Andrew Peterson's Blog, page 51

A Grand Adventure

We happened upon this store in Stockholm, and I thought, “So THAT’S where Podo gets his peg leg fitted!”

Greetings from Orebro, Sweden! I wanted to give you an update on The Warden and the Wolf King, so here it is: I’m working on it. I’m in the middle of an adventure with my sweet family, partly to do some concerts, partly to rejuvenate, and partly to finish this book. I’m doing a tour of Sweden and the United Kingdom this summer, and my hope is to get the book finished here in the company of castles and viking ruins. I don’t have much else to say, except that I can’t wait to see how this story ends. We’re going to start our Kickstarter campaign very soon, so keep a close eye on the blog. Beware of toothy cows.

Back to writing,

AP

UPDATE: The Warden and the Wolf King

Oy, Dear Readers!

I would apologize for the long silence, if that long silence didn’t mean I had been working on the new book. I’ve written up to chapter 23, which is when everybody finds out that Gnag is actually not a bad man, just a bad wizard, and someone named Dorothy and her lion friend tell the Jewels that there’s a space/time portal under Anniera and they zap themselves to the 1950′s and save Marty McFly’s parents from never meeting right before destroying the One Ring.

Over the years I have learned that there will always be at least one person out there who will read this and think, “Really?” For that person’s sake: the previous paragraph was a joke. Except for the part about having actually written up to chapter 23. And I’m so excited about that part. I’ve got some pretty cool news regarding the illustrations for the book, which I’ll announce soon and very soon, and we’ve even got a tentative release date, which we’ll announce soon and very, very soon.

If you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook (my Facebook artist page, that is), now’s the time. As I write chapters I often include the last sentence or a word count, just to prove to you guys that I’m not sitting around. It’s easier for me to do a quick update there than to write a whole blog entry, especially when my fingers are sore from typing. Now that my latest tour is almost over, I’m shifting into high gear on the book, which is intimidating and exciting all at once. I can’t wait to tell you this story.

Now, I need your help. We’re going to put together a fun promotional video for the Wingfeather Saga which will feature a collage of videos from kids and grownups alike, telling us what you like about the books, who your favorite character is, maybe acting out a scene, giving us your best Fang snarl or your best Podo “Arr!” Upload it to YouTube or Vimeo, then email the link to info@rabbitroom.com with the subject line WINGFEATHER VIDEO. Keep it simple, but be as creative as you like.

Thanks, folks!

AP

 

The Sketch is in the Mail

Not only is it after Halloween, but Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s have come and gone–but I’m happy to tell you costume contest winners that at long last the sketches are finished, packaged, and ready for delivery in tomorrow’s mail. My apologies for taking so long to finish up the project. I’ll think twice next time I decide to mail out so many drawings–part of the problem is that I had so few that were decent enough to give away as prizes, and it was hard to find time to draw more! Anyway, here are the pictures, for your viewing pleasure. The winners will have to wait and see who gets which one.

Back to writing The Warden and the Wolf King!

Costume Contest Winners

Okay, the last time I put on a contest I regretted it. Why? Because it was so terribly hard to choose a single winner. Below are the submissions, in no particular order, so you can see what a tough decision this was.

First we have Matt and Amanda Marlin, with their dog Loki, dressed as a very fashionable (and very bearded) Janner, Leeli (with a whistleharp and crutch), and a convincing Kalmar (boasting an actual tail). Nice.

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This is Lydia Townsend, as Leeli–also with an impressively homemade crutch. I dig the addition of Tiny Nugget.

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Here’s the description of the next kids, written by their mom: “Carter, age 7, wanted to be Slarb the Fang. Sydney is 6 and she wanted to be Leeli. (She specifically asked for a crutch that said “Lizard Kicker” on it, then remembered that Leeli doesn’t get it until after their encounter with Slarb, so she went back and found that she needed purple flowers. She also pointed out that it was Leeli’s right foot that was twisted, and asked that I note these two details when writing you.) Camelia is 4 and she wanted to be Nugget. It was a hard choice for her, as she found a grey wolf costume in her size and contemplated being a Grey Fang, but ultimately decided she wanted to be good, not bad.”

Great job, guys! Bonus points for attention to detail.

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Now presenting Merrick Hedlund (13) as the Florid Sword. Avast! Aha! I would love to hear Merrick’s accent.

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And Merrick’s sister Miranda Hedlund (21) terrified the world as the Stone Keeper. Appropriately creepy.

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This one is especially cool, because we have not just Nugget with a cutout of Leeli on his back, BUT…



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…the little guy’s actual, bona fide, on-his-birth-certificate name is Janner! Janner Forrester (2). He’s the second Janner I’ve met this year, which makes me happy and freaked out in equal measure.



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And here’s Janner as Nugget with his dad Andrew as Peet the Sock Man. Awesome.

