A fail-safe way to find your picture book idea

(If only!)

I wish I had one fantastic fail-safe method for finding picture book ideas; wouldn’t that be handy? I could tell you now, and we’d all be sorted. But no.

I do know that if we make the conditions right: plump the brain cushions and arrange some nibbles on the imaginary coffee table, the ideas will arrive. The trick is to recognise them and catch them on paper before they leave.

Smelly Peggy - started on a flip chart on school visits. Bottom left: Maria Tunney and I patting the idea into shape. Top right: a sketch by my publisher: Deirdre McDermott for a possible cover idea.

How to make right conditions

Ideas come in those drifty times when we don’t even realise that our brains have clocked out to have a play.