Coaching KidLit Episode 41: Exploring Emotional Writing with Guest Christopher Cheng

[00:00:00] Sharon Skinner: Welcome to Coaching KidLit, a podcast about writing and publishing good KidLit.

[00:00:07] Christy Yaros: We dig into various aspects of writing craft through a KidLit lens and provide inspiration and clear actionable items to help writers like you move forward on their KidLit writing journeys.

[00:00:19] Sharon Skinner: I’m Sharon Skinner, author accelerator, certified book coach, and author of speculative fiction and KidLit, including picture books, middle grade, and young adult.

[00:00:31] Christy Yaros: And I’m Christy Yaros, author accelerator certified book coach and story editor, focusing on KidLit, including middle grade and young adult.

[00:00:40] Sharon Skinner: Hello listeners, it’s Sharon again and I have a special guest with us Christopher Cheng, an award-winning children’s author whose critically acclaimed picture book Bear and Rat, which was published in the USA as. Will We Always Hold Hands? Is a loving tribute to his wife that Kirk is called a Friendship [00:01:00] Tale for the ages, and it’s

[00:01:02] Sharon Skinner: one of the most wonderful books I’ve read in many years. His recent title is Dragon Folding, and Coming Soon is Powerful like a Dragon. Christopher is a member of the S-C-B-W-I International Advisory Council and an ambassador for Australia’s National Center for Australian Children’s. Literature, N-C-A-C-L, inhabiting a Tardis-like terrace.treasure

[00:01:26] Sharon Skinner: He has often heard to say that he has the best job in the world. Welcome to the program, Chris.

[00:01:33] Chris Cheng: Thank you. Good morning and hello. Yes, it is morning here. being on the other side of the world. Of course.

[00:01:38] Sharon Skinner: yes. We have quite the time difference, it’s tomorrow for us where you are. So that’s kind of fun.

[00:01:44] Chris Cheng: I will tell you that tomorrow’s good so far.

[00:01:46] Sharon Skinner: Well, good. I’m glad I have something good to look forward to. So Chris, you’ve been doing this for quite some time. You’ve got quite a few books under your belt. Can you give us a little bit of an idea of how you started, what drew [00:02:00] you to writing for kids, and a little bit about your journey.

[00:02:03] Chris Cheng: Yeah. So this is 1 0 1. Do not take me as an example of how you get into kids Lit. I’m a teacher by profession, so elementary or primary school here, but elementary school, um, teacher by profession. So I’ve taught everything from five year olds right through to 10 and 11 year olds.

[00:02:21] Chris Cheng: And then of course, I was an education specialist at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. Then I taught high school and I also taught, into graduate school, into year 12 biology and on primate adaptations and stuff like that. Then as part of what I did, I also talked about,

[00:02:39] Chris Cheng: biology in the genetic stream and things like that for university students, but what do I really know is, is how to teach to little kids and being with little kids. So that’s my specialty. And it was there that I actually fell into kids writing. I’ve always loved writing. I’ve got notes from when I was at school and things like that.

[00:02:58] Chris Cheng: Things that I’ve always written. [00:03:00] But that was just something to keep me occupied so I wouldn’t go and be, playing out in the street and stuff like that. So I’ve always loved writing. And I’ve always written letters, so my godsons now still get letters. Except I used to write one letter for three boys and then the mom said to me, can you write three separate letters?

[00:03:17] Chris Cheng: ’cause they all want their own letter. So now I write three letters instead of one. It’s a lot harder, but they’re my godson, so that’s all right. So I’ve always loved the writing aspect of it. I never, ever, ever, ever thought in a pink fit. That, I’d be a children’s author and, published all around the world like I am now.

[00:03:35] Chris Cheng: It’s just something that happened and it happened because I was at the zoo in zoo education. I wrote graphic boards, so you got people go into the zoo and see the great big information boards. I. And I would write some of those with the keepers, and then I’d write information labels for enclosures, sometimes with the keepers, and sometimes I’d just write them and then give it to them, and then they would hack them around and work the things out, which is probably why I also always like [00:04:00] working with editors too.

[00:04:01] Chris Cheng: Then from there, publisher in Sydney, saw the work I was doing and asked me Can you write this? And of course, you say yes to something like that, especially when it’s about animals. And that was easy for me to do. So I did that and that one book became two books became three books, became four books, became a picture book, became a junior fiction book, and so on and so forth.

[00:04:21] Chris Cheng: And now I’ve got a whole shelf full of books with my name on it. So, I fell into it. So, number one, do not take me is how you’re getting into Kids lit. But the one thing you can take from me is I loved it. I’ve been a avid reader. for a long time I used to escape into the library to read instead of getting bashed up in the school playground, even at high school, I.

[00:04:42] Chris Cheng: I used to just read for fun, but I also used to watch a lot of television too. So yeah, sort of balanced a bit out. Never been a sporty person, so don’t ask me about the Super Bowl or anything like that. ‘cause I’ll say, yeah, my super bowl had porridge in it this morning.

