ROW80 Round 4 - Final Update

Here we are at the end, not just of ROW80 Round 4 but also of 2011 (where did the year go?).

When I look back at where I was writing-wise at the start of the year, I'm amazed by how far I've come. Even though I completely bombed in NaNoWriMo (which was to be expected), the amount of writing I've got done this year has made me realise that I can do this writing thing after all. I think having the ROW80 challenge has been a great motivator in allowing me to encourage - and be encouraged by - other like minded people struggling along on the same journey. Having my writing workshop group with my former TAFE classmates has been awesome as well (even if I had to miss the last few meetings of the year due to work and uni), as critiquing other people's writing and receiving constructive feedback on my own work makes me want to challenge myself to make my writing better. I'm looking forward to both more ROW80 and more workshopping in 2012 :)

As far as goals go, it's been a bit hit and miss this year, but to be honest, I think I was aiming too high in some cases. I achieved all of my academic goals, but I think a lot of that was because there were tangible deadlines for those, and tangible consequences if I missed those deadlines. I guess because there were no real ramifications if I didn't finish a chapter of my novel, I didn't always try as hard to write as I should (sure, some days I wrote heaps, but not enough to make up for the days I didn't).

As for my final check-in: I still haven't touched my thesis, and I probably won't until at least the end of December. But this week I have been smashing out more than 1,000 most days on my novel (bringing me to around the 25,000 word mark at the moment), so at least I feel like I'm getting something done. It's been one of those rare times where the words and the story just flow, and though I'm not happy with all of what I've written, it's at least enough to get the gist of the scene down on the page so I can build on it as a foundation for the better bits. I can always demolish it and rewrite it later (another issue I'm trying to get over; the need to endlessly revise and pick at a single chapter or paragraph instead of getting more actual writing done).

I've also decided to set another goal, even though it's not ROW80 anymore, and it's a fairly big one. I want to hit 30,000 words of my novel by the end of 2011. It will be a bit of a slog, but I've decided that if I can achieve this goal, I'm going to buy myself something really cool (though at the moment I have no idea what that really cool something will be). Will let you know how that goes in my goal-stating post for Round 1 of 2012 :) If I can maintain the momentum I've had over the last few days, I should be home free.

As a parting gift for ROW80 2011, I leave you a little something I made in Photoshop (while procrastinating, of course):

May His Furry Judgemental Holiness inspire you to greater creativity and productivity!

Just you watch, Judgemental Dog. I'll show you.

(show Judgemental Dog some love. Follow him on Twitter or Like him on Facebook.)

Check out how other ROW80ers fared here. See you next round!

ROW80 Round 4 - 10th Update

So... My brain appears to have gone on strike.

Since I got my results two weeks ago, it's like the old grey matter just went, "You know what, I don't have to do work anymore, so screw it, I'm not going to." I've chipped away at revising my thesis, and while there really isn't that much I need to do to it (essentially all I'm doing is cutting out big slabs and writing the odd transition sentence to make sure the bits still flow smoothly), I think I hit that point where I just couldn't bear to look at it anymore, so I'm probably going to leave it for at least a few days before trying to tackle it again. Then I'll hopefully be able to knock it over in a day. Lately I've just been finding it a real struggle to even open the damn document, let alone concentrate on it.

I have also managed to do a bit more work on my novel, though not as much as I would like. I think I've added maybe 2,000 words to it over the last two weeks, but considering what I'd done before that, I think that's a pretty solid effort. I've worked pretty much all day every day for the last two weeks, so when I do come home I've usually been too tired to write (I know, I should write anyway, but anything I write when I'm that tired is crap anyway).

Something pretty cool happened, though. I got a signed copy of The Extinction Gambit by Michael Pryor, one of my favourite authors since I was a young teenager. As if this wasn't awesome enough, I got a mention on the dedications page! As you can imagine, I sat around being smug for a bit before I even started reading.

(P.S. The book was awesome, as I knew it would be. If you or your children like young adult steampunk fantasy, you need to buy this book. Or the Laws of Magic series.)

