Update on NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo

I find that November always seems to be one of my busiest times of the year. In the past I've done the NaNoWriMo and although I didn't quite make it to the 50,000 words, I did fairly well. This year I added the Picture Book Idea Month which challenges participants to come up with one idea per day for a picture book. As of today, my totals are:

NaNoWriMo - 10,000 words - very far behind where I need to be!
PiBoIdMo - 19 ideas - right on track!

If nothing else the picture book ideas will give me stories to write and illustrate all year long. The novel writing month will give me a good start on the next novel to complete.

I'm taking the NaNoWriMo and the PiBoIdMo challenge!

There are two challenges this month for people who write. One is the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which challenges writers to write a  50,000 word story during the month on November. This challenge is looking at quantity of words, NOT the quality of words. It is a perfect way for a writer to get a first draft down, or most of a first draft down without worrying about the things that come with revisions. It is all about spontaneity and ideas.

 The second challenge is the Picture Book Idea Month (PiBoIdMo). In this challenge, the writer is to come up with 30 ideas for picture books in 30 days. Since I love writing and illustrating picture books, I decided to take this challenge too! If you are interested in this challenge, go to taralazar.wordpress.com to sign up.


I'll try and post updates as to word and idea counts to let you know how it is going. This is day 1. Time to start!

Illustrating next story

I am currently illustrating my next story, which is currently in the storyboard phase. The manuscript has gone through numerous revisions and is finally tight. There is always the chance that as I progress through the storyboard phase I will discover some pacing issues that would require some additional refining, but at least for now it is done.

Flash Animations

I've posted two flash animations on the animation page of my website and currently am in the process of developing some more short animations.

Please visit my website!

I finally have my website up and running. On the animation page, I need to make some changes that will allow iphones, ipods and ipads to view the simple animations I created. At the present time, any devise that does not support flash can not see them. I am excited to have learned the html and css necessary to launch my website without templates. I think in the future this will give me a lot of flexibility to create a creative online environment. To check out my website, please go to www.lindanorman-lyman.com

Thanks!

Website and flash animations

For the past month or so, I've been working on creating my website. I have my domain name and a webhost set up. Learning to code the content rather than using the templates that come with the sites has been fun and challenging. Hopefully, it gives me a lot more flexibility in design so that things end up looking the way I want them to look. Hopefully I'll have it up and running next week sometime, once I make the final changes to the coding.

I will post once I have it up and running!

Flash illustrations coming soon!

I have been working on flash illustrations of some of my work. Hopefully I will be able to post it soon! I've been enjoying the process, although not the compatibility issues that I have encountered moving between versions and computers.

NESCBWI 11 Conference

Returned on Sunday night from a very busy weekend in Fitchburg, MA where NESCBWI held their 2011 regional conference. So many great keynote speakers, Jane Yolen, Tomie dePaola, Lin Oliver, Steven Mooser and Harold Underdown to inspire and motivate. So many great workshops that gave me tools to bring my written work and online presence to the next level. I had a very helpful portfolio review with Art Director, Ann Bobco, who gave me some ideas on how to move my work forward.

I enjoyed watching "The Library of the Mind" once again. It didn't lose any impact in its second viewing. The best part of the conference was the networking with new people and spending time with my RISD friends, who did a great job representing the RISD program by winning all sorts of awards at the poster contest.

I'm looking forward to attending Encore in the fall and the conference next spring in Springfield!

My NESCBWI Poster contest Entry

This is my entry in the NESCBWI poster contest that took Second Place in the People's Choice catagory. Pippi's head, hair and hands are made out of sculpty as is one tree in the background. She has a soft body and I made her clothes out of fabric. Her socks are made from old socks that I altered and her shoes are made of foam. The background is made from watercolor paper with different watercolor washes. The lower "foreground" papers have been gradually raised from the background on pieces of foam core board. The grass is made from silk plants that I cut up. I overlay the title and author's name on the computer.

SCBWI NY11 Winter Conference

Conference was an exciting, emotional and inspirational weekend meeting other artists and illustrators from all over the world.  The keynote addresses were often very funny, but contained a lot of great information that will be remembered as I work toward my goal of being a published author/illustrator. 

As usual, just getting to and from the conference left me with a wealth of material that I have been telling and re-telling since arriving safely home, and saving for future use.