Andrew Peterson's Blog, page 53

Last Night's Sketches: A Ship and a Sheik

Okay, so I'm still on this drawing kick. I was up late last night watching that same sword-swinging movie on Netflix (it was a Swedish film called Arn, if you must know–not a great film, but the cinematography was excellent).

This time I made sure and sharpened my pencils. And so you don't think I'm totally shirking on my writing duties, I'm still cranking away at The Monster in the Hollows. In fact, that's what I'm going to do right this minute. Adios, amoebas.

Sketches and Progress

Hello, folks. It's Monday and I'm back in the writing chair. I spent some time drawing this weekend, so I thought I'd share a few of the pictures. After Jamie and the kids go to bed I usually stay up answering emails, reading, watching movies, or drawing. This weekend I figured out a way to do two at once.

I was watching some random sword-swinging movie and decided to pause it on a few of the striking shots and draw what was on the screen. It gave me a chance to study lighting, especially on faces. I'm most definitely an amateur at this, but it's good for me to exercise this particular creative muscle. Not only do I enjoy it for its own sake, but I want to get my chops up so I can illustrate The Monster in the Hollows.

As for the writing, I'm in the thick of chapter 20. I'm making good progress, and getting close to a few scenes I've had in mind since the start of the story seven years ago. Thanks for reading!

AP

(Click on the pictures to zoom in a little.)

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This one's my favorite. The horse and the bearded dude both look old and archaic, partly because when I turned the sketchpad over to draw the next one it got pleasantly smudged.

The sheik on the left was sitting at a campfire, so it was good to study the lighting. It bugs me that his eyes are too high.

This guy doesn't look anything like the dude I was actually trying to draw, but he still looks like he could beat me up.

By now my pencils were all dull, and I was too sleepy to get up and sharpen them. That's partly why it looks so cartoony compared to the others.

Sled! Or Be Boring

Well, I officially got no writing done today. That's the bad news. The good news is, I woke to the sound of my children gasping at the four inches of snow blanketing the Warren this morning.

In my song "You Came So Close" I mention a line about the winter in Nashville being "gray without a trace of snow", and that's usually true. But every winter we get at least a dusting (which melts in a matter of hours)–and if we're lucky, we get enough to sled on. And that, ladies and germs, is something this Florida boy doesn't take lightly. (Nor did I fall lightly when I tried sledding down the hill while standing up. My whole body still hurts, and I can't remember who the President is. But it was awesome and very awesome, I tell you.)

Today I ate Jamie's famous cream of chicken and wild rice soup for lunch and dinner, sipped coffee and hot cocoa, sledded, came in to warm my toes, sledded some more, and got walloped twice in the face during a snowball fight. If that ain't a reason to hang up writing for a day, I don't know what is.

Plus, the woods made me think of Lantern Waste. Because I am a nerd. (Unabashedly so.)

Here are a few more pictures I took:

A Month of Adventuring

Dear Readers,

I'm sitting by a fire on my deck. No, the deck isn't burning. The fire is nicely contained in a chimnea from Lowe's, and while it's an attractive bit of kiln work it isn't doing a very good job of keeping me warm. It's dusk, and for some reason there are thousands of cedar waxwings, house sparrows, cowbirds, and starlings flying over me, heading north as if they have somewhere important to be. A bird council, maybe, or a worm and seed buffet.

About a hundred yards away my son Aedan is standing at the base of an old dead white oak trying to snap a picture of a kestrel perched on a high branch. He keeps a journal of bird sightings and always records the time of day, and after a week or so he realized the kestrel shows up every day between 4 and 4:45 p.m. So you see, it's not so far-fetched that the birds flying over are keeping an appointment.

The things I'm describing are part of the reason I'm writing the Wingfeather Saga. I love to play music. I hope I never have to stop. I enjoy everything from the creative process to the traveling to the concerts themselves, except for one significant thing: leaving my family and my home. It's true I have some wanderlust. Jamie will tell you I get antsy after a few weeks at home and itch to hit the road for a day or two with the family or the band. But as soon as I'm gone I miss the rhythm of home life. I miss the changes in the color of morning at the Warren. I miss the fluctuation in my children's moods from giddy to melancholy and everything in between. I miss reading together. I miss a regular quiet time in the morning (it's really hard for me to keep up with it on the road, when every day is different).

So several years ago I started writing these books not just because I love telling stories, but because I hoped it would lead to more time at home. I hoped it would lead to conversations with my children about Janner, Kalmar, and Leeli Igiby and their search for a place of rest. I hoped I would sink into the routine of my family life in a way that I can't when every several days I have to pack my back and catch a plane (which I'm really thankful to be able to do). Well, guess what? I don't have a single tour date this month. That doesn't mean I have a month off, mind you. It does mean I'm setting my alarm for the same time every morning. It means I can help Jamie and the kids around the house a little more. It means I can be at church every Sunday. As for work, it means I can climb the hill behind the house every day and light up my imagination, here where my imagination is well-fed. It means I can keep an eye out for that kestrel every afternoon.

