Lecture by Salvatore Rubbino, Reflecting on my own idea and Rhyming...

This lecture was one of the few that I could sit through without drawing the whole time. I like Salvatore, he's a really nice guy and his books are awesome. He always gives a great insight into the way he works. As you can see, I made actual notes. You may also see a spot of (vegan) lasagne on my sketchbook in the bottom right hand corner. Totally not relevant to this post.


Anyway, after the lecture I felt inspired to get some work done. Earlier in the day I had jotted down some rough rhyme ideas for the book I'm working on. I've been putting off writing the actual story properly since the rework of the first script, so when I got home I thought I'd dabble with rhyming just to help imagine how the story would read. It turns out that it really isn't bad at all! It will need work and it's certainly worth considering breaking up the rhyming portions with structured, repetitive elements. My "muse" (not muse) suggested that the rhyming should perhaps tell the more interesting elements of the story. I do think that the whole book may become a little heavy if ALL of it is written in rhyme, but for now I'm just going to keep going and see how it works out. Here are my first two little attempts that I jumped out of the shower to write down...

Emily loved animals

She loved the squishy ones
She loved the hairy ones
She loved the fishy ones
And even the scary ones


Then...


Would you like being alone?
Locked up, looked at, far from your home?


But then I whacked out all of this...

Now, this here is a story about how a girl

Named Emily decided to help change the world.

It began near the woods, in a cute little home,

The girl sat with her dog, the mum sat with her phone.

“Today, Jess” said the girl, “We are going to find…

“… Some new cute woodland friends, since we’ve both got the time.”

So she put on her wellies, her coat, scarf and hat

Put the lead on the dog and said bye to the cat

Her mum called to her “sweety, now don’t you go far…

Stay inside the garden and don’t go past the car.”

But, see, Emily had other plans for that day,

So she snuck through a gap in the fence to go play.

Outside in the woods there were birds in the trees

There were squirrels on branches and bugs on the leaves.

Emily said “Hello!” to each one that she saw

Then off they would vanish to be seen no more.

It was on this same day that the two good friends found,

Some big scary footprints, pressed deep in the ground.

“Who on Earth has made these!?” Said the brave little girl,

“Come on Jess, let’s find them!”  Now the tale can unfurl.

Now, for a first attempt, I think this is pretty good.

After another lengthy discussion with my (not) "muse" and after the lecture with Salvatore, simplicity has never seemed so important. As I discussed in my FIRST blog post, veganism as a concept isn't tricky but it really isn't as simple as saying "be nice to animals".
Most (if not all) people would say that they like animals. They would also say that they are kind to animals. They would also CONSUME animals and use animal products. This is the point that the book needs to focus on. Emily LOVES animals, but eats them. This will be the question that she has to explore in order to begin her journey into veganism. As Sam pointed out to me, the dietary habits are the first things to change when we become vegan. Everything follows from that. You drop meat, dairy and eggs from your diet and suddenly you drop every animal product. It's the dietary habits that people are so resistant to changing. With that in mind, this book will focus on that one question - "How can you love animals and eat them?"

This prevents the book from becoming too overwhelming for children. The concept is simple and it's the starting point. I'm also trying to think of an easy way to get the overall message into the book, even if only mentioned once. That message being that animals are not ours to exploit in any way whatsoever. I suppose if the creature mentions that he's vegan then the little girl can ask what that means and he can throw that in her face (not literally) (maybe literally) (not really). 

So, apologies for this incredibly long and wordy blog post. I certainly do more writing than drawing these days. I will continue with my rhyming story for now! Oh yeah, I'm already able to visualise pages that I couldn't before as a direct result of writing in rhyme. So that's good!