Picture Book Marathon, Day 9

Today's story was inspired by two other marathoners, Nathan Hale and Jed Henry. Today Nathan Hale posted his marathon book, a wordless picture book about a giant snowstorm (see it here), and I was also inspired by a sketch Jed Henry did a couple of sketches about a month ago that I loved (see them here). Also this story was inspired by a time earlier this winter when my mom and I started a walk in the rain and by the time we got to lunch, it was snowing like crazy. By the way, this one is a wordless picture book like Nathan's. I wanted to put in words, but it worked so much better wordless. I didn't mean to copy, but...

So, Picture Book #8: Rainy Day, Snowy Day
for Nathan Hale, Jed Henry, and everyone participating in the Picture Book Marathon in 2011

Shadowed room, door slightly open, character looking out door, rain outside (bright)
*SLAM* door, character getting boots on
Door opening, pulling on raincoat, boots and hat on, rain outside
Character runs outside
Spinning (3 panels)
Running, jumping, playing (in panels)
Rainbow reflected in puddle, splash in puddle
Ripples fade, blue sky, then a single snowflake (panels)
Clouds form, looks up
Starts to snow
Plays in the snow, tastes snowflakes, makes snowman
Shivering
Goes back inside, takes of coat and boots
Grabs blanket and sits on couch in front of fire
Takes cup of hot chocolate from mother’s hand
Sips hot chocolate
(panel) hot chocolate on table
Falls asleep on couch
The End.

I don't have a sketch for it right now, but the ideal would look something like Jed Henry's sktech (see link above).

Oh No! And, Picture Book Marathon, Day 8

Yesterday I broke my posting every day streak, which was unbroken since January 14. Sigh. See, what happened was, yesterday was the first day of swim season. So I went to practice, and swam, and came home, and fell asleep. Until the morning, when I overslept. So my homework didn't get done, my picture book didn't get done, and I didn't write a post for yesterday. I thought about semi-cheating and writing a post today and time-stamping it for yesterday, but I didn't have anything to say. And also my brother needed his computer today, and since it is his computer, I gave it back (and realized how computer-addicted I was). But I did write a story for PBM that I transcribed onto this computer, but I don't have any names for anything yet. My name-creating inspiration was missing today. But anyway,

Picture Book #6: Untitled So Far
(this turned into more of a short story, but some picture books can be long, right?)


For Ceri

Once upon a time there was a girl named Sara who was very upset that in fairy tales, boys went out to seek their fortune when girls had to stay to home and wait for a handsome prince to find them. She recognized that there were far fewer handsome princes out there than there were girls waiting for them, so she decided not to wait for a prince but to go out and make a life for herself. So she cut her hair, disguised herself as a boy, and went to seek her fortune.
When she got to the nearest large town, she decided to find something to do while she was busy seeking her fortune, because being a country girl, she knew very well that money did not grow on trees. Eventually, she found a job as a blacksmith’s apprentice. But, being a girl, she hadn’t done very much hard labor and tired quickly. The blacksmith didn’t want to put up with that, so he fired her. Then she got a job as a stable boy, but, being a girl, she hadn’t had any experience with horses, so she was fired from that job as well.
For months, she lived like that, being fired from one job after another, when finally, exhausted and almost ready to return to her hometown, she got a job as a bookbinder’s apprentice. She was fascinated by the stories in the books, the beautiful words and pictures. And so she began to write stories, in secret, at night.
Each morning she would go to work and learn bookbinding until the shop closed. Then she’d have dinner, go into her room and start to write. She filled pages and pages with her stories.
One of her stories was particularly interesting to write, and she kept coming up with new ideas for it, so she brought it to work with her so that she could write down her ideas and not forget them by the time she got back to her room that evening. By accident, she put it down on the pile of books to be bound that day and the bookbinder picked it up and began to read it. When he saw her name on the back cover, his eyes widened. He told her to go back home for the day and closed the shop, taking the book with him.

That's all I have so far. That's the story from yesterday. I'm not sure where I want to go with it. The original idea is from a game my friend Ceri and I were playing over the weekend, where we would tell a story in the usual fairy-tale fashion, with all fairy-tale cliches intact, bust making it up as we go along.  This particular story was a variation on one I told, but fixed up and edited, and minus quite a few of the inside jokes. The story from today also has roots in that game, but the plot is different from any of the stories we told. Which transitions nicely into....

