January 2009 Archives

My illustrator has finished the last of the pages for the picture book, and the company that scans the artwork was able to rush the job and get us the final images. I just dropped them off to the graphic designer this afternoon, so we are ready to go.

While I was at the graphic designer's office, I had a chance to take a look at some graffiti that was dropped onto the cover. My illustrator came up with some heavy duty graffiti, but it was overkill. Even faded out, the graffiti distracted me from the cats and the title. We cherry picked the graffiti we liked and moved some other bits around until we had something that gave the cover some more texture and animation, but without overwhelming the eye. I think it works pretty well. I'm hoping to get a jpg to post on the Facebook page, but I don't have it just yet.

So, now we're really into the final stretch. My graphic designer will pull together the bits today and Monday. The illustrator will go in Monday and Tuesday and tweak a few colours and bits with Photoshop. Meanwhile, the files that are done will be sent to the printers for a files check. If they work, then we know that there will be no delays on the printing end; plus, we get a clean files discount. And on Tuesday or Wednesday, I'll go in for a final proof of the book. I'm going to proof the text over the weekend.

If all goes according to plan, the printer should have all the files by Thursday, and then there's nothing left to do but wait.

I am so relieved to get to the end of this stage. It was hard work all around, but I'm betting that it will be worth the effort. Stay tuned for updates.

Now I can turn my attention back to the Sasquatch novels.

Just read an email from my illustrator. She should have the final pages finished late tonight. She sweet-talked the company that is scanning the original artwork to do a rush job. It looks like (fingers crossed) that all the original artwork will be in the graphic designer's hands by the end of tomorrow. Of course, anything can happen. We might push to Monday, but I'm really hoping everything is out of the illustrator's hands by the end of tomorrow, so we can get everything ready for the printer.

I did a test run of the two covers at Ecole Coloniale in Beaumont. Very positive feedback from the kids. There was a clear winner on the cover, but I won't reveal what it is until the final decision is made. I'm still looking for feedback. Just check out the Facebook Fan page. You can click on the link, which is on the Fiction page.

We're moving into the home stretch for True Story. Right now, my illustrator and I are trying to figure out the right colour scheme for the book cover. I just posted the two covers side by side on my Facebook Fan page. If you're interested in seeing the covers, check out the fan page.

Any thoughts about the colours would be great. Let me know which one you'd pick up if you walked into a book store.

Take care,

Marty

Just got back from meeting with my illustrator of True Story. She showed me some of the final pages, and they're all looking great. I was really taken with how she created a fart fog. One of the cats, Buddy, is a stress farter. Originally, she coloured in a nice, safe green cloud in pencil crayon, but when she started painting, she took a really big chance and sponged in some acrylic and pastels to give real texture to the fog. At first, I was taken aback by the image, because I was used to the previous style, but when I looked at the fart fog the second and third time, I knew she had really captured the essence of something truly stinky. I never thought it possible, but someone has actually shown me what a fart looks like.

We're still on pace. The illustrator is going to finish a few more pages tonight, which I'll pick up tomorrow and drop off to be scanned. Then I'm meeting with the graphic designer to go over the layout of some of the text.

On a secretly happy note, the illustrator drew of a caricature of the two of us for the back cover. I get to have my own caricature. I might turn it into my Facebook profile picture.

The first time I ate a futomaki, I was arrogant enough to think I could eat the whopping piece of sushi in one bite. Born in the year of the Snake, I thought could simply unhinge my jaw and stuff the maki inside. As the wasabi paste burned a new sinus cavity and I glob-chewed the sushi into mush, I realized that I had taken on more than I could chew.

So, whenever a workload overwhelms me, I say that I've had a futomaki day; hence, the title of this blog.

The day was filled with emails and little jobs that had to be done now. I presented a new writing workshop at a school. I think it went over well. I only heard "I'm bored" twice, and it was from the same student. After the session, I hustled home for a phone interview about The Forbidden Phoenix, but learned that some of the True Picture illustrations were scanned and ready to be delivered to the graphic designer. I hustled out the door and made the delivery in time to do the phone interview.

Now, as I look at the work that I was supposed to do today, I'm getting that same bloated feeling I had when I finished eating the futomaki. I suspect I'll do what I did after that sushi extravaganza; I'll get horizontal and hope the wave of nausea passes quickly.

