A TALENTED Troon songwriter has turned his attention to paper after penning a number of children's books.
Billy Reid was named the winner of the All Genres category in the annual UK Songwriting Contest earlier this year.
He has now gone on to write two children’s books called The Milligrumps and The Milligrumps Go to Town.
Billy said: "They are rhyming picture books about a grumpy man and woman, and how everything goes wrong for them.
"I've done the music stuff and I was looking for something else to get stuck into, and I'm constantly reading books for my young kid.
"I thought I could give it a go and so far I've done my two Milligrumps stories, and I've just published another.
"The local nursery and primary school have the first two books that I've done and there has been great feedback from them."
Billy has just finished a new picture book called Noah’s Tangle, inspired by his wee boy Oban.
He reveals it’s a gentle rhyming story with soft pastel illustrations, and it aims to help young children speak out when they have worries or tangled-up feelings.
Billy explained: "My seven-year-old has been struggling with his emotions and couldn't really explain what was wrong.
"I've done the book with rhyming and pictures. That came easier to me because of the songwriting.
"I've never taken any classes on writing or anything, it's just all through experience of reading lots of kids books."
Billy admits the hardest part of the process has been making the illustrations, rather than the writing itself.
He added: "The hard thing is the illustrations because I'm not an artist. I have to use the computer to get the illustrations for me using things like ChatGPT.
"I have written a fourth book but I'm in the middle of working out the images, they take so much longer than the actual writing."
Noah’s Tangle can be ordered on Amazon at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Noahs-Tangle-story-about-feelings/dp/B0FP9486SL/.
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