Frequently Asked Questions

Want to know more about me? Here are some answers to questions I get asked all the time.

Where do you get your ideas?

I don't know where they come from. I don't think I was born with them, because when I look at pictures of myself at, say, two months old, it's obvious that there are no ideas in there. But by a year or so I look as though I've got plenty of ideas, not all of them wise.

Like weeds in watered gardens, ideas occur naturally in people who are paying attention to the world around and inside them, and wondering about it.

Wait a minute, you say -- I do that, and I still don't have great ideas!

But are you writing down your wonderings? Do you keep a journal, in a blank sketchbook so you can switch from words to drawings, doodles, or scotch-taped cartoons when you feel like it? Do you haul it around with you all the time, until it gets coffee and salsa and cat barf on it?

Do that. Later, when you go back through your journal you'll find it bristling with ideas for projects of all sorts. You'll also be able to revisit who you were at twenty or forty, and weep with embarrassment and love.

Do you have kids?

Nope. If I had kids I wouldn't have time to write for kids. But I have two nieces who eat live squid.

Do you have pets?

I have a spotted ground squirrel named Yashi (that's him on the left). I rescued him as a baby and he thinks I'm his mom. His favorite lunch is a live, wildly buzzing cicada -- it's like watching somebody eat an alarm clock.

Do you have any hobbies?

My favorite is hiking in the desert and picking things up off the ground. Sounds weird, but on the ground in the desert there are lots of really cool rocks. I have so many rocks, my house would never blow away in a hurricane.

It was hard hiking in the desert that helped me learn how to write novels.

Honest.

Because if you're on a twelve-mile hike with your friends, and you're six miles out, and you're exhausted and thirsty and you have a blister and a sunburn and a cactus spine in your behind, are you going to lie down and wail, "I can't go on!"?

Nope. You'll keep trudging to the end, because a.) you don't want to be a wimp in front of your friends and b.) Search and Rescue won't send the helicopter unless you fall off a cliff.

Writing a novel takes much longer than hiking twelve desert miles, but they're alike in several ways. Both require that you doggedly keep going. They take you into country you've never seen before -- sometimes into country that nobody has seen before. And the scenery is fantastic.

Writing a novel will also threaten your behind, but only with sitting. That's when you get up, go out, and hike.

What made you decide to be a writer and illustrator?

My brother says it's because I wouldn't put down the Crayolas. Probably this was because he wanted to use them next. (I never practiced the piano except when he wanted to play it.)

I always wanted to be a writer, but I was afraid to admit it because I figured writers are famous people and I wasn't. Also I thought you had be be a really good writer, right away, without being a slowly-getting-better writer first.

Third-grade poetry: "Mr. Grumpy's Dream"

Illustration wasn't as scary for me. I liked drawing frogs, goofy little kids, and princes being gnawed by dragons. I liked learning songs like Sweet Betsy from Pike and then illustrating them. In my family we always made homemade birthday cards, too.

After college I got jobs doing illustration. But secretly I wrote tons of poetry and kept a journal in which I wrote anything I felt like. I drew pictures of kids in the laundromat while I waited for my clothes to dry. One day I found, to my surprise, that I'd gotten really good at both drawing and writing, almost without noticing.

In spite of never getting to use the crayons, my brother Chris became a talented musician, teacher, video producer, and Web designer. Many thanks go to him and to his wife, Jan, for the design of this Web site.

Why do other people sometimes illustrate your books? Doesn't that bother you?

My illustrations are usually lively and bright. But sometimes I'll write a story whose mood is deep, dark, and quiet. When I do, my publisher finds an illustrator whose style matches it -- for example, Flashlight, a nighttime story that was illustrated by Stacy Schuett.

I don't mind at all. It's fun to see what somebody else's imagination does with my words.

My studio is never tidy.

How long does it take you to write or illustrate a book?

A picture book might take a couple of weeks to write, but then I have to let it "cool off" for a while before I can see it objectively and begin to revise it. Sometimes I let it cool off for years before I show it to anybody.

Illustrating a picture book takes six months or so.

A novel takes about a year to write and rewrite. Sometimes it takes longer, if the imaginary places I'm discovering keep expanding. (This is a geologic process, similar to continental plate formation along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.)

Both picture books and novels will be read many times by my editor and art director before they're finished.

The editor and art director are my pre-audience. They catch my mistakes, help me keep my writing clear, and push me to imagine new things. I'm eternally grateful to the editor who noticed, in a rough draft, that I'd drawn all the kids with six fingers.

What was your first book?

What's That Room For? It's about a bossy little girl who is supposed to clean up her room. One book on that topic was enough.

What is your favorite of all your books?

The one I'm working on right now. Which varies.

What are your favorite children's books?

That's like asking, "What are your favorite kisses? Your favorite kittens? Your favorite summer mornings when the mourning doves are cooing and the air smells like new rain?"

But if you really want to know...click here

Do you have any advice for people who want to become writers or illustrators?

I wish I'd gone to art school. But mostly I wish I'd been braver, sooner, and more often.

There's no "right" way to become a writer or an illustrator. (All too often we're trying to match our insanely unrealistic expectations.) Everyone does it differently. Probably you're doing it right enough.

If you want to write, write lots. Poetry. Letters. A journal. (I'm on journal number one hundred and ninety something -- they have their own special bookcase.)

If you want to illustrate, draw lots. Kids in the laundromat. Your houseplants. Your cats, brothers, neighbors, car.

Talk with other writers, hang out with other illustrators. Scratch each others' heads. You're not competing, you're problem-solving. If people try to compete with you, quietly go away from them. (They're going to get mean wrinkles, have rotten marriages, and die young). Stick with the affectionate, funny, sharing ones. Art isn't a grabbing contest. It's a rigorous community of voices that say, in words and drawings, "This is my take on what it's like to be alive. What's yours?"

Keep gnawing at whatever seems important to you. Take notes, problem-solve with friends, work and read and wonder and play. If you're earnestly and steadily engaged in writing and drawing and sharing, you've already arrived at 99% of being a writer-illustrator.

"But I want to be published!"

Of course you do. Write, draw, and share sturdily enough, long enough, and you will be published. When you are, you'll find that your life still consists of writing, drawing, and sharing. You had it all already. Enjoy it now.

Will you read my manuscript?

Nope.

If you weren't a writer and illustrator, what would you do?

I think I'd be an archaeologist, because I love garbage dumps. (They have to be older than l960, though).

Or maybe I'd be a linguist, and study all the weird words humans invent.

Or I might adopt four kids, make sure they had lots of art supplies, and get them to teach me all the verses to I See London, I See France. I'd live to regret it, my hair would turn white, and I'd grow wise.

How do you think up the names of people and places for your books?

I don't know. They're there already. One of the reason I like the writing of Ursula K. Le Guin so much (and if you want to write fantasy you'd better read The Language of the Night) is that she knows that the places fantasists write about already exist, in the subconscious.

For a truly in-depth answer, click here

What are you working on now?

Like most freelancers, I work on several projects at once. The biggest one right now is the next novel in my series, The Seeker Chronicles. I'm working on a middle-grade chapter book and having fun doing school visits. Just for myself, I'm painting a series of watercolors, to explore ideas that will later show up in my books.

And as always I'm doing a lot of writing and illustration for books and magazines. Be sure to check the "by-lines" of the stories and illustrations in your schoolbooks -- what you're reading or looking at might be by me!