I finished my book!! Pretty much. I’m a caterpillar length away from the finish line. I sent the pages off at 5am the other morning.
I’ve been needling on final art changes for the past few weeks, feeling the droll of a project that has lasted too long, but last week I went into fervent overdrive to deliver final art to my publisher. You may be experiencing déjà vu, remembering me tiredly celebrating the final stage of art development last December. Some bumps in the road caused launch delays and adaptation to publishing’s sailing winds...but this little book is hopefully in your hearts by next summer.
I am the illustrator and writer. This will be my debut book. I live with a very rare and progressive muscle-wasting disease called GNE Myopathy. Time is a constant clicking clock with ticking hands matching every breath and heartbeat. I’ve lived fully, and not ashamed of being disabled, but this experience has broken my heart in more ways than one.
In this book, I give you my heart — all the struggles, feelings of loneliness, isolation, uncertainty, and unworthiness. I know I keep saying so, but I truly can't wait for you to see what I saw so many years ago when I fell. So much of me is evident in this story and how I chose to present such a moment, and I wanted to be careful and nuanced in how I portrayed this part of disability. I sincerely hope you love it.
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No one will know all I’ve gone through to draw this book, from pain. long hours, lack of sleep and insecurity avalanches. Knowing this would be my first and last picture book I draw, I've put everything I have into maintaining the highest quality I could in spite of these broken arms and hands. When I signed this book with a publisher in 2022, I wasn’t sure if this would be the only book I’d illustrate, but with my progressed state I know now it will be which makes this book all the more special.
As someone who is often self-critical — unable to celebrate her own successes — I am proud of accomplishing this. From writing the story to drawing the art to visualizing the style, I’ve done and led all facets which is very rare in the (kid lit) book world, so seeing it all come to life has been beautiful.
*watch compilation clip of picture book concept art and what’s behind the story at: https://youtube.com/shorts/wPt-8f_I018?si=WXKbsIIVXhNbf4Op
I’m hoping I’m near the end, though, truthfully besides the little delay hiccup, I've been incredibly lucky. My editor has basically said “yes” to all the art and ideas I’ve put forward. From what l've heard this is not the typical (childrens) book experience, especially for a debut. So I'm incredibly grateful l've been able to creatively direct this entire book. From the story to the art and style, these parts are usually divided amongst different groups, but because I can write, draw and have experience with branding and vision, including visually pitching, it really has come together the way I envisioned.
I’ve been giddy as I’m near the end, finally adding little details and easter eggs into the pages. Now that the overall vision is completed, scattering these little details is the fun part. Jason eye-rolls me for this attention to details but idiosyncrasies are important. Design and storytelling is about proportions; a hierarchy of details you sequentially prioritize for the viewer to absorb. In design and art, I favor a clean and simple approach, void of unnecessary busyness, or elements that aren’t too loud but maybe seen or felt later. It’s like a discovery process of seeing the most obvious parts of a story, but as you look again and again, you see and understand more.
Stories I read as a kid, and reread as an adult, have so much more meaning as they’ve evolved or rather as I’ve evolved. One of my favorite children’s books as a child was The Giving Tree, but I didn’t realize how beautiful it was until I gained more years. Oddly, more than a few parents have told me they don’t like The Giving Tree, which is shocking because I think it is unbelievably beautiful in its simplicity and human observation; our hubris and selfishness, but also exemplifying the natural human cycle of time.
For a while I was stuck in my book, because I didn't know how to present to kids such a complicated message that had subtext. I worried if kids would understand the metaphor, but then I realized the point is for them to evolve their understanding as they get older. I also think kid’s media and products often speak down to them, as if they can’t handle complicated messages, so I didn’t want to shy away from my message.
This is what is really beautiful about stories, they evolve as we age. We see the details that have been evident in our life all along, but ignored or not understood until much later in our lives when we’re able to see the entire picture.
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Illustrators. One thing I learned through this process is very often the writer is the main name on a childrens or illustrative book, so basically it feels like it’s marketed as the writer’s book and the illustrator just gets mentioned. I dislike this. Many times the illustrator is also paid less than the writer. As someone who illustrated and wrote this picture book, I can say there was far more work illustrating than writing this. I don’t think illustrators and writers should get paid a different amount or receive a hierarchy of attention because they are equally important. If I move write another children’s book in the future, I will be advocating that whatever illustrator I work with gets paid the same.
