12DK #12 Kingmas Tree Reveal!

MERRY KINGMAS!

As promised, we will now reveal the royal Kingmas tree.

We sincerely wish a merry and kingly Kingmas with all our pheasants. Thank you for celebrating Kingmas with us and our majestic pens.

Yours cheerily and festively,

TDK #11 Our Christmas Eve Tradition

Greetings, to our probably-very-excited-for-Kingmas-day followers!

Kingmas Eve is very important to the calendar, because if it wasn't for today, Kingmas would never come. Therefore, we always find it important to properly celebrate Kingmas Eve. Here are a few of our little traditions.

Both of us kings, our Kingetary, and the Duke of Cornmeal always exchange gifts among ourselves, but we also wrap a gift for ourself and another one for the other people to open next year. Then if ever something happens and one of us dies, we'll still have a special "good-bye" gift from the deceased person. Daniel (or King Edward XII) had the idea one day after he read a history book where the king was suddenly decapitated. And even if none of us dies (which is not at all a bad thing), it is still an interesting tradition and one that raises eyebrows whenever we explain it.

We also stay up late, but most people do. Then, as soon as midnight strikes, we write ourselves a letter to open next Kingmas, right after we read the one from the previous year. It is always embarrassing to read our wish lists.

Well, that's what we do. What about you? Let us know in the declaration scroll down below!

Yours sincerely,

12DK #10 How We Decorated Our Writedom for Kingmas

Kingly waves!

Since we are currently writing a Kingmas story, we thought we really needed to decorate our whole Writedom, so that it would put us in the most festive mood possible. Here are some of the things we did.

1: We printed off a Kingmas poster that we had drawn and coloured and taped them around on the walls, with sparkly tape. We recently shared one of them on our blog, so if you would like to do the same as us, it is available.

2: We of course have a Kingmas tree. They are essential. We decorated our very creatively, and will reveal to you what it looks like soon.

3: We also made little stockings and hung them off a shelf, since we don't have a fireplace. We filled them with all kinds of kingly things, and their fullness makes us look very generous.

5: We got blue lights and hung them around the ceiling with nails. It looks a little lopsided in places (because we were too short to reach properly and so we had to stand on each other's shoulders which was rather precarious) but it still looks phenomenal. But now Joo-Joo won't stop unplugging them because he has recently become fascinated by electrical outlets.

6: In order to make the cats feel happy, we also made little cats wearing Kingmas hats to sit on our aforementioned shelf, guarding our stockings. They never pay any attention to them.

7: We also gift wrapped anything we could find that is either ugly, not useful, or available, so now we have a lot of presents sitting around--except their not presents, but they look like it which is what matters.

Well, those are some of the ways that we decorated. Some are more functional then others, but they all look festive and make us very inspired. So inspired, in fact, that we often find ourselves giving ourselves up to the festivity entirely and spending long evenings doing nothing except drinking hot cocoa, eating cookies, reading, talking, or staring at the Kingmas tree.

Yours kingspiringly,

12DK #9 Drawings of the Comedy Cats

The Comedy Cats are our pets, and they are quite popular, known especially for how HILLarious they are. They always add an extra comical touch to our drawings and illustrations. So we thought maybe we should give them a little shoutout and share some of our favourite drawings and portraits of them, since it will probably amuse you. (Well, we hope it does, at any rate.)

Moo-Moo and Koo-Koo wiping up Adrien's tears

Loo-Loo (ft her long tail) playing the piano

Click here for a drawing of a Cat Combat.

Yours sincerely and with claws in our arms (because Koo-Koo wants to see himself and isn't tall enough too),

12DK #8 Inkspirational Kingmast Poster

Greetings!

We hope you are having a royally good day, and in case you aren't, here is a little something to brighten you up.

You can colour it and either turn it into a Kingmas card or into a poster or anything else that you like. Click onto the drawing to download it.

Yours creatively,

12DK #7 Snowking Fun

Greetings, snowmen makers! (Well, we hope you are snowmen makers.)

