Monthly Challenge

Theme: Learning a Lesson.

As summer comes to an end, and the new school year begins, my mind turns to all those lessons learned in the classroom and on the playground. Let's have a little fun with these memories, shall we?

Depict a character learning a severely needed lesson.

It can be a school/classroom experience, a real-world truth, or a folk-tale moral.

Let's post our pieces October 1st. That way we'll have the rest of that month to give our critiques/feedback and possibly post revised versions of the pieces.
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If you'd like to play along, feel free!

Dog Days of Summer

Honestly, there's been so much going on this summer that I haven't accomplished a whole lot. The pups above were sketched last week when I was taking safe haven at my mom's. I colored them with some markers lying around-nothing fancy. They symbolize what I've been up to all summer: reading blogs for inspiration, driving from here to there and moving, and just being a plain ole' couch potato.
Things are changing, though. I feel the creeping onset of autumn and can feel my whole self recharging. Year after year I feel depleted during the hot months, so I'm not too fond of summer. I look forward much more to Autumn and Winter- holidays, cooling weather, football season and all of the get-togethers that accompany it.
What's your favorite season?

What's on my Desk

I am actually working on a drawing but it's been earmarked for next week's blog entry. Wouldn't want to spoil the surprise, eh? Anyhoo, I've decided to share with you the other goodi-ness I'm focused on right now.

I just posted on my blog about a writing workshop I went to. Several things just clicked for me, and it felt like all of the ideas and stories that have been floating aimlessly in my head suddenly found the drain, and wanted out! I'm trying to accommodate them as best I can. The photo above is for a book I started today. I've had the idea since last Christmas, but I just figured out the proper format for it.

I'm going to borrow a phrase from Kathi Appelt and say it's my down-draft. (It's a rough draft where you're just trying to get the ideas down on paper.) I was surprised by how many pages I needed for my down-draft, but I actually enjoyed pulling the flotsam together. I was also a little tickled that my writing occurred in conjunction with doodling. I actually thumbnailed the story as I was coming up with it-the pictures and words intricately intertwined. Does this happen to any of you other author/illustrators? Or can you guys get the words out without the picture?

I haven't finished hammering out the details of the story by any means. I know I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm just giddy with the fact that I've taken the first step.

My next big step is to bring a cleaned up (and revised) draft to my local critique group by year's end. Hopefully I can get this all pulled together and dummied up for Editor's Day in February-if I decide to go. If not, then I think I'll be mailing some dummies to a few houses and crossing my fingers through the Spring.

Well girls, what do you have on your desks?