Here's a random surreal savanna scene I painted with my new Winsor and Newton watercolour paints, while avoiding editing my thesis:

Anyhoo, it's bedtime for me. The long days and ridiculour hours at work and the crappy diet have taken their toll (I just realised that for the last four days or so I've eaten nothing but Vegemite toast and curry 2 minute noodles) and I feel like I need to sleep til dinner time tomorrow. Hopefully I'll at least be able to bring home the last week of ROW80 with a burst of productivity. And I'll try to visit some other ROW80 blogs so I can catch up on how everyone else is going too lol

I'm sorry, Judgemental Dog. I promise I'll do better next round.

Check out how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 9th Update

Though I've worked almost every day, the last week has been fairly good for me in terms of general productivity (even though I've dropped off the ROW80 radar a bit; don't tell Judgemental Dog or he'll nip me). Earlier in the week I wrote almost another whole chapter for my novel, and though I had to get rid of a few hundred words of stuff I already had, at least it feels like I'm finally moving forward with it.

Now that our new store is open, I'm doing customer service instead of nightfill, which means I'm not lifting and carrying heavy stuff anymore. This certainly seems to be making a difference to my knee, which, though it's still a bit dodgy and achey, seems to be getting better more quickly than it was.

I've been continuing with workshopping my writing group's submissions, and with revising my thesis. Speaking of which, I just got my results for my Honours year: High Distinction for my thesis, and High Distinctions for all of my units, giving me a HD/H1 for Honours overall. This means that if I want to do my PhD in the future, I can :D And I'm also hoping it will give me a bit of an edge when applying for jobs. To celebrate, I decided to crack open the big tub of Connoisseur Chocolate Obsession ice cream that's been sitting in the freezer for nearly a month.

This is basically me right now:

Also, a big bunch of art supplies (mainly watercolour paints) I ordered a while ago arrived this week, and though I haven't really painted anything serious with them yet, I've been having fun experimenting (in case you didn't already know, I'm a bit of an art supplies addict, with several desk drawers full of coloured pencils, paints, pastels and other assorted crap). Here are my new goodies:

(the black tubes were freebies; glad I didn't pay for them because the paint they contain smells utterly feral)

So I'm in a pretty awesome mood at the moment. Basically, imagine me doing a happy dance like this dog:

In light of his mistress's good mood, Judgemental Dog is being a bit more lenient this week:

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 8th Update

It's a bit of a mixed-bag in terms of my achievements this week. Last Sunday and Wednesday I did a fair bit of writing, and probably got around 2,000 new words in total, but aside from that, I've barely touched my novel. I did scribble more random notes for the other novel idea that has been pestering me (the weird Western/Samurai/Steampunk/Fantasy whatever it is one), but it's not as much progress as I would like to have made. Still, at least it's some (and certainly more than I've made in the last several months). I'm working almost every day now, so finding time (and energy) to write will become more of a struggle.

I'll soon be starting the revision/editing process for my thesis. My Honours supervisor wants to see if I can get it published in an academic journal, which means I need to get it down from 75 pages to around 20-25; most of the editing will just be cutting stuff, though some bits will need to be rewritten for the sake of flow/clarity. I'm aiming to have a revised draft ready for my supervisor to look at about two weeks from now. While I'm at it, I'll probably try polishing my conference paper I wrote last semester for an assignment to see if I can get that published as well. Not a huge task in terms of word count, just a lot of shuffling, cutting and rewriting.

I've also made a start on workshopping some of the pieces submitted by my writing group, which I haven't had time to do before now; I'll hopefully be able to start emailing some back this week and be up to date by our next meeting in mid-December.

Because I was bored, I drew/painted a little steampunk dragon:

My knee is also taking its time to recover (having a job that currently involves lifting/carrying boxes all day doesn't help), but the support tape and the exercises seem to be slowly strengthening it. After examining my MRI report, the physio thinks that instead of damaging/twisting a ligament (as originally seemed to be the case), the crappy general structure of my knee and resulting wear of the cartilage resulted in my kneecap partially dislocating. Unfortunately it's something that can't really be fixed by surgery, though hopefully the exercises will help it become less severe and/or frequent. And at least it wasn't a full dislocation (I had that happen once to my other knee as a result of a karate injury; there's a level of "OMG WTF OW" I never want to visit again). Our new store opens next Thursday, so after that I should be just doing non-weight-bearing duties like customer services instead of nightfill.

Hopefully if I finish this chapter tonight, Judgemental Dog won't force-choke me...

