The "I'll Wait for You 'Til You're Ready" project

Hi again.

So we creative types all know that to some extent we're a little ADD. Squirrel! Am I right? The trick is to harness all of that scattered energy. I am using that theory right now... I am at a bit of an impasse on one project, waiting for another project to come through, and trying to make myself useful in the downtime. Do you have that one project that you always come back to in your downtime? I have had this project sitting in its little shelf for FIVE YEARS. I love it desperately, but it is my back burner project. I'm beginning to feel a little guilty about that. I was raised Catholic, and I know how to infuse guilt into just about anything. But honestly, I kind of feel like it's that boy that you dated a couple of times in high school, who was nice and all, but you really only called him when you had your heart crushed by that other guy, and you needed to go hang out with someone nice and solid. And then, inevitably, someone else would come along who was a little wilder, sexier, more dangerous, insert your own adjective, and you'd be off. The nice guy would wait for you forever. Like a golden retriever.

This is what happens when a guilt-ridden writer starts anthropomorphizing a project.

This project is roughly titled Col. M. C. Chaucer Gets Invaded. It's a picture book. I adore Chaucer. He's a capybara- one of my favorite animals- and he's extremely British, and I am a total Anglophile. He is gruff, inflexible and self-righteous, at least at the start. It is my goal to have my dummy, or as my illustration group is now calling it, a b.i.p (book-in-progress... don't call me dummy!) ready for the SCBWI Summer Conference.

I have attached his model sheet, done in animation model sheet style. I will do one for Roselle, his wife, God rest her soul, and the invader.

I have waaaaaaay too many things I could talk about in this post, but if I don't get something out there now nothing's going to happen. It has turned into one of those days where I drive in circles. It's okay. It helps the... squirrel!

Have a lovely day.