• Books. Books. Books.,  Illustration,  Picture Books,  Querying,  Writing

    Twitter Opportunities for Writers: #PBCritiqueFest

    / October 16, 2019 / 0 Comments

    There are so many Twitter opportunities for writers looking to get published. Why wouldn’t you participate?

    Twitter hosts a number of pitching contests where you can pitch your story idea to agents, editors, even some publishers, throughout the year. These offer a quick way to get a feel for the interest in your story idea. Although I wouldn’t lose heart if you don’t get a like throughout the contest from an agent. There are so many people adding to the feed throughout the day, these contests just act as a way to get your foot in an agent’s door. An encouragement to send them your query, as they you have peeked their interest with your story pitch!

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  • Books. Books. Books.,  Giveaway,  Illustration,  Published Work,  Uncategorized,  What I am Working On,  Writing

    “Theodore and the Enchanted Bookstore” Book 3 is Out! Another BIG ANNOUNCEMENT! + Giveaway!

    / September 5, 2019 / 2 Comments

    BOOK THREE IS OUT!!! Woot!

    If you’ve been following me for awhile, you know that I am a writer and an illustrator. Theodore and the Enchanted Bookstore has been a wonderful series to illustrate for author, K. Kibbee. She has truly painted a magnificent place, along with the characters who live inside it, for me to illustrate.

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  • Adeline and the Mystic Berries,  Author/Writer Interviews,  Books. Books. Books.,  Illustration,  Interviews,  Misc. Fun!,  Picture Books,  Writing

    I was Interviewed for Storyteller Academy by Author/Illustrator, Arree Chung!

    / November 14, 2018 / 2 Comments

    This writing and illustrating journey to publication is a tough one and it’s important to use all the resources and good advice we can get along the way!

    I was interviewed not too long ago by the creator of Storyteller Academy, Arree Chung. You may also know him as the author and illustrator of the Ninja series, Out!, and my personal favorite, Mixed!

    I took Storyteller Academy’s 

    Making Picture Book Stories and Dummies

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  • Books. Books. Books.,  Illustration,  Interviews,  Misc. Fun!,  What I am Working On,  Writing

    Get to Know Me!

    / August 22, 2018 / 4 Comments

    #Boostmybio for #PitchWars 2018

    I love the idea of magic and whimsy both of which led to my story, Wishweaver.

    There was a day last summer, when a neighbor came by, and she noticed a spiderweb with several milkweed wisps caught in its sticky threads. She said, “She’s catching wishes.” Little did my neighbor know at the time, but she’d inadvertently sparked a story inside me, and it would percolate for a year before getting to where it is today. A Middle Grade Fantasy story called, Wishweaver.

    My Book

    WISHWEAVER

    In the forests of Weyburn, there has always been a Wishweaver—a spider with the magic to grant wishes—but for many years, wishes have gone unanswered, and Whimsy Spider is determined to find out why.

    Whimsy has questions, and lots of them: What were they continuing on the Wishweaver traditions for, if there was no Wishweaver? What really happened to the last one? Why hasn’t a new one come to take the other’s place?

    With the help of her milkweed wisp friend, Flit, Whimsy will go on a journey to the old Wishweaver Oak in search of answers, but the answers she seeks are buried deep in Weyburn’s past and she’ll have to face her fears in order to find out how to change their wish-less future.

    About Me

    I spent some of my best career years as a Library Clerk in the Santa Clara County Library system. This brought every possible book to my fingertips and I grew an even larger appreciation for the art of storytelling. With the support of my colleagues, I continued editing Adeline and the Mystic Berries and even participated in

    NanoWriMo 2015

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  • Adeline and the Mystic Berries,  Books. Books. Books.,  Illustration,  Picture Books,  Querying,  Writing

    Seattle Writer’s Workshop – Pitching to Agents

    / June 26, 2018 / 0 Comments

    So, I did it… I went to my first ever writer’s workshop/conference!

    The short version of how the conference went…it was amazing!!!

    Now, if you’d like to know more, here we go.

    My mom and I went on this journey together, as I took my first steps in the outside world introducing myself as a writer/illustrator. We left for Seattle early enough to stop in Olympia for lunch and to see a bit of the town. We both agreed, the capital of Washington state is a beautiful place to visit!

