Ingo

Many, many thanks to my friend Parki for proofreading my manuscript before I send it back to my agent. I'm also working my way through the entire mss again myself, this time reading everything out loud. Sounds silly, but I find it difficult to proofread my own writing after I've worked on it for so long otherwise. I find the read-aloud method also useful for checking for sentence flow.



I've decided to shut down Blatherchat for good. I've been getting way too much spam, and UBB's interface only lets me delete posts one at a time...a major pain when I get two dozen spam posts in one day, or come back after a vacation. I already had to delete a number of forums because the hard disk space was costing me/us too much on Samurai.

Anyway, if you'd like to post comments, please do so under the appropriate post in Livejournal. I'd also be interested in hearing from any non-LJ out there who have comment boards re: spam control. So far, the only way to control spam comments seems to be a moderated comment system but that also seems to be a major pain to me, having to approve every comment that gets posted. Suggestions/advice welcome! For now, I think I'll just stick to Livejournal comments.

Just finished reading:

Ingo by Helen Dunmore (Harpercollins, 2006). I recently picked up this new novel for young people from The Flying Dragon. An engrossing read (I got hooked right away), and the world that the author has created is entirely believable. I'd rather not say more about the book because I don't want to give too much away. Hm...just noticed that Ingo doesn't seem to be available in the U.S. yet, just Canada, perhaps because it was first published in the UK (?). There are clear British language references throughout the book, like "crisps" instead of "chips" and "Mum" instead of "Mom." Anyway, I look forward to the next book in the series!

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The Girl Who Could Write Stories In The Air

I try to doodle in Corel Painter 9.5 every day for five minutes. By "doodle," I mean set my pen to the Wacom Artpad and start drawing without anything in particular in mind. Sometimes this ends up being just scribbles. Other times something more. I force myself not to sketch first or linger or nitpick. Results vary wildly in quality and content. Some end up in Blatherings, and I also post some in my Flickr sketchbook. I'll occasionally take one and spend longer than five minutes, turning it into a "real" drawing. I think my drawing has gradually gotten better over the years because of this Daily Doodle.

More recently, my "Five Minute Doodles" have started to come with their own stories. I've named the one above "The Girl Who Could Write Stories In The Air."



Anyway, my writing equivalent is my Daily Writing Notebook, which I've told you about before. Again, the lack of censorship and self-editing is important. I find doing some stream-of-consciousness writing and illustrating every day is greatly helping my regular work creativity.

Just finished reading:

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner is a novel for young people that takes place in richly detailed fantasy setting; the inspiration comes from ancient Greek mythology. I enjoyed the subtle way that the reader is introduced to the main character, layers gradually peeled away to reveal more, even to the very end. I'm going to pick up the sequel, The Queen of Attolia, very soon. I noticed that the third book, The King of Attolia, is now available in hardcover.

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Chocolate from Germany, Will Write For Chocolate

Thanks to Sibylle for the chocolate from Germany! I love booze-filled chocolates and citrus-chocolate combinations. Yum. I'm trying to be good and limiting myself to a square or two a day, as a reward. A reward for what? I have no idea. For not killing my house herbs yet. For exercising (ha).

Got another illustration job. My work has ramped up since coming back from Italy, in both writing and illustrating, and I seem to have settled into a fairly regular schedule. My work day usually starts at about 7 or 7:30 am, and I've gotten much better at working in exercise and proper meals. I try very hard NOT to eat lunch at the computer, a habit I picked up during my Inkspot days, and I also try very hard not to answer the phone or do personal e-mail when I'm focusing on work.



Will Write For Chocolate has been updated. This week's column topic is "What to charge: guide to freelance writing rates" as well as a survey about first sales. Feel free to answer the survey in the Will Write For Chocolate comments section!

