Lari’s Writing blog

The Edinburgh International Book Festival is over! Aw… Now I can get back to writing! Yeah!

And I’m off to a flying start. I’ve just seen the rough pictures for my next book! It’s a picture book called Orange Juice Peas, it’s being illustrated by a French artist and the pictures look utterly fantastic! Really colourful, really funny, and full of expression on the kids’ faces. All of which is great. Because the more there is in the pictures, the more I can cut out of the words!

That’s the wonderful thing about picture books. I put the story in words, so that everyone can get started. Then the artist then tells the story in pictures, probably putting in much more than I had in the words (like the crab in the Big Bottom Hunt – that was never my idea!) and once I can see what the artist is doing, I can take some of the words back out again! (Well, me and my wonderful editor and fabulous designer, who are the ones who put it all together, and in this case count all the peas to make sure they add up at the end of the book. Why? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see…)

So! A new picture book! With a new artist! And lots of peas. What a great start to September.

Now I’d better go and take a few words out of the next picture book, and put lots more words into the next novel.