[00:04:59] Chris Cheng: So, I [00:05:00] know how privileged I am to be in this situation. Having fallen into it. I didn’t have to do the hard yards that a lot of people do yet, I’ve been rejected. I mean, my first picture book was rejected by every major publisher in Australia and a little publisher picked it up.

[00:05:15] Chris Cheng: and what was really funny was a few years down the track, then I have the majors coming back to say, why didn’t you show us that? Why didn’t you show us that? Why didn’t we see that? I said, well, do you wanna see the rejection letters you sent to me? It was quite funny. And, and you know, even now I get rejection letters.

[00:05:31] Chris Cheng: But, that’s usually because I’ve rushed something. And I’ve learned even. Stage not to do that now. And I never send anything off now until I’m a hundred percent satisfied and think it’s perfect. And I’m very lucky again that my agent then sit back and said, Ooh, I love this one.

[00:05:47] Chris Cheng: So I’m waiting to see if she loves it, if the publishers she sent it to has loved it too, which I think they will. ’cause they’ve already muted about things like that.

[00:05:55] Sharon Skinner: But there’s no guarantees, right? So you can write the most glorious thing in your [00:06:00] opinion, and your, agent can love it, but it might not land.

[00:06:03] Chris Cheng: yeah. It’s no guarantee it’s going to get published. I mean, that first picture book was way ahead of its time. That’s why most of the. Publishers didn’t pick it up. it really was a long way ahead of its time. 10 years ago it would’ve been snapped up probably straight away because it was the thing.

[00:06:18] Chris Cheng: And it’s not that you have to know what is trendy. ’cause if you are writing for trend, by the time your work comes out, it’s way too late because that trend’s gone and a new trend come up. So you don’t write for a trend, you just write for you and you write for your heart and write what you know. Which is what I do.

[00:06:36] Chris Cheng: And you know, I’m lucky enough that most times or many times things just happen to fall into place. I still sit on books, I’ve still got manuscripts from 20 years ago that I don’t think are ready yet. I know they’re damn good and I know I will send them out eventually. They’re not ready yet.

[00:06:52] Chris Cheng: And yet I, I can write a manuscript last year that I sent out last week that’s gonna get snapped up. And it’s not that it’s [00:07:00] trendy, it’s not that I’ve looked at what’s going on. ’cause I do read a lot of books and I do get to see a lot of kids lit. But if you ask me what the trend is, I wouldn’t even know because I read so many different books, from today and last year and the year before.

[00:07:13] Chris Cheng: As you know, I just got back from New York and DC and I came back with a pile of books and then my main publisher in America also sent me a bundle of books. So I’m just sort of going through those now. And some are recent and some are much older, but they’re all signed.

[00:07:26] Chris Cheng: That’s very important because I have a really good collection of signed books.

[00:07:30] Sharon Skinner: Well, yeah, you’ve been going to a lot of S-C-B-W-I conferences for many years now. I wanna circle back on something you said that really struck me because you talked about. Your time at the zoo, and you also talked about your teaching and it reminded me of a book that you wrote called The Treasure in the Trees.

[00:07:51] Sharon Skinner: Was that based then on your scientific understanding and you as a teacher, because there’s a teacher in there, and the child [00:08:00] emulates the scientific process.

[00:08:02] Chris Cheng: Yes, yes, it was. I mean, I can’t believe you remember treasure in the trees. Most people don’t. But it’s really funny because I can pick up any book I’ve written and see me in it. my wife could do that too. She could say, oh yeah, there you are, written in there. And she knew that exactly.

[00:08:18] Chris Cheng: There’s me in every single book, even if it’s in a nonfiction book, although I don’t do many of those now.

[00:08:23] Chris Cheng: But the teacher in that book is actually my best mate. Who works in a university science lab in America. And I used to work for him in the lab in America. So, yeah, that’s him.

[00:08:34] Sharon Skinner: I will say that, I may not be able to capture you in all of your nonfiction and see you there. But I do see you in your, fiction books because there’s always this beautiful emotional arc. There’s this emotional moment that is just, it’s so heartfelt.

[00:08:51] Sharon Skinner: One Tree, i s another one that has that in it where you’re going along and you’re thinking, oh, this is just a story about a kid who’s grandfather used to live on this farm. [00:09:00] But you get to this moment and it just grabs you right by the heart.

[00:09:04] Sharon Skinner: And, Will We Always Hold Hands, which was published as a Bear and rat in Australia and of course, knowing you, that one especially hit home for me because that was written for Bini and so it has a much more deeply emotional context to it

[00:09:23] Sharon Skinner: But that one I could hardly finish reading it. it’s so beautifully done.

[00:09:28] Chris Cheng: Thank you. The thing, the thing about that is that that book was never supposed to be published. ’cause like every single thing I write, I write for me first.

[00:09:36] Chris Cheng: I write a story for me and I think, wow, that’s really good. And did I create that? Oh, and I bombed out in English at high school.

[00:09:42] Chris Cheng: How could I write something like that? But I have an editor here in Australia who is also a really, really, really close friend who just happens to have worked with me at the zoo too. In fact, she used to put me into all my, major publicity gigs, that I would do at the zoo. Because not only was I teaching at the zoo, I was doing [00:10:00] publicity too, and she used to organize that.

