M.J. Scott's Blog, page 25
January 16, 2015
An unexpected journey into watercolours
So here’s the thing, books and writing and reading will always be my first love. But these days, writing in particular is also a job. So I needed something to do just for the sheer fun of it again. I knit but knitting generally takes a fair whack of time to finish a project plus I have to be careful of my wrists and hands and knitting can be hard on those. Late in 2013, when I was finally starting to be mostly over the vertigo, I started to get a yen to play with pencils and paper and ink. The vertigo had killed knitting so I really hadn’t had much play time other than taking a few pictures for about a third of 2013. I think the muse wanted her colour fix. My writer brain likes playing with colour for some reason. And I’ve learned to pay attention when my writer brain starts to ask for something (Barbara Samuel blogged about this very thing recently). I try to do a few fun short courses each year to feed the muse new things. But still, the schedule was busy and I put it off a bit.
Then, out of the blue, I saw an ad for a one day watercolour workshop. Now, I did a bit of art at school as most Aussie kids did and I enjoyed it but it was never a big thing for me and I was never one of the kids who got told they were good at it by the art teachers. I’ve always doodled a bit but never thought I had any particular artistic ability. And my family isn’t exactly bulging with artists. My Mum’s mum could draw a bit but never really did and my uncle is an architect and that’s about it. Books were far more common a thing to be interested in. But for some reason, I thought “Watercolour, I’ve always liked watercolour, let’s give it a whirl”. By “liked” I mean, liked looking at rather than having ever even tried watercolour paint. I owned some dodgy watercolour pencils. So I booked. And then it got rescheduled until March.
And I was still getting the urge to draw. I started to look around online for blogs and info about watercolours (in true Virgo fashion, one must research!) So in sometime in January I pulled out my watercolour pencils and drew this:
To my surprise, it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t great but it was recognisable as the flower I was drawing. Go me! So I kept doing a little bit with coloured pencils and watercolour pencils until I did my watercolour workshop. Where I painted this (we focused on techniques and shapes in the workshop).
And I was kind of hooked. Something about the way the paint flows on the paper, and the way the colours mix (oh the way the colours mix) and the crazy things that happen by accident and the way it makes my brain go still just made me happy. So shortly after that workshop, I obtained my first set of watercolours.
Those are Daniel Smith tube paints in a Winsor and Newton palette I bought filled with student grade watercolour that I dumped. And then I found some online classes and signed up for an in person class too. And did some urban sketching (and some of that is a story for another time). And learned stuff.
And found out I could draw (though I’m still learning about that) and paint.
I even took my sketchbook on my travels and painted stuff (something I’d always thought would be cool).
If you’d asked me at the start of the year if I would have done that or spent hours painting and drawing and taking art classes and travelling to take art classes and becoming addicted to art supplies on top of my existing notebook problem, I would have probably laughed. But I did. And I’m convinced it helped me cope with the crazy writing and publishing schedule last year. Which only goes to show, sometimes you should follow that arrow wherever it points. Because you might just end up somewhere new and wonderful.
Anyone fallen into an unexpected hobby?
January 14, 2015
Back to work
Vacation is over and it’s back to day jobbing and getting my head back into the game of baseball and these guys and racking up the word count.
Time to torture the lovely Oliver Shields a bit and make him earn his happy ending. Poor guy, I kind of feel sorry for him. I’m also working on the page proofs for Lawless in Leather…less than four months until that one hits the shelves! Can’t wait. What’s keeping everyone busy this January?
January 12, 2015
Movie thoughts
So it’s almost the end of my lovely long Christmas vacation (sadness). I have managed to get to the movies twice (and hoping maybe to squeeze in the third Hobbit movie). I saw Into the Woods which I really enjoyed. I am a bit of a Sondheim fan and even though I’ve only seen the musical on TV (and probably only twice) it’s one I really love. I thought they did a great job at the adaptation and everyone sounded good and really, Chris Pine singing Agony was worth the price of admission. I love the playing with fairytales and the careful what you wish for theme. Plus Cinderella is one of my favourite fairytales, so it’s good to see a different take on her.
The other movie I went to see was Big Hero Six. Suffice to say that this is my first watercolour of the year, which should say something about how much I liked the movie.
Baymax love
I really really liked it. Liked the vision of the future, liked the celebration of being smart, loved the diversity, loved the fact that the girls were heroes too and not just girlfriends, loved that all the characters were individuals with different strengths and flaws and that those differences and interests formed the basis of their powers. And Baymax is just adorable. A huge squishy robot who just wants to look after you but can also fly? Sign me up please! Plus the animation was truly breathtaking in place. All in all, a big two thumbs up. What movies have you been watching? Or what are you looking forward to? I saw the trailer for the sequel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at Into The Woods and that looks good.
In other news, today is my ninth blog anniversary! Yay! I want to get back to blogging more, I miss nattering on about things and sharing my geeking out moments, photos, art (don’t think I’ve even talked about my discovery of watercolours in 2014 here) and whatever is occupying my magpie mind at the time. So hopefully more from me this year to take the blog into double digits.
