tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9065210518416771462024-02-21T23:40:20.926-08:00Nomadic Concepts~ from the mind of Julia Shahin Collard ~Nomadic Conceptshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04615830610220512925noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-46210763738338595912015-01-28T23:05:00.001-08:002015-01-30T21:40:02.417-08:00BLOG TAG!<style>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I’VE BEEN TAGGED!</b></div>
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Ack! I’m It! </div>
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I’ve been tagged for this mini-interview by <a href="http://www.rodolfomontalvo.com/" target="_blank">Rodolfo Montalvo</a>. </div>
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I met Rodolfo for the first time at the SCBWI-LA Summer
Conference a few years ago – I’d been hearing about this talented illustrator, and
there was all this chatter . . . so I was curious – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who is this guy? He must be really full of himself.</i> (Kidding) Soon
after meeting him, we joined up in an illustrating critique group, so I got to
know him pretty well over the weeks of Google Hangouts. Of course, he’s the
most laidback guy you’ll ever meet. During our meetings, I got to see lots of
his sketches and artwork for THE AMAZING WILMER DOOLEY (the sequel to THE
CONTAGIOUS COLORS OF MUMPLY MIDDLE SCHOOL, which he also illustrated). </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_c1HFG0E_KLF-1hKZZ8S5bQqMpr31X8WuffhekjejVO3q6vti_-zmSzXKInUWkWE9KAUbEv6Q6n9BrhvoNu75WSUnC0tstBC3o59yeNBif_QPEv7n0n_-p5YP4X-L0-hCDt_s_bojyE/s1600/rodolfo_montalvo_art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_c1HFG0E_KLF-1hKZZ8S5bQqMpr31X8WuffhekjejVO3q6vti_-zmSzXKInUWkWE9KAUbEv6Q6n9BrhvoNu75WSUnC0tstBC3o59yeNBif_QPEv7n0n_-p5YP4X-L0-hCDt_s_bojyE/s1600/rodolfo_montalvo_art.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
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It’s fun seeing his career progress and cheering him along.
It just keeps getting better and better! His first picture book, DEAR DRAGON,
(written by Josh Funk), will be published Viking in 2016.</div>
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You can see his blog tag post <a href="http://rmillustrationworks.tumblr.com/post/97713293905/blog-tag" target="_blank">here. </a></div>
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And now, to answer the questions.</div>
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Drum roll, please….</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">What am I working on
now?</b></div>
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I can’t go into too many specifics here, so I will merely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">allude</i> to things. </div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkegYVhCji8LAk_mKAiZNsM5vShey8jzor9uoWSzlUfa6-srsaYJwIbGZpbAaRHQBNIZvGtK_8tZYC4-qavPYeRvP5LE_3kg2PNlyf5yzwm0TQ8k1OGQeNG7dUZpmJDl6772KIs_Gg0MU/s1600/Collard_portfolio_hobo_haven.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkegYVhCji8LAk_mKAiZNsM5vShey8jzor9uoWSzlUfa6-srsaYJwIbGZpbAaRHQBNIZvGtK_8tZYC4-qavPYeRvP5LE_3kg2PNlyf5yzwm0TQ8k1OGQeNG7dUZpmJDl6772KIs_Gg0MU/s1600/Collard_portfolio_hobo_haven.png" height="237" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Today, I updated my online portfolio, if you want to know what I'm working on NOW now. ;)</td></tr>
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I recently signed with my agent, Lara Perkins at Andrea
Brown Literary Agency, and have been hard at work preparing book dummies for
submission to editors. It is a LONG process.</div>
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Besides things I can’t get too specific about (as I mentioned above), I
have two new projects I’m developing, as well as two book dummies that need
revisions. I’ve also got drafts of a YA and a MG novel that are burning holes
in my hard drive. </div>
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Right now, the key is to focus on revising and making my
work stronger, rather than getting lured away by “The Shiny New Idea.” One of
the benefits of having an agent <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">didn’t</i> anticipate is that she can help
me figure out which projects to focus on and in which order. After all, there’s
something to be said for following one’s muse, but it’s certainly nice to have
an external guiding voice.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">How does my work
differ from others of its genre?</b></div>
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I developed my current kidlit illustration style over the
course of about 5 years, though it’s still a work in progress. ;)</div>
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I’d estimate that 90% of the physical labor is done using
Photoshop. But that doesn’t mean anything is automated and easy to produce. Even
though everything after the pencil sketch is done on the computer, I’m still
hand drawing almost every line, and hand painting almost every splash of color.
I use the computer because it gives me the ability to undo mistakes, and still
capture that freedom of a quickly drawn line (even if it takes me 50 times to
get the line to look just right).</div>
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All told, a full color double page spread takes me about 30
hours of solid work to complete.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Why do I write what I
do?</b></div>
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For picture books, I write what makes me laugh, but always
try to instill a little bit of myself or someone I know into the main
character. </div>
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For stories for older children, I start to write about
issues that troubled me at that age – they are the seed at the core of the
story, and the story itself is very different from anything I have experienced.
It’s a fun challenge to come up with a fresh story that can involve some of the
somewhat pedestrian challenges I faced. After I start with that seed, I
definitely adjust as needed to service the story, and occasionally, that seed
is entirely cut out of the book. But by then, I’m invested in telling a good
story, so I don’t mind at all. I need to start somewhere, and the best place to
start for me is from my own experience.</div>
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I think as I gain more experience writing, I might be able
to find a different starting-off point, but I want to be more confident that I
can pull it off when I do.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">TAG, YOU’RE IT!</b></div>
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And with that, I will tag my good buddy, <a href="http://kenminart.com/" target="_blank">Ken Min</a>.<a href="http://kenminart.com/"></a> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlLjNGuAIvQQOiMwG6uIT4Fy2dmMfXqA11Fp5gFGETHP0-jc2v3DKZfVgS89u432DweqcJepcv-UNSPJnndwnF6tVZMzMyv4JGVjyQ7-fdnomJM0f-ct9hXV8bg_SrqzKXRzraHdAFhtw/s1600/ken_min_art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlLjNGuAIvQQOiMwG6uIT4Fy2dmMfXqA11Fp5gFGETHP0-jc2v3DKZfVgS89u432DweqcJepcv-UNSPJnndwnF6tVZMzMyv4JGVjyQ7-fdnomJM0f-ct9hXV8bg_SrqzKXRzraHdAFhtw/s1600/ken_min_art.jpg" height="320" width="224" /></a></div>
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I met Ken Min for the first time at an SCBWI-LA Summer
Conference. He was wearing a fake plastic moustache strapped over his upper
lip, and I was convinced he had had surgery or a cleft lip or something and
that was his cool way of covering it up. Every time I saw him after that, I
made sure to make moustache references. When his illustrations for HOT, HOT
ROTI FOR DADA-JI won <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the Picture Book Honor Award for
Literature from the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA)</span>,
I was down in Anaheim when he gave his acceptance speech and he played it
totally cool as a cucumber. His style is so unique and different from my own.
