SCBWI Conference
I attended the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators virtual summer conference last weekend, and I wanted to share some of my takeaways, both as a way to process everything I learned, and if there are any aspiring writers/illustrators reading my blog that might find it helpful. It was so informative and inspiring! I walked away feeling like I have SO much more to learn, but also feeling inspired to continue creating, to see what happens in this author illustrator journey that I’m on.
I attended a workshop with the YA author Stacey Lee (I haven’t read any of her books, but now I want to). The workshop was on three essential pieces to make every plot move along well, and I chose that workshop because my plot for the novel I’m writing feels ALL OVER the place right now. I don’t remember it being this hard when I was writing novels as a teenager! Stacey shared how three super important components of a good plot are Goals, Obstacles, and Stakes. She had excellent examples from shows and books (lots of references to The Princess Bride, which I loved). I do think that my novel has all of these components, but it made me think about how I could raise the stakes for the main characters. She also had us practice writing loglines, which are essentially a one sentence hook that summarizes your story. She uses loglines as a sort of compass while writing her books, so that if the plot starts to get a little haywire she can always return to that one sentence to remember WHAT she is writing about.
Here’s the logline I came up with for my novel! And, (fangirl moment) Stacey Lee just commented on this post on my IG!
I also attended a workshop on writing characters with mental health challenges, since several of my characters in this book struggle with their mental health, and I anticipate it being a common theme in my books because of my work experience and personal experience with mental health. I appreciated the authors perspectives on not writing about mental health diagnosis without having lived through what that experience is like. They also pushed the importance of mental health challenges not being a characters flaw in the book - characters should have flaws that are not only tied to that. They gave us an exercise to think about our characters difficult life situation, mental health challenge, and flaw. My main character Fern’s difficult life situation is that her mom dies from cancer (that’s only the first one… there’s more!). Her mental health challenge is struggling with anxiety, and her flaw is that she has trouble trusting people (especially adults). I think this is another useful tool for developing characters.
I did a group critique on my picture book about River, which I was nervous about, but all of the author/illustrators in the critique were really helpful and kind. Their biggest feedback on my River book is that it doesn’t have a story arc, which I knew when I wrote it, but my goal was to just show a snapshot of River’s life as a two-year-old rather than to really have a story. My workshop partners gave me the idea to make the story more about River’s struggle to communicate, so I played around with that and now have two versions of the book. I’m not sure which version I like better, as the original text could be a concept and character driven picture book (new terms that I learned in the conference!). Regardless, I’m still making progress on the book dummy and pretty soon I plan to switch over from using Canva to put it together to trying out Artstudio Pro, which is a drawing and photo software that I just learned about as well. Canva seems to have some limitations that are not working for me with the book dummy (unless I just don’t know how to use it properly - which is probably the case).
The sketch I’ve been working on this week for the book dummy.
A really nice and unexpected bonus to the conference was that someone created a spreadsheet for writers and illustrators looking for a critique group, and I’ve connected with a bunch of writers via email and will probably be joining some critique groups. I also met one of the people involved in Albuquerque’s SCBWI chapter, and so I hope to get more involved locally, too!
In other news, I’ve decided to switch out of the Phd program that I was in at California Institute of Integral Studies and into their MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing. Why and how I came to make that decision is a longer story, but the short version is that I really want to focus on my artist self and career and this feels like a way that I can do that, while learning lots more about writing, art, and publishing, and being involved with a community of people. I also think that one of my strengths lies in how interdisciplinary I am in my creative pursuits, and this program will really allow me to explore that. So many MFA’s seem to silo the different art forms without allowing any overlap at all, (I’ve done tons of research - I get a bit obsessive). Already in the MFA classes I took last year at CIIS I was able to explore how to overlap all of the creative projects that I’m passionate about. I want to continue to explore ways of doing that.
I can’t wait for classes to start again in September! In the meantime, I’ll keep plugging away at my novel (46 thousand words in now… which means it’s getting too long to be upper middle grade but my character isn’t old enough for YA. Ack! A problem for another day). And, of course, working on my book about River (which REALLY needs a title)!