Picture Book #7: Also Untitled So Far
(this one obviously needs a lot of work)

In the town of ___________, there was an infestation problem. But this wasn’t an infestation of rats, or bugs, or (something else that infests). No, this was an infestation of dragons. Well, there was only one dragon really, but one dragon can be an infestation all by itself if it decides to be destructive.* (List stuff dragon did: burn houses, carry off maidens, be a general nuisance, etc.) In ________ there lived a young man named ___________. Like many of the other residents, he was unhappy with the dragon problem. But unlike the other residents, he decided to do something about it. So he went to the local witch and asked for help to get rid of the dragon. Luckily, she didn’t turn him into a toad and decided to grant his request. So she gave him a sword and three gold pieces and sent him home to kill the dragon. So _________ went home, but not being the brightest young man, he gave the three gold pieces and the sword to the first youth he met and told him to go slay the dragon. The youth left the next morning in the direction of the dragon’s cave and never returned. So ____________ went back to the witch and asked for her help again. Again she gave him three gold pieces and a sword and sent him home to kill the dragon. But __________ hadn’t gotten any smarter since the last time he went to see the witch, so again he went to the first youth he saw and gave him the gold pieces and the sword and told him to go slay the dragon. The youth left the next morning in the direction of the dragon’s cave and never returned. _____________ decided to go again to the witch and ask for help. By this time, the witch was getting annoyed that he kept coming back, so this time she gave him the sword without the three gold pieces, and told him to go slay the dragon himself. So ___________ didn’t bother waiting for the morning, but went that night and slayed the dragon while it was asleep. The next day he went to the witch to thank her. By this time she was really annoyed at him and didn’t ever want to see him again. So she turned him into a toad. The end.

*I got that line from Maurice and His Amazing Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett. I don’t think it’s the exact line, so it’s sort of mostly not copying. But I changed it to be about dragons rather than rats, and I’m citing Mr. Pratchett like the diligent English student that I am.

Also, I was really disappointed that I couldn't go more than a week without taking a rest day, and then I find these two wonderful comments on my last post that helped cheer me up and get me back in the game for the marathon. So thank you so much, Literally Lynne and Shaunda!

One more thing and then I will go to bed: I finally got around to scanning and coloring my sketches from the last few days. So first, here is my fully finished drawing for Green Yarn, which I may want to turn into the title page later. It didn't turn out the way I was expecting, and the girl looks a lot more like how I imagined the girl from Untitled So Far (book #6), but I like the way it turned out.

[UPDATE: I just realized I forgot her hands. Gack, I hate drawing hands. Oh well, if I ever do anything with this drawing I'll add in the hands.]

And here's the sketch for Untitled So Far (#6) which somehow got flipped horizontally.I'll fix that when I color it. I'll color tomorrow or the day after, depending on... well, depending on everything. On how my life works out tomorrow. Right now, I'm figuring out every day as it comes. Stressful as it is, it makes a nice change.

[UPDATE AGAIN: I just realized I forgot to do Teaser Tuesday. I'll do a double Teaser Tuesday next week to make up for it, once my life gets organized again. I'm super busy and not reading as much anyway.]

Until tomorrow, hopefully with two more picture books,

This Weekend

...has been crazy.

First, I volunteered at the library again, which was very fun. I re-shelved the books in the large print section, crossed out the bar codes in discarded books and magazines, and I made a poster display for the YA section. It was incredibly fun, even more than last week.

And then  I went to my friends birthday party which was SO FUN and we stayed up until all hours of the night. Yay! By the way, starting a movie at 11:30 - so great. Custom Apples to Apples (where you make your own cards before the game starts) - best game ever. Happy Birthday Emi!

And then I got home today, realized I didn't write a picture book yesterday, went to turn on my computer, and... nothing happened. My computer would not turn on. At all. So I took my computer into the mac store (I have a mac) and they said they could fix it, but it would take them a week. A WEEK. So started freaking out because all of my schoolwork (including notes) is on my computer. And then I realized all of my notes for PBM are on my computer. But I didn't really have a choice because my computer wouldn't work even if I brought it home, so I might as well have them fix it.

So I went home and called my friend (thank you!) for the notes from last week (I backed up my computer last weekend, thank goodness so I'm only missing stuff from last week, which includes everything for PBM) and borrowed my brother's computer, a PC which I can barely use (with lots of "gahh"s and "darn it"s and "oh my gosh this freaking computer"s but which I'm using now, and I'm going to make do for this week.

