Ardyth DeBruyn's Blog, page 10

Occupy Sylvania

This last week the muse seems to be in hiding, so I've devoted more time to unpacking.  The best part of unpacking is working on the Sylvanians.  Since I've bought a lot of families since I last set up Sylvania, I realized right away I'd need more furniture.  However, this dictator-for-life of Sylvania has a rather limited amount of spending money at the moment.  Furniture costs per a room as much as a family if you get the actual Sylvanian stuff… and it's more fun and interesting to buy new families…

Thus we have an over-population problem.  This left me wondering… is furniture a basic right?  I might have a protest on my hands if I don't do something soon. So, after seeing some of the punch-out furniture for sale on Amazon for a reasonable amount, I thought I might try it.  One of the reviews suggested it was half the price at Michaels, so I waited until we went to Portland, and sure enough, for $5 at Michaels I could buy a kit that lets me make 30 pieces of wooden furniture.  It's government issue furniture!

It's a bit small for most of the figures, especially the chairs, but they fit the baby animals, and babies need chairs too, right?  They're easy to punch out and put together at least, and I plan to paint them before they go in use.

Considering I need somewhere besides Sylvanian Heights to set them up, I took a deep breath and started unpacking the boxes.  What a difference!  Some of Sylvania will definitely be living in style with these couches and beds.  However, the amount of families I stated finding in comparison to the number of houses in the boxes… well, let's just say the furniture is going to be the least of my problems, whether its an inalienably right or not.

I have as far as housing two schools (Sylvanian 1990s and Maple Town 1980s, a store, five houses and the four Sylvanian Heights apartments.  So, that's nine places to actually live and… how many families?

I've been skittish having a census because I've been afraid to find out how many figures are lost!  But I did anyway… and it turns out only four figures are lost out of a population of 224.  I'm not sure if it's coincidence two of the missing dibbuns (yes, all missing animals are babies) are Spike and Posy, two of the hedgehog quadruplets of Mossflower fame…

Still, population 224, ack!  And that's divided into about… 35 to 40 family groups depending on who lives with relatives… um, yeah.  Can we say massive house shortage, even if I get out the old beat up My Little Pony house I have yet to unpack and make the two house kits from my mother.

Speaking of which, they are as difficult to deal with as the furniture is easy.  Being older kits, they need to be sanded and glued.  Ack!  It took me all week to come across sandpaper, wood glue, and masking take as the instructions have requested.  I'm still a bit intimidated by the stacks of wood.  Sigh.

But if I don't get cracking, I have a feeling they Sylvanians will set up a tent settlement on me and start picketing.

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Also, I'm having an Easter Sale!  A School for Villains is 0.99 cents for a limited time on Amazon and B&N.

Lucky Seven Meme

My fellow author friend Michele Shriver tagged me with this and when I looked at it, it looked like fun, so I thought I'd do it.  Michele writes women's lit, and despite that not at all being my genre, I love her book.

Anyway, what I have to do is:

Go to p. 77 of current WIP

go to line 7

copy down next 7 lines/sentences & post them as they're written

Tag 7 other authors

Let them know

Now my WIP is completely unedited past the first four chapters… so in all its drafty glory.  This falls in the middle of the MC saying goodbye to a young monk she's friends  with just after she's become a nun and is going to be sent to protest her people's treatment to the emperor.

I still didn't know what to say; I had told the Eternal One I was poor at public speaking. He hadn't meant this, but if he was going to help me with the emperor, I needed him now too. And suddenly looking into Goba's eyes, I saw reflected there the same fire that had burned the prayer flags and on Windrunner's back. "Thank you for being such a good friend to me. May the eternal one bless you and lead you in everything you do."

Goba reached out and pulled my head to his, so our foreheads touched. His warm breath tingled against my cheeks, and somehow it was far more intimate an action between us than any of Jaemian's kisses.

