One of the most joyous parts of using watercolour is painting skies. There’s something about the softness of watercolour pigment that gives any sky a sense of lightness and delicacy that no other medium can easily mimic. But, there are only so many blue skies one can paint before, well, skies become a bit dull.

When I first started watercolour, I stumbled across the energetic work of Marie-Louise Gay. I found her work at a time when I was trying to understand the basics of how watercolour worked. Her lightness of touch and the energy in her work was something that I was drawn to immediately. I also found I came back to it, time and time again, as my confidence in the medium grew over the years.

Paint what you see

In the early days of my time with watercolour, I was obsessed with capturing reality. Skies were blue, trees–green, the sun, yellow. With every painting, I began to learn the ‘formula’ for matching these ‘realistic’ colours of the world to a watercolour pigment. Once this mapping gets into your muscle memory, you’re ready to move on. The next step? Beyond reality.

Beyond reality: Paint what you don’t see

The thing I love about Marie-Louise Gay’s work is how her use of colour isn’t about capturing reality any more. It’s about capturing a mood. It’s about a direct mapping of colour to the way colours make us feel.

Whether it’s the heat of the day, the coolness of the air by the sea, or that moment of the day whether the sun dips its weary head below the horizon, Marie-Louise Gay’s work sends us beyond reality to a time where the sky didn’t have to be blue, if we imagined it wasn’t.

Words are difficult. They need to be taught, and learned; that takes time. But looking? That’s different. The majority of us are born with the ability to look. From day 1, lightwaves are entering our tiny little pupils, and our brain is processing the incredibly vast amount of information. And yes, it’s VAST.

As language takes a little time for us to develop, we bridge the gap between birth and reading picture-free stories with tools like picture books; stories that can convey meaning without the need for words. We introduce really young brains to the ideas of beginning, middle, and end. They begin to experience the physical form of a book — the idea of pages, and sequence. Even if the child can’t understand us, we say the simple words that often accompany the pictures. We get them used to the sing-song sounds of the English language. We begin to help them connect what they’re seeing to what they’re hearing.

As language begins to develop further, they start reading the words along with us. And soon enough, a child is engaging with a picture book on their own. But picture book language is ‘simple’. The language doesn’t need to be complex because the images are telling half the story. So, what do we do? We begin to give a child books with more words; junior or middle-grade fiction. These are small ‘novels’ that start to make the child feel a bit more grown up. Because of the extra words, and the format of the physical form, something’s gotta give, and so we begin to remove the pictures from a story. Instead of an image on every page, there’s a simple line drawing every few pages or so.

As the child grows, so does their vocabulary and understanding of words. Soon enough, if they want to live in a world of books, those books are awash with words, and very little imagery. In fact, after about 13 years old, books don’t come with pictures anymore.

The slow removal of visual literacy from our adult vocabulary

If you don’t use it, you lose it. So this ‘progression’ of a small human’s story-interpreting ability towards the written word and away from the visual one probably has some ramifications. I don’t know this for certain, but anecdotally, I see it everywhere.

I’m lucky that I happen to be a strong visual communicator. I use this strength almost every single day in the work that I do as a software designer. People often remark that it’s a superpower. I’ve been explicitly asked on to projects *so* I could draw a diagram or workflow of something that others couldn’t find the words for.

Unlike most professional illustrators, I didn’t hone this skill from birth. I never spent my teenage years drawing and doodling like mad. Attending Art School never entered my mind. I took to Physics and Chemistry like a duck to water and so it wasn’t until later in life that my natural tendency to communicate ideas with pictures emerged.

But most people aren’t me. They don’t have a natural strength for colour and shape; for doing a quick drawing of a circle, two dots, and a line in a particular combination to form a face whose expression can cross language barriers and communicate human emotion in a much more intuitive way.

This isn’t about drawing

I can’t help but think that this difficulty that people have with ‘drawing’ isn’t that their hands can’t physically pick up a whiteboard marker and press it against a surface to make marks. I think this might be about the amount of time they’ve spent looking at stories that have been told in words, instead of pictures. It’s about familiarity and exposure, not about physical inability. I have plenty of people say to me, “I’ve written a children’s book, it’s really good, wanna read it?” but almost no one says, “I’ve drawn a wordless picture book, it’s really good, want to take a look?”

