Ask the Author: Marie Letourneau
Answered Questions (2)
Marie Letourneau
Hi Amy! Thanks for the friend-add and the question! I feel like my writing process is a little unconventional. Most of my ideas come to me "visually" first, - for instance I'll get an idea for a character and start doodling, then a storyline starts to come to me based on what I feel the character might do or wear, play or say. Once a basic storyline starts to form in my brain, I will spend large blocks of time writing and editing it.
Marie Letourneau
I started writing Argyle Fox in 2011, but it wasn't at all about a fox. The original story was tentatively titled, "The Windy Week", about a child trying to play outside in early spring, but everyday the wind would just completely wreck whatever it was the child was trying to play with - so at least that part was similar. I had yet to determine if that child would be a boy or a girl, and there was a dog involved (sort of like a sidekick). I worked on the story on and off for a couple of years, in between roller derby practices, taking side projects for wedding invitations and creating alphabet cards for my stationery business. I was working on random cards, Y for "Yak". N for "Narwhal", A for "Aardvark" when yet another story idea hit me. I would write a story about an Aardvark and name it Argyle Aardvark. The name "Argyle" after a picturesque lake in my childhood hometown that I loved very much. The only problem was, I had no story idea, just the name and what the character would look like, so the entire idea got shelved until a later date. During all of this, we got a puppy. We already had two dogs and a cat, busy schedules and a small house, but that didn't stop me from complicating my life further with a rescue dog. It was while trying to come up with a name for our latest addition, that we decided she looked very much like a fox. We started messing around with names that pertained to foxes. My husband's family is french Canadian, and the french word for fox (Renard) was tossed into the hat. I thought the name sounded a little too masculine (our puppy is a girl) so we shortened the name to "Reynie" (I now just call her "Rey") After that, I became somewhat obsessed with foxes. I started drawing and sketching them, and there seemed to be a plethora of "fox items" for sale on the market. I bought a fox mug. I purchased a pair of fox socks for roller derby. My kids gave me a fox sap dish. My husband bought me a (fake) stuffed fox for Christmas. Still, the connection with foxes and the story just wasn't there. Then one sleepless night as I tossed and turned it hit me. I didn't have to use a human as the main character in the book, I would use a fox! So after a couple of months of sketching and sketching and sketching, I finally came up with Argyle's signature look, minus the argyle pattern. He was simply a fox in a green coat and scarf. Hmmm...what to name him? One day, not long after, it came to me as I was working on my website portfolio. As I was scrolling though my art files, I came across that A for Aardvark alphabet card (still haven't finished the deck, maybe I can get back to that one day) Suddenly I knew it had to be Argyle - Argyle Fox! I immediately added the argyle pattern to his scarf, finished revising the story (over months) and sent it off to my publisher at Tanglewood Books. My publisher loved it and the rest of the story you know - Argyle Fox has arrived.
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