 Today we celebrate the book birthday of Miguel Must Fight!. We sat down with Jamie Ofelia to learn all about the inspiration behind this book. But first, a little bit about the book: In my debut fictional picture book, MIGUEL MUST FIGHT!, Miguel is a boy who comes from a family of sword fighters but who wants to be an artist. Everyone pressures Miguel to begin his training, but fighting just isn’t Miguel’s style. And when a fearsome dragon lands in their village, Miguel has one chance to defend his family and prove that his pencil is mightier than the sword!  What inspired you to become a writer? When I was a kid, I loved reading. I loved immersing myself in literary worlds that were way more exciting than this real one. I wanted to write my own books, but I didn’t know any clear path to being an author. So I put that dream on hold for a long time, but it never really went away. It wasn’t until I was home with my six-month-old baby, reading piles of picture books every day, that I decided I was going to teach myself how to become an author. And somehow, amazingly, it worked out! What 3 words would you use to describe your book? Playful, adventurous, and triumphant!  How would you describe your main character? Why did you create your character that way? Miguel is smart, gentle, and a bit of a visionary. He finds beauty in the ordinary things he sees every day. And he’s a nonconformist! I guess I wrote Miguel this way because I think kids like him will change the world for the better. They teach adults to be more present and more empathetic. What is the most important lesson you have learned as a writer until now? Find critique partners you trust (and ideally who are more experienced writers than you) and don’t let them go! Meet with them regularly and take their feedback seriously and you revise. Take breaks from writing when you need to recharge, but don’t give up!  What 3 recommendations would you give writers who are starting out? Join SCBWI! That will be your quickest path to finding knowledgeable, dedicated critique groups. Attend SCBWI conferences and watch the webinars! Read mentor texts. For example, if you want to write a picture book about a kid’s first day of school, do a little research and find all the picture books about that same topic published in the last five years. Read them all and type out the text of your favorites in a Word document to get a feel for how the stories were written. Look at the story structure and the word count of each manuscript. You will learn a lot. Be gentle with yourself. Each first draft will come out super rough, but just keep chipping at it until it shines! Then, prepare yourself for a lot of rejection as you begin querying agents. And when you finally find an agent, you’ll get even more rejections as you submit your manuscript to editors. Don’t take it personally, it happens to everybody. Just keep telling yourself that all this rejection is good for you; it builds character!
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