Thank you, dear readers, for your letters of encouragement and your many comments after concerts. I aim to try and tell you a great story, and your support of the Wingfeather books is allowing me to give it my best. I'm on chapter 15 of The Monster in the Hollows, and will be Tweeting updates every day, should you care to follow my progress. If all goes as planned, the book will release in mid- to late-April.

Happy Twenty-eleven.

AP

Two More!

Jim Hamilton, a theology professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has fine taste in books. (Ahem.)  He posted this picture of Podo Helmer on his blog. He claims his little boy drew it, but I'm not sure I believe him.

After my post, either Jim or his son was inspired to draw this one too, from the end of North! Or Be Eaten.

Thanks for the drawings, young (or old) Hamilton!

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Some Pictures by Readers

Dear Reader,

Here are a few pictures emailed to me at Andrew@WingfeatherSaga.com. As always, clicking on the picture lets you zoom in. This one is of Maraly Weaver, one of my favorite characters. (I hope to bump into her in Monster in the Hollows.) Great job, Marie Vande Hey!

Here's one from 13-year-old Bryan Zahn, of the scene where the Igibys are at Peet's treehouse. In the email, Bryan's mom said it was the scene the oldest of 11 of their kids (!) were working on for a drama project. I'd love to see that, too. Thank you, Bryan!

These next two are by a young man I met in New York this Fall. His name is Jonathan Dunlop, and these are just two of several great pictures he emailed me. The first is of Peet battling the Fangs at Anklejelly Manor, and the second is his take on the elusive (and horrifying) Cave Blat.

This one is another of my favorites, by Bridget. SPOILER ALERT! This is from the scene where Tink is reaching for the hand of the Stone Keeper, and Artham is reaching for Tink. A big moment in the story.

And last but not least, here's another from Jonathan Dunlop. This is Podo and Peet the Sock Man fighting the Fangs in Glipwood. I love all the detail.Great work, folks. I love getting emails like these. That my story has made its way into each of your imaginations is something I take very seriously–it's a great honor, and I mean to honor you back by telling the very best story I can. As soon as I post this I'm heading up the hill to my little cabin to hammer out the next chapter in book three. Thanks for all the encouragement.

A Song from the Green Hollows: "The Boatwright's Daughter"

It's been so long since I've updated the dear old Wingfeather Saga page, I thought I'd share some of yesterday's work with you. I wrote this lyric for a scene in chapter five. The words are to be sung to an old Hollish whistleharp tune. Here it is in all its strange glory:

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THE BOATWRIGHT'S DAUGHTER

I'll come to you in the wintertime

When the fruit of the Fall is fading

I'll bring a barrel of apple wine

As long as your love is waiting

But oh! the sorrow a sailor sees

Whenever he meets your father

He's mean as a swarm of deadly bees

He'll cut off your legs right at the knees

It does no good to beg him please

To marry his only daughter

But I'll come to you in the spring of the year

When the bud and the bloom is growing

And I'll drive an ox to plow, my dear

And ready the field for sowing

But oh! the sorrow a sailor knows

Whenever he meets your father

He reeks of the sweat between his toes

The roaches gather wherever he goes

And never a man will ever propose

To marry his only daughter

Yet I'll come to you in the summertime

When the grass in the hollow is swaying

We'll nibble the grapes and clementines

And look at the children playing

But oh! the sorrow a sailor weeps

Whenever he meets your father

He picks his nose when he's asleep

He's big as a cow and smart as a sheep

I pray the Maker my soul to keep

I love his only daughter

So I'll come to you when I'm old and gray

I'll sail from over the water

I'll lay a rose at your father's grave

THEN I'll marry his only daughter

A Map of the Warren

Yesterday my little girl turned eight.

She invited nine of her friends over for the party, and made one request of her dear ol' dad. She wanted me to come up with a treasure hunt on the property, complete with a map. I've done this for several of the kids' birthdays, and I'm always excited to dust off the sketchpad and come up with something fun. Here's the map (the clues were written on the back). By the way, it led them eventually to our dog Moondog, who had a key on his collar that opened u...

Questions? Mysteries? Loose Ends?

In answer to a few questions:

1) Yes, I'm related to the A.S. Peterson who wrote the swashbuckling adventure tale The Fiddler's Gun. He's my brother. He started his two-book epic Fin's Revolution (which concludes this December in Fiddler's Green) right about the same time I started On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. He's three years older than me, and in a bout of brotherly competition we challenged each other to finally get around to writing that book we'd always talked about writing...

A Picture of Leeli

I doodled this today on the porch. Don't ask me what she's doing. Or why the wind is blowing so hard. Or why she's barefoot. For some reason in every picture I've ever drawn of Leeli she's barefoot. She's not in the stories, so don't read too much into it. I also don't know why she's holding her whistleharp, or why her crutch is too short, or why she looks afraid, or why, in the words of my son Asher (10), she looks like she has to go to the bathroom. I'm no Justin Gerard. It is what it is.

In...