Check on other ROW80ers here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 7th Update

Even though I finished all my uni-related stuff last week, I still haven't done much since the last check-in; my brain was still recovering from this year's workload, and I've had to work a fair bit (made more difficult by the fact my job is essentially lifting and carrying stuff and my knee is still dodgy). I also spent the weekend with my nan, and generously helped her to eat the tray of chocolate fudge she'd made (because I'm a caring granddaughter). However, today I opened my novel document (for the first time in a few months, I think) and have so far written 500 words. I'm hoping to get another 1,000 tonight. A lot of my time today was spent simply staring at the existing pages, hoping to get into the headspace of the story again, but I'm hoping that will get easier as I write more.

I did do another painting though, copied from a photo on the internet of the Nakagusuku Casttle ruins in Japan:

I still have an anxious wait ahead until I get my uni results, but for now I'm off to keep attacking my novel :D

Settle down, Judgemental Dog, I'll get some writing done eventually...

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 6th Update

First up; this post has a lot of pictures. But they're cool pictures, so it's okay.

The biggest news I have this week is that I have finally finished my thesis. 75 pages, 19,451 words of academic wankery. Here it is in its bound and printed glory:

I also got the hardcover copy of Belvedere, my illustrated children's book in the mail the other day:

And, the little watercolour paint set I ordered many weeks ago finally arrived last week, so when I've been in a procrastinating mood, I've been having a play with my new 'toy'. Here are a few paintings I've done:



I also discovered Jerry's Artarama, an online American art supplies store where I can buy like double the stuff for half the price I could find it here in Australia, or even on eBay. I know where all my Christmas money will be going...

Anyway, I've just finished marking all my assignments for the semester, which means I officially have No More Academic Activities, so I'm off to write my novel, or paint a picture, or die of exhaustion. And nuts to Judgemental Dog if he doesn't approve.

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 5th Update

Short post tonight; I'm still finishing off the full draft of my thesis, which I have to send to my honours supervisor by tomorrow (the final thesis is due Friday, so that gives her time to give me feedback and then me time to make any required changes). I'm now at just over 12,000 words (probably a bit less because I don't think tables are meant to be included in word count), which is 2,000 over the required minimum, so at least I don't have to worry about waffling for the sake of word count. I don't really have that much left to do; just another paragraph or two in my Results and Findings section, and then my Further Research and Conclusion sections, which shouldn't take too long, though I need to add a few references in at various points. I also have to format it properly, since at the moment it looks like the Frankenstein's Monster of text and layout.

I just hope my printer can survive spewing out the 60 or so pages :D

Also, the MRI on my knee showed some bad swelling inside the joint, but no signs of any injury that might have caused it. It's good in a way - a torn ligament or damaged cartilage would have been very bad news - but at the same time I'm kind of annoyed that I still have no idea what happened to my knee or why; it seems as though I must have twisted some small inner muscle in the wrong way and that was enough to aggravated it (though in that case I have no idea what the loud snap was). I'm on crutches for the rest of the week (and therefore can't return to work, so no money for me :( ) and I'll be seeing a physio later in the week. My knee feels slightly better - probably because with the crutches I got yesterday I've actually been able to rest it more - but it still hurts and feels wonky if I put much weight on it, and trying to straighten it is still very painful.

Anyhoo... Back to thesis-writing I go!

She'll be right, Judgemental Dog. She'll be right.

See how other ROW80 folks are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 4th Update

Another day, another update. I still haven't touched my novel, but I have done almost another 1,000 words of my thesis. I need a total of 10,000 words (ideally 12,000 if I can push it that far) by the start of next week. At the moment I have about 8,500, and after I do my results section (which I'll be working on tonight and tomorrow) I should be close to meeting my goal (and then I'll just need my conclusion and intro and all that crap). And it should be easier to do that since now I can't work... (I'll get to that soon) Overall this round, I haven't been able to keep up with my writing as much as I'd have liked (I think I said at some stage I wanted to try for 500 new words of novel each week), but I guess with the amount of uni work I've had to do, it was never going to happen. Just like NaNoWriMo probably won't happen. I'm registered and intend to get into it with my novel in mid November, but I'm not really optimistic about my productivity levels.

Also, since I uploaded Belvedere, my illustrated children's book last week, someone has bought a copy! That means I'm a published author with a real live audience! I don't care if I've only sold one copy, it's a technicality and I'm running with it. SQUEEE! The book is available for preview (or purchase) through the above link (only in hardcover or paperback at this stage, but I'm hoping to make an eBook copy available soon).

