 We discuss reading, writing, and everything in between and beyond. I'm your host, Dr. Rita Forsythe, coming to you from Maui on the live streaming network, Think Tech Hawaii, broadcasting from our studio in downtown Honolulu. The title of today's episode is So You Want to Write a Children's Book. Joining me today is Diana Warren, author of A Frazzled Christmas Tale. Welcome Diana. Hi, Rita. How are you today? Very good. Very good. So happy you're here. It's good. So 40 years ago, you and your husband started a business and you were going strong, designing and building custom homes in the Seattle area. And you took a leap of faith, didn't you? You moved to Maui about a year and a half ago. Absolutely. We felt the call to come to Maui since we visited several different times. It was really a necessity, I think, in our lives at the time. Yeah. And you built your own home and you just moved in, I understand. That's been a long process. That's for sure. I bet. Kind of getting in the way of the writing, isn't it? Yeah. You know, how we met is such an interesting story. I wanted to share it with our viewers. So I have some neighbors who know that I just finished a book, published a book called Under the Monkey Pottery about the pond here in Kihei, Isla'i'e Pond. And they were walking along the beach and they saw you taking a picture of your scooter. Yeah. And they said, what are you doing? And you told them, I think, that you were writing a book called The Girl on the White Scooter. Exactly. Yeah. It was kind of funny. It was a nice, beautiful evening with the sunset. You know, it's just a great time to be able to take pictures, especially since it fit with, you know, the white scooter right against the sunset, it's perfect. Well, they said, oh gee, our neighbor's a writer too. And so they arranged us to meet kind of like match.com for writers. No, right? Yeah. And we've been getting together ever since to talk about our craft. Yes. Yes. I've learned an awful lot from you, actually. Oh, and me from you too. Yeah, it's really surprising so quickly that we could meet and connect and have so much back and forth. It's been great. Your book, I believe when we first met, you had finished your book and you were deciding whether you were going to query or not and making decisions on the publication of it. And since then, I cannot believe that you've already started this Paper Dolls book and you're already secured an agency. And I can't believe it. I mean, what's it been? A year? It's so exciting. Yes, an agent picked up my new book, Paper Dolls. And now I'm writing Paper Dolls too. So we are on our way. Oh, and happy birthday to you yesterday. I don't know if I've got a chance to say that. Thank you. That's sweet of you. Yeah, for sure. It's been like a year and you're prolific. I can't believe it. I don't even know what you do with your free time. I go on Tink-Tek-A-Waii. Yeah. So listen, I want to ask you, have you always wanted to be a writer? I would say that my daughters have said that I've always been a writer. I've just written little things and little essays and I've tacked them away through the years. Because we've had this construction company, I'm afraid to even say since 1983, it's pretty much usurped all of my time between that and racing kids, right? So building custom homes and all of that through the years and then tucking away my writings that I have to say, I have been a writer all along. Yeah. I think a lot of people can relate to that. And that's why I think this show is important today because so many people want to write and things like building a house gets in their way. So what inspired you to write a children's book? Well, I have to say that I've always been a little bit of a storyteller, which you probably are too, right? And so my kids and my grandkids have been growing up with me telling them stories. And so frequently they'd say, ma'am, will you just come tell me a story? And so we would sit and we'd tell stories over and over and this one story just kept resonating with them and they just kept saying, please, please, come tell the story, the Christmas story. So that's kind of how we started with that one. Well, why Christmas? You know, Christmas has its own mystique, right? Don't we all love the scent of cinnamon and the Christmas trees and the, well, not in Maui snow. I grew up with snow, right? And then all the traditions that surround it. And so I think that that Christmas story with the kids and the grandkids really was one that they wanted to keep hearing over and over. Yeah, wonderful. All right, now let's talk about your writing process. Can you tell me some of your tricks? What is, what do you do? Do you sit down every day? What's your writing process? Well, you know, you're really sitting down every day to write is wonderful and it's a great idea to do. I have to say with building also at the same time, especially in Maui, that it's been a little bit more difficult to write every day. But I have to say with that one story specifically with this children's story, it had been in my head for so long because I've repeated it and I would tuck little pieces of it away in my computer and then get back to work, right? But I'm saying that writing, it seems to fall into place when you sit down and you can get your thoughts straight, it can just fall into place. So how did you come up with your theme? What's the theme of a frazzled Christmas tale and how did you come up with that theme? Oh, well, it's funny you should ask that because it all started with my daughter when she was, well, now she's in her early 40s. When she was, I would say six years old, she had a little mouse ornament and it was just this cute little thing that pulled in and out of a little tiny stocking. It was adorable. And she would every night place the little mouse somewhere on the tree in her own little hidden spot and she thought it was a great thing. She then would walk down the hallway to her bedroom and yell over her shoulder, night mouse and it was just the cutest little thing for Christmas I think it was just a little cute thing for her. And so she did that every night during Christmas season and I just thought, you know what, if she can feel that that little mouse hurt her then that could be a great thing. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah. Now I am very impressed with the illustrations of this book, they are phenomenal. How did you find an illustrator? How did you get that illustrator to capture what you had in mind? Tell us about that process because I've never gone through that one. Oh, it's been a blessing. Let me tell you, it kind of fell into my lap. My sister read my story and she has a friend whose daughter drew an illustration and won a little contest. And so she was showing the picture to my sister and my sister said, no, that is exactly, exactly what my sister's story is about. It's just very similar type, kind of vintagey type of look in the watercolor. And so she texted it to me right away and I couldn't believe it myself. So I contacted this girl who happens to be a college student, Kenzie Weiland and she's just a true blessing. She read my manuscript and she really felt that it was a good fit also. So it was a match made in heaven there. So then we really worked through the process because as soon as she read the manuscript, she drew the picture of the main character, Joe, with his frazzled tail. And as soon as she did that and she sent it back to me, I just thought, we've got this, we've got this. So as soon as she got Joe down, she really took Joe in for the feeling that he had on that first chapter. And from that moment, we just kind of worked out each little character as it went along and tried to make some movement with it. But I'm telling you that this illustrator, being as young as she is, especially, she was a gem to work with. And I would work with her in a heartbeat again. Wonderful. Now this next picture here are some bloopers that she did. And she gave me permission to be able to print them out. So I actually got on a website and connected all of these little pictures together so that I could make it look a little bit vintage-like. And then we put those little blooper pages at the front and at the back of my book. They're absolutely incredible. Well, without further ado, would you read to us from a frazzled Christmas tail? I certainly will. I'm gonna start at the end, if that's okay with you. Of course. It's called, this chapter is the tin box. After Pi, the family brought out the rusty tin box noticed in the library. This was an event. The family gathered around the array of photos. I remember when, no, she was only three. There was laughter. And there were more photos were passed around from the box. My papa's grandpa was, and on it went for quite some time, Joe sat quietly on his limb, his eyes and ears set so he could catch as much of the conversation as possible. Thomas Jr. spoke, this one, see this one? I was named after my papa, Thomas. He leaned forward to the younglings, reached over and tapped at the old photo on the table. You know, he had a heart of gold. I never knew anyone kinder. He was just a boy when his own papa died. He took care of his mama. Yes, it was a hard time for the two of them and they had little money. Even as a young boy, he worked hard and earned enough to get by, kept the family in food. It was obvious Thomas Jr. was deeply affected by his papa's hardship. Times like that shape who we are, right? He said. He wasn't expecting the family hunkered over the photos to answer, but a certain red fox in the tree, knotted slowly and patted his eyes with his charred tail. As storytelling finished, in Christmas Day near to Zen, Thomas Jr. slowly got up from his chair. Well, I must see your beautiful trees since I heard about last year's fire, he said. I expect you already know this family has been blessed each Christmas season. I don't know how to explain. Inspiration always just happened. Yes, I imagine my papa and grandpa had something to do with it. He winked. Thomas Jr. searched the tree for the four antique wooden creations and gently lifted Joe out. Ah, I see the burnt tail here. So strange that is the only ornament damaged. He stared intently into Joe's wooden face as if looking for something. Or is it magic? Then the large worn hands reached out to the round mouse ornament and touched Charlie's leather satchel. You know, I have one of these bags. I brought it with me today. It's the original one from the war. Thomas Jr. turned to Anna. I have a slow walk. Can you fetch it for me, Anna? You'll find it sitting by my coat and it has a gift inside. He winked again. Anna hopped up with excitement and then slid down the hallway in her jingly slippers. She returned in a flash with the old man's worn satchel and a question, grand papa, may I see? Thomas Jr. nodded with a chuckle and unbuckled the satchel and pulled out the package. The family looked on. As Anna unwrapped the gift, it was intricately carved bright red fire truck ornament complete with a ladder. They all gasped and then their tears showed what the trust league ornaments meant to the family and now their hand carved fire truck. Clearly, Thomas Jr. was blessed with the same wood carving skill as his grandpa, Stanley, had been. This antique-looking fire truck seemed as if it was crafted by the same hands as the trust league. There were grateful hugs and thank yous in the old man's smile then he reached up with his calloused fingers and hung the fire truck on a tree bow next to the trust league. He said, in case you have another fire, perhaps the red fox Joe might use this fire truck to put it out instead of using his tail. He stared directly into Joe's wooden eyes and then gave a slow wink