Writing Process

How These Stories Are Made

I write stories by watching closely. Before there is a plot, a message, or even a character, there is observation. I pay attention to patterns, pauses, and small moments that often go unnoticed. I watch what children do when words fail them and how adults respond, sometimes missing what is happening beneath the surface. My writing process begins with restraint rather than explanation.

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Why I Start With the Hardest Stories

I did not begin with the easiest book to write.

I began with the story that required the most patience, the most revision, and the greatest willingness to sit with uncertainty. Stories about emotional regulation, differences, and resilience demand care. They cannot be rushed without losing their integrity.

Time is part of the process.

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Observation Before Explanation

Many of the children I write about cannot articulate what they are feeling in the ways adults expect. Rather than explaining their behavior, I allow it to exist on the page. The story does not instruct a child what to feel, it creates space for recognition.

Observation and outline are followed by time away from the screen. I move to pen and paper to explore the inner life of a character, often drawing from real children and real moments. Early drafts are grounded in reality, then give way to moments of fantasy, where lived experience becomes metaphor and inner feelings can surface without words.

Each story lives in its own carefully chosen notebook, colorful, tactile, and nothing like my former business life. I write in different colored pens as the story evolves, switching to a heavier pen for final edits as a reminder that precision matters when a story is meant to be felt rather than explained.

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Writing for the Child and the Adult

My children’s picture books are written for two readers at once.

For children, the story offers familiarity, rhythm, entertainment, and reassurance.

For adults, it offers a quieter lens, an invitation to notice rather than correct, to slow down rather than interpret too quickly.

Rather than naming emotions outright, the story invites readers to experience what the character is feeling, trusting that empathy grows through recognition rather than explanation. What is left unsaid matters as much as what appears on the page.

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Revision, Restraint, and Trust

Revision is not about adding more.
It is about removing what does not belong.

While working on The Boy with the Yellow Timer, I collaborated with an experienced editor who helped sharpen my voice and strengthen the emotional restraint of the story. That process reinforced the importance of revision as a place of listening rather than correction, allowing the work to become more precise without losing its quiet center.

Each story is revised with illustration in mind. I write with visual storytelling as a partner, creating space for illustration to deepen meaning rather than decorate it. Collaboration is intentional and grounded in emotional nuance and restraint.

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Building a Body of Work

I am not writing toward a single book.

I am building a body of work that explores children’s inner lives, including emotion, identity, belonging, and resilience. Each story stands on its own, but together they form a larger conversation about childhood, caregiving, and what it means to feel seen.

This site documents that process as it unfolds, not as performance, but as sustained work.

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Recent Projects

These illustrations are stand-in visual placeholders to help bring the stories to life as I search for the right illustrator partner to join the journey.

Illustration of a gentle Bigfoot sitting in a forest clearing on the cover of Bluff, the Bigfoot.

Bluff the Bigfoot

A Children’s Picture Book by Melissa Sullivan-Noonan Age Range: 6–9Word Count: ~1,100Illustrated Picture Book Hook:In the hush of the forest lives Bluff, a gentle Bigfoot

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Illustration of a young ballerina and a duckling with wings on stage in Hadley in the Wings children’s book cover.

Hadley in the Wings

A Children’s Picture Book by Melissa Sullivan-Noonan Age Range: 4–9Word Count: ~993Illustrated Picture Book Hook:Hadley is quiet, careful, and often overlooked next to her bigger-than-life,

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