In slightly less awesome news, my knee exploded on Monday night (okay, it didn't explode, but it felt like it did, and writing 'explode' made it look cool). I'd like to say it was while I was doing something awesome like martial arts or getting into a bar brawl or rescuing a child from a rabid goat (shut up, that could so happen), but in reality, it happened while I was... walking. Over perfectly even ground. Yup, I was just wandering across campus after uni and suddenly my knee cracked and went out from under me (at which point I emitted a high-pitched girly shriek). I'm having an MRI tomorrow to find out what has actually happened, but so far it looks to be a torn ligament. I'm hoping it's something that can just be fixed with rest or maybe a bit of physio, because I have to use a walking stick to get around at the moment and I feel (and probably look) like an idiot.

And I had my final exam ever yesterday! I think I went well, though not as well as I hoped to, but that's okay.

The painkillers are making me feel special.

I wouldn't be too worried about Judgemental Dog this week; he's perfectly happy to spend all day 'recharging'.

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 3rd Update

IT'S FINISHED! IT'S FINISHED! IT'S FINISHED! After a semester of planning, writing and drawing like the caffeine-crazed lunatic I am, my illustrated children's book has finally been sent to the printers. Belvedere is the story of a dragon who is shunned by his own kind but still finds somewhere to belong in the end. You can preview it here at Blurb.com. Best part is, I now feel justified in having a Completed Works page, which makes me feel all writerly and stuff.

~EDIT: People have asked me about purchasing the book. It is available for purchase through the preview link above; just click the shopping trolley "Buy" icon under the bottom right of the preview (or click here) and you should be taken to a page where you can add it to your cart and then check out. At this stage it is available in soft cover and in hard cover, and I am hoping to make an eBook version available soon (. I hope people enjoy it :)

Anyway... I know I've been a bit scarce around these parts the last few weeks. I've been so busy with tutoring, usability assignments, prototype testing, thesis presentations and children's book illustration and layout that I've barely had time to do anything else, let alone blog about it lol I probably won't be around much for the next few weeks either; I still have an exam, assignment marking for two subjects and my thesis to finish writing, but after that's all done I should have more time to a) write and b) be more active on the ROW80 blogs. :D (I'm also working five days a week now. Like an adult or something. Bleh.)

Also, NaNoWriMo starts on Tuesday! WHOOO! (the same day as my exam. BOOOO!) I'm doing NaNo this year, even though I won't even get to touch my novel until mid November (damn thesis). If you want to add me, I'm RebeccaJFleming_DemonicDragon.

Here is another art journal entry I did last week sometime; a crimson rosella:

Judgemental Dog has let the power go to his head.

Check out other ROW80ers' progress here.

ROW80 Round 4 - 2nd Update

Since last week's check in, I've finished my user testing for my eBook prototype (yay!). I've also kept chipping away at my usability assignment and my illustrated children's book. I've got a fair bit done, but still have a lot to do, including drawing most of the human characters. Here are a bunch of sample page layouts (including the cover) for my book (most don't have text so far):

Here's another addition to my art journal, a random character design for a gothic manga girl:

I also painted an apple, but it looks crap, so I haven't uploaded it :D

Yesterday, for one glorious half hour, I actually worked on my novel. I didn't get much done - perhaps 500 words or so - but it felt good to just be adding words to the manuscript. I had decided not to touch my novel until after handing in my thesis, but I had a scene idea that wouldn't go away, so I had to write it down. Earlier in the week, I also had an idea for yet another novel (even though I really don't need anymore) after listening to music on YouTube, so I've scrawled down a few notes to expand on at a later date. The novel is a fantasy Samurai/Feudal Japan-esque story, which is odd because the music that inspired it was more Celtic (the theme songs from The Boondock Saints and The Last of the Mohicans). Yeah, my brain is weird. The story has been quite vivid in my brain for a few days now, but I don't know whether it's because I'm onto something good or if it's just a case of "Oooh New Shiny Sparkly Idea!" syndrome. I'm planning on working on Dark and Silent Waters for NaNoWriMo (which starts in just over two weeks! WHOOO!), but depending on which story I'm in the 'mood' for at the time, I may decide to run with the Samurai one and see where it takes me.

