Happy Halloween!

Ellie McDoodle takes a break from directing me on the revisions of the second book, to dress up in costume with her shoeless brother Ben-Ben and her annoying cousin Er-ick. (Er-ick's a pirate because he's always trying to swipe her sketchjournal. Ben-Ben's a football player because the costume goes well with his helmet)

Marcella work in progress

It's a great day to be alive, I know the sun's still shining when I close my eyes, There's some hard times in the neighborhood but why can't every day be just this good. --Travis Tritt song

For me, a great day is when I've gotten a lot of art and writing done, and the kids are nearby and safe and I know exactly what work I need to do the next day. Throw in some music I love or my favorite tv show ("The Office") and it's hard to imagine being happier.

Today was just such a day. My new character, Marcella, still needs some work before she's submitted to a publisher, but she's almost there and I know exactly what to do next. Ellie McDoodle's sequel, The New Kid in School, is progressing well. The kids are nearby including one visiting from college. I just rediscovered all my digital music files so now there's music on the jukebox. Life is good.

Most of us were together at my house last night for Family Night. Tornado warnings kept everyone here a bit longer than they wanted (on a school night) but it felt good to know they were all safe while the thunder crashed around us and the tv weathermen kept announcing new threats.

We woke up this morning to news and photos of the destruction just 10 miles up the road. The last time a big storm ripped through here, it took out our screen door. But just a few houses away, power lines and huge trees were down, everywhere, and one neighbor lost his garage.

We've been pretty lucky. It's a great day to be alive.

