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How did I write a kid’s book?  

Creating and writing the story was fun.  The story began as a random bedtime story that was embellished with each telling.  My children liked the story.  I wrote the first draft and continued to tell the story in various versions to my children.  The first draft took about six weeks. 

  began as an outline.  Over months of telling the story, I filled in the outline.  Characters were developed based on responses from my oldest daughter.  The story had a simple point; life is an adventure to enjoy.

As far as the book structure, I thought about chapters, instead I decided to keep it a single story.  Chapters seem to help with complex stories.  Since this work was geared for three to nine year olds, there was not a need for chapters.

Revising the draft was work and required some learning.  The revision process took about 14 months.  During this period I worked with a printer to learn about how a book was laid out and printed.  I adjusted my words and graphics to accommodate printing without compromising the intent of the story. After a long journey, I had self-published my first children’s story, Rainbow Reef.