READERSVOICE.COM: You start writing in bed in the morning using a script program. What is the rest of your daily routine in Franklin, TN, what with animating other movies and writing books, plus family and creating pages of The Dreamland Chronicles?

SCOTT CHRISTIAN SAVA: Let’s see… Get up and check email. Then answer some emails, facebook posts, twitter, and the Dreamland Blog.
Take boys to school. Work on the next day’s page.
Write a bit (prose novel), play games (for work), have call to Germany (to work on game design for video game project), more emails for film projects, maybe a meeting or two by phone, check renders to see how Dreamland’s coming along, work on a bit of watercolor painting, make notes on the new website design, get PDFs ready for digital versions of Dreamland, do interviews :), walk the dog, then go pick up the boys from school.
Depending on the day, it’s either Soccer or Football practice, dinner, read to the boys (if they’ve showered and gotten into bed by a reasonable hour), assemble the renders and letter the next day’s page of Dreamland, watch some tv with the wife, then bed. Whew.

RV: You’ve said that when writing your books like Hyperactive, My Grandparents are Secret Agents or anything else, you start with “If I were a child, wouldn’t it be cool if…?” What other writing tips have you learned, either writing The Dreamland Chronicles or working with people like Mike Kunkel of Herobear and the Kid?

SCS: Well I don’t know what works for everyone… but for me… OBSERVE.
Look around. See what your kids like… or what you like. Figure out WHY.
Dissect ideas. Discover new ones.
Don’t do things because “that’s the way you should do it”.
ALways learn. And never believe your work is good enough.
Always be open to criticism. But always take the time to smile when you “get it right”.

RV: What are some of your plans?

SCS: Finishing Dreamland. 2 more years to go.Becoming a prose novelist.
Doing more paintings. Taking my boys to Disneyworld again. Seeing them grow old.

– Visit thedreamlandchronicles.com.
– copyright Simon Sandall.