[00:10:02] Chris Cheng: Anyway, she’s ended up being my editor and she usually gets first call on anything I write. that’s, heartfelt, maybe you’d tag it as books that’ll make people cry. I mean, that’s what. They’ve basically said they really like my crying books, which I find pretty bizarre.

[00:10:18] Chris Cheng: But Bear and Rat, you know, I’ve only read six times. I don’t read it. I’ve been asked to read it a lot of times I’ve read it once. on a Zoom thing for special, an event, for a storybook structure. But after that, I don’t read it. I’m an Australia Day ambassador as well, and, everybody wants me to read Bear and Rat and I just can’t read it.

[00:10:39] Chris Cheng: It’s right there. I mean, my new one Dragon folding, I even find that hard to read principally because Bini never got to read it, but also because it’s, about an old man and a young boy and young boy happens to be my godson across the road. And the old man sort of happened to be me, although I’m not that old.

[00:10:56] Chris Cheng: But you know, it’s just sort of the relationship between young and [00:11:00]old and yeah, it’s really interesting. I mean, one of my things that I always say to people is write what you know, not what you think And, I just happen to have fallen into writing a lot now, that has a lot of emotion and, and a lot of me well, there’s a lot of me and everything, but it just seems to be a bit more now and a bit more, obvious to me. Now than when I first started anyway. And there are other little eggs that are now being hidden in all my new picture books. And I’m waiting to see who’s gonna be the, that I’m not gonna tell you, but who’s going to be the first person to pick up the eggs that are hidden in the picture book.

[00:11:34] Chris Cheng: Not necessarily in the text either. It’s something in the illustrations sometimes that is done too with my book, which is really lovely. So there are things that are really special in every book, but every book is an emotional journey for me.

[00:11:48] Chris Cheng: Every book is, a challenge emotionally to write a lot of stuff, but that’s just the things I like writing. I don’t write funny books.

[00:11:55] Chris Cheng: I don’t write books generally that make kids giggle and stuff like that. I [00:12:00] write books that are emotional. That’s just happened to be what I do right now. Books that celebrate life in all its intricacies and in all its little nuances.

[00:12:09] Chris Cheng: In the good and the bad. I think one of the things that certainly my editor here has picked up though, is that, I’m writing a lot about relationships between especially older and younger people. And I guess that’s very much a part because I’ve got my godsons and, I’ve been watching them grow and how they’re reacting to the world and things like that.

[00:12:28] Chris Cheng: And they don’t live across the road anymore, so it’s a real pain. ’cause I have to go down and see them down three hours away. But their mother texts me every week so I know what they’re up to. And the boys even text me occasionally, which is even better.

[00:12:40] Sharon Skinner: I also write from an emotional space and from a personal space, I think there’s autobiographical. Information in everything that we write and create in some way. And some of us get a lot closer and deeper sometimes than some people but Even if you’re writing funny books, that usually is coming [00:13:00] from a space that you know, and that you’ve emotionally experienced yourself.

[00:13:05] Sharon Skinner: So I love that you talk about writing what you know and really, digging deep into that space the way that you do.

[00:13:13] Chris Cheng: I just think trying to make up. idolized character and things like that. I can’t do that. And as I said, I don’t write books that make people giggle and laugh. I’m not a funny person anyway. I guess in any way I’m a bit more serious , but I don’t read funny books.

[00:13:29] Chris Cheng: I don’t write funny books. I don’t write that type of thing. But that’s great. ’cause not everybody can, not everybody can write deep emotional books that make everybody cry. So, it’s something that I think’s really, really critical.

[00:13:41] Sharon Skinner: Yeah, we have to embrace who we are and put forth into the world what we put forth into the world, knowing that there’s an audience for us, knowing that there are other people like us who are going to gravitate to what we’re doing.

[00:13:53] Chris Cheng: Yeah. I can’t, write into those other genres. And I definitely don’t write ya. ’cause I haven’t grown up that far. [00:14:00] I keep telling the kids when I’m talking to them that, you know, my brain stopped growing at 12 and a half.

[00:14:04] Chris Cheng: So, that’s where I write up to. But as a reader you do need The diversity. And you should be reading horror. You should be reading laughing books. You should be reading crying books. I can’t write all of those. I can write the ones that I write. But as a reader you need to sample so many different things.

[00:14:21] Chris Cheng: ’cause otherwise it’s gonna be like that dinner that’s the same dinner every night. You soon gonna get sick of it. Read a crime book. Read a thriller book. Read a book that makes you cry. And, there are picture books and, and I only do write picture books. Now. I don’t write anything, even though I’ve crossed a lot of genres.

[00:14:37] Chris Cheng: Actually, I, the thing I will say is the reason I write picture books is not because they’re 500 words or less, because that’s damn hard to do.

[00:14:45] Sharon Skinner: Yes.

