Writing Children's Books

Cousin Gillian said in a visit the other day she thought I might be suited for writing children's books.  At first I didn't think too much of the idea as a lot of my stories are riddled with freaks blowing joints.  I had also been recently disgusted by the children's books being written by Callista Gingrich as I regard them as blatant propaganda with a rightist agenda.

But then I look at "What Would Dogs Do" and it's safe for children.  No-one is going to be getting stoned.  There won't be any sex in it and blah, blah, blah.  Maybe my cuz is right.  Even so, without even having written the later parts yet, I can assure you the story is not going to turn into Disney with talking rabbits and singing elephants.

It's a huge mistake to patronise children as their capacity to learn is much higher than most credit to them.  Lotho's granddaughter is only three and she's learning two languages (e.g. English and Spanish).  Europeans may smile and say of course she is but it's fairly radical in America.

Perhaps I have an agenda as well as the Evil Bankers are going to appear in this.  I don't know that this is such a terrible thing as it's hardly an uncommon role they occupy in stories many people tell.  I don't have any political agenda as anything that leads to peace, love and happiness is good while anything that does not is bad.  If that's political, so be it.

Even if the story winds up for children, it still needs some art to it as Cat is the first one to please in anything I write.  That doesn't mean it will turn dark as the last poem I wrote was something only she saw and it freaked her right out.  It wasn't just dark but rather it was at the bottom of a coal mine.  There's no need for that in "What Would Dogs Do" so we'll see what comes.

There is a written outline and I'm serialising the bits from it into the blog.  It isn't complete as I'm letting it evolve as I go along.

I can't really tell what people do with the blog but I know an incredible number of people read it.  Google gives some idea of where you are as to which country but it's only an aggregate, it doesn't tell me anything about individuals.  It also doesn't give me a very good idea of what you read.  It gives a brief report on which articles are being read but these statistics only account for a small percentage of total reading so it's really not clear what draws you.  What that tells me is to keep on writing and bag the statistics but I can't help being curious about that sort of thing.

Really the only question to me is whether I'm writing one book or two.  The stoned-out stories from the old days are hardly suitable for children so mixing them with "What Would Dogs Do" wouldn't be appropriate at all.  What the hell, we shall see.


(Ed:  What about the music?)

I don't know why but my ears are ringing like air-raid sirens.  I'm also deeply-concerned about anyone knowing I'Ve got the guitar in here in case some punk thinks it would be a good idea to steal it.  I'll play again as soon as I get to Texas as there are speakers down there and they are vastly less destructive to hearing than headphones.  I have NO intention of dropping music and greatly look forward to when I can play again, most particularly for Cat and hopefully for you all.