I’m trying to get some work done on Sharkzilla 3 this morning. It’s tricky. Writing a storypoem is something — I’m not sure how to explain this well — it’s either happening or it’s not. I think there’s a part of my brain that has to “get into the groove” in conceptual ways I don’t understand in order to churn out a story that rhymes and makes sense. And to do it WELL and not seem forced. Which is sort of how I feel now, like I’m forcing the rhymes and meter instead of letting it happen naturally. And when it happens naturally it just flows. It will still need tons and tons of edits, but less of them, and I’ll have more of a workable first draft to fiddle with.
Well, at least I do have a draft, and lots of embedded artwork, so that’s good. I think it’s a solid story, and ideally in a perfect world I’d like to release all three of these in one year: Me & Sharkzilla 1, 2 and 3 several months apart. Because it is really one long story and it would make more sense to keep it somewhat fresh in people’s minds. Or kids minds, I mean, it’s just an illustrated children’s book, it’s not a mega-novel or anything or the next Harry Potter. But it’s fun and weird and I like to think that some of the rhymes are clever and fun to read. But what do I know, I’m the author, I like to think everything I make is gold.
For a fairly young kid I’ve seen a lot of strange things,
Oh, heck – you already know what this speech brings!
I’ve seen weird stuff from the merry to the morose,
from neat-o and freak-o to grimy and gross.
And the latter was where we now found ourselves,
me and Sharkzilla stuck in an ocean of swells,
waves smashing an island as a huge storm rumbled
over terrain where I’d been so tragically tumbled
after defeating Octopox, the Baron of the Deep,
who turned out to be tentacled, despicable creep.
JM Hauser 