What is a Nozzlewock? And however did I come up with the idea for this creature that headlines my poetry collection BEWARE THE DRAGON AND THE NOZZLEWOCK?
Here is the somewhat strange origin story of how the Nozzlewock originated and how it took over the book! Along the way you will get a peek into the creative process, and maybe marvel at how little things turn into bigger things in unexpected ways!
My previous poetry book, A HATFUL OF DRAGONS, received a lot of acclaim for being a very visual poetry book. When it was time to conceive a follow-up poetry collection, I proposed making the next one entirely visual, using a graphic-novel format.
I created a proof of concept with 3 poems, successfully pitched it to my publisher (Astra/WordSong), and signed a contract to produce a 128-page book of funny poems in a full-color, graphic-novel format.
But now I had a problem. I had no content for this new book other than those first 3 poems, no title, no central theme, and no idea what the book was really going to be! The first order of business was to write more poems for the book. But where to start? As many authors know, the tyranny of the blank page is very, very real.
I thought back to my book A HATFUL OF DRAGONS for inspiration. One of my personal favorite poems in that book is a poem titled The Flippy Floppy Flappers.
Here is the somewhat strange origin story of how the Nozzlewock originated and how it took over the book! Along the way you will get a peek into the creative process, and maybe marvel at how little things turn into bigger things in unexpected ways!
My previous poetry book, A HATFUL OF DRAGONS, received a lot of acclaim for being a very visual poetry book. When it was time to conceive a follow-up poetry collection, I proposed making the next one entirely visual, using a graphic-novel format.
I created a proof of concept with 3 poems, successfully pitched it to my publisher (Astra/WordSong), and signed a contract to produce a 128-page book of funny poems in a full-color, graphic-novel format.
But now I had a problem. I had no content for this new book other than those first 3 poems, no title, no central theme, and no idea what the book was really going to be! The first order of business was to write more poems for the book. But where to start? As many authors know, the tyranny of the blank page is very, very real.
I thought back to my book A HATFUL OF DRAGONS for inspiration. One of my personal favorite poems in that book is a poem titled The Flippy Floppy Flappers.
(To see the ending of the above poem, track down my HATFUL book).
The Flippy Floppy Flapper poem was inspired by two creatures I had once painted into a mural.
The Flippy Floppy Flapper poem was inspired by two creatures I had once painted into a mural.
Back then I had thought the creatures looked so energetic, they deserved a poem of their own. (And that resulting poem is a lot of fun to read out loud - try it!). All creatures in the mural were interpreted from drawings submitted by young children. Here's the one that inspired the Flippy Floppy Flappers:
Desperately searching for ideas for new poems, I wondered if there were other poem-worthy creatures in that same mural. In looking at the mural again:
One particular character caught my eye:
And here is the original drawing that inspired this character. Maybe it was meant to be an elephant, but that's not how I interpreted it back then - instead I saw it as a creature with a trunk or hose on the top of its head.
This creature looked interesting. Perhaps it had some kind of suction tube on the top of it's head that could suck things up. If yes, what would it be called? I brainstormed names:
Clearly this creature would be sucking things up with that giant hose. But would it be benign or fearsome? Would you need to be warned about it? What form would that warning take?
The thought of 'warning' reminded me of Lewis Carol's Jabberwocky, which has this particular 'warning' stanza in it:
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
Aha, I thought, I love writing parody poems. Could I write a parody of Jabberwocky for my new book? Especially if I called the creature, not a Nozzlesuck, but a Nozzlewock. With a little tinkering I came up with this:
“Beware the Nozzlewock, my child!
The nose with super-vacuum strength!
Beware its manners—coarse and wild!
Beware its titan length!”
That looked promising. But to be rendered in comic format, the poem would need to have a ‘narrative’, that is, it must tell a story. What if I could go 'meta', and have a poem which referred to the Nozzlewock-parody poem indirectly? A poem within a poem! And then maybe, while someone is warning about the Nozzlewock, the actual Nozzlewock shows up in the poem itself?!?
What if this was a classroom setting, with a teacher instructing students about the Nozzlewock. Something like this:
- Hose Head?
- Vacuum Head?
- Vacuum Hose Head?
- Suction Head?
- Nozzle Head?
- Schnozzle Head?
- Schnozzle Suck?
- Nozzle Suck?
- Nozzlesuck?
- ....????
Clearly this creature would be sucking things up with that giant hose. But would it be benign or fearsome? Would you need to be warned about it? What form would that warning take?
The thought of 'warning' reminded me of Lewis Carol's Jabberwocky, which has this particular 'warning' stanza in it:
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
Aha, I thought, I love writing parody poems. Could I write a parody of Jabberwocky for my new book? Especially if I called the creature, not a Nozzlesuck, but a Nozzlewock. With a little tinkering I came up with this:
“Beware the Nozzlewock, my child!