It’s fun to try and stretch my mind around his illustrating methodology. </div>
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Tag, you’re it, Ken!</div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-12575387122481384462014-12-17T17:38:00.000-08:002015-01-12T22:31:50.152-08:00BEAVERS - Stickers on LINEIt had been quite a few months after my HOOT stickers went live that my next round of stickers finally got approved this November. You can see them for sale here: <a href="https://store.line.me/stickershop/product/1039467/en">https://store.line.me/stickershop/product/1039467/en</a><br />
<br />
But unlike <a href="http://nomadicconcepts.blogspot.com/2014/08/hoots-are-live.html" target="_blank">last time</a>, this time around I didn't delusionally track the stats. After all, as of the last time I checked, there were over 25,000 SEPARATE entries into the Creators' Stickers category. Unless I could manage to be featured, it was certain obscurity for the Beavs...which again leads me to the comparison to self-publishing a book. Even if you've got a quality product, how are people going to find you if you're one unit of an anonymous horde?<br />
<br />
And again, all the self-promotion I could possibly muster at this point in my career probably wouldn't do a thing, as it doesn't seem that LINE is being adopted in the US like it is everywhere else in the world, and my reach is primarily in the US. How to extend my reach? I don't know. But in the meantime, I can't get most of my friends to even open the LINE app anymore because it sends push notifications so frequently. Maybe users elsewhere are more tolerant of them or even excited to read about the constantly updated features, but not them.<br />
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Anyway, for what it's worth, as shown back in June, here's the product of a month of my life:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYj_KFfOSv8GAQN5ZThr3xARTy0MG-HQ3TO1ba-4uucZfNvb1jO5x5tn8mYUv8tD1Ow3XaBbTpmnJaiXQd0UmLge3YmFNt-oT8AeAiKqQY0tunmUyHnqtRPdcf69NL7UEhBcdtRCjqd_Q/s1600/Collard_Julia_BEAVERS_stickers_for_LINE.jpg" height="491" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://store.line.me/stickershop/product/1039467/en">https://store.line.me/stickershop/product/1039467/en</a></td></tr>
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<br />
Maybe I sound a little bitter. I shouldn't be. It wasn't a waste of time. I <a href="http://nomadicconcepts.blogspot.com/2014/06/beavermaynia.html" target="_blank">made sure it wouldn't be</a>, by rationalizing the work in two ways before endeavoring on it. After all, it was through this process that I managed to create the dummy that landed me my literary agent! So what if I'm not making boffo bucks in Japan? That has never been my life's mission. So I am officially shrugging off any negativity about it! *SHRUG*<br />
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Onward!Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-86303935271587629552014-11-12T21:14:00.000-08:002015-02-22T15:56:25.502-08:00#Inktober 2014<style>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Last year,
I missed the opportunity to participate in #Inktober, so I created my own month
of drawing: Drawing a Day December (#DrADaDec). And I made a lot of drawings
that I’m proud of. But I’d never challenged myself by restricting my art to one
medium. Inktober’s got it in its name: you’ve got to use ink. I certainly
didn’t feel confident without an eraser or Control-Z, so I thought this would
be a good way to force myself to nail it on the first try. And this year, I
managed to remember to start drawing on October 1<sup>st</sup>:</span></span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="scaption">#Inktober Day 1: this porcupine hobo is ready to ride the rails!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> This
character was so well-liked that after a few days I returned to him, and before
I knew it, started telling a story about him, one installment per day. These
story installments aren’t compiled into one tidy document anywhere else, so I
supposed this is the place to make it so.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Now again,
because there was no eraser, and I didn’t crumple up any drawings and start on
a new one for the day, there are a number of flubs and technical mistakes in
there. Also, I didn’t plot the story ahead of time, I made it up as I went
along. And with all those excuses (heh), here is the rest of The Saga of Porcupine Hobo:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> day 5: hobo porcupine enjoys a feast!</span></span> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="scaption"></span><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> Day 7: Porcupine Hobo meets Bun-Bun the Tramp.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="scaption"></span><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> day 8: our stowaways are discovered.</span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 9: After the Bull throws them out, </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$end:0">and they plunge down, down, down
into the river, </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$end:0">Porcupine Hobo's and Bun-Bun the Tramp's lives flash
before their eyes...</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> day 10: FLASHBACK! Part 1 o</span></span><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">f Bun-Bun the Tramp's Origin Story:</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> </span></span> As Bun-Bun's life flashes before his eyes, he recalls his humble beginnings as a pumpkin farmer.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">
Day 11: Flashback Part 2 o</span></span><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">f Bun-Bun the Tramp's Origin Story</span></span>: </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Tail between his legs, Bun-Bun had to admit
defeat against The Great Dustbowl. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">He was not a dust bunny, after all.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> </span></span><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> Day 12: Flashback Part 3 o</span></span><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">f Bun-Bun the Tramp's Origin Story</span></span>: </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Bun-Bun abandons his dust plot and sets off into the unknown to seek his fortune. </span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 13: Flashback Part 4 of Bun-Bun the Tramp's Origin Story:</span></span></span></span></div>
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the circus. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Cubby teaches Bun-Bun everything he knows about Hobo
Living, </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">then gives Bun-Bun his hat, and goes to retire in a cave. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Bun-Bun The Tramp is born. </span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 14: Bun-Bun the Tramp and Porcupine Hobo </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">fish themselves out of the
river and find themselves on a small island. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">As they while away the
hours and recover </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">from their rude awakening, they exchange life stories.</span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 15: FLASHBACK! Part 1 of Porcupine Hobo's Origin Story:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$end:0">Porcupine Hobo recounts his not-so-humble beginnings </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$end:0"> in a 5th Avenue estate, silver spoon firmly lodged in mouth...</span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 16: Flashback Part 2 of Porcupine Hobo's Origin Story: </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">The prodigal
son departs for his Ivy League studies...or so his parents think.</span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 17: Flashback part 3 of Porcupine Hobo's Origin Story:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> Porcupine DID
fritter away a certain stretch of his stint in academia </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">grooving in one
long dance party. But it was not to last.</span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 18: Flashback pt 4 of Porcupine Hobo's Origin Story:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">After one
particularly rough night, our hero awoke to find a hollowness in his
heart. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">He knew nothing. He was a shell of a porcupine. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Something had to
change.</span></span></span></span></div>
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day 19: Flashback Part 5 of Porcupine Hobo's Origin Story:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">If the
porcupine was going to REALLY learn about the world, </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">he was going to
have to take matters into his own paws. That very afternoon,</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">he walked
through the wrought iron gates of his school, never to look back. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Porcupine Hobo was born. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">
Day 20: While Porcupine Hobo recounts his origins, </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Bun-Bun the Tramp
uses his Advanced Hobo-ing skills </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">to build the duo a shelter and start a
fire while they await rescue. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">They while away the time, hollow-bellied
but warm.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> </span></span><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">
day 21: Porcupine Hobo wanted to make the swim </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">across the river, or at
least try to build a raft, but Bun-Bun the Tramp </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">refused to leave, and
Porcupine Hobo couldn't abandon him now. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">He had never been so cold and
wet, and dark was fast approaching. </span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 22: the rain had cleared, </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">and a strange glow was coming from behind
their shelter. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">They ran out and saw a shadowy form waving at them from a
boat. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">"Our rescue has arrived!" Shouted Bun-Bun the Tramp, and he began
hopping </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">up and down, gesturing frantically for the boat to come near. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Porcupine Hobo began calling too, </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">though he had no idea about the
identity of the shadow.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> </span></span><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">
Day 23: As the shadowy figure on the boat drew closer, </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Bun-Bun the
Tramp exclaimed, "Ha! I knew it! </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">It's Cubby the Drifter come to save
us!" </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">He explained to Porcupine Hobo that Cubby was that rollerskating
bear </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">who was his Hobo-ing Mentor. Cubby called out, "Ahoy, hoy! Saw my
old tophat</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> stuck amongst the reeds upriver a bit, and knew you couldn't
be far. Climb aboard!" </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">And so they did.</span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 24: After paddling down the river aways, </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">the animals steered the
boat into the reeds, </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">following Cubby the Drifter's instructions. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">"Where
are we going?" Porcupine Hobo inquired. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Cubby had a mysterious smile in
his face. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">"Just trust me," he said. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Bun-Bun the Tramp nodded in