Now, seven other terrific authors I know, mostly from my critique groups!   But all seven of these writers have either a great blog to read or a fun novel out.  Check them out if it suits you.

Laura Pauling

Marva Dasef

TL Gray

Katie W. Stewart

Penny Noyce

Marti Norton

Nayuleska

 

 

 

 

There Be Mountains

Closing in on my second week in Hood River, I've been watching for mountains.  The first week, one morning when driving Ben to work, there across the Columbia was suddenly a mountain I had no idea was there before.  Sure, I've been told there's views of mountains, but that's not the same as suddenly between the lower mountain sides of the gorge, there is suddenly a huge volcanic peak where there has only up until that point, be clouds.  And not a small one, but an enormous one.

I sort of did a double take and went, oh my, that's large.  And then promptly didn't see it again for another week.  We had wind, snow, but even on sunny days, heavy clouds surrounding the gorge.

Having seen the pictures online of Hood River, I knew the mountain, Mount Hood, had to be around here somewhere… where I wasn't sure, because the other directions were even cloudier than the gorge.  Days went by, some with a glimpse of the other mountain (Mt. Adams? Or is that Mt. Baker? Never can keep them straight), but still no sign of the town's namesake.  Some days I wondered if it was a myth and the pictures online photoshopped.

Today started with heavy mists (Ben sings the new Misty Mountain song from the Hobbit every day when driving to work when they come into view) so I didn't think today would be the day, but suddenly I came around the bend in front of my house, and there it was.  A massive mountain, brilliant in the light of dawn.  Rather shockingly beautiful.

Determined to capture the moment, I went for my camera when I got back from taking Ben to work, but already the insidious clouds of winter have started in.  Now the mountain is gone again.  But I'm evilly pleased to have at least finally found it, and have a good view of it within half a block of my house.  The trees in the park get in the way as far as my actual view from my window goes.

More Moving… and Sylvanian Heights

So, last week blogging (and nothing else) happened due to moving.  Now I'm still living in a sea of boxes, but at least I have a couch and internet, and that's what counts, right?

In the middle of doing boring things like trying to find the potato peeler or the tray that holds the silverware, I've decided to take a few peaceful moments to start unpacking the sylvanians. I  haven't seen most of them in something like ten years, so it's almost like getting brand new things.  And having a second bedroom I now have a place to do it.

Now, I should mention, that I have a slightly cynical streak when it comes to Sylvania, and always have.  For example, due to lack of money, some of the families are only partial families… with relatives dead or divorced… and sometimes orphan children that get adopted into unmatching families… but then sometimes when I get the right family for the child, the parent who had the child had to give it up to its proper parents.  Such are the hazards of adoption (I remember the baby Jessica fiasco on the news was happening around this time as a major influence).  And don't get me started on the not-really-sylvanians-but-off-brand-animal getto, where they get the smaller houses and not as nice furniture.

I remember trying to explain this to some adult who was horrified, and said something to the effect of, in a play world, shouldn't everything be ideal and perfect?  Why recreate the misery of real life?

Bah!  That's no fun.

So, as Sylvania forms again… we start off with only the school house, where most (but not all) the refugees were packed.  It was a small and light box, so I was able to grab it (and am still missing most of the other boxes of stuff since they were up in my parent's attic and didn't make the moving truck).  Ever since all of Sylvania was destroyed in some epic disaster, everyone has been crowded together, unsure who else had survived, so now they get to come out and see who else has made it.

Many families are incomplete.  Everyone's worried but the final verdict isn't in either, so maybe more people have survived.  There's a few new figures, so they at least can have some happy reunions with their long lost family members.

Now, the only proper house to make it in the initial move, besides the school building, is a shelf my uncle made of cheap apartment housing.  The four shelf levels are divided into two rooms each, with a doorway.  The decorative panel on the shelf is cracked from its years as a bookshelf and moving around, but has survived in decent condition.  Considering I live now on the Hood River "heights," I decided to rename the whole apartment Sylvanian Heights.

