I'm free

and it feels so good. I am writing... writing... writing... writing and will only respond and reply to positive vibrations. Happiness is a warm author/illustrator.

And I miss my art so much... so much. So much. But I must clean up the messy (always) workspace and make love to my illustrations.

And...

Keep loving and seeing and reading:

A Snowy Day

The Polar Express

Madlenka

Skippyjon Jones

Madeline

Alexander and the..........................................

And of course Where the Wild Things Are

and mush them all together and you got me.....little old me. And a new story using qualities of all these books...I am writing A Christmas Story (No, not the movie)...Yes, a Christmas Story. The continuation of an existing story that I love to death. And it is working as I follow the plot structure of the initial book. That helps a lot. A lot. It is gonna be good. :)

I ask myself what are the things about these above books that haunt me, nag at me and bring me to my five and then I try like the dickens to put them in my writing and art. You can't go wrong with that. And you can't pull books out of the air. It has to come from inside and what you remember and how it affected you as that child. You have to remember and then improvise/exaggerate/delight to the benefit of the story and the reader you hope to engage. You MUST engage.

And then there is the premise. Now I always try to get the premise down first and the end next, and then I plot with one thing happening after another. And the emotion bit just comes from me. That is the easiest thing for me to achieve. Maybe because I am too emotional and I care too much. Can you ever care too much? I think not. I don't think you can ever care enough. I ramble.

Little old book.

Finished first draft of first page :) And you write and you write and  you make it work. You make everything in the plot tie together. Everything.