The Land of Doom/Picture Book Marathon 1/28

Welcome to February, month of the Picture Book Marathon!

As I mentioned in the last post, the marathon will also include the serial story, "Yellowbelly and Nate Visit Children's Publishing a.k.a. THE LAND OF DOOM." Which starts now:

And here is Picture Book #1:

"The Line King"

This story is about a little guy who's first in line, so he's the king. He's followed by the Line Queen, the Line Prince, all the way down through the kingdom. They go on an adventure, all in a line.

I'll be honest here, I got caught up in the LAND OF DOOM story, and totally neglected thinking about day 1's picture book. So...kind of a weak idea to kick off the first day with, but I wrote the whole thing down, and I like the title. Day 1-down!

MEGA PROJECT Master Plan!

That's right gang, I'm going to write a book a day in February! I won't be posting the full manuscripts, but I will be posting the title, cover sketch and synopsis for each book. So it's like NaNoWriMo times TWENTY EIGHT!

This isn't my idea, there is a company, like NaNoWriMo, hosting this crazy event. In fact, if you want to play along at home, you can join here, it's free--today's the final day to join! They have some handy tracking tools, as well as support for picture book writers.

I have no clue how this will turn out. I may have HORRIBLE ideas some days (maybe most days) but I'm confident that something will turn up, you write 28 picture books, at least one should have potential, right?

To give the marathon a narrative thread, Yellowbelly and I will be going on an epic quest, into the nightmare landscape of picture book publishing itself. February is going to be pretty heavy duty. Better rest up.

MEGA PROJECT Training

Tomorrow the mystery "February MEGA-PROJECT" will be unveiled. It's a project, it's MEGA, and it will take all of February to do.

February has a MEGA PROJECT?

Thanks for all the LEGO compliments! Soon I really will be able to write them off as a work expense! I gotta say, though, I'm happy to be back to drawing. I'm no photographer, and those little LEGO tableaus took forever. I'm glad they were such a hit with everyone though, they'll be back.

Watch your inbox for your cartoon/avatar pics. I've been sending out the first few, I'll keep them trickling out over the next few days.

And, yes, February is going to be a month long MEGA-project thing. What could it possibly be?

CALAMITY JACK LEGO part 6

CALAMITY JACK LEGO part 5

So I guess since Jack, Rapunzel and Freddy beat the Vikings, they will now move on to the SUPERBOWL! (See, Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings were beaten and... oh never mind.)

Let me correct Rapunzel, I know she called it a "Tractor," and it's obviously a "Combine Harvester." But she's from the past, she doesn't understand the finer points of modern farming machinery.

I think I have everyone's avatar/cartoon photo now--make sure to send yours in if you haven't yet (and you qualify.) I'm going to try and get them all drawn this week.

Just for kicks, there will be one more LEGO post tomorrow.

CALAMITY JACK LEGO part 4

Oh no! A cliff-hanger ending just before the weekend! What will happen to our heroes?

CALAMITY JACK LEGO part 3

Phew. I thought these would be easier than the drawn comics--after all, it's just taking pictures right? Yikes, I never, EVER, EVER want to try my hand at stop-motion animation. Just setting these guys up without knocking them all down was tricky. I have a whole new appreciation for the work that goes into a Wallace and Gromit.