The Great Big Bad Terrible Audition
While I tried to figure out the rest of my outline for the novel I’m writing, I started to refine a series of children’s books that I’ve written about a little girl’s dreams of being a dancer and performer. I loved the series Ballet Shoes and Theater Shoes by Noel Streatfeild when I was a kid, and I had the idea to write a children’s book that was similar, but modernized, with some elements of ancestral magic.
I have written three books so far about this little girl named Ella. In the first book, she wants to be a dancer and tries a dance class, but feels intimidated by the other girls and almost gives up on her dream. (This was inspired by my real-life experience of checking out books about ballet from the library and trying to teach myself the positions when I was little). Her mom tells her about how she gave up on drawing when she was a little girl and they make a pact that Ella will keep dancing if her mom starts drawing again. In the second book, Ella auditions for a musical and it goes terribly. She stops singing after that until she has a dream about her ancestor, who encourages her to keep singing. In the third book, she is in her first musical performance and gets sick right before the dress rehearsal. She has to deal with self-doubt about whether they even need her in the show but ends up being able to perform. (I experienced this an adult with my first major role in a musical a few years ago).
When I wrote the first book in January, I wasn’t sure that it offered anything new to the children’s book world and didn’t think that I would do anything with it. But my mentor at the time read it and felt that the voice was compelling and that a series could be well received. I am going to start looking into querying agents and children’s book publishers soon. It’s taking me so long to illustrate River’s book that I don’t think I will be able to illustrate every book that I write - and I’m okay with that!
Excerpt from book one (title TBD):
Ella had always wanted to be a dancer. When she was little, she begged her mom to send her to ballet classes. Her parents didn’t make enough money to send her to classes, so she checked out books from the library about ballet and taught herself the steps in her room. She practiced plies and pirouettes in front of her mirror, imagining that she was wearing a tutu and ballet slippers and performing on a giant stage.
One day at school, her teacher told her, “You know there’s a free after school dance program down the street? It’s for girls a little older than you, but maybe when you’re old enough you can join.”
She went home and begged and begged her moms to call the after-school program and see if they would let her in. “They don’t start girls there until they’re ten,” mama Caroline told her after she got off the phone.
“How can I possibly wait two more years?!” Ella wailed.
“But,” her mom smiled, “they said you could come watch a class and if you still want to try, then they’ll let you try.”
“Are you serious?!” Ella tackled mama Caroline with a hug. “When can I start?”
That night, as Ella was practicing her ballet moves in front of her bedroom mirror, she heard her parents talking. “She has no dance experience,” mama Caroline sounded worried. “What if she can’t dance at all? What if the other girls laugh at her?” For the first time, Ella felt a little scared. What if her mom was right?
A public domain dancer that I might use in a collage someday. Maybe I’ll still illustrate the cover??
Excerpt from The Great Big Bad Terrible Audition (book 2):
That night, Ella dreamt that she was floating on a lake in a boat made of glass. Suddenly the boat came to the edge of a waterfall, and she started to fall, tumbling head over feet through the rushing water. She landed inside a cave that was full of pink crystals. It was hard to see, but she could make out a little glimmer of light coming from the entrance. She walked towards it and found herself in a dark meadow surrounded by trees.
“Where am I?” she said. All around her suddenly she saw glowing lights. As they came closer, she could make out that they were tiny fairies, glittering in the dark. They started to land on her arms and head and all over her, and their little beating wings made buzzing sounds like hummingbirds. Her feet started to float off of the ground and she realized that they were lifting her up. They brought her up to a door in a tree, and she reached out and opened the door, stepping into the tree. The fairies all flew off in a bunch, laughing and whispering to each other. Ella found herself on the other side of the tree, in a sunny, grassy meadow, full of wildflowers and moss. There was a stone cottage tucked just into the trees, and she knew that was where she was supposed to go.
The cottage door was cracked open, and Ella stepped through. “Hello?” she said cautiously. A woman with beautiful long red hair was waiting for her.
