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I’m really not sure how it suddenly got to be almost September all of a sudden. So much for posting more regularly during the summer, huh? Well, I had a tough summer class, okay?! Sheesh! (And of course I’m addressing all the masses of people who’ve been awaiting new posts from me with bated breath.)
Anyway, so I have actually been doing creative things, it’s just a matter of not posting about it. Like, for example……<drumroll>…… I submitted my manuscript at last!!
*cheers and applause*
And I have another copy of it ready to go out tomorrow to another publisher, so that’s cool. I feel very accomplished, because if nothing else at least I’ve finally moved beyond just talking about trying to get a story published.
The hardest thing about the whole deal is just finding a publishing house that still accepts manuscripts from dorkuses like me who don’t have an agent. And then a couple of times I had a publisher all picked out, but then when I went to their website to double-check their contact information I found that just since the last time I looked they’d changed their submission policy and no longer accepted unagented submissions! Oh, how I’d laugh and laugh…
Anyway, it’s a very frustrating process.
But meanwhile I’m doing very well at keeping busy with other projects and not obsessing over whether I’ll hear back about my submission. I’m honestly not even secretly, deep down, in my heart of hearts thinking that I’m going to get an acceptance letter–I’m really managing to be realistic about it, through and through! (Not being delusional is such a big accomplishment for me that I have to reinforce it by giving myself lots of praise and affection for it.)
So anyway, other projects: For one thing, I’m getting ready to submit my portfolio just as an illustrator as well — I know my writing isn’t as strong or as developed as my artwork, so I’m not kidding myself too much about that, but I really think I might be able to get some work as an illustrator. So for some illustration practice and just for fun, I’m doing a series of watercolor paintings for the Keats poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci” — I hope I’ll be able to make a hand-bound book out of them when I’m done, though I’m not sure how I’d print them for that yet. Here’s the first finished piece:
watercolor and pen and ink; 8" x 10"
It goes with the first verse of the poem–
“O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.”
(Or something like that? I should totally look that up.)
See, didn’t I say I’d be updating soon? It’s so helpful to have a real workspace now–I love being able to go up to my studio and work and have everything organized and accessible… So in just the last few days I’ve gotten four things done that I’d been working on for months, which is very satisfying. Anyway, these are the sample illos I’m planning on sending along with my manuscript:
So, there we are–what I’m hoping is that this bunch shows my best work, and also shows that I can draw characters consistently from one scene to another, show people in motion, and do outside and inside settings… I don’t know if it’s really the best strategy to send my sample illustrations with my story or not, but I’d really love to write AND illustrate this story, so I’m just going to chance it. I do keep seeing submission guidelines for various publishers that sound like they are interested in people who both write and illustrate, so I think if I just keep at it eventually I’d find someone open to both… Anyway, I’m going to give it a shot. We’ll see!
What a hectic couple of months! First getting ready to move away from foggy, cold Humboldt County, while dealing with finals at the same time; then actually moving (that was a hellish weekend, for sure); then summer classes started just a week after we moved into our new house. The good news is that the new house is great, and I actually have a studio, and it’s all sunny and roomy and lovely. And it’s SO nice to be back in our hometown, where summer is just gorgeous and we can go creek swimming all the time, and our family is here and everything. I just feel so much better about everything, now that I’m back here with the beautiful mountains I grew up with all around again. Here’s a photo of one of my favorite places in the county, so you can see I’m not exaggerating how nice it is here:
Spanish Creek, Plumas County, CA
I feel so much happier and more creative and inspired being back here… I know, I’m sickeningly happy, aren’t I? ^_^
Anyway, the real reason for posting: Finally finished a new drawing, and here it is…
Woman with Mask. pen and ink, 11"x14"
I’m also just about ready to start submitting a manuscript & sample illustrations to publishers, and I’m serious this time…I even have the cover letters written, THAT’S how serious I am! Will be updating soon…
I decided a while ago that Owen’s Uncles would be illustrated after all–I hadn’t thought I would do illustrations for it because it’s aimed at older kids, but then I thought, nah, it’s too perfectly suited to some lovely little weird pen and ink drawings not to have them. And they are turning out to be a ton of fun to do, so I just have to share some of them now, even though they’re not done yet!
So here are some works in progress…
“Owen meets the Uncles” –still finishing up some background details, the door, etc…
“Arrival at Cragview Manor” — this one I’m not too sure about…it needs quite a bit of fiddling still before I’m happy with it–if I ever will be. I can’t quite come up with a view of the house that seems like I picture it in my head.
“Strange Figures in the Standing Stones”
–See that poor doggie? Yeah…he’s going to be edited out of the story :( I feel awful about it! Tsk! It’s hard to switch from Doting Creator to Ruthless Editor mode.
