T-Bone: Where do you do your work, Mr. Daniel? Do you have an office somewhere?

Daniel Kirk: My wife Julia works in a studio in the house, and I work in a studio that is built into our big old barn out in back. That’s over there behind the dinosaur corral.

Chuck: Oh, my goodness. I didn’t know kids could ride dinosuars!

T-Bone: Do your children help you get ideas for your stories?

Daniel Kirk: When I am writing a story I constantly run ideas past my kids, to see if the ideas work from a child’s point of view. If I have two different endings for a story, I ask the kids which ending they prefer. If I have a rhyme or a joke I am not sure about, I know I will always get an honest opinion from them.

T-Bone: Mr. Kirk, when you’re not busy being interviewing by dogs, what is your average day like?

Daniel Kirk: I write and paint all the time! I write at the gym, I write while driving the car and shopping for groceries. I keep a part of my brain tuned in to the quiet voices of inspiration, so I don’t miss anything. Creativity is a gift, but it’s also a skill. You can get more creative by practice and mental exercise. That is why I work at it even when I am busy doing other things. When I am in the process of painting a book, I work all day until school gets out at 3 PM, and then I go back to my easel after the kids go to bed. If I have a deadline coming up, I work around the clock.

Chuck: How long does it take you to make a book?

Daniel Kirk: That’s a good question.

Chuck: I know! I stole that idea from T-Bone.

Daniel Kirk: Sometimes I write a complete story in an afternoon, and sometimes I work on a story for years. Sometimes a story will sit in a drawer unfinished, and eventually I will realize that it just isn’t ever going to work. Other times I will see that I have a good, basic idea, but I have been approaching it the wrong way. It is a little like walking in the dark with your eyes closed. You know there is a path to take somewhere, but you’re just not sure where it is! And it is awfully easy to take the wrong path and not realize it until much, much later.

Chuck: You should open your eyes when you are walking on a path! You might fall down and hurt yourself.

Daniel Kirk: Thanks, I’ll remember that!

T-Bone: Now I have been looking at your books. Some of them have only a few words in them. Some of them have lots of words. How do you know how long your story should be, and how many words you should use?

Daniel Kirk: Since I write and illustrate most of my own books, I know that the average picture book has around fourteen "spreads" in which I must tell my story. When I am starting to write, I try to divide my major plot points into fourteen distinct sections. That way the story will fit a standard 32-page format. This kind of planning helps me structure my writing. For simplicity’s sake, I try to keep the text on each spread down to four or eight lines. Most little kids have a short attention span, and can’t handle long and complicated stories! For this reason I have to figure out how to tell the story I want to tell quickly, and with precision. There is no room for anything extra. My plot and my language must be stripped down to the bare essentials. I usually start off by writing lots more than is needed, and then I go back and edit the text to get rid of anything that is not absolutely necessary.

Chuck: Sort of a "bare bones" approach, eh? I like my bones with a little meat on them.

T-Bone: Do all the stories you write get made into books?

Daniel Kirk: No! When I have put the finishing touches on a story, and I feel it is ready to make into a picture book, I send it to one of my regular publishers. Then I wait up to several months to find out if they like it, too. It is often very difficult to tell if anyone will like my story as much as I do. Book publishers try to make books that are popular and sell lots of copies, and they have to decide if the story I wrote is going to be very popular. There is a lot of mystery and guesswork involved in this process. For every book of mine that gets published, I may write half a dozen stories that don’t get chosen. But eventually I write something that everyone at a publishing house thinks is right for them to make into a book!

T-Bone: What happens then?

Daniel Kirk: Then the story goes to an editor, who makes little changes that are intended to make my story even better than it already was, getting it ready for the illustration process.

T-Bone: So you write the book first, and then draw the pictures. How do you decide what the pictures will look like?

Chuck:Will you draw a picture of me?

T-Bone: He already drew a picture of you, Chuck. There are lots of pictures of you scarfing down bones in My Truck is Stuck. Don’t you remember?

