I have started some very rough sketches of the liquorishs, this is quiet fun – they are very much remaniscant of the the Mr Men mainly because they are drawn with felt tips and have chartoon faces. But I have decided that each story will be a rhyme/poem/tongue twister type thing!
I’ve got the first one basically hashed out in my note book too 🙂
I thought I would strike whilst the iron was hot as it were so whilst feeling inspired I started work on The Rainbow Dolphins – the story started out all glitter and sweetness as the baby Dolphins learn about their world the Bounded Sea. This is a special place at the bottom of the sea and the dolphins would not biologically be dolphins but something that has co-evolved the same features – they can not come up to the surface – they need heat and pressure to survive.
I have bascially designed an eco-system complete with its geological/biological interactions (I know this probably isn’t needed for a kids book but it was fun!).
The story takes a slightly darker turn as the little wold is attacked by an ancient enemy the spiral shelled Amonids (basically ammonites). The babies all survive and on top of that stop the communities food source from being completely wiped out – thus saving the day whilst ‘hiding’ from the fighting.
My little girl loves it – it has sparkly dolphins and battles :/ Only I would come up with something like this and it NOT be satire!
I know have six Hetty Peglar stories written, one pre-dating this blog and five written during NaPiBoWriWee. I have also discovered that there is another title in the ideas from last year that will be a Hetty Peglar – Sidney Spider Drops in From Down Under.
I’m not going to start writing this new story now because I want to get the six I have edited and some illustration done – I ran out time in my illustration month so there is no characterisation yet :/
Not sure if I mentioned this before but Hetty Peglar was a reputed local witch and there is an earth works called Hetty Peglar’s Tump near our house – Hetty Peglar’s Tump was the name of the first story and was about how she came to live here in Gloucestershire!
So this month is my Illustration Month and I plan to spend at least an hour drawing a day – so I need to do 30 hours on this in the month of June. I am starting off with my trilobites for Art Evolved and then moving on to finishing off my Art Journal for Escape Into Life.
If I get through them I have characterisations for my contract (which will not be going on the blog – sorry guys!).
I think this may actually take up all the time but incase it doesn’t I also want to get some rough sketches of Hetty Peglar and her friends, house etc… done.
I now have alot of things to be getting on with having been comissioned to write a children’s book series (YAY! Victory dance!) but I still need to keep up the personal goals – especially as I feel I will need skills learnt from them for the contract work. I thought about things about and realised I wasn’t really getting enough time to draw and paint and work on my characters for the picture books.
I’ve had people ask why don’t I hire an artist to do this but a) that costs money and b) I have fixed ideas of the styles and looks of the books and I like drawing and painting and mucking about with images on the computer. So I have lots of stories that if not finished int he polished sense are ready enough for me to be working on the characterizations at least.
This is why I have decided June is going to be my Month of Illustration.
So hopefully I will have a list of projects and a more formalised plan by the beginning of the month! Again wish me luck 🙂
In doing the NaPiBoWriWee I discovered that one of my stories was infact part of a series – There’s a Dargon in the Compost Heap turned out to be about Jean and her House Dragon Horace. These were another of my story ideas from PiBoIdMo. The thing is I think I feel more stories in this series building in my brain as we speak.
It is bizar I actually seem incapable of writing anything that is not a series :/ My husband even teased me saying that he was suprised I hadn’t written down a huge list of All Possible Dragons and used colour pens to colour code and then turn it into some sort of spider diagram with attributes and evolutionary conections between them. And the problem with him saying this is now – it itself has started to try and be a picture book idea :/
This is one of the reasons I need to set myself goals and take part in the writing challenges – I have so many ideas that it is very easy to side track myself :/
Oh well – we will just have to wait and see what happens to the Dragons and how big their empire grows 🙂
I have finially finished my NaPiBoWriWee challenge 🙂 it took a good long while i.e. a week extra – this is mainly becuase though there was only really two stories left to write these were:
1) There’s a Dragon in the Compost Heap
2) Earth, Wind, Fire
And these were longer stories than the Hetty Peglar ones – in fact Earth, Wind and Fire is more a novella with pictures in it I would say. Also though this story is finished it is really very much not finished :/ I need to do some research and make sure that some what I’ve written is not complete drivel!
Anyway – I need to let these stories sit for a while now before I really do anything else on them.
Well I have five and half picture books written – I’m not going to finish the challenge but I’ve decided it doesn’t really matter – I have almost six drafts which is more than I would have had and as it’s all the Hetty Peglar stories done – it should give me enough time to sort them out before halloween.
In the end I didn’t start writing until late on the 3rd of May and was basically trying to write two stories a day but it took me a little while to get going with the actually rhythm of writing for some reason.
Anyway my plan is to continue until I have all seven stories written anyway – I am devoting a solid hour to writing each day and specifically picture book writing too.
I found that the old academic diary was perfect for my needs and alot of the writing is scrawled not sticking to the lines and often actually written across the double page like it’s just one big page (hope that makes sense).
Anyway as far as I’m concerned it was a success even if I didn’t finish 🙂 (plus I made a tonne of new twitter friends 🙂
It is the first day of the National Picture Book Writing Week and I have realised I am away doing things until late on the 3rd 🙁 . I am taking my note book and hope to maybe get some writing done in the car!
I spent last week looking through my lists of picture book ideas from PiBoIdMo which I did in Novemeber. I have selected 7 stories which I have written basic outlines for – I may post these in due course.
Anyway here is the list of titles i will be writing about 🙂
1) Hetty Peglar and the Skeleton Dance
2) Hatty Peglar and the Pumkin Ball
3) Hetty Peglar and the Dragonfly
4) Hetty Peglar and the Spooky Reunion
5) Hetty Peglar’s Batty Bat Balinda
6) There’s a Dragon in the Compost Heap
7) Earth, Wind and Fire
Next week sees NaPiBoWriWee or National Picture Book Writing Week which like the NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo is a writing challenge and yes I am doing it!
This one involves trying to write seven picture books in seven days and to make it worse I am away for the first two days of it! This means it will involve note book scribbling – infact I have an old academic diary that I use about a week of – I am already writing out story outlines in this in preperatio. I am also using ideas I came up with during PiBoIdMo.
Namely the Hetty Peglar titles, plus There’s a Dragon in the Compost Heap and Earth, Wind, Fire, Water.
I have a Hetty Peglar story already written which I want to find to make sure I keep things all in the same vien! Anyway wish me luck for next weeks madness!