Eat the Ears First

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter / springtime Sunday today. I wasn’t able to celebrate with my family the way I did growing up (and I do mean just like when I was growing up: I just saw photos of all of my cousins egg-hunting today even though the youngest is headed off to college). But Kyle and I did have friends over for board games, a yummy curry, and a very special themed dessert:

Why no, we haven’t been asked to guest star on Cake Boss yet. How did you know? ;-)

We do love books and puns though, so I have to point out that the cake beneath the icing is red velvet, making this our Red Velveteen Rabbit cake.

commons.wikimedia.org

And at least our quirky creation isn't terrifying like these Bunnies Gone Wrong. I see a generation of Little Alberts waiting to happen. 

Here's hoping your day was happy, chocolatey, and full of non-traumatizing bunnies. :-D

 

A Picture's Worth

I’ve always wanted the skills of an artist, as Strongbad would say. I have a very simple drawing repertoire of stick figures, trees, penguins, and cartoon dinosaurs, and they aren't even all that good. So I’m always impressed and envious when authors post drawings inspired by their WIPs. I would love to have a visual of my characters and their settings in front of me as I write. I do the best I can with Google image search, but that usually spirals into hours of clicking without much luck. 

I am also atrocious with maps. Drawing them, labeling them, reading them, navigating by them… Not so good for someone making up fantasy worlds and having characters wander around in them. :-D

I even have a children’s book that I created for some friends and that I might want to self-publish more broadly, but it isn’t going to happen until I find a way to replace their family photographs with drawings that look better than this:

(Though xkcd and Hyperbole and Half give me hope that stick figures are making a major comeback.)

Okay, so I probably don’t have an artistic future. I’ll just have to get my images across with 1000 words instead. (Hopefully fewer after editing.) And at least this post had an exciting inspiration: the reminder that while I can't illustrate my own stories very well, other people can.

A Carrion Warning ~ Justine McGreevy

This awesome piece by Justine McGreevy appears with my Kazka story and on the main page. And now I have a copy of him next to my desk, so he can glare at me whenever I’m not writing. Hmm, he actually looks rather unhappy right now...

Where do you fall on the artistic skills scale, and does it connect to your writing process?