strong hints of summer

The red in the thermometer is rising steadily and all the blinds are down on every window in an attempt to keep the house cool and dark. It is working in a limited fashion. I am not prone on the bathroom floor seeking solace from cold tiles so the temperature has not reached unbearable yet. Early days. we are due for a sudden cold snap which usually occurs late November early December and sprinkles the mountain tops with a dusting of snow for a nano moment before the blast of summer sun makes us doubt our sanity.

I am in Melbourne this week for my niece's 21st masquerade birthday.

and here is my lovely niece. There were a number of my lovely nieces at the party but this one was the belle of the ball.
The guests all made an effort to wear masks and it was fascinating to see the individuality of their choices only two of the guests chose the same mask and they are closely related but had not seen each other prior to the party so had no idea that the other had purchased the same one. If they had purchased mass produced cheap store masks I would expect a possible double up but these were very elaborate and expensive ones. Interesting coincidence.

I found my own perceptions being changed by the mask I wore. It felt as though the mask provided a barrier between me and those around me. It enabled me to feel more confident in my interactions with strangers and I began to think about superman. Odd thing to think about except I never could figure out why the people in Superman's version of Earth could not recognise that he was Clark Kent, nor how people are unable to recognise any masked super personage from their daily ordinariness. That was until I had my hair and make up done professionally and went into work and people did not instantly recognise me. I didn't feel like I was any different but other people's perceptions had somehow shifted.

I am sure there are many good studies about the affect and effects of wearing masks, including all the invisible masks we wear for different places in our lives but this was a night of my own light bulb moments with a dash of metacognition. The whole thinking about thinking thing is a favourite pass time of mine.

I am going swimming with my sister so I will be back...watch this space...I am so glad you were watching because I had an asthma attack in the water and I was, quite frankly, terrified. I managed one lap and was on my way back and lost it. Luckily my sister was watching me and helped me to the edge and then the pool guard ran over with an inhaler.
Once I was breathing again and the young man, Will,  had filled in an incident report I was back in the pool doing gentle water aerobics. No laps. This has really pushed the message that I need to loose this excess weight and get fit. I had my bronze medallion in swimming when I was half the woman I am today. I miss the water.
As I was attempting to gasp to my sister that "I can't breathe" my inner editor said "don't be ridiculous of course you can breathe, you simply cannot breath out, or in for that matter." Some days I wish my inner editor would shut up and have a bit of sympathy.
I walked away thinking I wish I had been more sympathetic to my son when he was in that state rather than doing the tough jolly along thing but then that was my way of coping with him turning blue and gasping for air. My sister was cracking jokes that I just needed attention, which was her way of coping with the look of terror on my face. Thankfully young Will remained calm and professional which is what we both needed and his team mates came over to check on us too. I had a spa and we went back to her house in 34o heat to sit around doing nothing. My shoulders are very sore though.

So art. Week 48 of the challenge is Fox and here are my little scribbles.

 This is my little arctic fox. I have been exploring art classes online which I have mentioned before now, there are so many wonderful people sharing their skills online I could learn practically anything I want to but recently it has been art. I am trying to learn how to use ink markers properly and to adopt the manga style/ graphic novel type of art. This little fellow is my best shading yet. I did him after the red foxes.

 The last fox I drew is this Fennec fox. He is quite cute and more lifelike than the other four.

 My grey fox was inspired by foxes on DeviantART which has hundreds of tutorials on how to do the outlines to how to shade. My shading is a little clumpy on this fellow but it is improving. Practice makes perfect so they say.

 This little red fox is an adaptation of yet another tutorial on deviantART. I like the  fur look I managed with small marker lines and two tones for his fur.

finally here is my first fox for the week. He is a lot more two tone than shaded but it is effective none the less. I loved the way his eyes turned out. This was from an online tutorial on how to draw foxes for kids. I will put in links when I find them again.

I always try to put in my own unique style and characteristics when I do the tutorials so mine are never quite the same as that demonstrated but I would like to acknowledge the generosity and skill of the original creative.