We’re living in an increasingly visual culture. Perhaps the rise of emojis and gifs are our response to our ever globalised culture as we seek ways to communicate across language boundaries. A smiley is a smiley in any language. Pictures are one of the most natural methods humans have for expressing their thoughts and feelings to the broadest group of people possible. Visual literacy is being set up to be one of the most fundamental skills of our time.

So, if this is all true, why is the road to literacy paved in words?

There are many things I consider when I’m deciding whether to put an idea out into the world at scale through a publisher. It doesn’t matter whether it’s text I’ve written and illustrated myself or a text I’ve received from an author where I play the role of an illustrator; I don’t think there’s a more important question than, “Is this idea really worth spreading?”

Valuing an idea is difficult. Balancing the ideological and behavioural impact of my work against its economic and environmental impact is a bit like comparing apples and oranges.

What’s the cost of an idea?

Any idea, published at scale through a publisher takes resources. Trees have to be cut down, that’s a given. But the chemicals used in the inks need to be manufactured, the book likely needs glue for the binding. If it’s a gloss cover or if it has some unique finish, there’s likely to be polymer and plastics involved; things that will never degrade.

There’s the creation of the artwork, too. Oil paints (petrochemicals), acrylics (plastic), watercolours (pigments like Cadmium), the paper or canvases needed to create the work, the brushes manufactured from natural and synthetic hairs, the wood used to make the brush handle, the list goes on.

Oh, and don’t forget the labour. Publishing a book means that actual humans are spending their finite time on Earth, helping to spread the idea. Everyone from the publishing team, sales and marketing, and the book printers and suppliers. The people who drive the delivery trucks and planes to the bookstores across the country, maybe even across the world, and of course, booksellers. It’s all part and parcel of bringing what most people see as a ‘pretty simple book’ to market.

Maybe I’m thinking too hard about this, but it costs us humans a lot to spread our ideas in this way.

What’s the impact of Queen Celine?

The irony of writing, illustrating, and publishing a book about the impact of our actions on the environment (like Queen Celine) is not lost on me.

I genuinely believe that the printed word, bound in books, is one of the most potent behaviour-change tools humans have ever invented. There’s no argument that the speed and convenience afforded by the simple printing press changed humanity forever. The format of the book is archival. It can last hundreds and sometimes thousands of years as long as it can escape its nemesis, fire. It’s been our primary method of intergenerational knowledge transfer for centuries.

To make me feel OK about using precious resources for spreading my idea, I work SO hard to make sure that a book like Queen Celine has the best chance of making the change that I seek to make. And no, that’s not to accumulate awards or make me enough money to be a full-time writer. And it’s certainly not for my ego. What I want from any of my books is to introduce a different perspective to someone. Make them think a little differently than before. Open their hearts and minds to the experience of others. If they can think differently, maybe they’ll act differently, too. Or, at the very least, with a bit more empathy. Perhaps they’ll be more kind, more forgiving, more understanding. The things that I think the world needs right now. I sweat obsessively over every word in the book, every punctuation mark, every line I draw or colour I select. Every single thing matters because it’s a terrible use of resources if the book doesn’t achieve its purpose.

Whose choice is it, really?

You might say, “Gee, Matt, you’re taking getting published for granted a bit, aren’t you?” And you’re right, I am. But although publishers are gatekeepers of sorts, what concerns me, I suppose, is that I don’t hear the industry talking about whether an idea should have the world’s meagre resources used to spread that idea in the physical form. I know publishers talk about “Return on Investment”, but it’s often regarding the simple, financial equation of “How much money did we pay the printer and author? How many copies did we sell? Did we end up in the black or the red?” And I don’t judge that approach either. It’s necessary so that publishers survive so that books do.

