“The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy.”
Malcolm Forbes
One Frog, Two Frogs, Three Frogs, Four
I'm often asked where I get ideas for my books. Sometimes they just pop into my head -- in the shower or while running -- and sometimes they come to me in a dream. And sometimes I'm inspired by real life. Such was the case with this story, "One Frog, Two Frogs, Three Frogs, Four."
My oldest son, Zach, collected these colorful plastic tree frogs. He'd cart them around in his big, yellow dump truck. Using his Fisher-Price Wild West Town and Pirate ship he'd pretend they were cowboys and pirates. Sometimes, he'd stack pillows on the couch and the frogs would scale the pillow mountain to defeat the evil emperor.
I loved watching him play. He had a wonderful imagination and it was a joy to witness the worlds he created. With all of the bells and whistles kids have today, I worry that such imaginative play is becoming a thing of the past. And that makes me sad.
Here's a recording of this story that I always thought would make a great picture book because it lends itself to a plethora of colorful illustrations. I think writing a picture book is incredibly difficult. People think they're easy because you're writing for kids (How hard can that be, right?). They couldn't be more wrong. Capturing a child's attention with an economy of words and keeping the book moving is so, so hard.
I hope you enjoy this story. And who knows? Maybe one day it will become a picture book.
This is for the castle builders in all of us, Buffy
Writing a book is like building a sand castle. You start with a teeny-tiny grain of an idea and you add other grains (plot, setting, characters) and you mold these grains into this amazing work of art, shaping it with your voice, revising as you go and patting it down to make it solid and sturdy.
And then you show people your work, hoping that they’ll like your castle and want to show it to others. But they don’t like your castle as much as you do. Waves of rejection reduce your beloved castle to a smooth small mound that is then kicked by a kid traipsing along the beach. And you shout, “Why do I even bother!”
But you love building sand castles so you start a new one – this one farther back from the water and away from the main walking path. You’ve learned from building the last one how to make this one stronger, better. And you’ve come to realize that building the castle is the real reward. Yes, you want to share your castle. Yes, you want other people to love your castle. But if they don’t, you’ve still built something grand out of relatively little. We’re talking teeny-tiny grains here.
So build those castles and don’t fear the crashing waves. And remember, sometimes when you least expect it, the sand will catch the sun just right and your castle will sparkle like millions of diamonds.
My oldest son, Zach, collected these colorful plastic tree frogs. He'd cart them around in his big, yellow dump truck. Using his Fisher-Price Wild West Town and Pirate ship he'd pretend they were cowboys and pirates. Sometimes, he'd stack pillows on the couch and the frogs would scale the pillow mountain to defeat the evil emperor. 