“Ella!” she said, “you’ve arrived! Come, everyone is waiting for us.”
“Where are we going?” Ella asked. She followed the woman out of the cottage and over a hill. On the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea, a fire was lit, and several more women sat around it. They jumped up when Ella and the woman arrived and all of them hugged her. Then they led her to the fire and looked at her expectantly. Ella started to feel nervous.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” she said. “Am I supposed to do something?”
“Ella,” the woman from the cottage put her hand on her arm gently. “You have to sing.”
Ella’s stomach dropped. “I can’t!” she said. “I’m no good at singing.”
“It doesn’t matter what it sounds like, it matters how it makes you feel. You have singing in your bones. You can’t push that away.”
Ella opened her mouth, but nothing came out, just like at the great big bad terrible audition. A tear rolled down her cheek. The woman pressed something into her hand. It was one of the crystals from the cave, and it glowed slightly pink in the dark.
“This will give you courage,” she said.
Ella took a deep breath. Then she started to sing. At first her voice was shaky, and she winced, but she kept going and reminded herself that it didn’t matter how it sounded. She felt joy bubbling up from her toes all the way into her fingers.
When the song finally ended, the woman from the cottage gave her a hug. “You are a queen,” she whispered in her ear, “you can do anything you want. But never stop singing.”
Maine Memories
I skipped blogging last week because my best friend was in town, and I’m also considering posting every other week, as every week seems a little ambitious with the other projects I’m working on. I’m also wondering about switching to Substack or Patreon instead of a blog, so that posts would get sent directly to my readers inbox’s. Blogging has always been a bit challenging for me, as I feel like I’m just sending words into a void without the knowledge whether anyone is reading them. But how does one establish an email list without any readers? (except for my dedicated parents, of course). This is the predicament I find myself in.
It has been fun finding illustrators and writers to follow on IG and getting the occasional follow back! I know this is a slow journey, and I will have to practice a lot of patience to build my business with intention.
I am currently preparing to go to Maine to visit my parents with my husband and two year old, so I thought that I would share another excerpt of writing today. One of the projects I have on the back burner currently is a memoir about my childhood, written in the same style as the creative non-fiction piece I wrote about in my last post. One short section I’ve written for the memoir is about my journey to writing and also features Maine, so I thought I would share it below.
I’m continuing to work on my fantasy early YA novel and I’m about halfway through, about to hit a block because I need to do MUCH more research into Celtic and Irish myths about the Otherworld to form the rest of the story. I’m also slowly working away at my picture book about River, and currently reading The City Beyond the Sea (Greenwild 2) by Pari Thomson (excellent middle grade fantasy), and listening on audio book to Blood at the Roots by LaDarrion Williams (YA fantasy, entertaining but not incredible in my opinion).
Those are my updates for today! Without further ado, here is my excerpt:
The weeks before the summer camp I daydreamed about classrooms full of desks, studious other elementary age children hunkered down over their writing, inspiration dripping down the walls, ready to be absorbed by my eager young mind. I excitedly told our neighbor that what I imagined was that it would be “like school!” And our neighbor looked at me with such horror - why would I possibly want to go to something “like school” in the summer? But having never experienced the drudgery of school, there couldn't have been anything more tantalizing to my mind.
The first year, we camped on the outskirts of The University of Maine at Orono, our huge tent made for seven people surrounded by thick woods, swatting mosquitos and dousing ourselves in bug spray, sitting under the tarp my dad rigged up every year in case of the not infrequent Maine summer rain. We cooked spaghetti on the camp stove, played card games and listened to the light Christian rock we were allowed to.
The writing camp exceeded my expectations. Not only desks and studious heads scribbling away furiously but also, field trips, ice cream, and stories dreamed up in my eight-year-old head of a gorilla and deer who were best friends. (At first, they were in love, but then I decided that was too awkward - anatomically speaking). The gorilla and deer went on adventures together and my first story composed at writing camp developed into a series, and I was forever changed. I hadn’t known that I loved writing stories, or that I was good at it, until those long summer days, notebooks full of scribbles and dreams.