The generous optimist in me would like to assume that the selection criteria used by publishers have the “What is the strain on the Earth’s resources” question implicit in them. But I haven’t seen evidence of this so far. I’ve had plenty of ideas turned down, but I haven’t had a book turned down because, “We don’t think your idea is worth the irreversible damage to the planet, sorry.” For what it’s worth, I would love that! The reasons I hear more often are “The market for this book isn’t clear or big enough” or “Sorry, this isn’t something that fits with the rest of our list right now.” It suggests that a focus on financial ROI and reputation or brand is at the core of the decision-making process.

So, if publishers aren’t judging an idea against its impact on the planet, maybe it’s up to authors after all? Maybe it’s in our court to objectively assess our ideas and really try to understand whether this idea that we’ve had – this bright spark of inspiration – is worth spreading in the resource-intensive, traditional format of a book. Do we need another book about poo? Do we need another book about the alphabet? And if we do, then why? What’s so special about this idea? How will this change lives in a different way than what’s come before? If this idea was spread and the plastic cover it was printed on never degraded, would it have been worth it? Maybe if we use criteria like these on ourselves before we seek an agent or a publisher, we’ll only take our best ideas – truly life-changing ideas – to them. Maybe it’ll reduce the disappointment we get when we receive hundreds of rejections and it’ll increase our chance of being published anyway because we deeply, truly believe that this one is worth it — win-win.

A really smart publisher once told me her litmus test for knowing whether an author of a story knew why they were writing it. She said, “When I ask someone to tell me what their book is about, I typically get two types of answers. One author begins to describe their plot; the sequence of events from their outline. It usually takes about five minutes and is so full of information that I’m unable to keep up. The second author takes fifteen seconds. They’re the ones who succinctly describe the relatable human theme that their book is exploring, which also points to why people should read it.”

It was a big penny-drop moment for me. I was once the first author, but since this conversation, I strive to be the latter. For example, here’s my story, Queen Celine in two different versions.

Queen Celine is a story about a little girl who lives an ordinary life, except for when she goes to the beach. At the beach, she becomes a ‘ruler’ of a rockpool kingdom. She loves it dearly, so, she builds a wall to protect it from ever changing. But, after a little while, she realises that the residents are unhappy because everything is beginning to stagnate. In her distress, she looks out to the other rockpools and sees that there is happiness and joy there. The only difference between their rockpools and hers is the wall. So, with the help of her kingdom, she knocks down the wall. New life floods her stagnating kingdom and regenerates it with healthy life. She doesn’t want anyone else to make the same mistake as her, so she leaves a message for future rulers of this place that they should always welcome all.

Long, and boring. Even for me reading my own writing. But here’s the same story, described in a different way.

Queen Celine is about viewing change and diversity as something to embrace, rather than something to fear and avoid.

Describe your idea, or refine it

I not only use the second, more concise way of describing my idea for books I’ve written now, but I use it to test whether the idea I might have just had, the one that isn’t written yet, is worth writing at all. If I can’t find what that relatable human need is, then I need to work harder because until I have that, my story is just a sequence of events, and not about anything at all.

I keep a small pocket journal on me at all times to capture the random, unintentional thoughts that pop into my head on a day-to-day basis. I’ve developed this habit because I never know when these ideas will float to the surface of my consciousness. I’ve lost good ideas by not being prepared in this way.

I used to walk to my nearest train station to get to work. It’s a 3.5km walk, and it took me about half an hour. As I got busier with life, I thought I could save time by cycling to the train station instead. And yes, it did save time. It cut my half-hour walk down to a 15-minute ride. In a return trip, that saved me half an hour per day. I was happy. I had optimised!

I rode the bike for many months before I noticed that I wasn’t getting through as many pocket journal pages as usual. I had been using the same one for much longer than I usually would. Those thoughts and ideas I had come to take for granted and planned for began to dry up.

So, I left the bike at home and went back to walking. Sure enough, after a little while, the thoughts and ideas returned. They came back with a flood.

Ways to plan boredom

Planned boredom seems like an oxymoron, but there’s research to prove that it works. My mind makes the most interesting connections when it’s not focussed on anything in particular – when it knows it’s in a safe place, with no immediate threat, and it’s allowed to wander. It has space to invent. To make connections that I could not make intentionally.

