Revising, too . . .

Okay, so it's another post about revisions, but Katie and I are both knee deep into them. Since it's November and NaNoWriMo, I have decided to follow The Intern's lead and commit to NaNoReVisMo. The last thing I need to do is start another novel when I've got three of them sitting here begging me for heavy duty revisions . . . not to mention my picture book.

Anyone else in??

Katie's last post referenced a great revision post by Stephanie Perkins. I just read one by Elana Johnson on querytracker that is every bit as helpful. My favorite thing she says to do is "chunk" your manuscript. By this, she does not mean for us to "chunk" our babies into the recycle bin to be turned into newsprint and cereal boxes. No, she suggests that we divide our manuscript up into "chunks" and work on them that way. Great stuff--be sure to read her entire post here!

So here's where I've been all week.

Working on my picture book revisions. Again. Yes. Again. I've changed the ending and a few things at the beginning of the story. This, of course, means that my sketches have to be redone. Again.

I'm not complaining. It keeps getting better with each revision.

I've got my thumbnails on index cards so that I can look at the entire book in one glance and see where pictures need to be changed for variety in pacing or general flow of the story.

And, yes. That is my Tim Gunn bobblehead lording over my revisions. He says things like "Make it work" and "I can't want you to succeed more than you do". He just may be the force to push me through this.

A few more days of sketches and then it's off to novel revisions. See you on the other side.

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Coloring

I've been reworking the sketches for my picture book manuscript, and I need to have a couple of finished illustrations to send along with my sketched dummy.  All of my sketches are done in pencil, so I ran off several black and white copies and hired a team of expert colorers to help.

Meet Meg Anderson, Anne Hardy and Sallie Hardy.

They spent the afternoon trying out different cool color combinations for me.  I had never thought about trying a groovy combination of greens and purples for my main character's dress.  But, hmmm.

Why in the world am I doing this?  Since I do my illustrations by hand (that is on actual paper--not the computer), I hate to waste my good art paper experimenting and trying out colors.  And I hate thinking I've finished a masterpiece of an illustration only to find out the colors just look too muddy together.   By making copies on cheap printer paper and playing around for a few days, I can save my $$ art paper.  Plus, I hope my finished illustrations will show a little more polish.

And, we get to have a fun afternoon with the girls.  Incidentally, my youngest daughter opted out of the illustration session and decided to save the world as a power ranger.  Life is good.

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Re-re-re-re-re-revisions

Whoa!  I hate to follow Katie's post, but I guess I have to.  What a day, huh??

So . . . I'm revising.  Again.  My picture book has been through the wringer for a couple of years, now.  It's been subjected to three SCBWI critiques, editor interest and revisions (followed by rejection), and countless reads by super-writer friends (some of you are out there--thanks!).   I'm once again getting to the polishing stages and working on the sketches for the illustrations. I've gotten some great illustration advice as well as some revision advice about the pacing of the writing earlier this week, and I am overwhelmed but excited to get to work.

Here's my corner of the studio that is dedicated to this part of my work.  

I have printed up a tiny copy of my dummy onto index cards so that I can storyboard the entire book and look at it as a whole (it's to the right on the white magnetic board).  It is amazing how revealing it is to look at the project all at once like this.  I already see some problems with action and page turns.

Plus, I'm basically going to have to redo almost all of these sketches to fit with the new direction of the book.  Yikes!   Did I say that I am overwhelmed???   

Uh, and did I mention that my youngest daughter finishes school in two short weeks?  I really want to get the bulk of this finished so that I can be at the tweaking stage when Julia is home with Mommy. My plan is for her to color my computer printed black and white sketches while I work--I just have to keep her away from the originals.   She can sit quietly at my feet and color. This will work right??

So, it's back to the drawing board.  After tomorrow's field trip of course . . . and cardboard box racecar day Friday . . . and Double Decker Arts Festival this weekend . . . Yahhh!!

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Paint me a story!

I have worked for years as an artist--and I say the word "work" with legitimacy . . . I have actually been paid for my paintings.  I've had several solo exhibitions and I used to be represented by a groovy little gallery in SOHO.  I even landed a contract with Steve Wynn to do artwork for the casino that he built on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (I was commissioned to do several paintings for the resort and one of my paintings was featured on the room key cards--very cool!).  When I decided to make a major creative shift four years ago into the world of children's writing and illustration, I thought the illustration part would come easily.  Not quite . . .

My first children's book that I wrote and illustrated was a didactic, rhyming picture book.  I sent it everywhere, planning my Caldecott speech in my spare time.  Of course, the manuscript was awful--I made every newbie mistake in the book--but the illustrations?  Surely someone with my art background could spin out picture book illustrations.  

So, when I realized that my manuscript was going nowhere fast, I started sending my book dummy to art directors at various publishing houses.   Most of the art directors were kind enough to respond to me--I'm so thankful for that.  Many said that my work was lovely but "too fine art for the picture book market."  I was also told that I needed to work on my figure drawing a little more (after all, it has been twenty years since I spent a summer at Parsons in New York drawing nude models--I'm admittedly a little rusty).   But, the most common comment that I got was that my illustrations didn't tell a story in and of themselves.  

I had always thought that illustrations showed what was going on in the text--but the truth is, the illustrations in a picture book usually show what's NOT going on in the text.  They take the story to a new level and exist as a necessary part of the story.

At the SCBWI conference in L.A. this summer I heard Dilys Evans speak at a breakout session.  Dilys was the founder and president of Dilys Evans Fine Illustration which represented many of the finest illustrators in the history of children's books.  She talked about the first time she saw the work of David Wiesner, the three time winner of the Caldecott medal.  He had sent in an illustration sample which pictured  a city scene and one of the windows of the buildings in the scene had a giant catfish coming out of it.  Now, that's a story.

So, I'm going to spend some real time this year developing my style as an illustrator and a storyteller.  I plan to do lots of doodling and brainstorming and studying the works of illustrators I admire.  "Back to the drawing board," as they say.