The image above was one of the first illustrations that I did myself. Initially, I was very enthusiastic about sketching the illustrations, so I took my time. 

In the image below, which is towards the end of the book, I realized that drawing was not my thing. My enthusiasm for illustration dwindled, and I ended up drawing stick figures for the rest of the book. 

After I sent the illustrator a "mock up" version of my book, including the text and my stick-figure drawings, he provided me with a full set of pencil sketches to look over.

Once I approved the pencil sketches, the illustrator then provided me with the full-color illustrations.

The entire illustration process took about three months or so to complete. It was exciting to see the book come to life with each completed illustration.

A BOOK IS BORN . . .

Fall of 2006

The first time I saw my daughter, Lexie, talking to her imaginary friend, she was a little over two years old. She and I were outside playing when I saw her holding something in her hand. She walked over to her swing set, placed this “something” onto the swing, and then began pushing the swing, as if someone were on it. I asked her what she was doing, and she answered, “I’m pushing LaLa.” Not knowing what she meant, I asked her what a ‘LaLa’ was. She then reached toward the swing, as if she were picking something up, held out her hand and said, “This is LaLa.” There was nothing there.

At first I thought she was pretending to play with my nephew, Manny. His Greek name is “Manoli," and when Lexie first started talking, she couldn’t pronounce it, so she started calling him LaLa. At that time, she really didn’t know many kids her age, but she did spend a lot of time with my nephew. So I think when she created and named her imaginary friend, LaLa was probably the first name that came to her.

February, 2007

One day as I watched Lexie having a conversation with her imaginary friend, LaLa, I decided to write down some of the things that she said and did with him. I thought it would make a cute keepsake for her someday when she was a little older and her imaginary friend was no longer around. It was when I was jotting down these notes that the idea struck me that this might make a cute children’s book. So in addition to the notes that I jotted down, I began writing a fictional story—and the idea for the book was born. The story started off a lot longer, and with a couple of extra adventures, so it had to be revised a bit to make sure it was a suitable length for a picture book.

March - August 2007

Because this story was inspired by my daughter, and her imaginary friend, it was close to my heart. I knew I wanted total creative control over the story, and the only way to do that was to try to publish it myself.

I started researching the many different Print-on-Demand publishers that were out there and what kind of publishing packages they had to offer. After narrowing it down to just two, I finally decided to go with Outskirts Press because they had a good reputation, and their publication packages seemed to fit my needs.

I submitted my manuscript to Outskirts Press for review.

The manuscript is accepted for publication.

I struggled with what I wanted the imaginary friend to look like. I had asked Lexie what LaLa looked like, to see if she could give me some ideas, but since she didn’t really have the vocabulary at that time to describe him, she’d just say, “I don’t know.”

I started playing around with an illustrating program that I bought, not really knowing how to use the software. But after a little fiddling around, I finally created a little character that I thought might work for the story. Lexie did mention that her friend was blue, which is actually her favorite color, so I decided to make him blue. I also dressed him in many different colors because I wanted him to be appealing to a child’s eye.

At that time, Outskirts Press had very few illustration styles to choose from, and I didn't see any that appealed to me for what I had envisioned. So my next task was to find a freelance illustrator who was willing to work with me in creating the illustrations I wanted. And because I wanted the main character to be modeled after my daughter, I didn’t want anyone owning the rights to her image or the image of the imaginary friend that I had created. So I had to make sure that the illustrator I hired would turn the illustration rights over to me when the job was done.

I found three freelance illustrators and provided each one with the text from one of the pages in the book, a picture of Lexie, and my version of the imaginary friend. I wanted to see what each of them would come up with. The samples I received were all nice, but each illustrator had a different style, so I had to go with the illustration style that was closest to what I had envisioned for my story.

I finally chose the illustration I liked best. The illustrator then suggested that he provide me with a full-color version of that particular illustration, to make sure I was happy with it before he started on the next set of illustrations. After I approved the full-color version of that one illustration, which is shown above—it's the one of Lexie and her friend sitting on the bed—I provided the illustrator with a mock-up of my book, which included the text, the illustrations that I had sketched out myself, and a description of what I wanted for each illustration. I sent the illustrator a down payment to begin working on the illustrations . . . and waited patiently.

In the meantime, I was having a hard time naming the imaginary friend for the book. I didn’t want to use LaLa, because I had no way of knowing what Lexie’s imaginary friend looked like in her mind’s eye. I didn’t want to confuse her by giving my character the same name, and I also didn’t want to use a common name like Max, Joey, John, etc. I wanted something different. I even looked through a book of baby names, but nothing appealed to me.

Then one day, Lexie asked me for a lollipop. We were going through the bag while she decided on a flavor, and it hit me! In the story, the imaginary friend was wearing many different colors—just like the colors of the lollipop flavors in the bag. So after struggling with a name for a while, I decided on the name Lolly, named after Lexie's love for lollipops.

It took about a week or so for the illustrator to provide me with black and white pencil sketches of every illustration in the book. It was so exciting to see the book come to life with each illustration. We went back and forth with edits on the black and white versions for about a month and a half, before I approved them all for the next stage—full-color.

The illustrator began sending me a few color illustrations at a time. It was even more exciting to see each illustration come to life in color. It took about a month of back-and-forth editing before the full-color illustrations were done.

The color illustrations were completed and approved. The illustration disks were sent by overnight mail to me, and then I went ahead and submitted them to the publisher.

After submitting the illustrations and another mock-up version of the book to the publisher, it took them about a month or so to provide me with a digital proof of the book to view online.

I was so excited to receive the first digital book proof. As I was going through it, I couldn't believe that this was actually happening. I wrote a story, it was illustrated, and now it was actually in the process of being published and becoming a book. Of course, again we went back and forth for a few months, editing the layout and making final changes before the book was ready for printing.

"What Can We Do Next?" is officially published!

The whole process—writing, illustrating, editing, and publishing the book—took about a year and a half to complete. It's hard to describe the feeling of actually holding the finished book in my hand for the first time and also seeing it listed on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and various other online booksellers.

The whole experience was time-consuming, expensive, and frustrating at times, but it was also exciting, fulfilling, and rewarding, and I'm looking forward to going through it all over again in the near future.