So more good news. I received a 2 for another story sent to Rate Your Story. Rate your story is a service provided by professionals in the literary world who volunteer their time to give initial feedback to new and emerging writers. http://rateyourstory.blogspot.com.au/RATE YOUR STORY

This is the third story with RYS that has received a 2 on the scale. Now to polish them up and send them out and keep trying for a 1.

I had some beautiful feedback from some young mums to whom I sent some of my stories and they loved one in particular which they read to their little girls. I need to spend some time researching my target recipients before i send out any more manuscripts.

NaNoWriMo went my in a whirl and I managed in the first week to put 19000 words or so on paper. By the end of the month - today that is- I had managed around27k which is not bad all things considered. I did keep up my sketching for SkaDaMo and the 52 week challenge and i have written my 12 x 12 monthly draft and revised with ReVi-mini and I found quite a few ideas which I have jotted down for PiBoIdMo. Not quite the gargantuan effort of last November but still quite good. I have plenty of ideas to turn into full stories now.I must pop in to the RWA forum 50/30 and cheer them all to the finish line with their novel outlines and tell them I will be back for the next round.

I revised a story for the SuperHERo anthology 2014 which will be out soon and all proceeds go to 'because I'm a girl' charity. this is a follow up anthology to the 2013 SuperHERo anthology. I had quite forgotten what this story was all about and when I revisited it I saw quite a few mistakes I had overlooked so thankfully I had time to correct them and reacquaint myself with the story. This happens too often when I write a short story, I send it out then promptly forget it so I can move on to the next one.

 I have two other anthologies coming out soon. One is a fractured fairy tale which I will post a separate blog for and one is a collection of stories loosely woven together with a tale to link them. titled Charms. Like with Keepsakes last year, the writers chose a bracelet charm to write a story about or incorporate in a story.  I contributed that story at the beginning of the year. Nothing happens quickly in the world of words. Then there are two more coming out in early 2015. I said six months ago I would not write for any more anthologies and I haven't but it all takes time.

So if you are in warmer climates. Keep watch over your loved ones in the water and don't forget sunscreen, hat, shirt and shade. If you are in the colder north. Keep warm at the extremities.

What a wonderful week

Today is Wednesday 5th of November 2014

So many things have happened. I received a number 2 rating from RYS.

This is so exciting. It means that the person rating my story thinks it is not far off being polished enough to send to an editor along with a synopsis and an awesome pitch to interest them in publishing. Did you realise no one is ever an overnight success in this industry? No really, never. One writer friend shared her excitement about signing with an agent who had found an interested publisher who signed her on as well and the book, which is already written is scheduled for a 2017 release. It takes a lifetime of hard work to become an overnight success.

Then I had not one but two phone calls from fabulous writers asking me for art. I said yes to both and now I am buzzing with excitement over that.

Then of course November started with all the challenges I signed up for so I am creating art all over the place. Which is odd because I thought my words would take off before my art did and it has not occurred in that order. 

Inktober finished but the participants don't stop drawing and I purchased myself some Fabre-Castell PITT pens and have been playing around with technique and colour. So I shall share them here with you. I am so excited by how far my art skills have come since I began creating every day from November last year because of Linda Sylvestri's SkaDaMo. Give yourself a visual treat and take a look at her gallery. She makes some purely delightful art.

 I am not so good at landscapes but it was fun playing around with the new colours and trying to get a feel for the Australian scenery.

 I wanted to play with shade and my little pale grey marker did a fine job. It will be interesting to compare my art in a year with now and a year ago. I can see changes and depth of skill I didn't have 12 months ago and realise that a little bit every day really is a worthwhile enterprise.

 This is my rendition of a fabulous mask my sister has on her wall.

 The last day of Inktober was on the theme of halloween so I felt a little zombie girl was appropriate.

 This was my first piece using my new Pitt pens, a line for each marker and a little bit of manga style to try out the shading.

Oh for a big deep claw foot bath and plenty of bubbles. I could so go there.













