This blog post originally appeared on the Florida Writers Association blog on July 2, 2018.

​Should you include picture notes for the illustrator in your picture book manuscript? In this video, you'll learn common practice with picture notes and what illustrators prefer.

An exclamation point is too exuberant to follow the rules in this picture book.
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Pling, a smiling exclamation point with an expressive face, must follow an unnamed narrator’s one rule: “He can only be in a book two times.” But dramatic events all around him just seem to call for Pling, from a sudden rainstorm to Baby Goat’s wonderful birthday party, which keeps erupting into action: “Presents! Disco light! Broken chairs! Roller skates! Ice cream! Chewed-up hats! Hot dogs! Confetti!” When the narrator decides that disobedient Pling’s services are no longer necessary, the party becomes glum and lifeless, with dispirited periods rather than exclamation points: “So much fun. All the fun you could have.” Finally, Pling is recalled to end things on a happy note—“but no getting carried away.” Children learning about punctuation can get a good sense of how to use the exclamation point through the contrasting situations that do and don’t call for emphasis. Haughee’s lesson goes down easy, with plenty of creative anarchy for kids to enjoy and sentences that beg to be vigorously read aloud. The skillful digital and acrylic illustrations by Holm are appropriately vibrant, fun, and varied.

Instructive but punctuated with excitement—a rousing read-aloud work.

See the review on Kirkus here. 

Illustrators are on all varieties of social media, but the best place to find them is on Instagram since it is a picture-based platform. I like to follow accounts that share illustrations from lots of different artists so I can click on profiles and see more art. Here are the top accounts that feature lots of artists:

• ​Children's Illustrators
• ​Best Illustrations
• ​Childrenbook Art
• Children Illustrations
• Children's Writers Guild

I also share illustrators I love in my Instagram stories for @orange_blossom_books.

Cozy mysteries are lighter than traditional detective fiction. The genre was popularized by Agatha Christie, who created classics like And Then There Were None, the Miss Marple series, and of course, Poirot. Malice Domestic, an annual mystery convention, even named an award after her.

Cozy mysteries, often called “cozies,” lack the graphic violence and excessive gore that darker detective fiction have. There’s no explicit sex scenes. Cursing, if there is any, is kept to an absolute minimum. Children and animals shouldn’t be harmed. Some cozies are suspenseful, but they aren’t usually the kind of stories that give you nightmares after reading them. Romantic elements may be present and many are geared towards women. A lot of cozy authors also write romance because there are similarities between the genres. Some are historical, some have magic, and some are just set in the modern-day.

Cozies should be an escape from reality. They aren’t as heavy as other fiction and aren’t usually geared around current events. As a result, they are generally lighter to read when life gets too overwhelming. They provide puzzles for the reader to work through and end on a positive note where the killer is always caught.​

Some questions I asked when I was initially plotting out Murder on the Flying Scotsman were:
Who is the main character? Who is with them? Who is the killer? Who is the victim?
What is the murder weapon?
When does this take place? The murder weapons available vary in different time periods.
Where does this take place? Is it a locked room mystery or does it take place in a small town?
Why was the victim killed? Why does the main character investigate?
How was the victim killed?

Generally, the first person accused of the murder in a new cozy series is a close friend or relative of the to-be detective. Sometimes the sleuth themselves might be accused. They might be the only suspect that the police have and the sleuth makes it their mission to prove otherwise. The evidence gathered and the motive might lead to that accused person, and the protagonist may think that they’re guilty. Those are usually the red herrings since they fit so perfectly that they couldn’t possibly have done it.​

Cozies often take place in small towns or have a closed pool of suspects. If you think about Murder on the Orient Express, the list of people who had the opportunity to commit the murder was limited to who was on the train. In And Then There Were None, only someone on the island could have committed the murder.

Since a cozy mystery is not a suspense, it’s not necessary to wait until the end to have the first murder. It might be the first thing that happens in the story, especially if that is the catalyst for the entire plot of the book. Most people prefer that the murder takes place in the first few chapters. After all, that’s what they came for.

When planning the murder and the killer, it should be something that can be traced back to the beginning. The murderer shouldn’t come out of the blue. They should always have an actual motive, even though the motive isn’t always apparent at the beginning. They don’t have to be someone who is front and center in the protagonist’s life, but they should appear early in the book and usually, the reader shouldn’t have too much cause to suspect them.​

Clues that point to the identity of the real murderer should be scattered throughout the whole mystery. Half the fun of cozies is solving the murders with the amateur detective.