While most people are now making snowmen, we are actually busy working on our first snowkings of the season. We prefer a more dignified snowy statue then a carrot-nosed, raisin-mouthed, and buttoned-eyed personage. We gave our snowking the typical body made out of three balls of snow in increasing (or decreasing, depending how you look at it) size because we thought that if we didn't, nobody would recognize what it was. We took a piece of chocolate and snapped it in two for his eyes, and raisins acorns made his smile. Then we gave him a larger carrot for his nose. Daniel (or King Edward XII) very kingly donated his scarf and not-so-kingly complained about his non-carrot nose being cold for the rest of the afternoon. Then we gave him (not Daniel; the snowking) two twigs as arms and topped it off with a crown made out of snow, with little snowballs as embellishments.

And then Adrien came running around the corner because Ashley and Cayla were chasing him because he had run over their snowman by accident, and he ran right into our snow king, so we chased him too.

Now we are going to retreat our snow king out of clay. A more sturdy version, we hope. (We also hope that Moo-Moo will not knock it off the shelf; sometimes she gets excited and---blind.)

Yours sincerely and hoping you will also make something cool today,

The illustration is kingarious and will be added tomorrow--but Hoo-Hoo has stolen our copy of the drawing and we will look for it in the morning because we already stayed up late enough settling a court case over whether a certain tuque was red or green...an important kingly duty. Thank you for understanding. (Well, we hope you understood, at any rate.)

Update: It has been added.

12DK #6 Some of our Favourite Kingmas Memories

Salutations!

Today's post is almost sentimental. It is all about some of our favourite Kingmas memories. Here they are:

Daniel: One of my most favourite is when we wrote Hoofs on the Roofs. It was so inspiring, the whole story behind the story.

Archie: I was the one who wrote the most of that book. So if you were inspired, why didn't you lend a king a hand?

Daniel: I did. I came up with most of the ideas.

Archie: Well, I was the one who decided to actually write it.

Daniel: No, I did!

Archie: I did.

Daniel: The book says I did.

Archie: Let's look it up after.

Daniel: At any rate, what's your favourite memory?

Archie: I think any of our annual candy cane duels are my favourites. It's so kingtertaining and droll.

Daniel: I prefer wrapping paper wars. (It's like a snowball fights but with balls of scrunched up wrapping paper instead.)

Archie: That's only because your candy canes always snap in two.

Daniel: Incorrect, my fellow ruler.

Archie: I believe that it's you who's incorrect.

Daniel: Let's remain kingly. Do you have any other favourite memories? A funny one, perhaps?

Archie: Oh, yes. I remember when we put the Duck of Cornmeal in a box and gift wrapped it and then we called the other kids in and told them to try to guess what was inside. Then the Duck burst out of it and they were so surprised. You would have thought we had told them we were abdicating to them. (Although, obviously we would not.)

Daniel: I remember that! I laughed until my crown fell off.--Or almost fell off. Remember when we made gingerbread them and then tied pieces of white tread on them and then pulled them off the cookie rack? And the kids thought they were running away for real? That was kingtertaining too.

Archie: It was Hillarious.

Daniel: And remember when we made a snowman and gave him Adrien's new hat by accident? Because we thought it was one that belonged to no one since it was new? And he did not appreciate it. But that snowman sure looked Kingmasy, with that bright red hat.

Archie: I was a green hat.

Daniel: No, it was red, I remember.

Archie: I insist that it was green.

Daniel: But I know down to the bottom of my robe that it was red.

Archie: I disagree.

Well, anyways, whether it was red or green doesn't really matter as they are both Kingmasy colours. We'll keep discussing it and hopefully come to a conclusion. If not, we will bring the matter up in court within the next few days.

Have a tasty candy cane and a kingly day!

12DK #5 Ideas for Kingly Gifts

Imperial greetings!

Today is a cold, snowy day, so we decided to get blankets and hot cocoa and watch one of our favourite shows, 'Keeping Up With the Shenanigans'. Since we have a Kingmas event to run, we decided to remain productive by writing a list of Kingly gift ideas during the commercial breaks. Here's what we came up with:

1: For writerly kings, kill two jewels with one crown by giving them a mug and write one of their characters quotes on it, or a picture from their book or story. It will serve as both a mug to drink from and a source of inspiration. We are sure they will love it, unless they hate mugs or you accidentally quoted the villain. But then again, they might still love it.

2: For the kings who are big readers, try either giving them a new book or giving them a copy of one of yours, if you are a writer. You could also make them bookmarks. Those always come in handy. (Unless you put them on a shelf to display them and then can never reach them.)

