And A Dog Called Bear is Born…….

I’ve always been a scribbler and doodler.  Having started working as a veterinary nurse in West Yorkshire, animals, especially dogs have been a strong feature throughout my life.

Eventually, I jumped ship, completed an English degree, and went onto the world of archives. That’s where I have been lurking for the past 20 plus years, but the writing and drawing has never been far from my side.

They say you should write about what you know best, for me that is kids and dogs! So I did.

Bear was a St Bernard/Newfoundland cross who came into our lives in August 2016, an underweight, lice ridden bundle of patchy fur who grew into the most majestic, incredible creature.

He was hilarious, gentle, loving and clumsy and yet despite his size, he won over anyone who came near him.

Bear developed lymphoma in early 2022, and… I still struggle to say this, we had to say goodbye just after he turned 6.

I’d started writing Bear’s adventures not long after we’d got him. Like all puppies he was full of fun and mischief, he had no idea about his size, and he grew like a weed! He had a special bond with my son, they were buddies through and through, two boys who caused chaos and laughter wherever they went.

Developing these stories, illustrating Bear and sharing his antics was our way as a family of dealing with the huge hole left in our lives. Remembering the amazing [and sometimes downright grotty] things helped my kids to talk about him, to laugh and cry.

With children’s books, I guess we think they are a doddle to write, I mean they’re short stories aren’t they? I’d read enough of them over the years, surely it wouldn’t take long, would it? Pah, what a foolish notion!

Trawling through the internet opened up a world of things I hadn’t even thought of, font type, accessible layout, key word or text size. On and on went the searches of ‘best whatever for kid’s books’.

The stories were all there, written in notebooks, scribbled on the back of envelopes and on scrunched up bits of paper. I felt a bit like Inspector Frost, searching for that paragraph under the car seat or the rough sketch I knew I’d done but had maybe thrown out with the sweet wrappers.

Making sure the language was right, key words for KS1, no accidental rude words [who knew Rub-a-Dub in the tub had hidden meanings] the list goes on. I am so grateful for my small panel of very honest parents and teachers who pointed out that I had on occasion, gone into grown-up rambling territory. Pointing out that I would lose children’s interest by traversing off of the story line and that I had committed the ‘odd’ typo. It was invaluable feedback but you have to listen to it, take it on board and decide whether or not it is a worthy passenger on your voyage.

I’m also very grateful to my granddaughter who sent me videos of her reading the drafts. Now, she is a good reader for her age but reading some sentences, she was almost going blue just trying to get through them……they were way too long! A kid’s panel was a must, they are devastatingly honest and you must develop the hide of a rhino or have plenty of tissues for those tears.

Another thing that came up was accent and dialect. I don’t originally come from Yorkshire, but I’ve been here that long now that my accent is more Yorkshire than I’d realised. It slipped into my writing on more than one occasion, which is great if your audience can get to grips with it, but I had to stand back and read it from a different angle to be sure. It was interesting, seeing how much of this great Shire had slipped into my work and my words.

Originally, I’d asked a friend to illustrate Bear, he politely declined. As he quite rightly pointed out, I knew Bear, I knew what I wanted his illustration to look like and therefore, I was the best person to create him….. or maybe my list of ‘must have’s’ and ‘must not have’s’ was a bit too much!

All I can say is that I was lucky enough to have a huge sketch book because the amount of, let’s call them drafts, is ridiculous. I got to a point where I was drawing him in my dreams, waking up at 3am thinking ‘Nope, that one is rubbish, looks like a squashed squirrel, he needs……’ 3am became a regular occurrence.

The eyebags will hopefully diminish but as I start on the next book, I’m thinking the eye bags might just be here to stay!

This is a journey of learning, and I will keep on learning as I go along. When I started out, I thought that having kids, reading to them like you do, that I’d know much more than I did. I think the key is to listen, to ask for feedback and be willing to keep on learning and developing. Oh, and don’t be easily offended, as mentioned, children are far more honest than adults and tend not to have the ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings’ button!

Bear has many more stories to be shared, so it’s onto the next I go. The hope is that I’m more aware of some of the mistakes I’ve made writing and illustrating this [better filing system for notes would be a good start]

And as for the self publishing….. I’ll share my journey of that soon. For now, let’s just say that for me, it was worse than being stuck on a road to nowhere with the petrol gauge flashing.

So, mistakes…. will I make less of them this time round…. is this next book going to be a little easier to put together….. I’ll keep you posted.