These are very simple accommodations, at the height of Sylvania when I was young, poorer families resided there, but right now are at a premium, as they are the only building available.  So, four families won an apartment by semi-random selection.  I picked two newer families, two older families, and they had to be ones I knew I had all the members to someplace.

The Deer family and the Sugar Bear family won from the new ones, and the Fox and Beagle family from the older ones (1990′s Calico Critters).  Most of them have no furnature, as I only found a few meager pieces, but everyone's excited to have won the housing lottery.

Everyone else has to camp out by the school house at least until next weekend, at which point hopefully I can talk my husband into believing me the most important items to be brought next are the rest of Sylvania.  The trouble is, the one real doll house, the original one that belongs to my very first family (the Raccoon from the 1980s) is huge.  Its beautiful, but it might not fit this first trip with so many other things still to bring.  Whenever it makes it though, it still belongs to the Raccoon.

The 1% of Sylvania may have to wait a little longer on the refugee list.  I guess money can't buy you everything right away in this world… a little unrealistic. I have to have a little fantasy somewhere in here, right?

Literal Character Building, the Newberry Hunt, and Hood River

As my husband's job search started seriously encroaching on my life this week, I ended up doing a lot of not-exactly-writing activities.  It's more a stress issue than a time issue, which means in my off times I need something physical and somewhat relaxing to do, as in a craft, rather than writing.

Never one for doing the same thing twice, I decided to take a break from the Sylvanian wardrobe and instead tackle character building.  And by literal I mean out of sculpy.

I've had the idea for a long time, inspired by my roll-playing (yes, I'm a geek) with some of my characters with a friend.  My character and hers in an overly geekish geekiness have decided what they like to do best is meditate together.  Hers is a Buddhist nun and mine is a troll priest, so I suppose there is some basis for the craziness (just slightly).  Anyway, I've always been a fan of little praying monk statues, both Eastern and Western, so I thought I'd try my hand at making the two of them, Buddha style, but with a twist.

I wanted to make them able to hold hands.  Logistically, you can hold hands up and down or side to side, and that meant their hands might look a little funny when separate so after a lot of consideration I decided to give each of them one hand up and one hand down, so they'd fit together but not look too crazy on their own.  Plus, it sort of puts them on equal footing.

I'm a bit out of practice so that the sculpting was a bit tricky, especially the faces.  I was a bit discouraged first that Nyima looks like a boy (until I noticed all pictures of Buddhist nuns look rather boy-like for us usually reading "girl" by the hair) and even more discouraged at Kathul's fur (gah! stupid fur!).  He ended up a bit too tall for his ears and I still feel like his face isn't quite right (this is the drawing version of him) but close enough for a first attempt.

These figures are solid, but I think I'll put tin-foil in them next time, I had a little crack in the sides from cooking them, but the paint covered it up since it was pretty small.  At this point, I feel pretty pleased with them, although I have new admiration for all the factory workers in China who paint toys.  My goodness painting the details was tricky.

I also tried to start my Newberry practice program I talked about last week.  I discovered, however, that Newberry books from the 1920s are hard to come by.  The library had neither "The History of Mankind" nor any of the 1922 Newberry honor books.  There were hardly any of the rest of the books from the 1920s forcing me to give up my idea of going in order.  I haven't yet decided I want to own all the Newberry books, but suspect if I'm going to read them all I'm probably going to have to buy them all to find them.

So, banishing the plans of a chronological approach I just took home a stack of a bunch of the ones I haven't yet read.  Reading them is easy (on the third one) but how to practice with them? A much more difficult question.  I thought about trying to rewrite some of them or parts of them like Benjamin Franklin, however, fiction is very different from essay writing.  Styles very so much and I feel like while not stunning, my style is at least solid.  The styles of the Newberry books range so drastically, it makes me think it might scatter my brain a bit to try to copy them all, not to mention it doesn't begin to touch on some of the things I care the most about in good fiction. Character development, plot, theme, tension, or symbolism.  Fiction is complicated.