3: For the creative kings, get a box and fill it with all the different materials they need to make a majestic project, such as notebooks or keychains or bookmarks. We are sure they will enjoy it. If you want to be extra thoughtful, add a booklet all about how to remove different kinds of glues from different kinds of surfaces. You never know when they or their cat might get into a sticky situation.

4: And we are not forgetting the kings who like to go on big adventures. A good gift to give them is pack a picnic basket with food, binoculars, a bird identification guide (if you want it to drag on for a few years) and don't forget water. If you live in a climate similar to ours and during Kingmas you're up to your ears and snow and can't walk three steps without getting your boots stuck, maybe you should just give them a card promising to do it with them during the summer. Or, you could go ice hunting, or go sledding off your roof, or go on a snowshoes walk.

5: Childish kings usually appreciate things such as toy cars, baby dolls, squeaky ducks, and blocks that are painted with such bright colours they almost blind you. Just don't forget to not give them batteries.

6: For the kings who like mushy gushy stuff, we don't know exactly what they would like, because we do not understand them very well. But we suppose they would like sonnets or poetry written about them, a love story, or maybe a pen with a sentimental meaning.

Well, we hope those ideas help you out and we apologize in advance if the recipients of one of your gifts does not like it. Maybe it is just the wrapping paper you chose, or maybe you put the wrong name on the gift tag. But we hope everything goes majestically well.

Yours truthfully and with our minds full of shenanigans,

12DK #4 Remember to Read Our Christmas Story!

Salutations, to all our merry pheasants!

In case some of you are not aware, last year we wrote a Christmouse story called Hoofs on the Roofs.

It’s Christmas Eve all over the world, and Daniel and Archie want something to remember this holiday by. Something to remind them what the true meaning of Christmas is—it’s all about joy, forgiveness, love, and family.

Despite a large snowstorm that causes the disappointment of not having the usual Christmas Eve guests, and not having any presents to open that Christmas morning, the holidays will become an unforgettable adventure as Daniel and Archie discover a little town of mice in their library.

Mousington Manor and Cheeseton Hall have been feuding for generations, but will the promise of a special guest restart the new year with some Christmas spirit? And when chaos takes over, will the town be able to come together in order to end the rivalry that has been going on for generations?

Restoring peace in Mousechester, an important letter that comes with a difficult condition, a runaway boy and a blizzard, and a visit from a very special person—all wraps up what happened that Christmas Eve.

The book is divided into 25 different scenes, and so you could read one of the scenes in front of the fire while eating cookies, every night leading up to Christmas. Or New Year's Eve, if you got behind or started reading too late.

Yours sincerely and in the middle of writing a new story,

12DK #3 Kingly Etiquette

Greeting and white handkerchiefs to all!

With parties and balls and get-togethers, just around the table (in a very literal sense), we are sure you are getting more and more anxious about your table manners. To need to fear: the Kings of Etiquette are here. We have learned through trial and error--that is to say, spills and stained frills--many important rules that should never be broken and others that can occasionally be broken. Here is our best advice to keep you from making a spilling stork of yourself at the next fancy meal you attend.

1: The towel the waiter holds over his arm is not a towel you can whip your hands on. Try to kingly warn any little children attending the dinner that you can possibly find. It will save their parents much embarrassment.

2: Since we're on the topic, it is also unacceptable to untie the waiter's apron. It may look tempting, but try to restrain yourself and everyone else who will have to deal with the waiter for the rest of the evening will thank you.

3: Oh, and don't forget to give the waiter a tip, such as how to tie a tie in a less frumpy looking way, how to tie your shoes in a way that won't let them come untied while you're walking around with trays, or how to deal with children.

4: Prepare yourself for the extravagant, chandelier-high prices. They need it to pay the laundromats, we're sure. Besides, they probably think you can afford it since you usually show up to those kinds of dinners wearing fancy clothes.

5: Try to remember to bring shoes to change into. Because stalking around in winter boots is...noisy, to say the least and makes you more liable to knock into someone and cause a spill.

6: Whispering and giggling looks unprofessional and un-Kingly. If you must address someone, try giving the address loudly, so no one will think you're talking about their silly hats behind their backs, or making fun of them, or worse, bored.

7: Singing "Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer" or "My Darling Clementine" or any song is not proper behaviour. If a little child (or grownup) starts indulging in some merry cajoling, try to suppress them with your white handkerchief (that you are not supposed to blow your nose on) or use your tie.

