Fan Mail Corner #014: 4 Queries from Max

Max aspires to be an author, but first, he has questions

Hello friends,

Hope you are well and enjoying a nice long weekend. It’s been all fresh pesto, blueberries, and watermelon around here. My kids are lately obsessed with Miyazaki movies - especially My Neighbor Totoro, which has been a nice change from Frozen-related content. But I digress . . .

For this week’s ‘stack, we have some good old fashioned FAN MAIL, in fact, we have two pieces!

The first is from Amalia, and she has sent a wonderful drawing of Kroc from The Watermelon Seed. Isn’t it great? Thanks so much, Amalia!

Artwork by Amalia

And next, we have a letter from a young reader named Max:

I couldn’t get a great photo of Max’s letter, so I have transcribed it below:

Dear Greg Pizzoli,

My name is Max, and I love your book on pizza and your Baloney and Friends books. I want to be an author, so can you give me any tips? Like . . .

• How should I get over a writers block?

• Should I get a degree in business to pitch my books to publishers?

• How do you personally find inspiration?

• Do you have any other tips for me? If so, what are they?

From,
Max Ritchey

P.S. I included a pre-paid envelope with this letter so you can reply.

—

Thanks for the letter, Max! And thank you about my books, too. I think you ask some great questions here, and I’ll do my best to answer in a way that satisfies:

• How should I get over a writer’s block?

  
  I have two answers for this one - and I don’t want to you think I’m being flip about it - but I think this is actually pretty simple. The first thing to do is to read. Just read more books. You’ll get ideas. You won’t steal ideas from other books, of course, but just reading other stuff will give you new ideas.
  
  Trust me, it works.
  
  The other thing to do is to set a time every day, or every couple of days, whatever you can manage - and write. I tend to write whenever I can, whenever I am not drawing or parenting - but in order to actually get those ideas into a piece of writing that I can show someone else, I need to work on them - and for me, that requires a schedule. Lately I have been writing in the mornings, and the process is that I sit in my chair and write.
  
  A lot of the time I write something I wasn’t expecting to - some new idea comes to me as I am writing. So just write whatever and after a while, you’ll be writing, if that makes any sense.

  

• Should I get a degree in business to pitch my books to publishers?

  
  

  I have no idea if you should get a degree in business in general, but you definitely don’t need a degree in business to pitch books to publishers. And while I think it’s good to be thinking about the business side of the business, I also think you might be getting ahead of yourself.
  
  Focus on writing, story, finding a voice, making good work. Writing can be a tough career - you should make sure you really love it.

• How do you personally find inspiration?
  
  Personally, I read a lot. I have been writing a graphic novel, and so I have been reading a lot of those, just to see what I like, what I think works, and what doesn’t. It’s OK to be inspired by something NOT working for you. It’s just about developing your taste. Some things will connect with you and some things won’t. No judgement from me.
  
  Besides reading, I listen to music. I go for walks. I exercise. I play video games. I spend time with my wife and kids. I go to flea markets. I eat ice cream. I do laundry. I cook. I wash the dishes. I build Lego. To be honest I just live my life, and I don’t wait for inspiration.
  
  What you might be thinking of as “inspiration” is actually just results, and that will likely come from you setting a schedule and sitting down to write on a regular basis.
  

  
  And finally, Max asks:
  
  

• Do you have any other tips for me? If so, what are they?

  
  I actually do have a tip for you, and this may be a two birds/one stone kind of thing: But I think you should keep a journal.
  
  It will get you writing everyday, it will help you remember things, and it will help you to notice things. All of those things should help you on your path to one day being a writer.

  
  Thanks for those great questions, Max! Please let me know when your book is available for pre-order, I’d like to read it.

  
  
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  Thanks for being a subscriber and taking a look every once in a while.
  
  If you have a question about how I made something (or really whatever) you’d like answered, please email me at jgpizzoli@gmail.com or send snail mail to:

  
  Greg Pizzoli’s Fan Mail Corner
  700 S 7th Street
  Fishbox #5445
  Philadelphia PA 19147
  USA

  
  This is Greg Pizzoli's Fan Mail Corner. Thanks for being here!

  
  And don’t forget to check out my latest book, Lucky Duck! Available everywhere quality picture books are sold. Thank you!