A Couple Weeks of Winter Sickness

     So I haven't posted for a couple weeks. We've had a lot of sickness in our house, getting over one thing just in time to catch another. Taking care of my family comes first. Now that we are feeling better again I think I'm ready to finish my story.

     The rough draft is about 2/3 of the way done. I am enjoying writing it, but sometimes doubt still creeps in. When I start feeling doubt, I remind myself of a comment my cousin made to me, how Jane Austin began writing stories to entertain and make her family laugh. Thank you Missy for sharing that with me. When I remind myself that my family is one of the main reasons I am writing stories, it keeps it fun.

     One thing that I did do a couple of times was draw with my two year old. Drawing with my two year old goes something like this: First we dump all the colored pencils and a few pens out on the floor. Second we get a paper or two and put them on the floor. Third, we color on the same page until the paper is too full for anything else or my son gets bored and grabs the next page. While drawing I try and make some sketches. Then my son proceeds to scribble over top and color my picture as we go.

     It's like art brainstorming for me. I've been told you can draw anything if you look for the basic shapes in what you are trying to draw. Basic shapes is about all I have time for when drawing with him. I have to go fast before my little buddy colors so much on my sketch that there's no more room. Some stuff I will trash, other stuff I will take pieces from to use in a better picture later.

Here are two of our pages.

     When we drew this picture I was trying to get an idea for the shapes to make a pigs head. I imagined the overall shape to be kind of like an avocado pit. I was never really happy with the ear shapes on this pig. One thing that I thought was kind of funny was the nostrils matching the attitude (or slant) of the eyebrows. Eyes are hard for me to get "right". They have to be expressive in some way and if the detail is overdone (at least with my abilities right now) it looks lousy. One thing I have noticed is that sometimes artists leaves gaps in lines and shapes and lets the mind fill in the blank. I decided to try it with eyes. Instead of drawing the line on the top and bottom to make an almond or circle for the eye, I just did a top line. (On the side of the page.) To me it feels simpler and more natural.

   
     This sketch I tried the left eye with the above technique. I was pleased with the results. The right eye... I'm not sure what happened there. The ear shapes felt a little better on this sketch. My son wanted to trade me his green colored pencil for my pen. So this pig got some green bows and the start of a dress.

     This weeks goals will be the same as the last time I posted. I am planning to finish my rough draft and learn more about the guidelines for children's pictures books. 

     Looking forward to a healthy week and fun story writing!  

Writing my story.

     Working on writing my story for a couple of weeks has already brought a few surprises. To start off, I didn't think it would be very hard. I figured I'd type it up, revise it a few times and be ready to start on illustrating... haha not so!

     The story I'm creating is a classic children's story with a twist. I have told this story verbally countless times to siblings, kids in elementary school and also to my own children. Each time I have told it a little different. In some ways I think this has helped. I have lots of fun ideas circling in my brain. In other ways it has made it more challenging. I have too many fun ideas circling in my brain. Making decisions isn't my strong point.

     I've started several versions of the story and haven't finished any of them. I get to the point where it doesn't feel like it's going in the right direction, there is too much detail in the wrong places or I got bored with it (not a good sign). Part of it seemed to come from trying to please an audience that hasn't even read my story. I would write something and then think about what someone else might think of it. Then I would start to feel self-conscious about my idea and start over.

     I started falling into a slump, even though I had only been working at this story for a short amount of time. An article I found called 5 Ways for Writers to Blast Through Self-Doubt written by Jon Bard really helped. One main point that I got out of this article was do not write to please everyone. If you write to please the general population your not going to be unique but mediocre instead. Write what you love and it will speak to the right people.

     This made me think about painting. I've found that when I take greater risks and paint bolder I get better results. On the other hand if I am timid or worried that I might ruin it with each new brush stroke there is nothing eye catching about the picture. Better bold and maybe have to redo it than timid and make nothing special.

     I also came across  Six Steps to Make Your Children's Story Sparkle by Laura Backes. She has some really good tips for polishing up a rough draft. My favorite quote from her article is that "you can't adequately edit a story you poured your soul into without first removing some of your ego. So get a bit of distance. Put the manuscript aside for at least a week; two weeks is better. Then, as you read through the story from start to finish, pretend that someone else wrote it." This is so important! When I've been working on something really hard my mind fills in any gaps I leave and ignores mistakes. If I leave my writing, then come back to it with fresh eyes, I am more successful at finding what needs to be fixed.

     Feeling good about the progress I have made this week. This next week my goal is to learn a little more about what is "expected" for a children's book, i.e. word count, pages, formatting. I'm hoping to get a complete rough draft done. I have to keep reminding myself that it's not going to be perfect... that's why it's called a ROUGH draft. Then while I'm waiting for my ego to be removed from my story I can start some sketching :) 

Enjoy your week!