Sometimes life imitates art...

Sometimes it is life that imitates art. I wrote and illustrated a picture book about a mouse that loved to draw and who conveniently lived in an artist studio. Now I have three mice.

They apparently smuggled aboard by hiding in a Halloween storage box filled with past ghosts and bats and rats. A plastic pumpkin was filled with nicely torn and shredded mummy shroud with a small cavity padded with witch hair. I thought the absence of small bodies meant they had abandoned this bewitching abode but they were hiding…perhaps in the papier-mache’ skull or tucked away in a raven’s wing.

No matter how they came, they are here, thumping and scratching and quickly doing the pause…run…pause…run across my studio floor. I hear a scratch and briefly glimpse a tiny grey tail. I look up and that piece of popcorn, carefully placed to sneak-a-peek at my roommates, is gone.

Yesterday I opened a pencil drawer and one minuscule mousey stood on her hind legs and looked at me, “Well, now what are you going to do about it?” she seemed to ask and then spun and disappeared over the back of the drawer. I was so stunned to actually see her I had no idea of what to do.

I am now trying to find mouse sized Have-A-Heart traps so I can let them go back outside. My quandary is that I must keep them alive long enough to catch them alive. So I leave a bit of food and some water on the floor. Tomorrow it will be gone, hopefully by the end of the week my mouseys will be evicted, until then I am living my story.

I wonder if they can draw?

Something Wicked This Way Comes...

My little kids are grown and gone and I miss the annual spooky stuff at Halloween. However this year I get to use my almost dried up trick-or-treat creative juices. My friend and I are planning a bonfire (almost directly over the grave of her sweet, old dead horse) in a field next to a creepy forest. I'm definitely planning on glowing eyes in this forest. We are also going to require costumes and stories from the grown-up guests. And I am writing one of the scary stories... I think it will include a dead horse.

I'm also helping my favorite independent bookstore – Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo, Washington, create a graveyard outside the store. Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” will inspire the decorations. The book is about Bod, just a normal boy, well, he would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts. It is a story for anyone who enjoys a good twisty scary story. (http://www.neilgaiman.com.) The great thing is; if we do a good job, Mr. Gaiman may come visit this store. It's kind of a contest but such fun to imagine and create that it won’t feel like a contest.

Along with three other creative women, I am decorating a Garden Club lunch break in October. Each month the lovely ladies bring finger foods and decorate the table with beautiful bouquets of flowers. I’m planning something a bit darker this October. A long, somber table with cobwebs, bats and flickering candles and Dracula flavored vampire fare! This will not be your typical store-bought decor either, the theater set designer in me will 'play' it up right. Turtleneck sweaters are advised! Maybe I'll supply garlic necklaces for the squeamish!

All this may not fulfill my desire for the scary and weird at Halloween but it will help. My next blog will include some exclusive decorating ideas from my candy corn coated brain. Stay tuned!

Knowing When to Stop...

The one rule in illustration which is unbreakable is “to know when to stop”. Many times, like today, I have created an illustration and gone one step too far and ruined it.

How do you know when to stop? When I write on my computer, I can hit ‘delete’ or change the location of a word or a phrase. When I draw or paint, I just don’t have a 'delete' brush or a 'change case' pencil available.

How do I know if the last swash is the last swash? I do know it must come from experience, confidence and skill. And those do not come without messing up occasionally.

So however tempting it is to add one last detail, I vow to let my picture rest for a day before declaring it done. I will make scans of the piece along the way and make Photoshop layers with all sketch additions. It may take a little longer to complete each piece but I will have an archive available for reference and "do-overs".

Children's writers of a certain age...

I just did a statistic gathering survey and found out that most writers of children's books are women between 30 and 39 years old. This puts them smack in the middle of having school age children at home.

The kids are at school from 3 to 6 hours give or take bus time or carpooling. That gives moms time to do all their chores and write for maybe 2 hours a day. Maybe. And they have loads and loads of research material at home the rest of the time. My hat is off to those women. Good luck.

Now I do not fit into that age range. My babies are grown and since they do not as yet have kids of their own I am in that transitory pause between – I can reflect on my children, appreciate other’s children and grandchildren and observe them all from a 'bird’s eye' view.

I can see the parent’s point of view and the children’s point of view because I don’t have to pick sides. It is a golden time to write for children and about children, children of any age from 0 to 18. I’ve been there and now I can see the essence of who children are, what they want, what we they think they want and what really is: from the shining heart to the black hole.