I'm now in the process of collating my user testing results for my fantasy eBook prototype, since my final thesis presentation is sometime in the next week (have no idea when because the academics haven't settled on a date). Squeezing it in with the rest of my already overloaded schedule this week will be interesting :|


Indeed it is, Judgemental Dog. Indeed it is.

Click here for other ROW80 updates.

ROW80 Round 4 - 1st Update

Since the start of ROW80, I haven't got as much done as I was hoping, even though it feels like I've been going flat out. I've created another background for my children's book and drawn a few more characters, but I still have heaps more to draw, before arranging backgrounds/characters/props on the pages and then adding text. I was hoping to get it sent to the printer by this coming Wednesday, but that's not going to happen. I've started user testing on the fantasy eBook prototype I built for my thesis (and had positive responses so far :D) but I still need to find another 2-3 users within the next week. I'll be doing a few all-nighters to try to catch up on my children's book and my thesis write-up, and the fact that I seem to have caught my old man's cold won't do much to help in that regard :(

All the drawing I've done for uni projects lately has awakened the artistic bug. So when I couldn't concentrate on work yesterday because Dad was continuously coughing and wheezing and snorting like an asthmatic pig a few metres away from me, I happily stepped into the loving embrace of eBay, where troubles are forgotten, bargains are found, and money is all too easily spent on things you want but don't really need (except I do need those new books and art supplies and clothes. Shut up. Don't judge me.).

I already own pretty much every coloured pencil collection known to humanity (I should have shares in Derwent, Faber-Castell and Prismacolor), so there wasn't much for me to waste money on in that department. I'm not really into pastels as I find they're too messy (I already own some pastel pencils and some oil pastels anyway), and I still have the sets of mini tubes (mostly still untouched) of oil, goauche and acrylic paints I scored years ago at the newsagent on clearance, so there was no point buying any of those (although I do need a new tube of green acrylic after I stood on the other one and squashed it all over the carpet, but that's another story). However, after randomly stumbling across an art review blog (any other artistic ROW80ers out there might want to check it out, he has very thorough reviews of a massive range of art products), I discovered a cute little watercolour box set with a waterbrush included (it'll fit in my pocket and the waterbrush means no messy bottles of water to carry around, so I can take it to uni for some quick paintings or sketches in my breaks). Since I don't have any watercolour paints (besides watersoluble pencils, which aren't really the same), I decided I must have one. I also found some good quality watercolour sketching journals with purple covers, so of course they went into my cart as well. Now I just have to wait for my new 'toys' to arrive :D

In related news: late last night, while trying to work on assignments, I came to the conclusion that I just really could not be bothered doing anything uni related. Thus I decided, what better time to start that art journal I've been putting off for so long? Though I won't have as much time to work on it til after I hand in my thesis, I'm hoping to start building a collection of drawings and paintings to try to improve my somewhat rusty skills (I was actually quite good at still life illustrations when I was younger but I haven't really done any for a good ten years). I think it will also be interesting to look back over my journals in a few years time and see the progression of my work. The first three entries of my journal are below:

Though I couldn't 'attend' Wednesday's ROW80 Twitter party, Judgemental Dog made sure to make an appearance, at least in spirit:

Check out other ROW80ers' progress here.

ROW80 Round 4 - Goals

Before announcing my goals for this round, I would like to make a small announcement. *ahem* MY FANTASY EBOOK PROTOTYPE IS WORKING!

Yup, after two months or so of Flash-induced madness and agonising programming, I've finally finished (and the best part is I didn't have to do as much horrid coding as I thought, since when I put it on the tablet PC to test, it somehow worked even though I wasn't using touch-interaction code). This means I will be able to start user testing this week (already got three people lined up, so I just have to bully another three or four into doing it) and start collating my results, ready for my end of year thesis presentation in three weeks time. Since I've been stressing about getting this thing working for the last few months, having it finally completed is a huge weight off my shoulders (but it's okay; I still have my illustrated children's book to freak out over).

Luckily this put me in a good mood, because my first day of ROW80 Round 4 was a bit horrendous. It started with a painful blood test, continued with dodgy public transport making me late to the class I was tutoring, I got hit in the head with a football and then managed to drop my computer mouse down a toilet (don't ask), and finally drove half an hour to a doctor's appointment only to be told she hadn't shown up. So productivity levels this evening will be a big fat nil.

