Chasing Seuss’s Magic
Follow a poem as it goes into the teeth of design techniques and bears the blunt feedback of sticky third graders before being rescued by a talented illustrator and coddled by a wannabe entrepreneur.
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“Book promotion never ends,” I vented to the few sets of ears in the corner of the worn down bookstore. I have not been to a therapy session or a drug rehab meeting but the same personal disappointment that I imagine people feel during those experiences tugged at me now. I pretended to be happy about the opportunity to speak at a local bookstore that early in the morning, with the sagging bookshelves and smell of second-hand-everything. This wasn’t your quirky brand of independent bookstore — the kind that makes second-hand things look fun and part of a communal vibe. Instead, the owners of this bookstore stuffed the innards with mismatched shelves and furniture scouted at garage sales. A handful of local authors filed into the store that morning, ready to read and chat with a group of parents and kids who were supposed to have shown up for the children’s book panel. Unfortunately, nobody showed. To make the most of it (and because I’m nobody, anyway), I stayed and told my story to a group of my new peers, whose backgrounds varied from high-powered Machiavellian PTA moms to folksy, bearded, I-find-stuff-in-the-woods-with-my-dogs-types. After getting into character (I don’t wake up charming…just handsome), I told the group a caffeinated version of how a poem I wrote transformed into a children’s book. The upshot of my message: a creative work, like a poem, song, or painting, lives a life of its own, changing as the creative process unfolds. Few people know the journey that creative works take to arrive at their final forms. And to appreciate a creative work to its fullest, it helps to understand the processes, experiences, and the luck that shape it. That’s a story you don’t hear often, which is why I shared it with the leaky ceiling and stained carpet that day in the bookstore, and why I’m telling it here.
Part 1: Frustration on paper
I sat down and nudged the greasy, balled up breakfast sandwich wrapper into the corner of my desk. My roommate’s snores penetrated the wall and filled the…
