Secretariat

Every other Sunday evening I trek off to visit my dad. We have a routine once I’m there: I let myself in the front door; I sit down; he starts up our latest Netflix DVD; he makes popcorn; we watch the movie; we watch cartoons; I leave. That’s the way we’ve always done it, and that’s the way we’ll probably always do it.

We’ve had some exceptions through the years. He always tries to fill me in on the latest happenings, mostly the health (or lack of) of the family, so we get some talking in occasionally. Sometimes we’ll go to see a movie at an actual theater. Sometimes a football game delays the start of the movie at home. One night a couple months ago he let me drive his new two-seater convertible.

It’s a Solstice. Silver. He bought it to replace his Harley.

I learn more about my dad on these nights than you might imagine.

Last night’s movie was Secretariat. (As an aside, the one thing I remember about those races more than anything else was how the jockey never whipped the horse. He always carried the whip, but he never used it. Ever. My mother pointed that fact out to us.)

As for Secretariat, we both saw the real thing when it happened in 1973. We both knew how the movie was going to end, and we both cried anyway.

When I was growing up, I only ever saw my dad cry once. It happened the night my grandmother died. I was home from college that weekend, and he came home from the hospital, threw himself face down on the couch and sobbed. He was 47 years old.

So am I.

Since my mom died when he was 53, all that’s changed. And after his stroke when he was 73, all that changed even more. He gets emotional more easily now, and I’m not sure I know how to handle it. I mostly act like I don’t see it happening, and I think he does the same for me.

So last night I left, teary-eyed, and he wiped his nose and I ignored it and he ignored my tears and made a comment something about it being a happy ending. But we were both crying anyway and we both knew what he meant.

I’m thinking we have a lot more in common than I used to think we did.

Free books for your library!

On my Facebook page, I asked friends and followers to give me the name and address of their local library so that I could send them a copy of the book. I really wanted to support local libraries, and I thought just flat-out asking would be a good idea. Turns out, people know the names of their libraries, but don’t automatically go the extra distance to look up their library’s contact information, so trying to get info in the comment section of a Facebook post isn’t such a good idea.

To get started, I decided I should contact all the libraries first, just to make sure they actually wanted me to send them a copy of the book. (I wanted to be nice about it, you see.) But I didn’t ask the Facebook people to give me their libraries’ contact information, so I had to look all of that stuff up…

On Web sites that I had to search for, because I didn’t tell the Facebook people that they had to give me their libraries’ Web addresses either. But libraries pretty much have Web sites these days, and some of them even include a handy-dandy “Ask a Librarian” page where you can send a question to them without ever having to open your email program. So that part worked out pretty well.

While I was on the library sites, I also had to look up (and sometimes dig around, if you can believe that) for their physical mailing addresses. I kind of needed that to be able to send the books. Go figure.

But this trying-to-find-all-these-libraries’-contact-information crap is a lot more time-consuming than you might think because not all libraries have an “Ask a Librarian” page. I’m also finding out not all libraries even have contact email addresses, and two emails I sent out have already been returned as undeliverable. And from the replies I’m getting back from the libraries who did have contact information on their sites and who did take the time to reply to my request, it’s looking like some of the libraries want to have a say in what they will accept for display on their shelves.

As if I’d send them something twisted or something.

So.

I’m thinking it’s pretty important to ask before I send, and more importantly than that, I’m thinking I can’t take all this time looking up everybody’s contact information. So I’ve built a “Library Donation” page on the Hairy Eyeballs Press Web site with a form for anybody who wants me to send their library a book. I’m still taking requests as long as the information I need is filled out on the form.

Here’s the form’s URL: http://www.hairyeyeballspress.com/libraryForm.html

I appreciate your enthusiasm about the book and your library, and I’m pretty sure your library appreciates your enthusiasm as well. So thanks for your support, and make your own donation today! We want them to stick around for a long, long time.

Sketchbook Project 2012 #sketchbookproject

Next year (next month!) I’ll be participating in the wildly successful Sketchbook Project, put together by the Art House Co-op and the Brooklyn Art Library. I know, I know, I sure waited a long time to jump on the wagon, but at least I’m not falling off of it. I posted my first sketch in an earlier post.

