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[Bringing joy to the world since 2014]

Nozzlewocky - Strange Origins

2/20/2025

9 Comments

 
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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.

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(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. 
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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:   
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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:
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One particular character caught my eye:
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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.
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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:
  • 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:
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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. 
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BTW it was a lot of fun to emulate a medieval drawing style, with flat faces and weird-looking animals: 
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​And then the second poem, I could render in a more modern setting, a present-day classroom that looks like this:
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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. 
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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:
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Later in the book, the kids keep spying the Nozzlewock in action, which only makes them more determined to find a solution. 
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In search of a solution the kids eventually stumble upon that ancient tome, Ye Olde Book of Nozzlewocky:
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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.
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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.
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Look closer:
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No, even closer:
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Closer!
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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:
  • Nozzlewocky - Breaking the Rules of the Comic Format
9 Comments

Stellar Review for BEWARE THE DRAGON AND THE NOZZLEWOCK

7/25/2024

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My poetry book BEWARE THE DRAGON AND THE NOZZLEWOCK comes out in November, but one of the most influential librarians around, Betsy Bird, could not wait to give it a stellar review, calling it "one of the finest and funniest poetry books". 

Read the full review here and then, maybe, just maybe you might consider pre-ordering it through a bookstore or online? Pre-orders (or lack thereof) can make (or break) books on launch  - the more the pre-orders, the more likely the book gets noticed by lists, reviewers, booksellers, readers, librarians, and teachers. 

The book is marketed towards ages 8-12, but really it's al all-ages book for 8-108 and will be appreciated by anyone who wants a laugh or liked poetry and comics. 
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Kirkus Star for 'Hatful of Dragons'!!!

4/2/2020

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I'm so thrilled that Kirkus Reviews have awarded a Kirkus Star in their review of 'A Hatful of Dragons'!!! The called my book 'A Loopily, Meta Collection of Silly, Interactive Poetry', one that will 'Encourage Several Giggled-Filled Read Throughs'.

Kirkus Reviews is one of the most respected book review organizations and they are 'well-known' for giving books an 'unvarnished' review. Therefore a starred review, and a very positive one at that, is a big deal. Only a small fraction of the books they review get a Kirkus Star - specifically 'books of exceptional merit'. 

Read the full Kirkus Review here!
​https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/vikram-madan/a-hatful-of-dragons/

​
I can do a happy dance now!
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A Hatful of Dragons - Book Flipthrough

1/25/2020

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My third book of self-illustrated funny poems, A Hatful of Dragons,  will be releasing April 21, 2020. I am very excited for this book - it's taken years of effort and is loads of fun, and suitable for poetry lovers of all ages. Here is a quick flipthrough of what the inside looks like:
You can already order the book via your favorite bookstore or online (Indiebound, Barnes & Nobles, Amazon).
​Learn more here.
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'Lord of the Bubbles' Wins a BOOK AWARD

10/1/2019

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I am super excited to share the news that my second poetry book, 'Lord of the Bubbles' has won the 2019 Moonbeam Bronze Award for Children's Poetry.

My first book, 'The Bubble Collector' previously won the 2013 Moonbeam Silver Award for Children's Poetry, so at least you know I'm consistent :)

The book is available from my studio and also directly from Amazon.

About the Moonbeam Awards:
The Moonbeam Children's Book Awards are intended to bring increased recognition to exemplary children’s books and their creators, and to celebrate children’s books and life-long reading. The diversity of the winning publishers proves that promoting childhood literacy knows no boundaries, as medal-winners came not only from long-established publishers and university presses, but from small presses, foundations, and self-published entrepreneurs.

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A Hatful of Dragons: Cover Variations

8/18/2019

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For my humorous poetry book releasing in March 2020, 'A Hatful of Dragons: And More Than 13.8 Billion Other Funny Poems', I have been working on various iterations of the covers for the last year. Here is the current finalist for the front:
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And here are some variations for the back. I made several different ones so we could accommodate varying amounts of back-cover text (such as blurbs and reviews). We won't actually know how much space we need for the text till very late in the game, so making lots of variations gives the book designer flexibility:
As you can see there is a ton of work that goes into the making of a book that is invisible to the reader.
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A New Book coming out in Spring 2020

2/15/2019

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I am excited to share the news that Boyds Mills Press has acquired the world rights to my upcoming poetry book titled A Hatful Of Dragons: And 13.8 Billion Other Funny Poems. The book is scheduled to be released in Spring 2020 under their WordSong imprint.
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Many thanks to my agent Rosemary Stimola of Stimola Literary Studio for making this happen!

These days I am not producing much art because I am busy finishing up the manuscript, which I am also illustrating. As you can imagine, writing and illustrating 13.8 billion poems is quite a bit of work! :)
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Boyds Mills Press, publishes a wide range of high-quality fiction and nonfiction titles for young readers. Established in 1990, Boyds Mills Press’s picture books, chapter books, novels, and nonfiction focus on excellent storytelling, imaginative illustration, and strong characters. Our exceptionally crafted titles are designed to entertain, inform, and engage children of all ages.

​WordSong is the only children’s imprint in the United States specifically dedicated to poetry. WordSong titles capture the vibrant, unexpected, and emotional connections between text and young readers. Some of the well-known poets who publish under the WordSong imprint include Nikki Grimes, J. Patrick Lewis, Jane Yolen, Marilyn Nelson, and Marilyn Singer.
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LORD OF THE BUBBLES!

11/21/2018

1 Comment

 
I am so very excited to share with you the release of my SECOND Self-Illustrated book of funny poems titled LORD OF THE BUBBLES, a followup to my earlier award-winning collection THE BUBBLE COLLECTOR.

Read more here, watch a flip-through, and download a sample: LORD OF THE BUBBLES
​

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1 Comment

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