Digital Art for Illustrating

Hey, techno presto; I'm back from a week in an Internet black-hole. The words ' Communications Ombudsman' have power!

A week without Internet has been hard though I feel like a spoilt western woman saying so. Beware the technology we become reliant on.....On the other hand it's great to have it back! Woohoo!

Today I don my artist smock and beret and skip off to Digital Art class. I am expecting it to be brilliant and fascinating and I can't wait to begin. There is a little timber-toed part of me that is a bit scared about the technology. Mr Computer and I are polite friends. He thinks I am a moody, tantrum throwing novice and I know him to be unnecessarily complex and temperamental. Yes, we are work buddies. But today computer technology will allow me to create a whole new world of illustrating. I have a vague inkling of what I'm in store for and even that feels like lighting your birthday candles with a comet. I think this is going to be big for me. My imagination is about to be gifted with a very large and shiny set of crayons. Watch out! Lets hope all the technical jargon will Velcro to my mind. At least I am hopeful the class may contain other people my age-ish and maybe some illustrators. I know a few writers now, but my artist self would like to meet some illustrators too.

The rest of my week to come will be putting together work to take in for my manuscript appraisal with Mark McLeod. From time with him I will learn how publishable my work is and what I need to do to make it happen. This is an exciting prospect but frightening too. For a start I have to pick my best stories and I love them all. Also I will take illustrations for them. That's another part of myself open for comment too. Of course the whole point is to have someone very knowledgeable in the publishing industry offer advice on my work. So, so valuable. Well, that is the hope. He will probably only have time to comment on two or three stories maximum. I know I will have a secret stash of others in my bag just in case. At the end of it I will ask for a book signing though I hope he won't think this is a suck-up. It's just he is a lovely writer and how often do you get to ask these things?

On another note I had an e-mail from a lady who had bought one of my books at the writers dinner last week. She had read it to her pre-school class and they loved it. She quoted their favourite parts. What a lovely feeling it was to hear that! One sweet and sour thing to come out of that dinner is that I have had a few more requests for my book. Yes, genius here didn't think about that one. I have no other books. I could print more from Blurb but the price is way to expensive. Also I have had an offer for a loan to self publish. Using a local printer I could self-publish in greater quantities but I would have to prepare for the leg work and have a plan. I will wait to hear what Mr McLeod says next week before I take that step.