I Am Writing Again

 Today being July First means that Camp NaNoWriMo is once again open and letting people explore the thrill of writing fast and intently without too much regard for the finished product.  This is after all, meant to be a quick and dirty rough draft of a novel.

 I'm not there.  I have been working on this novel for quite awhile and have 60,000 words which tell me not to ignore them just because it is camp time. So this year, I am not beginning fresh, and I am editing and writing and loving it.  Such a good feeling to open a manuscript i had closed months ago, and find things I no longer remember writing, and realizing it is better than I hold even though it is a long way from done.

The first draft of Duffy Barkley and my first completed "books", from when I was 10

 Because it is July, and I am not teaching (or unfortunately bringing in any income) I have time to write, and time to play as long as the play is cheap, so I have also been walking at the Redwoods near home. What a great place to look for something to spark my imagination.

 Nothing makes me feel smaller, or yet more a part of something beautiful, than the redwoods

 Also, I managed to capture a rainbow in my living room, if I can do that, surely I can capture the third adventure of Duffy Barkley on paper

Here is a brief sample from where I got to rereading this morning

Oh-oh-ing's eyes gave him sympathy, but no mercy. “Of course it is hard to be you Duffy, it is hard to be anyone. We all have our burdens and the times when the energy to make the effort seems impossible. Then we keep making the effort until we die and our children keep on in our place.”

“Oh, thanks a lot!” he muttered sarcastically.

“You are welcome.” She answered sincerely. He looked up in time to see her mouth twist into a smile that was part amused, part sympathetic but wholly without unkindness. Then she used both of her hands to push her mane back from the sides of her face and when she dropped her hands to his shoulders again her face was serious.

“I don't know what we do next,” Duffy said, with nevertheless, a bit more hope than before he had been reminded that he wasn't alone.

The gathering of Oorah were no longer looking directly at Duffy but had turned away, and now faced the forest. There was a movement in the crowd as it parted left and right and opened a clear path from the back to just in front of Duffy. Oh-oh-ing kept an arm around Duffy's shoulders and murmured low so that only he could hear, “You are not our only unexpected guests at the present time. You remember?”

Duffy's jaw dropped as he stared at the approaching trio. The spectacle their combined presence created would not have looked out of place in the Big Parades back on Earth. A large blue bear, not painted, not a teddy bear costume on a man, not a balloon, but a sky blue, lumbering, four legged predator came down the aisle the parted crowd had created.

He would have been spectacular alone.

He was not alone. Riding on his back was a vividly, orange, wildcat. She stood with her four paws in his fur and balanced gracefully as he swayed from side to side. She was not maned, but her pointed ears were echoed in little pointed feathers of fur at the sides of her mouth and long whiskers twitched there as well.

Walking at the bear's right side was a tall, slender girl who appeared whiter than milk. A spiky tuft of green rose from her forehead above a black, v shaped patch of skin descending from her brow to between her eyes and giving a heart shaped look to her face.

She was wearing a simple wrapped skirt and top of a glittering sequined blue cloth. Duffy had every reason to suspect that the beautiful wrapping was actually soft, supple leather made from fish skin with gleaming scales in place.

At one time Duffy had traveled with and befriended the girl. He had met the bear and wildcat before they helped him get home on his first time in Uhrlin, but the three of them looked so impressive that he froze, uncertain if he should bow or hug them, he did nothing.

The girl stopped and met his eyes and then laughed and twirled in place, skirt flaring wide as her arms swept in a circle that included everyone, “Oh, This is perfect! Duffy is here!” and she bounded toward him and hugged him quickly. As she dropped her arms and turned back to her companions, all Duffy could see was her obsidian black back and the green mane that reached down to between her shoulder blades.

When the Muse Can't Be Called By Words

Every November since I discovered the wonderfully freeing and inspiring group of people participating  in NaNoWriMo, I have jumped in at the beginning of November with the plan to write a sloppy first draft and polish it up later when I could slow down and realize that I did have a Novel in my hands, I just needed to clean-it up and make it decent to go in public.

This November is approaching again and I have found a group of other WriMo fans who are still working on last years novel while planning for this one. It has been fun and yet I have bogged down as the end of the writing on this on nears.

That is OK.

