ひとりゴート Ink Progress

Well this is my haul from inking this weekend. I'm just shy of finishing half of the pictures. I may tweak these here and there, but this is basically it. There are ten pictures here, but two of them are on the backs of others. I did a test scan to see how nicely that would play with my scanner and it does bleed through a little, but I fixed it with almost no effort by shuffling contrast and brightness bars. So for these black and white scans it definitely won't be a problem. I'm thinking that it won't bleed through at all after I do the crayons, but the worst case scenario would have me redrawing two pictures. A slight pain in the butt. Far from the end of the world.

Mid-ink thoughts--I expected to get tired of drawing goats while working on this book, but that hasn't been the case. It's the grass. I'm tired of drawing grass. So much of it. I like the look of it and all, but my hand is killing me.

I haven't got a strict deadline for this book, but I want to finish soon so I can work on other projects. I'm still considering my options on how to publish. Going to try traditional publishing first and if that doesn't pan out, I'll try print on-demand with crowd funding. Making it an eBook would be a last resort. Since it's drawn in landscape, I think it would look terrible on most e-readers.

Inks should be done by the end of the week. I leave for a vacation in Hawaii on Saturday and when I come back I want to be doing the crayons. There's a big touch panel expo coming up that my company is going to have a booth at though. Overtime might limit my output this week. Here's hoping it doesn't.

Cheers, ya'll!

Group shot minus the ones on the backs. Below you'll find pages 1-10 all in order.

Writing Resources to Sharpen your (S)words

Not long ago at a convention-esque 40k event I met Steve Parker, one of the writers for Games Workshop's Black Library publishing house. He was a very friendly and encouraging guy. When he gave me some advice on resources for honing my writing skills, I was excited and keen to lose more sleep to this part of my life than I already do.

There were essentially two resources that he recommended to me. The first is the Writer's Digest Elements of Fiction series. Each of those books was written by a different author and focuses on a specfic area of writing fiction. The one I'm reading first is Orson Scott Card's Characters & Viewpoint. I'm about a third of the way through it despite being hopelessly transfixed by A Storm of Swords. So far it seems pretty good, but it's hard to say much about it without finishing it and trying some of Card's methods. The best of it so far has been about knowing the needs of your story and asking a lot of questions. I hope to finish this one around the time I finish my current picture book project. I won't be starting the next picture book until around January and in between I'm going to write some short fiction.

The second resource is an online writers' workshop called Critters. At first I thought to sign up for the time being and then come back to it when I have a story I want critiqued. As it turns out, however, once you register you have to critique a story each week to maintain membership. Oops. I signed up prematurely, but that's really for the best. Procrastination is less than worthless. I've done a month's worth of critiques so far. Each week it is easier to identify and describe what I feel is wrong. Just as importantly, it's easier to say what I think could fix it. I even reread a story I wrote four years ago. I looked at it through fresher, more critical eyes and saw ways to write it how I had originally intended to.

Steve Parker told me that the value in a workshop group is really in being able to identify and communicate what is wrong with stories that don't work for you. After doing this for even a little while I can see how true that is. I am still looking forward to getting some of my work critiqued, however, because I've been reading some of the other critiques that get posted and there is a lot of very good advice given for each story posted. I strongly recommend giving this a try if you are anything as isolated from other writers as I am here in the mountains.

Happy writing and happy critting to you!

Bear with Me, Both English and Japanese, Now Available

I posted about Bear with Me on my 40k blog, but this is the first time for me to mention it over here. Well, Bear with Me and ぼくはクマのスナッフル are both finally available through Smashwords and Amazon. They are also both finally approved for distribution to Apple, Sony, Kobo and Barnes & Noble. I just gave it a search through iBooks and saw that it's been delivered. I got wonderful feedback from my test readers and their children. If you've got a child then you may have same endless need for good picture books that I do. Or, if you simply would like to show support for my work, please give it a download and review it on Goodreads. I've been doing my best to introduce my work to people through the net, but truly, nothing beats word of mouth and any help to spread the word is beyond appreciated.

Bear with Me
Smashwords
Amazon

















ぼくはクマのスナッフル
Smashwords
Amazon