The first draft of my picture book is now complete! Signing up for Anastasia Suen’s “Picture Book Internsive” online course was the best idea so far. It forced me to meet weekly deadlines and really work through my story beats.

Oh, and I also changed the name of the book. Originally the book was going to be called The Pirate and the Princess. Typically the main character gets lead billing, (i.e., The Princess and the Pirate) but the domain name, ThePrincessAndThePirate.com, was already taken. Since the domain name, ThePirateAndThePrincess.com, was available I bought it and made that the name of my book.

But then I discovered that ThePrincessAndPirate.com was available. So I snatched it up and changed the name of my book to The Princess and Pirate.

The only bad news is my first draft is around 6500 words and the average picture book is between 800-1000 words. Luckily Ms. Suen was able to edit the first draft down to about 1500 words.

Now I have my work cut out for me…….how to get rid of 500 more words!