What would most people say is the most popular topic for poetry? From my experience, it’s love. Specifically, romantic love.
 
When I think about poetry, the poets who come to mind are known for their romantic poems. I’m not even talking about the Romantics studied in high school who lived centuries ago. I’m thinking before, during, and after.
 
My mind recalls the entire book of Song of Solomon in the Bible. I’m thinking Shakespearean sonnets, too. There’s also John Keats, Emily Dickenson, William Blake, Lord Byron, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Julia Alvarez, Maya Angelou, Tyler Knott Gregson, Sandra Cisneros, Rupi Kaur, and Amanda Lovelace…
 
…to name a few!
 
While many of these poets wrote about other topics, their romantic poems stand out the most to me. I don’t know about other people, but I can recall poems about romantic love much faster than anything else. Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116.” Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty.” Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?” Sometimes I’m even remembering poetry collections that had an impact on me and shaped my view of romance, like Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Gregson’s Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series, and Kaur’s Milk and Honey.
 
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that there’s so much more to life than just romantic love. Perhaps one of the biggest lessons is how important it is to recognize and express gratitude towards other areas of love in our lives.
 
Many of these same poets wrote about other kinds of love that are just as good as their romantic poetry. Blake explored love for God and humanity. Keats reflected on loving life. Hughes and Angelou shared about their love for family members. Whitman, Kaur, and Lovelace dove into self-love. Alvarez and Cisneros analyzed the complicated love/hate relationship between English and Spanish or their Latin culture and Americanization.
 
Now, not all of these poets or poems are about love in a positive light. Some are negative too, which is expected in a yin and yang world. Nevertheless, something inside me clicked when I started to see poems about love and heartbreak in a non-romantic way.
 
I’ve been writing poetry since, at the very least, my early high school years. Surprisingly enough, I’ve never considered myself a poet as I used to write poems infrequently. When I started my current romantic relationship, though, I found myself writing poem after poem, some even coming out as a final draft almost immediately.
 
Once I started connecting the dots between poems I read, versus those I wrote, inspiration hit hard. During difficult times, like the death of my grandmother, I wrote poetry. When I passed life milestones, like a meaningful full-time job in a career I’m passionate about, I wrote poetry. While I went through spiritual existential crises, I wrote poetry. And as I learned more and more about myself, I wrote poetry.
 
At some point, I took a step back and realized I was on to something. A poetry collection started to form in my mind. One about love, but not in the traditional sense alone. One that would show readers about healthy romantic love and how much more there is to love than romance.
 
Toni Morrison’s famous quote came to mind: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” (Morrison, n.d.)
 
That’s exactly what I aimed to do in the hopes of joining the conversation and dialogue with other poets across lifetimes, centuries, and generations. I, too, have had something to say about love and how important it is to celebrate all other areas within it too, like family, friends, pets, culture, hobbies, life, spirituality, ourselves, and more.
 
With each poem, my heart seemed to fill with more and more love, affection, compassion, and tenderness. Eventually, it overflowed with healing tears dropping on my notebook or keyboard as I wrote and wrote. Finally, the emotional wave crashed and receded on the shores of my soul, awaking me from my writing reverie and revealing my very first poetry collection in its wake.

*Morrison, T. (n.d.) If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. Quote Catalog. Retrieved February 27, 2020, from https://quotecatalog.com/quote/toni-morrison-if-there’s-a-bo-O1M69R7/

Originally from Puerto Rico, Selys Rivera considers herself a God-loving and social justice obsessed chica. With an undergraduate degree in English Writing and a graduate degree in Social Work, she marries her two passions by writing to inspire others and voice issues she's passionate about. She is also the author of Rise in Love: A Poetry Chapbook and Social Justice Advocacy 101: How to Become a Social Justice Advocate from A to Z. To read more of her work, please visit her website at www.worthareadtoo.com. You can also follow her on Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter @SelysRivera to stay connected.

Lighting must be evenly spread across the surface of the illustration (not pointed down as this can cause reflections or hot spots). It’s best to use a light source that is close to daylight or “white” color (4500-5500 Kelvin), so incandescent and fluorescent lights should be avoided. ​