The nose with super-vacuum strength!
Beware its manners—coarse and wild!
Beware its titan length!”
That looked promising. But to be rendered in comic format, the poem would need to have a ‘narrative’, that is, it must tell a story. What if I could go 'meta', and have a poem which referred to the Nozzlewock-parody poem indirectly? A poem within a poem! And then maybe, while someone is warning about the Nozzlewock, the actual Nozzlewock shows up in the poem itself?!?
What if this was a classroom setting, with a teacher instructing students about the Nozzlewock. Something like this:
Here you see the teacher's monologue as one poem, and the jabberwocky-parody poem inset on the pages as something the students would be looking at. But when I tested this concept on some trusted readers, it fell flat on its face – no one would figure out a sequence in which to read the poems - the layout was too confusing. So much for my bright idea!
But then I realized if I separate the two poems, I would be two poems closer to finishing the book, instead of just one. Hooray! :)
So the jabberwocky-parody poem would get its own spread. And how about I illustrate it in the form of a medieval manuscript, thus implying that the Nozzlewock was a creature of old that had been warned about through the ages? This is what the poem looks like in its final form in the book, rendered as a spread from a fictional book titled Ye Olde Book Of Nozzlewocky.
But then I realized if I separate the two poems, I would be two poems closer to finishing the book, instead of just one. Hooray! :)
So the jabberwocky-parody poem would get its own spread. And how about I illustrate it in the form of a medieval manuscript, thus implying that the Nozzlewock was a creature of old that had been warned about through the ages? This is what the poem looks like in its final form in the book, rendered as a spread from a fictional book titled Ye Olde Book Of Nozzlewocky.
BTW it was a lot of fun to emulate a medieval drawing style, with flat faces and weird-looking animals:
And then the second poem, I could render in a more modern setting, a present-day classroom that looks like this:
I still wanted to go meta, so towards the end of this second poem, the Nozzlewock shows up and basically sucks up the entire setting, including the teacher.
Saves me from having to write a proper ending, right? Not so fast. There was no closure in having the teacher disappear up the nozzle. Someone might have to rescue him. Aha! Was that the making of a third poem? I added this illustration to the poem:
Later in the book, the kids keep spying the Nozzlewock in action, which only makes them more determined to find a solution.
In search of a solution the kids eventually stumble upon that ancient tome, Ye Olde Book of Nozzlewocky:
In the book they find the solution they are looking for, which happens to be its own poem – (sorry, not revealing it here, find it in the book!) – and now, oh happy day, I had one more poem for my book! Eventually the kids figure out how to outsmart the Nozzlewock and we have several happy endings.
By the time I finished writing the book, the Nozzlewock had became a dominant recurring character in the book and I wondered if I should just call the book ‘NOZZLEWOCKY: And Other Funny Poems’ or maybe ‘THE NOZZLEWOCK: And Other Funny Poems’. My publisher’s team suggested the title BEWARE THE DRAGON AND THE NOZZLEWOCK – they thought the word ‘Nozzlewock’ by itself was too unfamiliar and would be hard for people to search or ask for, whereas Dragons are popular and the combination of a popular term and an unfamiliar term might be more intriguing to prospective readers. And I have to agree, they were right!
And if anyone was wondering about the origin of that ancient tome, Ye Olde Book Of Nozzlewocky, look for the answer on the very first page of the book.
And if anyone was wondering about the origin of that ancient tome, Ye Olde Book Of Nozzlewocky, look for the answer on the very first page of the book.
Look closer:
No, even closer:
Closer!
Yes, it is the Dragon, ancient enemy of the Nozzlewock, who penned that tome!
I now look back and think, if I had never painted that mural, or if that one particular kid had never made that particular sketch of the creature with a trunk on its head, this book would have turned out to be something completely different!!
Strange how things come to be, but there you have it. (And if anyone knows the kid who made that drawing, let me know so I can send them a complimentary copy of the book!)
Please check out BEWARE THE DRAGON AND THE NOZZLEWOCK if you haven't already. It should be available in all book channels, and you can also ask your local library to add it to their collection.
If you have already read the book, do please consider leaving a positive review online (Goodreads or Amazon).
Previous Nozzlewocky blog posts:
I now look back and think, if I had never painted that mural, or if that one particular kid had never made that particular sketch of the creature with a trunk on its head, this book would have turned out to be something completely different!!
Strange how things come to be, but there you have it. (And if anyone knows the kid who made that drawing, let me know so I can send them a complimentary copy of the book!)
Please check out BEWARE THE DRAGON AND THE NOZZLEWOCK if you haven't already. It should be available in all book channels, and you can also ask your local library to add it to their collection.
If you have already read the book, do please consider leaving a positive review online (Goodreads or Amazon).
Previous Nozzlewocky blog posts:
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