assurance, </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">so Porcupine Hobo tried not to worry.</span></span></span></span></div>
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Day 25: Cubby The Drifter leads Bun-Bun The Tramp </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">and Porcupine Hobo
off the boat and onto a tree-lined path. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">"Follow me close. It's awfully
dark out here..." Cubby called.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3LM5jdnP4jU_TQbbPnX5TuO9nA-kKLlV0YMlHu633nqW-1YiZP-mO04UYIvGB5NZ7dRKM-Dqksie_G5PEjEVf6n4JK6FtyYyNLBaQbxMUcpbm2DoUtw2SHPR0rWKubGFjLuvJtBeRT_g/s1600/collard_inktober_day_26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3LM5jdnP4jU_TQbbPnX5TuO9nA-kKLlV0YMlHu633nqW-1YiZP-mO04UYIvGB5NZ7dRKM-Dqksie_G5PEjEVf6n4JK6FtyYyNLBaQbxMUcpbm2DoUtw2SHPR0rWKubGFjLuvJtBeRT_g/s1600/collard_inktober_day_26.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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Day 26: As they approached a bend in the forest path, </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Cubby the Drifter
gestured them on. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">When Bun-Bun the Tramp turned the corner, </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">he let out a
whoop and ran towards...whatever it was. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Porcupine Hobo cautiously
poked his head around a tree. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">He couldn't believe his eyes.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRPGvoXP7iV0ybQWFdSlUTYWV0RIHhCCsF7kWn4sa2d6CTFKgeHFAm-5FpxAl9xI1lBxbKCkRY5zBNh7gHwuGJFOB0gyT2pdko2lP1NGUCzSYzipRufRqUteUieDk538-jiUOah8vxBo/s1600/collard_inktober_day_27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRPGvoXP7iV0ybQWFdSlUTYWV0RIHhCCsF7kWn4sa2d6CTFKgeHFAm-5FpxAl9xI1lBxbKCkRY5zBNh7gHwuGJFOB0gyT2pdko2lP1NGUCzSYzipRufRqUteUieDk538-jiUOah8vxBo/s1600/collard_inktober_day_27.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">
Day 27: colored lights twinkled, the smell of stews wafted in the air. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> Porcupine Hobo fairly floated down the small hill and under the banner
of "Hobo Haven."</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikZsVfbruaXuIXql3vwQrjMk0LXKJx_B88oNrfcFkEIyNPG09G9Dk1pPX-HlaZTNXUBo6K797Azc2w5Q7Zh0waOg4WSHBkIUuvD0qyOKwhhZztu29xow8WaFMDeVf0FRYh3VLyQg3crt8/s1600/collard_inktober_day_28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikZsVfbruaXuIXql3vwQrjMk0LXKJx_B88oNrfcFkEIyNPG09G9Dk1pPX-HlaZTNXUBo6K797Azc2w5Q7Zh0waOg4WSHBkIUuvD0qyOKwhhZztu29xow8WaFMDeVf0FRYh3VLyQg3crt8/s1600/collard_inktober_day_28.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">
Day 29: they were welcomed with open arms to Hobo Haven. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Porcupine Hobo
looked around in wonder. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">Here were Gypsy Mice cooking up beans, there, a
fox with a harmonica, </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">and down the path, a whole cluster of happy
hoboes, </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">dancing 'round the fire, singing "Big Rock Candy Mountain."</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBbjP4US_JSlAF52CSSEY5A8YVDf8jJHfQf06wMyM5BsNS2QC-B6NJ0nnwceqDMhoOUhKezs4zRR6rJ5hxmi6ivBFS_zIkfNcMfrciG4N0siZ3nrO3GI8Zu_8irHxI3drKPcVo6FBNM3s/s1600/collard_inktober_day_29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBbjP4US_JSlAF52CSSEY5A8YVDf8jJHfQf06wMyM5BsNS2QC-B6NJ0nnwceqDMhoOUhKezs4zRR6rJ5hxmi6ivBFS_zIkfNcMfrciG4N0siZ3nrO3GI8Zu_8irHxI3drKPcVo6FBNM3s/s1600/collard_inktober_day_29.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$entity0:0">#Inktober</span><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$end:0"> Day 30: And they lived happily ever after...until...</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXVGdNMcTp5CfETQfhociuqLla5ln5hPLG-IEHNsIWxSNNQxSC7mdhEk2l0ld2PnPUXhWqcav-OAN5z4dSZGSsd2NiWmlQFa2dQpNV8JO0-Pxq-HyBwLuMsZB60zDKEOZS7RV-t3x1Ltg/s1600/collard_inktober_day_30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXVGdNMcTp5CfETQfhociuqLla5ln5hPLG-IEHNsIWxSNNQxSC7mdhEk2l0ld2PnPUXhWqcav-OAN5z4dSZGSsd2NiWmlQFa2dQpNV8JO0-Pxq-HyBwLuMsZB60zDKEOZS7RV-t3x1Ltg/s1600/collard_inktober_day_30.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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Day 31: Hobo Haven was great and all, </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">but Porcupine Hobo still hadn't
seen the world, </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">and Bun-Bun the Tramp missed his pumpkin farm. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">They bid
farewell to Cubby the Drifter</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0"> and the rest of the hobo community </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">and set
off via handcar on their next adventure. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="sCaption" data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1"><span data-reactid=".1e.0.1.0.1.0.0.1.0.0.0:0.1.2:1.$text0:0:$text1:0">The End...ish.</span></span></span></span></div>
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Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-22302998820178147812014-10-23T22:04:00.000-07:002015-01-12T22:31:40.167-08:00To Facebook Fan Page Or Not To Facebook Fan Page?Back in August, I posted on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NomadicConcepts" target="_blank">my Facebook Fan Page</a> that I was considering shuttering it:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdV6f77c9UOCfNj6R5XtFTwKIl9527jxrFQnAQetb4GcnAToj2Rf9FuNG7TNRJL6NxHiccnHaIj0L0aq3Ud9zagMVWupStLSOLZPiYLWLYBZkEi-H0O0MtHYt5R0XzdziRKba7j7n1GpY/s1600/Nomadic_Concepts_FanPage_screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdV6f77c9UOCfNj6R5XtFTwKIl9527jxrFQnAQetb4GcnAToj2Rf9FuNG7TNRJL6NxHiccnHaIj0L0aq3Ud9zagMVWupStLSOLZPiYLWLYBZkEi-H0O0MtHYt5R0XzdziRKba7j7n1GpY/s1600/Nomadic_Concepts_FanPage_screenshot.png" height="174" width="320" /></a></div>
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See that big blue "Boost Post" button? That's why. I don't have anything new to add to the chorus of voices decrying this "feature," but I did experiment with Boosting a Post, and $20 and 5,000 reaches later, I had no new likes on the page, and not a single one of the people reached actually clicked the link. Thanks, but no thanks.<br />
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The only reason the above screenshotted post had reached 83 people is simply because it's been the most recent post on that page for so long.<br />
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Yet, I hesitate to flip the kill switch on the page. After all, when I get to a place in my career where I would actually need a fan page (I'm presumptuous, heh heh), it will be awfully convenient not to have to start from zero likes all over again. For now though, the Fan Page is a cobwebby, ineffective time suck, and I find using my personal page to share my art is much more gratifying.<br />
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Speaking of time suck...<br />
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...you know this is coming...<br />
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...as much as I appreciate the three loyal followers of my blog (I really do!), are writing the updates that are probably kinda boring to anyone who is not invested in my career development <i>really</i> the best use of my time? I felt that the blog was an important thing to have online for potential agents to read so that they could see I wasn't crazy, but now I have an agent. (yay!) I'm not sure how far an editor is going to feel compelled to dig now that I have someone on the inside to vouch for me. <br />
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I've considered, now that the landing page of my website doesn't connect to blogspot at all anymore, completely removing the blog, and just letting my art and my submissions speak for themselves.<br />
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It's a conundrum!<br />
<br />
But again, I hesitate to do anything permanent. Does this mean I'm a webpage hoarder? Are they going to have to call up that reality show Hoarders and clean out my web browser with a shovel? What if I want this blog up at some point, no matter how embarrassing the years-old entries are to me now? It shows my trajectory, my improvement, my dedication to the craft. <br />
<br />
It's not like I would delete it forever, it just would no longer be available for public consumption. <br />
<br />
At some point, if I'm lucky, <a href="http://nomadicconcepts.madewithcolor.com/blog" target="_blank">that blog page on my new website</a> will be used for announcing book launches, signings, and tour dates, and there won't be room for all of this personal angst anymore.<br />
<br />
Until I get to that point, though, I guess I'll keep updating the blog.<br />
<br />
But forget that Facebook Page, haha! ;)Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-3234321355979741052014-09-18T22:33:00.000-07:002015-01-07T22:41:25.538-08:00I GOT AN AGENT!<style>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The definition of
crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different
result.”</i></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don't know who said it, but that quote was circling around and around in my head these
last few months as I once again wound myself up to take on a new picture book
project and see it through to the querying phase.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While I was busy bellyaching about the querying process over
the years, quite a number of my peers have noted that they finally got signed
just when they were ready to give up and quit trying. But I couldn’t even think
about giving up…I had no answers as to what I would do if I did quit – making
books and art is all I want to do! But, being the practical semi-New Ager that
I am, I figured <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">intentions</i> were
important: so I began fibbing to the universe, threatening to give up and move
to a commune. I even<a href="http://www.pinterest.com/jujuco/life-on-the-commune/" target="_blank"> made a Pinterest board called “Life on the Commune.”</a> I was
hoping that my research into better living with mason jars was enough to sway
the cosmos in my favor, because I didn’t really picture myself becoming one
with the goats.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZWjcETw6qNYNJxAWYdzXwDyQ7OCE4-AhOUEt4lPQXmzMnJI2qvLew3Qkw2t-R_zbxuCSQno4ebm4-3JIm_P9Ltxb0aHNSJ9Ljo2uqQdgbtC0uSvv1wL2yO73sp8Kh4Mh4GdiCiVR9kfE/s1600/2610542294_a7fbf8d580_o2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZWjcETw6qNYNJxAWYdzXwDyQ7OCE4-AhOUEt4lPQXmzMnJI2qvLew3Qkw2t-R_zbxuCSQno4ebm4-3JIm_P9Ltxb0aHNSJ9Ljo2uqQdgbtC0uSvv1wL2yO73sp8Kh4Mh4GdiCiVR9kfE/s1600/2610542294_a7fbf8d580_o2.jpg" height="320" width="266" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And maybe this <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">intention
intervention</i> worked, because, after what felt like quite a number of eons,
I finally submitted to the right place at the right time. It was quite
serendipitous. Because who knows why it happened now after five years of being
skunked? (But really, we all know it had to have been thanks to that Pinterest
board…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right?</i>)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imaginary magical Pinterest board juju or not, the facts
are: I got my agent’s interest when she was forwarded the dummy I had just
begun querying to agents. Just begun, as in that very week. I definitely
believe my “cutthroat” (see previous blogpost) strategy of networking really
made the difference there.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Before the (at the time potential) agent and I spoke on the
phone, I emailed her the two other picture book dummies that I had completed in
the last year. Since agents can either sign you on a project-by-project basis
or on your potential career as a whole, I figured showing her that I wasn’t a
one-book wonder could lead to an offer of career representation – which is what
I wanted. I was seeding the clouds.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And BOOM. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The agent and I clicked on the phone, and it was a whirlwind
from there. I let all the other agents I was out with know I had an offer, and
gave them a short window of opportunity to respond, but really, I already knew.
