This podcast episode delves into the enchanting world of children's literature, specifically focusing on Tricia Gardella, also known as National Park Grandma, and her captivating book titled "Mouse Visits Grand Canyon National Park."

The narrative follows the adventures of a mouse who has acquired the extraordinary ability to teleport to national parks, thus introducing young readers to the wonders of nature through a whimsical lens.

Throughout our discussion, we explore Tricia's journey as an author, her motivations for writing picture books, and the inspirations drawn from her own experiences as a rancher and nature enthusiast.

The episode also highlights the importance of preserving national parks and instilling a sense of environmental responsibility in the youngest generations.

Join us as we uncover the creative process behind Tricia's works and the profound impact her stories aim to have on children and their understanding of the natural world.

The dialogue commences with Tricia Gardella introducing her latest literary endeavor, focusing on a character that possesses the extraordinary ability to teleport to various national parks via a computer keyboard.

This whimsical premise is interwoven with her experiences as a children's book author, a vocation she embraced later in life.

Tricia's narrative emphasizes her love for storytelling, particularly in the realm of children's literature, where she seeks to impart knowledge through her creations. The podcast explores her journey from a rancher to an accomplished author, illustrating her commitment to sharing the unique lifestyle of ranching with a younger audience through her book, 'Just Like My Dad.'

This endeavor serves not only as a means of expression but also as a bridge connecting children to the realities of rural life and the importance of familial bonds.

As the conversation unfolds, Tricia elucidates the transformative nature of her writing career, particularly during the pandemic, which reignited her passion for storytelling.

The pandemic provided a unique opportunity for introspection and creativity, leading her to produce a series of engaging books that blend adventure with educational themes about national parks. Tricia expresses a deep-seated desire to instill an appreciation for nature in children, believing that early exposure to these concepts is crucial for fostering a sense of environmental stewardship. The podcast highlights her innovative approach to storytelling, where she intertwines factual information about national parks with delightful narratives that captivate young minds.

Furthermore, Tricia discusses the significance of collaborating with illustrators to bring her characters to life, emphasizing the importance of visuals in children's literature. Her inclusive approach to character development invites a diverse range of perspectives, making her stories relatable and engaging for children from various backgrounds.

The dialogue culminates in Tricia's heartfelt reflections on her role as an author and her aspirations to reach a wider audience, particularly in educational settings.

She envisions her books becoming integral to school curriculums, thereby enriching the learning experience for young readers and promoting a love for nature that may last a lifetime.

Takeaways:

• Tricia Gardella, also known as National Park Grandma Mouse, has written numerous children's books.
• The protagonist of her latest book, Mouse, teleports to various national parks through whimsical adventures.
• Tricia's books aim to educate young readers about the importance of preserving national parks.
• Her journey into writing began at age 40, inspired by her love for reading and storytelling.

Links referenced in this episode:

• triciagardella.com
• triciagardella.com/books
• triciagardella.com/plushies

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• HarperCollins

Hello, I'm Tricia Gardella, also known as National Park Grandma Mouse, Grand Canyon National Park, Book nine of our series.

It's about a mouse who's learned to teleport to national parks using a computer keyboard.

Fantastic.

Trisha has mentioned she's written several children's books and we'll be talking about some of those today.

But we're going to focus on mouse visits Grand Canyon national park, and I look forward to our conversation.

Tricia, before we jump into the details of your book, can you tell us what being a children's book author means to you?

I've always loved to read.

I've always loved to write since I was very young.

And I don't know, I didn't really start writing until I turned 40 and I said it's just time.

And I didn't know what I really wanted to write.

But 7 year olds chose me.

So I write picture books.

Besides that, I love researching for them.

I call my books informational fiction.

I'm curious.

You said you didn't start writing till 40.

And it's interesting because I've actually talked to several retired teachers who actually went through their whole career retired, and then they started writing children's books.

I'm curious about the inspiration of why all of a sudden at age 40, you decided to do children's picture books.

For one thing, they chose me.

Picture books chose me.

That's what I love writing and that's what I focus on now.

But the main reason I started writing is that we are ranchers, we raise cattle.

And I wanted the world to know that it's a real job and it's a real way of life.

And I wrote a book called Just Like My dad that was published with HarperCollins back in 21.

Was it a children's book?

It was a picture book.

It's about a little boy that goes out and works the entire day with his dad.

And in the end, when he's going to bed, the best thing about the whole day is that his dad tells him that one day he's going to be a great cowboy or rancher just like his dad, who was the child's grandpa.

So I wanted to write about that.

People talk to me a lot of times about having a hard time coming up with ideas.

I think everything's an idea.

I don't know why they just hit me when I don't even need them.

