Telling stories, one at a time

Recently, a friend of Lesley-Anne's asked her how many books she has written. She did a count and said (much to her own surprise), "I'm writing number 11 now." We usually just have the mentality of getting the next book out, so we never quite realised it was that many!

Yes, it's now officially 11 because we finally put to bed the manuscript for the last book (#5) of the Danger Dan and Gadget Girl series last week. I can't tell you how exhilarated we felt when we finally looked at each other and said, "it's done!"

It's a major milestone because when we first decided we would embark on yet another book series at the end of last year, the task felt monumental. Writing a book is tiring. Writing a series is EXHAUSTING (especially when you have a ton of other things to do). Plus we had targeted to finish writing all five books in the series before Lesley-Anne entered university this year, so it's akin to a book a month. Meeting that sort of timeline requires stamina, discipline and patience.

But we did it! And it's not just about finishing the manuscripts - we're honestly so very pleased with how the stories have come together. We set out to write a dystopian series for kids with humour, and I think we've succeeded on all fronts. On the surface, the series is fun and funny, but we hope that kids will also gain from and question the deeper underlying issues we cover on technology usage, science, the environment and societal values.

It will be more than a year from now before the last book of the series hits the shelves, and there's a lot more of the process (illustrations, editing, etc) to go through but for us, the most difficult part is done. I'm especially proud of Lesley-Anne. She really got into the groove in this series. In fact, when we were writing Book 4, at one point, I was so uninspired that I became like a whiny teenager. She, on the other hand, would diligently write as much as 3,000 words in a day and then calmly tell me, "it's okay. Just fill in what you can." Talk about role reversal! I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to embark on this project with her.

Because I'm feeling particularly happy, I'm sharing a sneak peek of the cover of our next release, #2 The Watery Wipeout here today. Tadah! Doesn't it look fantastic? We're in love with our illustrator, Elvin's drawings! They're so dramatic and vibrant.

The book will be released next month. Stay tuned for details! As always, you can buy our books from Kino, Popular or online from Epigram Books or Closetful of Books.

Meanwhile, last Saturday, we were at Resorts World Sentosa as part of their Imagine Native event. Most of the kids who attend the event are pretty young, so we decided to have a story-telling session instead of our usual workshop. And since both Lesley-Anne and I are not exactly great with handling young kids, the task fell on Winston, marketing manager at Epigram Books.