Another year only my younger sister Erin, my dad, and me went, and this was special in a whole new way, for we stayed in the dorms that they provided because my father was teaching workshops there. My sister and I bounced from one small twin bed to the other, delighted in the mediocre furnishings, the sticky hallways and bathrooms that had seen a few too many college students.
I remember condensed milk that my dad bought thinking we could eat it with our cereal, although it was too sickly sweet and I couldn't stomach it. Another day breakfast at a coffee shop or Diner - a treat, since we never ate out, not even when we were on vacation. And one night after a long day of writing, my dad couldn’t muster the energy to cook, and he had an enormous affinity for ice cream which he could eat to his hearts content without the eyes of my mother looking on, (he loved to put peanuts on his ice cream). And so that night my sister and I just ate ice cream for dinner, the next day excitedly telling my friend for the week that we had only had ice cream for dinner and her astonished reply “Nothing else? Not even spaghetti?!”
Eventually my dad stopped teaching at those summer camps and started holding versions of his own at our house in the summer, full of our church friends' kids who needed something to do, and the last year he did it I read the story I had written over the week, which I was proud of, although no memory of it exists now, except that it made my mother cry, in a good way. And my mother never cried.
Love Potion
I wanted to share a little of my writing this week, since I’ve focused mostly on illustration so far. I am currently in the midst of writing an upper middle grade fantasy novel, but it’s far too messy to share any of that yet. I am excited that I’m over 25,000 words in though, as that makes it the longest piece of writing I’ve worked on since I was 16! I will share more about that project in the future when I have the plot developed enough to at least provide a synopsis.
For now, my favorite thing that I wrote last year was a creative nonfiction essay about vicarious trauma (definition coming, if you’re not familiar with the term). For the last ten years or so, creative nonfiction has been my total jam, and I’ve experimented with lyric essays. I’ve come up with a way to write essays where I first write poems on a certain theme, then restructure them into prose, to make an essay that is broken into short sections. I find writing the poems really organic and can sometimes crank one out in five or ten minutes, so with my busy schedule during the school year, this is a great way for me to sneak in some writing.
I wrote the essay, titled Love Potion, for an assignment for my creative inquiry in interdisciplinary arts class fall semester at California Institute of Integral Studies. I then created a mixed media illustration for it, and made a handmade book to hold the essay as well as the illustration. This project helped me process so much of what I was experiencing at work as a mental health therapist at the time, and also helped me begin to recognize my desire to truly develop my skills as an artist and writer and dedicate more time to that part of myself.
I won’t be able to share the whole essay here because I do hope to get it published in a journal or literary magazine, but I’ll include a few of the sections for anyone reading, as well as pictures of the book. I do have to include a trigger warning here for the parts of the essay that I’ll share below: it contains mention of suicide as well as gun violence.
The cover of the book is made out of moss, which captured the idea throughout the essay and art piece of buried feelings, memories and trauma. The beads are a charm that I made and blessed following the steps of old Italian magic, due to my Italian heritage.
1.
Vicarious trauma: The emotional impact of being exposed to the experiences of others who have experienced trauma. The emotional impact of hearing that someone wants to kill themselves, over and over and over again. The emotional impact of picturing the sexual assault in your head that wasn’t yours, but now is yours to carry. You've taken a little of the load, and now you carry it.
My sister and I were sitting outside at a brewery one sunny day in Colorado, and there was a ladder attached to the wall, blocked off in some way so no one could access it, and we looked at it, odd, and wondered why. “Oh, it must be so that people can’t jump off,” my sister said, a trauma therapist, like me. And I looked at her and raised my eyebrows, skepticism and concern all in one. “It’s not even high enough for someone to break their leg,” I said, “let alone kill themselves.” She blinked, realizing the dark place where her thoughts lived. And years later here I am, staring at the hook in my sister's garage, for bikes, or equipment, or something benign, and all I can think about is the 14-year-old boy who wants to hang himself. And I tell my sister I can’t sit in her garage anymore, that 14-year-old boy haunting the edges of my dreams:
The emotional impact of being
exposed
To the experiences
of
Others (us)
(all)
The mixed media collage I created that took me over 20 hours to complete.