It was like pulling teeth, but I finally was able to nail down a revised delivery date for the picture book. We're looking at February 5 to get the files to the printer, which means the next week and a half is going to be all about True Story. I'm going to have to put my novel on hold, while I head into the graphic designer's office to go through the text and layout of the piece. My illustrator is still working on the final ten pages of illustrations, but she hopes to have them ready by Wednesday.

I'm excited to see the second batch of illustrations, which are getting scanned over the weekend. I'll try to sweet talk the designer into turning some of the into jpgs that I can post on my Facebook fan page.

Time to shut down and get some rest. Next week is going to be a frantic one.

Not a pretty finish, but I'm done. I turned off the timer today so that I could just concentrate on wrapping up the first draft of Neither Hide Nor Hair. Big mistake. It took me about 3 hours just to get five pages, but I did manage to eke out the ending. The draft is ugly and clunky and needs a lot of work, but I am finished my unofficial first draft. Yay!

Lesson learned is that the timer is very important to drive me to write. I have to keep it going even in the final stretch.

Now, I'm going to shut down for the weekend and recharge. Next week, I will start going through this draft to shape the story. The real work begins next week.

When I was in grade five, I had the privilege of being asked to serve on the school patrol. Part of the perk was to go to summer camp to learn the rules of school patrol safety.

I hated the camp as soon as I got there. I didn't know anyone and everything seemed so different and new. Then, as I got to know some of the other campers, I started to think things weren't so bad. I started to have fun. By the last day, I just didn't want camp to be over and I hated the idea of leaving.

That's exactly how I feel right now about Neither Hide Nor Hair. I'm at the tail end of the first draft, and I'm reluctant to work on it because I know it will mark the end of my "summer camp" experience. I know I'll revisit the story several times, but there's only one "first time" that a writer finishes their manuscript. Okay, I'm off to either finish the draft or to play tetherball.

Cracked off another 12 pages of Neither Hide Nor Hair this morning. I was pretty happy with how they turned out. I even gave a little nod to Yann Martel's Life of Pi. Let's see how many kids pick up on that allusion.

Anyway, I was glad to smash through the pages, because the afternoon I started to lose steam. Odd, how my burst of creativity coincided with the warm spell and now that we're back to winter temperatures, I'm starting to feel like a hibernating bear.

The good news is that I think I'm within striking distance of the ending. If I kick things off right tomorrow morning, I should have the first draft finished. That would give me the chance to take the weekend off and enjoy the weekend.

Thanks to a simple writing exercise, I've been able to get to 80 pages on the first draft of Neither Hide Nor Hair. I can almost see the end of the story as well. I'm so thrilled that something as simple as a timer can help me find my writing discipline again. I'm clocking in about 10 pages per day (2 hours of writing). The great thing is that even after the timer goes off, I'm still writing. Today, I reached 12 pages.

Of course, I know all this is just first draft stuff, and I still have a long way to go with revisions, but I am pretty tickled at the thought of completing a first draft in less than a month. In fact, if all goes well this week, I may have a first draft of a novel in three weeks.

Yes, yes, I know I'm tooting my own horn, but there's been enough stress and bad news over the last few months, that I just wanted a reason to say "yay!" and remind myself I can do this.

Well, the rehearsals for the Toronto production of The Forbidden Phoenix have started. We have mostly the same cast as the people from Edmonton. We did lose a chorus member along the way and our leads change because of a scheduling conflict, but it sounds like everyone is on top of the show.

The strange thing about this process is the scheduling conflict takes our director out until five days before the show opens. The assistant director and stage manager have the unenviable task of putting the show together, and the handicap is the assistant director was pulled off the Edmonton show to work on another show when a director was stabbed on the Edmonton streets.

I'll be honest; this is not my favourite way of putting a show together, but I know that the cast are incredibly hard workers, and I trust the assistant director and stage manager to keep everything on track.

The only real hiccup is running time. The entire show has to be under 90 minutes to accommodate the bus schedules for school matinees. I've had to cut sections of the script and we lost one song to accommodate the timing. The crew is also looking at tightening up the pacing on scenes so that we're not lingering too long with dramatic pauses.

I'm not going to see the show, which is the sad reality of a playwright. My scripts travel further than I do. Oh well.

I'm feeling so strange these days. With the writing game, I find myself go into a weird zone where the story is coming to life on the screen. I have a general idea of where the story is going and then suddenly an idea will pop up and take me into new territory. If I knew where the inspiration was coming from, I'd go to the well. The best guess I have is that the characters are dictating a lot of what I'm writing.