Terrific.

You wrote your first book with your father, which is awesome because I actually have written our first two children's books in the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear are both written with my grandchildren and we've written 38 stories.

We haven't published them all, but we've written 38 stories together.

It's certainly fun when you have that family connection.

Did your dad go on to write more children's books?

It wasn't my dad, it was my husband's dad.

Oh, sorry.

This was written before I had grandkids.

My son was 20.

Okay.

And I just look back to when he was a child.

He was born to be a rancher.

Does your son have children?

He does.

He has a boy and a girl.

Okay, you have to tell me a little bit about because of your first book, did your son bring his children up reading your book and your father in law's book?

He did.

That was probably one of the greatest joys of my life is that when my grandkids were born, when they got to be around 2 years old, my book was their favorite book and they didn't know grandma wrote it.

They didn't understand about any of that stuff.

So it made me very happy.

And my son, like I said, was 20 and a few years later he had a son.

His son is now 30.

So that can give you an idea that I've got a few years on me and he's also being a rancher and he's got a two year old who is just like his grandpa was and wants to be.

That's all he wants to do.

And he's a 2 year old and he loves that book.

That is terrific.

What a great way to start your writing career.

Yeah.

And you know what, like I said, even though you put it on hold now that was that your first book, were you?

That was my first book ever.

Were you 40 at the time?

Yeah, I was probably over 40 by then.

It took a couple years and I went to a conference, SCBWI conference and I heard a publisher talking.

I thought, oh, I would give anything.

And I thought I knew there was no chance in the world but I sent it off.

Back in those days we didn't need an agent and they bought it.

Isn't that terrific?

Magical.

It was magical.

I did go on your website so the audience knows we will definitely have links to Tricia's website.

And the reason I mentioned that is because Tricia has given a short history of phase one, phase two of her.

Writing life on your 20 years off.

That's why I wanted the, the listening audience to know that if you want to find out more about Trisha's background The beautiful thing in a couple of minutes Read.

You can find out about her taking this 20 year hiatus from children's book authorship.

And I could thank Covid for getting back.

There are not many things to thank Covid for, but I don't think that I would gotten back to writing if it wasn't for Covid.

I just felt that I was too old.

It took five years between books.

It's interesting, Trisha, you should say that because actually wrote two business books during COVID and I independently published them.

That really gave me the skill set to when my grandchildren wanted to write a children's book.

I had that skill set to be able to move into doing that.

Like you said, Covid did have some positive things authorship, that's for sure.

Let's jump ahead 20 years.

Now you're a full fledged children's book author.

I'm curious because when I went to your website and I thought, oh my goodness.

And I want to talk to you a bit about your children's book business.

As a children's author, did you develop a children's book business plan when you jump back in during COVID Very loose one.

One of the things that I wanted to.

I really wanted to do was I have seven grandchildren and now I have seven great grandchildren.

Wow.

And I wanted a book for each of them.

So I do have that now.

I had two born last spring and I just finished those last two when they're published and they're done.

I would not recommend the way I do things to anyone.

They Notice you have 28 soft cover and 28 hardcover books published.

There's more than 30 if you count the ones that I publish traditionally.

And I count them.

Okay.

No, that's incredible.

Where I got those numbers is I went to your website and I scrolled into the books and had a look at the offerings on the website.

And I also noticed that you had 30 plushies as part of your shopping tab.

Explain a little bit about why you did that, why you added the plushies to your children's book offerings.

Kids like those.

And I was doing a lot of events at the time and.

And besides that, I fell in love with these animals.

I found a company that I really like and I would come up with an idea.

Did they have these plushies in their own inventory offering?

And then you wrote stories around them.

Tell us about that.

I have to do the story about how Mouse, which is my favorite.

This is my passion right now, is the series that I started about Mouse.

And it was never, I never intended to write a series ever.

And I wrote a book called Absurd, said Bird.

And I fell in love immediately with the mouse that the illustrator that I had did.

And I thought, I gotta do more books about him.

But I didn't know what I was going to do.

And as a child, it went on for a while.

And finally I asked Mouse what he wanted to do, and we decided that he wanted to go to national parks because as a child, I liked going to them.

It's been really fun because in a lot of ways it feels like Mouse is writing the books and I go along with it.

How did you get the hook of the national parks then?

I live by Yosemite, and it's a very popular national park.

And when I was a child, we used to go every summer somewhere and a lot of them were to national parks.

I worry about our national parks now, and I really believe they need to be preserved.

The reason that this is so important to me is that I think that our youngest readers, they're the foundation.

And so our youngest readers need to see how important it is to protect them.

They have to feel that.

So I want to write fun books that draw them in, but give them information, too.

