how the heck did it get to 11.50pm

I guess the day slipped by. I read and I read some more and I attempted some writing activities and I lectured the kids and put my shade cloth back up and drove son to somewhere and had visitors and hurt myself and chatted online and drew and read some more writer articles and now it is 1/4 to 12. So I shall upload some pictures.

Izzy was helping me with my shading today. She is a fine little artist and I wish she would upload to the 52 week challenge too. Some of these pieces are unfinished and we start water colour tomorrow.
My story for today is a non fiction one.
I have been reading other people's first 250 words of their manuscripts and giving some feedback. There are some interesting stories in progress and I hope I get to read them in covers sometimes.

Australia Day

I missed a blog post yesterday and was feeling somewhat at a low ebb so I didn't write either. Several things did not go according to plan but in the end it worked out that the new and different plans would be worth while. I am hoping to get us all into work routines tomorrow and have told the offspring we are goal setting and timetable planning tomorrow. I am off to bed in half an hour so I thought I would do my blog post and upload today's sketches. My new timetable starts at 6am. Daughter dear is going to aim for her grade 4 sax AMEB and we have put a new one on layby and selling the old one. I did not get to several parties I was invited to and neither did the youngest offspring because we were mislead by the public transport personnel. I have been practicing my language and I am making slow but steady progress and I also have six notes on my clarinet now. Almost an octave. The start the eyar off write challenge has now ended and I am very pleased with the prompts that were given by the guests on the blog and very grateful to Shannon Abercrombie for her wonderful organisational skills. I am also finding my way around the 12 x 12 forum and beginning to make contacts. I uploaded my first illustrations to the critique group albeit nervously.



a cauliflower and a fireflower. Next week the theme in 52 week challenge is flowers (I best check that) and I started off the new sketches a few days ahead.

I watched a video by someone who teaches a particular digital art tool, today. I am making a habit of watching video's by the 'experts' in the field. I put the word 'expert' in '' simply because the videos are unedited and a painful thing to watch in general because the people may have expertise in their drawing or writing skills but seriously lack public speaking skills, video editing skills or even agenda writing or lesson plans and they need to seek assistance in learning to use video conferencing tools and microphone techniques. So far the videos I have watched tend to waffle on and waste at least half the time allocated. I prefer instructional videos on youtube where the people actually know how to put an instructional video together. I am learning a lot about what not to do when making a video.

I am going to try and work out how to use my digital art tools in the next few weeks. The one vital piece of information I gleaned from a one hour video today is that belief that some publishers are asking only for digital art. Best I learn how to do that. I can start with my own drawings but need to know how to manipulate them.

I signed up for a few more writing challenges over the next few months. I need the challenges to keep me moving forward.


I did two hours of cycling today with weights. Not nearly enough water though. Time to rectify that.




115.5

later on the 16th

some more caravans for 52 week challenge

and a magpie for yesterday's story, plus a sunset.

and once again it is hot hot hot so summer has finally arrived and settled heavily on us. The curtains are drawn and the blinds are down, the fans are all running and I am thinking how lovely a solar powered air conditioner would be. I had a cold shower and wrapped myself in a cotton sari(actually it is a bedsheet but don't tell anyone. I made sure there was water under the tree for the birds and parked the car in the little shade available since the trees were cut down. sulk pout.

I am off to review some more of my PB MSs (picture book manuscripts-see I am learning the jargon/shorthand)and doing more of the writing exercises for ReviMo and Start The year off Write. Love this creating.

Model Railways

The last couple of January's around about my birthday day, I have assisted Helen O in catering for the Model Railway exhibitors here in Warrnambool. They come for a weekend and set up their displays and hundreds of people come to admire the handiwork and hours of dedication to the passion of these exhibitors. I went a few times to the exhibition in Stawell and in both places found the tiny worlds fascinating. I like watching upgrades to Minatur Wunderland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACkmg3Y64_s and I would love to go visit this exhibition one day. So this year I decided I could not stand around making salad rolls so I made soup and potato salad. I might pop down there tomorrow for a look at the exhibits. What is that fascination we have with such tiny effigies of real life.

images borrowed and do not belong to me. I will replace them when I take my own tomorrow.