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This is Grace Beasley as Leeli, also with a custom crutch and whistleharp. Beautiful! If I were shooting a Wingfeather film this week (and, sadly, I’m not), I’d cast Grace as Leeli immediately.

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Finally, as a sort of honorable mention because though she didn’t dress up as a character in the books, she dressed as a Hollish sailor and invented a whole Wingfeather Saga backstory for the character, I present Savanna DeWolf as Bryllen Tate.

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There you go! Thank you all for reading the books and going to all the trouble to put these costumes together. I can’t tell you how weird it is to think up these characters and then see real-live versions of them. Tonight after the concert I finally (with the help of my buddy Andy Gullahorn) chose the winners.

Fourth place: a tie between Loki, Matt, Amanda, Miranda, and Savanna

Third place: a tie between Lydia Townsend and Merrick Hedlund

Second place: a tie between Carter/Sydney/Camelia, and Janner Forrester

First place goes to Grace Beasley!

Congratulations, folks. Here’s the scoop with prizes. Grace wins a sketch and a signed deluxe edition of Light for the Lost Boy. Since second and third places had ties, I decided to go ahead and draw something for each of the winners (meaning the Cook kids get one sketch, Janner gets one, as do Lydia and Merrick). That’s five sketches, which means I’d better get busy. I should remind you that a) I’m not a real artist–only a hack, b) it will take me until next week to get them finished, c) the drawing will be on a 6×8 sheet of sketch paper, ripped straight from my 6×8 Strathmore sketchbook, and d) the drawing might be of a Skreean or Dangish creature, the very sight of which might curdle your milk. Okay? Okay. All you guys have to do is send your address to andrew at wingfeathersaga dot com. This is important: put “Wingfeather Contest” in the subject line so your email doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. If you guys in fourth place send me your address we’ll put something in the mail to you, too.

Thanks again! This was fun. Back to work on The Warden and the Wolf King.

AP

Happy Octoberween! (A Contest!)

This drawing is from the beginning of book one, submitted by Gabrielle Girard (13). She said, “My picture is of breakfast in the snug Igiby cottage, the sunny morning Podo stomps in with a sack of wriggling thwaps.  Leeli is pleading with Podo not to dump them into the dark sea, and two little thwaps are spying on them from the doorway.” Great work, Gabrielle!

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Folks, it’s one of my favorite times of the year: leaves changing and leaves crunching underfoot, firepits (like the one I’m sitting beside right now), pumpkins, soups, sweaters, and the sense that creation is getting ready for bed. Another thing I get excited about is trick-or-treating with my family. Last year I dressed up as a ridiculously obese G.K. Chesterton, while Jamie dressed as Princess Leia. This year my daughter is a farm girl (with bubba teeth) and my boys have strangely decided with their buddies to go as a gang of sugar cubes–that’s right: sugar cubes. They’re painting refrigerator boxes white and roving the neighborhood as (I’ll say it again) sugar cubes. Terrifying, I know.

Someone in Illinois told me their son was dressing up as a Fang of Dang, and (after I begged for a picture) I had this crazy idea to host a little Wingfeather contest. So if you’re the type who dresses up for a certain night of neighborly fun, then dress up as a Wingfeather creature or character, email me a picture of your costume at andrew@wingfeather.com, and I’ll choose three winners. The grand prize is a deluxe edition of my new record Light for the Lost Boy, plus a signed, original sketch by yours truly of something in the Wingfeather universe. Second and third places will receive sketches, too. That’s three drawings I’ll be doing in the near future. Unlike the last Wingfeather contest, in which it took me nearly a year to complete the drawing, I promise to get it to you in early November (this also means it won’t be a full-on drawing; rather, it will be a sketch, which is less than a work of art and more than a doodle).

Email me the picture by November 4, and I’ll announce the winners that night. Have fun and be safe!

P.S. I know you may be thinking, “Why is he drawing Wingfeather pictures instead of working on The Warden and the Wolf King?” The answer: drawing is one of the best ways I know to sink back into Aerwiar. I’ve been in music mode for most of the year, so this is one of the ways I shift gears. Never fear! Book four is soon to be underway.

Friends! Skreeans! Countrymen!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here, and my only excuse is a good one: I’ve been working hard on music for most of the year. Music and bees. And pumpkins and butternut squash. You see, I finished up the actual recording of Light for the Lost Boy sometime in the late spring, eager to get started on the final Wingfeather book. But instead of getting started, I planted seeds and inspected the beehive and spent a lot of great quality time with my family. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote quite a bit, and mostly made notes on all the aspects of the saga that I need to address. But for the most part I allowed myself to recuperate from the two Steven Curtis Chapman tours and the writing and recording of a new album; the season wore me out completely, and I missed my family a lot. (They missed me, too.)

