The Adventures of Buttons and Honey Bunny, by Natasha freakin' Clark

Yesterday I went to one of my favorite shops and I brought some pretty stationery, a notebook and pens. I've been so stuck on my MacBook and on my phone (damn you Twitter) that I've completely stopped writing on paper. There's a certain romance about paper, notebooks and pages that I've always loved. Furious scribbles, crossing out words and entire sentences - tearing pages out and crumpling them together on your desk. 

The boys were both asleep on the couch and Graeme was watching some heavy action / fighting / screaming movie that was really just driving me mad. My desk is on the one side of the lounge so I basically can't work or write at all when the family is home. Little buggers. Eventually everything quietened down and when all the boys were purring, I decided to put one of my little stories to big paper. 

Sometimes, when I'm completely desperate to entertain or distract the boys I say "STORY TIME" and we hop in to my bed where I tell them all sorts of crazy little made up stories. They remember these and sometimes ask for them by name "the one about the bear", "the one about the tiger and the bunnies" and sometimes I have a hard time remembering exactly what happened in that tale. While I usually say the stories are about two little bunnies called Noah and Benjamin, I've now sort of added and developed characters for their bedtime stories. 

Buttons is the boy and Honey is the girl rabbit and they are brother and sister. Together they get up to all sorts of things - some good, some dangerous and some very, very naughty. I've written two stories titled "The Adventures of Buttons and Honey Bunny - A very forgetful afternoon" and "The Adventures of Buttons and Honey Bunny - I love you big like..." 

So I scribbled these on to paper last night and read them to my two favorite children this morning. No pictures, just scribbles in a notebook and I told them all about what Buttons and Honey did. They really, genuinely loved it and Ben asked for the story three more times. Noah laughed at how silly they were, and I completely loved making all the funny voices and sound effects for them. Graeme thought the stories were very cute!

So I phoned my dad and read it to him. Sent it to my mom. Read it to the nanny when she came in this morning (before she'd even put her handbag down). Everyone loves my stories. By everyone I mean the people that sort of "have" to say that they're good - you know?

We have a little library in our suburb, so I'm going to gather my little tales and go test them at one of the children's readings one afternoon. Might convince the boys' teacher at school to try read one to the class and see what the reaction is. The GREAT thing about these stories is that I don't have to please snooty critics, but just children. Just small, honest, simple and uncomplicated children and their imaginations. 

I've briefed an illustrator and I'm going to write three more little adventures. Once I have five stories, I'll bind them together with scamps and mock-ups, print them and send them on to at least five publishers. I sound like I know exactly how to do this, but I don't. I couldn't tell you the name of ONE single children's book publisher right now. I don't have an agent (do I need one?) I don't know what format submissions should be in, how much this is going to cost, or what the process is at all. 

Right now I have two really adorable stories, only three characters, high hopes, big dreams and loads of passion. It has to work out somehow, right?