Welcome Carolyn Crimi, our NaPiBoWriWee Day Six Guest Author blog! Because tomorrow is Day 7, we have TWO guest author blogs to encourage you to keep going and make it to the finish tomorrow! 🙂

Carolyn graciously offered to donate an autographed copy of her latest picture book, Dear Tabby (illustrated by David Roberts, HarperCollins 2011) for our NaPiBoWriWee drawing!

Carolyn Crimi received her MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College in 2000. Her publishing credits include Outside, Inside (Simon & Schuster, 1995), Don’t Need Friends (Random House, 1999),Tessa’s Tip-Tapping Toes (Orchard Books, 2002), Get Busy, Beaver! (Orchard Books, 2004), Boris and Bella (Harcourt, 2004), Henry and the Buccaneer Bunnies (Candlewick, 2005), The Louds Move In!  (Marshall Cavendish, 2006), Where’s My Mummy? (Candlewick, 2008), Henry and the Crazed Chicken Pirates (Candlewick, 2009), Principal Fred Won’t Go To Bed!  (Marshall Cavendish, 2010), Rock and Roll Mole (Dial, 2011), Dear Tabby (Harpercollins, 2011), and Pugs in a Bug (Dial, 2012). When she’s not writing, Carolyn enjoys giving Author Talks to elementary schools all over the country. For more information, visit her website, www.carolyncrimi.com. Be sure to visit her new blog, http://deartabbycat.blogspot.com/.

(Keep reading after the jump for our Q&A with Carolyn Crimi…)

Q&A WITH CAROLYN CRIMI

— If you weren’t a writer/artist, what would you be?

For a long time I wondered which low paying career to pursue—acting or writing. I love the fact that you can write anywhere, anytime and that the rejections come through the mail and not in person, so writing won. Luckily, I have found a way to incorporate my love of acting into my writing career. I consider my school visits to be acting gigs since I am often “on stage” for up to 200 elementary students!  I really love both writing and acting equally and am always taking improv or acting classes.

— What was the most unusual job you ever had?

After I graduated from college I started working right away at Lord and Taylor in their hosiery department. It was a fairly horrific job. Women hate buying pantyhose, so by the time they arrived at the counter they’d be whipped into an anti-pantyhose frenzy. Or they’d ask all sorts of embarrassing questions about whether or not the pantyhose had a “cotton crotch.” I still blush just typing that out. I used to ride home on the EL and write screenplays in my head about an underpaid retail employee living in a studio apartment who had to endure long hours counting the used pantyhose in the return bin.

I am so glad pantyhose are out of fashion. They really are wretched things.

— If you could give one piece of writing advice for our NaPiBoWriWee participants, what would it be?

Focus focus FOCUS. I find that most picture book manuscripts I see take a few detours along the way. Look at the question you asked in the first few paragraphs of your manuscript. Then look at the last few paragraphs. Did you answer the question you asked in the beginning, or did you get sidetracked? Picture books are about One True Thing. All the details in the manuscript should support that One True Thing. And, surprisingly enough, the main characters are not well rounded. A picture book simply doesn’t have enough room for a fully rounded character. Think of Fancy Nancy and Curious George. These characters are distilled representations of humanity. You are better off exaggerating or enhancing just one of your main character’s traits rather than trying to round out that character.

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Thank you so much Carolyn for your generosity in answering our questions. For NaPiBoWriWee participants, you might win an autographed copy of Carolyn’s Dear Tabby at this year’s drawing, too! We look forward to your comments on Carolyn. Until then… Happy Writing! WRITE LIKE YOU MEAN IT! 🙂