I managed to have time to meet my new little next door neighbour, a gorgeous little boy who looks just like his big sister and brother.
I have an invitation to a 1st birthday, an 18th, a 21st and an engagement this month. That should keep me very busy.
I managed to get myself a speeding fine for doing 54km in a 50k zone. Oh my goodness was I upset when i opened that envelope and I also managed to somehow overlook paying my roadside assistance so I will not be driving far until that is rectified.
This week I absolutely must go visit my grand-baby-boys before I blink and they turn 21.

Voting is on for the Halooweensie Stories on Susanna Leonard Hill's blog, so have a treat and read the finalists, vote for your favourite then read the others too. Mine did not make it to the finals as it was such a high quality competition and the entries were fabulous and mine needed a teensy bit more polish. I am going to keep working on it for next year.
Vote for the Halooweensie stories 

I stopped writing for anthologies a few months ago. It was a decision based on wanting to concentrate on writing for publication under my own name. Quite a few of the anthologies are still in the edit phase and will be launched later in the year. I have signed a few contracts and had some edits sent back for my perusal and one of the interesting things I discovered is the vast disparity in the way words are spelled in different English. American English and British English have some awkward differences which make editing problematic for international writers. I discovered much to my amazement that Americans do not put the word 'and' in complex numbers in either written or spoken form. My American editor assumed it was not grammatically correct and removed my 'ands'. We had an interesting too and fro and finally decided to indicate that my story was in UK English. Yet I am Australian and I know that we use many idioms that are uniquely Australian and my English is probably quite different to that used in England. I love the English language and I am just as intrigued by the varieties of English as I am by the variety in English. I don't love it like a crazed linguistic gymnast but I do love it for its flexibility and I have been known to be a bit of a Grammar Nazi at times. I am a lot more relaxed these days than I once was.

I had a good friend in senior high school. He and I would play verbal word sparring for the sheer joy of it. We would look up and learn obscure words and hold entire conversations in language incomprehensible to our fellow students but it was all English. I miss that kind of Tom foolery and word smithing. One day we both vowed that for that day only we would stick to speaking only common vernacular and our day was boring and blighted. I wonder whatever happened to him?

I best make myself ready for Rostrum. I have a good speech planned on PTSD. Should be interesting.

Have a lovely day, night, evening, morning, where ever and when ever you are. HUGS

A taste of things to come

The temperature kept me indoors today.  The wind howled around the house and picked up everything not nailed down and it got under my skin in a good way. I love the sound of wind howling under the eaves but after four surgeries to remove skin cancers I have no intention of going out on days like this. I suspect summer will be a hot one this year if this is any indication.

Today has been productive, I managed to complete the latest draft of my September picture book story. I have put it on the forum in 12 x 12 for feedback then with a final spit and polish I will submit it to RYS on October 1st. I haven't managed to write much in the past five weeks due to family stuff so I am very pleased to have a Picture book written. This story about a little hunter and her intended prey. When the prey decided he has had enough he comes up with a solution to solve his hunter problem.  I have read it out loud once so far and my captured audience appreciated it. There are a few words I stumbled on so they need to change.

I also managed to make art today for the 52 week illustration theme of Words.

 I like the idea of turning the word into the art in this way. Many people have written poetry and prose over their art but I prefer this way. Many art teachers have their classes doing this little activity and teens seem to enjoy it.

 I might try a few different ways of doing this word. I used my fabre-castelle pencils for all three drawings and discovered they blend nicely.

water is something I need to revisit more often. I want to be able to obtain that reflective transparency with ease and that will only come with plenty of practice.