I have to tell you that our books are based on the adventures of Caboose, the Rocky Mountain Bear.

All of our stories, which now we have 38 of them written, all take place in the Canadian Rocky Mountains near Banff National Park.

I love Banff.

Oh, it's a beautiful park.

I was very fortunate because my oldest granddaughter and myself, it all started from the adventures with her.

And we've done so much in Banff national park, like horseback riding in the winter, snowshoeing, dog sled riding, learning how to ski, and then all the summer stuff like going whitewater rafting and stuff like that.

So we have this attachment like you do.

And it's funny, once you are close to a national park, then it just seems to get into your blood.

It does, because it's a place that is closest to our original earth.

I live on a ranch that is very close to our original earth.

But the national parks are usually in a place that is especially special, if you can say that, like Yosemite has the most gorgeous falls.

And it's in this valley that is just wonderful.

In the spring, that's the best time to go, I think, or early summer.

But I just love it.

I never have gotten tired of it.

It's nice.

That's your inspiration, especially for Mouse.

I want to dive into your formats before we get more into your book.

So you have your books on Amazon and on your website you have them in hardcover, softcover and ebook.

And do you also have them through Ingram Sparks or any other online retailers?

Yes, Ingram Spark is where I publish the hardcover and softcover and I use Kindle Unlimited for the ebooks so that I can give them out every once in a while or send them for reviews, that type of thing.

Yeah.

Why I do that because I feel that if you really love a picture book, you'll buy the picture book too.

That's what I've been finding is a lot of people do exactly as you're suggesting.

Tricia is to use their ebook to actually prime the pump for soft back and hardcover book sales.

That's important because they have illustrations and if you go into a bookstore, you're going to pick up the book and look at it before you buy it.

I think that picture books are the most expensive to produce and the least appreciated.

And yet they are the foundation of reading.

Isn't that the truth?

The beautiful thing I like about your ebook is I have an iPad and the colors are very vibrant.

That's the one thing I will say about ebooks, even though I'm with you.

I like the idea that people will purchase the paperback or the hardcover.

But the vibrant colors generally on iPads is outstanding.

I've been lucky.

I'm happy with the books that I've had published.

I've got good illustrators too.

That's been a fun thing.

We'll get into talking about your illustrators more because there's a lot of story there.

So before we do that, I want to get into your publishing approach because a lot of aspiring children's book authors, they just don't know which way to go.

I'd like to talk to you about your publishing approach, why you took your publishing method.

I just love the name of your publishing company.

Tricia's publishing company is named Writeham Cowgirl Publishing Publishing.

So just phenomenal.

Great name.

Tell us the story behind that.

And is this your own independently published company?

It is.

And the reason I came up with that is back when I was writing, back in the 90s, traditionally publishing, the daughter of one of my author friends called me Write Em Cowgirl.

And I just loved it, so I had to use that.

Not a real cowgirl, though.

I'm allergic to horses.

Okay.

But I love the life.

And so when did you actually launch the name?

I was called that, but I never used it as publisher.

And I was doing.

I was on the Internet looking at stuff and I went, oh, my God.

I think it was done just for me.

And I love it.

Tricia, I couldn't agree with you more because we wrote our first two books during COVID I tried to get a traditional publisher.

That didn't work out.

And somebody said to me, why don't you just publish it yourself?

And I said, oh, you can do that.

And before I knew it, we set up our own independent children's book publishing company called Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear Publishing Den.

And it all started.

Yeah, it's just absolutely incredible.

Can you explain to us when it came to publishing your children's books, what was the biggest challenge or frustration for you in the beginning?

That I knew nothing.

How did you go about getting education to actually independently publish your books?

I just read and I googled everything and I just read and I really have been lucky.

Falling into some things, I found a couple of people that a lot of the people I was listening to weren't children's book authors.

And that's been my biggest frustration through the whole time that I've been in it.

There are wonderful programs, but most of them are for adult fiction.

And we have similar needs.

But children's book writing is a different world and I do understand it better.

I don't understand marketing, and I'm still working on.

That's one of the reasons is Tricia, I asked people about their children's book business because getting a children's book published can be a pretty straightforward line.

And I see a lot of people be able to accomplish that task.

Where the rubber meets the road is the.

It comes down to the these two words now what?

And exactly.

It's all the sales, the marketing, the distribution.

How do I go about doing that?

You get people to want to talk to you.

That's the biggest thing.

You can have a wonderful book, but if nobody looks at it, it's not going to go anywhere.

And everything that I've heard and tried and most people write one book and then they go out and sell it or try to get it seen or whatever.

It's good to have a couple other ones too that are called back matter, as they're looking for that too.

