What exactly are you made out of?
Oh *blushes*, that's a little bit personal Destiny...
Destiny's note: Sorry!
I'm a bit bigger than you might expect for a sock toy, as I'm made from the long part of a big fleece sock. (One of a pair that Melinda was given by a friend to keep her feet warm when sleeping in the mountains, I like to think that my lost twin is still having happy adventures in the big mountains of the Himalayas!)
Apart from my very important purple sock part, I have pink and red fleece paws and ears, nice soft squishy stuffing, and a couple of red buttons for eyes.
Billy (who owns me) has just started school in England, and he is five years old, so so am I. Billy's Nan made me when Billy was born, so we are the same age.
Are you really the star of the book (but sh! Don't tell the others!)
I don't think any of us really star in our books. So far we have concentrated on writing our poems about other people, or monster characters. I think my friend PD Monkey perhaps starred in our first book, because he interviewed us all, so he let himself have more pages! (The rest of us thought that was a bit naughty!)
What made you wanna write poetry?
We find things that rhyme are often more fun to read, and we have a lot of fun writing them too!
I heard you've been to Twitter jail. What is it and how exactly did you end up there?
Oh, you heard... I'm very lucky because I'm the only one of the gang who has been allowed their own Twitter account.
If I send messages too often in a short space of time then the Twitter police lock me out and put me in "jail", I don't understand why, and it makes me sad. It means I can't send anymore messages out to my friends for hours. Melinda has to come and rescue me, and then she sends out a message to my friends so they won't worry about me suddenly disappearing (and they send me messages back, to cheer me up).
It's happened twice already. Once after my first twitter flight with #theaviators, and again after my first choir practice with #tweetchoir. I love having new friends, and I love visiting other toys and animals at #teddyembassy. Please come and follow me at @OddSockTOWG. (You could also follow Melinda at @TopOWG, but she's much more boring!)
Your next book is about monsters. Have you ever been chased by a monster?
Oh yes, in my nightmares definitely! We've made most of our monsters in the book very friendly, but a few are scarier, and those are based on ones from our nightmares...
I did once think I was being chased by a REAL monster, but it was Terry Tiger playing a trick on me in his Frankenstein Halloween costume... He really scared me, and I was very cross with him at the time. Burton Bear made TT apologise though, so we are friends again now.
Do you think you and the gang will ever make a print book or are you just sticking to eBooks?
We'd love to print books, but we don't have enough money in our piggy banks. Melinda says that if she can put our books somewhere called Amazon then we might be able to have our books printed just one at a time for people, by a Createspace company? We'd like that, but we know it's hard for Melinda to spend any time at a normal computer, so it may be difficult for her to do that for us. (I'm hoping a Publishing company will spot us and do print books for us, but Melinda says that I shouldn't hold my breath...)
I would like to see a book where you and the gang go on an adventure. Do you think you all will ever write a book like that or will you just stick with poetry?
Oooo, we'd love to write about ourselves, and we already have lots of ideas... Oscar Rabbit says that we aren't famous enough though. For now we will concentrate on our poems. If people find out about us because of our poems then who knows...
(I'd really like to do a spin-off "Odd Sock Series" too. I'm thinking of poems aimed more at younger kids, and maybe a poem just about me too... I've got a silly rhyme that I'd love to make into a rhyming "Picture Book" for little ones... Perhaps with other poems added after...)
Destiny's note: I think that's a great idea, Odd Sock!
How hard is it to come up with rhyming words for the poems?
If we get stuck then we take turns bouncing up and down on the trampoline in our back garden. Then one of us soon gets an idea!
What will you do once you're famous?
Hmmm... I really want to campaign for sock rights, and better treatment for lonely odd socks throughout the world. I think it's terrible that so many odd socks get tossed out into dark scary bins when humans can't find their twins anymore. I want to set up a charity to help them all find new second lives, as loved toys, or in other roles. I've already made my own small start to this in my local community, and Billy's Nan helps me.
Thank you for interviewing me Destiny, this has all been very exciting (and the rest of the Top of the Wardrobe Gang are all a teeny bit jealous).
Destiny's note: Thank you for letting me interview you! (and sorry to have made anyone jealous!) It has truly been fun! Good luck with your campaign for sock rights!
All covers and illustrations © Melinda Kinsman. All images used with permission.