This time, however, the library was actually helpful, in the for of Donald Maas's "Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook."  This thing just oozes practice. I grabbed it to help structure one of my rough drafts but got ancy after two exercises.  Hello, sounds like piano practice type annoying-ness to me (never could sit still for those 30 min I was supposed to practice).  And I can't say I'm raring to work that hard, which means its perfect.  If I do the exercises with each Newberry book I will figure out why these books won, vs other similar books.

And it will be that much easier to put my own book through the workbook and see how it measures up.  Maas has done a lot of research for me on what makes a terrific book, the Newberry books are sure to have all his elements, and so while it sounds like way too much work, I'm also excited to have a plan.  To make myself do it, I'm going to aim for 30 min a day working through it.

That will be extra hard though, because my husband has just landed a terrific job in Hood River (He graduated in December with a degree in Electrical Engineering.)  So we're moving!  Ack!  It's exciting and a bit terrifying of a prospect, especially for having done so much of it lately between school and his internships.  I get to go apartment hunting most of this week, then moving as soon as possible.  Still, I can't think of a more gorgeous place for a writer to live. Mountains, waterfalls, the Columbia, and all the massive amount of weather of various types that moves through it. I hope to spend a lot of time hiking around between writing (that whole sitting kills you thing) and can't wait to get all settled in.

Also, I've joined "Read an E-book Week" promotional sale on Smashwords.  You can pick up "A School for Villains" at 50% off through March 10th.

The Power of Practice

My mother brought home a fascinating book that she got in the airport while looking for something to read on her recent vacation called Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin.  While the title is purposely provocative, I think a more accurate description of what it is about would be "practice makes perfect."  The book looks at how top performers of music, chess, and sports all practice, how practice effects their brain, and why its necessary to be truly great at anything.

Even if there's a lot of duh practice makes you better, the book does a great job of showing how a specific sort of focused practice works while doing the same thing over and over does.  You have to constantly critique yourself, evaluate your performance, and keep trying to improve specific pieces of it.

One of the most fascinating sections of the book for me though, was the section on Benjamin Franklin and how he taught himself to write.  As a teenager, after his father gave him a critique about his argument writing, pointing out what was good and what needed improvement, a rather normal sort of critique you might get at a writing workshop online, if you find a good one.  But instead of just using this advice, like I've done (to generally good effect), Franklin decided to chose several well-known and excellent essays above him in craft and use them in a fascinating new way to practice and grow his writing.

While reading the essay he would take notes on the meaning of each sentence, then several days later, try to reconstruct the essay from his notes in his own words.  The compare it to the original and look for his faults and how to fix them.  One area he found he was lacking in was vocabulary, so he rewrote the essay into verse next, then back into prose, and then again compared it to the original.  To work on organization, he would write each note on a separate piece of paper, shuffle them, and waited a few weeks until he forgot the essay, then tried to order and rewrite it as best he could and compare again to the original.

I've consider the idea of how to "practice writing like music" before and only came up with possibly sentence diagramming as something like musical scales (and then never tried it), so I was really amazed and pleased to read this approach.  There's a few problems taking it over to fiction.  First, the elements that make a good fiction novel are more widely varied.  Secondly, I remember what I really exceedingly well, so I'm not sure a few days/weeks would be enough to make me forget the actual way it was worded, especially when taking notes.  I've had to edit out sentences now and then from my work that sound too much the same to something I once read (even if it was unconnected and long ago).

Still, Franklin's method is inspiring.  I could design my own practice program doing something similar.  My brain is still humming about it… tossing about possibilities.  Sentence diagramming is still a good idea, but for plot, characterization, narrative tone, description, theme, symbolism, etc I'm going to need a lot more tools.

