![]() Then, once we get the illustrations back, we’ll sit back down with the manuscript and go through and edit it. Generally, anything that she draws is because Erin and I tell her happening. I’ll tell her what chapters we’re writing, and I’ll send her art instructions I want her to create. It’s exciting, and I think they like working with me, too.Īnd your older daughter, Erin, helps out, too? You started out illustrating the Dork Diaries, but now your younger daughter, Nikki, has taken over the illustration. Of course, is not as complicated as if you were writing, say, a fantasy. #DORK DIARIES AUTHOR SERIES#Sometimes, people who write series will say that they have a hard time keeping up with characters, or keeping up with what’s happened. We’ll have a deadline for a first draft, a deadline for a second draft, and a deadline for edits. The most challenging is the grueling schedule. What are some challenges of writing a series? ![]() It’s worth the headache and worth the grueling schedule. We have a book that comes out in June and another that comes out around October every year. I don’t know how it comes out like that! But that’s what’s been happening for the last five or six years. We’re publishing two books a year, but that means we’re actually writing three books a year. What’s the pace of publishing the Dork Diaries? I’m most comfortable in that environment. And, of course, middle-grade is Disney and Nickelodeon, and it’s good and clean and still really sweet. I found that being a mom, middle-grade is really comfortable for me because I don’t have to get into the things that young adults start to experiment with. How difficult is it to write for that audience? But now that they’re older, I usually talk to my nieces, who are now tweens. Even with the slang, I have to run it by my daughters. ![]() Now that they’re grown up and on their own, I do have to work a little bit harder to stay current. When I was just starting to get into this, I thought, This is what I’ve been living for many years. In the series, you capture the voice of kids in middle school, especially girls, so well. Maybe I can actually get something published. They would say, “Oh, this is so funny, I cried,” or, “I was laughing at work,” or, “I was laughing on the bus,” or, “I let my daughter read this and she thought it was really good.” I got such very, very positive feedback that I thought, Hmm. And when I did, I would get such positive reinforcement from the group. I didn’t have a manuscript, but I would swap chapters. To help support each other, we would do manuscript swaps. ![]() That’s when I started to seriously think about writing again, and I joined an online book club-an African-American children’s writers group. But around the time my kids got to high school, I stopped doing those little hobby books and was basically working my butt off trying to get them through college.ĭuring the time they were in college, I was alone at home and had a lot of spare time. ![]()
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