For the past couple of months I have been doing a course called Writing For Children. My thoughts on children's literature shall be discussed in my next blog but when I write for children I like it to be a bit controversial and scary. Mary and Max - from what I could gather - is not a children's film but could appeal to them - it would certainly have appealed to me if I was younger, not just because of the quirkiness of the film but because how 'on the line' it was. In one scene Max talks about a fish's anus to a young girl. My older self was a bit like "hmm this is a bit odd" when my younger self would have laughed and continued with the strangeness of the tale.
But when I watched it all I could think of was "wow this is really inspiring." I had already previously toyed with the idea of writing some more children's books - picture books to be exact with my friend Sophie illustrating them - but after watching this I was defiantly keen to begin. I think the mood I want to portray in the next picture books is the same uncertainty as the last but make it more steam-punk. Listening to Vivaldi will give me the thought process I want.
Andy's Drawer was about a boy who is bullied so to become "sharper" he decides to sleep in a knife drawer which makes him stand up to his bullies. (This idea came from my friend Dom who said I had been sleeping in the knife drawer because I was being very sharper - a phrase I had never heard of until then.) Now, however, I think I will write one about a friendship - inspired by Mary and Max, of course, but have a different feel to it.
Now I'm more typing my thoughts as oppose to actually saying what I am going to write but all in good time. In my next two blogs I'll talk about my thoughts on children's literature and I'll put some snippets of the picture book up. My next picture book, however, will have to be floating around in my mind for a while as I have an essay on nineteenth century literature - oh the joy.
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