12/01/14 my images

Today has been quite cool after yesterday's 30+ degrees and I noticed a large number of sunburns as I wandered through the shopping mall. We never learn. I am only super careful these days as I wait for my third surgery in less than twelve months, to remove skin cancers. I wasn't the type of teenager to go out and sunbathe but I was badly burnt on a number of occasions, out swimming, not renewing sunscreen and the lack of hat and long sleeves all damaged my skin long ago and now I am paying for it. I had a basal cell on my nose which would not stop bleeding and melanoma on my back and both were removed in February and April 2013. Now a squamous cell on my cheek has become larger and harder and painful and is coming off in the next week or so. Thank fully young parents are ensuring their toddlers and little ones have hats and SPF tops and sunscreen and all the other factors to protect their skin but there is not enough happening to encourage teenagers to slip slop slap. Maybe if popular celebrities made hats a trend item that would help.
go watch the Sid seagull video, its a catchy little, irritating tune and might help stick it in your memory.
http://www.cancer.org.au/preventing-cancer/sun-protection/campaigns-and-events/slip-slop-slap-seek-slide.html

I am day five into my Spanish lessons and have managed to make five million mistakes with the gender/number specific articles. argh and I keep forgetting the 'll' has a kind of 'y' sound to it. Early days early days. I have also regained three notes on the clarinet and fewer squeaks so maybe the neighbours ears won't bleed for too long. So have I written much then? I have created a few more story ideas and have some research. One idea has already been turned into a book and I am going to read it to see if my idea on the same subject is the same. Time to go do things writerly other than blogging. Tootles. Oh it is the last day before my life changes forever... 12 x 12 ReviMO and Picture book dummy all start after today. :)

Going colour

I made an avatar for Geoff for his game, a mermaid to try out the manga style and try my hand for an upcoming anthology and dear Olaf with whom my daughter and I have fallen in love. He is from the disney/pixar movie Frozen. I do like the colour.

I just paid my subscription to 12 x 12 and I am so excited.

I am going to widget it in a minute then do some actual writing. wriggle dance wriggle dance
I have a huge goal in mind for picture books. I currently have 40 ideas in a folder with graphic organisers to flesh them out from their initial one sentence or poem snippet and in February I am joining another picture book idea marathon so I should have another 26-28more ideas and by the end of the year I want 12 complete manuscripts ready to submit and 12 brilliant pitches and illustrations and a really good bio and I believe I can do it.

I have one YA paranormal novel almost ready to submit. A few tweaks and it is ready to fly.
I have one Australian Romance with historical aspects about 20k of submission but I am very happy with it.
I have one horror outline and a couple of short shorts not going anywhere yet.
I have one sci/fi fantasy at 70k still and siting on a shelf for a little while longer.
I have the beginnings of two steam punk novels that need time and effort.

Right now I am concentrating on kid lit ie Children's literature. Picture books. I love picture books.

I have done my second 'Start the year off write' prompt and was very pleased with the results. Cutting excess words and reworking with more active language is an excellent practice.

summer rain, puddles and desks and starting right

today has been wet, wet, wet. There are puddles evaporating everywhere and now the sun is leaking through the clouds the temperature has risen a little. My picture today is to connect with the joy of jumping in summer puddles.

I am also off to 'start my year off write' in just five or so minutes the first prompt should be up on the FB page. I leapt out of bed at five thirty this morning all eager to start and what should happen but I had to realise I would wait until 3am American time for the first prompt at 8pm Australian eastern seaboard time. So I am off to work to a prompt in just minutes.

21 days and 21 prompts and a wealth of good people to encourage each other to write and write. Off I go. I think I shall upload whatever I do tonight if it is any good.

