Live Your Dream Interview
Click here to check out my interview on the Live Your Dream website. I wholeheartedly recommend their coaching services!
As read by Roberto Luongo!
The Thing made an unexpected cameo appearance last month. I was shooting a public service announcement with Robert Luongo for the Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in Vancouver and the concept was to have him read a story to one of the children that utilizes the Hospice’s facilities. The hiccup – we didn’t have time to legally clear an existing book – but luckily I had a mock-up of my book with me!
We quickly glued some cardboard pieces to the inside cover so it wouldn’t flop around – and Lui commenced to read it out loud. It was surreal to be standing there listening to him read my story. I’ve seen the finished commercial spot and it is absolutely adorable! It will be airing on Global Television this winter for all to see.
Fast forward 3 and a half months …
Well – I certainly didn’t do very well with my resolution to blog about the interesting bits. But I am on track to publish my book before Christmas so that’s something!
The illustrations are being finalized this week and are better than I could have imagined thanks to the lovely and talented Izabela Bzymek. While I was searching for an illustrator, I saw the book The 13th Floor: Primed for Adventure written by Crystal Stranaghan and illustrated by Izabela Bzymek. It was the exact style I was looking for and a week later Iza was on board!
The process started with us deciding on the two main characters. Iza then went on to storyboard the entire book in pencil. Here is a sample of page 24.
page 24
Once we were both happy with the storyboard, Iza started to paint! The main characters and images were all done using watercolor. She then scanned those images in to her computer and used photoshop to add in the background colors and shadows. Because all of the images were now digitized we were able to move items around, re-size them or even change their color. It’s a very cool process and I am going to miss the thrill of getting illustrations in my in-box at 2 in the morning!
Here’s the final illustration for page 24!
- page 24 colored
My logo
A quick shout out to Michelle McKendry who did an amazing job of designing my logo! I had an extremely difficult time choosing between the various options – they were all that good. Most impressive though was when I asked her to make the dragon a specific age – yes, I do realize they are mythical creatures but she humored me and “researched it”. Many thanks Michelle!
Hello world …. or Mom as the case may be ;)
A few months ago I decided to take the plunge and publish a picture book that I had written and, very modestly, believed should be out there in the world …
I started reading all of the self-publishing books I could find and wound up with a gigantic “to do” list and an even longer list of questions … I’d set a 90 day goal to formulate and trigger my plan but was able to pull it all together in a few weeks when my internet research turned up a self-publishing network right in Vancouver where I live. I met with Crystal Stranaghan, one of the founders, and benefited from the years of experience she’s garnered publishing for Gumboot Books. I came away from our initial meeting with a concrete plan and moved on to my next step of finding an illustrator!
If you are interested in self-publishing, I wholeheartedly recommend checking out her consulting services at Live Your Dreams.