But it's not really smart to do 30 books and then decide, oh, I think it's time to market them.

Yeah, exactly.

And the reason I ask you about the plushies too, because it's interesting.

We've been very fortunate.

We've got our books listed in a couple of stores in the Rocky Mountains, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

And one of the store owners, who was the original supporter of our books, he said to me, rick, you should have a plushie.

Because he said, every time I have a plushie that matches the character of the book, we sell more books and plushies.

And I thought, oh.

So it took us a couple of years, but we did finally design and have our own plushie.

And that's why I asked you about how did you come about with your plushies and to support your book business?

I didn't tell you that story.

It's really a fun one.

I felt the same as you did.

I knew that plushies would help selling them, and I thought they'd especially be good in a national park.

Maybe the parents would just pick that up, or they pick up both things or whatever.

I designed one or told them what I wanted.

I sent them the picture of my mouse and all this stuff.

When I got it back, it was one of the ugliest things I'd ever seen, and I was unhappy.

It didn't look like Mouse.

Mouse is a little tiny thing when he's fuzzy and you just want to squeeze his cheeks.

And even my grandkids think this is ugly.

So it is ugly.

But anyway, one day I was thumbing through Amazon, and guess what I saw?

Mouse.

And it was the exact mouse was my illustration.

I found company that did the mice, and I ordered a bunch of them.

And then I made some changes because Mouse wears a backpack, and now he's got a magic acorn that he can rub, and now he can move between places.

Anyway, I want.

I needed to have something like that, so I just did it myself.

And now I've got a mouse that has a backpack.

And I figured Mouse made it, so it doesn't have to be perfect.

No, but you're absolutely right.

And it's incredible because I had a Brittany Pettish episode 67, and she had mentioned plushies, and she said she really didn't sell plushies, but she had them on her website.

And I said, so why do you show them?

When she goes to live events, she says what happens is having plushies in her booth attracts people.

They do.

And they come over and they want to talk to everybody about these plushies.

She was able to do as you did.

She went on Amazon.

She ended up matching the plushies to the characters in her book.

They're out there.

Yes.

And it's incredible because the other thing, I was talking to an author, Monica Voiku Dennist, in episode 21.

She wrote a book called Maggie the Military Rat.

She had been asked if she would be doing a plushie.

Again, it wasn't something she wanted to take on, but a friend of hers bought her book and she had two young daughters.

She went on to Amazon and she found Maggie the Military Rat.

She found a rat.

They're better quality.

They are better quality than the other one that I had.

And the saddest day was when I sold more plushies at one of my events than I did books.

No, that's terrific, though.

Again, it comes down to when I talk to people about the building their children's book business.

And I talked to Cody Bogart, episode 35, who wrote a book series called Hilo Girls, and it's about women helicopter pilots.

And she told me that what helped her because I think she's now launching her third or fourth book.

She said, rick, if it wasn't for my T shirts and my cute logo that people just love, she said, I'm not sure if I would have been able to afford to write more children's books.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So how do you go about funding your next book?

May not come from just selling books.

Yeah.

I'm at a different point in life.

I don't have any children that I need to support.

I live by myself now.

My husband died a few years ago, and this is my life.

I love when it sounds like you're.

Just having a blast.

I am.

That's terrific.

You're so fascinating.

When I looked at your website, I looked number of books you've published, I looked at your plushies.

I talked to children's book authors about their illustrators.

And what was incredible to me is most of the time, even if someone's written three or four children's books, they generally stick with the same illustrator.

When I look at your stable of illustrators, I noticed you had 10 different illustrators.

And I thought, oh, my goodness, I do.

And they're from all over the world.

And I adore.

I've done more than one book with almost all of them.

I've only had two that didn't work as I envisioned.

Patricia, tell us the story behind that whole journey because.

And some of our guests have heard this from me before, even though I live in Canada, our children's book illustrator is in the uk and I find that all the time.

I have four in the uk.

Yeah, it's amazing.

And it's Funny, I've talked to Canadian children's book authors and their illustrators are Americans, so you just never know.

Take us.

Take us on your journey here.

Tell us a little bit about why you have a stable of 10 children's book author illustrators.

There's no reason for that, except that I have something sometimes envisioned.

And way back when I first started, I discovered a company called childrensillustrators.com and they are the best as far as I'm concerned.

That's where I've just had really good luck.

And I probably shouldn't be saying this, but I look for the ones that are not agented.

Agented ones are important if you're doing something with a non English country so that maybe you'll get the information you need.

I like to be able to communicate with them direct.

I've had really good luck in hearing from people right away and I am not one that tells them what I want done.

I want them to see in what I've painted with my words what they see.

