Life is all about priorities

When I'm writing for kids, I must lookout! See that I don't end up writing therapy books. Its easy to be top down and weave a moral into my story. Kids can sense this and they switch off. I must write without having to preach. Must write from the heart. I learn my lessons through life's experiences and every story will always have an inherent message when its a true reflection of life itself.

Kids imbibe values very quickly. They learn that life is all about priorities. Their role models are all around them to watch and imitate. Do my parents prioritise us kids or our grandparents? Do they want us to study more or play more? Do they want us to be bookworms and grow up knowledgeble or do they prefer us to mingle with folk and be street smart?

What do I prioritise in my life? Career first and marriage later? Am I able to balance both - because anything in excess is wrong. I must learn to be passionate but not excessive in my tastes, living in moderation and prioritising so that I benefit and in the long run, society benefits.

illustrating for kids

For young kids, we write with more dialogue, less blocks of text, and use simple themes. Just as we change the style of writing according to the age group we target, we do the same when drawing for them.

Let's illustrate for kids. For every age group, the style of illustrating changes - the way we draw a character, the use of colours - Some long shots, some close ups, some top views, some low angled for variety. Water colors, oil pastels or acrylics,No matter what medium we use our final goal is to connect with our audience.

While drawing, for picture books, we know that the illustrations tell half the story. Thw writer must leave some parts unsaid so the illustrator can show it in pictures. We don't mention that the bear is brown, because its there in the pictures.

Then we marry the two - the pictures and the words to get a picture book that tells a story for kids. For older kids its chapter books with medium size text and black and white illustrations as kids now are able to handle more text and less pictures. A novel has no illustrations at all. So which age do we target now?

writing for kids

Folk think that writing for kids is easy. In fact everyone who has told a child a story feels like an author who can be published. Wish it was as simple as that. I find that now that I'm an adult, I need to connect solidly with my childhood and think like a child to write for kids. Being around kids is fun and I can observe their behavior changes according to the environment.

When I write, I must remember that kids don't like big blocks of text unbroken by dialogue. I must eavesdrop often enough to get a feel for how folk talk. Old folk, young folk, country folk, town folk, men folk, women folk and kids all talk differently. I must tune my ears to listen in on conversations - people say things but mean something quite different.

Another thing that attracts kids is action! Kids are all about doing things, getting into scrapes and out again. They love breaking the rules adults have set for them and stretching the limits. I must begin with action or dialogue to hook the kid reader.

Most important, I must write with my senses so that I show and don't tell kids how I feel. Am I hungry because I sniff something roasting on the fire? Does my skin prickle with gooseflesh because I hear a door creek? Do I taste the salt of the sea water when the tide sets in and washes away my sand castle?

I need to go down on all fours and look at things from a kids angle. That's the secret of writing for kids - I must think and feel like a child.

How do I get an idea?

Its my job to have ideas. Its great fun capturing an idea and fleshing it out to make it my own when I write or draw. Ideas are like the air we breathe. They're all around us if we but pause to look at a problem from all angles.

I'm fascinated by folk with ideas - folk who recognise that these unique ideas have a place, and folk who have the guts to make it work. Mahatma Gandhi had an idea. He marched to collect a fistful of salt - but he did it with a silent army of folk and on a historic day- and he made history. Thomas Edison's idea was to meet the needs of common folk through his inventions- making them important to everyday life and affordable - the light bulb, the phonograph- no one realised how many times he failed, because when he did succeed, he made history. Steve Woz had an idea to bring personal computing to the common folk by making it user friendly, and Steve Jobs saw the marketing potential in this idea. Together, the two of them made history.

Kids have the freshest ideas- they're not hampered by experience. Look around you and celebrate anyone with an idea. All ideas have been tried before - its the unique angle- the slant that you take that makes all the difference.

sharing our talents

We all have talents. We must learn to identify the ones we're passionate about and use them to the best of our ability. Once we gain confidence in ourselves through our talents, its a good idea to mentor, share and help others identify theirs. And when we're masters in one field, we could move on to another and another. There's no end to learning and sharing. I started my career as an illustrator, then learnt to write and am now learning to market my writing and illustrating. It's a lot of work and loads of fun. Let's begin now.

EQ or IQ?

Who's the Greatest? I like to emulate folk with a high Emotional Quotient (EQ) which is more important than IQ. Education and experience bring success. Success brings confidence. Confidence breeds arrogance. We tend to forget that everything we do needs teamwork, and the smallest person in our family, office or home can help us succeed. It's important to give everyone importance. Empathy is all about putting ourselves in the other person's shoes.

At work as a Team Leader, I found that the most annoying demotivated engineer on my team could be converted into the most productive, positive guy. I spoke to him as a friend and created the space for him to find expression in meeting his own long term goal. In the bargain, his new positive attitude influenced the rest of the team and my project was a huge success. I didn't do it. They did. Giving everyone importance is all about teamwork. My role model is one who remains humble in the face of success because he knows its a result of good teamwork.

This spirit of cooperation is inbuilt with every tribal community as with the Warli tribals of Maharashtra shown here where all the villagers dance together around the Tarpa player.

self help - A Positive Attitude

I can because I think I can. Experience is a good teacher but its fees are high. Those who want by the mile and try by the yard, should be kicked by the foot. The learning curve is all about trying. The more we fail, the more we know what not to do and that's how we learn. Its the journey that's exciting. Once we've learnt something, we should target new goals that motivate us to learn some more. Mentor others, and encourage them to learn as well.

A Mexican proverb teaches us four ways to handle a problem - Be a rock, doing nothing, saying nothing. Be a tree looking in all directions. Be a mountain lion, fierce and ready to fight. Or be an eagle that flies high and sees the problem as small.