Sometimes it’s what you’re not …

The oth­er day one of my pub­lish­ers sent me a reprint copy of Things that Some­times Hap­pen. My first pub­lished book, it appeared in 1970. In oth­er words, it has been around for forty-three years. 

How did it come to be? 

In the 1960’s I was writing—or try­ing to write—but put my hand to any­thing. I was a doo­dler, and had a friend who dealt in mis­cel­la­neous items, every­thing from lamp­shades, to rugs, to shawls. He found my draw­ings amus­ing and sug­gest­ed I illus­trate a series of humor­ous note cards—at a time before such things were com­mon. I said, “I’m a writer, not an illustrator.” 

“Try,” he said. 

I did. He pack­aged them, and sought to mar­ket them. Not very successful. 

Anoth­er friend liked those cards, decid­ed to write a book, and asked me to illus­trate them. “I’m a writer, not an illus­tra­tor,” I said. 

“Try,” she said. 

She showed my art to a prospec­tive editor. 

That edi­tor turned down her project and called me. “You are a mar­velous artist,” she said. “Would you be inter­est­ed in doing a book for me?” 

“I am a writer, not an illus­tra­tor,” I said. 

“Then try to write a book, and illus­trate it,” she said. 

My eldest son was three years old. We had got­ten into a habit of bed­time stories—with a twist. I would ask what he would like the sto­ry to be about. “I want a sto­ry about a garbage truck. A sto­ry about the rain. A sto­ry about a crayon.”

I made them up. 

So when that edi­tor asked me to write a book, I recalled those sto­ries, wrote them, rewrote and rewrote, did illus­tra­tions and sent them in. 

“You were right,” said the edi­tor. “You are not an illus­tra­tor, but I love the stories.” 

This is the way Things That Some­times Hap­pen hap­pened forty-three years ago.

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