[00:14:45] Chris Cheng: But my big. thing about writing picture books is that, every illustrator so far has given me an original piece of art from every book I’ve written. That’s been published. So I have a really wonderful gallery in the hallway downstairs that’s three [00:15:00] levels deep of art.

[00:15:02] Chris Cheng: I write and I’m fixated and I think this is it, this is the way I’m writing it. Then some wonderfully creative person who’s much more talented than I am, takes my 500 words and changes it into a 32 page picture book with these glorious pieces of art that I could never imagine.

[00:15:20] Chris Cheng: But, seeing how they interpret my words, that’s the beauty of writing picture books too. And you think about what we ask the readers to do.

[00:15:27] Chris Cheng: The readers are reading our words. Whether they’re picture books or novels and then envisaging it in their heads. And that’s what the illustrators of my words are doing. They’re envisaging on my 500 words, and they’re adding their own flavor to it, and sometimes they take it on a totally different path

[00:15:45] Chris Cheng: you mentioned one tree before and. People can see that that’s got an Asian setting in it. I didn’t tell Bruce, who’s the illustrator to set it in Hong Kong or in China. But I happened to put in the book, one surname that was a [00:16:00] Chinese surname. It was Chinese family name. So Bruce immediately said, well, we will set it in China to himself. And then the next thing I see is these dummy little sketches of this book set in China. I thought, oh, that’s different to what I thought.

[00:16:11] Chris Cheng: But it’s wonderful

[00:16:13] Sharon Skinner: It is, it’s. beautifully done and the artwork is beautiful.

[00:16:17] Chris Cheng: It is, it’s, it’s glorious. It really is. And Bruce, is a fine artist in his own right

[00:16:22] Chris Cheng: It’s just seeing what these illustrators do, I’m mind blown away. Just blows me away completely what they can do, how they can take my few words and create these beautiful works of art. I mean, what Jackie’s done with my new one, which is, powerful like a dragon. Which is coming out with Roaring Brook, but. What Jackie’s done with the art and flooded the pages with dragons all the way through. And me being half Asian, of course dragons are critical. Gotta have dragons. I mean, if I was taking you around this house, I’d show you all the way up and down the staircase.

[00:16:54] Chris Cheng: We’ve got dragons, there’s dragons outside in the garden and there’s dragons everywhere.

[00:16:59] Sharon Skinner: I’m a big [00:17:00] fan of dragons.

[00:17:01] Chris Cheng: yeah. yeah. Nothing better than a dragon, but mine are mostly Asian dragons. of course. But Jackie’s just. slid all these gorgeous dragons, throughout the book.

[00:17:11] Chris Cheng: And she said, and I’ve got the art piece for you. So she’s getting that sorted out, which will be just awesome.

[00:17:17] Sharon Skinner: I am looking forward to seeing that and getting my hands on that. one of the things I wanted to talk to you about a little bit and dig into is the fact that some of your books are first published in Australia and then in the US and some are published in the us how does that work?

[00:17:32] Chris Cheng: So I’ll write a story and that’s great. And then I think, oh, I started that one in America. I should send that to my American agent. I’ve lived in and out of the US for a long time.

[00:17:41] Chris Cheng: So for the last, 25 years, in fact, one stage I was over there for six months every year So I, picked up a lot of things over there and I go backwards and forwards to the states at least once or twice a year.

[00:17:53] Chris Cheng: But publishing in multiple countries first is really different because I essentially publish here in [00:18:00] Australia. I know the Australian. Agents and publishers really well, I mean, again, it’s a little different for me than other people because I know a lot of the publishers, so I can actually send manuscripts to my different publishers that I’ve worked with, and they’ll say yay or nay, and then it’ll go to my agent.

[00:18:14] Chris Cheng: Sometimes I will send something to my agent ’cause I just think, oh, well you can pick, who you think it would go with. Most times it’s me coming up. With who I want them to go to. But that’s just me. when you’re in been doing this for so long, you work with so many different people.

[00:18:29] Chris Cheng: You know what they want, what they’re looking for, or not necessarily what they’re looking for, but you know what they like, they know you. So that’s a different matter. The US market, again, is a little different because that one came about because Connie, who’s. my editor publisher over there with Roaring Brooke, she’s a friend first.

[00:18:46] Chris Cheng: Like they’re all my friends first before they’re my publishers usually. Except for China. I’ll talk about China in a minute. But with Connie, you know, she’s been a friend for a long time and I just happened to tell her a story that my uncle told me. About, [00:19:00] our family and it’s a story that nobody knew.

[00:19:02] Chris Cheng: it’s like one of these hidden stories. Every family’s got hidden stories. Well, my family’s huge. my grandfather had three brothers. My grandfather had five wives. The brothers each had two and three wives, and they all had multiple kids. And the kids have all got kids except for Bini and myself and my cousin.

[00:19:18] Chris Cheng: So it’s a huge family. Like our reunions are phenomenal. So my uncle told us this story about what happened during World War II, and Bin and I were with him, a couple of years later. I asked him about it again and I actually recorded it, which is just as well because he died just last year. And so this is an oral recording and nobody’s thought about, well, what’s gonna happen to all of these stories, that people don’t know and people are gonna lose that family history. I mean, we can trace our family back quite a fair way in China.

