Episode #81: If you get an idea in the shower, how do you remember it? -with Nick Bruel
Welcome back to another fun episode of Kids Ask Authors! Today we welcome Nick Bruel and Grace Lin to answer this kid question: “If you get an idea in the shower, how do you remember it?”
TRANSCRIPTS:
Grace Lin: Hello, I'm Grace Lin, children's book author and illustrator of many books, including the middle grade novel, When The Sea Turned To Silver, and the picture book, A Big Mooncake For Little Star. Today, I am here with Nick Bruel, the author of Bad Kitty: Wash your Paws. Hi, Nick.
Nick Bruel: Hi, Grace. How are you?
Grace Lin: Good. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Nick Bruel: Well, thank you for having me here. This is a real pleasure.
Grace Lin: Great. Are you ready for today's kid question?
Nick Bruel: I am. I'm as ready as I'm going to be, which is as good as it's going to get.
Grace Lin: All right. Today's kid question is from a person named Yuki, and the person asks ...
Yuki: If you get an idea in the shower, how do you remember it?
Grace Lin: If you get an idea in the shower, how do you remember it?
Nick Bruel: Oh, okay, this is a terrific question, Yuki. I'm not even sure you're aware how great a question this is, because some of the absolute best ideas I have ever had have come to me while I was taking a shower. This is the absolute truth of the inspiration, the original idea for my very first published book called Boing! came to me while I was taking a shower. The inspiration, the idea for Bad Kitty, the first picture book came to me while I was taking a shower. Ideas come to us in very unexpected ways sometimes and I find that the only common pattern to when I need an idea is to remove myself from all distractions. The two ways I find that work best for me are to take a long walk someplace, and the other one is to take a shower. And I used to tell this story when I was visiting schools, that I got the idea for Bad Kitty while I was taking a shower, and I don't tell that story at schools anymore for a couple of reasons.
Nick Bruel: One, it seems like a recipe for disaster if I start talking about how I take my showers in front of an auditorium of school kids. And the other reason is because one day early on I told that story and a boy raised his hand and I called on him and he said to me, "Mr. Bruel, you should take more showers." I took that at face value. I now tell a different version of that story that is still honest and that when I have an idea, I write it down, and for Bad Kitty the story I tell is I was thinking of book titles, just titles, not even stories, just the titles, which is a creative device I use, which was writing down every one or two word title that comes to me. And the words Bad Kitty came to me. Now, they came to me in the shower, and this is my long way to finally getting around to answering your question, Yuki.
Nick Bruel: The idea of a story with a title Bad Kitty came to me while I was in the shower, and I liked this idea so much that in order to remember it, because I almost never bring pen and paper with me into the shower, was I repeated that idea, which was title to a story Bad Kitty, to myself over and over, "Bad Kitty, Bad Kitty, Bad Kitty," until I was ready to get out of the shower and dry myself off and get to the paper with a pen and write down those words, Bad Kitty. That is how it started. I then asked myself questions, which is what authors do all the time, and those answers eventually became the first picture book, Bad Kitty. So, for instance, I asked myself the question, what does the cat do that is so bad? And I came up with so many ideas. I thought it would be interesting if I wrote them down in alphabetical order. And I asked myself the question, why would this cat do so many terrible things?
Nick Bruel: And I thought, well, cats, their behavior is often intermingled with the food they get or they don't get. And so I thought, oh, it might be interesting to do an alphabet of all the foods that Kitty gets that she does not like. So that is how the first Bad Kitty book took shape, but it all really did start, remarkably enough, when you consider the question that was asked, with my thinking of those two words, Bad Kitty, while taking a shower. The question could not have possibly been more appropriate for me and what I do. So thank you very much, Yuki.
Grace Lin: Do you have a waterproof notepad and pencil now in the shower just in case that happens again?
Nick Bruel: You'd think that I would have come up with that. I don't think even know if such a thing exists. Is there a such a thing? I mean, I imagine pencils are pretty waterproof, pens too, but is there waterproof note paper for showers?
Grace Lin: I feel like someone told me about this once, because I remember once I had a good idea in the shower and I wanted to remember it, so I try to yell it to my iPhone like, "Hey, Siri!"
Nick Bruel: Oh, that's great.
Grace Lin: I tried to have her put it in my Notes. Whoops. So I tried to have Siri put it in my Notes, and, of course, she completely mangled it.
Nick Bruel: Oh, that's hilarious.
Grace Lin: And actually when I just said that, "Hey, Siri," right now, my phone started talking to me.
Nick Bruel: That is hilarious.
Grace Lin: That didn't work, and so I remember complaining about that to, now I don't remember, but some author who said, "You should get a waterproof notepad for the shower." And I remember thinking I should look into it, but I never did.
Nick Bruel: Oh, that's hilarious. This sounds like the fanciful imaginings of John Chesca. I don't think such a thing exists. I don't know where they come up with this stuff. I think you're probably better off taking a shower with a marker and then you just write on the walls or on the tiles and wipe it down later. Listeners, I don't want this to become a moment where you feel like you are resistant to taking a shower because you don't want to lose your good ideas. So if you're going through a real good creative patch, it's okay to bathe yourself once in a while. The pitfalls of taking a shower shouldn't be the loss of your creativity.
Grace Lin: No, I think it's actually the opposite. I think I get a lot of good ideas in the shower too. It's because, like you said, you have to isolate yourself. It's because there is no phone, there is no paper, there is nothing, so all you can do is think. So it's ironic that when you come up with a good idea, the reason why you come up with a good idea is because there's no place to write it down. Whereas if you did have a place to write it down, maybe those good ideas when it comes to you, because you have that pressure or something like that.
Nick Bruel: That's a good point. If an idea comes to me in the shower, it's always accidental. I'm not going into the shower in order to be inspired. If I need to have through an issue on a story, I almost always do it by taking a long walk. And when I do that, that is actually when I have either my voice memo or I speak directly into my Notes.
Grace Lin: Yeah, me too. When I'm working something out with an idea I already have, it's usually a walk. But like for that new inspiration, the shower is very useful.
Nick Bruel: Yeah.
Grace Lin: All right. Well, thank you so much, Nick, for answering today's question. And thank you, Yuki, for asking it.
Nick Bruel: It was a good one.
Grace Lin: Thanks so much. Bye.
Nick Bruel: Bye.
Grace Lin: All right.
Today’s BOOK REVIEW comes from Kelly! Kelly is reviewing the book, Girl Giant and the Monkey King by Van Hoang.
The book I would like to review is Girl Giant and the Monkey King by Van Hoang. This book is about a girl named Thom who has super strength. She accidentally releases the Monkey King from his prison, who makes a deal with her. He will remove her strength if she helps him find his magic staff. I liked this book because it is very exciting and funny. I laughed out loud at the part where Thom accidentally snaps two pairs of chopsticks in half. It was also funny when she broke all the windows in her house when she was trying to just close one. It has a lot of unexpected twists, like a student turning out to be a dragon. I recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy books about demons, gods, and mythical creatures.
Thank you so much Kelly!
More about today’s authors:
Nick Bruel is the author and illustrator of the phenomenally successful New York Times bestselling Bad Kitty series, including the 2012 and 2013 CBC Children's Choice Book Award winners Bad Kitty Meets the Baby and Bad Kitty for President. Nick has also written and illustrated popular picture books, including A Wonderful Year and Little Red Bird. Nick lives with his wife and daughter in Westchester, New York.
Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook, instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.
Special thanks to the High Five Books & Art Always Bookstore, Ms. Carleton’s 2nd grade class at Jackson Street School for their help with our kid questions and reviews.