4.
She follows me - in the eyes of the girl sitting across from me, in the stories the therapist I supervise tells me, of her client who fights with her mom every morning, of her client who sees her mom drink every day, and she asks me, “when will the other shoe drop?” And I say, “maybe it won’t.” Some teenagers have such an incredible resilience, in the face of abuse and neglect their whole lives. They go to school, put on a smile, do their work, plan their lives. Cry frustration into their pillows at night at the things they can’t control. And they find a way out.
She follows me - In the words I once told her, “You’re so much tougher than most of these kids.” In the way she softly smiled and held her head high. And grief surprises me in these moments, noticing the echo of her once existence in the girl sitting across from me, in the stories I hear. Her death will never make sense. It can’t make sense. And I’ve pictured what it looked like, the horror of the teens in that house, the silence after the shot, the screams of her best friend, who saw the whole thing, who rocked her body as she slipped from this world into the next. And I know this grief will follow me, as I keep hearing stories that mirror hers, as I keep seeing that resilience in the moments between. Pain and joy and human life.
She follows me.
7.
Love Potion
A spell to heal that which we avoid
You will need:
Love
The most painful moment
Community
A song for weeping, sleeping, and laughing
A dance
Your ancestor's medicine
Your first medicine
Method:
Take your most painful moment and stare it in the eyes. Don't blink. Let it enter you, seep through your skin. Take your ancestors medicine and say a prayer for strength, for healing, for the ability to face the darkness instead of run from it. Then take your first medicine, the thing you did as a child that brought the most joy, the most calm. (For me, it is writing, for you, maybe dance, maybe song). Combine the painful moment, the ancestor's medicine and the first medicine. Stir slowly three times. Then paint yourself with the love. Listen to the songs of weeping, sleeping, and laughing. Wrap yourself in the community, and dance.
Please forgive the not great photos but I wanted to show what the whole book looks like in its accordion fold. This is the front spread.
This is the back spread.
This project is one of the art pieces I’ve made using both my writing and visual arts skills, and it really developed me as an interdisciplinary artist. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the excerpts (well, maybe enjoyed isn’t the right word - I know it’s pretty heavy material!).
Till next week, keep creating!
Experiments in Illustration
My goal is to write a blog post once a week, so I thought I would start by sharing my process with the book I am writing about my daughter, River. One day several months ago I sat down at my computer and started writing from the perspective of my two year old, chuckling at myself as I put my experience of her as a parent into words. The book starts like this.
“I am River. These are the faces I like to make: (picture here of faces). In the summer, I walk around the yard and pick up apples that have fallen from the trees. I take one bite - crunch! and put it in my pocket.”
The book goes on like this, describing River’s difficulty talking (although she finds other creative ways to express herself), and her special hobbies and interests (beetles, throwing oracle cards behind the bed, etc.).
This was the first illustration I made for the book:
I had the idea in my head that I would try watercolor illustrations, so that’s what I did here. Since I’ve never attempted to illustrate a book before, I figured that I would just use this project as a way to practice and experiment with what my style is, while also creating something special for my kid. Last semester in school (I’m getting my PhD in East-West Psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies), I got to do a mentorship with a published author and illustrator, Ajuan Mance. The mentorship was one of my favorite things that I’ve done in my program so far. I showed Ajuan this illustration as well as another one in colored pencil that I did for a class. She thought the watercolor was a little busy (so did I), and liked the composition of the colored pencil better.
This was the first colored pencil drawing I did for the book.
I had really only done the second illustration in colored pencil because I was on a time crunch for the assignment for my class, and I thought colored pencil would be faster than watercolor. I was surprised that I was actually pretty happy with how it turned out, especially because I’ve never thought that I could really draw. Ajuan was extremely supportive with changing that myth in my mind and encouraged me to keep exploring styles and see what worked best for me.
