Kidlit Birthday Bash Day 2: All About Craft

http://www.kidlit411.com/2015/01/Kidlit411-Giveaway-Days-Craft-Courses.html
Welcome to Day 2 of the Kidlit411 Birthday Bash Giveaway! 

Today's prizes are all about improving our writing and illustration craft. This is the second of the three day giveaway:

• YESTERDAY, Jan. 5, All About Picture Books - giving away signed picture books and PB critiques

• TODAY, Jan. 6, ALL ABOUT CRAFT - giving away classes and critiques

• TOMORROW, Jan. 7 Agent Spotlight - giving away a submission opportunity

You may enter into any and all of the giveaways. All giveaways end at noon, EST, Jan. 15, 2015.

Bonus for Facebook members: come and find out what they are.

KidLit411

If you are  writing a children's book  Kidlit 411 is the, go to, blog for  all of your favorite information sources in one place.

The People of 411 

 KIDLIT411 founder, Elaine Kiely Kearns is currently chasing the dream as a published author. Armed with a master's degree in Education and working from her home office, she spends her time perusing the internet for golden nuggets of information about children's writing and creating her own picture book and middle grade stories.


Sylvia Liu is the other half of KIDLIT411, keeping the site running, adding links, and overseeing the illustrations and Illustrator Spotlight. She is a writer and illustrator. She is the winner of the 2013 Lee and Low New Voices Award and her winning manuscript, A MORNING WITH GONG GONG, will be published as a picture book. 

KIDLIT411 links are also contributed by their critique group buddies, Alayne Kay Christian, Renee LaTulippe, Yvonne Mes, Teresa Robeson and VICTORIA RICHARDSON WARNECK.

http://www.kidlit411.com/

Goals of 411

Their goal is to organise relevant information about writing and illustrating for children in one handy spot, right here. The site includes:

• Topical Pages - links to articles and resources organized by topics. 

• Author & Illustrator Spotlights - each week, they feature an author and an illustrator (or an author-illustrator), who share their experience with you.

• The Weekly 411 - each week, they compile the new links that were added during the week in an update post. You can receive this by email by subscribing to email updates (in the left hand sidebar).

So spend some time, browse, click, connect as they welcome you to the world of kid lit writers and illustrators!

Writing in the storm

It is 10.59pm and my eyelids are twitching from lack of sleep and stress. I haven't written much fiction for a while, well grown up fiction that is. I have several novel outlines waiting for time and attention but life is rather hectic at the moment so I am not in the right mind space and I am in constant demand which reduces my creative time. To really produce a good scene I need to immerse myself in the story and not be constantly interrupted.

 I currently have three adult sons, a daughter in law, a teen daughter and a 10 week old baby plus a dog sharing my miniscule house while they all have challenges in their life to work through. I love my kids and would do just about anything for them but there comes a time when I want to let go the selfless mother role and embrace the inner rebellious teenager who hasn't yet had her turn at life. My first born isn't talking to me at the moment and it all seems so overwhelming. Then I read the news and think at least my kids are all alive and somewhere I can find them. I try to focus on the things to be grateful for so I have a healthier perspective about my own troubles. I have wonderful friends who support me as much as I will let them and I am in reasonably good health all things considered. I have food and clean water and a warm bed to sleep in. I have social media to make friends around the world and my car works. I am living in a good town with easily accessible services and good health workers.
And I get to create art and tell stories and sing to my grandson. I can weather the storm when I 'count my blessings' and focus on the abundance of good things in my life.

I read an article by Neil Gaiman today. It was about Terry Pratchett. Neil described Terry as an angry man and while I was reading it and the message that Terry uses that anger to fuel his stories I realised I too am a bundle of anger and maybe I could use that anger to fuel my own stories. So I wrote one. It is less than 600 words and is the first flash fiction I have written in several months. I read it to my favourite beta-ear(the first person I read it to over the phone) and she said it has powerful imagery. It was a strange sensation to be writing with such anger in me. Acknowledging the anger helped me connect to it. I think I need to really tap into my emotional state when I am writing. I am thinking some of my more recent stuff is quite bland and probably reflects a lack of passion.