[00:19:46] Chris Cheng: And especially for somebody like me whose first grandson, I’ve actually got. A Chinese name, which has nothing to do with my Australian or my English name. And I’m actually written on the family tree wall .

[00:19:58] Chris Cheng: So, I’m very privileged and [00:20:00] I’m very close to some of my uncles who can tell me all of this stuff. But I happened to tell Connie and she said to me, oh, I like that one can you write it down for me? So over successive years and, things that happened, we kept. Working on it.

[00:20:12] Chris Cheng: Because it’s a different market to write for than it is for Australia, yet it’s still the same story. I still could have published it in, in Australia, but Connie wanted it. So that was wonderful.

[00:20:21] Chris Cheng: And then, what I love about when they publish, books in America is they actually put the name of the editor.

[00:20:27] Chris Cheng: The name of the art director in the book. And I think that’s critical. ’cause I couldn’t do this work. I couldn’t be the writer I am without the editor, without the art director. I’m not precious enough to say, no, don’t change it, except for Bear and Rat. That was something that I didn’t allow any changes, but there weren’t any, anyway, it wouldn’t have changed a titch on that one.

[00:20:47] Chris Cheng: But with these other ones. If an editor says to me, I think you should change this, or What about we think about this? And I think about it and I said, of course the editor’s right. So I change it,. Anyway, we spent a few years working on that one on and off.

[00:20:59] Chris Cheng: And I had [00:21:00] other books coming out, of course in between but the beautiful book that it is is because I had a wonderful editor who knew. what she wanted. She also knew the story that I could tell. And so I told the story first to her and then I wrote it down and then she told me how, you know, to change it so that it would be better.

[00:21:18] Chris Cheng: And that’s why working with editors are awesome. Now with China, that’s a totally different situation. I write a story and I don’t speak Chinese. I don’t write Chinese. So my English text gets translated in China by my editor in China, who then gives it to the publisher, who then looks over it and then makes his little change.

[00:21:37] Chris Cheng: Then they send it back to me. So it’s this real to and fro all the way through. It’s like working with my editor here or working with Connie in the States. It’s a similar thing, only amplified. but there are things that I can write, that other people can’t write for China.

[00:21:52] Chris Cheng: And that’s what’s really wonderful. so New Year’s Surprise, which is published here first, the illustrated d and myself sold into China. And so then [00:22:00] subsequent to that I was asked to do the next couple of books to tag into New Year’s Surprise.

[00:22:05] Chris Cheng: And I’ve written a couple of them and Dee’s illustrating them now, but then they also want some other books as well from me. So now I’m liaising directly with my editor who’s doing it with the publisher saying, now what does Chris want? And does he want this and do we want to him to do this type of thing.

[00:22:19] Chris Cheng: So, writing those books that are first published in China, is really wonderful.

[00:22:24] Sharon Skinner: You actually had a picture book that you and the illustrator decided to sell in China. Now, how did that work?

[00:22:32] Sharon Skinner: Because you had a publisher and it was already in existence. So were you able to retain the, international rights to it or how did that work for you?

[00:22:40] Chris Cheng: yeah. could do all of that if we wanted, but because Dee lives here in Australia but he was a publisher in China. So he was in the industry in China, so he knew roads into China and he knew a few people and we both talked to them in Bologna a couple of years ago when I was running the S-C-B-W-I stand and we actually sold it there [00:23:00] to them. I mean, we had a whole range of publishers we could have sold it to in China. I say we sold it to. we all did all the negotiations, and then they had to deal with, the publisher here in Australia so we don’t hold the rights to it.

[00:23:11] Chris Cheng: But that’s something again, why I’ve got , slightly different contracts and things like that. ’cause there are certain things that I can do. So that if, I can arrange to negotiate, then, that’s good. I’ll do it. because I want the book out there and I will do it.

[00:23:24] Chris Cheng: But my agent sorts out a few of those things in the contracts that, we have with the publishers. When I get published.

[00:23:30] Sharon Skinner: You have two agents. You have an agent in Australia and, an agent in the us.

[00:23:35] Chris Cheng: yes. Only, because, I’ve been involved with S-C-B-W-I for so long and I know a lot of agents over there and, Over the years, a few of them have said, let us know if there’s anything.

[00:23:46] Chris Cheng: And again, as you probably picked up, I’m friends first with most of the people I work with before I work with them. and so that was certainly the case with Marietta too. She’s been a long time friend. Never thought I’d have be with them ’cause I [00:24:00] never thought I’d be published in the States as first published in the States, And I don’t have an agent for china, but that’s just because we deal with it all and it’s, just a whole different setup.

[00:24:09] Sharon Skinner: Chris, this has really been enlightening. because I’ve known you for a while, but. We don’t usually get a chance to talk for this length and about just what’s going on with you. So this has really been good for me to get to know you even better. But is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to share with our listeners?

