The Next Big Thing Blog Hop celebrates what writers are working on or what they have coming up next. Welcome to my stop!

I was tagged by my co-blogger, Kami Kinard, author of The Boy Project. See what her next big thing is HERE.

It wasn’t easy to pick one thing to talk about today – I typically have about six projects going at any time. But then the first question below helped me narrow things down. See, of the six things I’m working on, quite a few of them have NO WORKING TITLES AT ALL. Makes it a little harder to summarize them, huh? So I’m going to take the easy route and talk about something WITH A TITLE!

1: What is the working title of your book?  DUCK DUCK MOOSE

2: Where did the idea come from for the book? I’ve been carrying this idea around with me for years. It’s about a family unit of two ducks and a moose that is very close – but as close families sometimes do, they also irritate each other. A lot.

3: What genre does your book come under? Picture Book.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? Hmmm. My book is about two ducks and a moose. So…how about any two of the One directions guys as Duck and Duck and Seth Rogan as Moose?

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?   What’s a Duck to do when the Moose in your life is forever ruining things?

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency? This book is going to be published by Disney-Hyperion and it will be illustrated by the incomparable Noah Z. Jones.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? I’ve been carrying this idea around for YEARS, but once I started writing, I’d say about three months to fine tune it. That is ridiculously fast for a picture book – but this one is very, very sparse on words…

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Hmmmm…that’s pretty hard. Everything I think of to compare DUCK DUCK MOOSE to comes off sounding pretty self-important, so…I’m going to take a pass on this one…

My ducks and moose

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book? I’ve always tried to work word play into my picture books, and the thought of replacing the goose in a game of duck, duck, goose with a moose just seemed so funny to me. Add to that the real-life ducks and mooses in my life…I’m the mother of three, two girls aged 11 and 10 and a 6-year old moose-boy. I’ve watched the girls’ carefully laid plots be demolished by their brother so many times over the last few years that when I finally started to write the book, it came together pretty quickly.

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? I think the illustrations are adorable, and the story itself it both extremely easy to read (under 50 words) and requires a pretty high level of engagement to enjoy (you have to look at the picture book as a whole to enjoy this experience, not just read the words).

Thanks for checking out what I’m working on! Be sure to stop by the blog of a fabulous author named Marcie Colleen who allowed me to tag her for next week (Wednesday, March 6) and check out my co-bloggers for the day, Anne Marie Pace, Kathy Erskine, and Amy Carol Reeves!