Oh well... The week can only get better, right? (please say yes, or I'll cry)

Anyway: Goals. I won't even be touching my novel until the end of semester (probably early/mid November), so once again my goals will be academic:

-Complete illustrated children's book (hopefully by October 12 so I can send it to the printers in time for publication)
-Complete user testing of fantasy eBook prototype *by October 14*
-Write up results of eBook user testing *by October 16*
-Write up thesis (including revised literature review) ~ 10,000 words *due November 11*
-Complete Usability group assignment ~ 5,000-6,000 words *due October 21*

Once I hand in my thesis on November 11, I'll be able to readjust my goals to become writing (and drawing) related. And then it will be time for NaNoWriMo! Yay! *dances*

I shall leave you with a sample double-page spread of my illustrated children's book (sans text):

Judgemental Dog's tiny ROW80 companion, Spot, drops in to say hello:

To check out the goals other ROW80ers have posted, click here.

ROW80 Round 3 - Final Update

I had been hoping to finish ROW80 Round 3 on a high note, but after almost a week of having two hours or less sleep each night my optimism is at an all-time low; having to redo nearly a month's worth of painting/drawing after your old man spills red lemonade all over your artwork originals will have that effect. Especially when he then proceeds to wake you up at 5-6am most mornings by crashing around in the kitchen like an elephant having an epileptic fit.

Yes... Some people are only alive because I can't afford a hitman.

I haven't had time to even touch my eBook prototype. With a first draft of my children's book due this week I had to spend the whole time trying to redo the damaged illustrations. I got some of the backgrounds done, and luckily some that were ruined had already been scanned, but I'm going to just have to reuse a lot since there's no way I'll get all of it done over the next week on top of everything else I have due. Aside from two basic dragon drawings, I'm going to have to do all the other character illustrations again, as well as add more new ones. So I'll be pretty much mainlining energy drinks over the next week. Luckily next week is the mid-semester break (stupid name since it's basically at the end of the semester) so I don't have to go to any classes.

I did manage to get a first draft of the text for my story done, so it just needs to be edited. The next few days will just be trying to catch up on my illustrated children's book project, as well as trying (again) to get the touch interaction for my Flash eBook working (really, really hoping it won't be as difficult as I'm expecting). I'll also have to do a write up on usability testing for another assignment at some point (oh, joy...).

Here's a sample shot of my blue dragon against the forest background (the characters in the finished book will be in more interesting poses):



Of course we are, Judgemental Dog. Of course we are.

See how other ROW80ers went here.

ROW80 Round 3 - 12th Update

Ever reached that point where you have so much to get done you don't know where to start? Yeah, that's where I'm at now. I finally got the tablet PC from my supervisor, so I just have to convert the mouse functionality to touch functionality (I think I know how to do it, just hoping it isn't harder than it looks). I also have a 6,000 word group assignment for my usability subject that I haven't even looked at yet, so I'll have to somehow find time for that as well. *head explodes*

So. Hopefully I'll start testing my eBook prototype this week. I know I probably said that last week. And the week before. And the week before... DON'T JUDGE ME! I already have three users lined up (out of a required six or seven) so at least that's a start.

As for my children's book, I finally got around to doing some character designs! These are only rough and dodgy to get the basic body shape/style/colour scheme etc, and the final ones will be drawn more realistically, but my dragon characters will look something like this:

I've already designed the endpapers for the book; flames for the front:

And bubbles for the back:

I've also created a few new backgrounds in addition to the ones I did last week, including a gum tree forest:

And a lake surrounded by pine trees:

I still need to work on the story text, though; I know exactly what happens, but getting the right words to go in the right place with the right pictures is proving to be far more difficult than I anticipated.

Hopefully painting and programming is enough to protect me from Judgemental Dog:

Anyway, I'm off to wrestle with my eBook prototype...

See how other ROW80ers are going here.

ROW80 Round 3 - 11th Update

Since my last update, I have more or less completed by fantasy eBook prototype. I still have one persistent navigation bug (for some reason Flash keeps eating my "previous page" button), and I have to convert it to touch interaction (which should just be a matter of substituting a few bits of code), but aside from that, all components are fully functional. Some of the features include pop-up descriptions and audio pronounciations for the characters and places, while there are also detailed maps to show the reader exactly where they are within the story world. Hopefully my test users will enjoy reading it.

