Literary success needs to be built book by book. This means daily faithfulness to God, even in the small things of life. Commitment to publishers by giving 100% effort for promotion and always offering thought-provoking inspirational literature to my readers.
As a children's school librarian, I know first-hand how a great book can sit on the shelf, untouched merely because it has a poor cover image. So don't settle for mediocre!
My first picture book took three years to come to fruition. The publishing editor did a fantastic job and I concluded that if a project is worth doing at all, it's worth doing well. Some days, I spend as much time thinking and praying about my projects as I do writing. But I've permitted myself to slow down and not become a workhorse. It's about enjoying the process and not just the end result.
I write mainly for children, but I think this applies to any author. Stories are always multi-layered, so whatever a child takes away from the reading experience is good, but you want them to dig a little deeper. For example, I wrote Barclay & Berk as a modern-day, fun story about builders, which will appeal especially to boys with lots of noisy power tools. If that's the only takeaway, it must be well-told and fun. (There's also a cute & crazy seagull on every page.)
But, perhaps readers will also discover from words in the back of the book that Jesus told this story. So, who is Jesus, and was he merely talking about builders? You get my drift! Good elements of writing need to be multi-layered, through showing without telling.
