Update -Winner Announced! Celebrate National Humor Month with Brittany Pomales!

4/16: Congrats to Stephanie Ward on winning Brittany's giveaway! We'll be in touch soon with more details.

A special thanks to everyone who joined us to celebrate National Humor Month with Brittany Pomales!

4/1:

Hi, readers, writers and humor lovers of all sorts. Today is April first - it's officially April Fool's Day but also the start of National Humor Month. And, what better way to celebrate than with the wonderful Brittany Pomales and her humorous debut picture book, It Started with a P! ? When King Liam, known for his king-sized meltdowns, has a dream his birthday party was going to be ruined, he takes action to save his party. There's only one big problem: he can't remember what was going to ruin the party, just that it started with the letter P! Everything must go! Obviously, the party is postponed, but he also says goodbye to pepperoni pizza, piñatas, pants (long, short, old, new, smarty, fancy), parrots; even the royal goat, Percival (after he's eaten all of the abandoned pants), and more. Want to know more about Brittany, her hilarious new book, PLUS want a chance to win a 25-minute Ask Me Anything Session with her? Read on....

Q: Hi, Brittany! Thanks so much for joining us today. We really enjoyed reading It Started with a P! How did you come up with the story idea? Which came first – the idea to write about a birthday, meltdowns or the letter p?

A: This blog kept me company during some late nights so I am thrilled to be here.

The letter p came first! Then the meltdowns and the birthday came last. It came from a suggestion in a Rate Your Story Speedpass. The judge suggested that I tie all the p items together in some way. They were totally right. At the time, the story lacked structure. In keeping with the letter p, a party felt perfect.

Q: Did you draw on any real-life experiences to fuel this story? What parts did you change, and why?

A: Sort of. For my sweet sixteen I wanted everything to be perfect. My track record of birthdays prior wasn’t too great. A few things were already going wrong and I didn’t like my hair. But the icing on the cake was the cake.

We ordered a custom multi-tiered cake. My only request was no flowers. I was never really a flowery kind of girl. The day came and my mother called me from the party venue to break the news. The cake was covered in daisies! I melted into a puddle. That’s it! The party was going to be a disaster.

It wasn’t. But I heard that a year or two later the lady who made my cake closed up shop with open orders. People just never got their cakes. So in hindsight I'm lucky I even got daisies.

Q: What was this story’s journey to Flamingo Books? How long did it take to sell?

A: From initial idea to publication is just a little over five years. It was a 2020 Storystorm idea. After writing a first draft and getting feedback from my critique partners I put it away. I couldn’t see a clear way to revise and I thought it was too weird in an SEL (social-emotional learning) heavy market.

Then in spring of 2021—over a year later—I submitted a different humor manuscript to the PBChat Mentorship and thought, well if i’m gonna try and write funny I’m gonna need more than one. So I looked at my drafts folder to see what I already had that fit the bill. I dusted it off and started revising.

Dev Petty chose me as her mentee and we got to work on this manuscript. In summer of 2022, this story got me my agent. We did one light round of polishing and went out with it after Labor Day. We had an offer from Flamingo Books seven weeks later.

Q: Were there many revisions to the story submission? What was revised?

A: Honestly, there were so many revisions to this manuscript I’ve lost count. But narrowing down to after it was acquired, there were a few big changes.

King Liam got younger. He used to be an adult.
The first line shifted down so I needed a brand new one.
I added even more P words than it already had.
The big reveal was not very big at all and was falling flat. This one was tricky.

Q: Did you use any comp books in your query? If so, which ones and why?

A: When querying agents I comped to the humor and absurdity of MUSTACHE! by Mac Barnett and Kevin Cornell and the obliviousness of Llama in LLAMA DESTROYS THE WORLD by Jonathan Stutzman and Heather Fox.

I’m not sure if my agent kept those comps when sending out to editors. Other than the manuscript, I’m very hands off when it comes to our submission package.

Interestingly, I didn’t comp to my heavy use of P words at all. But if I had, it would probably have been one of the books from my March on Mentor Text post.

Q: What do you love about celebrating birthdays? Share a favorite birthday experience.

A: Now that I’m a mom, my favorite thing about celebrating birthdays is making them special for my daughter (and soon for my son). Her birthday is the day before Halloween so we jam-packed the week with Halloween events and on her birthday morning she woke up to an inflatable pumpkin as big as she is (she’s two) and a pumpkin dress to match it. She thought it was the best thing ever.

Q: The art is so fun! Did you submit with pagination? Was it changed much?

A: I’m not a huge fan of pagination. I do it as one of my last rounds of editing. But I instantly revert back after. It’s just visually not my jam.

I did however heavily art note my manuscript. I think I had about eighteen of them. But they were all necessary. I promise.

Some of them were to set up a funny moment a few pages later. For example, the text says, “He tossed the pepperoni pizzas out the window.” I included an art note stating that the pizzas were thrown into the moat and the piranhas eat it. This was more of a what happens note versus a this needs to be drawn note.

The reason I added the note was because there is a later scene where the piranhas are being fished from the moat and I wanted them to be fat from eating the pizza previously tossed. And Andrew drew this better than I could have expected. The piranhas have taken a life of their own—kinda like the minions in Despicable Me—and are one of my favorite parts of the book.

Q. Did you have any say as to the illustrator and/or input in the art? Can you share some of your favorite spreads? Why are they your favorites?

A. Flamingo had a pretty specific vision in mind for the book so I did have an input on illustrator choice. And even though I used a lot of art notes—as mentioned above—Andrew is a seasoned illustrator and knocked these complex illustrations out of the park. He made choices that were even better than my notes.

My favorite spread is the one where the people are packed in the paddle boats. Something about the duck paddle boat feels so unexpected to me that I can’t help but smile every time I see it.

Q: Would you like to leave a tip or a treat for our readers?

A: A Treat! I'd love to offer one 25-minute Ask Me Anything session to the winner of this giveaway.

WOW! What an AWESOME treat! Thanks again for joining us, Brittany. We loved hearing more about you and your new book!

Giveaway Details: Readers, to enter to win Brittany's amazing giveaway, 1) share this post on social media and 2) leave a comment below to thank her for stopping by! P-themed GIFs are welcomed, too.

Giveaway winners will be drawn and announced on or about 4/14!

About Brittany Pomales:

Brittany Pomales wrote It Started With A P. Unless you didn’t find it funny; in that case, someone else wrote it. When she isn’t writing books, Brittany is often playing with, singing to, and or reading to her daughter along with her husband and dog in their Arizona home. She has celebrated over thirty birthdays. Thankfully, none have resulted in a celebration crisis–yet!