March 02

On Doing the Thing You Shouldn’t Be Doing by Travis Jonker

Posted by on March 2, 2017 in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

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For a long time whenever the urge to write a story hit, I did a pretty good job of stopping it. Why would I want to do the thing I shouldn’t be doing?

It definitely felt like I shouldn’t be doing it. All the self-defeating stuff that comes with trying something new creatively (at least for me) came. The “What right do I have?” stuff. The “What will they think?” stuff. I couldn’t even struggle in a unique way, how was I going to write something unique?

After a lot of attempts turned back, the urge made some progress. I finally decided that the next time it hit, I was going to go with it.

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And I did. That was a while back now. Since then I realized something that I think we all know, but have trouble convincing ourselves of – that following creative urges is exactly what we should be doing.

And now doing the thing I shouldn’t have been doing has led to something I’m very happy about: a picture book called The Very Last Castle, illustrated by the fantastic Mark Pett, will be published by Abrams next year.

So I say do the thing you shouldn’t be doing. Unless it’s illegal.

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Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes about children’s literature at 100 Scope Notes, his blog on the School Library Journal website. Travis is the co-creator (with Colby Sharp) of The Yarn podcast. His debut picture book, The Very Last Castle, illustrated by Mark Pett, will be published by Abrams in the fall of 2018.