Two days later, I accepted her offer of representation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And all of the sudden, a whole chunk of my daily routine –
researching agents in order to personalize my query letters – was no longer
relevant. It was a very strange feeling, and a good one. The absence of an
onerous duty. I could finally focus on my art, and not scrounging around trying
to get someone to pay attention to me, looking for connections that weren’t
there, etc. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0R-lCihI3ZefHFWrDAYY1ZMBl_iSXgjAeqYe6eDGZaIFw6fgY7qExeJ_ERoGETLivP91NEWLYbf9HiJRptRzWHt7hVH79VBnk-LiR7d525sVupml8HpeGdhWCkgVYfbUFVqHl7MYuBhc/s1600/Crane_Machine_Mini_Claw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0R-lCihI3ZefHFWrDAYY1ZMBl_iSXgjAeqYe6eDGZaIFw6fgY7qExeJ_ERoGETLivP91NEWLYbf9HiJRptRzWHt7hVH79VBnk-LiR7d525sVupml8HpeGdhWCkgVYfbUFVqHl7MYuBhc/s1600/Crane_Machine_Mini_Claw.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Plucked from obscurity, that’s how it feels. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While I am VERY aware that even with an agent, there’s no guarantee
that I’ll be published, I am SURE that, just by having a reputable agent, I am
a trillion times closer to being published. It’s like I finally got to the top
of the first, very tall mountain, and while there are a whole bunch of mountains
in the range, at least I’m up there and working my way across the Pacific Crest Trail
or whatever, and not back at sea level just dreaming about hiking.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqU1PW3K-ETp5uuOlfrR0uaf1Izv-fjr1gkQ7RMWcxoZl69shQPbfPoMztE-ir1W9t51-2epBQR0ACP1TMZby_TZrQ4VU_sRcpaMYRu2AYSxJoFHfwtuV4G4NBU-IVHwkOVkmr5Qe4dsQ/s1600/Hikersonknifesedge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqU1PW3K-ETp5uuOlfrR0uaf1Izv-fjr1gkQ7RMWcxoZl69shQPbfPoMztE-ir1W9t51-2epBQR0ACP1TMZby_TZrQ4VU_sRcpaMYRu2AYSxJoFHfwtuV4G4NBU-IVHwkOVkmr5Qe4dsQ/s1600/Hikersonknifesedge.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wow. Talk about an overextended metaphor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Long story short, I am now represented by Lara Perkins, of the
Andrea Brown Literary Agency. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR-9ikdl_SzfrZJZQdlO90ghhfJgw_-arTTbZ1jgWdMONkAOSx4oK-I6o2BvUCbLLTxbqlR8pueZLGwCR3WGelARxV6b8TjcvReLC5eAj92NALZ7bco04JvomxehheN2FM3mA46X5qdfU/s1600/1397840654.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR-9ikdl_SzfrZJZQdlO90ghhfJgw_-arTTbZ1jgWdMONkAOSx4oK-I6o2BvUCbLLTxbqlR8pueZLGwCR3WGelARxV6b8TjcvReLC5eAj92NALZ7bco04JvomxehheN2FM3mA46X5qdfU/s1600/1397840654.png" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have finally arrived to a place where I can finally
arrive. ;)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-66938470627671475742014-08-21T18:56:00.000-07:002015-01-07T22:47:25.894-08:00The SCBWI-LA Summer Conference –OR-- Swallowing My Pride<style>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was my fifth year at the conference, and I’ll admit, I
was getting frustrated at the lack of forward momentum. While I wanted to get
the most out of the opportunity, I decided ahead of time to prioritize giving
myself enough time to rest and spend time with my friends. Otherwise, I’d once
again be so exhausted by the end of the weekend that I’d need to be a hermit
for the next few weeks just to recover. Not overextending myself meant choosing
fewer opportunities to make contact with agents and editors, so the onus was to
work them more effectively. Which meant…networking. Schmoozing. Which always
has felt gross to me. It’s not like I did something amoral – it’s just
business! – but I always felt weird developing and using connections. Maybe it
was a byproduct of growing up in LA, amongst a hive of insincere people
namedropping and using others as stepping stones.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was time to reek of desperation. It was time to swallow
what remained of my pride in one big gulp.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While I had joked on Twitter about printing my dummy on
toilet paper and handing it under a bathroom stall to an editor, I didn’t go
that far. But I did take a risk. I got cheeky. When I saw that I had my
manuscript consultation with Steven Malk, (thank you, SCBWI angels!) I took a deep
breath and jumped…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It all felt slightly inappropriate on my part, or at least
presumptuous, but getting paired up with Steven Malk was kind of like getting
an interview with admissions at an Ivy League School, and I couldn’t squander
it by being chicken. Soooo…instead of just going over the manuscript I
submitted, I got out all my dummies and my portfolio, and I had him look at
everything during those 20 minutes. Check and check. All was proceeding
smoothly. I had one last step…I asked him which agent(s) he thought would be a
good fit for me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To me, this felt really scary and forward. But I had taken my
very first children’s book class six long years ago, and for the past five, worked on my craft
full-time, so I was absolutely not a dilettante. Everyone around me was
scratching their heads over why I didn’t have an agent yet. I knew – KNEW –
that all it took was one yes, and all those years of contorting myself into a box
that people could understand would be over. And I knew Steven Malk’s opinion
carried a lot of weight with agents and editors. He is known for spotting value
in work that is different, and using his name would get people’s attention. If
he understood me, others would make an effort to understand.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, yes, I knew if all went well, the best realistic outcome
would have been the ability to use the kind of gross, self-aggrandizing name-dropping
stuff that I usually hate:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Steven Malk said you’d be a good fit for me.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe you’re thinking, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What’s
the big deal about that?</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t have an answer. It just feels gross to me. It feels
like not getting chosen by virtue of my artistic merit, but through campaigning
for myself. But was that a bad thing? Was I just making things harder for
myself by resisting it? After all, I would be stating a fact. It’s not like he
was saying it because he owed me something. It wasn’t a lie. After all, I had
paid my dues! I AM a good artist! If this could get me in front of the right
eyeballs, I had to do what was best for my career.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I had to do it. And with that decided, the rest would all
depend on my delivery of that heaven-sent sentence, “Steven Malk said…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If it worked, the hell of querying would be over. I didn’t
have much to lose besides my pride at this point. So, that was it. I risked
sounding like a total jackass and jumped off a cliff . . . </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
. . . and . . .</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
. . . luckily, I didn’t meet a bloody end smashed on some
rocks at the bottom of said cliff. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What does that mean? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
. . . Next time on the blog: I GOT AN AGENT(!)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-65865930713889295962014-07-23T13:57:00.000-07:002014-08-18T10:47:38.042-07:00HOOTS! are LIVE!<a href="http://www.nomadicconcepts.blogspot.com/2014/05/line-stamps.html">May’s post</a> already talked about the product, but: <a href="https://store.line.me/stickershop/product/1005809/en">The HOOTS! have gone live! </a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxI8LAikSfhmW1zxg-0Ww1E06NR16oLUn8HUcaG3_VT7Ohnhr1YCS9R0zPMirbQ-MXUK4zc9cCg6J0sb8gBwUY913mR6Fixbg1ub1KORowHEy92LML-HsCAKNqV2D7Zurelz54fb8nM0c/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-07+at+1.53.40+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxI8LAikSfhmW1zxg-0Ww1E06NR16oLUn8HUcaG3_VT7Ohnhr1YCS9R0zPMirbQ-MXUK4zc9cCg6J0sb8gBwUY913mR6Fixbg1ub1KORowHEy92LML-HsCAKNqV2D7Zurelz54fb8nM0c/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-07+at+1.53.40+PM.png" height="320" width="313" /></a></div>
<br />
Quick recap: Around the end of March, my friend from business school contacted me about creating a series of “stickers” for the online messaging app, LINE. As he explained to me, LINE is a powerful communication tool which works like What’s App meets Facebook Messaging meets Skype. The app was hugely popular globally, with almost 500 million users.<br />
<br />
And I’d never heard of it.<br />
<br />
See, most of those half a billion users are in Asia. Great! I thought – I’m huge in Asia, according to my website’s Google stats. (P.S. That’s a joke. I’m also due to inherit the estate of a Nigerian prince, right?)<br />
<br />
Anyway, the folks at LINE were opening up the market for freelance illustrators to augment the shop’s selections. It’s an interesting pricing model: premium prices for “namebrand” stickers (trademarked), a second tier for those offered by LINE, and then discounted pricing for the audience-created product. It reminds me of self-publishing, too, as very quickly it becomes clear that you need a platform to really move any of your product before it gets buried by the competition.<br />
<br />
So at the end of the second day the stickers were available, after my partner and I informed the social media world of our appearance on the scene, my HOOTS! sticker set was rated #23 most popular out of almost 5,000 (at the time) audience created sticker sets. I had convinced my closest friends to download the LINE app so I could at least send the stickers to them, and they, of course, nice as they are, bought the set themselves (it was only 99 cents!) But that only accounted for 8 or so sales! Number 23?!?<br />
<br />
I thought I was an international sensation.<br />
<br />
But after my meteoric rise to the Top 25, I plummeted hard, disappearing into obscurity within a week. Moral of the story? I guess when you’re no longer on the “new” page, you fade into the masses. And though I’d spent a month working on the things, I definitely wasn’t going to get a good return on my investment.<br />
<br />
The good news is, this was like a beta run of what would happen if I self-published a book. I’d get a bunch of my friends to buy it, and it would artificially inflate the rankings enough to show up on stranger’s radars, they’d buy it, and then it would fade away as soon as the rankings slipped. I've always asserted that self-publishing isn't the route for me, and this experiment confirmed that.<br />
<br />
But then again...<br />
<br />
I only pimped it out that very first day, and haven’t mentioned it since. I feel like it would be annoying if I did, since no one I know had even heard of the app before I started talking about it, (Ah, the hipster life, amirite?), so I’d have to convince them to download the app first. And I don’t want to become a shill for an app that’s not mine! I gave my one pitch, and I feel like that should be it.<br />
<br />
Now, if it were something like What’s App, I’m sure I would pimp it a whole lot more, since people in my extended social circle already use it. But still, people besides me would have to start talking it up, no matter was “it” is, in order for there to be sustained sales. There would have to be something new to say about it to merit blasting to my entire network again.<br />
<br />
It’s not like I could post reviews or do a blog tour to sell my stickers on an app, so maybe the experiences are not as similar as I originally thought. And maybe I would have a better result with something I self-published. Maybe. But what it does boil down to is visibility. It seems obvious, but this was a good reminder. I need eyeballs to see my product if I want those eyeballs’ wallets to open. :)Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-52694399022620456142014-06-04T17:49:00.000-07:002014-08-07T12:18:44.749-07:00BeaverMAYnia<style>
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Since a month of toil is never enough, after a month of
working on the owl LINE Stamps, (now called Stickers, for the US Market, I
suppose), I then started messing around with finding a new character, and
deciding on a beaver.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD70RK0faxk0b_ike2b_q3OecCNN8a2TsHXpPaVx7uiDDFX2hzDvq-IWUk95MUsiJv0bMku7kEyinlnNls2cBICXd4wE9xI2VnWxGR8P62ApVOp2Jq_xYc_BisG-8Jrcoy6OeMjbrrO-I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.13.54+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD70RK0faxk0b_ike2b_q3OecCNN8a2TsHXpPaVx7uiDDFX2hzDvq-IWUk95MUsiJv0bMku7kEyinlnNls2cBICXd4wE9xI2VnWxGR8P62ApVOp2Jq_xYc_BisG-8Jrcoy6OeMjbrrO-I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.13.54+PM.png" height="320" width="302" /></a></div>
<br />
He was so cute, I decided, “Hey, why don’t I draw 40 of
him, and use 'doing an in-depth character study' as an excuse and come up with a picture book
about it?” You know I can rarely do things for less than two rationalized
“reasons.” </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXu_2d9I53u6y_D2RLpQUHJxuKNHiWpYAQRpvxT82U50U3HBJUa9DXruCcx-CvOiZ8tDawFabdMk0r3iwbOhZbIJ_Eqw3zGjou78XqqSSFFwUp-AmJcNEXvZAat_bVTOlYqRVmD2OdY7U/s1600/10354666_10154409318695099_3351883609487952177_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXu_2d9I53u6y_D2RLpQUHJxuKNHiWpYAQRpvxT82U50U3HBJUa9DXruCcx-CvOiZ8tDawFabdMk0r3iwbOhZbIJ_Eqw3zGjou78XqqSSFFwUp-AmJcNEXvZAat_bVTOlYqRVmD2OdY7U/s1600/10354666_10154409318695099_3351883609487952177_n.jpg" height="246" width="320" /></a></div>
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Drawing 40 beavers was fun! Even
though it took me forever. (I was going through a lot of personal drama with
multiple pet death and stuff, so it took me longer than it should have). Then
it took me a month to color them. But don’t get me wrong – in the meantime, I
was writing and revising a beaver-based picture book. It evolved from something
really quite terrible to something that got the high praise that it “makes
sense and could work.” High praise, indeed! Well, that was the second draft.