before turning back to the family and beginning his long hobble down the hallway. As Thomas Jr. left the room, Joe choked up with overwhelming emotion. The trust league all nodded and lovingly edged closer together shoulder to shoulder, heads bowed. They shared a silent tear wiping moment. Joe, his eyes tightly closed, slowly reached out his tail behind him as far as he could stretch it just enough to touch the new bright red fire truck with his frazzled tip. It comforted him more than words can say. The trust they could hear the goodbyes and good wishes as the old Thomas Jr.'s coat was lifted onto his shoulders. From the tree they heard old Thomas Jr. say loudly, why, what a handsome scarf. Edna tilted her head, looked thoughtfully at Joe and with a voice thick with emotion said, Done, it was incredibly good day. It was the best Christmas season ever. That's it. I could listen to you all day. Oh, thank you. You're so cute. How fun. Have you read that to your grandchildren? Actually no, because they're all good readers. So the youngest one, I got a picture sent to me of him sprawled out on the couch reading it. And it didn't take him very long at all to find the acknowledgments of his name there in the acknowledgments because he was one of them that pushed me to go ahead and write this book. Oh, that's just to be treasured. Yes, fun. Well, back to our discussion on how to write a book. Now, when I was, as I've been working on my journey as an author, I think the most surprising for me was not creating the book, coming up with ideas, writing the thing. It was the editing, the publishing, the marketing. Yes. And that's not really my forte. I just wanted to sit down in my little office and write my book. And that's not uncommon. That's not uncommon at all. Yeah. There's so much more to it nowadays, so much more. So let's start with the editing. Talk to me about your editing process. Did you use different products for editing? Did you just edit it yourself? Did you hire a professional editor? Editing. Yeah, okay. Well, the editing portion was, I felt very young at this. This is very new to me because I wanted to bring it to a book. So I started off with like Grammarly.com, where you can, yeah, so it's kind of a basic, okay, you've got the sentence structure wrong here. So I did that, I performed that. And then I decided, you know, it takes research for you to see what the options are first on your editing. And one of them, one of my options was to just have a line editor. And I thought, well, that might be a good idea to start with and really hindsight, I think I could have just not done that at all. But it was cheap enough. So I hired someone online. She lived in Australia and she just did a simple line edit for me. And really, I think Grammarly did a pretty good job as far as that goes. You know, there wasn't very many changes from that. But then when I chose my publisher because I self-published, then when we got to the point where almost formatting, then I had the option, whether I wanted to have it formerly edited by one of their team. And so I chose to do that, which I think was probably the smartest way to go. So if somebody goes through the same type route I did for a self-publishing, then there's always that sort of option to choose. And the thing that you have to be careful with editing is the person that's editing is human also. And they have certain ways that they like to see the sentence structure. And I have a tendency because it's a bit of a vintage type of book, I have a tendency to go into more of a passive kind of language. And if I had this editor take out all of my sentence structure, then it would no longer be mine, right? All it would be is an idea and somebody else's English. So you do have to pick and choose, even when the editor does their thing, they send it back to you and you can say yes or no that you want the sentence to be a specific way. So keep your voice is what I would be saying when you go to do your editing that you would keep your specific, this the sound that you want, because there's a great rhythm to your sentences. And if you wanted a specific way, then go ahead and be strong about that. And then listen to the editor too because you don't want it to be wrong either. Right, right. And the nice thing about professional editors, especially if you find a good one and I've been blessed with my editor is that they will do a sample for you. So you can kind of shop around for editors. I don't know if you found that. That first line item one did. She did send me a sample. You're right, you're absolutely right. And that's actually a good point. Yeah, and my editor is not cheap, but man, is she worth it? I don't think I would have gotten an agent had it not been for the professional editing. Because I'm pretty good at editing, but boy, the things that my editor pointed out to me, I just thought was brilliant. And did you have to take some voice back on any of your editing? No, she, especially for paper dolls, she said at the beginning she thought, am I going to be able to keep this voice up the entire book? Keep it consistent because it's unique. And then she read along, she realized, yeah, this is working. So she kept it because the whole book is a little strange. It's a crazy murder thriller thing. Nothing like Monkey Patry. The Monkey Patry is a lovely book. Paper Dolls is a crazy murder serial killer book. That's what's fun about you, Rita. I love it. Let's talk about publishing. So you self-published, you said. I did. And there are different ways of self-publishing. I mean, I read one book. I did a lot of research. I know that there's one author that actually self-published. I mean, she went, she did everything. She formatted her own books. She added the illustrations the way she wanted them. She had the illustrations digitally done the way she needed them. And then she sent it to