First though… who am I learning from?  Writing varies greatly.  I was stuck a little while, since I want to find my own voice, not just end up like writer x or y… but then I hit on it.  What I'd like more than anything is to win a Newberry Award, so what I should do is I should read all the Newberry books out there and pick them apart with my various tools, find out what make them tick.  While all very different, they all represent works that won the top award in their field, the field I want to be great in.

This week my task will be to figure out precisely what I'm going to do that qualifies as practice with each Newberry winner, and get a copy from the library of the earliest ones.  Then hopefully I can refine my learning program as I make my way through them and really improve some of my basic writing skills.  I do know I'm going to start in 1922 and work my way to the present, through all of them.   And I'm know I'm faced for some difficult practice ahead when that means my first book is going to be the dubiously titled: The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem van Loon.  That's certainly not one I'd have picked up for any other reason than this project.

 

Sylvanians, Twitter, and two book reviews

Writing itself has sort of gotten stuffed to the back of my closet the last week as I've tried to push through other things, including "Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength" a book recommended to me by Merc (an excellent read) and more of "Getting Things Done" which has seemed to result in me getting a ton of things done, but all of them non-writing things I'm forever putting off.

One of the excellent points the book makes is that a cluttered space lowers our willpower.  People in a messy lab scored lower on quizzes or accomplishing things than people in a tidy lab.

One of these things was to go look at our stuff in the attic that my husband and I are storing at my parent's house, only to find the roof leaked on it, which meant sorting all of it before they get back from their vacation.  I've spent the last three days rather astounded at some of the stuff I've saved… (old movie tickets from high school? really? and those old striped sheets, eww, I don't know how I ever liked them)

Then finding some of the stuff has inspired some of my other hobbies emerging once again…

I've collected Sylvanians for years… small animal dolls that were hugely popular  in the 1980s, and apparently stayed popular (unknown to me) in Japan, which is why they resurfaced later renamed in the US anyway, as Calico Critters.

I keep telling myself I have enough of them (does a collector really ever have enough) but then would see some here and there and fall in love with them.  Well, i found a pack of used ones at Value Village the other day and just had to have them.  Most of them, however, lacked clothing.  So, I tried to sew some… and got some rather iffy results (the first shirt looks more like those things they make you put on at the emergency room).  While the green dress looks alright from the front, it doesn't close in the back either.

Store clothes compared with mine.

After turning to the internet for help I finally found some patterns.  While the instructions are all in Japanese, the pictures are easy enough to follow and you can see a huge difference in my new results.  The shirt both fits and closes in the back and the dress looks remarkably like the store made ones, which pleases me.

I also finally figured out Twitter… I mean I know it's not supposed to be complicated, you just follow people and type very very short messages, but I sort of felt lost by the whole format.  I did find a group on She Writes of self-published women who were all posting Twitter handles though, and so by adding them I finally got the sense of the why to Twitter.  Everyone was so nice and friendly when I added them.  It helps they also decided to copy Google plus in their format, which threw me off at first but then made it easier to find things. I'm looking forward to staying connected with a great group of authors.

Also, I received a wonderful review from Gina, Diane Saleri's daughter on her blog In High Spirits and another great review from Good Book Alert last week.  I'm thrilled they enjoyed it so much.

Perhaps all this productivity will finally this week translate into some writing.  That'd be nice.  I'm partway through a novella connected to "A School for Villains" that I'd like to finish and start on its way to publication.

Milledgeville Misfit

I'm really excited to host another author excerpt, from one of my other critique partners, TL Gray.  I saw the very first draft of "Milledgeville Misfit" several years ago and instantly loved it, so I'm really excited it's finally published.  I hope you enjoy this excerpt from it!

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Author Bio:

Remember how late night ghost stories had you jumping at every shadow and sent you diving under the covers with every bump, scratch and screech in the night? Or how about those legends that took you away on a magical adventure where you overcame unimaginable obstacles to save the day?

