My questions did surprise some people. Others didn't bat an eye. That happens with all my books - I'll read them in a certain mood and think, "Gosh, what was I thinking that day? This is really kind of odd." But on other days it seems totally normal to me.
I had to keep the text pretty spare compared to what I would typically do in a picture book. My picture books have a lot of little jokes and asides that aren't necessarily part of the main story.
Mo Willems was so helpful. I had met him a number of times, and I knew from his books how funny he was, of course, but it was really neat to be able to have his feedback. He's so great with comic timing. Working with him was like taking a master class in comic timing, because he could pinpoint right away if a section wasn't working. I remember him saying once, "No, you need a beat between this page and this page," and it was like, oh yeah, of course. I hadn't seen it, but being so good at what he does, Mo noticed it right away.
I had to be careful. A mistake I made when I submitted ideas initially was that one of them was too much like Elephant and Piggie, thinking that was what it needed to be. That's not what Mo was looking for. But I did definitely keep them in the back of my mind. It was tricky. Like Mo Willems was saying, it had to be something that Elephant and Piggie would like to read, yet we shouldn't make anything that was too much like Elephant and Piggie, because why would you want to do that?