Prompt one went up and I launched into a stronger opening for my steam punk. 300+ words in a short time and I feel like doing more so I will.

Hobbits precious

rant rant rant rant

a book is not a film

a film is not a book

a writer must use words to describe everything from feelings to actions to events and has to balance between too much description and not enough

a camera operator and a film crew can use visuals and sounds not available to a writer to produce the same effects and impact


20 pages of description of a characters outfit translate into 2 minutes of film time


an 8 hour read translates into a one hour film



films are not books and books are not film and the two tell stories in very different ways


a film will never be the same as a book

there are some things a camera cannot translate from the text
there are some things that a camera can do which cannot be done in text

a good director can draw out the true essence of the story in a book to make the film a satisfying rendition of the book, a poor director will ruin it for the book fans but may gain some new fans for the story


when readers realise that the movie version is NEVER going to be an exact duplicate of the book then there will be peace on earth and all good things will come true...


so I tried to do a picture of Tom Hiddleston as Loki, just because I am a bit of a fan, but I could not get his face right so here is his body.

I didn't sleep well last night or the night before and I had to go out of the house this morning WITHOUT a cup of tea to purchase milk and then I missed a conference and it was late before I managed to draw anything so my whole day has been out of kilter and I am out of sorts. I did have a lovely lunch with friends and I am very grateful for the cooler weather here on the south coast of Australia but I need to sleep early tonight I suspect. I shall try the face again later when I have slept.
several hours later I am so excited. A PB idea I was trying to turn into a manuscript has finally loosend out of its chunks and clunks to be a much more smooth flowing smile inducing story. Read it to neff and numbertoo and it seemed to work for them. ReviMo here I come.

What day was it again?

oh that's right it is Thursday the second day of January 2014. I was up writing a little story this morning inspired by my breakfast. It was an inspirational breakfast. I also did a drawing of some semi nude bloke with nice angles and shady bits because I need to improve my shading techniques. Here he is...

My to do list...

Today I must get my PB ideas in order so I can turn the ideas into full manuscripts.
Today I will exercise.
Today I will sort out another box of books.
Today I will spend some time discussing goals with my offspring.

New Beginnings

I plan to continue producing art work and so today I have decided to take my son's suggestion "I know it's cliche Mum but why not new beginnings?" New beginnings it is.
So my first picture of the month is a mermaid because I am planning on writing a mermaid story.

My year in review...I don't feel like looking back except to say I made some very good decisions in 2013. Looking forward to 2014 I have made more good decisions.

First is becoming involved in the Start the Year Off Write group which aims to encourage participants to write to 21 prompts over 21 days. Courtesy of the delightful Shannon Abercrombie http://www.shannonabercrombie.com/start-the-year-off-write-2/the-challenge/ starting 5th of January

Then I am signing up for the 12X12 picture book challenge of producing 12 picture book drafts in 12 months with some incredible talent from the children's literature world to supply mentorship and support along the way. Julie Hedlund heads an all star cast at http://www.juliehedlund.com/12-x-12/

On January 12th Meg Miller will have us all revising our November PiBoIdMo ideas for a week to January 18th http://megmillerwrites.blogspot.com.au/p/revimo_16.html

On January 13th I will begin the picture book dummy challenge which falls in with 12 x 12 quite nicely and it runs for six months. http://kidlitart.blogspot.com.au/ and there are a whole host of brilliant people supporting new writers like myself to produce quality professional work.

In February I am considering the Picture Book Marathon http://picturebookmarathon.blogspot.com.au/

In March I will participate in the chapter book challenge http://chapterbookchallenge.blogspot.com.au/ with the delightful Becky Fyfe and the wonderful people who have become my companions in several anthologies during 2013

April will be a toss up between Camp Nano for the second year or 'watch this space'

May will include NaPiBoWriWee with Paula Yoo http://paulayoo.com/napi/?p=543

June and July are yet to be finalised but there is plenty of work to go on with.