So did you miss me? I was gone for hours. I went to the supermarket for fresh rolls, lettuce and milk. I had two visitors, one dropped books off for me to read and the other came to regale me with tales of her travel plans and have a cup of tea. Then I made dinner for the family, home made hamburgers except they were beef not ham and delicious and prepared a meatloaf for tomorrow. I also cuddled the baby, made phone calls and did a further draft of a story. So what was I chatting about before I flitted off to do other things?
I am looking forward to the books. They are teen romance vampire stuff that I have avoided for several years but last week in desperation I watched the movie of the books and the same day read the first of the series and now I have the rest. I should not judge a story by the hype, honestly I should know better than that. I have read quite a number of popular fictions involving vampires and werewolves and teen romantic angst and I simply could not be bothered with one more except now I am. I am pleased I read the Sookie Stackhouse* novels before reading Twilight^ and disappointed in the overall film versions of both although the casting of the main characters of Trueblood is a delightful visual feast. Now I am reading Vampire Academy% after seeing the movie and it is lighthearted and entertaining at a time when I need lighthearted and entertaining and I liked the casting of the actors for the parts.


*The Southern Vampire Mysteries, also known as The Sookie Stackhouse Novels, is a series of books written by bestselling author Charlaine Harris. They began to be published in 2001. They serve as the source material for the HBO television series True Blood whose first season aired in 2008. The series has been retronymed the True Blood Series upon reprinting to capitalize on the television adaptation.
^ Twilight is a series of four vampire-themed fantasy romance novels by American author Stephenie Meyer.
% Vampire Academy is an American best-selling series of six young-adult paranormal romance novels by author Richelle Mead

I am so excited that two of my prizes from earlier in the year have arrived. A t-shirt and a note book. I was very excited to receive the parcel. There are still several other prizes that never arrived but that happens I suppose.
These prizes were for participation in the Chapter Book Challenge back in March. Not only did I learn a lot of useful things about writing, produced a story, made more friends around the world but I also acquired a t-shirt. Life is good.

Speaking of post, a letter came for me this week full of love and friendly words and I thought to myself that maybe letter writing will have a renaissance now that our government has reduced our privacy and given greater powers of invasion to our policing bodies who are now allowed to invade our computers and phone records to a greater extent than ever before. They were probably doing it to this degree already but now it is more apparent. Letter writing is sounding better and better to me except blogging and other social media help me network around the world, hand writing is painful and I don't need a stamp and a trip to the post office - hmmm I will have to think about this.

 Look who was napping with Nanna.

 This young man is the perfect audience, he actually enjoys me singing to him so long as it is upbeat and in a major key. Minor key has him dropping the bottom lip and crying.

sleep tight and dream sweet dreams.

Sunshine and early mornings

I woke up early. I have no idea why. The sun shone through the window and I simply could not lay-a-bed one moment extra so I decided to take myself to a cafe and have eggs benedict for breakfast. A BIG mistake. It was way too early in the morning to be eating such a huge serve of ham and strong flavoured spinnach with an overly generous lake of hollandaise sauce and I ordered a hot chocolate instead of a sensible cup of tea. The hot chocolate was less than awesome for the price and to top the whole oversized breakfast off, a family with an incredibly loud preschooler chose the table next to me in an otherwise empty seating area. My instinct had been to eat in the lovely back courtyard and I did not listen to myself. I gulped down my food to remove myself from the excessive noise and almost fell over when I realised they charged me the price of two loaves of bread for the extra slice of toast. I think I will stick to a cup of tea and the newspaper in future.

The sunshine is glorious though and it is shining brightly through the window beside me. Only the Baby's Mumma is awake and she has retreated to their bedroom so I still have a quiet house to myself for a short while. I can tolerate only so much noise before my second cup of tea in the morning. I know I know I am addicted to peace and quiet. Chuckle. I bet you thought I was going to write, tea. Yes that too.

This morning I am listening to  Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PCkvCPvDXk and Home Free doing their cover of Meghan's song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuyGVhQFLbs  and I love both versions. I liked the overlaying message that 'every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top' and I like the bouncy ear tugging toe tapping tune. I only found both musical groups in the past few weeks thanks to FB shares and I am so enamoured I am contemplating becoming a patron through Patreon. I am trying to avoid reading the angry feminist deconstruction of the song and simply enjoy the piece for its entertainment value. I think I am feminist until I read the anger in some of the attack mode feminist manifestos then I lean more toward humanist non gender specific.
I suspect it is the burst of sunshine making me feel so excited about the possibilities in our world. I avoid news coverage that sensationalises or minimises the problems in our world but I am bombarded with information through all my social media sites and I prefer to focus on positives such as inventions and movements that try to make a positive difference in the environment or for all people. 