And I've been really lucky because most of them do better than I envisioned.

I don't know.

I've been lucky.

But like, I've had experience.

I worked in traditional publishing.

You had no say on anything.

The only thing is that I did two books with the same illustrator that they chose and she liked what I did and she liked ranching so much and she was not a rancher that she contacted me.

So I had contact with illustrators before, which, like I said, a lot of traditional never do.

When you started working with the illustrators and you started creating these book series and Mouse was a character that really you loved and you saw it turning into a book series.

Use the same illustrator for Mouse's series.

Yes.

I couldn't do it without her.

I didn't know anything about her when I first asked her, but I just like whatever she showed on those pages.

I heard from her in probably 20 minutes.

And that's how she's been ever since.

And you're not going to get the magic like she is.

I just blessed the day that I found her and she's around my age, so it's really nice.

No, that's terrific because that's one thing that I found is children's book authors have said to me, when they find an illustrator they like to work with, they're pretty loyal.

We're the same way.

The children's illustrator that we're working with, he's a terrific guy and.

And he's been a real pleasure to work with.

And he gets it.

He gets what we're trying to capture.

And in our case, all of the children's book stories that we've written are based on a nugget of truth with my grandchildren.

Well, all of our characters are animals in our children's books, but the stories are based on real life situations where I'll send them pictures of us doing things to develop the story.

And he comes back with the characters, and it's just been an incredible look.

That's the magic.

Yeah, that's the magic is when you see how they set it up.

I got an idea that I couldn't stand not saying anything about to Ginger, and she's working on another book.

And I said, okay, what do you think about that?

And it's.

The problem is we have 63 national parks in the United States.

Maybe more now, I don't know, but we had 63.

There's no way that I'm going to be able to write a book for 63 national parks at my age.

One of them we did on multiple national monuments.

Okay.

Gave me the idea.

But anyway, I asked him what you would think about the 12 days of Christmas.

So we're basing one on the 12 days of Christmas.

Mouse visits 12 national parks in the 12 days of Christmas.

What a terrific idea.

We can do 12 parks that I probably wouldn't have written about.

Good for you.

And she was so excited about it.

You know, she's already working on it.

That's how she is.

Tricia, I was going to ask this question a little later, but you know what?

I'm going to move this question up because you got me so darn excited and because I eventually want to get around to character development.

But let's talk about your character development and your nickname.

National Park Grandma.

I know you introduced yourself that way, but you got to give us more to tell us about this nickname and this Persona.

And I even noticed on Instagram you even have yourself turned into a character.

Tell us the story.

I am.

I did.

I think just a few months older than Smokey the Bear.

That I am not young.

I thought you were going to tell me you went on a date with Smokey the Bear when he was younger.

No.

Okay.

I just discovered that he turned 80 this year and I'm older.

That's all I'm going to say.

Nascar.

But you want the story behind your nickname.

How did this all happen?

Almost the same as Write Them Cowgirl Publishing.

A coach that I was working with at the time said something about, you need to make yourself the grandma of national parks.

And in two seconds, it hit me.

National Park Grandma.

And I'm the perfect national park grandma because I love national parks, because I'm old, and because I've got seven grandkids and seven great grandkids.

But I've got to tell you one more thing.

I'm also an avid knitter.

I've always done a lot of different crafts, but now I'm doing a lot of knitting.

And last spring, I decided with great grandbabies coming, that I would make them a blanket.

And I had 60 years worth of.

Of yarn in there, and it hit me that I needed to do something with all this yarn.

Starting last March, I have been making blankets, and I just.

My 80th.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

I want what I want to do, and I don't know if I can do it, and I have no idea how it could happen, but I would love to sell them or auction them off or I don't know exactly what yet, and give the money to the national parks.

That's why I'm National Park Grandma, because everybody talks about grandmas as knitters or crocheters, and they laugh at us.

You still have lots of time, and I'll tell you why I'm saying that is last week, we aired a podcast episode called I'm a Big Brother with a Superpower.

And the children's book author, Ann Gorst.

That was her first children's book.

She wrote it in her 90s.

If you listen to that episode, 66, you'll find out that she comes from a children's entertainment background and because of a great grandchild, she wrote this book.

Yeah, I'll listen to that.

That's.

I'm just saying to you, you're young in relative terms, to a woman who's just starting out in her 90s.

Yeah.

Well, I got 10 years, then maybe I will get more.

I love it.

I want to come to your website.

You got a great website.

Talk to us about how your website developed to support all of your children's books and your plushies.

I was blessed that Ginger did my banners.

This is an illustrator.

If I say something 10 minutes later, it's there.

I'm just coming up with an idea sometimes, and she sends me samples, and that's what makes it so much fun.