The first draft was a nightmare of Julia psychoses. (I told you, I was going
through personal drama).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, a few
drafts later, I was ready to thumbnail the story (okay, I lie, I thumbnailed
from the first draft on – it helps!), and then sketch out a first draft of the
dummy. Gotta have a dummy for the big SCBWI conference in August!</div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-63116239999917361132014-05-14T14:44:00.000-07:002014-08-07T12:18:44.753-07:00LINE Stamps
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had my cohort of owls…or whatever a group of owls is
called…was called to active duty after a few years sleeping in the barn
rafters. A business school friend contacted me about an opportunity for
freelance illustrators to submit “stamps” for an instant messaging app that’s
popular in Asia. To be more specific, they have over 480 million active users.
At 10% of $1 a set of 40 stamps, multiplied by some unknown fraction of the
active user population…all my brain was doing was saying mo’ money, mo’ money,
mo’ money. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not really. I realize the likelihood of making any actual
money in a marketplace that was sure to be flooded with worthy competitors was
next to impossible. But a girl can dream. And since I already had the majority
of the drawings necessary for a set of 40 already done, all that remained to do
was draw a few extra owls like basic emoticons, and then color them all in.
Easier said than done. It ended up taking me about a month to color them all in
and reformat them according to the LINE specifications. It’s all in Japanese,
so my B-school friend has to be my liaison. We agreed for all his translating
and submitting work, he could make 10% of my 50%. We'll see how it goes!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHy64ysruqMO0obw0ixlmEdzCPgrZql8bEzepz_8oRxosqCC-cmGFO1MdjuhvErZnJoDL8BWTWDX51KGZQlbYtpXjf1YzjdrZidKVnnPJJ6sbII_lHshjdXiLYNwe3sE30XtkZcRVA8Y/s1600/hoots_by_julia_shahin_collard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHy64ysruqMO0obw0ixlmEdzCPgrZql8bEzepz_8oRxosqCC-cmGFO1MdjuhvErZnJoDL8BWTWDX51KGZQlbYtpXjf1YzjdrZidKVnnPJJ6sbII_lHshjdXiLYNwe3sE30XtkZcRVA8Y/s1600/hoots_by_julia_shahin_collard.jpg" height="311" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-9700339637613305672014-04-16T20:34:00.000-07:002015-01-07T19:06:00.367-08:00An Introverted Extrovert’s Overview of Networking Trials and Tribulations<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Or is it an Extroverted Introvert? Either way, for some reason I get oddly shy around agents and editors.
And I am not a shy person usually. So why? Why, why, why? My attempts at self-analysis have revealed that it is probably because I’m
afraid I will offend or scare them with my sense of humor. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Bring An Invisible Friend</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If I were introduced to an editor or agent in a group in
which I had a friendly face or two, I could at least get some banter going with
someone I know will respond, but I need that sort of intro or else I may come
off as weird. It’s like I need to bring a human example with me to show the
stranger that I am not scary.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>Deviating From Center</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I just make jokes…even when I’m nervous. I can’t help but
make jokes (I mean, I can hold it together at a funeral, but in general, I bring
humor into conversations as a way to break the tension, so I can go from heavy
to levity on a dime). It’s a fine line between quirky humor, and just plain
scary/unpredictable, and I’m constantly pushing it, reading the person to see
if I can take it further.
I ramp it up fast, and some people are just too surprised or they don’t dig my
brand of humor, but I just want to get through the uncomfortable part of
winning someone over as fast as possible. It might be a weakness, but in situations
like a conference, I feel an overwhelming need to be liked, and I start
blathering in an attempt to keep strangers engaged and amused. I guess this is my inner
stand-up comedienne rearing her head. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>On A Scale From Bore to Loon, I am…?</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But talking to an agent or an editor one-on-one, and I get
so worried that I’ll say the wrong thing and I’ll make the most disastrous
first impression, that I shut down, and I have to remind myself every three
seconds to just be myself. But at the same time, I have to network
and be agreeable, which is tough when all I want to do is banter. And it starts to feel unnatural if I don't tell jokes. I’m sure
there are agents and editors out there who can pick up what I’m throwing down,
but I think their defenses are so high when they meet a stranger at one of
these events, that I might read as a “false positive” on their loony meter. (At least
that’s what I’m telling myself, haha).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>The Solution!</u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Okay, this may not actually be a solution. And okay, this might just be a lame punchline. But, here goes anyway: Maybe I should just wear a label that reads: “WARNING: May
Tell Lame Jokes Unexpectedly.”<br />
<br />
Because, notice I didn’t say I was funny . . . I just
said that I tell jokes.<br />
<br />
*badumdump*<br />
<br />
<i>Bring on the rotten produce - I'm here all night, Ladies & Gentlemen! </i></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-31889306915172131572014-03-12T17:20:00.000-07:002014-08-07T12:18:58.934-07:00SCBWI Winter Conference – NYC 2014<style>
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Below are my personal experiences during the SCBWI Winter
Conference in NYC. Beyond recommending that you work hard to get your money’s
worth, I’m not offering any advice, just recounting my time. Do with it what
you will. <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JET LAG up the wazoooooo</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just came from New Zealand, was home for 36 hours, and then
headed to New York for the conference. My internal clock was on the fritz.
Tried to go to sleep at midnight EST, ended up awake, staring at the ceiling at
5am. Needless to say, the next morning, I was not bright-eyed and bushy tailed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Friday – Illustrator’s Intensive<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTACq94Y2Q-5mgLQpkj5e5QOqbjLlQBu76O6m66ASjy2SzfpZ8NffXy4X0PvhVTTYvodN8KY7sW0w-BpGMWYZ-cJYt1vbZZct2PcyUb5n150nMgoQwAiBy5pMgGx_23FELnpduO2-aoL4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.18.01+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTACq94Y2Q-5mgLQpkj5e5QOqbjLlQBu76O6m66ASjy2SzfpZ8NffXy4X0PvhVTTYvodN8KY7sW0w-BpGMWYZ-cJYt1vbZZct2PcyUb5n150nMgoQwAiBy5pMgGx_23FELnpduO2-aoL4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.18.01+PM.png" height="320" width="317" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This sold out intensive began with a live interview of Tomie
De Paola about the importance of composition, a topic that woke me right up out
of my jet-lagged stupor. Being a visual person, I especially appreciated the
accompanying powerpoint presentations with Tomie’s work illustrating each point
he was making. The other speakers were engaging as well, but I don’t remember
them as clearly, since their topics weren’t as pressing for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhn7o0ZZ8dsGOfilslXJdTfEK4noYTR0eCvfj6R7SreUqfo98Yvf1rCu8b-fldNorBcdQz-KGU0tpCSuXW_ENOKK2_KVnbF4UIWjcomuYBcW9PBXwOEWe82lfiFxYsfrwzoyvK9a4iAk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.18.20+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhn7o0ZZ8dsGOfilslXJdTfEK4noYTR0eCvfj6R7SreUqfo98Yvf1rCu8b-fldNorBcdQz-KGU0tpCSuXW_ENOKK2_KVnbF4UIWjcomuYBcW9PBXwOEWe82lfiFxYsfrwzoyvK9a4iAk/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.18.20+PM.png" height="314" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
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Live critique of WIPs</div>
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<br /></div>
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After the break, an editor (Arthur Levine of Arthur Levine
Books at Scholastic), an agent (Holly McGhee of Pippin Properties), and an art
director (Melissa Manlove of Chronicle Books) all critiqued illustrators’ art
on the fly, as our images were projected on the screen. My submission was
chosen to speak about, and I didn’t hear a single negative word about it.
