WHERE IT ALL BEGAN, WITH ONE ODD LITTLE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED UP ON A HILL, BORROWED FROM MY CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES
Lately, I’ve had numerous people interested in how my writing career began. I am telling the story here to encourage those who have a story to tell, often numerous stories to tell and don’t know how to go about making their dreams realities. A lot of HARD WORK, GREAT REWRITING and the ability to take constructive criticism to make a manuscript do it's best work. I leaned a lot fo this the hard way over the past several decades, but I truly believe if you invest yourself, your talent and time, you can make your dreams come true!
Ol’ Lady Grizelda
Written by Justin Matott
Illustrated by John Woods
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY:
Ol’ Lady Grizelda is the story of the strange universal neighbor one finds in every neighborhood.
Malott’s mom used to say; “If you don’t think you have a strange neighbor in your neighborhood, chances are, YOU are that neighbor.”
Matott grew up in a country neighborhood and the little old lady up on the hill was notorious for her “oddity”. Her house was a bit of a shambles, she strutted around her yard in odd clothing and the wind would carry her flowing clothing creating a somewhat spooky image. She always had one light burning in an upper window and the rumors of who lived up there grew and grew until some of it resembled the house in Hitchcock’s Psycho.
After being spooked by his older brother and some of the neighborhood boys, Matott vowed to never step foot in her yard because she would “EAT HIS FACE” and she was “always watching him”.
Matott would crouch low in his treehouse and spy on her through binoculars and on several occasions she would stare right back and point to the exact spot he was in, fueling his fears.
One summer morning Matott was playing in his backyard with his dogs when his father motioned him over to a large garden. With a red wagon full of garden veggies, Matott set off on his journey bumping up the gravel road, up the hill with the warning that Dad was watching him to make sure he delivered the goods.
With his eyes tightly shut, Matott knocked on her front door and waited for her to come feast on his face. When the door creaked open and her voice cackled into the still air, Matott shrieked louder than he ever had. She invited him in to eat freshly baked cookies and frosty milk from the farmer across the street. Matott insisted he couldn’t because he didn’t want her to eat his face.
Upon questioning him where he had heard such a crazy thing, the two of them cooked up a plan to scare the older boys in the neighborhood and she was better than her word.
Subsequently Matott would visit her on many occasions and came to think of her as his neighborhood grandmother. Soon her yard was full of kids playing and digging for treasures she’d said were buried out back. Truth was they were preparing her sprawling garden beds for the next year, but she would sprinkle quarters and the occasional silver dollars for them to find for their efforts.
One late evening Matott and his buddies came upon three small gravestones in her backyard and let their imaginations go, but never asked her a single question about them.
This kind of eccentric behavior many years later molded Grizelda into a children’s book for all to enjoy.
Upon sharing just one more story at bedtime with his sons about her and personally tiring of the mediocre books coming home from the library weekly, Matott set out to write a story for his sons and soon found it could be more universally loved as he shared it with friends and family. With the express intention to write a book parents, grandparents and children of all ages would enjoy, Matotts’ mysterious neighbor, Katie Stroh would take on the outrageous personality of Grizelda.
While working for a Fortune 500 company Matott was writing as a creative outlet and ultimately self-published a book for grownups which would within months of its release put him in the position of choosing between the largest publishers to republish his book and upon signing with Random House his advance allowed him to leave his Corporate job and create for a living.
During his tenure in corporate America, Matott became friends with John Woods, the President of a prospective client and when they would exchange correspondence Woods would always doodle whimsical characterizations of their entire phone conversations. As Grizelda became more and more real to Matott, he started to see Woods’ style as the perfect complement to accompany his forming children’s picture book manuscript.
He approached Woods to create a concept drawing for the main character and within a few days Woods sent him four different characterizations of her. One stood out and became the wonderfully quirky woman now known as Ol’ Lady Grizelda. Matott and Woods set of on a fun journey to bring each of their inner child out to meet the world.
THE STORY:
The universal story of ‘not judging a book by its cover’ is the underlying theme of Ol’ Lady Grizelda. Forming opinions of people with little facts to back them and relying on gossip and hearsay is unfair and something people of ALL ages need to think about.
The first part of the book deals with the rumors and hearsay that has formed the opinions of Grizelda’s neighbors. What the boy has heard about her is displayed in the perfect marriage of wonderful, imaginative artwork and creatively rhyming prose, that creates a curiosity about her and ultimately ends in a very special friendship.
As the peculiar rumors surrounding her are displayed the reader begins to think of people who remind her of this unusual character. Personalizing the experience is what has made Grizelda have the staying power in the Colorado community for decades and has created many conversations with Matott about how Ol’ Lady Grizelda became a stable in their childhood bedrooms and nighttime reading rituals.
One woman with two children of her own recently recited the entire text to Matott at a Farmer’s market and she had been in the first school he visited as a third grader in 1998. She bought two copies of the book so “she didn’t have to share her first edition copy and so both of her children would have their own copy to read to their children one day.” When her five-year old daughter looked at the cover she said, “She looks super scary!” to which her mom replied, “Remember how I told you when we read it the other night, that once you get to know her she is really lovely?” the little girl wasn’t having it, she just repeated that she looked scary. That is one of many conversations Matott has had over the years with people who find her very endearing.
In the middle of the book the boy creeps up to her house and peers through the window and when he finally sees her with his own eyes, the story becomes first person, analogous to the fact that you truly cannot judge the character of someone until you have experienced them personally. Once he sees her, he is attracted like a moth to flame to learn even more about her. Soon he is visiting and establishing a relationship with her and she explains the origins of the stories he has heard about her. All the while the language is at perhaps a higher level than many picture books and that is by intention. Dumbing a book down makes a child reach down. Bringing them up to the language makes a child reach for possibility and by including a glossary at the back, they have access to language to expand.
Matott has never been able to figure out how to master distribution for Grizelda to make her universally loved by people across the land and to find an audience in different languages and thus as Grizelda continues to sell like any of his front list self-published books, she is like what Corvette is to Chevy and in the world we are living in today has a stronger message even now than when she first appeared in the world.
Matott and Woods have imagined creating a brand ‘MOOTS & JAKE’ of prose, rhyme and illustration to bring messages of humor, hope and humanity to readers of all ages. They have collaborated on picture books, poetry compilations, fractured fairy tales and chapter books and are on the opposite end of the continuum of CREATIVITY BLOCK.