I have to admit it's pretty fun to lose myself in Neither Hide Nor Hair. Of course, I'll look back at the first draft and wonder what the heck I was thinking when I came up with some of my notions. Right now, I'm just trying to entertain myself. The great news is that I'm up to 10 pages per day. I'm able to pull off the page count in 2 one-hour exercises, which still gives me plenty of time in the day to do my other work.

My dream is to eventually get the third book in the series going, so that I can jump between all three drafts, devoting an hour or so each day to the manuscripts. It'll be just like my TV days, but with less money. Ah well, I'll just blame it all on the recession.

Gack, gack, gack! That's the sound of me coughing up a hairball. I just heard from my illustrator that she won't be able to get the illustrations ready for the Jan. 26 deadline we set. That means everything gets backed up. I'm trying to get a hold of her to find out how much of a delay before the artwork can get to the printer. I'm kicking myself for not building in a bigger window between the date of printing and the date of the book launch. Lessons learned the hard way are the ones that I'll never forget.

I'm feeling a bit blue. My week at James Gibbons School is coming to an end tomorrow. I've had a wonderful time working with the students and staff at the school. I'm impressed with how eager the students are to write, and I hope that they continue working on their stories even after I've left. To all the students at James Gibbons, you rock!

It wasn't a fabulous start to day, but it was an early start. I did get up in time to give myself 15 minutes to knock off 2 pages of Neither Hide Nor Hair. My snail fingers clacked out a few good paragraphs. I'll take what I can get when I can get it. I'll try an early start tomorrow again. Yeesh. The things I do to establish writing discipline.

I put a hold on work today, thanks to a very early morning start, bad road conditions, a full day of writing workshops at James Gibbons School. But despite the long day, I'm feeling pretty upbeat right about now.

Lorna Bennett, my illustrator of True Story, turned in five spreads (10 pages) of the book. They look awesome. I was so impressed with how the watercolours brought the characters to life. I mean, the sketches were great and the pencil crayon versions were pretty outstanding, but when I saw the watercolours, I knew I had the right artist working on the project. Yay!

Anyway, I'm going to show off the watercolours tomorrow at James Gibbons School to the grade 2/3 students. I want to get their feedback. I think I can forgive myself for taking one day off from writing.

My agent got back to me with her thoughts on the manuscript. Looks like I have a little bit more work to do on the draft. Overall, she liked what I had done, but there were a couple of places where she had trouble believing what I had set up. I think the notes are pretty good, but it means I have to rethink what I have Barnabas doing at the mall and how Jaime sees him. They're big notes, but not insurmountable. Overall, I'm pretty happy with what my agent had to say.

I'm going to try to get to the revisions on the weekend after the residency is done, and after I've had enough time to get to the halfway point of the sequel. I don't want to lose momentum on one novel to fix up the other one.

I tried. I honestly tried to roll out of bed when my alarm rang at 6:01 am. I had nothing but good intentions to jump out of bed, run down to my office and start working on my manuscript, Neither Hide Nor Hair.

But good intentions are like the adhesive backs on Post-It notes. They just don't stick long enough. I slept through my second and third alarm. The only thing that woke me this morning was the furry alarm I call Max. My cat crawled on my neck and purred until I woke up and saw the time.

So, I didn't get a chance to do the writing exercise in the morning. However, my professional development session with the staff at James Gibbons School went much faster than I had planned, and I was able to get home by 3:30. And so, I forced myself to set the timer and write for an hour. I'm happy to report that I have another five pages of my manuscript written. Yay!

Each page I write is another page toward the first draft. I just have to keep moving forward.

Went with the one-hour writing exercise again this morning, even though I was grumpy from the fresh snowfall (I just shovelled!). Anyway, I was able to start faster. Few people email me on Sundays, so my initial distractions were few and far between. The great news is that I was able to again get to 5 pages in about an hour.

Tomorrow, I start my residency at James Gibbons School, which is on the west end. If I want to play the writing game, I'll have to get up early. I may revise my time limit to two pages in a half hour so that I can get ready in the morning. Then I might add another half-hour writing game in the early evening. It'd just mean that I'd skip watching yet another rerun of Friends.

I'm feeling good about the progress of the novel. The story is starting to take shape and the characters are jumping out. I really hate Dogger Dogwood as a villain, and I mean that in a good way (as a reader, I despise him; as a writer, I love him).