Arthur Levine claimed it had “European sensibilities.” (ooo la laa!) and that
it was telling that the first two rounds of remarks had gone by and not one
person had asked why the dinosaur was doing yoga, which meant that the image
had done its job successfully. </div>
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<br /></div>
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“Homework”</div>
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<br /></div>
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In the next phase of the intensive, participants were made
to sit around large tables at which one faculty member would individually
review each participants’ “homework” assignment. Which was to illustration a
scene from Snow White. He said mine was a good start, and that I needed to do
another round with more cohesively themed details, but that would come in the
editing process. So nothing bad about the art itself. Wow!</div>
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<br /></div>
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In fact, Arthur even sought my portfolio out to review the
next day at the portfolio showcase (he didn’t throw a contract in my face or
anything, but it was still a step in the right direction!)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTJZxaizKnbAO_-OZ0WU_t8qb2tgCXThA4rxT35yXkhlwElWKBG5s_wiclyyC1iNAv2X86NdqgMoQHujcn2Jc87ugGxm1twfg11_7PiT5QP4Bd1jZhRfKSZEjua6_bfnm7mJzkLIL_rCM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.18.32+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTJZxaizKnbAO_-OZ0WU_t8qb2tgCXThA4rxT35yXkhlwElWKBG5s_wiclyyC1iNAv2X86NdqgMoQHujcn2Jc87ugGxm1twfg11_7PiT5QP4Bd1jZhRfKSZEjua6_bfnm7mJzkLIL_rCM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.18.32+PM.png" height="290" width="320" /></a></div>
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Faculty Party (to which I was not invited)</div>
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That night, SCBWI threw a faculty party for which they
invited all the local agents, editors and art directors. All the Illustrators’
Intensive participants were allowed to leave their portfolios out for review by
the partygoers. I wasn’t allowed to attend, but boy, did I want to see what
they thought of my portfolio! All I know is that they must have liked it,
because I didn’t have a single postcard left by the time I was allowed to pick
up my portfolio after the party! (The number of postcards left after a show is
the only way to gauge what people thought of your work, as comments and
critiques are no longer part of the process. So for the cards to have all
disappeared before the other attendees even had a chance to take any was a
VERY, very good sign.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Ce5r6-qoBOaDR5MqjTqQpwAkOjSqbh78htKOz6-ehg6lqL8CELiU_EocxlKWyb0YauLn5ubok3GTa5b9lxTjFI5rd8V1CfAwfSkKrqqiOuhbEILzEboytOd1VXZaCgmzxkaIlJ_zmcY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.17.38+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Ce5r6-qoBOaDR5MqjTqQpwAkOjSqbh78htKOz6-ehg6lqL8CELiU_EocxlKWyb0YauLn5ubok3GTa5b9lxTjFI5rd8V1CfAwfSkKrqqiOuhbEILzEboytOd1VXZaCgmzxkaIlJ_zmcY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-08-06+at+11.17.38+PM.png" height="320" width="265" /></a></div>
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AWKWARD!</div>
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<br /></div>
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Lest I sound too much like a braggart, you should know that
there were awkward moments too: Trying to get to know an agent I’d been
researching and just getting nowhere (more on that in another post); knowing so
few people at the gala party that it was hard to get introductions to other
people so they didn’t think I was just a weirdo showing up and introducing
myself; eating lunch by myself because I wasn’t included in any groups’ plans. I
did feel like a “new girl,” trying to navigate preexisting groups of friends.
It was definitely tiring, since I am not a robust extrovert. But, the rest of
the conference was spent getting inspired by authors and illustrators who had
“made it to the big time” and solidifying fledgling friendships, and I left
having gained experience and a little fact time, so all in all, it was probably
a worthwhile expenditure IF those funds are readily available. AKA, this “fun”
trip was NOT cheap, so I’d recommend really forcing yourself beyond your
comfort zone during the conference to make the most of the investment.</div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-74725570333380536272014-02-26T00:09:00.002-08:002014-02-27T17:25:52.067-08:00SCBWI’s FEBRUARY FEATURED ILLUSTRATOR! --> (ME!!)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSbAo0kRiT8OMI_qGXibxYF7cLFpGy2bCJhl6jXlkEkoyxpZPPjVZqOat4Ozr1gsH-B6ChwBB33D-zB25kIi0sLpFmcl8_FRAtxGgmaJn3_3lQgNk_q-oo5S7mmvfnJUS3qZjsYbphyphenhyphenc0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-26+at+4.43.37+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSbAo0kRiT8OMI_qGXibxYF7cLFpGy2bCJhl6jXlkEkoyxpZPPjVZqOat4Ozr1gsH-B6ChwBB33D-zB25kIi0sLpFmcl8_FRAtxGgmaJn3_3lQgNk_q-oo5S7mmvfnJUS3qZjsYbphyphenhyphenc0/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-26+at+4.43.37+PM.png" height="444" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Holy wow, that's me!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At the end of
January, I heard from the main office of SCBWI (my professional organization,
the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) – I had been selected,
out of I don’t know how many members but it’s gotta be hundreds, to be the
Illustrator featured on the home page at </span><a href="http://www.scbwi.org/"><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">www.scbwi.org</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> during the
month of February. I literally squealed when I read the email, and forced my
husband to get up and read it too. He was entirely unsure what it meant, but I
KNEW. I’d had my eye on that Featured Illustrator spot for a couple of months,
and been wondering what a person had to do to get featured. Well, I still don’t
know the answer to that, but boy, do I feel lucky that I was chosen. Within an
hour of announcing my selection on Facebook, I had received an offer of
representation from an agent(!)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But I've had my heart set on the short list of agents I’d been cultivating for almost a year. If ever
there was a time to contact them, it was now. With two picture books under
consideration at two different major publishing houses, PLUS this feather in my
cap, I hoped I looked good enough to merit a deeper look. I had momentum! A real, verifiable source vouching for me! What an honor. Now it was just a
matter of striking while the iron was hot: go to the SCBWI Winter Conference in New
York wearing an invisible sash which reads “Miss February” and which gives me
indomitable self-confidence! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Barring that fanciful idea, at least sending off mailers to agents, art directors,
editors – anyone who still accepts things via US mail. But I still kind of wanted the sash...New York was calling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The small hitch was that, long before I’d even heard
of the SCBWI Featured Illustrator splash page, we had planned a two week trip
to New Zealand. In the middle of February. Then I found out the page wouldn’t
be updated until the first Monday of February – the day we were leaving for New
Zealand. How was I going to properly take advantage of this opportunity? Of course I should go to the NYC conference….buuuuut….it started less than two days after
our scheduled return from New Zealand. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yes, I’d have
to do it. </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFgKTeQLG0Y2B0IPLuX5P_JNZ2K1QHusQIt5sM1nVu1JA8Rs4k_5u6pXoGp5nG6h8699KConR-Wsj5aJR6dfDPeFSOTyXnJJWYgcSfygy3lyZ9HI6_MtSiB6ty4BPVO9FjJXuy0UtWh5k/s1600/1511424_10151862334595178_1502910188_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFgKTeQLG0Y2B0IPLuX5P_JNZ2K1QHusQIt5sM1nVu1JA8Rs4k_5u6pXoGp5nG6h8699KConR-Wsj5aJR6dfDPeFSOTyXnJJWYgcSfygy3lyZ9HI6_MtSiB6ty4BPVO9FjJXuy0UtWh5k/s1600/1511424_10151862334595178_1502910188_n.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When SCBWI's updated website went live, I was already in New Zealand! See the "Telecom NZ"?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We had a trip of a lifetime in New Zealand, and I tried really hard not to worry about squandering this opportunity. I would just need to make up for it during the rest of the month. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, two weeks later, I was home for just 35 hours before I had to go back to the airport and fly across the country. By
the time I arrived at JFK, I was having trouble speaking complete sentences, I
was that jetlagged and travel-weary. And I had to wake up at the equivalent
of 1am New Zealand time to go to the illustrator intensive. It was not ideal. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But I did it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Maybe I was awkward and overtired, but I was there. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Five days
later, I’m typing this while flying home. Every single one of my postcards was picked up by industry professionals attending the private portfolio showcase and cocktail party the Friday night before the conference officially started. We’ll see if any of those seeds sprout anything. I hope my fellow attendees didn't think that I was just horribly unprepared when I ran out of the small cache of business cards I had brought with me as backup! </span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizB1ZEcDC2SAueIy7PuXLggk8VTXZYMRqFANYrOc2NjsPsABXh66yXs8UVAuW7Vqtsg7oC1POQYvQDxrAlBS0pv9h-87uzj5H3t94hiCfIMv_o2z4aIfHF4F0Em1n5Xe0ANZFGQncpS6c/s1600/1012085_10151889155405178_1297290211_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizB1ZEcDC2SAueIy7PuXLggk8VTXZYMRqFANYrOc2NjsPsABXh66yXs8UVAuW7Vqtsg7oC1POQYvQDxrAlBS0pv9h-87uzj5H3t94hiCfIMv_o2z4aIfHF4F0Em1n5Xe0ANZFGQncpS6c/s1600/1012085_10151889155405178_1297290211_n.jpg" height="320" width="263" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">an assortment of my postcards printed by moo.com for the same price as printing a single image. I brought 100 postcards to the conference. All gone!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A
full breakdown of the conference to come in the next post. For now, thanks for letting me toot my own horn!</span></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-90017059339438200342014-01-07T09:08:00.000-08:002014-08-07T12:18:44.755-07:00Drawing-A-Day-December<style>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After Inktober
(in October) and SkaDaMo (in November) passed me by because
I was too busy with the latest picture book dummy and then my NaNoWriMo novel,
I decided to do a drawing a day in December. I had an anemic Tumblr page that I
was eager to fill up with doodles and sketches. I’ve read and heard that art
directors et al appreciate seeing an illustrator’s sketching style as well as
their finished work, and since I had been working so intently on my picture
book dummies, I hadn’t been able to share as many of my drawings as I would
have liked to. So, also in an effort to distance myself from my latest picture
book as well as the new NaNoWriMo project, as well as to make the December
scheduling madness more manageable, the drawing-a-day-December was born. Once I
had announced my intention to my friends, they spread the word, and pretty soon
