Writing a Children’s Book for the First Time

A conversation with somebody who’s done the thing.

(Photo pulled from Wesley Chance Wets His Pants’ Kickstarter page)

We sit facing the opposite corners of a two-desk cubicle, Shane Matte and I.

It’s the only cubicle in the communications office with two desks, and it’s one that we share with about a dozen green, metallic shovels, an overflowing tote bin of hard hats and visibility vests, and three filing cabinets.

Shane’s name is on the outside of his half of the cubicle, and my name plate remains empty.

I first met Shane about a year ago now, when I started this communications job last spring. Since then, I’ve learned why he is, among many other things, the company’s designated speech writer – his charisma and sense of humour blazing like a flare in an organization full of serious scientists.

Before my time, he wrote an internal April Fool’s story for the company about how we’re training turtles to use underground tunnels, quoting a fictitious source that spent six months leading a turtle named Turbo through the tunnels, himself, mimicking mating vocalizations. “It was a short distance, only a couple of metres, but it felt like Turbo and I had climbed Mount Everest when he did it by himself. In the end, it turned out he was chasing a sick beetle the whole time,” the story reads.

As further proof of his character, a few weeks ago, Shane suggested a dodge-ball tournament during a group brainstorm session for ways to engage our local community.

It’s safe to say that we get along.

Recently, I learned that Shane is also the author of Wesley Chance Wets His Pants, a children’s book about a hockey-haired kid who absolutely did not pee his pants on his way to school. The story follows the tall tales Wesley tells his classmates to avoid admitting he had an accident, crafted with the best, far-out-there rhymes I’ve ever heard. Hugely impressed and having always dreamed of writing a book, myself, I asked Shane if he’d talk to me about how he did it.

Here’s what he had to say.

Q: Who are you, Shane Matte?

I guess I think of myself as a writer, first and foremost.

I remember in a high school English class, I wrote something for an assignment, and the teacher pulled up my paper and read it to the class as an example of something that was really good. I remember feeling really kind of proud and excited about that, and so, throughout high school, I enjoyed those exercises. I think I’ve always been inspired to do fun things, creative projects.

Q: What’s the origin story of Wesley Chance Wets His Pants?

(Pictured are author Shane Matte and illustrator Dylan Upper, Photo pulled from Kickstarter)

I like to make cool things with my friends, and so that’s what I did with my friend Dylan Upper – the book’s illustrator. Dylan and I met playing soccer – he was a friend of a friend in university. And, he’s probably the most talented person I know when it comes to graphic design.

I hate to hell him that, but it’s true.

He and I were two of four friends who started Broadhead Brewery back in 2011, and so we collaborated on a few creative things there, like the logo, advertisements and the website. Around that time, we talked about what sort of creative project we could start together. We had young kids then, and so we kicked around this idea of a book because we were reading to our kids every night. Somehow, we landed on the idea of a kid wetting his pants and making up a bunch of stupid excuses for why his pants are wet.

So, one day, I put together a draft, sent it to him, and he loved it.

Q: You said you’ve always been into creative writing, but have you always known that you wanted to write a book one day?

No, definitely not. I wouldn’t say that I grew up thinking about writing a book someday. It’s just that it seemed like a very natural thing to do at the time when we were both reading a lot of children’s books. I was reading a lot of Dr. Seuss books, and I remember thinking, ‘What would a modern-day Dr. Seuss book look like?’

(Page 1 of Wesley Chance Wets His Pants)

And so that’s where the ideas for this came from – something that’s pretty zany, silly, and ridiculous. Something that parents could laugh at, that kids could laugh at. But it evolved out of where we were in our lives at the time and a mutual interest in working together on something – me as a writer, and him as an illustrator.

Q: So what did that process look like, from the two of you deciding you wanted to do this all the way to actually having a hard copy in your hands?

From start to finish, it took us about a year.

We started with the text, and then we mapped out what the illustrations would be – what they would generally look like on each page. Dylan’s very good at doing sketches of how he wants to lay things out, like where Wesley was standing, where the sun was coming down, just positioning things on the page. We did every spread one at a time, and sometimes the illustrations informed changes in the writing, so we changed it as we went.

(Page 6 of Wesley Chance Wets His Pants)

But once we finished it, we were a little stuck. Dylan’s the quietest person I know, and I don’t like being the center of attention either, so we weren’t that keen on trying to sell it. Eventually, we worked out the courage to do a Kick Starter campaign, where funds would just go toward the printing of the books. We had a lot of interest from friends and family, a few friends-of-friends. We also sent a few copies to publishers, and they all declined, but it was no big deal because we weren’t expecting that to go anywhere – but, at the same time, we also thought, ‘maybe!’

Again though, we weren’t expecting to become rich and famous, it was more about the fun of making something together.

Q: What was it like to see Wesley Chance Wets His Pants go from an idea to a tangible book that you could read your kids at night?

It was wild! It’s weird though because there’s times where I feel very proud of it – especially because people still write me to say our book is their kid’s favourite. And that makes you feel like, ‘Oh, maybe this is actually pretty good,’ you know? But there’s also times where l feel very insecure and I’m like, ‘Is this stupid? Is this bad?’

I was very nervous to publish it. Not making it – that was a blast! Doing an interview on Kick Starter was just not in my comfort zone though, so you know, I have mixed feelings about it. But, generally, I’m very proud of it. It appeals to me and Dylan’s sense of humour.

(Page 2 of Wesley Chance Wets His Pants)

There’s a part where we had to name the drink Wesley’s sipping and we were coming up with names that rhyme with ‘dread’, and we somehow came up with ‘Schwed.’ That’s the stupidest name you could think of, but we used it so much that it became really funny to us. But, then you think, ‘What if someone doesn’t understand that we know it’s a bad name?’ You’re sensitive to all these little kinds of things when you’re putting it out into the world.

But, in the end, that’s okay if not everybody gets it. We’re very aware that it’s a ridiculous book, but it makes us laugh, and that’s just the tone of the book.

Q: What advice would you give to people who want to write a book, but are perhaps feeling overwhelmed about the whole process?

You know, this was a really approachable project – it wasn’t huge, it didn’t involve a lot of writing, so cranking out the text wasn’t a big mountain to climb.

So maybe that’s my advice, to start small and just do it.

When Dylan and I were talking about how to do this, we were initially asking ourselves if we should go out to publishers to pitch our idea, put together a whole package and ask them to fund it. But at the end, we were like, ‘What if we just made it and see what we can do with it?’ And so we finished the book before we even told anyone about it.

So, if you’re writing a big, huge book, my advice would be to start with a chapter – spend some time trying to tease it into something you’re really proud of, and then do another chapter, and just take it from there. Because if you can do one chapter, then maybe you can do 20 chapters.

But yeah, if you’re really serious about doing something, maybe just do it? It doesn’t have to be successful before you even start. I’m not very good at writing something perfect, I’m better at writing something badly and then grinding it into what I want.