the 52 week illustration challenge this week is themed House and I started researching temporary housing options for the homeless and found some incredible people trying to make life easier for the uncounted homeless people around the world.  The Tiny House blog by Christina Nellemann features many great articles on tiny homes and people making shelters http://tinyhouseblog.com/humanitarian/gregorys-homeless-homes-project/  After looking at the amazing little houses I thought I would draw some for the challenge.

this tiny house is a Japanese solution to homeless accomodation. Typically Japanese in its functional compactness. I have yet to do my own art this week but I have several planned pieces.

I want to celebrate the things being done to help the homeless but I also want to celebrate an epiphany I had recently about why I like certain household objects such as a wing back chair and teapots and other houses that bring joy to my life.
Mr Tumnus' house in the original illustrations is filled with items I love. The Narnia books had a profound impact on my development. Being a very early reader, in fact I have no memory of not being able to read and could read fluently by the time I made it to school at the age of 4 years and two weeks old. Enid Blyton and CS Lewis were my substitute caregivers as a child and I had to skip the university classes where they were deconstructed because it felt like having my parents attacked and I couldn't do that.  Anyway back to art. I attended our second drawing club at The Artery. This month we had life drawing with a model named Chris. He has the most amazing muscle definition on such a skinny. I managed to get proportions right on the fast sketches but given too much time I was able to make great detail but had my proportions all wrong and then I became enamoured with his feet which have the most exquisite arches and I bemoaned how much money I have spent on orthotic inserts for the shoes of my flatfooted children. So art art art, life drawing classes usually involve a model sitting naked in the centre of a ring of easels and artists in varying levels of discomfort as they grapple with the nakedness of the model and the model grappling with the varying bursts of difficulty standing naked in front of strangers. I modeled once or twice but only head and shoulders. I was too self conscious to be naked in front of strangers but could sit absolutely still for long periods of time. It was an interesting experience.

 Oh I submitted a story to Rate your Story RYS and guess what? I forgot to double check myself and sent it without the correct subject line and it was bounced right back at me. I am not going to make it far in the writing world if I don't read and follow the instructions. I am such a dill.

I am going to create art in this beautiful day so I am off to do people stuff and drawing.  Oh I have another commission to make art too. Loving it. I set myself a 90 day challenge to change my life and the work is beginning to trickle in at 1/3 of the way. Have a beautiful day loves.

Sunday musing

It has been a formidable week and an amazing one and tiring and thought provoking. I managed to write a picture book draft and have revised it several times. I uploaded the first 250 words to the forum on 12 x 12 and had some excellent suggestions and feedback for improving the piece. I sent it off to two ladies to critique but have yet to hear back from them. I am hoping to send it off to RYS (rate your story) on the 1st of September and see what they think before finding a place to submit to.
This story is about a boy who is terrified of taking a bath.  It was fun to develop and I plan to story board it next week to see how it flows.

I was incredibly excited to see that Melissa Gjibers has started her Pozible campaign
http://www.pozible.com/project/184562

Melissa
has written a middle grade book about a young girl, Sam, who has returned to Australia after being in Nepal with her parents for several years. Sam finds life hard with the cultural differences between the two countries and becomes the victim of bullying and teasing. She resorts to some unconvincing tactics that make her wish the ground would open up and swallow her when the other children react unfavourably. With the support of her parents and teacher she finds a way to solve her problems.

A lovely story with a terrific solution. What makes me even more excited though is that I created the art for this book. I found this to be an interesting journey in my creative career. I learned a great deal about what information I do and don't want  in terms of creating a concept drawing that meets the requirements of the writer. This book is self published so the communication has been direct between myself and Melissa.
The art in the original concept drawings is a far cry from the final pieces and I have enjoyed that metamorphosis.