More than likely, it was someone like author T.L Gray who told you the tales that got your imagination so stirred. The only difference, this spinner of tales has decided to write those stories down so everyone else can share in the experience.

Blog: http://www.tlgray.blogspot.com/

Author website: http://www.tlgray.net

Publisher website: http://www.vabella.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorTLGray

Google+: https://plus.google.com/109314409124476095020

Twitter Handle: @AuthorTLGray

book trailer:



Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Milledgeville-Misfit-ebook/dp/B0073Z0TM4

Back Cover Blurb:

Fourteen-year old Juniper "Junebug" Summerville loses her parents and her ability to talk in a car accident. Against her silent protests, she is sent to live in a remote swampland infamous for its ghosts, federal prison and insane asylum.

As Junebug struggles with her emotional scars, she begins to heal with help from six other orphans at Dearborn, a once famous Milledgeville Plantation. Just as she begins to enjoy the peace she's long desired, she finds herself in a fight for her sanity when she stumbles upon a tear in the fabric that separates the possible from the impossible, and she must choose which to believe.

Excerpt: The Milledgeville Diner

Stumbling up the few steps of the wooden porch in front of the diner, I reached to open the door. It gave me a surprise as it swung out toward me causing me to nearly jump from my skin. An elderly man walked out.

He smiled at me, revealing a wad of chewing tobacco amongst his few spacey, browned teeth. Two words…tooth paste. I grimaced and walked past him and into the diner.

Cold air swept across my face and I felt the few beads of sweat cool in their tracks. I stepped up to the counter. Looking around in surprise, I noticed a full house. Where did all these people come from? I didn't see any cars out front.

My gaze fell onto a young family huddled in the corner booth. Hmm… they sure are dressed funny. I mean, I know I'm in the backwoods, but I don't remember jumping into a Delorean with a Flux Capacitor. The father sported a white, starch-stiff shirt and a pair of plaid pants, like something right out of the 50's. He stood tall and handsome, with his hair slicked back. Sticking out of his back pocket poked a can of Dapper Dan hair grease. His wife looked like June Cleaver's doppelganger, as she fussed over the Gerber baby wiping away some oatmeal that dripped out of its mouth.

The dad looked over and smiled at me. When I smiled back, his countenance fell and his eyes widened. What's wrong with him? Hadn't anybody ever showed him their pearly whites before? The way he stared at me made Goosebumps pop up all over my arms and the hair on the back of my neck prickle, like a cat with a bad case of static electricity.

I scanned the rest of the room, looking for Caseworker Lady and I let out a sigh of relief when I saw her exit the restroom. She looked out of place and

a scowl of disgust crossed her face, curling her lip and scrunching her brows. She took a quick glance around the room and then met me at the counter.

"There's no sense getting anything here. We're only a couple of miles from your new home and I'm sure your aunt and uncle will have something for you to eat there." She slid on a pair of black driving gloves. "Besides, if the condition of the powder room is any indication, it doesn't look like they do a lot of business here. There's no telling what kind of food they serve."

I leaned ever-so-slowly to the side and looked past her at the crowd of people. Why would she say they don't do a lot of business… the place is packed? I shrugged my shoulders and followed her to the door. Maybe the heat's fried her brains.

A few miles was all that stood between me and my new prison. What if they're mean? What if they're crazy? Milledgeville had a reputation for being filled

with psychos because of the prison for the mentally insane located just outside of town. I crawled into the backseat of the car, secured my safety belt and held my hands clasped together to try to keep them from shaking. It didn't work. Not only did my hands sweat and shiver, but my legs twitched uncontrollably against the back of the passenger's seat.

Organizing and Post-novel Ennui

I spent most of January working on a new novel, which has led to a slow start of February as far as writing goes.  I decided to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award again this year (I got called lamentable by Publisher Weekly last time, I guess the person who got my novel wasn't into humor) and so decided to polish up my historical YA novel for the contest.  Even with a bad review, if I'm lucky, it gets the novel polished and out on submission.  Most of January I was quite busy with it, and put it as a priority over everything.