When I’m on the bike, my mind is continuously in survival mode. It’s monitoring traffic, my balance, speed, and pedestrians. There’s no room for expansive or accidental thought. Riding a bike isn’t a time for serendipity, it’s a time for focus.

Our devices are robbing us of boredom, so we have to fight back

Planning unfocussed time into my day has become critical to my creative practice. It’s the wellspring of my creative projects. But with technology designed to fill every gap in our day, we have to try harder than ever to make this time for ourselves. Here are a few ways I know that have a pretty good strike rate in getting ideas into my notebook:

1. My walk to work (or a walk anywhere). Mindless, repetitive tasks like this ensure the blood is moving around the body, feeding oxygen to all my important bits, namely, my brain and heart.
2. Shower time. Shower time works less reliably for me these days, but it’s still a safe place where my brain can let my body go into an auto mode so my mind can wander.
3. Laying on the floor with a sketchbook. Kids do this naturally, and I only started doing this as an adult again, but boy is it powerful. The theory would say that by laying flat, you’re distributing the blood around your body more evenly and so your posture alone is gearing you up to be in a more receptive and powerful space for idea generation. When you add a sketchbook into that, boom, the magic happens.
4. Staring out of a train window (instead of staring at Facebook or even listening to music). A fairly self-explanatory one but and it’s SO hard to resist the temptation to listen to another fascinating podcast, right?

Integrating these moments in your life can be difficult to prioritise. Do I need to scroll through Facebook or Instagram right now? Or could I spend that time setting my brain up to have another idea, or make a new connection that no one has ever made before?

‘Avoiding boredom’ is something that we’re trained to achieve in a bid to be ‘more productive’. But it’s not until you permit yourself to be bored again that you truly see the power of it. At least, that’s the way it’s worked for me.

Lately, I’ve been a little obsessed with the Hilda comics series by Luke Pearson. Visually, the comics and the Netflix TV series are stunning, mainly for the beautifully controlled colour palettes they use.

To bake sourdough bread, you need four ingredients: Flour, Water, Culture, and Time. Time is as important to sourdough bread as the things you can feel and weigh. And if you want some fresh bread in the morning, you’ve got to plan for it, you’ve got to be preparing things a day or two in advance.

There are times when I’m struggling to really nail an idea. I might have a character design or colour palette in my head and I sit down to work and work and work until what I see in my head is on the page. I know I can do it, but some days are just harder than others. I think things like, “If I just put in another hour, I’ll have it.” But frustration builds, I almost always never get there.

Just add time

Now, I’ve learned to identify that feeling of ‘pushing through’ early. And when I start to think those controlling thoughts, I do the opposite; I walk away.

Like baking great sourdough, great ideas need time. They require patience and a generosity to yourself. A trust that, in time, you can do it, but it doesn’t need to be right now. Maybe you need a bit more practice. Or maybe you have to sleep on it and look at it with fresh eyes. Maybe you need to an additional flash of inspiration that puts you on the right track or gives you a renewed motivation to finish. In a world where we’re told that we can control everything, giving ourselves over to time is hard. In my experience, it’s always worth it.

I hear that children’s publishing is a difficult industry to break in to. There’s a lot of people wanting in, and only so many books a year. So what are the chances that you’re going to be the one? Slim to none, I hear. They say it probably won’t be you.

So prove them wrong, underdog.

From underdog to top dog

It turns out that being an underdog can be incredibly motivating for some people. The mission to ’cause an upset’ might be the thing you need to push you to work smarter and harder than anyone else. I’m one of these people. I like to challenge the status quo. If someone tells me that it’s unlikely I’ll be able to achieve something, I will go out of my way to prove them wrong if it’s something I care about.

There are so many examples of this. From the story of Brad Bird and the Incredibles, to ‘now top-dog’ of the anime world and founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, who, whilst a lowly in-betweener at one of his first jobs, decided to re-draw the entire ending to a film without having the permission to do so. Jules Faber, and Brian Koppelman’s Podcast, The Moment, also mounts evidence for the case.

