Life in July 2012

The First New Post In Quite A While

I don't know if some of you wondered what happened to me. I haven't been here and I've rarely been on Facebook. This usually happens when a person is too busy living their real lives to be bothered with their online lives. There have been changes, both professional and personal.

First, and most pressing, my mother is now in hospice. This means she is getting ready to pass away. Doesn't that phrase sound a little bit easier to take than "dying"?

You may know that she has degeneration of the cerebellum, and also alzheimer's disease. Two degenerative brain conditions in one! I quit my "day job" eight years ago, before the economy crashed, because my father had a stroke and couldn't take care of her alone anymore. Daddy passed four years ago. I have been her sole caregiver ever since.

She has had trouble swallowing for years. I had to puree her food and thicken her liquids. Then, a few weeks back, she stopped swallowing. I would spoon food into her mouth and it would fall back out. She wouldn't suck on a straw. The doctor told me to take her to the ER. After an eleven-hour wait, they admitted her. They gave her IV liquids and released her the next day.

When I brought her home, she seemed so much better. She ate well. I tried to feed her the most fattening and nourishing things I could find. I made milkshakes with Ensure Plus and Carnation Instant Breakfast powder with fruit and ice cream. She ate better for a while, but then she stopped swallowing again.

They told me earlier that they might have to install a feeding tube. I decided that it was either do that or she would starve. At first, they wanted to set up an appointment for the following week to evaluate her for the feeding tube. I explained that she was already skin and bones and probably wouldn't last that long. They told me to take her back to the Emergency Room.

More IV fluids. They made her look a bit more fleshed out. Then they said they couldn't install the feeding tube the way they usually do for reasons that I don't have the medical knowledge to understand. They said she wouldn't survive the surgical alternative.

So now I have her home with me. She probably weighs eighty pounds. Hospice nurses keep coming over and checking her and writing things down in their notebooks. A really kind young lady comes over and bathes her for me. A social worker came over twice and made me and my sister cry. He said things that take away all hope.

Yesterday, I got Mom to eat some of a chocolate Frosty from Wendy's. I plan to buy her another one today.

This is a picture of my mom. It was taken sometime in the early nineteen fifties. As was the custom of the day, she gave up her career when she got married. She was always there when I got home from school. I have never known her to drive a car. She is still a beautiful woman.

I am going to wait for another day to write about some of the other things going on. This is enough for now.

 

  I have joined SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators). And I plan to attend the local Illustrator's Day event in a few weeks. In preparation, I have re-done my whole portfolio and made a mock-up book of The Calamari Kid. (Right now, it's only a Kindle book.)

 

  I found some nifty portfolio thingies at a local art supply store. They have clear plastic sleeves to put the pages in. One was 8 1/2 x 11, and I used that one for my book. I even made a full-page sticker to make a book cover. 

  The other one was 9x12 and I thought that would make a good size portfolio. My old portfolio is huge and full of old stuff from the seventies. I was thinking I would be creating a bunch of new art for it. I even bought two 9x12 pads of smooth bristol board.

  But later I realized that what I needed to do was to make prints of my existing art. I have tons of stuff on zip disks, (some of which I can't open with my present computer). And, of course I couldn't find 9x12 computer paper! I started printing on the bristol board, and I was surprised that my printer took it so well. The prints looked great. But soon my portfolio was heavy and wouldn't close. And it was only half full!

   I solved this problem by buying a couple of pads of 9x12 acid free 70 lb. drawing paper.  

  I am pretty nervous about this Illustrator's Day event. It cost me $80 to join SCBWI and another $75 to register for this event. This is a lot of money for me. I'm sure I will be feeling better when it's over. 

Will they like me? Will they like my art? Will everyone else's stuff be a lot better than mine? I feel like a kid going to a new school or something. Social situations make me uncomfortable. Wish me luck!

-----o0O0o-----

 

Animation Art Auction for a Good Cause

Pink Slip Animation recently posted the following on their blog:

"BentoBox storyboard artist, Joey Adams, is experiencing the unimaginable.

To be brief, he nearly lost his twin boys over the Christmas holidays, due to a possible genetic illness. Two years ago, he and his wife Ginger, lost their daughter, under similar circumstances. The boys survived, but baby Ian is currently undergoing grueling chemo, while undergoing extensive genetic testing. He will need a bone marrow transplant, and his brother Henry may need one as well. Needless to say, all of the treatments, missed days of work, etc, have caused a huge financial burden for the Adams family (they do not have Motion Picture insurance yet).

Many in the studio expressed a desire to do something for Joey, which led to the idea of reaching out further into our animation community for help."

They are having an eBay auction of animation art as a fundraiser for this cause. Follow the link and take a look. They have wonderful drawings, cels, autographed posters, and even maquettes (sculptures). There are a lot of very nice pieces available.

Bid soon. Be generous. The auction ends on Monday.

One Morning in Kindergarten

I have always had trouble understanding the words of songs.

Up Up Ubi

I have mentioned on this blog in the past some artist tournaments that I entered on Facebook. I never won or anything, but the experience is pretty cool. The other artists were amazing.

I bring this up because the guy who organized the tournaments, Andrew Augustin, has started his own video game company. His first game is available for iPhone. I don't have an iPhone, but I wish I did.

He has a Kickstarter fundraiser going on to help expand his business. I wanted to post a link to try to help him. He's a good guy.

Most of my Facebook friends are cartoonists, animators, and other artists. It's a good way to "meet" other artists and look at each other's work. I know that some other people have had questionable experiences on Facebook, but the overwhelming majority are nice people. We say kind things to each other and gently give constructive criticism of each other's work. We encourage each other and pass along job opportunities.