8: The valet is parking our car, not stealing it. So there is really no need to start bawling, Cayla. Although we do make allowance for people who were sleeping and then were woken up abruptly and dropped to the snow ground because snow coats are slippery.

9: If your sister absolutely refuses to not bring her baby doll or your brother absolutely refuses not to bring a toy car, try to bring the kind that doesn't make noise, or take the take the batteries out. Baby dolls crying and saying "Mama!" and cars making car noises aren't exactly dignified.

10: When you reach across a table--actually, you're not supposed to. If you need something that is out of reach and you do not have a grabbing stick under your chair, try asking the person next to you or the person in front of you to pass it. If they don't hear, yell as quietly as you can.

And the list could go on and on forever, but we hope you will have a better idea on how to act next time you attend a dressed-up event.

Yours sincerely, and blushing over a few memories,

12DK #2 Majestic Melodies and Kingly Tunes

Greetings and whistling!

What is more Kingmasy than listening to majestic melodies, while sucking on kingly candy canes, while writing in a royal manuscript, in front of a warm fire? Nothing, except maybe being in a snow castle.

Today we are very excited (we are usually excited) to announce to you that our very own music has finally received it's approbation seal from the court and now available for you to listen to it.

We of course hope you enjoy it and appreciate all the humming, piano playing, singing, thinking, and pen-sucking that went into this project.

We have also finished our Kingmas tree and are doing to give a royal reveal at the end of 12 Days of Kingmas. We are adding a new ornament every day, which is a new tradition that we are starting.

Yours sincerely, and just as dutifully as ever,

12DK #1 Ideas for Ornaments

Hello, deer people!

As our official countdown to the 25th of December starts, we thought maybe you had started to decorate your Kingmas tree already. If so, you probably want to hang things on them to make it more festive. We are decorating our Kingmas tree tomorrow, and in the meantime, we are making special things to hang on it. Here are so of our ideas for ornaments--or as we call them--kingnaments!

1: Make fairly large circles out of clay, and once they've hardened, paint them a royal blue, leaving a white circle in the middle. Then paint your face and the faces of your friends or family on them. We did this for everyone in our kingdom, including our cats, the Duke of Cornmeal Adrien, our Kingetarie Jonah, ourselves, and most of our dear pheasants, like Maïna and Aedem and Taeta and more. They look so royally nice together.

2: Choose a common colour or a colour pallet to decorate your entire tree in. We choose a very royal blue and our kingnaments, tinsel, and other decorations all match.

3: Make sugar cookies and decorate them with icing and sprinkles, then tie a piece of yarn either around them through a hole in the middle, and hang them on your tree. Then at the end of the Kingmas season, you can have a feast! (But only if your immune system is strong enough--ours regularly participate in dulling and fencing, so it is in kingly condition.)

4: Since both of us kings are writers, we made little paper books that went in decreasing height, the last one being only a few centimetres long. Then we arranged them with the largest and the bottom and tallest at the top and glued a piece of looped yarn at the top. That way it makes a little book tree and they are so inspiring. We also put them on a shelf in our closet, the one we write in, that is.

5: We also made little paper snowflakes and tied them with some invisible white tread to our tree and to other things as well.

6: If you have anything around your Kingmas display that you think is ugly or un-Kingmasy, just wrap it in festive wrapping paper. We wrapped some of the boxes we used to store paper and ink and also wrapped our printing press, but Jonah had to take the paper off so that he could print the invitations to our Kingmas party.

7: Candy canes are a very important thing, because they can conveniently be sucked now while you write or draw, and because they are so beautiful. We got some blue and white ones and put them in a jar on our desk and hung more on our tree.

8: Another completely different idea would be to decorate your tree as if it's a snowman. That's what the Duke of Cornmeal did, along with his two advisers, Cayla and Ashley. They wanted to decorate but Mama hadn't taken out the decorations yet. So they decorated with what they found. They put a tuque on the top of the tree, instead of a star, tied mittens on to each opposite side by the strings, put a scrap around him, and put two boots at the bottom. Just keep in mind that if you decorate a tree like this, someone just might be crying in the afternoon because they want to play outside and can't because the tree has all their winter clothing. So maybe you should use spares.