I have found my way through the bog before and I have faith that I will again.

For me, when the creativity slows down and the inspiration won't come, then I know it produces stale, forced writing, so I have to entice the muse back.

That means getting creative in other mediums, dancing, playing with sculpting fimo, hiking new trails, singing and drawing.  To get focused back on the story I paint possible book cover and play with them on Ribbet and picmonkey photo editing sites

after the first "win" onNaNoWriMo when I finished the novel in 30 days, I won a free proof copy of the book from createspace. I had it figured out how to upload it, but I wasn't thinking of a cover, so I just took a picture of one I doodled and got that proof to give to my mom.

It was going to end there.

I swear it was

 but of course we all know better now.  Seeing that "Real book" even if there was only one existing in the world.  That was an instant blast of feel good endorphins and I had to keep going. So then I read the proof and edited more and designed a cover I thought Duffy himself might have painted. Then I began writing the Sequel, "Seek Well" the next NaNoWriMo. Painting that cover came easier because I wanted them unified in appearance.

So today, even though the third book still is a few chapters short of a conclusion. When the words were stuck, I decided to design the cover anyway

I painted

Trying to keep the dome shape to the upper right

the people to the lower right

the heavy use of blue

and the back with a clue of how the transport to Uhrlin happens this time

Then, I photographed the painting and edited in the titles and other wordy stuff

and I tried to think of how to present the information that this series was now an "award-winning  Tween series"

So I think I might go with this book cover for the Third book for people who already have book one and two.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm also thinking about putting out a combined volume with all three books included, and a different style cover, for those who want the paperback version but haven't yet invested in the first two.

 Anyway, the exercise works. I figured out the next step that the characters want to take, and they are chomping at the bit, for me to pick up my pad and pen and start following them around taking notes again.

Until next time, Happy Autumn to you, and may all your days have a creative spark.

Make Good Art, Neil Gaiman Said

I have been feeling Blue,
just a funky kind of,
"my life is perfect right now, but summer is ending, my kids are moving away, OH NO, CHANGE IS COMING!" feeling

and I am 60,000 words into the third book of my Duffy Barkley series, and loving what I wrote, but still avoiding writing any more because, well, because my energy is down.

Then Yesterday I got a 1 star review on Amazon, and to be honest a 4 Star review on another book on Amazon and a 5 star review on Goodreads too, but of course it is the 1 star review I obsess about.  So I reread the reviews I have posted, trying to find the good stuff, and I stick on the iffy stuff instead

The front of the first 2 books

See, I have hand painted watercolor pictures for the first two Duffy books, and some people don't like them at all, and I'm not sure about them myself

And I found this comment again, from an A. Stepaniak, in the reviews

The back of the same books.

"As a graphic designer, I was put-off by the cover design Dixie Miller Goode chose for 'Duffy Barkley Is not a Dog'. And, so the saying goes, I should have never judged a book by its cover. After reading, I love the cover design. It's clearly from the mind of Duffy, and it's fitting.'

And so instead of writing, I was on facebook, of course that did not help me feel less depressed. So I remembered that video of Neil Gaiman giving a graduation speech and saying, "make Good Art" all the time.  

You know the speech? 

“Remember, whatever discipline you’re in, whether you’re a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer — whatever you do, you have one thing that’s unique: You have the ability to make art. And for me, and for so many of the people I’ve known, that’s been a lifesaver, the ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times, and it gets you through … the other ones. Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong — in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too.”

– Neil Gaiman, in his commencement address to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he was bestowed with an honorary doctorate in fine arts 

Well, I used to take art classes and paint, sculpt, draw and weave, but then I became a teacher, a wife and a mom, and I stopped.

 But I dusted off my old lab coat that I used to use as a painting smock, and got out my paints, most of which were dried and worthless, but enough were there to start playing around

 Working on an idea of maybe going for a completely different look, in a book that combined the first three novels into one volume.  I'd still do a book 3 watercolor to match the first, and offer it as a single edition as well, for those who don't need to have both a 1, 2 and a 1,2,3

But this is the idea I am playing with for the multi volume.

 And after making art that may or may not be "Good art" but is for sure "Goode art" I feel better.  My mood is improved and I'm ready to write again