I weeded my front lawn today. I dug out the thistles and broad leaf weeds with an old table spoon. I had to do something with my hands and get out of the house. I was incredibly excited to see that a dozen or more seedlings have sprouted from the seeds of the trees that were cut down recently. I carefully dug them up and put them in a seed tray before the mower kills them. I will plant them in the back yard once they are established beyond two leaves and nurture a whole new forest.  The silver lining shows itself and I am grinning about the resilience of nature in the face of human onslaught.

Have I told you guys I have been a foster parent for 25 years. No quater-century commemorative medal for me just a lot of experiences and memories and some extra permanent members of the family. I fostered more than 55 kids in that time. Some for short terms lie weekends or two weeks at a time, some for much longer and one for the whole 25 years. Fostering here in Australia is not a paid gig. It is a volunteer position and if the fostering is done through a legitimate agency then the foster parents can be compensated for some expenditure. It is not something anyone should do lightly. Many of the children in care are already damaged before they land on the doorstep in wet pyjamas and need a long term plan to support them. The foster parents need constant and ongoing training and support and it is a 24 hour seven day a week possibly lifetime commitment. There are all sorts of reasons why kids need out of home care and every one of the kids who came to my care had different stories. I don't like a lot of the things that happen in the system that actually compound the damage to the kids and I don't like that good relationships are difficult to build but there has to be some kind of system to help kids who need it. I have discouraged people from fostering because they were going into it with an attitude they would get to look after some poster child for their local church group and were not mentally equipped for the challenge. I don't think I was either but I have proactively sought training and education that would help me help the kids. I hope that the experience of living with me for however long or short a time made a positive difference to the kids. It breaks my hear that I failed some kids and hope they found better experiences further along their life paths. I fell in love with some and often wonder where they are.

Life is an adventure.

I am so excited. One of the members of a group (musical) that I am supporting (with the pittance I can share) actually took the time to acknowledge my tweet to them. I am very honoured. (ps guys when I make it big with my writing I will up my patronage from ten cents to 25 cents okay).

Inktober is not far away and I did some preliminary pics to rediscover the feel for ink. I popped them on my pinterest board for Inktober. http://www.pinterest.com/ceciliaaclark/  and on this page of course.  

Well on that note I suspect I need to get some sleep since it is now almost midnight. I hope your life is not too stormy for you to weather. Focus on the positives to help you navigate the negatives. Hugs and love.

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.

what day is it again?

Thursday, Thor's Day, a day in which things happened. I cooked myself a good breakfast today with all good intentions of beginning a new healthier eating regime and blew it by mid afternoon. Typical.
I wrote a new story today. 515 words and it is about how a child feels who struggles with reading. Having worked with many people, from very young to quite a way past mid life crisis, to assist them to read or learn to read or improve their reading skills, I have heard quite a few stories of how not being able to read affects them so it all went into a story. However this meant I did not increase the word count on my chapter book.

On the 52 week challenge I uploaded a number of pieces of art for Darling Daughter so she could catch up and participate in the challenge. I think she was surprised and pleased and I encouraged her to do more. I might be a bit biased but I think she has a fine hand and a good eye.

 Week 1 Egg. Graphite

 Kid   Pencil

 Selfie. Pencil

Flower  Coloured pencil

 week Machine(Sword) Grey and coloured pencil

 week ten is Pattern Coloured pen

 Pattern with pen(black)

We collaborated on this one. Pattern.  Pen and intense ink pencils















My art is thus...

Inspired by my favourite studio Ghibli movie characters. It is a pattern of forest spirits, totoros, dust sprites(dust bunnies/soot sprites), Kiki's hair ribbon, Mae's shoes, Kiki's broom, the Baron's hat and cane, Totoro's leaf and bag, an Ohm, Calcifer, the amulet from Laputa, Gigi, the prince, Baba Yaga's baby, the fly and  the cat bus. I love the Ghibli movies and recommend them to everyone with a child and an inner child. They are so rich and beautiful and the world has more magic because of Mr Hayao Miyazaki  and his film making, story telling genius and the exquisite art of his studio.
I bought myself new pencils today. They smelled so yummy. I also paid membership to another children's writing community.

and I wrote a flash fiction for the mid week blues buster. It is called Dark Silence and can be read at http://thetsuruokafiles.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/mid-week-blues-buster-week-51/

Friday again

In the 52 week challenge I saw an egg by a lovely lady named Felicia who had managed to make her egg look very shiny simply with her shading. I asked her how she did it and she put up another post with examples and links. What a lovely woman. I am really enjoying that people have their children drawing to the prompts and doing it as a family activity and there are both professional and hobby artists and everyone is so friendly and helpful. It is a great space to be artistic in.