9: Take cotton balls and get onto a ladder, and drop them over your tree so that it looks like it's snowing. It looks so wintery. Just make sure your cats don't eat them.

10: And then, to top it all off, instead of putting a star, we put a big, bright, blue crown. Just like the ones on our heads.

Go decorate your tree now! Even if it’s just a branch you cut from a pine tree, it will make you feel more joyful. (So long as it doesn't fall over every few minutes like ours did last year.)

Yours sincerely and with ornaments hanging off our ears,

(who are in an extremely festive mood…)

Announcing 12 Days of Kingmas!

Hello followers!

Christmas is just around the corner of our living room, as our Christmas tree and it's ornaments creep into place, along with the holly, wreaths, and presents. But presents are some of the less-important things abut Christmas. One of the most important things, is being happy and reading some good stories. (In our kingly opinion.)

We have decided to start a new Christmas traditions, that will be better the wrapping paper wars and candy canes duels (some of our personal favourites) and that's high praise. Our new tradition, is every year in December, for the twelve days before Christmas, we host a daily countdown, were every day we post something about a special festive topic. Last year we did Twelve Ways of Christmas, and this year were doing. . .Twelve Days of Kingmas! Every day we be posting something kingly and giving you a royal look behind the scenes, all while staying on the topic of Christmas!

We hope it will cheer you up and give you a little something special to look forward to.

Yours cheerily and with our crowns on our heads,

Royal Portrait Day

Hello, dear pheasants

Yesterday we decided that we should have our portraits taken as we have grown and matured over the last few months and also, the princeless Tifanie make us royal robes and we also got new crowns.

The portrait is to the left. Now we have to wash our floor, because there is blue ink all over it.

We are also thinking about making portraits of all our subjects. Let us know what you think about that in the declaration scroll below.

Well, we hope you like the pictures as much as we do!

Yours sincerely (and with a little ink on our fingers),

A Peek Into My Funny Bone

Hello to all, whether you be a follower, a member of the court, or a king! (However you being a king would be rather unlikely as to our knowledge we are the only ones around.)

We have decided that we should share a bit of the latest manuscript our sister, the princeless Tifanie has been writing.  So this is a bit from a chapter in My Funny Bone, for you to enjoy:

“I’d really like to go on a sleepover,” said Hadrien’s-Wall, pretending to be dreamy. “I would be very well behaved…I wouldn’t wet the sleeping bag…” That was exactly what had happened last time Freckled-Hen and Fishy had brought him on a sleepover. That time it had been to Aedem Hopkins house, back in Spain. To be fair, Hadrien’s-Wall had hardly been potty trained and was only three years old. But it was still very embarrassing for his brothers and not something they had forgotten yet.

“But the fact remains that you weren’t invited, so you can’t come,” said Daniel. “It would be very rude for you to come. And you’d better not have a fit or I’ll be very annoyed.”

“Can you do something special with me when you come back then?” asked Hadrien’s-Wall tearfully, as he put his hands behind his back and leaned against the bed, scrunching up his toes so he wouldn’t slip down and land on his bottom.

“Yeah,” nodded Jonas. “We’ll do something very special. We’ll play with you all day. Let us know what you want us to play.”

“Can we build a huge town out of snow for my dinosaurs and play?” asked Hadrien’s-Wall hopefully.

“Sure.”

“Can we eat bubblegum?” Bubblegum was one of the only things the big boys were allowed to eat and Hadrien’s-Wall’s wasn’t, which he found very unfair.

“Alright. But I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“Can we play Elections?” Our town had had elections not long ago, so everyone was big on elections now.

“Yep.”

“And can we have a picnic, and play in the woods, and relax in the hammock, and can we invite Solomon Gretzky to come play with me too?”

“Sure. Now go think of more things you want to do, we need some quiet so we can concentrate on our list. You don’t want us to forget anything, do you?”

“Well, maybe I do because if you forget something you’ll have to come back.”

“And then we’ll go right back and be gone longer.”

“Then I’ll let you list in peace,” said Hadrien’s-Wall obligingly, and he hopped from the room.

“Finally,” grunted Daniel. “I hope we won’t regret what we promise him, thanks to you, Fish.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Hadrien’s-Wall’s fun and he’s lonely since Cayla and Asthma usually play by themselves and we are so much older than he is.”