January 9, 2015
And so it begins
Ten days into January and this pretty much sums up Melbourne’s weather…
aka too hot and sunny or way colder than summer should be. With stormy transitions.
My day job has taken an extra long Christmas break and because last year was very busy, I’ve also taken a bit of a break from writing. I’ve written a bit, but not every day. Instead I’ve been reading (glommed the October Daye series by Seanan Mcguire during December and over Christmas and am now reading the Grisha books by Leigh Bardugo and A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett), watching a bit of TV (Legend of Korra, Leverage and just starting Downton Abbey S5), watching movies (loved Big Hero Six), napping, listening to too much Taylor Swift (kidding, no such thing as too much Taylor), playing on the interwebs, learning how to use Photoshop Elements, listening to podcasts, catching up with friends and family, dealing with photo organisation (photobooks, albums and calendars), indulging in a bit of online and instore sale shopping and pottering around the house tidying up (did a big declutter last January which has mostly stuck but doing another pass to deal with stuff accumulated during the year). I’ve also been, in true Virgo fashion, thinking about last year and setting my goals and making plans for the year (and loving getting to start a new notebook for the new year…I have a lovely jade green Leuchtturm1917 dot grid on the go – stationery nerd heaven). . All in all it’s been lovely and I’m feeling relaxed and juuuust about ready to get stuck into the year. How about you? What are you planning for 2015?
December 31, 2014
A year in books #9
Yikes, that title makes me feel a bit old. Nine years of bloggage. Poor old blog has been a bit neglected this year as I’ve been so busy writing and launching books and doing various stuff. But I’m happy to report that my reading numbers have lifted back over the 100 books read (not counting audiobooks) after last year’s low due to vertigo. So in the spirit of keeping up with tradition and talking about my favourite subject, here are some of the books I really loved this year.
Captive Prince (Vol 1 & 2) by C.S. Pacat. Great M/M political twisty fantasy. Glommed it up then re-read it not long after.
Play by Kylie Scott (have enjoyed all three books in the series of excellent NA-ish rockstar romance but Mal is my fave. Can’t help it even if he is a drummer 
)
Dirty Rowdy Thing by Christina Lauren. Another great sexy NA-ish series.
Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan. Last book in a modern gothic fantasy series. May have been tears and I don’t say that often.
The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles. Dark victorian M/M fantasy of much goodness.
Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews. This series just keeps on getting better.
Stray by Andrea K. Host. Great YA sci fi which reminds me a bit of Dianna Wynne Jones
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. Just a lovely, gorgeous, brilliant fantasy. Oh that it would be a series. But it’s not.
The Honeymoon Trap by Kelly Hunter. Perfect brilliant romance. Now if only it was longer…
Satisfaction by Sarah Mayberry. More brilliant romance. Hot tattoo artist. What more can you want?
City of Jasmine by Deanna Raybourn. As much as I’ll miss Julia Grey, I’ve really enjoyed Deanna’s 1920′s books.
Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear. As always, great fantasy with a unique world.
There are more but I don’t want to make this the longest blog post ever, so will stop now. Here’s to another year of great books next year. What were your faves this year…anything I should add to the list?
(The photo, “Bookshelf Porn” is copyright (c) 2014 Jules Morgan and made available under an Attribution 2.0 Generic license)
December 30, 2014
Angel in Armani is out today
Just the thing for a nice relaxing read before New Year’s Eve My fifth book this year. Phew! It’s been kind of crazy but thank you to all you lovely readers out there! I hope you enjoy Sara and the lovely Lucas.
Get your copy here:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com.au
The Book Depository
Barnes and Noble
Bookworld (Aus)
Booktopia (Aus)
Aussie book stores
Rosemary’s Romance Books (Brisbane)
December 29, 2014
Tomorrow…
There’ll be a book! One last snippet to whet your appetite…
One last chance to pre-order:
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com.au
The Book Depository
Barnes and Noble
Bookworld (Aus)
Booktopia (Aus)
Aussie book stores
Rosemary’s Romance Books (Brisbane)
December 28, 2014
And a song
The Angel in Armani soundtrack morphed a bit. But here’s a song that’s kind of a Lucas song
Three more sleeps. Still time to pre-order.
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com.au
The Book Depository
Barnes and Noble
Bookworld (Aus)
Booktopia (Aus)
Aussie book stores
Rosemary’s Romance Books (Brisbane)
December 27, 2014
A snippet
Four more days to go…how about a snippet?
Have you pre-ordered? Buy links here.
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com.au
The Book Depository
Barnes and Noble
Bookworld (Aus)
Booktopia (Aus)
Aussie book stores
Rosemary’s Romance Books (Brisbane)
December 26, 2014
Five days to go
I hope you had a lovely Christmas and that Santa brought you some awesome books. But in case you have room left on the bookshelf or eReader…five days until this gal comes along to complicate Lucas’s life in Angel in Armani. Meet Sara Charles. Still time to pre-order!
For more info, buy links and an excerpt, visit my website.