The Sketchbook Project works like this:

  1. I order a sketchbook from the Art House Co-op
  2. They send a sketchbook specifically for me, with a bar code on the back identifying me and my sketchbook
  3. I draw in said sketchbook (this seems to be the part that’s taking the longest)
  4. I send the sketchbook back to the Art House Co-op
  5. They scan all the pages of my sketchbook and include them in their digital library and post them on their site
  6. They gather up all the sketchbooks from this collection (this collection being 2012) and take them on tour around the country starting in April
  7. After the tour, the sketchbooks are cataloged as a permanent fixture of the Brooklyn Art Library, available for patrons around the world to enjoy (hopefully)
  8. Every time someone “checks out” my sketchbook it will be logged through the bar code on the back, and I can check my stats in real time online or through text messages
  9. That’s it

We had to pick “themes” for the sketchbooks, and the one I picked was Stitches and Folds. I thought I could do something cool with that idea. My first page from the sketchbook is actually the cover, and here it is (ta-da):

Each image will include some sort of stitch or fold (in the drawing of it, not an actual stitch or fold, which I played around with and discovered didn’t work so well) opposite a page with a song lyric that I think goes well with the image.

I rebound (rebinded?) my sketchbook (you’re allowed as long as you follow their rules) with some toothier paper (theirs was too smooth and too white), so the stitching on the spine is mine (and part of my theme).

Due Jan. 31, 2012.

What was I thinking?

Five-Star Amazon Reviews!

The book has received some excellent reviews on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble, along with some five-star ratings! I’m not sure what these people are on, but I’m hoping some more people find it.

Here’s one that I hope sums it all up:

“Excellent sick little work of art”

Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.

But the book needs more. Lots more. We need to get the word out and loudly. More reviews make all the reviewers more legitimate, so if you would, please take the time to donate to the discussion.

Operators are standing by.

A Little Like Shaun Tan

A few weeks ago I finally made my way to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I wasn’t there to visit the place, although we have plans of returning next year for actual Gettysburg reasons. So much history. I feel so attracted to something there.

But this post isn’t supposed to be about Gettysburg.

I hauled my butt across half the state for an SCBWI conference, and yeah, I came home with lots of thoughts to think loudly about. But I’ll attempt to narrow those thoughts down to just one: Jordan Brown.

I had a manuscript critique with Jordan, a Senior Editor at Walden Pond Press and Balzer + Bray, imprints of HarperCollins Children’s Books. The story I had written was a short story I had finished for a fiction writing class I took about eight years ago (has it been that long?). My professor at the time loved it, and in his comments at the end wrote, “Get it published.”

And yet.

The story wasn’t long enough. I knew it wouldn’t make a complete book. But, being an illustrator—and pictures are easier for me than words—I had the brilliant idea (I thought, at the time) to pad the short story with pictures to make it long enough. Maybe even convert it into a graphic novel (Mr. Punch-style). Yeah. A graphic novel. Then the words would be at a minimum, and I could tell a lot of the story just using images.

Yeah. Images.

But Jordan didn’t really agree.

He was thinking more along the lines of, say, a novel.

“You mean those things with all the words?”

“Those things with all the words.”

But there was something in the story he had latched onto. Something he didn’t want me to lose as I was writing more. Something he likened to…

Shaun Tan.

Shaun Tan? Really? How could he know?

What he liked about what I had written was all the stuff I hadn’t written. How you didn’t know when or where the story was taking place. Was it in the past? Or the future? Or was it even on this planet?

He totally got it.

He said it seemed like I was working in the sort of space that Shaun Tan occupies (not bad company to be in), but a very difficult one to break into (not what I wanted to hear).

It wasn’t until I read this article in the Guardian today (and written by Neil Gaiman, no less) that I realized how right Jordan was. The paring things down. The fictional landscape. The far future, the distant past.

I had decided before I left the conference to take Jordan’s advice and write the whole thing as a novel. He even suggested I take a look at A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, not just for the loss of the protagonist’s mother, but also (as I figured out when I got the book) for the illustrations. They’re beautiful. I thought, yeah, writing all those words is going to take a while, but I can supplement all those words with some really cool pictures.

