![]() She grew up along the waterways of Missouri, surrounded by farmland and legends. With a background in education, she also writes engaging nonfiction for all ages. ![]() When I realize something isn’t working according to plan, I stop and often, don’t start up again until I have puzzled my way through that obstacle.Īuthor, ghostwriter, and speaker, Roxanne Troup writes kids’ books that celebrate wonder and family. ![]() I plan out/dream through many aspects of my stories before I ever sit down to draft-which might explain the whole start-and-stop habit. I don’t know that any one of those things crosses over into my writing (though gardening might seem like it with this title), but my favorite part about each is the planning/dreaming stage. ![]() I like lots of creative things: crafting, singing, gardening, interior design. (Does that make number five my actual “first draft”?)Ĭandice: Haha, no way! All that hard work still counts and kudos to you on not giving up! Do you have other creative outlets or hobbies? Do they cross into your writing? It wasn’t until my fifth draft that I finally completed the story. But each time I started a new draft, I added some important storytelling element or figured out what wasn’t working and tried a new way of fixing it. For this particular story, I had quite a few stop-and-start drafts, meaning I started but never finished them. But every story-and the way it comes to the page-is different. And that, is WORK! I don’t know that I discovered anything “new” about my process with this story as it’s not my first (even though it is my debut fiction). Roxanne: That first flush of IDEA is heady and addicting, but then I have to figure out how to make that idea work. Raining pecans! The pure joy on the grandpa’s face makes this such an endearing bookĬandice: I grew up with pecan trees in the backyard and have vivid memories of picking up pecans–the pies my mom would make were definitely worth the effort! What is your favorite part of the creative process? Did you learn anything about your own process while you were working on this book? I couldn’t get the image of that farmer shaking his trees out of my head-pecans fell like thundering rain! After running across a YouTube video of a farmer harvesting pecans by tractor (from hundreds of trees at a time), I knew I had my topic. Did everyone collect pecans in buckets? So, I started researching. But I wondered how the commercial pecan industry worked. They grew wild and in backyards where I grew up, and we harvested them in buckets. I set to brainstorming different stories that might work for that publisher and discovered a hole in the market-pecans. Roxanne: A couple years ago, I discovered a new publisher looking for agricultural books, and since I grew up in an agricultural community, I thought it might be a good fit. Congrats again on your picture book release! How did you get the inspiration for your story? For today’s interview on Finding Inspiration, I spoke to Roxanne Troup, author of the newly released picture book, MY GRANDPA, MY TREE, AND ME. Hi, WONDERers! Have you missed us? We may not be blogging as much lately, but all of us here at Wonder of Words are still reading as many amazing children’s books as we can.
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