Except that by the time I finished my homework after all of this, it was 11. And I just didn't have the energy to write 2 picture books without any of my notes. And my brother's computer doesn't have photoshop, so I can't draw covers and be done with it.

That is my excuse for why I missed two days in a row. And it's a much better excuse than "I had a lot of homework" which I'm sure I'm going to use a bunch of times in the coming weeks, especially in the week before finals (gack!).

I'm going to try to write THREE tomorrow (yeah, right). I'll probably end up with 1 completed book and 2 ideas. And since spring sports start tomorrow I'll be too exhausted to make those 2 ideas into 2 full books. Which is what double frees on Tuesdays are for. I also want to finish the drawing I started for the inside page of Fox & Sparrow (which may have to wait since it's on my computer) and make a cover for Green Yarn. Goodness, I have a lot to do.

Until tomorrow,

Picture Book Marathon, Day 4 (again)

So I actually got out 1 more picture book before I went to bed tonight. Here it is:

Picture Book #5: Green Yarn

One day, Katie was looking through the closet when she came across a roll of green yarn. Katie picked up the yarn and knew at once that this yarn would make the most beautiful sweater. She asked her mother to make the yarn into a sweater, which she lovingly and skillfully did. Katie wore her sweater night and day. She wore it to school, she wore it at home, she wore it to the grocery store and at her friends’ houses. She put it on the minute she woke up and took it off only when she was getting ready for bed. Weeks went by, then months, and soon Katie started growing out of her wonderful sweater. When the sleeves were several inches too short and the buttons didn’t always stay closed, Katie’s mother unraveled the coat and made it into a scarf. Kate got a new coat to replace to green one, but she never loved it the way she loved her new green scarf. Katie wore her scarf night and day. She wore it when it was cold, she wore it when was warm. She put it on the minute she walked out the door and didn’t take it off until she was back home. Weeks went by, then months, and soon the edges of the scarf had started to fray. So as much as Katie loved her scarf, she agreed to unravel it and make it into something else. But her mother was busy and forgot. So it stayed in a roll of green thread for weeks, then months, then years. When Katie grew up and moved into a house of her own, she put the green yarn into the closet. Six years later, her daughter Mary was looking through the closet when she came across the roll of green yarn. Mary picked up the yarn and knew at once that it would make the most beautiful sweater.

When I originally thought of the idea “Adventures of a Coat", I thought it was going to be a bit of a different story, about several generations of a family, and the coat was going to be a man’s overcoat, like my pre-marathon prep sketch (a combination of several different tracings)

Then several thoughts started to come together at once. I was writing about a roll of yarn for another picture book idea. I thought about how my Omi Mary always makes her own (beautiful) sweaters, and how I was fascinated by all of her yarn and by her knitting when I was younger. (A favorite game of my brother’s and mine was called spiderweb and involved taking all of her yarn out of the closet and stringing it all across the living room. I wish I had a picture of it.) I also started thinking about a coat I used to love. I still love it, although it’s a bit small now. It’s bright green, just like Katie’s sweater in the story. All of these thoughts came together into what became the story I have now like this:

If you can’t tell, that’s a giant whiteboard with basically the entire story on it in sections.

By the way, Katie’s character came out of a book I loved years ago called Katie meets the impressionists (picture below). Although my Katie turned out a little bit differently, her origin is in that book, which I highly recommend.

Also, I originally imagined my Katie’s coat (now a sweater) like the one in this book. Then I realized that it’d be pretty hard (if it’s even possible) to make a coat out of yarn, so I turned it into a sweater instead.

I don't have any illustrations for this yet. I'm publishing this with an earlier time-stamp than it actually is, because I'm betting my parents will read this post (hi mom and dad!). I'll just say, it's late. And I want to go to bed and not make another illustration since I just finished the Odyssey one a few hours ago. I'll draw and post the illustration for this tomorrow. I want to try drawing it by hand first again. Anyway, I'm off to bed now.

G'night,

Picture Book Marathon, Day 4 - Illustration

This isn't a cover illustration, but it's the first page. I'm very proud of it. I think it's the best illustration I've done this far. I drew it by hand first, then scanned it into my computer. Then I had to trace it on photoshop because when I was drawing it, I forgot that I couldn't publish a drawing on lined paper. Then I colored it on photoshop just like normal. One of the other things I did differently this time was that I drew the text rather than inserting text. I like it better this way but it's a lot harder because I'm still using my little trackpad, so I have to be super careful with the letters. Any thoughts on today's illustration?

Yay for curly-headed Odysseus!