So, I'll see how much I can maintain momentum this week. It's my first real test of discipline. I'd prefer to get my pages out of the way in the morning, but I really do like getting my sleep. Onward and upward.

I opted for the writing game again today. While, it took a little longer to get to the minimum 2 page quota, I did eventually find some traction and got up to 5 pages within the hour time limit. The game is working well when I force myself to start. I do have to admit that getting started is tough when I want to check email, play a few games or load new songs on my Ipod. Once I'm actually writing, I find myself getting more interested in the story rather than the page count, and the strangest ideas emerge.

The latest development is the birth of a villain. I had thought the book was going to be about a human villain, but I've introduced a Sasquatch villain as well. I will still have the middle of the book deal with the Sasquatches in a private museum, but I think I have fodder now for the third book. Very cool stuff. I hadn't planned on creating a Sasquatch villain, but the character just sort of emerged as I was writing. Sometimes, it's good to work without an outline and go with your instincts.

Well, my work is done for the day. I'm sitting at around 28 or 29 pages. If I can get to 35 pages tomorrow, it will mean that I'm one-third of the way to finishing a first draft. By next weekend, I should have a little over half the book done, which will be great. Once I reach half way point, I know that it can be done. In this case, it looks like I'll be finished the first draft by the end of the month. Yay!

Five and half pages in one hour and one minute. I actually hit my quota, and now I have the rest of the day to my other work. Just a little time pressure was all I needed to stop playing games and start working. Although, I do have to be honest, I did check email twice during the hour. No games, but I almost went on Facebook three times.

Okay, I'm relieved to know that I can still churn out pages. I just have to be selfish with my time. I'll keep playing the writing game over the weekend, but I'm upping the page count to 5 pages. The great news is that it means I'll be able to stay on track to finish the novel by the end of the month, even with the residency and other school visits.

Of course, I say that now while it's the middle of the afternoon and I'm wide awake. Let's see what happens when I try to drag myself out of bed at 5:30 in the morning.

Okay, I'll be honest. I've spent more time playing Word Twist, Wordscraper and Scrabble than I have been writing over the last day and a half. So, to break myself of this bad habit, I'm going to turn writing into a game for the next couple of days, so that I can regain my discipline.

All I need for this exercise is a timer. I'm going to set it for one hour and one minute, and then see if I can crank out 2 pages within that hour. If I can do more, great. But bare minimum, I have to have 2 pages written (not revised sections, but new material) by the time the alarm rings.

The reason for this is that next week, I go into a residency, which drains me of my energy and time. I have to keep working on the novel, but I won't be able to get 5 pages out at the end of the day. I'm hoping instead to get up an hour earlier to crank out... you guessed it... 2 pages.

Here we go...

Wiped out yesterday's work on the manuscript and I'm not happy about that. I'll try to meet my page quota today. Writing a first draft is a lot like losing weight. There are good days and bad days. I'll try not to dwell on the failures and just move forward. It doesn't matter how many pages I write in a day or a week, as long as I write. The strategy worked for my three published books. Hopefully, it will hold true on this one.

Whoa! I can't believe I lost track of time. It's almost the end of the work day and I haven't touched my manuscript. I've been busy prepping for a school residency next week, and it's taking way longer than I expected. I think I'm a bit nervous about the residency because it's my first time presenting after a month off. I know what I'm doing. I just have to be confident about it. Yeesh. I'm starting to sound as neurotic as an insecure actor.

I started the second novel in the Barnabas Bigfoot series this week. Already at 12 pages. I feel pretty good. I'm aiming to do 5 pages a day when I'm not in a school residency. Next week, my output will go down to 2 pages a day, and I hope to do them early in the morning, which means getting up early.

So far so good. I've got a good pace going and I hope to keep it up. My agent has the manuscript for the first book, and I hope she'll give me some positive feedback. Either way, I have to push forward and finish the series by the end of May.

Happy New Year! Not quite back to work yet. I've been brainstorming some new projects for the year, so you may see some blog entries about projects you haven't seen before. Quiet Room is the latest idea that's kicking around. I'm thinking of doing a thriller y/a novel aimed at junior high students. The other cool project on the rise is The Memory Eaters, the 3 Day Novel submission that's been collecting dust. I'm also looking into humour blogs for a little project on the side. I'll see how far I'll get.