Writer's valentine

Recent updates to Inkygirl: Daily Diversions For Writers include the above cartoon, writing cartoons from the archives, multi-tasking, posts about an anagram generator, authors and negative reviews, and freelance writing rates.

Much writing to do, hence less Blathering.

But do keep an eye on Allison's blog, where she'll be posting a report about my sister's children's author/illustrator workshops at her school!

Recent reads:

	The Invention Of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick is part graphic novel, part novel, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The illustrations are wonderful and not only enhance the story but are an essential part of it. I loved the characters, the mystery that revealed itself a bit at a time, and the satisfying conclusion. I also hadn't realized that some of the story elements were based on fact, like the automatons.
	The Last Apprentice: Curse of the Bane by Joseph Delaney. I enjoyed the first book in the series so much that I decided to splurge and buy the second in hardcover. A deliciously creepy and engrossing tale. I especially enjoyed developing relationships between some of the characters in this book.
	Girl In A Cage by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris. I'm a longtime Jane Yolen fan and was not disappointed. The premise made me nervous: the main character spends pretty much the entire book locked up in a cage...how interesting was THAT going to be?!? Yet with use of flashbacks interspersed with the cage scenes, the story moves along at a good pace. A GREAT main character. I also enjoyed reading the authors' note at the end which clarified which bits of the story were based on historical facts (main character is Marjorie Bruce, the young daughter of Robert the Bruce) and which were made up.

Links O' The Day

Thanks to Rob Wynne for sending me a link to this squirrel-focused Get Fuzzy strip!

A Woman from the inside out: mesmerizing movie of someone drawing a female figure.

Indexed by Jessica Hagy. A GREAT idea for a blog! :-) Thanks to Beckett for the link. Here's a short film inspired by the blog.

Don't ask me to draw a horse

I've always sucked at drawing animals except for cats. Cats are the exception because so many people I know have had them throughout my life. Because of this, I've started to force myself to use more animals in my cartoons.

I'm gradually working my way up to drawing horses...I really REALLY suck at drawing horses. If you don't believe me, look at this stealth photo that my friend Walter took while I was trying to draw a photo of Jeff playing polo (on a horse) in the Kathleen Sloan cookbook. My horses look like dogs, and I can't draw dogs very well, either.

For some reason, I seem to have missed the period in my childhood where girls become obsessed with horses, including drawing horses. Then again, I also missed the part of girl school where they teach you about fashion and wearing make-up and enjoying clothes/shoes shopping.




Hope you're all having a good weekend, everyone! I am...I spent most of yesterday writing. :-)



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Illustration Friday: Crash

I created the illustration above for this week's Illustration Friday. This week's topic: "Crash." Click on the above image to leave a comment in Flickr. I've added it to my Little Nightmares set.



Thanks to Drawn! and Comixpedia / The Webcomics List for mentioning Will Write For Chocolate. I'm a bit overwhelmed (and tickled, of course) by all the publicity that my comic strip's been getting lately.



Writing's going well. I plan do a bunch more this weekend.

Links O' The Day

Things to do at home when you are bored: Some guy uses materials at home to dress up like animals. Some of these are creepily good. Like the squirrel!

Best Worst First Sentence Contest (For Kids): Deadline: June 1st, 2007. Organized by children's book author Lee Wardlaw Jaffurs for young people.

A2 Papercut: AMAAAAAAAZING things done with a piece of paper and an exacto knife.



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Prints for sale!

Buy this print for US$1.95! Or CA$2.29! Or £1!

So it looks like I may have finally found a place to sell prints of some of my illustrations and cartoons. I've been a member of deviantART for a while but never did much with my account. Either it's improved its services a lot since I first checked it out or (more likely) I didn't check it out thoroughly in the beginning.

I was also much more paranoid about posting my cartoons and illustrations online back then. My attitude has changed somewhat over the past couple of years. I know there are people out there who don't think twice about stealing an artist's work and possibly re-using it without credit or compensation, but I've found that the PR/word-of-mouth benefits of posting my work online is worth the risk. ALL my paid illustration work has happened because of the illustrations I've been posting on Inkygirl, Blatherings, and Flickr.

A growing number of people have been asking me about prints, and I've been investigating various services. I love the IDEA of selling prints, but I'd rather not get into the hassle of worrying about where and how to make the prints, administration, figuring out postage and handling, packaging and mailing, plus worrying about customs fees etc. It was the same with Inkspot. I've always been much better at the creative part than the administrative/marketing tasks, though obviously a freelancer has to learn both.



Buy this print!


Anyway, I'm starting to sell prints at DeviantART! I chose this service because it has more reasonable prices than CafePress, as well as a wider selection of print sizes and types. It also has a basic screening process: your image has to be approved (for format, image quality, non-violation of copyright). Cost ranges from CA$2.29 (£1, US$1.95) for a 5"x5" Matte or Glossy print to about $17.62 (£7.69, US$14.99) for a 10"x10" Lustre print. You can pay by credit card, deviantART dollars, or Paypal.

For those wondering about the difference between Glossy, Matte and Lustre (which is more expensive) finishes, here's what I found in the FAQ:

"The Glossy option is perfect for detailed/technical prints or photograph images. The Matte finish is better for paintings and darker prints. The Lustre is wonderful for both, capturing the best qualities from Glossy and Matte and combining them into one beautiful finish."

I've ordered a couple of prints for myself to see what the quality's like.

I'll be gradually adding images to my Inkygirl deviantART prints shop. I would very much appreciate any suggestions about specific cartoons you think I should be adding to the print shop. Don't worry, I won't expect this to indicate a commitment to buy any yourself...I'm mainly interested in which of my cartoons or illustrations you'd think would make a good print.

You can see my writing-related cartoons here and my Flickr sketchbook here.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions! I'll be adding the print shop link to my main navigation bars once I have a decent number of prints for sale, and I also have a chance to see some actual samples myself. I'm pretty excited about this, and hope it works out.





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Will Write For Chocolate

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated; click the image above for a bigger version and the column, which includes the results of the "good blog writing" survey as well as a new survey about software for writers.

Thanks to Comics Worth Reading, Sequential and Journalista (The Comics Journal news weblog) for mentioning Will Write For Chocolate! It looks like the first two found out about WWFC from the third, who found out from my BlogTO interview.

Writing's going well and so far, my method of obsessively detailed outlining beforehand seems to be paying off. I do stray a bit here and there, but I'm basically sticking to my original outline. This gives me more confidence as I write because I know I'm not going to end up in a story dead-end and having to shriek in frustration and tear my hair out and then back up, as tends to be my habit when writing first drafts. Then again, this isn't my first draft.



I'm also still managing to stick to my goal of going to the gym or other intense cardio activity 4-5 times a week, yay! I'm noticing a definite change in my energy levels during the day, and am not so wiped by dinnertime. I made a point of not changing any other habits as an experiment to see whether exercise alone made a difference.

I watch tv when I'm on the treadmill because I can't help myself; it's right in front of my FACE - each treadmill at my gym has a television screen built into it. My habit is to check out the tv listing channel just to see what's on, but inevitably I end up watching re-runs of Star Trek The Next Generation. I'm such a geek. Wow, did Will Riker ever look goofy without his beard.

And hey, I just found out that Jeff and Maya Bohnhoff are guests at the 2008 UK Filk Convention along with Rika Koerte! That's a whole YEAR from now, which gives me LOTS of time to save up for the flight, membership fee and hotel. Right? Riiiight!!





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