how to

My 12 year old daughter, a diligent writer as well as being over 600 drawings into an animated cartoon she's putting together in iMovie, recently showed me this bit of writing advice she devised for herself. I found it to be so compact and thorough that I wanted to share it.

1. Figure out what you like. Write about what you like most.

2. Think up the setting.

3. Get the main characters. Your story would be especially interesting with a hero or two, and a villain.

4. Remember three things: Beginning, Middle, and End.

5. Imagine your story. Relate it to something important to you in your life. It could be the fact that you don’t fit in. Have the main character someone who is special and is left out because of this.

6. Eat some pie.

7. Begin to write the basic summary. This will help you get ideas.

8. When finished, begin putting the meat on the bones. (a.k.a: START WRITING!!!!)

9. Put in a lot of details.

10. When you’re done, you can ANIMATE IT!!

there is no answer

I finally broke down and got a cellphone, holding out for so long for the reason that I LIKE being unavailable to the world.

Having myself to myself without distractions is generally when my mind drifts into a calm and creative place.

I'm my most productive when I have nothing I'm supposed to be doing and no one can interrupt my nothing and ask me to do something for them.

So no, I'm not giving out my cell number. I've got it on a slip of paper in a box hidden somewhere. Ha!

chocolate covered paradox

Shortly after Halloween some years ago my daughter asked the question: "Why do they call it 'Fun Size' if it is smaller and you don't get as much?"

happy halloween

Sometime during the early 60's I saved the day. My brother however liked to stir things up.

wonderful

You must buy this book. Hilarious.

have you seen the little piggies?

"This little pig loved a gnome", from 'The Wonder Book' by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, drawings by myself.

Available in March!

r-e-s-p-e-c-t

Some folks are still surprised that an illustrator can offer up something worthwhile. It seems silly to me that the subject continues to be debated.

Gibson was treated like a rock star during his lifetime, yet more than one critic has flung the word ‘illustrator’ at Andy Wyeth as an insult.

Perhaps after all these years, it is the art critics who remain the clueless ones. But they do have a lot of cerebral baggage they have to peer through in order to see things, so we should cut them some slack.

I had a chance to voice my own take on the subject when asked to write a review for The Seattle Times of an Al Hirschfeld exhibit at the Frye Museum.