I tried the shiny egg a few times but have not yet mastered the technique. I also have trouble with ferns so I am practicing them.

Today I plan to work on a lot of Picture Book story lines. I need three or four ready to revise by Sunday and I also need to do the final edit and tweak on Mirrors this week. I want to send that one out into the big wide world.

Youngest son is ratting around in the pot cupboard getting out the biggest pots from way in the back so I can make leek and potato soup and pumpkin soup in 8 litre amounts. I told my friend Helen I would make some for the Model Railroad exhibitors. I prefer to make huge pots of soup than stand around making salad rolls for lunch that's for sure.


I have been out for lunch with my friend H and we ate at a pub. Food was okay but the soup was way too salty. While I was there I watched the people behind the bar. Two girls, two young lads and one older woman. The girls, both sandy red hair, one maybe late teens one in her early twenties, both interacted with the customers, smiling, chatting and still efficient. The lads did not make eye contact, both looked like they had constipation or would rather be anywhere else and both making mistakes. The older woman had short very black curls, was a substantial lady in the way women who lift heavy things usually are and I had the feeling she was probably the publican. She had that confident no nonsense air about her. The place was busy with regular aged clientele. I say regulars because the man serving in the food area knew their names and carried their food to the table rather than them have to negotiate the tables with their walking frames and scooters. People are fascinating creatures. The food was typical of pub food, plenty and ordinary, nothing to write sonnets about and not particularly cheap either but apart from too salty(which usually denotes heavily processed powdered soup as a base)there was nothing particular to complain of. Why am I writing all of this? Well since you ask it is because I like authenticity in my writing and I decided the girls behind the bar are sisters and that the extra sister is going in my novel. That's why. I have writing to do so I am getting off the computer right now.

Birthday Parties

My daughter loved her birthday parties. No sooner was one over than she was planning the next and I am sure she has some big plans up her sleeves for the next few. My job is to make them happen in a memorable way with food and decorations and invitations and of course entertainment. Parents all over the world do this, some in big ways some in small ways but all of them celebrating the significance of their child in their life. Parties are a logistical nightmare. When my daughter and her friends reached their late single digits and had just slipped into doubles (10 and 11) I decided that the girls and a smattering of boys could do the party themselves. Under careful supervision, instead of party games, the children made the party food. The cake, the icing, the jelly, the sausage rolls and fairy floss(cotton candy/cotton floss) and even the cordial. They cutup fruit and made sandwiches and were allowed to use the knives and blender and the oven. Aprons were found to cover party clothes and hair tied back and one or two chef's hats were dusted off from my former career and oh what a lot of fun they had. They had to clean up too and that became a party game just as much as nay other. There was nary a crumb to be seen at the end of the party and the children went home with the spoils they had made themselves.The children are now teenagers and they still talk about the cooking parties. They are all mad keen TV chef fans and so my PiBoIdMo is about cooking for kids as is today's hasty sketch for SkaDaMo in fine liner.

on the ninth of November my true love said to me "You got the date wrong"

Windy Weather

Windy weather is a good excuse not to go for a walk and my picture book idea today is about excuses. Excuses are the way we lie to ourselves or how we justify a behaviour or choice. I have dozens of ideas I want to explore in much more detail and they are tumbling around in my head, I have always had ideas, lots of ideas but I have made excuses for years for why I couldn't pursue this career and commit those ideas to a book. Lack of trust in myself, lack of belief in my abilities and a serious lack of motivation, self motivation, have led to a serious delay in me embracing my talents and skills. The good thing about the long delay is that I have crammed my life full of experience to draw on to write so no more excuses I have 5000 words to get down on the pages today. Hope your Saturday is as productive as I intend mine to be. Sending out love to you.






End of the day and I thoroughly enjoyed several writing sprints with some romance writers ending the day with the totals of 18375 for my Nanowrimo novel and 16411 on the romance. I had the delightful opportunity to read some of the story aloud to tow lovely ladies and had some very enthusiastic feedback. The this evening after having seven people visiting today I was able to chat in the writers forums and speak with some interesting people about the variety of things they all write and what inspires them and how they build their support networks around them. My eyes are sliding shut of their own accord so I had best get myself to bed ready for another round of heavy duty writing tomorrow. A good day all around. xoxox