If your childhood was anything like mine, Diary of a Wimpy Kid was coveted in your school library. So coveted that you would often need a reservation to borrow one, for which you were third on the list at any given point for any of the given books in the series. So, when the opportunity came to see Jeff Kinney’s ‘Hot Mess’ show at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, I jumped at it. As I found my seat, I was welcomed by the sound of various children’s movie soundtracks like Madagascar and Trolls, which set the tone for what would be an event fit for both the kids and kids at heart.  

So, how did Kinney’s nineteenth book in the series get started? He explained that, with how messy the US is right now, he started to think more about what else is messy and came up with three things: food, family, and vacation. Kinney revealed that developing his book covers usually takes two months, showing that the first draft for ‘Hot Mess’ was our beloved Greg in a boiling pot. However, things were a bit different with this cover. He had an upcoming appearance on the Kelly Clarkson show, who said she was happy to reveal the cover of the latest book, so the two-month process had to all be done within one week. It all worked out, with a young fan revealing the final cover of Greg in a plate of spaghetti on national television. 

There was only one problem: the book was yet to be written. Kinney states that after the cover, his process starts with writing the jokes, then the story, then the drawings, with jokes being the hardest part for him. The place he says he oddly does his best work is in his car, parked near a cemetery in the town of Plainville, Massachusetts, where he resides. This writing process for this alone takes three months! Once the jokes and story are written, he revealed that every day for two months, he draws for a colossal fifteen hours a day.