I am back in Florida again. Interesting news. Aija does not speak a word of English. This could be a problem. I guess we’ll have to see how everything works out. In the meantime, I’m going to have a phone conversation with her translator (which I just found out she has) to figure out the next steps.
Right now I’m in Seattle visiting my father as he is quite ill. He finished his radiation treatment, so my husband and our 3 kids are up in cold, rainy Seattle for Thanksgiving and his birthday. I’m making the gang a delicious Sea Bass dinner and I sure hope he enjoys it.
This is another HUGE development in my children’s book journey – Aija from Latvia is the star! She absolutely hit the nail on the head. She captured the essence of 2 of the characters in just about the same way I had envisioned them. The illustrations are truly magical. So now we’re talking up a business deal.
I’m back! I’ve been busy with all kinds of projects and more research – I’m truly excited about what I’m doing. Regarding my search for an illustrator: one person’s name definitely stood out today: Aija Jasuna. I contacted her and she’s willing to send me a sketch of how she envisions my text and descriptions. She’s based out of Latvia (Europe). This could be interesting.
I’m still putting all kinds of time into locating THE perfect illustrator – that’s my biggest priority – so I may not be back here for a while. It’s time to focus my attention on this project, while simultaneously working on a few other exciting things and doing some traveling throughout the next few months.
Arghhhhh… several illustrators later and I just can’t nail anyone down…the illustration ideas that are being presented just don’t hit the nail at the right point… I’m still checking out books and websites and contacting and meeting loads of people. Quite fun though to be honest!
I’ve started the process of seeing who can pull this off… my strategy is this: sending out a small section of the treatment with a short description of the characters, and getting the illustrator to draw his/her concepts down… let’s see how it goes!
OK now I’m onto a very daunting task – who the heck is going to take the images I’ve envisioned and really pull off these characters? I’m already checking into this — there’s so many illustrators out there though…who will be the best? Time for dinner…
This week was HUGE! I call it Florida inspiration… I finally have a clear idea in mind of the characters for the story… I can see them so clearly that’s it’s almost real: their mannerisms, their ways of communicating, their thought processes — now I need to get these ideas down on paper!
I’m back from my break — can’t stay away from the creative flow for too long. Writers block? I know absolutely nothing of the term at this point.
