Three days ago, I had a long talk with my bro from another mo: @selfhelp4trolls , formerly known as @whatamidoing
We talked about loads of things, before we finally got to the subject that probably made us connect, a year or 4 ago, when we were new kids on the block- and blog chain:
Creativity.
At a certain point in time, we got to the topic of writing and my upcoming book. I mentioned that many people who did not really know me, might consider me lazy, as I tend to take a long time finishing things.
@selfhelp4trolls replied that 'lazy' wasn't the right word and that 'slow' might be more fitting.
He has a point here
but, yesterday, after sending a first ( more or less ) finished version of my upcoming book to my mom, I realized that I have written this fairly quickly, under the circumstances.
Since this story came to me, mid March, I have had my laptop and phone break down on me and I moved house, among other things and let's say that that move was a far from smooth transition.
Although the character of Hypersensitivosaurus already came to me in the Autumn of 2019, it wasn't before mid March that I decided that I was gonna go for a series of small books around the life of Hypersensitivosaurus and other characters in his dinoverse.
Eventually, I built this little book around a fragment of a story, as described briefly in Cold Turkey on the rocks, shaken not stirred. And now, 3 months and 3 weeks later, I am starting to get close to finishing my book.
That is, if my mom doesn't tell me that I need to rewrite it all haha!
FAST FORWARD TO
TODAY
This morning, my mom reached out to me, to ask whether I had received her email.
I hadn't but, after she actually sent it to me, I found a couple of points of feedback that I felt I could work with ( all of it, in fact ).
It was just a brief written reply though - she was in a rush when so wrote it - and I knew that actual talking to her would make a difference, so I called her up.
We spoke for about twenty minutes and it must have been one of the most fulfilling conversations that I've had with my mom in quite a while.
Not only was her feedback overly positive ( not that she has much of a choice, being my mom and all haha ), it was also more helpful than I'd expected it to be.
I had expected hoped for such a reply, as I feel close to wrapping up Hypersensitivosaurus book #1.
She gave me some practical advice and I turned some of her feedback into easily executable steps. All of this gives me the idea that all I need to do now is make some quick adaptations, followed by one more read through, spell check and so on.
Meanwhile, I can also start focusing more and more on something that I'd been looking forward to for quite some time:
my illustrations / sketches for this book.
For your information: it isn't just gonna be plain text. In fact, if you've known me for a while, you will be aware of the fact that I'm as much of a visual person as I'm a writer. In fact, since I've been a kid ( that could write ), I have always combined text and illustrations. I thought of becoming either a comic book artist or somebody who makes animated cartoons. Eventually I ended up studying film, being a filmmaker and now a book writer and occasional blogger. It's fair to say that writing alone isn't satisfying my creativity.
Here's three sketches, that I've made since May last year, in three different styles. The middle - black ( and white ) one - is the most recent and actually depicts a scene in 'Hypersensitivosaurus and Cold Turkey'.
It's fair to say that I'm still not clear what kind of drawing style I will use for my book, but it will probably be black and white, which doesn't mean that I plan to also release some colored art connected to the story too.
I would love to hear from you, in the comments, what kind of drawing style you prefer and what you think would be most fitting for my book.
Oh... and talking about visuals, it was nice to hear that my mom could picture the story and, especially hypersensitivosaurus, pretty vividly, from my writing. Even the way he was moving around.
I aim to write in a way that paints a picture and usually enjoy those books and stories that do the same to me as a reader.
This is probably the reason why most non-fiction doesn't really hold my attention, unless it's a podcast or audio book. And even then, there needs to be a certain kind of vividness or storytelling behind it or I'm out.
To make a long story short, it's pretty amazing to see how sharing my story with my mom and talking to her about it has sped up my creative process.
This, as well as the advice of @selfhelp4trolls to spend 30 minutes a day on something important to you ( in my case: my dino writing ), even if it's in three 10 minute intervals throughout the day.
That little habit has made me way more productive. Some days I still struggle to make it to 30 minutes but on other days I end up spending way more time on my writing, getting into some kind of flow so the latter easily compensates for the rough days.
It was also cool to hear that my mom figured out a possible audience
don't miss out on this @justinparke ;<)
This is what she said:
Ik schat dit verhaal als geschikt voor kinderen vanaf een jaar of 10-mede door je woord gebruik.
which translates to:
I estimate this story to be suited for kids from a year or 10 onward, partly due to your use of words.
I guess I agree with her here. Although I have thought, several times in my life, that I wanted to write children's books, I keep using a format that seems to be directed at either older children or adults and that's okay. That's just my style.
I'm just not the short-sentences-and-easy-words kind of type and have never been that person. If I try anything else, it feels forced.
I will end it here for today. It's time to start focusing on my illustrations as well as to implement some of the feedback that my mom gave me.