Posts Tagged ‘art’
next book in the Meniscus Series: the illustrations
For the last two days, I have been in a drawing mood. Not many authors illustrate their books (not including those who work on graphic novels), but I love this part of the process.
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I have had lots of discussions with readers about the right and wrong of illustrating. Some think it takes away from the reader’s wonderful ability to imagine characters and scenes. Others think the illustrations take a reader deeper into the author’s intentions. As an author, I think drawings help get my ideas across. Since my books are told as narrative poetry, my words tend to be vary spare and I think of the drawings as extensions of the narrative.
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I include two types of drawings in my books: portraits of the characters and sketches of the action.
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The portraits are useful to me as a writer. They help fix the character’s face so the image does not migrate from book to book. I am really proud of the portraits and looking at them inspires my writing.
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I am also proud of some of my drawings of scenes from my books. When the drawing is close to the idea I want to portray, sometimes it suggests new details in the text. Some drawings are not so good but I rarely re-draw. Instead, I think of these as representative of the weirdness of planet Meniscus. It reminds me of a line from my favorite TV show Lost. Daniel Faraday, on his first visit to the island says,
The light… it’s strange out here, isn’t it? It’s kind of like, it doesn’t, it doesn’t scatter quite right.”
On Meniscus, the pencil doesn’t behave quite right.
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In every book, there are 23 +/- 4 drawings. Some are portraits or repeats of earlier scenes. Today, I did two drawings, both unique to Meniscus: The Knife.
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All my best,
staying home
and staying in my two-family bubble,
Jane
next book in the Meniscus Series: the Cast of Characters
Other writers often ask me about the use of a beta reader. Of course, I value their input and listen carefully to any suggestions about the book they have just read for me. In a series like Meniscus, the suggestions of the beta reader often help me more with the next book. Sometimes the suggestion has to do with the storyline or a particular character. Sometimes it is a suggestion that becomes integral to the whole series.
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When she read Book Two of the Series, Meniscus: South from Sintha, my beta reader Carol suggested adding a short description of each character in a compendium at the end of each book. I began to do this for the next book and now every book has a Cast of Characters.
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Since some of my characters are aliens, I group the characters as Humans, Argenops (benevolent furry creatures), Dock-winders (self-serving overlords), Gel-heads (unlikeable minions), and Others (animal companions and other sentient aliens).
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In the Cast of Characters I include information on the character’s role in the story, the character’s age, where the character lived on Earth, what they were doing when the Dock-winders harvested them, what Earth year they were taken, their occupation on Earth, their occupation on Meniscus and sometimes their motivation, faults or wants.
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Here is an example, a character description of Zachary, a carpenter and an important citizen of Themble Hill:
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Sometimes I wish I could change the character description a bit to suit the story, but I try not to do that. I also include all of the characters mentioned in all of the books to date although they may not appear in the current book. So far, I have 41 characters, major and minor, who have appeared in the various books.
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All my best,
staying home and keeping in my two-family bubble,
Jane
a glimpse of sickle moon
I am so happy to announce my poetry manuscript, ‘a glimpse of sickle moon,’ has won Third Place in the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick (WFNB) Competition for the Alfred G. Bailey Prize for a poetry manuscript.
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I’d like to extend huge congratulations to First Place winner of the Bailey Prize, Kathy Mac, and Second Place winner, Roger Moore. I cannot be jealous of these winners because they are, respectively, members of my two writing groups: Wolf Tree Writers and Fictional Friends.
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Roger Moore has also won Third Place in the WFNB Narrative Non-fiction Prize and First Place in the WFNB Competition for the David Adams Richards Prize for a fiction manuscript. I am also proud of another of my Fictional Friends, Neil Sampson, who won Third Place in the David Adams Richards Prize for a fiction manuscript.
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And to all the other winners, some of whom are good friends, congratulations!
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My manuscript, ‘a glimpse of sickle moon,’ includes 56 poems about nature, arranged according to the seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall. For every four poems, a year rolls by, so the manuscript covers 14 years of seasons!
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Here is the title poem, about the andirons in front of our fireplace.
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andiron
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wrought owl with amber eyes
perches on the hearth
hears a call in the forest
three hoots and silence
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great-horned owl, light gathered
at the back of its eyes
the oscillating branch
after wings expand and beat
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iron owl longs for a glimpse
of sickle moon
shadow of a mouse
sorting through dry leaves
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in this cramped space
night woods decanted
fibre and bark, fire and sparks
luminous eyes
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The next step will be to complete some drawings for the poems and add the manuscript to the poetry manuscripts I intend to publish.
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All my best, especially to the winners of the WFNB Competition.
I am staying at home,
and in my two family bubble.
Jane
final touches
So, after a month of organizing and sorting the poems in my ‘forty-years-of-writing bone pile,’ I have three illustrated books of poetry ready for the next step:
‘niche’ – poems about the spaces occupied by plants and animals, including humans, as they search for home. A good friend of mine has written the Foreword for ‘niche’ and I am looking forward to adding his name to the cover.
‘blueberries and mink: summers on my grandfather’s farm’ – poems about life on the farm and the changes over the years.
‘ghosts are lonely here’ – poems about abandoned buildings and other elements of the countryside.
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Now that I have everything sorted, I know I have more collections to work on, but this is enough for now. My computer is more organized than it has been in years..
The next step in the process is to request Proofs. Once I get these proofs, I will do one more round of edits and make a few final decisions on formatting. Then I will publish them, using KDP. I have no intention of marketing these. I will get enough copies for family and friends who would like to read them.
Requesting Proofs is tricky right now. Amazon has turned its efforts to making and shipping Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). I don’t mind being patient.