I also intend exercising daily to regain my health. I will be recovering from surgery during January I expect and did I mention I gave up the day job to concentrate on writing? It seems a lot when listed like this but it all meshes together into a cohesive whole. I am very excited and very organised except I need to get the time zones right. Anyone know where I can get a little task bar downloadable international clock?

It's begining to look a lot like December

Today's sketch is a car or part of a car. There are a lot of lines on a car, have you noticed? My car is in puzzling the autoelectricians who have had it since Friday. So long as they are having fun and I don't have to sell my first born to pay for it.



December. I have done a lot of interesting things today. I donated to Nano and put up some decorations. I am going out for dinner in about an hour and I have started my Keepsakes story. I negotiated to have a cover made for a story and gave a story away, I had a rejection and an acceptance in the same day.I practiced twitting (I KNOW IT'S TWEET BUT IT FEELS LIKE TWIT) and offered to host a story on my blog. I did not go to work for reasons that will become obvious later on in the song and I threw things out. yes folks I threw things out. All in all a very interesting day and productive.

Okay, teeth, shoes, cardigan and dinner. Off I go.

Dinner was lovely and the company was good. My host showed me how to watermark my art work so I am going to dedicate a day to watermarking all my sketches. I also was shown some tricks on the photo manipulation program I have so I will toy with some art work in the next week or so to learn how to use it. I am quite excited by it all really. I was offered some wonderful artistic support today and all sorts of assistance with making my writing dreams reality. I feel very loved, supported and cared for right now.

Later the same day...

Today as I watched young people making giant scones and murdering dough and then cleaning up after themselves and while I waited for a lass to make me a hot chocolate I decided I should draw something and one girl said "hey draw a lizard" so I did, not realising she had her inspirations from a poster of a lizard made entirely from legumes. I like that legume lizard but mine is a line lizard.

Later in the day while listening to young people bemoan their fate, in having to be stuck in 'skewl', I came up with a picture book idea for grown ups. It is a bit sarcastic and tongue in cheek irony. 'I don't wanna go to skewl' plays on that joke where the mother is trying desperately to get her son out of bed and tells him he must go and he responds with 'but everybody hates me, the kids hate me, the teachers hate me, even the cleaner hates me. Give me one good reason why I should go to school?" and his mother replies "You are the principal!". On the world scale our kids have an incredibly easy school life and the boundaries which they cannot cross have almost disappeared. The children who don't wish to learn simply don't, to they frustration of classroom teachers and the chagrin of those students who do wish to learn and have their learning constantly interrupted. We have no class rankings except in year 12 and minimal challenge or incentive for our students to do any more than the absolute minimum required to warm a seat for thirteen years. It amazes me how Australians are able to hold their own or lead the feild in so many things around the world with the lax schooling we all ooze through. So I am thinking of a picture book to encapsulate SKEWL as I have experienced it, as a child, as a parent, as a homeschooling parent and as an employee. Should be fun. I have also reached the 30k mark on both novels. Only 40k to go to the finish line on November the thirtieth.

15th 16th 17th 18th and home again

Well what a good weekend I have spent and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Now I have to sort my health routines out. It is late so my spelling is less than idea and my ideas are stream of consiousness but I am setting the alarm for 6am and already planning to walk with the kidlings. Time to add the fitness into the daily overall plans. I had four good ideas over the past few days for my PiBoIdMo and kept up with my SkaDaMo sketches but I fell behind on my word tally for NaNoWriMo and RWA so back to the keyboard and my routines. Fortunately I had my 50k+ midway point already behind me. Onwards to the next 50k and the finish line in two short weeks. I can do it!

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.

I'm spinning around

Lets talk dot painting and pointilism a bit later on and also today's PIBoIdMo but right now it is back to work.



It is later and the day has slipped by with surveys and mathematics, English, science and art, lost pencils, stolen keys, found trees, rude boys and odd weather. A typical day really.