Art theme for this week in the 52 week challenge is Butterfly. I played with my prismacolour pencils for this and tried a chibi style for one of the butterflies.

 my butterfly ballerina

Chibi (ちび or チビ) is a Japanese slang word meaning "short person" or "small child". The word has gained currency among fans of manga and anime.

This stylised butterfly is inspired by a tattoo. I like the artistry in some tattoos. I tried using a solvent with my prisma colours but I haven't quite embraced the skill. There are some terrific instructional videos on youtube I am going to study.

I was supposed to be at an adobe illustrator for beginners course today but I had to postpone it. I have a credit for when the course runs again and I am really looking forward to learning how to use my software.

Last weeks theme for the 52 week challenge was Toys and I missed it but did a catch up today.

I purchased a 'uniball signo broad nib white pigment' ink pen and this was my first time using it.  The image is of my set of plastic keys and a rattle with water and floating items in the handle. I have had them for 30+ and 25+ years and they are still as bright as the day they came into the first child's possession.





This week I have extra visitors staying with me. My grandson Kaylem Michael is one month old and he likes my singing. The young man has good taste. Here he is telling me off for taking too many photos.

We are taking bets on what colour his eyes will be. They are baby slate grey at the moment. His Mum has deep chocolate brown eyes and his Dad has light hazel eyes. Half his grandparents had blue eyes and half have brown so it could go any direction.

I entered one of my novels in a competition. I think I wrote a better synopsis this time. I have trouble with synopsis and pitches but each time I do one I believe I am improving.
The competition is with http://www.authorsfirst.com/  and has a pleasant prize of $5000, an ipad mini and a publishing contract.

One of the big things I have had to deal with these last few weeks has been the saga of the car.
It overheated and has been rattling a lot and sounding like a V8. So I had the heater tap replaced and a service $230 then I had a wheel alignment $60, then two new tyres $230 and then the exhaust repairs $100, a timing belt $300 and then a new radiator $300 and then - gulp - the mechanic rings to say the car is still overheating and he doesn't know why. :( My car is still in the mechanics workshop and I am wondering if I will need to sell the furniture on ebay to get it back.(kidding) What is that old homily? A stitch in time saves nine or for want of a shoe the horse was lost. I really think I should have kept up regular maintenance instead of putting it off all the time. Well hopefully after this great saga I will get a few trouble free years out of it.
I didn't even know a heater tap existed. Apparently it looks like this..
and is part of the heating and cooling system of the car. So when my car was overheating I would turn the heater on full and pull heat off the engine. It worked for a little while and finally gave up the ghost.

 Aunty and Nephew becoming aquainted.


I thought I should do the grandmotherly obsessive thing and put another photo up.










Tomorrow I have to complete art for two people and have it sent and start two courses I have paid for but finally Shirley your art awaits. I have it in a frame for you.

Friday on my mind

What a lovely relaxing day it has been. I slept late, indulged in a little reading, rang my sister, did a little more reading, did some grocery shopping,  had lunch and did some more reading and have only just stopped mid chapter to do my daily post.

Last night I wrote a short story and submitted it to a competition
Last night I sent the first two chapters of a novel I have written to another competition
Last night I wrote a poem and sent it to a competition
Last night I wrote the beginnings of a short story for the story a day May challenge day 1.
I also submitted a rhyming PB manuscript to RYS

I went to bed around 3am and slept deeply. Unsurprisingly.

So today I read. It is pouring rain outside and the wind is howling through the trees and i am snug and warm in here with a good book and my cozy slippers and dressing gown.

Tomorrow I have to start the hard work of May but today I will spend leisurely hours with my nose stuck in a book after I see what is happening in RhyPiBoMo :)


I hope you too have a lovely day. :)

B is for bubbles and blogging

Bonza, Beaudy, Bloody Oath mate, Bogan, it is my B day Blog. Can you tell?

 Today I am going to talk about Blogging My Book which is another challenge I am doing and why yesterday I had two blog posts instead of one. The first one taken up with all those challenges in the list. At least my Blog my Book(in 30 days) is good because it incorporates the CampNaNoWriMo tally too.

