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I've sold an illustration! It's a drawing of my daughter following a cat down the sidewalk, and the SCBWI Bulletin bought it. It's not the first one they've bought, but I'm still waiting to see either of them in print. Still, it feels good to get that outside, nonbiased assessment. I wish there were more avenues for selling single illustrations. Novels are my passion, but I'd like to develop my illustration, too, and selling individual pictures seems like a good way to keep things simmering while I do all the up-front, urgent things.
It's October 3, der Tag der deutschen Einheit (Unification Day, celebrating the reunion of the BRD and the DDR into a single Germany). As usually happens on German holidays, public transit runs on a restricted schedule, and it's raining. I made sure everyone's homework was done yesterday so we could go on an outing, and the weather is nasty. It doesn't help that DH has a conference in a couple weeks and is spending the day getting his presentation in shape. So it's being a sit-in-bed-and read day for some of us, and a draw-next-to-mama day for others, and a gawk-at-the-TV-day for yet others. (It's language learning, really! The boys' teachers even suggested they watch more TV.)
For me, I'm making breakthroughs on my second novel. Yay! I'm nearly 5000 words into it now, and I've got a pretty clear idea of what's up next for the next couple chapters. (I've also got a whole-book plan, but I like leaving the details open.) I'm really tempted to just plow on with the writing, since the little people seem okay with that right now, but I know I've got to do some serious character work first. I came up with a fun idea (to me, anyway, and at this point, I'm the only one who's read it), but I still need to work out some of the rules for the characters, limit power of some of the more powerful characters, etc. Also a ton of research into setting, but that can come later if it has to. Right now I need to get the story down.
All this is very good right now. Since the agents I've queried on novel #1 have response times averaging 3 minutes to never, I neeeeed something to keep me from checking the mail every few minutes. I love my characters, and can't help feeling anxious about them. I want someone else to fall in love with them, too! I have to keep telling myself that I've done the best I could with them, and now I just need to back away and let them stand on their own.
Okay, back to work!
It's October 3, der Tag der deutschen Einheit (Unification Day, celebrating the reunion of the BRD and the DDR into a single Germany). As usually happens on German holidays, public transit runs on a restricted schedule, and it's raining. I made sure everyone's homework was done yesterday so we could go on an outing, and the weather is nasty. It doesn't help that DH has a conference in a couple weeks and is spending the day getting his presentation in shape. So it's being a sit-in-bed-and read day for some of us, and a draw-next-to-mama day for others, and a gawk-at-the-TV-day for yet others. (It's language learning, really! The boys' teachers even suggested they watch more TV.)
For me, I'm making breakthroughs on my second novel. Yay! I'm nearly 5000 words into it now, and I've got a pretty clear idea of what's up next for the next couple chapters. (I've also got a whole-book plan, but I like leaving the details open.) I'm really tempted to just plow on with the writing, since the little people seem okay with that right now, but I know I've got to do some serious character work first. I came up with a fun idea (to me, anyway, and at this point, I'm the only one who's read it), but I still need to work out some of the rules for the characters, limit power of some of the more powerful characters, etc. Also a ton of research into setting, but that can come later if it has to. Right now I need to get the story down.
All this is very good right now. Since the agents I've queried on novel #1 have response times averaging 3 minutes to never, I neeeeed something to keep me from checking the mail every few minutes. I love my characters, and can't help feeling anxious about them. I want someone else to fall in love with them, too! I have to keep telling myself that I've done the best I could with them, and now I just need to back away and let them stand on their own.
Okay, back to work!