Overall, art is one of the most respected and disrespected industries I’ve seen. Everyone wants to be an artist and admires the craft, but traditionally no one wants to pay us what we’re worth, expecting our work for very cheap or free. This is most evident now aa we are being replaced with tech (AI) as soon as it was available so they can remove human creatives from the salary list. We already see this happening, and it will happen in the kid lit world as well. The point is to pay artists equally. What artists do is not easy even if we make it look as such. So much of ourselves and years of sweat and tears and poverty goes into crafting a style and perspective. Everything that comes out of our tip, whether a brush or lead or a digital pencil, derives from a lived experience that seeps out of our consciousness. Respect art. Respect artists, and don’t cancel or forget raw human expression and involvement as this AI race moves forward.
***
After I sent the final book pages I felt melancholy. How like me — finding ways not to enjoy my own accomplishments. Why am I like this? So all over the place, and yet so present when my temperature is rising from great passion and vision of what’s possible while simultaneously coated with despair and longing like unsweetened mucus residue.
When I am caught in waves of despondency it can feel like nothing I do matters. When I am caught in creativity, I can’t understand how we can sign off on so much destruction when creating is the way to live. I find it ironic that I have no children and yet I just completed a children’s book. As I was sitting here drawing for the little eyes that might see this, I couldn’t understand a more horrific way of losing my child than to bombs and chaos. I have no children yet need no imagination to know how wrong it is for any parent or human to have to experience this. In reality, this (warring devastation) is happening all the time, and throughout human history, because our hubris doesn’t allow us to get along as we so easily blow each other up with such indignity and disregard for life, but it should never stop being shocking.
When I was sending off the final files a Finneas song popped up on the radio. I loved the words, “That’s what they’ll say about us.” What will the future say about us? Will it say we were too selfish and indifferent to other’s pain and suffering — that our inability to see we all belong to the same tribe and reckless partitioning is what destroyed us?
This is what I want them to say about us: We cared. We tried. We created. We spoke up no matter what “side” was doing wrong. Stop destruction and create meaning instead. We already have so much loss and grief in just the natural cycle of human life, why hurry and expand our demise to greater malicious heights?
I am powerless, so I try to create beauty, understanding, love, vulnerability and empathy through my work and my life. This is all I can do in the immediate moment.
I am not a trained writer. I just write what I know and feel — stemming from advocacy, and how much I want people to understand the disabled experience that has been overly simplified when so much earth exists in our stories. I’ve discovered how much I’ve loved storytelling, and always have, and am most interested in humans and understanding why we are the way with an artsy and creative lens. A million ideas and stories float around my head at any given time; stories I’d love to tell and explore.
There is great sadness knowing this is the first and only book I’ll illustrate. There is sadness in knowing this stage of drawing and art will be yet another thing that slips through my fingers. But this doesn’t mean art and expression is over for me. One of my best skills is adapting, so there will be new ways to create. I’m actually more excited about my artistic potential than ever.
I’m trying to spend the rest of the year practicing finger sketching so I can develop my “Wheel Girl” as I see so much potential in what she could be. As I’ve lost the ability to hold a pen and move my arms, I’ve been mind-focused on installation art ideas for the last couple years. I want to visualize these installation concepts, and an ode disability, the human body and spirit exhibit — fueled by all the stories I’ve heard whether disability, the war torn, abused, isolated, neglected and exploited — all the things I think about while lying awake in this limp body that types into the night with only the glow of my phone screen to backlit my dreams.
I want my voice to reach beyond Instagram. Although most of my work is inspired from disability, who I am is not just about this. I don’t just advocate about disability, I share about the human condition and potential — everything that has come from this experience, but also everything prior to being disabled, is me. Let’s see what happens.
I can’t wait to share this book with all of you..soon…soon it’s going to be book parties, readings, art shows and signings. Next year we’re going to have so much fun together. I sincerely hope you love my little book and help me share it with the world. 🩷 #KamDraws
*More #kamswheelstravels, Art, mini-memoirs and disability & accessibility musings @ https://instagram.com/kamredlawsk