we had formed a nice-sized group page on Facebook. We brainstormed a long list
of prompts and set up a schedule, so that the day’s topic would be
automatically tweeted every morning at 8am.(#drawingadaydecember)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After the
first few days, I was seriously wondering if the group was going to make it
through. Many participants dropped out after the first day, or hadn’t even
submitted at all. But, to my surprise, my friend’s mother-in-law was steadfast
and stuck it through with me. Newly recovered from a brain implant, she was
experiencing the pleasure of having control over her limbs again after spending
many years suffering from Parkinson’s. This was her outlet. And what a joy it
was to see how happy she was to be doing what she loved once again, not to
mention providing me with positive reinforcement to keep going with the daily
drawings, even if it meant I would have to miss out on some social activities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After 31 days,
I had 31 drawings. Not all of them were fully realized in color, and obviously
not all of them were good, but I had completed a challenge I’d set out for
myself. Check them out on <a href="http://nomadicconcepts.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html">the "Sketches" tab on this website</a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Other positive outcomes:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I also learned to approximate the time it takes to do a fully realized
drawing. If it’s at all complicated, it will likely take more than one day
(hence the unfinished ones)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’d managed to
grow my Instagram following slightly. (it’s still paltry)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And, last but not least, I began to receive
a lot of kudos from my fellow illustrators. To this day, I’m still hearing,
“Oh, you work <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A LOT</b>.” Which is sort
of one of the best compliments you can give me, since I’m always terrified I’m
being lazy when I need to stop work to process things or whatnot.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, YAY! </span></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-19212710613728909462013-12-02T11:53:00.000-08:002014-02-25T23:53:57.429-08:00NaNoWriMo and the Angst That Goes With It
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A quote from
my journal while in the midst of NaNoWriMo:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><< Why do I do this to myself? Why do I sign up for
something that is so herculean that I burn out a week into it because I’m
simply not used to writing the sheer amount of words required to fulfill the
50,000 word challenge? Part of it was peer pressure, that’s for sure. Part of
it was that I so badly want to have this draft done because I feel like a
charlatan having come up with the idea back in February, and having only
written 7,500 words of it. So here I am, at around 20,000 words, feeling burnt
out and uninspired (it is the week 2 slump, after all), but I still have to
write 30,000 more words! And to be frank, I don’t even know if this story has
that many more words to write to get finished. So, it becomes a futile exercise
of putting characters in a room and having them talk about their personal
thoughts and emotions – which is not very realistic, having all my characters
be open books. Most people aren’t that emotionally available. Oh well. >></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Luckily after
the two week blues, I was able to turn things around and get a draft in and
“win” NaNoWriMo (writing 50,000 words in a month). Now that draft is going on the
backburner to simmer for a few months. It’s time for me to get back to
illustrating!</span></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-61690128203082248742013-11-14T21:18:00.000-08:002014-02-25T23:49:16.354-08:00PICTURE BOOK DUMMIES – THE INTERNAL PROCESS
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Since right
after the 2013 SCBWI Summer Conference, I’ve been deeply entrenched in creating
a new picture book. I’ve taken two versions all the way to fully-realized
dummies - because I couldn’t tell if they’d work or not until I saw them on the
page. This is not a very efficient way to work, considering that, at least for
this book, it took me a month of solid work to complete each of the dummies. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So is there a
way to streamline my process? Is it even worth trying to do, since I’m still
learning about my own process? Shouldn’t I be focusing more on the final
product itself, and doing whatever it takes to get the best possible book out
there? I don’t have an answer. I suppose if there was an unceasing demand for
my books, then yes, I’d have to work on streamlining my process. But right now,
so much of my work feels like new, untested experimental methods, and it’s only
at the very last minute that things start to feel rote – and when I say very
last minute, I truly mean when I’m taping the printed out dummy together, and
only concerned with trying to line the pages up right against each other, and
I’m no longer thinking about the art. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even cleaning
up the art in Photoshop or laying in the text feels experimental, like I’m
still figuring it out and scared I’ll mess it up. I guess that’s what keeps it
exciting for me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At any rate,
two months in, and I have a third version of the story (to say nothing of the
countless drafts and attempts that didn’t make it past the thumbnailing stage).
I’m really hoping this is the one. The goal was to have the dummy done in time
to submit to agents before the holiday slowdown, but now that looks unlikely,
since I have to redraw everything, do final art pieces, and refine a query
letter. It’s possible, but because I was foolhardy and signed up to do
NaNoWriMo for a different manuscript, and I have a revise and resubmit request
from an editor for another picture book. Honestly, I’ve got my hands full. I
guess that’s better than the alternative, which is not having any ideas at all.
But every time a new story idea pops into my head now, I meet it with a bit of
trepidation because I know how overextended I already am.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If this sounds
like complaining, forgive me. And please believe me: I know how lucky I am that
this is what I get to do with my life, even if I don’t yet have an established
career. Or maybe that makes me even luckier, since I’m STILL able to practice
at it, and not be defined by inferior work in the marketplace. I’ve heard that
there’s a better opportunity for a debut author or illustrator than there is
for one who is midlist (i.e. Didn’t earn out on their advance). </span></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-7591451506369313442013-10-16T14:25:00.000-07:002014-02-25T23:45:56.734-08:00The Responsibility of Adding More Diversity in Children's Literature
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I read an
interview of two children’s book agents in which they discussed diversity (or
lack thereof) in children’s literature. </span><a href="http://blog.leeandlow.com/2013/11/06/literary-agents-discuss-the-diversity-gap-in-publishing/"><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">http://blog.leeandlow.com/2013/11/06/literary-agents-discuss-the-diversity-gap-in-publishing/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> One agent
made mention of the fact that the vast majority of children’s book authors are
well-educated, white women with enough of a financial cushion in their lives to
be able to dedicate the time and money to pursuing an extremely financially
unrewarding … well, some are looking at it as a career, others as a hobby, I
suppose. Anyway, this agent was not surprised that so many books were about
white middle class children, because people tend to write what they know. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
that’s the default setting. I find it in my own writing, and even in my drawing
– the kids I draw may have wider noses on the whole than the average white kid,
but for the sake of color variety, I often give them blond or red hair, when
the vast majority of people on this earth have dark hair. So it’s not
representative. Worse yet, when I’m in “the zone” painting (and thus, not
really thinking intellectually about diversity in children’s literature), I
have a default go-to skin color, which is so disappointing of an impulse of
mine. There I go again, mixing up a creamy peachy pink on the palette. Please.
My skin isn’t that color, so why am I painting with it? I’m going to make
a concerted effort to draw more diverse faces in my future sketchings. Captain Obvious here, but people of all types should be adequately represented in literature. The fact that this sentence must even be stated is a sad state of affairs indeed. /end soapbox </span></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-20806144037686315472013-09-25T17:30:00.000-07:002014-02-25T23:39:46.302-08:00Pinterest: Time Vortex or Mind Expander?If you haven’t checked out Pinterest, part of me wants to tell you not to, in order to avoid the inevitable time suck that it will be. But the other part of me, the part of me that has benefitted greatly from having as a resource, is controlling my fingers in the moment. Yes, although if you look at <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/jujuco/">my Pinterest account</a>, you’ll see I have a ridiculous number of pins on “crafting” and “jewelry-making” boards, I also have an even larger number of pins on illustration and art boards.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3pyPw8ZFGghMPVJYDWsSN_8yV_IyLZnCyYAsepKXmY81AkurQnueTWeTTddCcnTI9BeXp5Orio3_B-8RtTgU6CEhgLta0jGCOxrAWilsfWU-TWqDp8AqwD5BEpjWyrytJmsBWHiUa50/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-02-25+at+11.32.58+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3pyPw8ZFGghMPVJYDWsSN_8yV_IyLZnCyYAsepKXmY81AkurQnueTWeTTddCcnTI9BeXp5Orio3_B-8RtTgU6CEhgLta0jGCOxrAWilsfWU-TWqDp8AqwD5BEpjWyrytJmsBWHiUa50/s320/Screen+Shot+2014-02-25+at+11.32.58+PM.png" title="" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.pinterest.com/jujuco/">http://www.pinterest.com/jujuco/</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
And that is what keeps me coming back. Never before has it been so easy to consolidate and sort visual imagery and inspirational material. My art seems to have grown and matured at light speed ever since I’ve been able to pull up certain pieces and analyze what it is about them that makes me tick. I’ve learned, for example, that darker scenes with in-frame light sources really get my brain bubbling – Mental carbonation being a good thing, in this instance.
Another unexpected benefit is being able to analyze the visual appeal of certain images when quite small on a screen and surrounded by other images. It really forces me to consider what it is in an particular image that has grabbed my attention, regardless of whether or not the image is still successful when I increase the size and look at the technique. Basically, composition, composition, composition.
If you haven’t already checked out Pinterest, and you’re feeling brave, go ahead and check out <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/jujuco/illustration/">my illustration inspiration board</a> and following a couple people I’ve been following. If nothing else, Pinterest provides a satisfying brain break from my own work when I need to stop staring at it for a while.