I did some deep and meaningful exploring of my characters yesterday on April the 1st and I uploaded my 7910 word count to Camp nano. So a good bit of writing happening already. After I go to sleep (it is 1am precisely here in Australia) I will get up, do a little exercise, drink a glass of water, drop my darling dear at school and start typing with a hot tea beside me. I am anticipating a word tally of 3,000 by end of day.

I submitted two faery tales to an anthology yesterday and I thoughly enjoyed them but that si not about my book. I also submitted a PB ms to RYS which makes no sense whatsoever to anyone who does not know the acronyms so I will translate. A Picture Book(PB) manuscript(ms) to Rate Your Story(RYS). RYS is a group of wonderful people from teh writing industry who give up their time to help out newbies like myself by offering one free basic manuscript critique and rating each month. There is a short window of opportunity to join RYS as a member but I missed the deadline. :(

Where was I , oh yes, I will write a chapter today and introduce the characters but I also need to do some research on ancient Egypt and Persia and some on mytholgy so I suspect that will take an hour or two especially as I get so easily distracted online by all the amazing things out there.

 Title: The Reluctant Genie
Genre: Fiction.
Audience: Older teens and young adults  

Synopsis
Beth is a loud proud community minded kind of girl who is always at the front line of protests for good causes. She and her brother share a flat(apartment) in a place where everyone knows her name. Her brother is the kind of guy who bumbles into trouble and can't hold down a job so when he finally seems to be doing the right thing in his new job at the art gallery setting up major shows she is only too eager to show her support.  But this time Beth does the bumbling and unwittingly  inherits a genie. Her first instinct is to free him from his servitude but he has other plans. No way is he giving up his awesome cosmic powers and immortality on the whims of some immature unfinished girl and so chaos is churned. 

Today's word count:  4000

I spent some time researching Jinn, Genie and Genius and found out some fascinating information that I had not known previously. Genius originally meant a guardian spirit of some sort allocated to a new born to guide them.  
My story was going to focus on Egyptian artifacts but now I am moving to Persia and India instead. 
I love how the cultures of the world have so many things in common.


Tonight I have been to my public speaking club information night. It is such fun getting up to speak and I had a whole new audience to perform to. I was able to meet new people who will hopefully join up and I am one of the coaches for the year. I also had an invitation to attend a school as a guest speaker so I will need to polish up on my presentation skills. 




I also need to do my story boarding for VIBC and get ready to film my first video.


52 week challenge art Theme is ; Simplicity  - I am stumped by this one. Might have to consider it long and hard in the morning.

"flu shot tomorrow at 12.

That's it from me now.

I am going to pretend

that it is still the eleventh of February. I had intended to do my blog post much much earlier than this of course but the best laid plans are wont to go astray. Today the new theme for the week for the 52 week challenge happened and it is water colour. I found myself following lesson plans online and managed to produce some passable pieces. Very exciting and I am going to paint every day for the week. 

The tree was part of a larger work that I did not like except for the tree. The duckling is only half a duckling and the boys said I should get half my money back on the lesson. I was quite pleased with my initial foray into water colour. 

I went to the library today and borrowed fifteen books to do reviews on over the 14:14 part of February and have been researching critiquing picture books so I do a moderately good job. I also had my echidna story back from RYS and had a 5 rating which equates to "not a bad story but needs some serious work". So I now have a critique group and they are likely to rip it to shreds for me and help me get it to submission standard.  

I washed out the rubbish bin, sewed darling girls school dress, taking out darts and stitching bits, supervised number 4 in getting his study habits up to speed, read part of Brother Odd, had phone conversations, put petrol in the car and paid in 50cent coins, dropped off a saxophone, wrote emails and generally kept busy today, oh and took darling dear to the doctor. The shade cloth came down off one window so I will get back up on the ladder tomorrow or maybe Friday when I get the stronger clips. 

My story for today's PB Marathon is to do with ability and disability and is courtesy of a discussion with my sister. I think it could be quite effective as a picture book.

Time for beddy byes I am thinking.