Finally, I'm almost finished putting my second book together. The manuscript has been changed at least twelve times, going from a picture book, to a wordless book, and then back to a picture/word combination.

 This is one of the earlier versions - without words and over forty drawings.

Although I love wordless picture books and admire how talented artists can tell the story through the medium of illustrations alone, I eventually decided that method was not going to work for my book.

Throughout the process, I found that dummy books were a valuable way of figuring out what works and what doesn't. When the images were combined with the words on pages that turn, it was much easier to see how the finished book will look, instead of relying on the computer.

After returning to the original concept, I settled on the final text and have now completed all of the twenty-two illustrations. The next stage is to send the manuscript and drawings off to the printers - very exciting!