The authors guide early childhood educators through steps for empowering the inner authentic writer in young preschool children by maximizing illustrations. Preschoolers' emergent writing experiences should be authentic and support positive writing identities as their skills develop. The authors explain how to model flexible and authentic processes through practical strategies to engage children in compositional writing through a focus on illustrations. Four steps will help harness children's illustrations as a launch pad to encourage emergent writing, scaffold drawing and illustrations through questions, model authenticity, and value making and sharing young children's picture books in preschool.