Pictures. My comfort food.

But as soon as I finished the book that little doubt devil started spewing into my brain again, and I started growing doubt shoots. Doubts about all those words. A Monster Calls was good. It was really, really good. And heavy (in a deep sense, not in a weight one). Can I really write something as relevant as that? Why am I doubting my writing? Why am I dragging my feet with this story?

What am I afraid of?

I won’t be able to start writing for a few days anyway, so in the small spurts of time I have until then, I’ve decided to absorb a little Shaun Tan. The Rabbits. Tales from Outer Suburbia. The Lost Thing. I’m hoping in the time we spend together Shaun will help me find the confidence I’m thinking must be lurking around here somewhere.

And then after that, if I’ve been good, I can get back to the pictures.

Getting Dirty From Newspaper Print

I did an interview a couple of weeks ago with a local newspaper about the Twisted book and how I funded it through Kickstarter. They took some pictures of me along with some of the Kickstarter rewards a few days after the interview. The article printed just this past Monday. Here’s the online version, mercifully minus the horrid photo of me that accompanied the print version:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_767174.html

Sometimes when I do these things I have trouble dealing with misquotes and misinformation, but this one is pretty much on the money. The quotes in the article that Mike Arnzen supposedly said totally melt my brain though. I understand he was my fiction writing professor—and everything I know about writing fiction I learned from him, and everything I’ve read since then just reaffirms what he taught me—but getting a pat on the back from a mentor is incredibly satisfying.

When I set something that might be a little on the “out there” side free to roam in the public, it’s easy to get nervous about its safety. I worry about whether I’ve pushed anything too far, whether people will get it, whether it will be over everybody’s head. But so far things are going well. It looks like Dr. A totally gets it, but he’s the one who taught me how to show (my dark side) without telling. I know a couple twenty-somethings who get it, but they’ve lived with me for years, and how they turned out is probably my fault. I’ll apologize to them later. But on top of that, I’ve also gotten a couple of nice comments on the Kickstarter page and on my personal Facebook page, so I’m starting to think everything’s oakey dokey.

Along those same lines, the book got its first review on Amazon, and it’s a five-star! Thanks, tonimarie77! I totally owe you dinner and a movie for that one.

Surviving a weekend

So I managed to survive the SCBWI conference in Gettysburg over the weekend. Gettysburg is such a fantastic place. I’d never been there, and can’t wait to go back. The history is heart-wrenching. I went on a ghost tour. I bought a bullet. I found a picture book in the same shop as the bullet only to see that it had been illustrated by someone I’ve admired for years. And then I met that very illustrator at the conference (more on him in another post). I cried during E.B. Lewis‘ keynote speech. An agent saw my portfolio and asked to meet me. What a whirlwind. So many new people, so many new friends, so much to think about.

And so much more to do.

As you can probably tell, I survived my manuscript critique with Jordan Brown (see my misgivings here in an earlier post). He was, despite my fears, terribly helpful and encouraging. I only wish I could have had a recording of everything he said because, of course, I didn’t take notes. He was excited and hopeful about my book idea, which made me excited and hopeful about my book idea.

Now the uphill climb begins.

Turns out I tend to make friends easier with editors at these conferences than I do art directors and agents. Not sure why that is. The problem with that is that editors want me to write stuff (ugh!). Pictures aren’t good enough; they aren’t happy until they’ve pushed me over that ugly, word-laden hill.

So I guess I’m heading toward the next step in my children’s book career. Thanks to Jordan Brown, my next move will be at my computer keyboard writing a novel.

Yes, a novel.

Apparently short stories don’t have enough words. Now I have even more of those steep, torturous word-hills to climb.

Did I mention “ugh!”?

I can do this. Nobody’s ever croaked from writing a novel, have they?

Someone please tell me I can do this.

The hard cover books are in!

After a few hiccups in the printing process (mostly on my part), I’ve finally been able to get the correct files uploaded and accepted at the printer! I ordered a bunch, and the hard cover shipment showed up yesterday. They look fantastic.