Yay! I’m such a procrastinator, I just have to congratulate myself on doing what I planned on doing today. I did some sketching from the Muybridge book, worked on a scene for the animation I keep talking about doing, and wrote several pages of Owen’s Uncles (poor Owen is no better off, though–if anything, he’s in more of a jam now).
Doing the sketches from the Muybridge book was really interesting… It’s so nice to have some reference for drawing people again, since it’s been months since my last life drawing class. But, man, it is just amazing what a difference there is between drawing people from photos and drawing from life. It takes a major brain adjustment (for me, anyway)–for one thing, it seemed to be a lot harder to keep proportions right. I think because looking at a photo you really have to force your eye to take in the whole thing, not just focus on one bit at a time, whereas when you’re drawing from life you *have* to look at the whole body as well as all the separate bits, just to make sense of all the information…if that makes sense. Anyway, it takes some effort to adapt to it. But it felt SO nice to get some practice again!
The other thing I was thinking about today was the story writing…I’m getting to the climax now, like I said, Owen’s in real trouble, and what I’m finding is that I have to really push myself to make bad things happen, heh :-) It’s fun to get to the parts where the bad guys start really getting down to business, but at the same time it’s tough– I kind of just want everyone to be happy and nice! But I know I don’t want to make the mistakes of a certain writer I could name…let’s just call her, I dunno, Mephenie Steyer…where you can never bring yourself to have ANYTHING bad happen to ANYONE. Blah! So, anyway, that’s what I was doing today :) Can’t wait to get back to it tomorrow!
Yay, I survived! I am so looking forward to getting to do some creative stuff over the break, to make up for having to read, write, and think about management for the past four months. *shiver* I need a scary font for the word “management,” seriously. That was not a happy place for me, that’s all I can say…
Anyway, the second the semester started easing up in the last week, I got back to writing and drawing, at least a tiny bit. I’ve done a bit of sketching and little writing just about every day — better than nothing, right? It makes me feel like I’m not *totally* euthanizing the creative part of my brain, anyway, which is, unfortunately, how library school makes me feel sometimes.
So here’s a scan of a (very) quick sketch I did yesterday. It goes with a story that’s been at the back of my mind for a few months now which I hope to work on over the break — although, I gotta admit that as soon as I had a little time to really think about this so-called story idea, I realized that I basically have no idea what it’s about, what happens, who’s in it– you know, a few picky little details like that. It pretty much amounts to a bunch of random images in my head that lead nowhere. It’s like it…dissolves when I look closely at it… I really don’t know that it’s going to get any further than those pictures in my head, but here’s the sketch, anyway. :)
Just stumbled on two interesting blogs that i wanted to post links to so I remember to follow them… I was reading Cleolinda when I should be doing schoolwork (putting off the 20-page paper I need to finish up), and followed a link to this blog entry about what-not-to-do as an aspiring writer–pretty funny story! This is Diana Fox’s live journal; she’s a literary agent and I think her blog would be interesting to follow.
Then from the comments on that entry, I found Jennifer Brozek’s live journal; she’s a freelance writer who’s just getting to the point of being able to support herself entirely on her writing, so that’s very inspiring! Plus she has kittehs ^_^
You know, just to see it in writing to motivate myself, I thought I’d record where we are with this goal:
NOWHERE.
Yeah, that’s right, Go Me. I turned totally wimpy and have not submitted a thing. Not even just sending my URL to art directors that let you submit your stuff that way. Isn’t that great? How driven I am. *le sigh*
Well, to be fair to myself, I should say that it’s not really a matter of not being driven– it’s a matter of being a big fat baby. I’ve completely lost my nerve…it’s so silly. I mean, it can’t hurt anything. Even if everything I’ve done sucks and is rejected no one will yell at me or, like, blacklist me or anything. :) And yet I still can’t bring myself to do it.
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Haven’t worked on this one yet, but I want to write it down so I’ll feel guilty every time I see this and think about not getting anything done on it… I’ve been reading about how to submit picture books, and I need to make a dummy for the Lettuce Rancher; now I know how to do it, and it’s going to be easy (have Kinko’s do it! Yay!), but I found out that the Lettuce Rancher as it is now is probably not in the best format for a picture book. Apparently, they are almost always 32 pages and if you differ from that, it gives publishers headaches. So I’ve reformatted it so that it’ll be the right length, but it’s gonna need a few more pictures. You only submit it with two or three finished illustrations, but you do need rough sketches of all of the pics for the dummy.
So, the next thing to do with the ol’ Rancher is to do sketches of all the illustrations, and then to do 2-3 finished drawings. It’s not that much to do, it’s just that I feel kind of “meh” about working on it more. I wish it was done. I’m still battling feelings of insecurity about even trying to submit things– must stop self-sabotaging!! That’s my mantra; I ought to start meditating on it every day…
