Dawn McMillan
Author of Woolly Wally Illustrated by Ross Kinnaird Published by Oratia |
About the Author
Dawn McMillan lives in Waiomu on the Thames Coast, Coromandel Peninsula. She is an author with twenty years’ experience in writing picture book scripts and educational readers. Dawn has had a long and satisfying career as a primary school teacher. Now writing is her career! Her published works include 30 picture books, 220 educational texts and poetry. Her bestselling books include I need a NEW BUM! and Doctor Grundy’s Undies. Dawn’s educational works range from entry level readers to upper primary texts, with several chapter books at this higher level. Her work includes a variety of non-fiction at all levels, including readers with a science and math focus. Dawn enjoys visiting schools and is currently Patron of Reading at Te Totara Primary School in Rototuna, Hamilton Selected Bibliography Awards: 2003 Children’s Choice New Zealand Post Award for Why Do Dogs Sniff Bottoms? (Reed) 2005 Premier New Zealand Bestseller GOLD for Why Do Dogs Sniff Bottoms? (Reed) 2013 Notable Picture Book Award for Colour the Stars (Scholastic NZ) 2013 Lianza Te Kura Pounamu Finalist for Taea Nga Whetu (Scholastic NZ) 2017 Storylines Notable Picture Book Award for The Harmonica (Scholastic NZ) Other picture books from Dawn: I Need a NEW BUM and Other Stories (includes Seagull Sid and Doggy Doo on my Shoe) (Oratia) Charlie and His Amazing Tales (Oratia) Squeakopotamus (Oratia) Holy Socks (Libro/Oratia) Doctor Grundy’s Undies (Libro/Oratia) Sea Secrets (Reed) Pancake Attack (Scholastic NZ) Glasseye Creek (Raupo) |
How the book come about
I met Woolly Wally while travelling the South Island. He was standing by the fence near Dansy’s Pass and he had that look about him as if to say, ‘So when are you going to write about me?’ Of course, all the faithful girlfriends were there in the paddock with him.
We went travelling on in our little van to find ourselves running out of daylight and an unknown roadway in front of us. To my dismay, we had to camp under a huge pylon. It crackled all night. I couldn’t sleep, so I wrote Woolly Wally in my head.
I ‘saved’ it quite successfully and when we got home a few weeks later I wrote the story. Of course, there were many hours of editing and rewriting, but finally there it was. Luckily Oratia (Libro International at the time) said yes to publishing the story and Ross said yes to doing the illustrations.
When I work with Ross I never give him illustration briefs. I write from a ‘film’ that runs through my head, so I write from pictures. And when the roughs come back from Ross I see my pictures. It’s magic. Ross is so talented and I’m so pleased that we make such a good team. Sometimes he teases me with some extra crazy roughs!
The writing process
I use a computer to write. I like to see how the words look on the pages, so I paginate my work even in the rough write stages. Pagination helps me keep an eye on the pace of the story, where the tension is, where the problem needs to come in. But the very first write is a fast write without thinking. Too much thinking doesn’t work for me. I just sit down and hammer it out to see what happens. With Woolly Wally I had done much of the processing before I got home to the computer. It was a case of running and rerunning it my head until it worked.
I always read my stories out aloud, acting out the dialogue. I read to an imaginary class, turning the imaginary book pages. I read to the cat, the toys in my studio, my long-suffering husband. Reading aloud sorts out the problems in the story. And it’s the best editing process, as you hear where you’ve missed punctuation and the right sentence structures. You also hear when a voice doesn’t work.
When Woolly Wally was ready to submit I held my breath. Once it was accepted I worked with my marvellous editor, Carolyn Lagahetau, to improve ‘the product’. Then the script went to Ross for his roughs. From the roughs it went to be edited, then to the final art work, the cover, the blurb and one last look, before it was off to the printer.
I met Woolly Wally while travelling the South Island. He was standing by the fence near Dansy’s Pass and he had that look about him as if to say, ‘So when are you going to write about me?’ Of course, all the faithful girlfriends were there in the paddock with him.
We went travelling on in our little van to find ourselves running out of daylight and an unknown roadway in front of us. To my dismay, we had to camp under a huge pylon. It crackled all night. I couldn’t sleep, so I wrote Woolly Wally in my head.
I ‘saved’ it quite successfully and when we got home a few weeks later I wrote the story. Of course, there were many hours of editing and rewriting, but finally there it was. Luckily Oratia (Libro International at the time) said yes to publishing the story and Ross said yes to doing the illustrations.
When I work with Ross I never give him illustration briefs. I write from a ‘film’ that runs through my head, so I write from pictures. And when the roughs come back from Ross I see my pictures. It’s magic. Ross is so talented and I’m so pleased that we make such a good team. Sometimes he teases me with some extra crazy roughs!
The writing process
I use a computer to write. I like to see how the words look on the pages, so I paginate my work even in the rough write stages. Pagination helps me keep an eye on the pace of the story, where the tension is, where the problem needs to come in. But the very first write is a fast write without thinking. Too much thinking doesn’t work for me. I just sit down and hammer it out to see what happens. With Woolly Wally I had done much of the processing before I got home to the computer. It was a case of running and rerunning it my head until it worked.
I always read my stories out aloud, acting out the dialogue. I read to an imaginary class, turning the imaginary book pages. I read to the cat, the toys in my studio, my long-suffering husband. Reading aloud sorts out the problems in the story. And it’s the best editing process, as you hear where you’ve missed punctuation and the right sentence structures. You also hear when a voice doesn’t work.
When Woolly Wally was ready to submit I held my breath. Once it was accepted I worked with my marvellous editor, Carolyn Lagahetau, to improve ‘the product’. Then the script went to Ross for his roughs. From the roughs it went to be edited, then to the final art work, the cover, the blurb and one last look, before it was off to the printer.