A couple of days ago the book appeared on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but without all the information necessary. Amazon doesn’t have the images and Barnes & Noble doesn’t have a description. So yesterday I finished putting together the file to upload for Amazon’s “Search Inside”, and that should be up and running in about a week. I’m not sure how to get into the B&N site as a publisher, so that will be added to my to-do list.

I’ve also noticed the hard cover and paperback versions of the book aren’t listed on each other’s pages as a different format that would be available, and I’m not sure who I would see about making that happen. Another to-do. And on top of that, I need to get these puppies available through the Hairy Eyeballs site. More to-do.

But first up, I’ve got Kickstarter rewards to ship out. I had hoped to get the books to backers by Halloween, but unfortunately that’s not going to happen. Lots of signing and packing and addressing to do over the next few days, but totally, totally worth it.

So much to do I should probably skip sleeping for a while.

More Vlad Hot Cocoa

In May I finished an illustration for a drink mix directory that was published by the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators in August. I called it Dancing in the Moonlight, and I had that old King Harvest song in my head the entire time.

(As an aside, just try and listen to that song and then get it out of your head. Not gonna happen. I had to download it.)

The illustration was part of the exhibit that PSI put together at Gallerie Chiz in Shadyside, and it will be in another exhibit starting in November at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

But I had an idea.

Next month I’m attending the Tri-Regional SCBWI conference in Gettysburg. They’re going to do something called “First Looks” where illustrators send in three related images to possibly be included as part of a panel discussion. The images will be projected for everyone at the conference to see (no pressure there), and the panel (editors, agents and an art director) will offer their first responses to the images.

I really didn’t have anything finished that I thought would be good enough, so I decided to create two new images to go with Dancing in the Moonlight. The images I’ve posted here are the sketches for those two images.

Due Nov. 1.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have some painting to do.

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part

We’ve hit a few snags with the printer. Some mistakes (on my part), some computer glitches (on their part), some wailing and nashing of teeth (all the way around).

Good news first: The hard cover format has been proofed and accepted (after first being rejected and re-uploaded), and an initial order has been placed for 250 copies to be sent to me. I’ll sign and ship out copies to Kickstarter backers as soon as I can get them packaged and ready to go.

50% gray news next: The paperback format has been proofed and rejected. I re-uploaded files last evening, but I’m not sure how soon those will be O.K.’d by the printer. Once the printer has accepted the files, I’ll place another order for (probably) another 250 copies, and I’ll sign and ship those out to Kickstarter backers ASAP.

Bad news last: Kickstarter backers won’t receive their copies by Halloween as I had hoped, but—

Great news: To make up for not getting the physical books out by Halloween, I’ve uploaded the entire book to Issuu where you can read it online for free! It will only be available through Halloween, so make sure you take a look while it’s up.

Here’s the link: http://issuu.com/norathompson/docs/twisted_tales

Happy reading!

This should make me a happy camper

I have to admit, I haven’t been creating much in the world of illustration lately. I’ve been focused pretty intently on getting my book out (in a few weeks, my pretties), painting a few Rots (just finished Buster on Wednesday) and getting organized for the fall SCBWI conference coming up next month in Gettysburg.

Yeah. About that conference. This year I decided to jump in the ring and get the text of a graphic novel idea I wrote a while back critiqued by one of the faculty. Our regional advisor is totally pushing me toward an editor named Jordan Brown. She says he would “love” the kind of stuff I do and she thinks we would get along “fabulously”.

(By the way, where do periods fall in relation to quotation marks these days? Inside or outside?)

So I’m asking to be placed with Mr. Brown, and my fingers are kind of crossed.

Kind of.

I’ve been following along with Gris Grimly’s blogging about the new three volume book he’s been working on for the past few years. He’s tackling Frankenstein and, as usual, his work is phenomenal. Beautiful. Inspiring.

Makes me want to crawl in a hole somewhere and start crocheting lap robes for a living.

His latest post isn’t helping.

Turns out the editor for his Frankenstein books? Yeah. Jordan Brown. I’m torn between jumping for joy and crawling under a rock to take up residence with the isopods. If Jordan Brown has somebody like Gris Grimly in his back pocket, does somebody like me really have much of a chance?

I’m finding my rock as we speak.

Ouchy.