old Man," "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," and "Over Hill, Over Dale." 

Hope you all had a great New Year's celebration! The kids are back to school today, and I'm looking forward to the quiet house.