Is she limbs totally across the country from me.

But we have become extremely good friends, and I'm blessed.

I love that you tell that story because I always ask people about their website, and generally I'm not talking to a Children's book author with 28 titles.

I'm generally talking to someone who's either written their first book or maybe their third or fourth book.

And I always ask them what came first, their website or their children's book.

And it's probably about 50, 50.

But those who have their website come after the launch of their first children's book, they generally tell me, thank God for their illustrator because the illustrator helped bring their website to life.

And that's what happened to us.

So I'm just so glad that you told us the story about Ginger.

How many books would you say you had written before Ginger helped you get your website up and running?

Might have been my six.

It was because it wasn't mouse.

It was called absurd, said bird.

And I always loved that.

It was about a mouse that wanted to go to the moon and he talked all the farm animals into helping him build a plane so that he could go to the moon and he would bring them back cheese.

And of course, birds sing absurd to everything that he does.

And then when he crashes at the end, a bird goes down and scoops him up and said, now do you know why I said absurd?

It takes a rocket to get to the moon.

So book two is about them building a rocket.

And it wasn't until the third book that I wrote about national parks.

It was really fun to do it that way.

Nice.

And how often would you go in and have you got somebody looking after your website now in terms of keeping it?

No.

That's why it's always only half done.

It's on my list and I promise myself I'm going to do it.

I will say you've got all your.

Most of your books are there and your plushie and of course your rich history of your background.

What they don't have is I have now done blankets to go with most of the books.

Okay.

I will soon have them for all of them and they will be available on my website.

That's the only place they'll be available because you can't crank them out.

I can crank out quite a few, but.

So it'll be basically a one of a kind thing, but I just wanted to do it.

That's a terrific idea.

Good for you.

On your website, of course, you've got your links to your social media.

Talk to us a little bit about how you're using Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.

Talk to us about how you're using your social media to promote your books.

I'm still trying to figure it out.

Last year I was starting pretty well.

I think it was on June 11 that I started with National Park Grandma and got things going.

And I was using Pinterest and doing some reels.

And one of my coaches said that I really needed to do these reels.

And I just.

One day I went, who wants to listen to an old lady talking about.

I was talking about things that didn't come up in the book, but around about the national parks.

And it was fun, but it really wasn't exciting to me.

And that's when I came up with the idea of a cartoon character.

And that's our new National Park Grandma.

That's me.

And it looks like me.

Ginger did it.

It looks like me.

Yeah.

So it's really been fun.

It's really been fun.

But I went in the hospital shortly after that and I've had some medical issues and it just screwed everything up.

Now I'm going to start again.

Good for you.

It's nice and it just engages your readers more.

They have to be fun.

And I've got two illustrators that I work with that know how to use the Internet.

And I just watch what they do.

They're there all the time, but they're not talking about their books very often or the books that they've done or something like that.

They've always got something that just grabs your attention, and I think that's important too.

You can always put things in about what you're working on and why, but you can't beat people over the head with that.

You wrote a book because you know you're published every day.

A lot I would like to talk about most.

And because there was something that attracted you.

He wasn't your first character.

He was actually a secondary character in one of your stories, but something stuck with you.

Talk to us about not only the original development of Mouse, maybe as he was a secondary character, and then he grew into a main character.

Talk to us about that whole development and then talk to us about this latest book on the national parks.

I don't even really know how it happened.

I just feel like things in life happen sometimes and if you recognize it, then it's to your advantage when it's a positive thing.

And like I said, when I saw Mouse on the COVID of the Absurd said Bird, I just loved him.

And we've gotten better.

He's just gotten better over the years.

We've both gotten better.

I think that I write better.

And Ginger comes up with really creative.

Every one of her illustrations is full.

It's not just a cute Little thing drawn on a blank page.

Right.

It makes it really special.

And that's why I'm really excited about the 12 Days of Christmas one, because it's just going to be one page for each of the national parks.

But it's really going to be cute and with a little information and everything.

But it's going to be fun, I think.

I don't know, but every book that I'm working on, Every book I'm working on is my favorite.

But Moses seemed to take on a main role here.

Of course he does.

One of the things that he's doing is he's looking for other relatives.

And there are so many breeds of NASA of mice.

And so that's been fun because I have a lot of information in the back, like my author notes, and it tells about different mice that are in a place or it asks questions or it gives you information about that park.

Yes.

And I noticed it was fun because you described him in your.

In the national park book.

And then what I loved about it is that when mouse visits the Grand Canyon national park, about halfway through the story describes himself as a house mouse.

And he also meets another mouse that lives in the Grand Canyon we call a Grand Canyon mouse.