Surprisingly this essence is not what I would have guessed it to be when I was in that 30-39 range. I plan to take advantage of that perspective and I advise all those women writers to enjoy and pay attention because this is time, the moment of the best research they will ever do. Enjoy it.

Left Brain/ Right Brain

Scattered Brain!

* Too many ideas. Enthusiasm.

* Long lists of to do's.

* Stories to I want to write. Pictures I want to draw.

* Reading many books on how to get my creative life organized when I should be doing it.

* Sidetracked by beauty, opportunity,'what ifs' and of course the chores of everyday life.

* 6 muses sitting on my laptop, grinning at me.

* A studio full of potential.

And only so much time and coffee.
Welcome to my world...

A RoadKill query

Well, I sent out a query today. To an agent who I am sure is too busy. But I did it. My granddad said, "You can't catch a trout unless you put your fly in the water.” The fly is there; I hope I get a nibble. Nothing is as scary as putting yourself out there to be critiqued and/or rejected. But I’ve been telling myself I’m going to treat this like a business. It’s business, not personal.

The story is a long shot story about road kill. Road Kill… you know dead critters in the middle of the highway. Yep, it's a picture book about dead animals. EEeeewwww but "way cool" says a four year old I know. Oh well, their mom’s may not approve of a dead animal story but I’ll bet their granddads will buy it for them. Who needs another dancing pig or Dracula rabbit?

Now I can go to bed on dream of being rich and famous. Or maybe just famous. Or maybe just published. Keep your fingers crossed.

No more 'crinkle and shake' – bye bye newspaper!

Since my hubby and I have canceled the Seattle Times, turned off our Netflix (until the dark days of winter) and cut back...way back on TV...no more "extended" cable programming – just the bare bones TV news and PBS, we have been filling our spare time with other things after work. We watch ships go by, read, invite friends over, create lots and fight a little. I’m finding that a lot of the stuff on TV is available on the internet…if you really want to see it.

Hey, did you know the most newspapers are free on the internet. I don’t understand why anyone, anymore is actually paying for a newspaper. Hard core, curmudgeonly journalists will argue with me (I am married to one) that the world is not the same without the newspaper.

No, there is no nostalgic 'crinkle and shake' as you turn the page but it's all there; science, local and world news, weather, lifestyle and opinions...lots and lots of opinions. And you don’t have to recycle all those ads…just ignore them.

Wading through all this content however, is an exercise in discretion, adventure and discovery. It’s not like it was before and that is not a bad thing. After all "change" is truly the only constant. I kind of like it. The only thing you have to get used to is limiting your daily time on the net. One: the laptop get warm and two: you can lose yourself in ether. Remember how when you were little you could look-up something in the dictionary or encyclopedia and get lost in the next page and the next page and the next...? Well, this is far worse and more compelling and can lead to losing the whole day or losing job, so beware.

I'm also "connected" through blogs and critique groups to a bunch of people I believe have a great perspective on life, living and our reason for being here. They are artists, illustrators and writers of books for children. Thinking like a kid and creating like a kid – they are constantly seeing the world like the sun just came up and no one has yet walked around on the day leaving messy, dirty footprints. Who needs newspapers?

So have a nice day and don't leave any messy footprints!

Six months is not too long, is it?

Six months later Kate finally blogs.
For someone who has a deep desire to be a writer you would think she’d do it more often.
Ah, writing about myself in third person…weird. Weird is “weird” what happened to ‘i’ before ‘e’?

I wanted to continue this blog about becoming a children’s book illustrator and author, however I found much more interesting blog sites to read. And my hands like to build and draw, as much as write so blogging seemed rather two dimensional and time consuming to blog on a regular basis. I may change my mind.

I read in some blogs that editors and agents like to read the blogs of authors to see if they have a ‘following’ that can be massaged into a ‘promotion vehicle’ for the book the editors and agents might want to sell. I would just prefer to spend my writing on writing my stories rather then attract a following. If someone wants to blog as much as write, I think that’s fine. If someone wants to follow my blog – cool, but it’s not why I do it.

Why do I do it? Because I’m trying to treat children’s book writing as a business and a ‘web presence’ is essential. I started my other web presence (my professional site) but it got detoured. My husband, a technical editor, needed his site done and I needed to learn CS3 Dreamweaver. So I did. A perfect mesh of need and…need. His site is “menzelhiggins.com” if you are interested. Not bad for my first attempt.

My site however sits in Dreamweaver waiting patiently for me to do the things that need to done to “go live”. My grandpa said “You’ll never catch a fish until you get your bait in the water”. My fish are hopefully waiting too. Until then, I have my forum here. Will it be six more months? No, I don’t think so. Stay tuned.