Orion choose an experienced illustrator, Sam Childs, to work with me. I checked out her drawings out at the local library. They were great. The next step was meeting Sam and Jon for lunch. We talked about Boobela and how she and Worm would look.

I learned that producing a book is a lot more complicated and takes a lot longer than I'd thought.

There are four main people involved in the production - the author (me), the illustrator (Sam), the designer (Sarah Hodder) and the editor (Jon Appleton).

Sarah and Sam

The first step was for me to write the other three stories. I wrote the first draft of "At the Seaside" on a long (11 hour!) flight from London to Los Angeles.

I did a lot of research about hot air balloons (and looked at lots of lovely pictures) before I wrote the Balloon Club story.

The hardest to write was the last story, To Grandmother's House. The main problem was to have Gran explain dowsing and magic in as few words as possible. (I only have 2000 words per story.) If you want a longer explanation of dowsing, see Boobela's Special Magic.

I discovered that writing the first draft was less than half the battle. I had to rewrite each chapter many times. I've been very lucky having Jon as an editor. Almost all his suggestions on changing the stories improved them!