[00:24:29] Chris Cheng: Just write what you know, and write from the heart, . And of course, if you want to find out about organizations and stuff, SCBWI is always there with information you can grab, once you become a member.

[00:24:40] Chris Cheng: I forget how long I’ve been a member. And I still go to the conferences when they’re on. Because I’m on the advisory council, I feel I’ve got a duty to be there so that if anybody wants to tap into me and they do, there are people that recognize me in America from, SCBWI and things like that, and wanna come and talk to me.

[00:24:59] Chris Cheng: Well, [00:25:00] that’s great. I do that at the socials. I do them in the halls and they know you’re on the advisory council, so they want to come and talk to you and suggest ideas. Great. Do that. And that’s what I, like people doing. So that’s why, I go nearly every conference because on the council, I feel it’s part of what I do and people need to be able to grab me and talk to me

[00:25:19] Chris Cheng: most of our, the Western countries, we have writers’, organizations and things like that. Now, I’m not in a writer’s organization as such to learn how to write because I write for me.

[00:25:31] Chris Cheng: So I don’t care what anybody else tells me to write, I wanna write for me. And I just think that works. And that’s what I would also say to anybody. Write for yourself first And then play with it for other people. But you’ve gotta write for yourself first. You’ve gotta write and be happy with what you’re writing.

[00:25:46] Chris Cheng: There are certain things you need to learn about the craft of writing that you never taught in schools, you never taught in universities. you need to learn what the, process is. I mean, what happens in these publishing houses? It’s not out there written.

[00:25:58] Chris Cheng: The only way you can find out is get [00:26:00] into the organizations, whether it’s in England or , France or whatever it is. Get involved with your local organizations to find out how locally things work. and you might be lucky enough, like I am, to have tripped into something that you happen to be really good at and that people want.

[00:26:15] Chris Cheng: I mean, I’m very, very privileged, to have, publishers say, have you got anything like this? as in we are looking for something like this. That talks about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. have you done it? And I might have 20 years ago, so I because I keep my notebooks on my shelf and they’re all dated by the years.

[00:26:31] Chris Cheng: Because I do that, I’m able to flip back. I mean, I, actually do have the notebooks as I said, and I, can flip through them. I do it occasionally and that’s. What I was talking to you, I think about before I wrote a story. it was 2017 I think. I wrote a story that I could never finish.

[00:26:47] Chris Cheng: And I just happened to before Christmas, flip through the book happened to be the 2017 notebook and flip through it and found this story. ’cause you know, it’s not just that I write it on a page, but sometimes I might write out a whole story ’cause I hand [00:27:00] write everything first. That would be another really big suggestion.

[00:27:03] Chris Cheng: Forget the keyboard. Get a pencil and paper because it takes longer. So what are you doing? When it takes longer? You’re thinking more. And if you’re thinking more, your story’s fermenting and gelling and and the jigsaw pieces are all going together

[00:27:16] Chris Cheng: That’s why I love the pencil and. paper. I mean, I have pencils and papers all over this house, but I, flipped through the book and then I came across this one that, had a whole bunch of papers clipped together. ’cause that’s what I do. I tag them at the top for every story.

[00:27:29] Chris Cheng: So books might have only four or five stories and they might have 40 or 50 stories in it. No, not 40 or 50. ’cause. That’s not too many pages, but they might have 20 or 30 stories in it, and they’re all tagged at the top. If they end up getting published, they’re tagged a different way on the side.

[00:27:43] Chris Cheng: If there’s a group of pages together, you know, I might have written out the first draft completely, which I usually always do. It’s not just an idea on a page. It’s usually an idea will sit in their head for a while. And this is stuff I haven’t talked about yet, but it’ll sit in the head for a while and then it’ll [00:28:00] gel and ferment and come together.

[00:28:01] Chris Cheng: And then I will write out the whole first draft. In pencil in the notebook. So all of my novels or my, couple of novels that I’ve written, 75,000 words plus handwritten in pencil two B in a notebook on one side of the page. ’cause the other side of the page is used for writing corrections and things like that.

[00:28:20] Chris Cheng: But, that’s what I do. Every single book, even nonfiction books. Computer’s the second thing, putting it through a keyboard is the second thing I do, or third thing, first thing’s thinking second thing’s, pencil and paper, the third thing’s keyboard.

[00:28:31] Chris Cheng: And then of course it’s copious drafts that I go through until I’m happy with it. But again, it’s back to this, other story from 2017. I found it in the notebook, but it was unfinished and then it was refreshed and sitting in my head and was, I think less than a week later, I suddenly clicked and got the idea for the end of the story, and I knew where the notebook was

[00:28:54] Chris Cheng: so I was able to pull it off the shelf, pull it out, rewrite it into the 2024 notebook and wrote the ending as well, [00:29:00] because it’s another picture book of course, but it’s rhyming verse, which I don’t normally do. So this is really bizarre that I’ve written a rhyming verse from 2017 that my agent sent back in capital letters.

[00:29:12] Chris Cheng: I love it.