basically a book printer. So I know that you can do that. I did not. Yeah, I went the self-publishing route where they hold your hand. And I think that if someone were to start out doing a book, that they should really look at what their options are and realize what they need. And so this one was a perfect match for me. I went with Life Rich. And they asked you questions. And you could answer however you wanted to. What format do you want? What size do you want? What type cover? What, you know, all the basics. But then the things that I did have power through were this is where I want my illustrations set. And then they would send it back to me and say, is this right? Is this how you want it? Where that one person that I read a book about where she had to do it all, where she just like taped it to her wall and with all the formatted pages. And I thought, I can't do that. No, she even had to do her own applications for Library of Congress and the ISBN numbers and all of that. And my self-publishing company did all of that for me. And so that's the whole self-publishing route that I went anyway. So the next part is about marketing. And that part scared me to death when I first started this process. But you know, I'm getting into it. And I really love it. I want to say your website is part of your marketing scheme. And I can't wait for you to talk a little bit about your website, your blogs, all that goes into that amazing tool. Oh my goodness, yes. It was a big deal. OK, when I was writing my book, which only really took three weeks to do, the whole thing in the back of my mind was, how am I going to actually market this? Like you're right, right? So I had been writing little blogs having to do with our Maui projects. And the whole move to Maui, the process that it took, which is a huge process because we own a construction company. And it was a big deal to buy a piece of property and all of the goings on with the shipments and everything. So I blogged it all. And I had it all on pages. And I thought, well, OK, well, if I do one website that collects that I have all of my Maui projects, all of the, I called it our messy but perfect move to Maui, all of my regular writings. So it'd be a different blog page. And I called it the rear view, the headlights in the rear view, and then a video blog of all of the actual building of our house. So I have a video blog where I went on to YouTube channel and I made videos, produced those, and then I posted them on the website also. So I figured I would have that website set. Now I made one page. And I don't know if you'll see it on there where it says blog at the top. If you do a down button on that, you'll see all my pages in one page is for a frazzled Christmas tale. So then I could I could market my book. So now that I have the website, which I actually hired somebody to do that for me because I was building a house. So I had them design this website so that then I could put into it. But then everybody should have a budget, right? So if you're a writer and you're wanting to write a book, then you're going to want to have a budget. And my budget did not mean that I could have somebody do my website and keep loading it and take care of all of the SEO services, the social media and all of that. I wanted them to teach me how to do it. So they taught me how after they set up the website, they taught me how to manage it, how to then mark it back and forth so that when I did a blog, then I could market it onto Instagram and Facebook and then link it back to YouTube channel. And so back and forth, the more back and forth that you do on your marketing, then the more algorithms you get toward your name being pushed forward or your website being pushed forward on the internet. So that's what I learned. The marketing is a huge thing. So the more marketing that you can do and then link back and forth between all of the social media, then it draws more followers to your website. So I managed to get followers to my website by doing that. So I want to ask a question from our viewers. What advice would you give budding novelists? Budding novelists. I would say I'm guessing that this budding novelist has all the stores already in their head. I would say get as much down as you possibly can. And while you're getting it down, then definitely take the time to research where you're going to go with it and start working on your marketing. Because you can't wait till you finish the book and then start your online presence. You've got to start doing it now and see what draws people to you and be a human being. Just be you and that's what will draw people. That is so true. Wise words from a wise woman. My final question is, what are you reading? What's on your bedside table? Well, guess what? What's on my bedside table is my air conditioning remote. But I am reading Halfbro courses by Jeanette Walls, which is a story about her great-grandmother and her life in Arizona. So it was kind of an interesting story. It's good. What are you reading? Oh, I am reading The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough about the creation of the Panama Canal because we are traveling to the Panama Canal next month. I heard you were excited. That's great. Yeah, and I know nothing about its epic history. So I need to study up. It is a thick book. Well, that is all the time we have today. Boy, this went fast. And I know it's a joy to talk to you. And you. And we'll get together over coffee next week. Let's do it. That's all the time we have. Oh, my goodness. I want to thank you, Diana, for being my special guest, our broadcast engineer, our floor manager, and Jay Fidel, our executive producer. Yeah. A special mahalo to our underwriters. And thank you for joining us, viewers. Book, book, books will be back in two weeks with my friend and host, Elaine Galant. Until then, read, write, and create your world.