Moss Whispers

Been spending a lot of time and thought on the text to this story, tweak, tweak, tweak the twig story! And I’m sure I’ll tweak some more! For now the text is as it is in its evolutionary stage… Tried some different watercolor paper I had. Much better quality paper. Lots of adjustments for me because it seems to take the color and the water differently. And seems to dry out faster so I have to work faster before the colors set! Something about the log seems still a little ‘flat’ but I loved experimenting with the colors! And added some more lichens (cladonia crystatella, I think). These little guys are on the sidelines to cheer on Big and Little Twigs’ sidekicks. (is THAT where that apostrophe goes?) Guess it would be nice to have an editor besides ME!  Not sure how the perspectives from the page before match up if this and the previous page were to become a double page spread.  Anyway, the plot thickens, as will the darkness!

Perhaps I’m getting tired along with these Twig Guys as they run fast to get away from ‘the Being’! Or perhaps I’m tired of tweaking this text and not being satisfied with the complete story. Or perhaps I’m just ‘tired’ and am wising up to my non-nurturing habits of staying up wee hours until I can get my page of the day to come round right! Truth is that some pages just take longer, and after spending my energies on a page, I find little left to go through posting logistics.                                         Big Twig and Little Twig seem to be almost over this hurdle with ‘the Being’ if they can just ‘move on’ to finding Lacey Leaf!

I remember days of writing term papers in college and how hard I tried to discipline myself. I became very disciplined at washing clothes, sorting through papers, and cleaning up! Often I would ‘fuss at myself’ for not being disciplined and stifle my creativity even more! And as a teacher, I would end up with a clean classroom, way before I would finish my reports or evaluations. And then there was the teaching year I decided that parents would much rather have drawings of their children than pages of written evaluations! And now…today I found many ‘disciplines’ to exercise as the twig characters in my growing book, get frozen on their page along with words that I can’t seem to find for their next crisis.

Today, my ‘discipline’ was weeding! I weeded til my fingernails grew dirt and with courage and zeal to dug deeply into the dirt with no age old fears of snakes. The flowerbeds are nearly as immaculate as the next empty pages of this book! Yet what I’m learning is that this also is part of my process…sifting through ideas, weeding out ones that won’t work, and clearing away all the extraneous clutter in my mind that’s between me and the result I’m wanting to create. So ‘no fussing’ at myself this time. I’m trusting the twigs to show me next moments in their twilight adventures. And I’m trusting that they will make it back into their wise old tree before dawn. So as the weeds pulled easily from the wet dirt, and the rains soaked me and the dirt, I’m trusting that we are reaching the saturation point and that tomorrow will be a new day… for scattering seeds onto the fresh moist dirt, and sprouting healthy ideas for the fresh pages before me! Sleep well!

So now I’ve added the texts to this ‘double page spread’. Somehow it doesn’t fit and I think it’s quite redundant. For now, I think I’ll continue with the story and see how things unfold. For sure, I know I’ll either end up changing the illustrations or the text, or perhaps both! agggh! I think something will naturally ‘self correct’ but if not, I’ll tweak again and again until it comes round right. I’m also not sure how this will post, since it will probably post as the same size and a single page. So much to learn!

I’ve been experimenting for the last two days with both expanding my text and doing a double page illustration. Not sure yet how I want to incorporate the text yet, so I’m just posting the pictures for now.  Hmmm…I guess I’ll need to do a double photo shot to it to post as one here, and then do single photos to have on my computer rough copy. Sometimes, I think making it all by ‘hand’ would be easier. So I’ll experiment with how to add the text with it for tomorrow. Another late night! Big day of gardening, brick-laying, and cleaning house!…a lot for my little numbing hands. And now that I’ve posted it, I think I want to adjust the painting some more!

I almost got twilight colors like I wanted them just on the horizon starting at the left. But then I muddied them when I tried to make a background that would work for the text! It would be so much easier if I had some training in this! But I guess ‘doing it’ is one way to train myself! Added the little British Soldiers when I appealed for ideas from Facebook friends. My cousin Susie suggested British Soldiers. And how I DO love those little lichens, the British Soldiers! Only thing is that they are lichens and not moss like Big Twig says. So hopefully, the green stuff in his mouth counts as moss, and since these lichens are often around other mosses and lichens, I think it’ll work okay. I’m trying the little soldiers as the Twig Guys ‘sidekicks’…. since I may need them down the road to help express a few things in the text. We’ll see how they do.

Still working on ‘twilight lighting’ possibilities. And also want to come back to this page’s text…hard to have his knees shaking and and have his ‘stickily limbs’ also be frozen! I’m thrilled to post before midnight! Yay!

Spent a lot of time today studying about twilight. Still experimenting with how to paint it. What a wonderful time of day…between sunset and dark! The time when there is an illumination on the earth!

Already I’m finding myself changing the text. This will need revising, but for now, this is what I have. I think it’ll become more clear to me which way to go (with the text), not to mention ‘which way for these two little twigs to go! Twilight is supposedly getting darker, yet I’m still working on how to ‘see’ characters, their actions, and their environment in the dark. Speaking of dark, I need to get to bed or it’ll be dawn before I know it! For the record, what took so long tonight was trying to figure out how to post the illustration and the text together. WordPress doesn’t seem to want to let me upload it as a photo, so I have to stretch beyond my technical know how (which is very small) and export, and then take a screen shot to sort of ‘trick’ the computer to let me upload it as media?!!!

Today was quite a day! I was given an opportunity to read What Makes a Jingle Ring to children at FriendsFest, an event at Saxapahaw, NC. I thought I was really ready, after having made little cards to hand out with the cover page of my book on one side and my website address on the back. Then about 2 hours beforehand, I tried looking at the iPad outside, to make sure the book was visible, and all that was visible was a reflective screen. So I quickly jumped into fast mode and hoped my ink would hold out on my printer and began to act as my own Big Book printing press! First the photos, changing ink cartridges halfway through, and a sigh of relief as I finished the illustration copies. Next came what I thought would be the simple part, printing the text. How wrong I was! It reminded me of times I’ve tried to take a ‘shortcut’ in the car to get somewhere when I’m almost late…shortcuts seem to add miles and confusion to the mix! Three hours later, I’m still working on the text! Missed the first reading slot, and hit the tail end of the second slot. The few children that were there, were so wonderful and attentive! And they loved guessing what made the jingle ring! And they managed to stay engaged even when I got the text in the wrong order and discovered I was missing a picture! Agggh! self publishing…self printing…hmmm…guess I gotta start somewhere! The best part was one little girl that came by in between reading times. I let her read it on my iPad…silently, and at the end, she very kindly and genuinely said ‘the magic words’! “I really like your book! You did a good job!” Made my day! And also helped me realize that even older elementary age kids can appreciate it.
Another special part of the afternoon for me was seeing students that I had taught years earlier, and remembering all the books I helped them write themselves! Now I get to be cheered on by those very students as I work on my book! We’re all One Big Many! Thank goodness! Now that it’s launched, maybe I’ll earn enough to print some hard copies!