[00:29:12] Chris Cheng: so that was really, really, really good. So you never know What’s going to happen, but this is what happens. It just comes like this. The other thing that happened too with Bear and Rat, this was really different because, as I said, Bear and Rat was never supposed to be published.

[00:29:27] Chris Cheng: It was just something I wrote and my editor hassled me or didn’t hassle me, but she knew what I’d written, so she wanted to have a look at it. And, it was more or less snapped up straight away. She adored it. And like, most people, when they read it the first time, they cry. And she still cries every time she reads it.

[00:29:42] Sharon Skinner: Every time I, read it, I cry. Yeah.

[00:29:44] Chris Cheng: Every time I think about it, I, cry. Well, I was in DC so this is me last week in dC with my zoo friend. we’re in there, and. We are standing at the bookshelves and, I notice Will We Always Hold Hands and I point out a few other books to her, just happened to be the Bookseller [00:30:00] for Politics and Prose was there and she saw the book and I said, yeah, I, ’cause I don’t go out and say, oh, did you know I wrote this book?

[00:30:07] Chris Cheng: This is my book, blah. No, sorry, I’m not into that type of promotion But I pulled it off. and, she said, I, gave that book to somebody else last week, blah, blah, blah. I cried over it the first time I read it and I said, yeah, everybody does. And I said, I wrote the book. and that was fine. We talked a little bit about it, then she went off, then she brought the store manager and the store children’s manager, and then somebody else around.

[00:30:29] Chris Cheng: So next time I’m in DC they want me to do something for them there as well because of the book and stuff. that’s just the impact that’s had all over the world. But the reason I wanted to say that is because, again, it was my agent here. She got it after. Penguin Random here had said they want to do it. I think that was the order, because I knew my editor, so she got it. And then when it was due to be published in a couple of months time, but it went to, I think it probably went to Bologna or something like that.

[00:30:56] Chris Cheng: And, over a two week period for what? Tuesday, Wednesday, [00:31:00]Thursday, Friday, I got. Separate emails, Japan, Korea, Russia, Germany, France. And then she puts in all caps. Are you sitting down in the top of the email? cause I had no idea why she would do that. I sort of had a sense that Bear and Rat was getting a bit of a pickup but then Baron Rat went to auction in the states. the problem with that was that I actually knew most of the publishers as well. But you know, that was really such a blessing.

[00:31:25] Sharon Skinner: And did they ask you about changing the title?

[00:31:28] Chris Cheng: Yeah. the title’s different and so the cover, Same as in germany, I think, and somewhere else. It’s a different cover. principally because it had a rat in the title and, you know, rats in New York especially are not well liked and that was an interesting conundrum for me because I first thought, well, I’m not changing the title, but then I thought, well, what would Bini want? Of course, she’d want it changed. if that was a kicker for being published in America it wasn’t a kicker. But, I knew exactly what she would do because when she was a teacher librarian and she would read things and if, the [00:32:00] text wouldn’t be suitable for her kids. she’d adapt it. If it was a name that they couldn’t understand, she’d adapt it. So I thought, yep, it’s gonna be changed. That’s fine. I don’t care.

[00:32:08] Chris Cheng: That’s why you guys have got Will We Always Hold Hands question mark.

[00:32:10] Chris Cheng: Which is funny for me because when I’m liaising with the publisher about the book. Like, you know, I tell them I’m coming over, do you want me to go and do anything in the bookstores? And they say, yes, please. but we always put in the header in the title WWAHH question mark, so the capital letters of the book so that they know.

[00:32:27] Chris Cheng: Yeah.

[00:32:28] Sharon Skinner: That’s really lovely. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you as I always do. But we do have to contain this a little bit for our listeners, unfortunately. ’cause I could, just spend hours talking to you about all of this, but it’s time for us to get to our action item. So I would like to offer you the opportunity to share your action item with our listeners now.

[00:32:50] Chris Cheng: Yeah, don’t throw out your old stories. Keep them, you know, I’ve given you an example of what’s happened with one, file ’em away, put them in folders, which I think you [00:33:00] can never track a folder anyway, so that’s why I put the mine in notebooks. But Keep records, keep, listing those items. don’t throw them out.

[00:33:07] Chris Cheng: My notebooks actually have an index in the front of ’em, cause I can remember at least the title. So I can flick through the index to look at the different titles or what I was going to call books but I think the one thing is to write what you know really, really well.

[00:33:21] Chris Cheng: And everybody knows something really well. It’s what I tell the kids in school. What do you know really well? You know yourself really well. Well write a story about yourself, but rename it as a different character Write what you know really, really well. And then, if you want to, I think you’ll find you’ll have unlimited stories to tell, based on that alone.

[00:33:42] Chris Cheng: I never would’ve imagined that I’d be writing stories about myself and my godsons. Yet I am, a couple of books are about that, and there’s a couple more sitting in the notebooks about that. And that’s just something I know really well, and it’s something that

[00:33:55] Chris Cheng: Just clicks that emotional button within me . Not because I wanna write about [00:34:00] me, but just happens to be. That’s what I know really well, and I know my God sons really well. Except that they live in Canberra, as I said, so it’s a bit harder now, but even so, I still know what they do.