Naturally, I knew that would mean a crash when I finally got it in. I've noticed that after intensely working on a novel I need a break of varying length after I finish before I can focus again on moving on.  Maybe some people move straight from one to novel to the next, but most of the writers I know also experience at least some degree of post-novel ennui.  You've put so much work and energy and focus into one story, it's hard to move on, and I'm not a person who only writes "when I feel like it."  I've just noticed the resistance to working moves from a grumble to a solid concrete wall during these times.

So instead of fighting it, for once I tried scheduling it.  It felt weird, but what I found was, I didn't even feel like looking at the computer (past some gaming) during most of it.  Instead I mostly read Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity by David Allen.  I checked it out from the library, but since I had to use a hold to get it, I had a sneaking suspicion the person I "took" it from would put it on hold as soon as I got it, so I'd only have the two weeks to read it.  That helped me focus on getting through it.  I still wish I'd had more time, but I at least got far enough to get going on my new organizational system (the book is on hold again).

To supplement trying to get my marketing under control, I've decided to also do the Talest Social Media Check-up series ( free email series overview on blogging and social media).  I'm still rather flailing, so it's less of a check-up and more of a how can I organize my efforts that results in a marketing plan that actually works… but hopefully it gets easier the longer I do this.

I suppose because marketing and blogging both are related to writing, I find them no easier than starting my next novel (was supposed to on the 1st, but still haven't managed).  So, after the library took the book back I found myself doing some other completely non-computer related things… like papercutting, sewing, and puzzles.  Which would all be great, if now that I've had my two weeks of rest, writing would magically happen.

The muse so far has put up a roaring fight on that front. The force of trying to get myself to move on now that my scheduled break is over has so far has at least produced a clean room, clean laundry, all my old papers sorted, and my car registration completed.  What's next… the garage? Hmm, maybe my next novel does sound better than that.  That garage is pretty scary.

 

Meet My Illustrator — Leo DeBruyn

My illustrator, Leo DeBruyn has decided to formally start offering illustration and cover design services for sale.  You can take a look at his website here.  As well as showing off some of the art he's done for me, I've interviewed him today.  I have to say, I've been thrilled with his art for "A School for Villains" and I'm saving up so he can illustrate book 2 for me as well.

What's the best part of what you do?

My favorite part of the illustration process is probably the early composition stage, where I pick out the colors and shapes, define the negative space, and adjust the framing of the image. If I can make it exciting and interesting at that point, I know that the final image will be good. Later, changes will be more costly, but at the start I can try all sorts of different things. A close runner up is when I'm adding the details at the end. At that point, I already like the image and I'm just making it better. I am a bit of a perfectionist, so I will keep tweaking until I am satisfied.

What's your favorite style of illustration? Which mediums do you prefer?

I like variety, but generally gravitate toward colorful images that are believable but not ultra-realistic. I want them to have charm and be visually interesting.

Overall, I prefer digital illustration because of the freedom that it gives me and the time it saves. These days, everything ends up digital, so it saves a few steps if you start out that way. The power of layers lets me experiment and easily mask things off– saving a ton of time. And of course, undo works better than any eraser yet invented.

When I am not working digitally, my favorite medium is crayons on paper. I like the brightness of the colors, and the versatility. You can sharpen them down to a fine point or put them on their side and fill in a space. And they are cheap, so you can have buckets of them and just play around. If you apply them in layers, you can get a very smooth and brilliant layer of wax that has a wonderful sense of depth and radiance to it. And you can also mix them with wax-based colored pencils if you need more detail. Plus, it's kind of a kick to see people's reaction when you take materials most people associate with children and do something that impresses them.

What's your favorite thing to draw?