I'm now working on some of the backgrounds for my illustrated children's book. I decided to do the backgrounds separate as a combination of acrylic/watercolour painting and collages of various materials, such as cobweb paper, textured cardboard and ink-stained gossamer ribbon. I'm doing this for three reasons: a) my painting/drawing skills aren't quite at a high enough standard where I can consistently paint landscapes well, and at this point in the year, I don't have time to make mistakes. Cutting and pasting different materials is faster and it is easier to see what it will look like while it's in progress, reducing the chance of it not turning out well. b) The combination of different materials and textures will create an interesting visual style for the images. And c) by doing the characters separate from the backgrounds, I can reuse backgrounds and have greater freedom in positioning the characters within the various environments, and it also means that if I mess up the character drawing, I only have to redraw the character, not the background as well. I want to try to get most of my backgrounds done over the next few days, and then I'll start working more seriously on my character designs.

Here is my first quick-and-dodgy background, a simple snowscape (acrylic):

And my second, a mountain sunset (acrylic, textured paper and gossamer ribbon):

And my third, a desert (acrylic, cobweb paper, textured paper and cardboard):

As always, Judgemental Dog tries his best to be supportive...

Check out other ROW80ers here.

ROW80 Round 3 - 10th Update

So... Apparently I haven't posted a ROW80 update for two weeks... *looks around guiltily, then acts like nothing happened* Though I've been flat out working on academic stuff, I have been somewhat slack in terms of blogging (may Judgemental Dog have mercy on my soul).

Anyway; progress report. I am happy to say that I've made heaps of progress on my fantasy eBook prototype. It is more or less fully functional now; I still have to add in a few small things after feedback from my Honours supervisor, but most of this will be more time consuming than technically difficult, so it shouldn't be too big a problem. I'm aiming to have it complete by Monday so I can begin user testing, though I have to wait for the tablet PC we've ordered to arrive before I can start. It's a huge weight off my shoulders, though; earlier on I was really panicking because I didn't know how I was going to get it working, but after harrassing one of my old lecturers and just tinkering around with it for hours (actually, days), I got there in the end, and I am actually pretty proud of what I have made.

Here is the coloured version of the world map for my novel that will be used in my fantasy eBook prototype:

To be honest, I haven't done as much on my illustrated children's book as I would like, since I've been too busy trying to get my eBook prototype working. However I spent a lot of time last night bouncing ideas off my nan, and based on that I've decided on what I think will be an interesting but easy/quick style for creating my backgrounds. All I really have to worry about now will be drawing the characters (dragons and children) and refining the story/text. I don't have any completed character designs at this stage (everything is still at the rough sketch/messy combination of random art materials stage in my sketchbook), but when I have a finalised dragon design, I'll post it on this blog.

In other (awesome) news, a few weeks ago, I entered a drawing competition for some author-signed steampunk fantasy books... And I won :D Here is my drawing (I did this during a lecture because I was bored):

Unfortunately even when I receive the books, I probably won't have time to read them for another few weeks anyway :( (I say that knowing I'll end up just staying up all night to read them).

I hope Judgemental Dog doesn't get his hopes up too high...

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ROW80 Round 3 - 9th Update

Another fairly short update this week; I had a test for one subject yesterday, and spent most of the weekend grappling with problems I was having with my fantasy eBook prototype (some of which I've solved, some of which I haven't). Most of the progress news I have for this post relates to my illustrated children's book.



I have finally settled on a story idea. It was somewhat inspired by yet another random midnight half-asleep scrawling I found near my bed yesterday: "Bubble dragon picnic". It's completely different to the ones I was working on last week (or the week before), but I finally feel like I've found a story that I genuinely care about, instead of just writing/drawing something for the sake of filling my journal and printing a book. And after describing the story to my Illustration class and the teacher, the general response was, "Oh, that sounds so CUTE! Hurry up and write it so I can read it!" so I'd say I'm on a winner. And yes, the story is about dragons (none of you saw that coming, did you? Did you?). I also think I'm starting to see a visual style developing, though I'm going to have to experiment on it a bit more over the next few days (part of this will involve setting stuff on fire, which is always fun). Now that I've pretty much got the plot sorted out, I just have to actually write it into story form (which means getting it down to around 150 words). It is a relief to have finally chosen a story though; I had been freaking out, going, "What the hell am I going to write about?" but now I can just start writing and drawing (still need to decide on a final design for the main character).