Because I enjoyed the colored pencil drawing so much, I made a few more like that, adding some mixed media collage elements into the pieces. (You can see all of the drawings for this book in my Illustration gallery on the Work page of my website). I really wanted to figure out a way to make my mixed media style work as illustration, and that’s something I’m still working on. For this book I have landed on colored pencil with some few collage elements thrown in, and I’ll keep exploring other styles with different projects. One thing that I never thought about before with my mixed media collage work was copyright issues with using other peoples photos and artwork within my art. I started researching that when I became interested in illustration, so for the second version of the apple drawing the collage elements I used were all public domain images. I found several resources online where you can access tons of public domain images, such as rawpixel and Old Book Illustrations.
Here is the second version of the apple drawing and the one that I will actually use for the book, since it matches the style of the rest of the art. I also changed the composition to make River a little more of the focus, since I thought she got a bit lost in the first version. I love the vibrancy of the watercolor and I think it really accurately represents our actual backyard, but for overall style I think the second one works better for the book.
I plan on continuing to work on this book throughout the summer and submit it to some agents/publishers kind of just for fun (if you consider that fun). If I don’t get any bites, I will probably do a kickstarter campaign and self-publish it. I had originally only intended to make a few copies for River and family, but Ajuan really encouraged me to do more with it. It’s amazing what a difference it can make in your creative endeavors to have another professional give you guidance and support, and I’m so grateful for that.
Next week I think I’ll share more about some of the writing projects that I’ve currently got cooking.
Until then, keep creating!
On Imagination
On Sunday I attended a painting workshop with Shiloh Sophia, who I didn’t know anything about, but who led us through her intuitive painting process. I don’t usually do abstract painting, because anytime that I’ve tried, I’ve just gotten frustrated and felt like a failure. I need some kind of structure or image to work off of, especially since I always tell a story through my art. The process that Shiloh led us through yesterday was quite abstract, and I found myself facing the familiar inner critics voice criticizing my piece. I felt SO relieved when she invited us to add an object or figure to the painting and I could go back to familiar territory. But what I also learned through the process was to let go a little, and just play with the paint. Shiloh invited us to think about our “codes,” the part of us that we are born with, that are just inherently our own gifts that we have to offer to the world, and what I came to as I dreamed and painted was Imagination.
I’m pretty sure that one of the gifts I have to offer the world is finding ways to access imagination, because it’s something that I’ve always been able to do, although there have been times in my life as a teen and an adult where I’ve lost touch with that part of myself. Over the past year in my work in my PhD program as well as in my personal therapy, I’ve come back to that child-like part of myself that loves magic and stories. As an art therapist, I’ve seen that some of my most resilient clients have gotten through terrible things because of their access to their imaginations.
I’ve really struggled this year with my career choices, becoming an art therapist instead of pursuing art or writing more professionally. My intention with creating this website is to give the artist and writer part of myself permission to take charge. I’ve identified as a therapist first for the last seven years, and now I want to be a writer and artist first, therapist second. I’m pondering whether therapist still fits into the equation at all a lot lately, but maybe there’s a way it can all work for the time being if I can find ways to guide people back to their imagination, their inherent creativity, through writing, art, and therapy.
My goal with this blog is to share bits of my journey in exploring writing and illustration professionally. I’ll share short pieces of my writing, write process blogs about my illustrations and how I create them, and share information that I’m learning about self-publishing versus traditional publishing and all the ins and outs of the publishing world. I’ll consider making a newsletter, so if you would like these posts to get sent directly to your inbox, sign up with your email below and I’ll see what I can do.
There are parts of me trying to tell me that this is already a wasted dream, I shouldn’t be spending money on this website, etc. etc. In fact, I nearly gave up before I completed the website because computer stuff just doesn’t come that easily to me and I was sick of looking at templates I didn’t like. But I’m choosing to invest in my creativity, in my imagination, because I know what reading and art can do for a soul. And it doesn’t hurt that this website is the color of the yellow house I’ve always dreamed of having.