Karen Lee's Book Blog Tour!

~~~ post under construction~~~

Read on for an interview with Karen Lee, author and illustrator, as part of her friends' Book Blog Tour.

Hi, Karen! I'm so excited about your newest book, My Even Day, and excited to help you along on your book blog tour.

1. You are from a family with a bunch of kids born in a short number of years, just like me. How did that affect your art? As second of five, do you feel like an oldest kid or a middle kid?

I think both nature and nurture have had their influence on how I became an illustrator. I want to point out here that even as a very young child it was all about illustration for me – not fine art. I never wanted to be a fine artist and the reason I didn’t go to the nearby Cleveland Institute of Art is that it is a fine art school. It wasn’t until I discovered CCAD that I knew that was where I belonged.

I feel like the oldest. My brother is one year older than me and then I have stair stepping sisters, so I was leader of the girls (leader of all until my brother got taller than me in high school). I still feel that big sister need to round up my chicks and herd them where they need to go, not that I am a natural leader, just a chick herder.

2. What kind of art did you like to do as a kid?
Has any part of your art remained constant?

I was a very typical kid. I enjoyed art and it was always very exciting for me, but I wasn’t particularly driven. I went through the horse profile stage like every other girl. I had a pretty dynamite high school art experience and was able to try lots of different things. Drawing and painting have remained the constant and the work always looks like I did it – even when I look back on older work, there is something soft and Karenish about the work. That’s sort of frustrating but it’s also what contributes to the style.

3. You're married to an artist! That must make for some interesting
dinner table conversations at your house. How do you keep your work separate? How do you keep from morphing with him into a third, between-the-two sort of entity?

Yes! Our conversations can be pretty fun. I love being married to Tim the guy, but I am really fortunate to be married to Tim the artist. We have always kept each other passionate about art and that is precious. He turns me on to artists outside the children’s publishing world and that keeps me more in tune with what is happening in the broader world of illustration. I don’t think we keep our work separate and I’m glad.

We have had several overlapping clients over the years – one of his clients will call me not knowing that we are married, and the other way around. Although our work is different there is definitely an influence on each other. I am actually ready to morph with him now (oh, how he loves to hear that!). It took some maturity on my part to be able to think of working with him on something and we are beginning to. He is much more adventurous in his art than I am and I want to tap into his bravery, lean on him a little. And I think the art could be pretty spectacular!

What we don’t do is critique each other. We need to stay married and it is too hard to not take criticism personally.

4. Describe the perfect career path for you.

I want to continue to illustrate other people’s writing. I want to be offered work that challenges me to continue to move forward rather than stay in place. I want to continue to write and gain the confidence and skills to create something enduring and universal. I want to be able to delight in the work I am doing (as I am now). I don’t want to map out where the path ends up but find my way as I go. When I look back at where I’ve come from I am grateful that it led me here and I have certainly guided it, butI have also allowed for synchronicity and I know that will influence what becomes of me next.

5. Are you active in SCBWI or any other writer groups? What kind of stuff you do for them? And what do you get out of it?

Yes! I am very active in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators here in the Carolinas. I am the Illustration Coordinator for our chapter – which really means I am the head cheerleader and wrangler for the artists in the organization. I coordinate the art for our quarterly newsletter and occasionally provide articles. We are having our 15th annual fall conference beginning this Friday and I have been very involved in the planning for that. I love this organization and as much as I have put into it, I have received back in spades. It was through my first conferences and the SCBWI online discussion board that I learned the fundamentals of both the art of writing and illustrating for children, and then the business side of the profession. I entered contests (and won), found my publisher, found both online and local critique groups, and most importantly I found myself. I feel like I have a close circle of friends that I can count on, and a larger community that I can be inspired by.

6. You're only 29. Barely out of school and already making a name for yourself. What's different than what you expected, at this stage in the publishing game? What surprised you? What most pleases you?

Ha ha – yeah, 29. The real story is that I spent fifteen years doing storyboards in advertising and after I had both my kids I was exposed to children’s publishing for the first time. I decided to begin building my children’s portfolio when my youngest was two – and now she’s ten. So eight years is no meteoric rise. That is what I didn’t expect. I was shocked at how little I knew about creating effective picture book art, and then how long it took to have someone take the risk of signing me to do a book.

What pleases me? After years of being frustrated with my artwork almost all the time, I am now frustrated with it less than half the time. So for me the process has become the most fun. I love the early concepting phases and all the excitement that brings as ideas come together. I love drawing, I love painting. I love showing the finished result to people and seeing them react to it.

Read Karen's blog here.

Stay tuned for some art by Karen. I LOVE her work and will upload some later today....

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Here's the rest of the book blog tour:
Monday: Elizabeth O. Dulemba -
http://dulemba.com/2007/09/blog-book-tour-for-karen-lee.html
Tuesday: Kim Norman -
http://stonestoop.blogspot.com/2007/09/truly-odd-guest.html
Wednesday: here! Ruth McNally Barshaw -
http://elliemcdoodle.blogspot.com/
Thursday: Barbara Johansen Newman -
http://www.johansennewman.typepad.com/
Friday: Dotti Enderle -
http://blog.myspace.com/dottienderle
Saturday: Kerry Madden -
http://mountainmist.livejournal.com/

School visits

I'm busy at school lately, whether doing author visits or picking up or dropping off kids or going on field trips or sketching classes or showing a teacher my latest picturebook art. Here's what happened a couple days ago:

That's my grandson, who's in kindergarten, waiting for his aunt, who's in fifth grade, to finish her math so they can walk home from school. He's smart but disruptive.
And that's my dear friend, the fifth grade teacher, who sometimes puts up with a lot.
Her class is featured in the next Ellie book. Attending school is great inspiration!
Back to work...

Working like crazy

I'm putting every spare minute into two books I'm working on. It's fun work, but I tend to lose whole months at a time when I do this.

I forget about almost everything except the essentials (like, um, kids, and meetings) and I pop my head up at the oddest times, throw out a few emails that may or may not make sense, and duck back down into my work before getting an answer.

It's efficient. I'm getting a lot of work done. But sometimes I feel like a recluse, or a ghost. Reaching high for the stars always seems to pay off. So, back to work....
Before I go -- I've done some exciting and rewarding author visits this summer. I love connecting with audiences.
Next up is the Schuler Books birthday bash on Sept. 15. If you live near Lansing, check it out!

Harry Potter 6 and 7

~no spoilers, but I can't guarantee others' comments~
I just finished book 6 and 7 within the past 2 weeks.
Wow.
Say what you will about the adverbs, J.K. Rowling is one fabulous writer.

Things I loved:
Snape
The underlying message of love
The richness of her fantastic world
Harry isn't perfect
Neville's and Draco's roles
Ginny

Things that surprised me:
The ending
Teddy in the epilogue
Albus's middle name in the epilogue
Less "dumbing down" to American English of British idioms and slang in the later books















Things I guessed before they were revealed:
Snape
The exact location of the last thing Harry sought
The eventual roles of two major locations
Why two of his friends disappeared near the end

Things that angered and disgusted me:
the revelation about Harry's destiny
Harry's plan against the goblin

Things that annoyed me:
Albus Dumbledore's constant referring to his own apparent brilliance
How a character would say, "This must be the answer" and it was -- when I could think of a half dozen other plausible answers.
"He said, sycophantically." Come on. Who talks like that?

Things I wonder about:
Did JKR tell filmmakers what items or characters would be important in later books? Or did she leave it to chance that they would include the most significant bits of her incredibly long stories?













Right after reading book 6 I was depressed for a day. I dreaded the ending of book 7 and the end of the series.
The recurring theme of death in the Harry Potter books reminds me of my own losses, some of them connected to Harry, actually, and it's painful. And the world has put a huge investment of time into reading the books. I'm a slow reader (despite doing well in speed reading in college) and my list of books to read is longer than my list of books I want to write.

I can survive in a world without a new Harry Potter book on the way, but it'll take me a little time to get used to it.

Now, back to my own writing...

Santa Fe, the good and the bad

Santa Fe
revisited:
At left is
how it
affected
my body.
(Below is
how my
fellow
travellers
affected
my attitude)

Work in Progress

I've been working on a new book, for a younger audience than the Ellie McDoodle books. Here's a sneak peek at the protagonist. Sometimes she has a bit of an attitude -- like any normal kid, right? But she's creative and that's what makes her lovable.

More Santa Fe

New Mexico looks very different from Lansing, Michigan.
You can see the polka dot trees from the sky.











And the art is different, too.




I want to go back!

Harry Potter party!

I've been a Harry Potter fan since 1999, when a friend implored me to buy the first book because her family loved it and she knew mine would too. So I bought it, and we were hooked. We bought every book since then, usually on the day of issue.

This year I signed up to get the book at my local independent bookstore, but was intrigued by what the newspaper billed "The largest Harry Potter party in Michigan." My kids weren't available so I begged my reluctant husband to accompany me to it -- the Aria Bookstore Diagon Alley party in Howell, Michigan.

I picked him up from work at 10:30pm (he works crazy retail hours) with a picnic dinner and we drove to Howell, about a 45-minute drive.
It was worth it. Here's one of tonight's sketches:



(click to see it larger)
This is Aria Bookstore from across the street at midnight when they first opened the doors and let fans in to buy the book.

Charlie and I had fun walking the street and admiring the antique stores that were still open (for the party). Scavenger hunt questions dotted store fronts, and many stores featured Diagon Alley signs, props, and sidewalk drawings. It was pretty cool.
The way we see this, it's history.