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Putting The World To Writers...with Jenny Leggott


So with a new year, I decided to create a new feature! In Putting The World To Writers, I shall be chatting to some of the wonderful authors I have had the fortune of meeting along my own literary journey so far. I have started with other local Devon writers who - like me - have ventured into the children's writing scene. The first of which we meet today...

This week I have the pleasure of catching up with fellow Devon author Jenny Leggott, who also writes under the pen-name J.T. Scott. Jenny's work so far includes the fantastic Sammy Rambles series and, most recently, her charming children's picture book Bumper The Bumblebee And Friends.

Hi Jenny, and welcome to The StoryMan. Firstly, can you please tell us a bit about your children’s book Bumper The Bumblebee and Friends, for those who haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading it?

Hi Chris, thank you for your questions! Bumper the Bumblebee and Friends is a story which takes place in a garden, just like the garden you might have at home. There is a bumblebee called Bumper who is worried because he zig-zags when he flies and all of his friends do something different. So he sets off on a journey around the garden asking his friends for their advice and eventually he learns if zig-zagging is the right thing to do.

Where did the inspiration for this story come from?

Last year at the craft fairs I’d been asked whether I had books for really young readers, books with pictures and illustrations suitable for pre-school children who weren’t old enough to read my Sammy Rambles books yet. At the time I didn’t and I felt I was letting these parents down. I thought back to the books I’d read when I was younger and remembered Enid Blyton created stories for young readers with the Noddy series as an introduction to her writing for older children in the books such as the Famous Five, the Adventure series, Mallory Towers and St. Clares etc. But it was sitting in the garden at home when I saw a bumblebee zig-zag and land on a dandelion that I thought this could be the start of an adventure.

Could you possibly explain the process that took you from the initial ideas for the book, to the final published product?

After seeing the bumblebee zig-zagging I raced inside and picked up a pen and some paper. I sat down for about half an hour writing at top speed about the bumblebee. I like alliteration and with the zig-zag movement it seemed the bee was bumping around from flower to flower. So, Bumper the Bumblebee was my choice for the first character’s name. Then I thought he needed some friends, so I created an ensemble of characters based on creatures you might find in the garden and narrowed it down to ones I felt would be able to assist Bumper in his quest finding out the right way to fly.

The process (if there is such a thing) for me was to write the words and then create a vision board of pictures from the Internet creating images for the characters, the colours, the shapes, the expressions on their faces, the background setting of the garden, the weather and the consequences of each item.

I drew each page in a very rough sketch and the illustrator I work with brought my ideas to life. I’m very grateful for his talent in turning some questionable shapes and squiggles into the beautiful illustrations you’ll see in Bumper the Bumblebee and Friends.

My books are all self-published and the way you can design in pen and paper, upload the pages in PDF and produce the finished glossy book is still a bit of a mystery to me. But it works and the self-publishing method makes my books available for people to buy anywhere in the world at any time of the day or night.

The illustrations in this book are adorable! Did you have a clear idea of what you wanted them to look like beforehand, or did you leave that up to the illustrator?

Good question! Choosing the garden creatures made it fairly straightforward for creating the illustrations as most people know that bumblebees are black and yellow and what shape butterflies and worms are. The illustrator I work with is called Chris and he has amazing talent bringing my rough sketches to life with vibrant colours and expressions on the characters faces. You’ll see the characters are perfectly aligned with the words and so detailed it is almost as though the book is speaking to the reader.

We meet many of Bumper’s friends along the way in this story. I’m intrigued to know if there are more tales to follow?

Of course! There are many more adventures in this series. I will keep writing them as long as people keep enjoying my stories. Bumper the Bumblebee and Friends is the first illustrated book I’ve written and each of Bumper’s friends has a story to tell. I have just finished the last words for Sally the Sparrow and Friends. Sally is looking for her chicks and needs help from her friends to find them. Chris has just finished the illustrations as well and Sally’s adventure will be available in February 2020.

I very much believe that all children’s stories come with an important message, no matter how big or small it may be. What is the one message you’d like your readers to take away from Bumper The Bumblebee?

It would be boring if Bumper the Bumblebee and Friends was too heavily laden with morals and advice, but through Bumper’s adventure he asks his friends for advice and discovers the best way for him to fly. If there is a moral to be taken from this story then I hope people accept themselves and each other as they are and that it’s OK to “bee” yourself.

You’ve also written another hugely-popular series, Sammy Rambles. Could you tell us a little about these stories, and any challenges you face when writing for different age groups?

Thank you! Sammy Rambles is the boy who goes to the Dragamas School for Dragon Charming. He receives a dragon egg on his first day and has to make new friends and learn magical skills to try and defeat his enemy, known only as the Shape. This is a five book fantasy adventure series for children and adults who like castles and dragons.

With these books I wrote them to help myself out of a difficult period of my life and so there was no pressure from an agent, no sales targets, no peer pressure, just me, a pen and paper and my imagination.

Perhaps that lack of pressure coupled with the opinion that I was wasting my time and would never make it drove me to make sure the story was as perfect as possible. It took a lot of confidence to send the book to agents, publishers and then the difficult decision whether to self-publish, but I’m so glad I did and would recommend to anyone thinking about writing a book to do it and see what happens.

What other authors have inspired you as a writer?

I try and read as much as possible across as many genres as possible and there are lots of stories I’ve enjoyed and books I would read again and again. My favourite book is still The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. I have also been inspired by Enid Blyton for her range of characters and adventures, as well as Jill Murphy with The Worst Witch, Anthony Horowitz with Groosham Grange and the Alex Rider series. Definitely CS Lewis with the Narnia series, which I’m sure has made many of us tap the back of a wardrobe at least once in our lifetime. I’m always on the look out for a new book to read, especially in the magic and mystery genre.

What a fantastic range to draw inspiration from! And a few that are even new to me, which I will be placing on my to-be-read pile, for sure! Are there any other projects you are currently working on that you’d like to mention?

Having written the books the key part for me is getting them more widely known so people can read the adventures, so part of this year will be visiting schools, helping children with creative writing, giving writing talks, having tables at craft markets and school fetes. This year is also film year for me where I’m really pushing to see whether there is the opportunity to make either Sammy Rambles into a TV series or Bumper the Bumblebee and Friends into an animation. In the writing pipeline, my target is to create a new “And Friends” book every three months, plus revisit my detective series with the female protagonist, Molly, who talks to animals to solve problems. Beyond that, I’m looking for opportunities everywhere I go as the more I put into this, the more everyone will get out of it.

Wow! Certainly an exciting year ahead then! I shall be eagerly waiting to see one - or both - of them on screen in the near future! Finally, do you have any advice for anyone out there who wants to write a children’s book?

The best piece of advice I had was “you can’t edit a blank page” which I interpreted as meaning write something, anything, but keep writing and you can always change the words later. The next best piece of advice was to “go for it”, to send my stories out into the world and I would recommend this to anyone who wants to see their book online, in the library and in high street bookstores.

Jenny, thank you so much for joining us this week here on The StoryMan.

For more information on Jenny's work, or to connect with her on social media, follow the links below:

See you all next week!


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