A ‘just-manageable’ difficulty

It’s all well and good to say, “Hey, people don’t think you’ll ever be published. So go. Get published”. But that’s a bit like saying “Hey, you’re not smart, be smarter.” Or for those of us familiar with The Simpsons, Tappa Tappa Tappa. This is where ‘A just manageable difficulty” becomes important.

“Being published” is a pretty difficult thing, especially when they say, “You’ll never be published”. There’s a lot that needs to happen for someone to achieve that goal. But what about doing 3 illustrations per week. I bet you can’t do that. Or, if you’re already doing that, what about an illustration a day. An idea a day? 300 words per day? Go on, I dare you.

A just manageable difficulty is about setting a challenge whose difficulty doesn’t feel impossible, but it stretches you. Right now, my just-manageable difficulty is writing one journal entry per week. On the surface, this doesn’t sound like much. But with a full-time job, a fair-sized garden that needs care, in-progress and exploratory picture book work, short story writing and reading for pleasure, plus, you know, life; one journal entry is proving just manageable. I’ve also been told I couldn’t keep it up. I’ll show them.

Find your rival and conquer

So, next time someone says, “No, sorry, this path is not for you.” Embrace that the odds are against you, that they’re expecting you to fail. Then, set your small but manageable goals and prove them wrong, one small win at a time.

In the not too distant future, ballet, music, and sport will be performed perfectly by robots. Every position and every movement choreographed with a precision that a human could never possibly achieve in their lifetime. A robot performer will never fall. They will never be out of sync; never go out-of-bounds. Every jump, catch and note as fluid and majestic as can be.

Boring, huh?

Humans watch other humans strive to do things perfectly because it’s rare that it will ever be perfect. Even the most awarded, respected, consistently performing master of their craft will, on occasion, have an off day. A prima ballerina may tumble. A football player will miss a penalty kick sometimes. A musician will miss a note in their performance of The Flight of the Bumblebee. These are the moments we tell our friends about after it’s over, “Did you see her fall? Did you see him miss that catch? Can you believe it?!”

Failure, in the pursuit of perfection, is exciting to onlookers. Often, the bits that I dislike most about a painting that I complete are the bits that draw the most interest from the observer. It reveals a chink in the armour. The vulnerability they notice reminds them that they aren’t alone–that we’re flawed. That, in the long run, we’ll never attain ‘perfect’. But that doesn’t mean we won’t stop trying. When the risk is gone, so is the anticipation and excitement of the reward.

How do I know when I’ve made it? I recently attended the SCBWI conference in Sydney with almost 400 other writers and/or illustrators. Most of the attendees were unpublished, and of the ones I spoke to, most of them asked what I was doing there, because I was already published. What did I need to learn?

As it turns out, we’re all working at different scales of success. In one view, there’s the ‘beginner to pro’ scale. It looks something like this:

At the SCBWI conference, I was seen as the ‘pro’ by all the ‘beginners’. That’s because of the scale that unpublished authors use in their head to categorise things. I think what they really see is this:

But in my head, that scale it’s vastly different. It’s not whether I’m published or unpublished. No. I’m playing the long game. An infinite game of art. I’m competing against myself and my own ability. Because of this, my scale looks something like this:

See, for me, success is about making my body use the tools of my medium to render my imagination and communicate my ideas as clearly and accurately as possible. It doesn’t matter whether people choose to stop publishing the work I do, I’ll still keep making it. After all, it’s how I started. I was once unpublished, like the other attendees at that conference. In fact, this might sound strange, but the goal of getting published never entered my head at all. I was simply trying to make the work I could see in my brain. I still am. I’ll never stop attending conferences, talks, and workshops. I’ll never stop reading, studying light, analysing the craft of writing poetry and fiction. It’s a lifelong pursuit. And, if people one day choose to no longer publish that work in a book, that’s OK. I’ll keep trying my hardest to move that arrow in my head to the right, knowing full well that I’ll never get there because no matter what I do, my expectation of what I can do will always exceed the skill I have to reach it.