One Afternoon on the Beach

I know, it's about time I posted on my blog. I have been trying to work out in my head what should happen in my next book, THE CALAMARI KID IN OUTER SPACE. Like whether he should actually go to outer space, or maybe leaving the ocean be outer space for him. I have a few ideas I'm shuffling around on my story board. We will have the return of Nancy and Tina, the girls from out of town. And of course Joy and Eddie will be there, along with Penny the Bipolar Mermaid and the Calamari Kid himself! And I'll be introducing Tadpole, who is a younger mermaid. The cartoon above features Tadpole.

Children's Book Writing

Anybody write a children's book and know about age levels and vocabulary?

I had John look at my first book, The Calamari Kid. He pointed out that many of the words I used would be beyond the age level of a kid who would read a story like that. (such as tentacles, unpredictable, scheduled, skeptical, sodden, doubloons, etc.)

When I was a kid, I liked to read books that were challenging and look up words I didn't know. I thought everyone did that. I hated books that were condescending.
I'm working on the sequel now, and I'd like to do it right.

This book is published on Kindle. While I read over it with him, I found a couple of typos. This in spite of the fact that I proofread this thing so many times that I could have sworn it was perfect.

The errors are small, and I have not been able to figure out how to correct them. Just a sentence missing a period and one letter wrong in a word. (says HIM, should say HIS). If you read my previous blog post about this publishing, you will see what a difficult time I had. It looks like the only way to edit the book is to edit the original file and re-upload it to replace the original. I'm scared to death I'll screw up the original. I only vaguely remember how it's done.

I have decided that the best thing for me to do is to get the sequel ready and when I upload it, I will be reminded of the process. Then I will hopefully be able to make the necessary adjustments to the original story.

Wilson!

The Calamari Kid is on Kindle! :D

I wrote the story of the Calamari Kid a couple of years ago. I wanted to make up a story for the website Squidoo, and a story about an octopus seemed appropriate, even though the site as a whole is not particularly squid-related. I wanted to write a story that I could illustrate with my own cartoons. The whole story ended up taking five of Squidoo's "lenses" (that's what Squidoo calls their web pages, I don't know why) to complete.
I almost wrote myself into a corner with this one. I made up the story as I went along. After the first three lenses, I couldn't figure out how to end the story. Then I saw this cartoon in the Sunday paper.

Of course! I should have storyboarded this in the first place! So I printed up what I had so far and taped it to the pantry door. Now I could see my storyline and try to figure out where it was going. I could see that something needed to happen to little Joy and the Calamari Kid would save her, with the help of his friends. I was able to write and illustrate the end of the story.

-----o0O0o-----

I received some kind comments from people who seemed to like the story. Some people encouraged me to have it printed as a children's book. I looked into it a few times, but I never got past trying to find out the aspect ratio of the pages. My mother takes up so much of my time.

Recently, I've been encouraged to publish it on Kindle. I decided that this is something I can do. (!) I read up on the process. Also here. It is recommended that you use a Word document. I use a Mac. I do have a version of Word for Macs that my husband put on my computer. I had never used it before.

It was very confusing because the instructions referred to some different, newer version of Word. The Kindle uploading site requires a newer operating system than I have, so I used John's computer. He has a newer version of Word, too.

I thought that I wanted to enter everything as images. That way, I reasoned, I could control the layout of each page. Well, apparently, this doesn't work.

I tried uploading the first page as a trial. My image was sideways, cut in half, and in black and white. I re-sized the picture and turned it 90º. I re-sized it again. I tried several configurations. I even measured the kindle picture on my screen.

It never looked right.

Finally, I decided that I should follow the directions as closely as possible. What a concept! Now all I had to do was teach myself Word. It was mostly self-explanatory. I used the help function a lot. And I could insert the same illustrations that I used in the Squidoo lenses.

This was an improvement. 

Now the problem I was having was the layout of the pages. I designed a page with text above and a picture on the bottom. But when I uploaded it into the Kindle maker, the text and the picture were on separate pages. The text was at the top of the page, and there was plenty enough blank space for the picture to fit. Other times, the text and images shared the page comfortably.

The instructions said that Kindle books are not just viewed on Kindles. People read them on other devices, and the proportions and layout of the pages have to be fluid. That's why you can't do a table of contents unless you use a special TOC generator that changes with the circumstances.

So my page layouts can't be counted on. I just typed in my story and sprinkled the pictures where they seemed appropriate.

I proofread this book so many times, I got sick and tired of the story.

The pricing of my book presented problems that I hadn't anticipated. I had a choice of claiming a 35% or a 70% profit. When I read that, I wondered why anyone would do 35%.

The answer is this. At 35%, the minimum retail price is 99¢. At 70%, the minimum price is $2.99.

I chose 70%, but I'm thinking about changing it so I can sell my book for 99¢. It may be more popular that way. After all, it's my first book. And I'm sure I didn't do a perfect job.

Another thing I had to decide was whether to enable something called digital rights management. I think I did enable this, and they won't let you change this. I read a little about it. It's something about protecting my copyright, which I'm totally in favor of. But I don't know everything about it. So now, I'm second guessing myself on this. I'll probably research it a little more before I publish my next book.

So The Calamari Kid is now available on Kindle.

By the way, although the book cover is in color on the Amazon website, the images seen on the Kindle are in black and white. And a lot of shades of gray. However, when the other devices (that I mentioned earlier) are used, the colors will show. Plus, I think they will probably come out with color Kindle some day.

And when they do, I'll put a Kindle on my Amazon wish list.

I'd appreciate your comments, especially if you know something about this.