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John Howe, D&D and The Time Traveler's Wife

Thanks again to Bruce Adelsohn for letting me know about the John Howe talk last night; Bruce had seen it in Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog. I usually check this blog regularly but have fallen behind in blog-reading lately because of current writing and illustrating projects. John Howe, for those of you not familiar with the name, is one of the illustrators who helped inspire Peter Jackson's vision of Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. His famous Gandalf painting is one of my favourite desktop images on my laptop.

Allison and I had dinner at Queen Mother Cafe on Queen Street before heading over to the Learning Annex, where we picked up our "Preferred Seating" wristbands and were told to go to the MuchMusic building at 8 pm. I had been in the building a few times over the years: once when I won a Breakfast Television Valentine's Day contest and had to drag Jeff along to the show, once when my friend Helen and I went to see Joey DeVilla play his accordion on MuchMusic for Accordion Awareness Month, and probably one or two other times.



Upon arriving, we had to check our belongings and waited in a holding area while other audience members arrived. After a washroom run, we were all led through the corridors to the Bravo! studio, passing other studios along the way. I was surprised at how small our studio audience was: perhaps 20-25 people, with half a dozen crew members sitting in as well; this made for a much more intimate setting than the last time I had seen John Howe, which was in a large auditorium at an sf convention. One of the women was a librarian for North York Public Libraries and remembered Urban Tapestry from when we performed there over 10 years ago!

The front of the room had been set up with two comfy-looking armchairs for John Howe and Caitlin Sweet (a Toronto fantasy author), with a giant relief map of Middle Earth as a backdrop. During the talk, samples of John's work were presented on large monitors on either side of the stage.

Caitlin Sweet was a good interviewer, with much more interesting questions than the usual artist interview. And though John Howe claims he doesn't really like public speaking, both Allison and I found him to be remarkably eloquent, with a wry sense of humour. He talked about his work with the Lord of the Rings movies, but also about his early influences, how he got into art, his philosophy of art, his opinions of digital art and manga. There was an audience Q&A session afterward. The show is supposed to air this fall on Canada's Learning Channel (thanks to Allison for the link!).

It's been fun seeing how many other roleplaying geeks there are out there, with some still involved in roleplaying. I loved some of your first character names, like Meliah Foulbreath and Leila DeLuxe. :-) For the record, I -did- own the very first D&D set with the stapled manuals, which I ordered by mail. I have no idea where it is now, though. I've also played Rolemaster and Heroes.

Recent read:

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I bought his book on Allison's recommendation, and I loved it. I've always been a big fan of time travel stories. I'm sure cynics will point to the this story and sneer, "It's been done before!" but y'know, there are only so many basic plots out there...the challenge for writers is to add their own unique twist. Audrey Niffenegger certainly succeeded, in my opinion, and I also loved the romantic aspect.

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D&D, opera and neighbourhood barbecues

Continuing gradually unpack some of the boxes from the storage locker this past weekend, and came across the item above: my Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook by Gary Gygax, back from when I played D&D in university. A survey: how many of you out there had or have this book? If so, what was your first roleplaying character? My first character: a wimpy magic user called Rowena, in a campaign run by Tom West.





I forgot to mention yesterday that everyone who visited the new Toronto opera house yesterday received a goody bag that contained, among other things, a CD of operatic excerpts from Faust (Gounod), Luisa Miller (Verdi), Elektra (Strauss), La Traviata (Verdi), and Cosi fan tutte (Mozart). I've been listening to it a bit and y'know, even though I'm still not a huge opera fan there were some pieces in there I actually didn't mind so much and might even enjoy if they were performed live.

Jeff and I attended the annual neighbourhood barbecue and picnic yesterday. When we attended last year, we had only recently gotten possession of the house and hadn't moved in yet. I enjoyed myself last year but even more so this year; we have some pretty cool neighbours. :-)



Thanks to Bruce Adelsohn for telling me about the John Howe talk tonight at Bravo! in Toronto. Allison and I are going to be attending; I'm really looking forward to it.

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