Chuck: Remember what? I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.

Daniel Kirk: Let me explain the process! When the editor is finished making changes in my plot and language, and I agree to the changes, I begin sketching my book. It takes a couple of weeks to sketch the book, if I don’t have much research to do. If I have to look up costumes, or architecture, or things that require specific references to make my illustrations accurate, then the process can be longer and quite tedious. That is one of the reasons why I like to try to make up everything in my books from my imagination, and not be tied to copying photographs.

Chuck: I don’t like being tied to anything. When I was little my owner used to tie me to a leash in the back yard, and when birds flew overhead, they laughed at me.

T-Bone: Everybody laughs at you, Chuck.

Chuck: That’s because I’m so funny. Do you want to hear another joke?

T-Bone: No. Now, Mr. Kirk, I wanted to ask you about what kinds of art materials you use to make the pictures in your books!

Daniel Kirk: I love to experiment with different media and techniques in my finished artwork. At one time I only used oil paints on canvas, but that got really boring. When I spend a week or more making each illustration, I have to find ways to keep the process interesting to me. That is why in the last few years I have taken the opportunity to try out watercolors, pastels, colored pencils, photo collage, three-dimensional sculpture and other expressive mediums. You can read one of my picture books in five minutes, but writing the book and creating the illustrations is a process that can take me up to a half a year.

Chuck: Half a year?!? You must be really patient to work on something for that long. I get bored after five minutes!

T-Bone: Then maybe you shouldn’t make picture books, Chuck. Now Daniel, I can tell by the calluses on your fingers that you play a little guitar.

Daniel Kirk: Yes, here is my little guitar, right here. I keep it on the end of my keychain.

T-Bone: Very funny. Do you like music?

Daniel Kirk: I love music! It is my favorite hobby. Since I am a musician and songwriter, I have really enjoyed working on books that include CDs packaged with them. The poems in the book double as song lyrics, and I call these pieces "pongs," which means they are both poem and song.

Chuck: I like to howl! Would you put me on your next CD?

Daniel Kirk: Next time I need a howler, you’ll be the first dog I call.

Chuck: Thanks!

T-Bone: Do you sing songs and play guitar when you visit schools and libraries?

Daniel Kirk: When I make appearances, I love to sing songs as well as read my stories. It’s fun for all of us to mix up the picture books with a few songs!

T-Bone: Why do you think children like your books so much?

Daniel Kirk: I like to make kids smile. I like to write things that are funny, and quirky, and bring fantasies to life. I try to avoid sentimentality in my stories--if I feel myself getting hokey, I step back and change it. I don’t like to prettify things. If I decide that one of my characters has a dirty messy room, I will happily paint all the dirt. Sometimes my characters pick their noses or do stupid things, just like real kids! I don’t like to paint pictures that are too cute, sweet or precious. I think kids like honesty, even in the most outrageous or ridiculous situations!

Chuck: I don’t think your pictures are ridiculous. If I see something ridiculous, I start to sneeze. On the other hand, that picture of a kitten in your book is making my nose run.

T-Bone: Hey, don’t let your nose run all over his books!

Chuck: Sorry.

T-Bone: A lot of authors and illustrators make school visits to share what they do with children and teachers. Do you?

Daniel Kirk: I love making school visits. I enjoy having the opportunity to share my work with the audience for whom it is intended–kids! School visits give me the chance to share work in progress, so students can see the process of how an author works, and how challenging it is to try to get things just right. I like bouncing my ideas off a group of kids and encouraging them to be creative, and to take pleasure in the arts. I like reading my books out loud, because that is the way they were meant to be read! Every year I make just a handful of school visits, but it is always wonderful to travel and share my work, my experience and my energy with kids.

T-Bone: Chuck, where are you going?

Chuck: I’m going to go pet the dinosaurs!

Daniel Kirk: Sounds like a good idea to me. Come on, guys, I’ll race you to the corral!

(end of tape)