Mouse is this little tiny mouse.

The Grand Canyon is huge.

And I thought, so what's he going to do there?

And it really was fun to work out, and he had plenty.

Did you know that the Grand Canyon fills up with fog so it looks like it's a carpet?

No, No, I didn't know that because, you know, we were there in the summer.

I never saw the fog.

Yeah.

No.

So that.

That made it fun, and that's what makes it fun for me to write a lot of these things.

I look for the special things that kids would be interested in.

There's a lot of stuff that they could care less about.

It was a fun read.

And I like how you incorporated a different type of mouse into the story.

I try to do that a lot.

And.

And we've got a couple female mice now.

One of them was in Carlsbad Caverns, and one is in right now.

Canaveral mouse went to the Everglades, and Canaveral National Seashore is very close by.

And so instead of he goes there and he thinks that he's going to be able to finally go to the moon.

And this is when his bubble is burst and he knows that he'll never go to the moon.

It's so much fun.

I know you've got a couple of book series, but in terms of a theme for all of your books.

What would you say is the underlying theme for all of your books?

Never give up.

And always keep your eyes open for that special thing.

Because there's something for all of us, there's something that we love.

Doesn't mean it's right for anybody else.

But I think that you never give up.

I think that's important.

There is good that can be found in anything negative.

You just have to have your eyes open and realize that.

And I learned that a long time ago that everything's not going to go the way that you hope or you plan.

I can tell you that right now with my marketing.

Each book as you write it, do you think about a central lesson or teaching before you start writing?

No, no, I don't.

But I think about it as I'm going along and I think about it as I end.

I. I look back.

My favorite part of writing is rewriting.

So I will put something down, I'll just rough it out and then I go back and change it.

And I'm a typewriter.

But these books are long for picture books.

Most of them are like 900 words.

They say a children's book is generally a picture book is between five hundred and a thousand words.

And depending how even how you set your book up.

You know what, when we launched our books, I went old school and I didn't know that.

So ours has the illustration on the right hand side and has the print on the left hand side.

The print separate from the illustration.

I have a couple books like that.

That's just the style that we chose to go with.

Now that I've interviewed over a children's book authors, I'm seeing there's so many different ways that you can go about it.

I'm learning, Tricia.

It's not a one size fits all.

And no, yeah, not.

It's just open to the way you do it.

With you having 28 books, you can play with it.

I have an advantage that I don't have to bring in.

I'll never get back what I put into this.

But they're gifts for my family mainly.

But they're also a great thing for me.

I'd rather do this.

I've done a lot of travel.

I've done a lot of everything in my life.

I had a very full life and now I'm having fun too.

Yeah, no, it's fantastic.

When you talked about your writing process and you said the theme or the central teaching sometimes just comes out later as you're writing.

Can you Share some more insight into your development and writing process for your children's books.

Okay.

A good example is this Everglades that I did.

Let's talk about a little bit about how I choose a park.

Okay.

I want to be fair to everybody, so I try to go on this side for a while and then go on this side or whatever.

And the reason that Acadia national park is the third book, Yellowstone's the second book, because that was our first national park book.

The first book is Joshua Tree National Park.

And the reason I did that is it's a smaller park.

And because of the book transition into parks, I needed something that wasn't too terribly big, that I didn't have to write too much stuff about.

That is what gave me the idea for that.

But where I am right now is that two things that Mouse really wanted.

One thing, Bird had gone off migrating, and he.

He hoped that on some of his travels he would run into Bird.

And he does at Everglades.

And there are quite a few things that are fun about Everglades.

But the other thing was that it's close to Kennedy Space Station.

And with Mouse wanting to go to the moon, it worked out just perfectly because I was finally able to close that.

But he also runs into Mouse at the Everglades because the migrating birds that he's with are going through there.

I just play.

Okay.

But like I said, Monks writes the stories, and then I tell them if it works.

I love that you have focused on.

Even though you've got a couple of book series, your focus on national parks, I think is timely in today's world.

Yes.

Extremely important.

And raising people's awareness because I'm not sure.

I hope so.

Yeah.

And we're getting more people in the world, and that's something we can't.

That's just part of life.

But to get people to get closer to nature, certainly, I think is a very worthy cause.

And I'm glad you're doing that and you're doing it in a fun way at the right age, I think so.

I think it's the right age because they understand at that age.

And you just never know.

It might only influence one kid or two or something, but that's what our job is.

You're not going to get all 30 kids in the classroom.

I'm going to take you back to.

And we talked about your book business plan.

But I'm more interested in you thinking back to your first, very first book.

Not the one you wrote with your father in law, but your very first book.

And then I want you to think about the success that you were thinking about with that book.