“Where’s my baby doll bottle?” whined Cayla, as she wandered into their room.

“Definitely not in here,” replied Daniel. “Go look in the playroom.”

“I did.”

“Look farther than your nose.”

“Dannycake!” laughed Cayla, her funny bone tickled. “I did! I looked all the way to the bottom of the bin.”

“Look again,” grinned Daniel. Daniel always grinned when Cayla laughed because he thought her laugh was so cute. (Even if he would never, ever admit it.)

Cayla left and they could soon hear her rummaging furiously for her baby doll bottle. She finally found it at the very bottom of the toy bin.

“Found it!” she screamed, hurling a baby doll she didn’t like at the boy's bedroom door.

Smack!

“Great,” called Daniel. “What did you throw?”

He got up to investigate, opened the door, and peered out.

“Old Turfit, my don’t like her,” replied Cayla calmly, as she walked past the bedroom door with her arms full of baby equipment. She had pushed her leg through a hole between the seat of her stroller and the metal side and was dragging it behind her.

“Turnip,” corrected Asthma. “And that’s my baby doll, so don’t throw her.”

“We both hate Turfit.”

“I don’t hate her, she’s just not my favourite.”

“I hate her.”

“You already said so.”

“And my say it again.”

“She picked that up from you,” said Archie to Daniel. “Close the door and let’s get busy packing.”

Before the end of the evening, their backpacks were packed, and all their other things ready and in the entry. They put them in the closet so that none of their siblings would become suspicious, then went to eat supper as if nothing was happening.

Well, that's all for today, but not all for the book! Be sure to read our manuscript once it is released from our Kingdom, once it finishes learning the proper rules of etiquette and duelling.

Your sincerely and bursting with our ideas for our next books,

What Kind of Speeches Should the Kings Give?

Salutations and kingly waves!

Today we have descended from our throne because we would like to have a word with our pheasants. What we are wondering is what kind of speeches do you like hearing? Ones on advice? Writing? How to draw cartoons? Speeches about our family, friends, and pets? More on Moo-Moo?

Please let us know in the declaration scroll below. We would love to hear your opinion.

On a more kingly note, we have been hard at work writing, and are thoroughly enjoying it. We also have been raking leaves and are already excited for the comes (in other words, new buds: we are already looking forward to spring!) and also for Christmas, as we are planning a new Christmas story! A quick tip to have fun while raking leaves: Sing a song together and whenever someone messes up, everyone showers them with leaves.

We are currently planning our next few posts, so any ideas would be appreciated.

Yours sincerely and with a few leaves down our backs,

A Little Peek Into our Latest Manuscript. . .

Greetings!

We thought it was high time we gave all of our faithful followers an update on how our latest manuscript has been coming along. We have received some letters from our messenger telling us that some pheasants had been wondering when My Funny Bone would be finished. Update: the princeless Tifanie has finished writing it and it is now in the editing process! We have started drawing the illustrations. Here are some of them:

“Gimme that pencil,” ordered Daniel. “I need it to finish my homework.”

“It’s mine, you silly flappy-feathered birdbrain!”

“When Papa tarts doin’ ex’cises adain he tan tarry you to bed too,” said Cayla sleepily, as she waved to her brothers from over her father’s shoulder.

“Or trip over it,” said Anabela. “I tripped on it when I came in this morning to eat.”

“We know,” said Brittanie. “We all heard you hollering and bawling.”

"Well, it hurt,” protested Anabela. “What else did you expect me to do? Start singing the Hallelujah chorus?”

The Hill's are settled in a small town in Canada, with a large farm. But life in Canada is more momentous than thought. Between constantly stepping on Adrien’s dinosaures, accidentally locking their little sister in a closet, and failing miserably at cake—baking for obvious reasons, Daniel and Archie have to struggle to keep a positive attitude, especially towards their little brother who always wants to tag along, but insist on wearing pants that are sizes to big and has a hairdo similar to a clown. That makes it embarrassing to take him anywhere, even if he did a good job wildly improvising in a disastrous play, partially saved by a donkey and a pig. An incident with a buffalo burrow, and enjoying maple syrup for the first time, and a big snow storm just keep making the Hill kids more Canadian than ever, as decided in Daniel and Archie’s diary.

We hope you are looking forward to reading our new stories!