[00:34:09] Chris Cheng: I still get to see them a lot, and I hear their stories and I can take their stories, I guess it’s also still knowing your audience. after you’re writing for yourself, then you need to think about. Is this suitable for, really young kids? Is it suitable for older kids?

[00:34:23] Chris Cheng: Is it not suitable for them? Maybe it’s the start of a YA novel. Fantastic. Keep those records. Keep those stories. Cause you will remember things down the track and think, oh, where did I put that?

[00:34:35] Chris Cheng: At least I know it’s in a notebook and I’ll just flick through the notebooks. And I’ve got a couple of friends here who keep newspaper cuttings too. And one of them has a whole filing cabinet of newspaper cuttings. I have no idea how she finds which newspaper cutting she wants to use, but she does.

[00:34:49] Chris Cheng: She’s very clever like that. And that’s what’s really critical . ’cause then you’ll be really furious with yourself that you’ve lost it.

[00:34:56] Sharon Skinner: Yeah, well, you’re much more organized than I am. I have a file drawer and I have [00:35:00] files, and I even keep. Pictures that have inspired me or that I have ideas about, images that I want to tell stories about. So I think that’s a fabulous idea to keep track, but to keep it as organized as you do. I’m certainly not nearly that organized, but I do keep my ideas.

[00:35:19] Sharon Skinner: Think that’s a wonderful action item. for my Action item I’m going to go back to something else that you said. The idea of once you’ve worked on thinking out an idea, doing what you said, and writing it down with a pen or a pencil.

[00:35:35] Sharon Skinner: Once you’ve gotten it into the computer and you’ve worked on it there, then you print it out again and get it back into that tactile space, that place where you slow down a bit, you see the words on the paper a little bit differently because now it’s a manuscript and you see the story a little bit differently.

[00:35:55] Sharon Skinner: When I edit and when I revise, I print everything out. ’cause I write novels [00:36:00] mainly. So I like to print everything out and get in there with a pen and the paper and that tactile sensation for revision. That’s really how I revise best.

[00:36:11] Chris Cheng: Yeah, the printing out’s the set, the third stage for me.

[00:36:14] Chris Cheng: ’cause I do exactly the same thing, but the very first thing is, printing it into the book. And it’s all capital letters too, I should add. So the slowest way of doing it is capital letters, two B pencil. Those notebooks and I never write it in any other type of notebooks ’cause the other ones won’t fit in the shelf.

[00:36:29] Chris Cheng: So it’s gotta be that. Every time I go to Hong Kong, I buy three or four notebooks. So I’ve always got enough for the rest of the year. ’cause I’m in Hong Kong every year catching up with the rels. So yeah, it’s, that type of thing as well. and then it goes through the keyboard, and then it gets printed off.

[00:36:44] Chris Cheng: And then I edit it that way, and then I keep that edit. So, up in the attic I have where I keep all the paperwork, which is all going to go down to the National Archives in Canberra shortly. But I have folders of every book that I’ve ever worked [00:37:00] on. It’s my book that has every version of every story.

[00:37:04] Chris Cheng: Every draft that I’ve gone through, and now I’m printing off all the emails Twix and between the editors and things like that, so that there’s an archival record of how this book was created. ’cause blow me down, people are actually studying me, which I find so bizarre. I mean, really, I’m just a children’s author.

[00:37:22] Sharon Skinner: And we don’t see as much of that as we used to because people don’t write letters anymore and we don’t have the handwritten and we don’t keep a lot of the digital records. Anymore like we used to. So we see that process like we once did. so I think that’s fabulous.

[00:37:37] Sharon Skinner: Chris, where else can we find you? I know that we can find you at the S-C-B-W-I conferences, but where online and where else can we, find you.

[00:37:46] Chris Cheng: So, you can get everything through me through my website, so it’s chrischeng.com. so it’s C-H-R-I-S-C-H-E-N g.com. And you know, my Facebook’s there, my Instagram’s there. I’m gonna do Blue Sky [00:38:00] as well.

[00:38:00] Chris Cheng: But yeah, certainly get me through that way.

[00:38:02] Chris Cheng: Certainly at, the S-C-B-W-I conferences, I’m usually always hanging around like a bad smell, so, yeah, they can pick me up there as well, ask me, You’ve got questions. Ask me. I’ve You may well not reinvent the wheel ’cause I’ve been doing this wheel for a few years now.

[00:38:16] Sharon Skinner: Thanks again, for being here and sharing so much, so generously as you always do. It’s been great having you on the program. Thank you.

[00:38:26] Chris Cheng: My pleasure thank you. Lovely. It’s been good fun.

[00:38:30] Sharon Skinner: and bye for now.

[00:38:31] Chris Cheng: Cheers.

[00:38:32] Christy Yaros: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Coaching KidLit, a writing and book coaching podcast for writers who want to level up their KidLit writing game.

[00:38:39] Sharon Skinner: For more about us and to discover what a book coach can do for you, check out coachingkidlit. com and follow us on social media.