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Sample drawings from the three poetry books:
All my best
Staying in my bubble!
Jane
illustrating poetry
I am in the process of creating several books of poetry from the many poems I have written over the years. I am now working on the third book, poems about life on my grandfather’s farm. The title will be ‘blueberries and mink’ since these were the main products of the farm.
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There are about forty poems in this collection. I have decided how I will order the poems and done much of the formatting. Since I illustrate the books I write, the next task is to pair the poems with drawings I have done.
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For some poems, as I wrote, I had an image in my head that my hands could draw. A good example is the poem ‘patience.’ One of the lines describes ‘staring down a cow.’ The drawing was fun to do.
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In some cases, a drawing I did for another purpose will find a home in my ‘blueberries and mink’ manuscript. An example is the drawing of old pop bottles I did for a blog post a few years ago. These bottles look much like the ones that used to sit on a window ledge in a shed at my grandfather’s farm.
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Once I have inserted the formatted drawings into the book, I have to make sure they are distributed evenly through the book. Sometimes a poem and its drawing can be relocated. Sometimes I have to do another drawing to fill a gap.
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Next, from the drawings, I have to pick one for the cover of the book. I want the covers for these books to be similar in style with the book title and author name superimposed.
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A couple of the possible covers I am working on are shown below.
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all my best,
staying home,
Jane
Stay Home
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Don’t know how many times
I can say it.
Stay home!”
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“Stay home?
What are you talking about?
I am rooted to the ground.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“You can’t fool me.
I know you’ve been sneaking around.
Letting your roots grow
into all kinds of places.
Communicating with other trees.”
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“What are you talking about?
My tap root grows deep.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“You can’t fool me.
I know you’ve been sneaking around.
Letting your leaves drop,
blow all over the woods.
Mixing with those of other trees.”
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“What are you talking about?
Can’t help it if my leaves are dry.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“You can’t fool me.
I know you’ve been
conspiring with squirrels.
Spreading your acorns
all over the woods.
Mingling with other trees.”
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“What are you talking about?
I can’t be responsible
for what my children do.
All I can do is
Stay Home.”
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“All I can do
is repeat myself.
Stay Home.”
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All my best,
Jane
Staying Home!
raddit
Rabbits have always been a part of my life. When I was young, in Alberta, rabbits (the white-tailed jackrabbit) overran the prairie and almost every evening, you could look out on the lawn and see them grazing. In New Brunswick, we often see rabbits (the snowshoe hare) along the roadside.
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When I was in Grade One, I was asked to submit my scribbler for a contest. The teacher, Mrs. MacDonald, said two things about my scribbler. First, I should look at my spelling of ‘rabbit.’ It occurred many times in the scribbler and everywhere I had spelled it ‘raddit.’ Second, she said to use an eraser to make the corrections. “Do not wet your finger and try to take out the two ds. It will leave a hole in your paper.”
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I had no eraser. And I wanted to win the scribbler contest. The teacher had mentioned the use of a wet finger as an eraser. Perhaps it would work. So I wet my finger and rubbed at the ds. You guessed it, I ended up with a hole in the scribbler page. I did not win the contest.
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twitch
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grass, bent after rain
underside in dark, topside
rinsed in moonlight where
eight brown rabbits lope
from perimeter of prairie
eager for a nibble of green,
nip of delirium, dancing
in moonlight, whiskers
liberated to brush
cheeks in mobile
shadow, to make
transparent, long
ears, vein-lined
twitch, stand
erect, ear
hairs scan
for two-
or four-
legged
danger
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All my best,
staying home,
Jane
ice
As I go over the many poems I have written over the years, I find a lot of poems about ice. Ice is very poem-worthy. It glitters and drips. It is cold and changes form. Icicles make great popsicles (if they are dripping from a clean surface). Ice can be a metaphor for emotion, life experience, change, danger, and so on.
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Today we had a high of 7 degrees C and all the snow and ice are melting. Not really sad to see them go this year.
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river ice
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builds in shallows
at the rim of river, incremental
embellishment to transparent sheets
of glass, ice envelopes winter
remnants, reeds and willows
thickness increased as frost
penetrates, sharp edges
cauterized by cold
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freezing rain
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trees, bare branches, wait
wood snaps in the stove
budgies peck at cuttle bone
pellets of rain, tossed
at the skylight
a second transparency
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bare twigs turn in wind
distribute their coating
in these last moments
before temperature turns
the snowpack on the picnic table
shrinks at the edges
shoves over, makes room
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branches gloss so gradually
candles dipped in a vat of wax
over and over, acquiring thickness
the sky, through the skylight
dimpled tile, rumpled mosaic
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rain stipples bark as narrative
appends to memory, pane here,
light there, layers of glass
cedar twigs turn downward
as fingers, ice builds
layers of skin
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All my best
(staying home!)
Jane
blue shadows
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blue shadows
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crawl across the snow
reflect trunks and branches
tufts of lichen
curves of bracket fungi
curls of bark
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blue shadows
nuanced in ultramarine
and pthalo
a dab of violet
but never grey
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sinuous, diagonal
gaps of light
slow alteration
with angle of sun
no flicker of foliage
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All my best,
Jane
watching you …
A couple of years ago, I did a set of five small acrylic paintings to reflect my love of mythical dragons.
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Dragons can be nasty creatures. They hoard gold, breathe fire and frighten the villagers. But they have a good side. They provide hours of entertainment, they helped explain comets in the skies for centuries and they have soulful eyes!
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Just to say, there is some good in every situation.
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All my best,
Jane
nichepoetryandprose 