Monsoon in Paperback at Nearly 20!

Beneath the words, there is a story.

Some words will speak clearly from the start. Others are connective tissue, still others only temporary place-holders. They are not the story, just part of the process.

Underneath them all, there’s a story, and that’s the thing I need to try and find. That’s what I tell myself when I’m hacking through the thickets of revision, when it sometimes feels as if, to quote the immortal Milo in The Phantom Tollbooth, I’m “solving useless problems, or subtracting turnips from turnips.”

But last week, I received my author copies of the new paperback edition of Monsoon, my very first picture book, now released in a special edition set of backlist books by BIPOC creators. And I was reminded how this picture book began its life as a 12-line poem with no characters in it. Almost the entire book took shape in revision.

I went back and looked at early drafts. I found a 2001 file with feedback on a draft from my writing group, suggesting I reorder the information in the back matter, think about the passage of time, pay attention to transitions, deepen sensory impressions, and so on. Quite a lot more along those lines, in fact, and a good reminder that even with this book that has, oh, maybe 500 words, no more, I still had to work to find the story beneath.