Welcome aboard! Here you will find a chronicle of my experiences while learning how to create and complete a children’s book by doing just that. This site will include posts describing my frustrations (hopefully many so I grow sufficiently) and my triumphs as I endeavour to create the story Our 1984 – Shelter. This story is somewhat autobiographical in nature as it centers around 2 brothers in the year…you guessed it…1984. I’m pulling from my own life experience to put together a story that will hopefully describe the bond between the two boys. It is my vision to have a series of books under the title Our 1984 featuring these two characters, the first of which will be subtitled Shelter.

I’ve been at the process of creating this book for a good few months now and was inspired by reading the blog Project Waldo. Nate Simpson’s blog is dedicated to his process of creating a comic book. I was so delighted to read his posts and glean incite into his journey that I felt compelled to do something of a similar nature here. I hope that my process can be as inspirational and interesting to some of you out there as his has been to me.

Really this process was birthed quite a while back when I was sitting in my basement office working on something visual; graphic design or something. I was listening to a sermon by a preacher in California from Mosaic Church, Erwin McManus. He was preaching on dreams. No, not like riding a golden dolphin in the sky (which my daughter told me she dreamt about), but aspirations, goals, desires. He asked a few questions in his sermon that got me thinking.

1. Why are you doing what you’re doing?
2. How could you do more of what you love and less of what you tolerate?
3. What life changes or choices would create the most good from you’re life?
4. Have you allowed God to give you life as a gift to you?

Deep stuff right?! Well that got me thinking about a great many aspects of my life, the relevant aspect here being my career. I think I decided in that moment that I was going to FINALLY do something that I’ve always wanted to do, create a kids book. I’ve always loved stories and story telling and love the imagination and where it can take us. In my day to day work I am provided with many opportunities to be creative, but it’s always under the pretense of a clients wishes or needs. This book will give me the opportunity to express something other. It will be a vehicle by which I can share some of my childhood experiences, which I believe may touch on a universal level with whomever may read it. By simply doing this book I am already achieving question number two. I love to draw, I love to tell stories and I love to create and challenge myself. Of course in the process of doing number two in the aforementioned list I find life becoming busier…there are only so many hours in a day and I am running a business and have two small children and a wife at home. This brings me to number three. I’ve recently, painfully, stowed away my playstation 3 and nintendo wii to free up some need time to complete these lofty goals of mine. Oh so painful! Sometimes life requires us to make the challenging decisions and this has been one of them. I’ll pick up gaming again at some point but not for now. As for number four, well yes I’ve allowed God to give me life as a gift but I’d like life with a capital L in my career. Though I will continue to do graphic design (it’s great I love it) I truly desire to be an illustrator, this is one small step toward that life long goal.

I’ll get to posting some of the visuals of my story here soon. I’ve got a few roughs and early character concept sketches and drawings that I’ll scan and post. I’ve come to a solid direction for the artwork and have a really clear concept and layout for the book as a whole. Well, the interior that is. I’ve finished a script and rough page layout which may evolve as the process deepens.

I’ve yet to do a great deal of research into the process of publishing a book and the question of whether to self publish or find a publisher. I personally would like it if I could find a publisher who would like to take the book on… I think it would be less of a headache in the long run. However as you can probably tell… I have no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to publishing. I am more than open to people posting advice and comments on this blog. Please, please, please feel free to comment on the posts you see here. I always find that constructive criticism improves the end result of a piece, and I hope in some small way that my journey can become your journey too.

Well. Thanks for tuning in. Here we go!

Blessings

Corey