Then sometime in July, the hard drive on my computer had to die. And I mean dead. It was actually rattling like a maraca. I lost about six months of work, Wingfeather Saga and otherwise. So let this be a lesson to you all: IF YOU’RE EVER WRITING A BOOK, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER EVERY FIFTEEN SECONDS. Here’s the weird thing: I didn’t mind so much. For some reason I was relieved. It was as if God was saying, “Hey, kid. Take a break. You don’t want to write a lousy book, do you? Then rest a while, and write it when you’re ready.”

Now it’s September, and I’m happy to tell you that my newest album is officially out in the world. It’s been set loose. That means I’ll be touring and interviews and doing all I can to tell people about this new batch of songs. Hopefully, once the tour starts and I’m rolling across America in a bus, I’ll pop open my computer and rewrite the first several chapters–and hopefully they’ll be better than the first attempt. In the meantime, please head to iTunes, Amazon, or (preferably) the Rabbit Room to pick up Light for the Lost Boy. Hopefully it’ll tide you over until the spring.

As always, thanks for reading! I’ve gotten a few great drawings from fans lately, and I’ll post them as soon as I’m able.

An Update and a Drawing from a Fan

Dear Reader,

I’m writing from the dregs of summer. The weather at the Warren has been in the mid- to upper-nineties for weeks, and there’s been very little rain. I’ve managed to keep the pumpkin patch watered, but there’s too much corn to spray. I went to check on my poor thirsty stalks this morning and saw, to my delight, silvery-green tassels bursting from a few of the crooks. That tells me the roots are getting enough water from the soil without my help, and it won’t be long before I see beautiful new ears of corn in the garden, drought or no drought. Why am I surprised?

That brings me to The Warden and the Wolf King. One could argue that I’m only writing this post because I’m procrastinating. Well, the corn in the garden reminds me that things take time, and grow at their own speed. I’m not procrastinating as much as percolating. I’m not ignoring the story–I’m waiting for it. The crazy part about writing a book is that a lot of the work is done not just when you’re banging words out on the computer, but when you’re doing the dishes, riding your bike, reading your bible, and eating dinner. On the other hand, no amount of thinking can take the place of banging words out. We plant the seeds, but God makes them grow. Spirit and flesh.

All that to say, I’m working on the new book. Can’t wait for you to read it.

I was tending to old emails this morning and found one from 12-year-old Maggie Rice, which included an excellent drawing of Chimney Hill that I wanted to share with you guys. Thanks for reading, Maggie! This picture is so good.

Announcing the Arrival of the North! Or Be Eaten Audiobook

I’m sitting here in amazement that after more than a year of recording, editing, and mastering, the North! Or Be Eaten audiobook is here. I know I told you guys that it would be here a long time ago, back in 2011 when Englishman Peter Sandon was sending us files from his London studio. But then life started happening, and more than that, we at Rabbit Room Press discovered that putting together an audiobook is a lot more work–A LOT MORE WORK–than we could have imagined.

But it’s here. It’ll be on iTunes in the next few weeks, but for now you’ll have to head straight to the Rabbit Room and download it. Thanks, folks! Happy listening.

The Great Library of Ban Rona

Patient Readers,

At long last, I finished the drawing for Will Silander, whose Lego stop-motion film won last year’s review contest for The Monster in the Hollows. (Click here if you want to relive its awesomeness.) Last week I found the time to tackle drawing that intimidating tree and delivered the finished product to Will a few days ago. Jim Hamilton and family, your print of the drawing will be making its way to you later this week. Here’s a photo of the picture:

I’m putting the finishing touches on Light for the Lost Boy, my newest album, then it’s Wingfeather Saga, all day, every day. Can’t wait to get cranking on this next book. Stay tuned, because there’s another fun announcement in a few days. Something about a North! Or Be Eaten audiobook, maybe?

Gratefully,

AP

Bricks and Feathers: An Update for Will

I was able to carve out a few hours Monday afternoon to work on the drawing. I had no idea how to convey the stonework of the library's face, and to be honest, I was dreading having to draw every brick. As I said in the last post, I had too little patience when I was a kid.

But to my surprise, I figured out a way to make the building look like it was of hewn stone, not of a zillion identical bricks (like the left side where the tree is), and it didn't take as long as I feared. That's the good news. The bad news is, I like how the new stonework looks so much that I really ought to go back and use the same approach on the left side. Patience. Patience. PATIENCE.

Speaking of patience, I drew quite a bit of inspiration from a documentary I stumbled onto from Netflix, about John James Audobon, the famed bird artist. It kept me company while I worked on this, and helped me to appreciate not only how amazing his bird paintings are, but the value of details. The historians in the documentary marveled at the way he drew or painted every single strand of every single feather on every single bird–thousands and thousands of lines. So I guess I shouldn't complain about a few bricks here and there.

I'll be home all weekend, and I hope to find another chunk of time to finish this up. Soon and very soon, Silanders and Hamiltons.

AP