As a kid, I preferred animals. In art school, I went to the zoo a lot, and some of my favorite drawings were of penguins and bears, using a Japanese brush that allowed me to capture the entire animal with a couple of brush strokes. Since animals move around a lot, it was a great way to capture them quickly before they changed poses. I also like drawing people and interesting architecture, especially castles and spacecraft. Dragons and armor are always fun, too.

Who are some illustrators you admire or have inspired your work?

I love the work of many illustrators. Some of them have influenced how I draw, others just inspire me and fire up my imagination. My mother is an illustrator and definitely had a large impact on my style. Other illustrators that I enjoy include Maurice Sendak, Dr. Seuss, Leo and Diane Dillon, Quentin Blake, James Marshall, and William Steig. There are so many more, but I'm not going to turn this into an epic list.

For your personal work, where do you find inspiration?

Stories inspire me. That's really what illustration is all about. A story comes to life in an illustration. I like to read a lot, and I have even done illustrations of my own life story in various diaries and journals over the years.

The human form also inspires me. What is amazing about it is that human beings love images of people, but they are really hard to get right because we have an innate understanding of the human form that makes us notice even tiny details that are wrong. It also subtly informs our idea of beauty and ugliness in everything, even inanimate objects. I have found the human body to be both inspiring and challenging. Drawing it makes me into a better artist every time, even if my next piece of work has no people in it.

Elaborate on your education, experience and skills.

I grew up drawing and painting in a very creative home. My mother is an artist and my siblings and I spent a lot of time creating art with her as children. When I grew up, I went to art school and studied computer animation. That is what really got me going with digital illustration. But I also spent a fair amount of time working with traditional media. Some other mediums that I enjoy are acrylic paint, wood and linoleum block prints, paper cutting and folding, and sculpting in clay, wire, and paper.

While I have produced a lot of art over the years, I haven't done a lot of commercial illustration because I've been so busy designing video games for the last decade. I am trying to focus more on my art now because I really enjoy it and want to live a more balanced creative life.

For digital art, what programs do you use?

I use Photoshop, GIMP, Inkscape, Flash, Blender… it all depends on what I'm making and where I happen to be at the moment. I work in both vector and raster images, depending on the style and needs of the project.

What services do you offer and what are your rates? What are looking for in a project?

Currently I'm offering cover creation services. This can range from a simple layout and graphic design for your e-book cover using stock photos, to a full blown print-resolution cover with a custom illustration. Since I'm relatively new to this, and I'd like to work with up and coming authors, I am trying to keep my rates reasonable. All of my work is entirely custom (I don't use templates), so your price will depend on what your needs are.

For example, an e-book cover with your name and title on it in a nice-looking font and color scheme, with a photo image, might be around $50, plus whatever the photo costs to license. If you have your own photo, or want me to find you a free royalty-free image, then there'd be no extra charge for the picture.

On the other end of the spectrum, a print-resolution cover with all the same layout and typography, as well as a highly detailed custom digital illustration containing an iconic scene or image from your book may cost you $400, depending on how detailed of an image you want. I can also do it in a different medium if you prefer. Really like woodblock prints? How about a photo of an origami bird floating on the water? Just let me know what you're thinking and I'll give you a quote.

I'd also like to point out that while I enjoy being creative, my ultimate goal with illustration is to please my client. I don't mind doing an image in a particular style that you really like. If there's another image out there that you like the look of and you want something similar, send a link to me and I'll see what I can do.

Tell us about your non-illustration projects. What else do you enjoy doing?

I'm a game designer, so I spend a lot of time making video games. Some of this is basically programming, but sometimes it involves creating art. Just in the last few weeks I started playing around with something called

NeoTextureEdit to make procedural images of wood and stone surfaces for a game. It's almost a game in and of itself tweaking knobs and typing numbers to create art.

I also enjoy writing. I'm hoping to get some of my own stories published soon.

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