Yours sincerely and in the middle of drawing,

Our Top 6 Writing Tips

Greetings and lemonade to all our subjects!

We know you are probably wondering why we didn't do a top 10, since that is what people usually do. But see, often when that happens, several of the tips are completely useless, or really obvious. So we decided to do a top 6, since that's how many good tips we have. Well, we kind of went off topic. But now, without further talk, presenting the tips...

1: Handwriting just can't go out the door, because then later on you won't be able to read it, which kind of makes writing a story useless. This we learned the hard way because Archie handwriting when we were writing for Hoofs on the Roofs looked like Adrien or Moo-Moo had sat down at his elbow and joggled it every few seconds.

2: No one can teach you how to write, you've got to learn to do it yourself. The princeless Tiffanie tried to teach us and gave us official writing classes back in Spain, but when we started writing for yourself and didn't take her advice and rules to heart, we found our own style and what worked for us. (Obviously you can still accept advice, just don't take it so studiously. Tifanie did give Archie advice about his handwriting and if he had heeded it we wouldn't have had to re-write half of Hoofs on the Roofs.)

3: Don't pressure yourself too much, or it will be in as terrible shape as the eggs Daniel tried to cook for breakfast. (We were late for the breakfast Mama made.) And then you'll have to re-write it all. So save yourself all that extra work (and editing) and instead work when you're inspired, enjoy it, and it'll be much more likely to be a scroll you can be proud of!

4: Get a writing buddy. Then you can blame them for all the mistakes in the book, like when a character changes name in the middle of a book, and more, like the spilled ink, and then holes in the erasers. Well, we're just kinging. Actually, if they're good, tolerable, upright subjects, they'll help you out a lot, help contain the brainstorming (so that it doesn't get so wild that you have to start working on an entirely different manuscript!) and make the writing sessions really enjoyable. In our closet (in other words, writing cave\kingdom; depends whether you want to be realistic or not) we also have Ham-Ham, Ster-Ster, and the cats, which keep us company and sure, they cause trouble, but it's still fun and then we don't get lonely. They're kind of like our mascots.

5: Celebrate! Writing a book, story, or song is hard work. Whenever we finish off a project, we always make little cupcakes with royal blue icing and little crowns on it. Then we're supposed to take a long break of a week or so, but since we get so inspired after we successfully finish a project and we want to taste the satisfaction of completing something again, we usually take a break of...a few hours. Then we shake hands with all our mascots, the members of our court (the Duck of Cornmeal, Adrien, and then Kingetery, Jonah.) and get back at it.

6: Remember it's okay to throw manuscripts into the tower of London.

Some of them just don't deserve to see the diamonds on your crown. Throw them far away and don't waste your time on them. It's perfectly fine to realize they're not your style, or just plain un-kingly, and promptly end their reign as scroll in progress by pushing the delete button. Put your time and energy into a manuscript you know you won't end up throwing away anyways. (Or you can let your cat rip them into shreds, or use them to protect the floor from paint (we often forget to do that) or make paper airplanes out of them. Possibilities and endless, you don't just have to waste the paper.)

And there, you go, our top 6 writing tips! Hope you enjoyed.

Reasons to Not Destroy Your Old Stories

Today we were in our closet, digging through one of our boxes full of stories. We found some that were very embarrassing and terrible (in fact they were excruciating) but we found others that we had at the time thought were bad but now that we had seen them in a different light, found that they were quite good. After looking through all those stories, we became very inspired and made good progress on the storybook that we are currently writing in.

I've heard that some people go through their papers and throw all the ones they don't like out. But we're here to give you five reasons for why you shouldn't.

1: What we said just before. Going through your old work can give you some very useful inspiration and ideas.

2: You might also change your mind about them after a while. They might not seem as terrible or wonderful and you thought, two seconds after you put your pen down.

3: It'll be hilarious for you to look back on when you're older. The things you wrote about, or what you thought was scary or exciting will probably change and you'll probably find that amusing in a few years.

4: It's great because then you can look back on your writing journey and see how you have A) changed B) gotten better and C) you can see how characters developed and have grown since you first started writing about them.

5: It can give you motivation. Just as we just said, it helped us be more motivated and encouraged us to keep on writing, because it's never in vain. You just have to remember not to be vain.

That is all for today. Let us know how your day went!

Yours sincerely and very tiredly,