I'm working on my make-up book for yesterday, but it's not even close to being done, so it might turn into tomorrow's picture book and I'll just be a day behind of where I want to be. Perhaps inspiration will strike me farther into the month and I'll write four in a day (yeah, right) and be as ahead as I want to be. Or maybe I'll be productive this weekend. Or maybe not. Oh well.

Tomorrow will be the first weekend book. For me weekends are not work time. I'm sure for most people, weekends are not work time. Weekends are sleep-until-noon time and then hang-out-and-waste-time time. Everyone needs some of that. Let's see if I can write both of my picture books and have a real weekend. If not, the weekend takes priority, 'cause otherwise, I'll never get through next week. (Gahh, school! Just kidding, I actually love school.... most of the time.)

Until tomorrow,

Picture Book Marathon, Day 4

Today I felt like being unoriginal. So I did I retelling of The Odyssey, which already has a zillion retellings out there. Unfortunately, I wrote this during my free period, which means I didn't have a copy of The Odyssey to reference, so I might be a bit out of order and missing a few details because I haven't touched my copy since I read it for English last year.

Today I wanted to try drawing my cover on paper and then scanning it in and coloring it digitally, so I don't have that right now either, but I'll post it tonight.

Without further ado, Picture Book #4: The Odyssey.

Odysseus was a very clever man.
Odysseus: I am a very clever man.
In fact, he was so clever that he figured out how to win a war.
Odysseus: I built this wooden horse and hid soldiers inside of it…
Inside speech bubble, text turns into panel showing Trojan horse.
After he won the war, he decided he wanted to go home to his wife and son. So he got into his ship with some other soldiers who were also going home and started sailing.
Two of the gods, Poseidon and Athena were arguing what to do about Odysseus. Athena wanted to let him go home because he was clever, but Poseidon was angry at Odysseus.
He was angry because once when Odysseus was sailing, he landed on the island of one of Poseidon’s children, a Cyclops. He tricked the Cyclops into getting drunk and then blinded him. Odysseus and his companions escaped by hiding beneath the Cyclops’ sheep.
Poseidon caused a terrible storm and all the ships got wrecked, but Odysseus managed to escape to the island of Calypso.
Calypso took care of him until he had built another boat, and tried to convince him to stay, but he wanted to go home to his family.
He landed on an island where he told his hosts the story of the war and of his travels. They agreed to help him get home, and several men agreed to sail him there.
But Poseidon was still angry and so this time they landed on an island where the enchantress Circe lived. She turned all of Odysseus’ companions into pigs, but Odysseus tricked her so that she didn’t turn him into a pig and then convinced her to turn the companions back into humans.
Next they arrived at the island of Aeolius, god of the winds. He gave Odysseus all of the winds in a bag except the one that would let them easily sail home. Odysseus did not tell his companions what was in the bag, but warned them not to open the bag. When they were so close that they could see land, Odysseus took a nap. The other sailors thought that Odysseus had told them not to open the bag because there was money in it that Odysseus didn’t want to share. So they opened the bag and all of the winds came out, blowing them in the wrong direction in a huge storm.
When they figured out where they were, the sailors were afraid. In order to get back home, they would have to face many dangers.
First, they sailed past the island of the Sirens. The Sirens’ song was so beautiful that sailors would jump into the sea if they heard it. But Odysseus knew theat he’d never get another chance to hear them. So he ordered all of the sailors to stuff their ears with wax so that they could not hear, and tie him to the mast so that he could not jump overboard.
Next, they had to sail through the straight of Scylla and Charybdis. On one side of the strait lived Scylla. Scylla was a monster who lived high up on a cliff. She had six heads that could eat a sailor in one bite! On the other side was Charybdis. Charybdis was a giant whirlpool that could destroy any ship. When Odysseus had to sail through the strait, he sailed closer to Scylla because he wanted to save the ship and the rest of the sailors that didn’t get eaten.
Finally Athena convinced Poseidon to let Odysseus reach home. Odysseus went into his house in disguise, but undisguised himself when his wife and son figured out who he was.
The End.

And now a few questions:
Should I have more for each story within the story? I don’t want the kids to get bored.
Also, the language gets more complex as the story goes on. Should I change some of the vocabulary? I assume the story will be read by kids who are old enough to understand the vocab I use or by parents reading to their kids who can explain words that the kids don’t know.

I'm determined to write another picture book tonight, since I just found out that our Cumulative Assessments cut a few days into the end of February, so I want to keep those as rest days in case I need them.

