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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Cartoons, a sad squirrel tale and Will Write For Chocolate

In last Friday's Blathering, I posted a list of the top 100 search terms that people use to find my Web sites. One was "cheap liposuction." I was highly amused by hsifyppah's artistic comment, which she has given me permission to post here:



:-D


Speaking of squirrels, I have a sad squirrel update: After not hearing squirrel sounds for the past couple of days, we started noticing an unpleasant odour on the main floor of the house. Hm. Worried that a squirrel might have gotten trapped and died behind the wall, Jeff decided to cut away part of the drywall near a spot where much of the squirrel sounds had taken place, and found a dead female red squirrel with three dead offspring, each the size of the juvenile squirrel we captured and released last week.

:-(

We're still confused as why they got trapped in this particular spot, which is only one of many we heard them running through. Jeff is going to take another look around the house today after work, in hopes of finding (and blocking) the spot that the squirrels used. We really don't want this to happen again.

I've been reading a lot more lately. I've decided to only list books that I've finished than books I'm in the midst of reading; the latter would be too long. Like many others, I've found it's often far easier to buy a book and put it on a "to read" pile than to find/make the time to actually read it. :-)

So here are some of my recent (and completed) reads, all books for young people:

	Septimus Heap is the first book in the Magyk series by Angie Sage. A fun read with some engaging characters, though I found all the highlighted Magyk words a tad irritating. I'm looking forward to the second book, though I will probably wait until it comes out in paperback.
	The Gravesavers by Sheree Fitch was recommended to me by my sister and one of my nieces. LOVED this book. I enjoyed Fitch's original imagery and style of writing. Loved the interesting way she chose to tell this story -- two stories, actually, that eventually intertwine: one in the past, one in the present. Fitch has written many picture books, but this is her first novel. I'm very much looking forward to seeing more!
	I picked up The Tale Of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo because I enjoyed her "Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" so much. I'm usually not a big fan of talking animal books, but DiCamillo manages to make her talking creatures three-dimensional and interesting; you can't help but care about them. I also loved the illustrations by Timothy Basil Ering. I didn't find Despereaux nearly as moving as Tulane, but still thoroughly enjoyed this book.

And last but not least, Will Write For Chocolate has been updated!

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Will Write For Chocolate updated

Above: My cool mom-in-law, Ginny. You can see a bigger version here. It's one of my favourite photos from this trip. I feel pretty lucky to have a mom-in-law I enjoy hanging out with. :-)

Still unpacking, catching up, wading through e-mail and paperwork. I've been uploading more trip pics to my Flickr account, selected from the zillion I took over the past few weeks. I'm trying to include comments for each photo, but I'll also be posting a more detailed report soon. Sets uploaded so far:

Paris
Font de' Medici
Montalcino and Montefiridolfi
Panzano and Radda in Chianti
Florence (partial)

Meanwhile, here's a wonderfully silly link, courtesy one of my nieces.

Also, my Will Write For Chocolate strips have been posting every week even though I haven't been in the country. In case you missed the most recent, feel free to click on any of the images below:

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Going offline for a while...

Above: This week's Will Write For Chocolate strip, which was inspired by a recent conversation with my niece Sara. See the column below the strip, "Freelance writers: Do you need a grammar brush-up?" for details. Click the comic or go to the main Will Write For Chocolate site to access my comic and column archives.

I'm having fun with this comic, and plan to introduce a sf/fantasy author character soon. I welcome suggestions for his or her name. :-) If you've been enjoying Will Write For Chocolate so far, by the way, I'd very much appreciate it if you would tell someone (anyone who doesn't know about it already) about my comic this week. Thanks, eh? Yes, even a perfect stranger on the street! Especially if they look as if they like writing and/or chocolate!

Did you send me a postcard recently?

Okay, I have to confess. Last week I checked my P.O. Box and found three postcards. I didn't have time to read them, stuck in my bag for reading later, finished my errands. Later that day I went to read my postcards...and couldn't find them. :-( I have no idea what happened to them, but I suspect they have been swallowed in the vortex of chaos that is currently my office. I will keep searching, but if you sent me a postcard in the past few weeks and haven't received acknowledgement, could you please let me know? Include your snailmail address and I will send you a special postcard in return. Humble apologies...it's the first time this has happened, and I feel badly about misplacing the postcards. I will post as soon as I find them.

Book update

I finished the final revisions to my book yesterday (thanks again to Jeff, Ruth and Allison for their helpful comments!). Today, I plan to read through the whole thing to check for formatting and accuracy of chapter headers. I am going to force myself NOT to not do any other types of revisions; I could keep revising forever, I'm sure, but it's time to send my baby out into the world.

Wish me luck. :-)

I will be mostly offline for a while, so Blatherings and my Will Write For Chocolate column will not be updated during that time though I may post to my Livejournal and possibly my Flickr account if the opportunity arises. I'm working on uploading some extra comic strips in advance, so hopefully these WILL keep uploading automatically to Will Write For Chocolate every Wednesday.

Keep your paddles in the water, everyone!*

* (See bottom of this page if you're not familiar with this phrase and want an explanation)

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My Beloved Monster and Me

Above: Inspired by a Livejournal comment by Mary Ellen, which was in response to my exercise routine survey. For more info about my Little Nightmares drawings and prints, see this page.

Working on last revisions of my book before sending it off. I've also started brainstorming about ideas for upcoming non-fiction and fiction projects. It's like my subconscious has become aware that I'm finally going to be sending this manuscript off and is doing cartwheels: Woohoo, at last! Now I can finally deluge you with all the stuff that's been percolating while you've had tendinitis and I want you to write it all NOW.

I'm not taking my laptop to Italy, but I'll definitely bring a notebook to catch any idea spillage that occurs during our vacation. For the past couple of years, I've gotten into the habit of taking my Moleskine with me everywhere. Lordy, I do love that book. I accidentally left it in Centro after my birthday dinner (I was writing down the name of a wine I liked), but the staff called the phone number I had written in the front cover, yay.

Today I want to talk about one of my favourite blog reads, My Beloved Monster and Me, written by Rob Rummel-Hudson. Rob used to keep an online journal called Darn Tootin', but these days focuses more on his daily blog instead. Here's an excerpt from his bio:

"In December of 1999, my daughter Schuyler was born. From the very beginning, she was a happy and vibrant little girl, with a mischievous sense of 'I don't like to be told what to do' that she clearly got from me and an angelic face that she (fortunately) got from her mother. What we didn't know for the first three and a half years of her life, however, was what we both gave her genetically. Schuyler was a happy, normal little girl except for one thing: she couldn't talk, almost not at all. She went through hearing tests and screens for just about every possible disorder, but it was only after she underwent an MRI scan in the summer of 2003 that we discovered that the problem lay in her brain, and had been there all along."

I got hooked on Rob's writing when I came across this entry, which focuses on the day that Rob and his wife heard the diagnosis for their daughter's condition. You can find follow-up entries on this page. What I like about Rob's writing: He has a forthrightness and emotional honesty rare in blogs these days, and can be incredibly funny and moving in the same entry. He's cynical, hopeful, deeply caring. But most of all, I love his writing style. Rob could write about what he eats for breakfast every day and I'd still be hooked. He was recently diagnosed with diabetes and now is a columnist for B5 Media with his Diabetes Notes.

Sure hope I get to meet Rob in person someday, and I look forward to buying a copy of his book, Schuyler's Monster, when it come out. Here's the last page from the book.

Anyway, do check out My Beloved Monster and Me.

Reminder: The frequency of my Blatherings is likely to become more sporadic over the next while as I focus on pre-trip workstuff and other prep.

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