Before The Prince, there was Crusoe

The Prince is not my first attempt at publishing a story. No, it seemed I had wanted to tell stories since I was a kid, and I wasn't slowed down by physical plausibility, logical consistency or conventionally-accepted grammar.

And thanks to my Mom's meticulous memento-keeping habits, I have proof from the fabled days of middle school:

The whole book was done in pencil, then inked in red, blue and a bit of green. Apparently this would be the first of many thrilling adventures. I can't recall exactly how long it took, but it was many weeks.  If there was a mistake in the inked version, I would rewrite the whole page.

Ah, the classic "Once upon a time" opener. You can see the corrections I made using Wite-Out correction fluid, and my teacher's corrections in pencil.

The story moves quickly. By the second paragraph our protagonist Crusoe (any relation to a much better-known character ?) already received his task of slaying the dragon of Black Mountain. Ten-year-olds do not have time to lose. Don't let the fact that his horse is named "Jolly" fool you, this story is not a peaceful one. The action picked up quickly:

Then he said, "You are a very dangerous monster, I must kill you !!!" Crusoe drew his sword and fought bravely. But the Fire Dragon was very big and strong. Crusoe's strength was giving out and he fell to the ground.

As you can see, Crusoe was a man of action, a heroic figure who conveniently announces his intentions. Though perhaps he could have benefited from a bit more aerobic training, falling to the ground from exhaustion during a fight is a little embarrassing !

Black Mountain was clearly a metaphorical name, since the mountain is not colored in. (CORRECTION-- my Mom tells me I didn't want to color in the mountain, afraid that the page will bleed though and I will get ink all over myself).

More illustration. For a proudly talkative man, Crusoe had no visible mouth. Maybe he was doing a stoic stiff-upper-lip thing. It's also a bit odd that Crusoe faced *away* from the castle even though he had just arrived there. Maybe he was checking the surroundings to make sure he wouldn't be ambushed ?

A twist !!! The Fire Dragon turns out to be a prince who had been transformed by an evil wizard-prime minister Crome who usurped the throne after the prince's father died. Crusoe traveled to confront Crome at Richmon (not to be confused with the more conventional RichmonD!).

"But Crome was transformed [into] an owl and flew away. Crusoe took a bow, an arrow, and shot it. The owl fell down and it transformed into an egg. Crusoe broke the egg and it was transformed [into] a needle. Crusoe broke the needle and Crome was dead."

I'm sure this scene would have the budget of a small city if this was adapted into a JJ Abrams movie. If it was a Peter Jackson movie, it would be a small country.

An early attempt at cartography. I think I was getting impatient with the third act and needed to explain how Crusoe could get between places so quickly. Perhaps he had learned his lesson and built up aerobic capacity? He seemed to be walking everywhere, environmentally-friendly, but slow. I'm sure it's so he can keep his horse Jolly, well... jolly and just left him/her in the stable (CORRECTION-- Mom: "It's because you couldn't draw a horse !"). There were also an angel,  more transformations, and well... more violence.

After his adventure predictably ends happily, Crusoe was invited to administer the country he had just saved. I'm sure my parents were relieved that my career aspirations included civil service and not just vigilantism and poor transportation choices.

So there you have it. Thankfully I have since left illustration in Annie's much more capable hands, and my narrative skills have improved over the years.

See you next week, when Annie will write a post that will likely *not* involve dragons.

The origins of The Prince

The Prince had a rather long journey before he ever came alive under Annie's pencil (pen ? quill ? charcoal nib ?).

(cue water-ripple flashback movie effect)

The year was 2004. I was in college at the University of Washington, which is in Seattle, and not St. Louis. The other common misconception is that typical UW students looked like this:

This is completely untrue. These would be students of The Evergreen State College, 70 miles to the south. Actually, I lied. These are what you get if you typed "hippies" into Google Image Search and take the 3rd result. In any case, UW students looked like this:

Meet the author !

I realized I haven't properly introduced myself in my first post. Who is this stranger writing a children's story book ?

Well, I'm a PhD student at CarnegieMellon in Pittsburgh. My lab is in the department of Biological Sciences, and I spend a lot of time building things, so some people call me an engineer.

"That has nothing to do with writing children's books !!!", you say. You're right ! I guess it's more informative to say I like trying new things.

My first love is photography. The photo below was taken at my 3rd birthday party, in Saigon. My attempt at photographing my friends was quickly abandoned when the cake arrived, and the party was a quiet, sedate affair. At least that's the version my parents told. Since my report cards from this period regularly included the phrase "Phu is sociable but also incorrigibly disruptive", I feel the reality may have been a bit different.

  I'm not sure what camera I'm looking at here, 

but my Dad took this photo with his Canonet. 

No fruit or child-friendly beverage was harmed during this production.

This will go for millions on e-bay someday

I told my mom about this project and she found some old drawings to demonstrate how far my fine motor skills have come. My grade 1 teacher had our class write and draw stories that she compiled each month into a newsletter for our parents to display on the fridge with pride (or with concern, depending on spelling ability, subject matter, etc). She also had us make books which she published like an O.H.* using a dot matrix printer, laminating machine, and staples.

I think this one was about a girl who went rollerblading down a big hill, got in trouble with her mom, cried, and then she woke up because it was all a dream, obviously. I am still awaiting congratulatory call from the Newbery Medal award committee...

*original hipster

Meet the illustrator!

Greetings! This is Annie, I'm doing the illustrations for The Prince. I first met Phu through our mutual friend and my classmate, Sara (look out for her in a future video!). When he first approached me about this project, I was a bit nervous. My drawing CV up until that point included such prestigious publications as: my journal; margins of lecture notes; thank-you cards. I've always liked to draw on my own, but this sounded like a much bigger project than I'd ever done before.

Some pre-The Prince drawings

Riding the subway