    We continued our journey up to Seattle, and made it to the hotel just before check-in, the night before the conference. We ate our meals at the hotel in their Cascadia Grill restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

    There was plenty of time to scout out the next day’s event locations and everything was very straight forward at the hotel. When Saturday came, I was ready.

    I had my book dummy in hand for my first alliterative picture book, Benny the Bookworm, and had plans to pitch one agent that day, in-and-amongst going to five different workshops on being a writer and the business of writing (See post on second alliterative picture book, Wishweaver here).

    I mingled at the event. I met one of the event coordinators, Brian Klems, and introduced myself. I got to meet several other writers of various genres and we exchanged our business cards.

    Mingling…check!

    The first class I took was: Book Marketing from your Couch: Social Media 101 and I found it very informative. I was trying not to be nervous for my pitch that was taking place right in between that session and the next, but no such luck. As much as I love my story, and I am excited to pursue my career as both a writer and an illustrator, it was nerve-wracking to put myself and my work out into the literary world.

    Would my illustrations be up to par with other illustrators in the children’s book market?

    Would my writing catch the interest of others besides just my friends, family, and critique group?

    What if I completely forget my pitch in the worst possible moment?

    The doubts of we creatives can be high. They often call it “Imposter Syndrome” or that feeling of inadequacy because you haven’t “made it” yet in whatever it is you are trying to “make it” in. In the writing world, it’s feeling odd calling yourself a writer and/or illustrator when your credentials haven’t been built up yet. Saying you are an illustrator but not having had any illustrations printed in anything of major consequence.

    I now have some illustration publishing credits with the

    Theodore and the Enchanted Bookstore

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  • Books. Books. Books.,  Editing,  Illustration,  Picture Books,  What I am Working On,  Writing

    Picture Book in the Works! Process of Making a Book Dummy – Wishweaver

    / June 21, 2018 / 6 Comments

    A New Picture Book is in the Works!

    I’ve written a new picture book and Book Dummy #5 is now complete.

    You may remember that I wrote a picture book late last year called Benny the Bookworm which is an alliterative story in which: Benny LOVES books, but being a worm has its disadvantages. He befriends Beatrice the butterfly to help with the heavy lifting but when Benny pushes Beatrice away to keep the books all to himself, he’ll end up alone in a bind without her there to help him.

    While writing Benny’s story, I always had another alliterative tale in mind that could go along in a series. This time around, it was to be about an arachnid. A widow spider named Whimsy.

    It was known around Weyburn that should you be in want of a wish, Whimsy was the widow who held them.

    And so Whimsy’s story begins.

    The name Wishweaver came easily to me, for that is precisely what Whimsy is. I was in love with Whimsy and her story from the minute she made her way into my imagination. So, now her tale has been told in the pages of my book dummy equipped with all of my illustration ideas that could be seen throughout the book (should future art directors so desire).

    The process of creating a picture book for me starts with writing the manuscript. Then once I have that fleshed out enough, I take the words and begin separating the possible page spreads and deciding if the story fits better as a 32-page or 40-page picture book. So far, 40-page has been where my stories have ended up. I attribute that to the fact that I love illustrating and I want to show so much through pictures, 32-pages just doesn’t seem like enough!

    Next up, comes rough…and I mean rough…sketches of each spread. “The messier the better!” is what my instructor from Storyteller Academy, Arree Chung, always says. Though the perfectionist in me finds this difficult, with Wishweaver I gave it a try. As you can see, Whimsy’s look changes from the rough sketches to the more polished illustrations but many of the spread ideas have stayed the same.

    Once I finished up all the polished spreads for the book dummy, I went back just yesterday and completed the spreads for the end pages, title/dedication page, and the cover art.

    The process for those is the same: rough sketch to start, pick a favorite, draw a more polished final sketch, and ink it in.

    (This next paragraph is a bit technical with the process for making the book dummy hard copy, so you can skip ahead should you wish!)

    Once all the sketches are finished and I’ve compiled a PDF through Genius Scan (amazing app to take photos of images/documents and save them together as a PDF), I open the file in Photoshop and overlay the text on each spread. Once everything looks good and all separate images are saved as .PSD and .JPEG files, I go back into Genius Scan and re-upload the documents from Dropbox into a new PDF of the completed dummy. I can email the file to myself and print it off and then tape it all together to make the book dummy as you see it in the pictures above and below.

    This story is with my amazing critique group that I found through

    Storyteller Academy

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