By the way, as of 2pm today, there were 100 views in the month of February alone. And it's only 4 days in! Thank you, viewers!

Until tonight,

Picture Book Marathon, Day 3

So I have bad news. I don't have a picture book for today. I meant to write one today, because it's just ridiculous to be taking a break when I'm only 3 days in, but I didn't have any free periods during the day, and then I came home from school and fell asleep, and then I had a of of homework.... You get it. I'm not going to go through a whole list of excuses because obviously everyone has busy lives. But I'm determined to write two tomorrow to make up for today. I have a couple ideas.

Also, I'm in the middle of a sketch for an inside page of yesterday's book, Fox & Sparrow. I'm pretty sure it'll turn out better than the cover did. I'll post that tomorrow as well. (It looks like tomorrow's going to be a pretty busy day. Oh well, it's Friday!)

Picture Book Marathon, Day 2 (again)

I'm beginning to see this marathon not only as a picture book marathon but also as a figure-out-how-to-use-photoshop-better-so-you-don't-embarrass-yourself-with-your-awful-drawings marathon. Today I decided to get ahead of the game and write TWO picture books (that's allowed, isn't it? I don't think I could finish the marathon if I wasn't allowed to do books in advance. The first one I did today is here), and with my continuing theme of variety, I made today's book a wordless picture book. And, to try to make my cover a bit better than yesterday's, I traced an actual photo. Unfortunately, the picture didn't turn out quite the way I wanted it (AKA not at all the way I wanted it), but here it is.

Picture Book #3: Fox & Sparrow

Anna, sparrow, flies out of a cage. Flies in the sky (4 panels). Sees Ari, fox. Approaches cautiously. Ari smiles, insincere. Anna and Ari play (9 panels). Ari leads Anna through arch. They play. Ari backs out. Anna sees other animals (butterfly, cat, hawk, dog). Anna tries to go to them. Anna get caught on bars. Zoom out. Anna is in a cage. Ari looms nearby. Anna drifs down to bottom of cage. Anna transforms into doe. Anna rams against bars of cage. Bars shatter. Ari smiles insincerely. Anna turns away. Anna joins other animals. Ari is left alone.

Lots of symbolism in this one, and I'm not sure some of the kids will get it. What do you clever readers think? Do you get it?

This is a retelling (with a few obvious changes) of events that happened when I was in elementary school. No, I didn't get put in a cage, but a friend of mine didn't turn out to be quite as friendly as I had originally hoped, and even tried to stop me from making new friends. Luckily I grew up (hence the transformation) and although she still goes to my school, I'm strong enough to stand up to her now.

By the way, the four other animals in the story are animal versions of four of my closest friends now.

Please comment! Feedback would be incredibly helpful, especially with this one, since I'm not sure if my story is getting across.

Picture Book Marathon, Day 2

After yesterday's incredibly difficult rhyming couplets, I thought I'd give myself a break today.

Picture Book #2 is called I Want a Llama.

I always loved the word llama when I was younger, with that awesome double l at the beginning. My friend Stephanie and I have a joke about bringing llamas to school, and so I wrote this one for her.

I Want A Llama

For Stephanie

I want a llama to carry my books

To carry my bags

To carry my pens and paper

I want a llama to take me to school

To take me to work

To take me to my friends’ houses to play

I want a llama to cuddle

To hug

To sneak into my room at night and sleep on my rug

I want a llama to sit in my backyard

And eat daisies

Cloaked In Red

by Vivian Vande Velde
Start Date: 1 February 2011
End Date: 1 February 2011
128 pages (Hardcover Edition)
Published 1 October 2010

I explained the premise of this book in my post "Fractured Fairy Tales" (scroll down a-ways or click here). VVV wrote eight retellings of Little Red Riding Hood, and I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one. After reading some reviews saying that it was mediocre, too short, or didn't live up to VVV standards, my expectations were somewhat deflated. Then Amazon couldn't get a copy of the book to send to me, which lowered my expectations even more (Was there only one printing? I ended up getting a used copy instead, just to get the book faster). However, I was as excited as ever when I received the somewhat tiny book in the mail. Yes, it is short; 128 pages and the pages were somewhat smaller than I'm used to. However, upon reading the first few pages of the first story, I could tell the rest of the book was going to be good. I promptly threw out my old expectations and replaced them with shiny, new, and far higher ones. Cloaked in Red did not disappoint. Every story was funny, interesting, and totally different from the one before. I finished it (in about an hour) with a smile on my face.