Lily & Hudson

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I'd never thought about writing children's literature.  It's one of those things that seems really easy and really difficult at the same time.  I like to believe that I haven't grown up and that I'm still a child deep down, but I'm a child of the 80s, not of the 00s and the 10s.  I know what I like, but I have no idea what today's children like, apart from taking knives to school and becoming pregnant, and I don't really know much about those things.

A few years ago, I was asked to write for a local, bi-monthly magazine, The Kessingland and Broadland Times.  The magazine contained local news, adverts, interviews, recipes, poetry, articles, and children's stories.  And I was asked to write the children's stories.  After many hours staring at a blank page, I eventually settled on something that children and adults can't help but love: talking animals.

Rather than inventing characters, I decided to write about some real talking animals; my dog Lily, and my friend's dog Hudson.  These stories took place in the Kessingland/Lowestoft area, and were suited to the time of year of the publication.  So they have a New Year's party, and they meet the Eatser Bunny (yes, intentional typo there), and they have a summer holiday, amongst many other adventures.  I wrote about 10 of these stories for the magazine, but never thought about doing anything more with them.

Until now.

I am currently playing the waiting game with a number of literary agents who all have the first 30 pages of my chic lit romcom novel.  I'm just waiting for their rejections.  Waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  And while I'm waiting I thought (well, my mum nagged) that I should tidy up my Lily & Hudson stories and send those off.

I'm not overly confident about doing that.  I know I'm a good writer but I don't think these stories are good enough to be published.  Perhaps I should take a leaf out of Bernard and Manny's book ...

Bernard and Manny write a children's book

(Sorry, I did try to upload the actual video to here, but being computer stupid, it didn't work, so you'll just have to take a trip to youtube)

So today I have been looking through my stories and they are quite good; not brilliant, but quite good.  So I will spend the next week or so rewriting and editing and adding and producing a manuscript that will be submission ready.  I've been brave.  I've sent something off to agents before.  I can do it again.  Right?