Judgemental Dog is making sure I'm not slacking off:



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ROW80 Round 3 - 8th Update

Well, I resubmitted my ethics forms today, so I should hopefully get clearance to start user testing with my fantasy eBook prototype within two weeks. The prototype itself is coming along well, though I need to look at adapting it to a touch screen interface as opposed to a typical computer (still have to fix up a few of the interactions though, I haven't had much time to work on it this week).



Most of my focus since last check-in has been on my children's book. I'm working on developing plot ideas, but they're a completely different set of ideas to the ones I was working on last week, since I decided those ones weren't really what I wanted to do. I'm feeling the pressure as far as time goes; once I choose a story, I then have to write out the actual text and come up with the character designs, illustrations, style, and layout of the book, and still have enough time left over at the end to organise printing. With that in mind, I really need to choose a story idea by this time next week. The next few days will be spent just refining story ideas, coming up with dialogue and text and doing a few character and scene sketches. I knocked off some various coloured papers and shiny or texture cardboard from uni, so that will give me something to play with in terms of different picture style experiments and character construction (surprise, surprise; one of the main new ideas I've been kicking around involves a wolf and a dragon).



Judgemental Dog tries a new motivational tactic:



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ROW80 Round 3 - 7th Update

Since Sunday I have done a fair bit of sketching in my journal for my illustrated children's book (still haven't settled on a specific idea, but I have narrowed it down to one or two ideas that are much more detailed, and I think I'm close to settling on an illustration style for my book). I have also done a lot of writing for my children's book, not specifically the story itself, but on ideas and outlines, exploring various themes and refining different stories (and it felt more tiresome since I was handwriting it in my journal and not typing it on my computer). I still felt crappy after the weekend's migraine and I've had uni every day so far, so I haven't had the time or motivation to do much else.



I did get my literature review back today from my honours supervisor, who gave me a mark of 95/100 and said it was one of the best literature reviews she's ever read, so off I went home with a considerably swelled ego to work on my prototype a bit more, only to discover more bits that I had thought would work, actually wouldn't. I also discovered I had to redo my ethics forms, but since they're mostly minor changes, it shouldn't take me that long, and I should be able to submit the final version by the end of the week.



In my Illustration for Children's Books class today, we were lucky enough to have children's book illustrator/writer Roland Harvey come to talk to us, which was quite interesting. It was good to see the different stages of his work, showing how he took a book from the planning stage, through the illustration and composition phase to completion. And it was lovely to be able to see the full sized originals of some of his watercolour pieces, as the detail in them was amazing (and a little envy-inspiring, if I'm honest lol). However, he did also mention that there is a surprising amount of 'politics' involved in getting a children's book through to publication, as there are so many issues of political correctness and age-appropriateness involved, as well as 'creative differences' between the writer and the illustrator of the book if they're not the same person. It certainly shattered any illusions I had of producing children's books as simply being a matter of 'draw some pictures and slap in some text and off you go'.



Today I also got my first pay from uni for tutoring, which I started last week, so that was a bonus :D



I feel your pain, Judgemental Dog. Oh, how I feel your pain.



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ROW80 Round 3 - 6th Update

*sorry for late check-in, folks. Had this ready to post last night, but came home from work with a migraine and spent the next 12 hours being sick every 20 minutes and generally feeling sorry for myself. But at least I had Judgemental Dog to keep me company*



Short post this week, since I'm too busy freaking out over my academic workload to write much. I've still just been trying to get my fantasy eBook prototype finished (not going anywhere near as smoothly as I'd hoped). I tutored (well, co-tutored) my first class on Thursday, which was fun (though weird, since some of the students were friends from other classes I've done as a student lol). At the moment, I'm brainstorming story concept ideas for my illustrated children's book. So far I've come up with four or five ideas, though there are two in particular that I'm leaning towards. However, I'll have to play around with a few illustration styles first, to find a balance between getting them done quickly and making them look nice. Once I've chosen a style I can then decide which story it might suit better (or vice versa).



While I was in a lecture on Tuesday night, I decided to attempt a sketch of Rex (a.k.a. Judgemental Dog) from memory. Didn't come out perfect - his chest should have been broader - but it isn't too bad:



On that note, I shall leave you with this week's Judgemental Dog photo, taken by my friend, Carly, and edited on her iPhone:



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