Back in 2003 I was busy creating art for fun activity books. One of my assignments was a coloring book simply titled "Baby Animals." For my own entertainment, I decided to set a challenge for myself. Could I design the book so that each page had an animal with a unique baby name? For example, one coloring page would feature a "Calf," another page a "Chick," another page a "Cub." Could I do 24 pages with no repeats?Once I started researching, I was astounded at the baby animal names I discovered! Now, we all know that baby dogs are "Puppies" and baby cats are "Kittens." But do you know what baby platypuses have been called? Are you ready for this? Puggles! I kid you not! Baby mice are "Pinkies," baby oysters are "Spats," and baby eels are "Elvers." I fell in love with this wonderful nonsense, rooted in reality.
After the coloring book was done, these wonderful words stayed with me. The phrase "I'm a Puggle, You're a Puggle" popped into my head, and I knew I had a children's book. I didn't care what form it took. I love nonsensical words, and I just wanted to author a book with the word "Puggle" in the title.
To organize these wonderful critters I'd collected, I took my list of 54 baby animals and worked them into a poem. Here's a verse:I'm a PUGGLE, you're a PUGGLE
KIT and PINKY, PORCUPETTE
What's a CRIA?
Who's a JOEY?
HATCHLINGS race the LEVERET
I wrote my story in 2005 and started shopping it around soon after. Over the years I created a variety of potential art styles for it. Whichever style was ultimately chosen didn't matter much to me. I just wanted to author a book with "Puggle" in the title.
At last, the fine folks at Walker Books decided to publish "I'm a Puggle, You're a Puggle." It is interesting (and highly unusual) to note that over all those years and after all those pitches, the story has remained nearly identical to Draft Number One set down on December 21, 2005. A few animals have been shuffled around or swapped out. But the book has remained virtually unchanged. With two big exceptions:
Ha ha! You can't win them all. In the end it was decided that a cluster of baby ducks has much more appeal than a platypus and an echidna. A platypus and a what??? My point exactly. I wholeheartedly agree with the change to "Chuckling Ducklings." And at least I get to use the line "I'm a Puggle, You're a Puggle" inside the book right? Oh wait... that was change number two:
It's the one and only line of text from the whole book that fell under the editor's knife. But on the bright side... we've jumped from two appearances of the word Puggle on the spread to three appearances! Yes! More Puggle for the buck!
So look for inspiration everywhere -- you may find your muse in a coloring book or in the name of a baby animal. And as you craft your works, I suggest you cling tightly to a passion (nonsense words!) but hold loosely to specific details (formats, titles, lines of text).
