An Hour Well Spent

While "Sponge Bob," and "Phineus & Ferb" echoed in the background, I jumped around reading writing questions for the Blog-O-Rama going on Deana Barnhart's site. There were a lot of great questions, and there are a ton of great aspiring writers out there. I really enjoyed the comments and input.

My writing time is very fragmented. I am working on the illustrations for my next picture book, which are wonderfully challenging and very intimidating. I am also more then half-way through my novel revision which I'm sending to an agent based on their full MS request. 

I keep focused on the multiple projects by doing things like, organizing my novel's plot on sticky notes. This method was inspired by Martha Alderson, author of "Blockbuster Plots." Martha was a speaker at a conference I attended in San Rafael, CA last summer. 

I also included in my picture an ad I pulled from a magazine. I've had to change my protag's eye color recently. Another character in another book that has similar abilities as my protag has the same strange eye color (even though I came up with the eye color without knowing the other existed. I swear.) Ugh.  Frustrating! It goes to show that there really are few original ideas in the world. The fun part is taking ideas and putting them together in a unique way. Right?


As far as my illustrations, if there is a blank canvas sitting at my easel that motivates me. I do to-scale sketches first, before I transfer them to canvas and paint. I have to paint my backgrounds first and then I can focus on the main subject-the animal. Of course, all of my animals are done in dots.