Stalled out but not down

So I've been puttering around with no less than twelve pretty serious works in progress.
I had settled that my last year's NaNo would be cut down into a short story, but then I stalled out into making some serious decisions for my characters and I just did not feel like that was organic enough to address.
Then I have this huge math book project and I couldn't decide whether or not to put work samples in or not. But that was actually a 'little' problem compared to getting information in there correctly. That project is slowly coming together.
I have six geography projects in progress. The problem there is trying to gather enough research to be credible. Plus all the map illustrations are currently still in progress.
Then there's my newest Stick Figure book. Yes! I have another Stick Figure book in progress. Today's breakthrough there was actually really profound. I'm partnered into an art class this last part of the term and today we introduced proportional facial feature drawing. And all the information I learned nearly twenty-five years ago came back. Unlike my last Stick Figure book, which was based on Shakespeare, it's a lot harder when the same character is at the center of the story and his outward appearance changes because it's literally years of abuse his body takes in the story. So how do you know it's this guy and not another guy? It's the face. It will always be the face. I finally had a breakthrough about facial shapes looking at the options given. I reviewed classical proportions, appropriate due to the content of the book, and was reminded the stress of facial expressions had in classical sculptures. On the plus side, it's also encouraging me to draw larger, which is all right, I can have a few views of much more detailed faces.
There are assorted works of fiction and non-fiction all demanding different attentions from me and I still have yet to address them all. But I will. And I need to publish this summer because I don't know when I'll have a chance ever again.

Things that make me want to quit

I've been really working on focusing on one part of a project at a time. It helps prevent the waterfall of emotion that comes with looking at the list of books I want to release over the next five years.

Today, for example, I finished the first draft of a new Stick Figure book. I don't have illustrations yet. I just put text together. I haven't figured out how I'm going to handle quotations because of the way this particular story is set up. But the whole story is laid out finally, in a feasible framework.

Over the next year, I hope to start drawing the characters I expect will be in the story and then illustrating the story as I go through.

I sat back, I enjoyed finishing that draft. I put it away. I'm not interested in dealing with that text until next summer. It can sit on back up until then.

Then I moved onto scanning all the illustrations I created. Unlike other times I've illustrated books, especially books I'm publishing, I didn't need that list. Well guess what, I needed that list.

Illustration problems: you go out of your way and create what you think should at least be 55 original drawings for your written work (which is still in the research phase, but the Illustrations are very important to the final product which in early test phases are probably going to be spread out over two books. You spend an hour scanning these original pieces of art to add into your text after digitally adding color. You count your scanned works in the folder. There are 52. 5 of which you can verify immediately as to what they are illustrations of. The remainder will have to individually be checked off a list you thought you didn't need to create. After this series is released: I need to take some serious time off illustration because this drives me nuts.

 I suppose I could always apply and try to get this manuscript taken and published "for real" but I would still have the issues of incomplete data and the fact that everything is just too dense in the real world for the subject matter I create.

Meanwhile, I'm carefully cropping and preparing the illustrations I do have, trying not to go figure out which drawings I'm missing. Who am I kidding? I will be doing that tomorrow.

Four Hour Work Window

Because it is summer time, in order to conserve electricity for more important uses like air conditioning, I tend to only have a four hour work window. This is from around eight in the morning until noon. During this time I also have things like doctor appointments, getting things set up for the work day, or other errands that tend to occupy my time.

So, those are pretty big stumbling blocks considering I've only been out of official work since Thursday afternoon. But apparently chipping away at a revised edition since last September has finally paid off. Six days after getting out of work: one book is at the 99% completion mark as per my publisher's requirements right now.

Some things I regret about the second edition: I pulled out the beautiful, yet useless, map art work pages. There were ten pages dedicated to just pure artwork. And it took some convincing on my part to let those pages go. They were pretty, as far as computer art without depth goes. But since they didn't really contribute to the book, and they were taking up valuable physical space, they were pulled. I also removed over fifteen pages of communication icons. Those were useful, however, due to the nature of the publisher I am using, I can't leave more than two pages blank and then, the communication icons wouldn't be as accessible as possible. However, they are published through another website and are easily purchased for a few dollars.

I also took advantage of some formatting changes and aligned the glossary to look more like the glossary of the Just the Words series and the upcoming books that may partner with Finding It in the World: Geography.

But I'm pretty excited. I should be able to "sell" the book soon. Meanwhile, my four hour work window has closed. Time for me to find non-electronic work to focus on.

Two books, one summer, and onto other things

First, don't let the title scare you. I'm going to keep going here.

But my "paying job" has begun. I use the paying term losely. While I make more than minumum wage, I shouldn't complain as I am employed, but I honestly don't make enough at a shade under 40 hours a week to be successful and financially careful.

But here to announce book #2 of this summer: The Bard In Stick Figures. It has 130 illustrations, of which 110 are original illustrations. By the third story, I had a really good method for getting the characters into the scene and into position.

It includes both interpretation and direct quotes.

I might be able to re-release that book I wrote last summer in a second edition, but not before December.

I've started the first new books, prepping for release next summer.

This life of publishing is awesome.

Onto NaNoWriMo.

What it's like to solve problems when you're a writer AND an illustrator

My primary background is in graphics. Which is odd because I have this degree that says I can build things that people can live and work in. But the thing I walked away having learned and evaluated the most of, was simply graphics. The visual way of convincing someone I'm right. If I can fool you with what you're looking at, then I've done a good job. And I need to do it in the most professional way possible.

So when I moved into the world of illustration for Project Beta for ParaEducate, it was sort of a no brainer. Part of the beauty of "Bard in Stick Figures" is that it literally looks slapped together. this accomplishes two things.  The first is reminding my primary target audience, that some of our work needs to be "slapped together" at the last minute. The second is addressing the fear most people have about drawing. If I had a penny for every time someone said, "I'm not very good at drawing"; I'd be insanely rich at this point.

But even though I had finally gotten the text together for the new book, I had been dragging my feet on the illustrations. And I would have really loved to have the book out already. But such is the life of the author/illustrator/publisher. And I couldn't figure out why. I even started flipping through the original text which I was using to work from to help generate ideas. I thought I might have been too true to the original text [wholly possible as I spent many years in theatrical sets], I thought I didn't understand the text [wholly possible as it is Shakespeare], and I thought maybe this just wasn't as cool as I thought it could be.

One of the signs that bothered me was the book was only 80 pages long (40 pages published). Ambitious yes, but not impossible. But when it comes to publishing, this means that it's going to be really tiny. I thought about adding another section to the book, but then I realized, that I couldn't handle the pages where there were actual conversations. And this made me not want to finish the book. Unlike the first second where conversations weren't really a major element of the story, the other plays I had chosen to illustrate were all wrapped in conversations between characters. And then I realized, conversations happen over multiple pages through the illustrations--like a comic book.. Poof. My book is now extraordinarily viable at around 150 pages with illustrations (which means around 75 pages published).

Of course, I'm not sure how this will translate to publication as there are file restriction limits. But I don't care the book is working out finally. Yes that does mean the illustration count has moved proportionally so of 150 pages, 140 pages are original illustrations. But that's okay. I figured out how to solve the issues for the remaining two of three sections.

To give you an idea of how excited I am that this is possible and I'm making progress: I just finished 5 illustrations since 7 AM. While Facebooking, blogging, and spending 30 minutes walking to the Post Office and back (and not illustrating). Yeah. That means that this is the solution.