And then pull us forward to now and what success looks like to you now versus back then.

It felt room.

Remember what the first book was that I did.

I know that I wanted to do them for my grandkids and so they were.

I think that I might have done Grandpa Jack.

Put it back.

These are for very young children.

Garrett Gets the Wiggle Worms and Jimmy's Jammies.

Those are what I consider my toddler books.

I should know what the first book is.

But when you.

Well, if you could just think back to what you had envisioned success back then and what success looks like to you now.

I don't know when I started out if I visioned any of them really succeed success.

I thought maybe.

I also thought that I had done fairly well as a traditional author.

And I thought I took 20 years off and I thought that somebody would remember me.

Wrong.

That's not true.

Some did and were happy that I was back.

But nobody remembers you, especially in a time like this.

There are so many people in the world that I think is one of the reasons that it's really important for people to find out what works for them and what makes them happy.

Because you can't be everybody else.

Success for you.

Now you've mentioned how you're having fun for yourself.

Is that now your success gauge.

My success will be if I get my mouse series into schools because I think that's where it belongs to.

It belongs in national parks too, but it belongs in schools because it has a lot of information in it.

I've had a lot of reviewers who were teachers tell me that it belongs there.

I haven't been able to figure out how I have.

But I haven't put the effort into it.

I'm just keep building this.

I don't know what I'm building.

Almost ready to dive in.

It's interesting you should say that because I bet you half of our guests of teachers or early development educators or retired teachers.

A few episodes ago, one of the people told me that as a retired teacher she was doing a lesson plan for each book.

And she said, oh, okay, great.

And she said that seemed to be getting her some traction at schools because she was taught.

But you got to know where to put those.

Yeah, exactly.

But she said, you have to offer.

Them get it right.

And she was getting her some traction.

But it was interesting.

That reminds me of two that I published very early on.

One of them's called Grandma's Kitchen and the other one's called Grandpa's Garden.

Okay.

And Grandma's Kitchen is about canning tomatoes and Grandpa's Garden is about growing vegetables for a special salad.

Those were fun too.

And they have a lesson plan that goes with them.

Another one that I wrote is Where's Grandma?

And it's a silly story about a grandma that's up in a tree and then she also runs a backhoe.

That wasn't my idea.

That was the illustrator's idea to put the backhoe in.

And I just love it.

But it's really a fun one.

It's a silly grandma when these four little boys are always trying to find her.

And Tricia, how much time are you devoting to writing now?

I do writing stuff every day in the mornings.

I don't have to, but I want to check my emails and do that stuff.

And I probably work till about noon or 1 o'.

Clock.

And I find that at this point in my life I'm not quite as productive in the late afternoon.

Sometimes I get something done.

That's when I do most of my knitting and that type of thing.

Advice for aspiring authors.

If you're talking to someone who's an aspiring author, what do you say to them?

You don't go into it because you think you're going to get rich.

You have to love what you do because it's a feel good.

And if you create something that makes you feel good, that you've created something.

There are so many that were not thought out books and everybody thinks that they have to write thing in verse and sometimes that's what kills a book.

There are a lot of things that bother me about today's writing, but I think that we're cleaning ourselves up and I think that indie will be a good way to go down the road.

And partly the reason I feel that is that you are so limited in traditional publishing because every year you're competing with Peter Rabbit and make way for ducklings.

And every Disney story, imagine every Disney.

Story, you're competing with them and they do those before they do buy a new one.

So you have to build something really good enough that you can stay with them, you can stay on their level and people will want your books too.

So what keeps you going as a children's book author?

I do what I like and I've reached that point in my life.

It's my right to do that.

And I finally have realized I can't do everything.

So I choose what I can do and what I enjoy doing.

Right on.

Good for you.

Encouragement for Readers why should children's book readers purchase your books?

Because I think that they have a fun story.

Even one is no one could see the flea and it's about how things get out of hand sometimes when you don't even mean it and how ridiculous we can be.

And those are the kinds of things that I like doing is pointing out our faults or our weaknesses in ways that there aren't lectures, just that the.

Child goes Final Thoughts Trisha, is there anything that you wish I would have asked you that?

Anything that it's like we touched on everything.

Oh, terrific.

I don't want to know that.

And thank you for that.

I just want to make sure that you.

You had that chance.

If there's something that you think that you'd like to share Tricia, thanks so much for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors Podcast.

Your generosity of time and insights.

Wow.

A lot of insights here will significantly benefit aspiring authors and readers.

We promise to provide our audience with links to Trisha's social media website and our books.

And if you've enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to future episodes.

And feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Tricia and her children's book Mouse Visits Grand Canyon National Park.