No one knows anything - from Hazel Mitchell

Last time we met here on Turbo Monkey Tales I talked about style and how to get it. I was going to do something similar and talk about the elements of the picture book, or story arc, or layout or some such. But when I opened the clean, white page of the 'new post' I found I didn't want to talk about that stuff at all.

A phrase has been tootling around the small space between my ears and that phrase is 'no one knows anything'. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am it is so.

This philosophizing was brought on by a Q&A with 'Roaring Brook Press' editor Neal Porter at a Highlight's Foundation workshop a couple of weeks back. Pretty much at the start of the discussion Neal quoted Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman - 'no one knows anything'. (Goldman was talking about the movie industry, but applying it to the industry of children's books makes a lot of sense).

I sat attentively, pen poised, ready to take notes like billy-o, absorbing pearls of wisdom. (I hasten to add there were MANY such pearls). But then I stopped writing and just listened. (see below).