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-36106693266335471272013-08-06T13:22:00.000-07:002013-08-06T13:42:59.289-07:00Post-SCBWI Conference Frenergy*<i>*Frenergy - frenetic energy, as defined by Laurie Halse Anderson, as in the frenzied feeling we all seem to experience at the SCBWI Conference. I like to think it has a dual meaning of energy gleaned from being with friends. Because I certainly absorbed a lot of that kind of frenergy this weekend.</i><br />
<br />
Ah, memories...<br />
<br />
Pre-SCBWI Conference Karaoke Night, in which I learned I am best suited for 80s songs sung by male vocalists... <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx9ryfnREd4xhDoiPHkeKHhIBxe-6l_psWDJbqz9uRTRhqR7A0FlZIPGTiEoCwlDIYM5rEU3Kp0c4ziUPiex_2XiNM8Cy3jhM4cQoYjZcXJli7DuZGb3bEdXywnDQVcvmlStKkanfcFog/s1600/karaoke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx9ryfnREd4xhDoiPHkeKHhIBxe-6l_psWDJbqz9uRTRhqR7A0FlZIPGTiEoCwlDIYM5rEU3Kp0c4ziUPiex_2XiNM8Cy3jhM4cQoYjZcXJli7DuZGb3bEdXywnDQVcvmlStKkanfcFog/s320/karaoke.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Early evenings spent hanging on the hotel patio with the Circle of Awesome (now featuring: a fire pit!)...<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv-ZCDgI1qMu0XAJNKQnQCIcZIXgweAARfVJ2UVNAlEBg_ZkdX1rmI-7FaFJm3LWJGSmUiQZaR714DdCcz1orE0QELEvGVzmaBmPWiT8oFOshHzeux6UklO2uirDNe-qYBa8137aHvUGw/s1600/patio_c_rati.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv-ZCDgI1qMu0XAJNKQnQCIcZIXgweAARfVJ2UVNAlEBg_ZkdX1rmI-7FaFJm3LWJGSmUiQZaR714DdCcz1orE0QELEvGVzmaBmPWiT8oFOshHzeux6UklO2uirDNe-qYBa8137aHvUGw/s320/patio_c_rati.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Acting the tap-dancing fool in a homemade tutu at Saturday's Black and White Ball (I'm the one in the captain's hat)...<br />
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Oh yeah, and acting professional and networking and stuff.<br />
<br />
Somehow there aren't any photos of that.<br />
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Anyway, it's back to real life after 4 days of soaking up inspiration from industry luminaries, hanging out with old and new friends, and, in general, receiving affirmation that I'm in the right place in life. That's right, the SCBWI-LA Annual Conference is over and it's back to cleaning the litter box (read: working from home).<br />
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By the way, here's a picture of a unicorn: <br />
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No, not a real-life unicorn, though that'd be magical. It's a picture of my postcards, of which I have ONE left, and I guess that's only because I had left it at home to show my husband. As pathetic as I may sound by admitting this, strangers' willingness to pick up a <i>free piece of art</i> is one of the most concrete ways I've been able to measure the success of my images, since we don't receive feedback from the portfolio showcase. So the fact that they were all gone by Saturday evening is quite affirming.<br />
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The even better news is, I've already received quite a few emails from people asking me to illustrate a picture book for them. *fist pump*<br />
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The not-so-good news is that they aren't editors or agents. To explain, on day one of learning about the kidlit biz, I learned that one of the hard and fast rules is that you don't illustrate a book before you get a book deal unless you're willing to do it just to get paid up front, with no expectation of further momentum. But still, FLATTERY!!<br />
<br />
And maybe some of these people have huge platforms and are committed to putting their feet on the pavement to make sales.<br />
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And maybe while my other projects are percolating amongst industry professionals, it wouldn't hurt to get a little more practice.<br />
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But I'm getting ahead of myself. I have so much writing and art of my own that I want to share with the world, (plus that old litter box needs cleaning), I should probably stay the course with my current 5-year plan by finishing my middle grade novel and querying agents with my full range of offerings.<br />
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At the end of September, it will officially be five years since I took my very first picture book class at UCLA Extension, and was advised not to query agents until I had a least four projects under my belt. Well, with four completed picture book dummies (none of which I've discussed in any depth on this blog, as I'm superstitious), a slew of other PBs in the works, a YA novel, and a in-progress MG (middle grade) novel, I'm almost at the end of what I hope is the prepublished chapter in my origin story. Heh.<br />
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I'm ready to come out of the gate flying!<br />
<br />Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-60611098265725570052013-07-17T12:39:00.001-07:002013-07-17T12:39:37.275-07:00Getting Ready for the 2013 SCBWI Summer ConferenceThis year, I was determined to get all my marketing materials for the <a href="http://www.scbwi.org/Conference.aspx?Con=12" target="_blank">conference</a> done WAAAAAAY ahead of time so I wouldn't have to worry about paying for rush delivery and whatnot. This plan coincided nicely with a three-week nature photography roadtrip my <a href="http://www.yetipix.com/" target="_blank">hubby</a> had planned in June. What was initially intended as a <i>en plein aire</i> painting experience for me turned into a shut-in sweatshop in which I pounded out a picture book story, sketches, and 5 finished paintings, PLUS drawings for new portfolio pieces, all done from inside a series of hotel rooms of varying quality. No distractions, since hubby was out <a href="http://www.justincollard.com/palouse/" target="_blank">photographing nature</a> with his photography buddies. Here are a few of the images I'll be using for my promo materials:<br />
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I cropped these for the business card (I'll add a pic of the final product when it arrives): <br />
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That last one was inspired by this picture I took from a tiny plane we flew in Idaho:<br />
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As for the postcard, what started out like this:<br />
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Ended up like this: <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnDY5cbZ-pTbbA7XJmIalQuEbiiXVaBiroWqV_kt2UwXstRYhUr_tbWorFjPyiLa51I49nGFNVu9XjtFiXHWdJO_sZSpTeSuFFOvovhCjt8iB5sT94cZYlnQPrdPyFaUlVn_NDyIoUPr0/s1600/1006206_10151483118890178_1072113607_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnDY5cbZ-pTbbA7XJmIalQuEbiiXVaBiroWqV_kt2UwXstRYhUr_tbWorFjPyiLa51I49nGFNVu9XjtFiXHWdJO_sZSpTeSuFFOvovhCjt8iB5sT94cZYlnQPrdPyFaUlVn_NDyIoUPr0/s320/1006206_10151483118890178_1072113607_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I call it "Feast in the Forest," and I'm pretty happy with how the lighting turned out, as it's a skill I've <a href="http://www.nomadicconcepts.blogspot.com/2012/11/art-for-ya-debut-sacred.html" target="_blank">been working on for quite some time</a>. <br />
<br />Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-65821840717584686022013-06-26T14:55:00.000-07:002013-07-17T15:59:57.902-07:00The Benefit of Proximity - Proving I'm Not A Crazy Shut-In! You may have noticed that in the last year, this blog has been more focused on outward activities than it was before -- it seems that staying in one's cave making art just means you'll die in an art-covered cave, alone. My desire not to die alone means I've participated in quite a few social events, including writing retreats and illustrator meet-ups with friends I've met along the way. Some pics to prove I'm not making this up:<br />
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Here I am at the afterparty for <a href="http://www.sarawilsonetienne.com/" target="_blank">Sara Wilson Etienne</a>'s launch of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Harbinger-Sara-Wilson-Etienne/dp/B00B55FUL8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374098870&sr=1-1" target="_blank">HARBINGER</a> (check out her <a href="http://www.sarawilsonetienne.com/harbinger" target="_blank">book trailer</a>; I am one of the crazed fire-lit silhouettes!):<br />
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A public outing to <a href="http://jenniferbosworth.com/" target="_blank">Jennifer Bosworth</a>'s launch party for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Struck-Jennifer-Bosworth/dp/1250027403/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374098933&sr=1-1&keywords=struck+jennifer+bosworth" target="_blank">STRUCK</a> (check out her <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkce1uCzlk8" target="_blank">book trailer</a>; my elbow makes an appearance in the dance scene!):<br />
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And <a href="http://www.leighbardugo.com/" target="_blank">Leigh Bardugo's</a> launch party for SHADOW & BONE:<br />
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In addition to book launches, there have been quite a few get-togethers. <a href="http://scbwi.org/" target="_blank">SCBWI</a>
has been an invaluable resource for me, mostly because without their
events, I never would have met these great people and gotten to BASK IN
THEIR GENIUS. So here are a few SCBWI semi-sponsored events.<br />
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The SCBWI-LA Halloween party in 2011: <br />
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The SCBWI-LA Christmas Party in 2011: <br />
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And it's always fun to celebrate other people's successes!<br />
<br />
A celebratory lunch for <a href="http://kenminart.com/" target="_blank">Ken Min's</a> Silver Medal <a href="http://writerjenn.blogspot.com/2013/01/15-days-of-giveaways-ken-min.html" target="_blank">(APALA Honor Book, 2012)</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhFEaQj_CxxpNpqDdYGibhrk-ft6v_aoLOqQwos2QXtgR8OZG53p2o6wKfTy5cfIBZM0UNBugMqGF7pczfLdtMwKbhSi9h27grAvcwF8i-aCbg11WyDKSAVWR5aDB4JKArWxtDCV739B8/s1600/423046_2792751450651_183539033_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhFEaQj_CxxpNpqDdYGibhrk-ft6v_aoLOqQwos2QXtgR8OZG53p2o6wKfTy5cfIBZM0UNBugMqGF7pczfLdtMwKbhSi9h27grAvcwF8i-aCbg11WyDKSAVWR5aDB4JKArWxtDCV739B8/s320/423046_2792751450651_183539033_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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A big ol' illustrator brunch to celebrate <a href="http://wheelerstudio.com/" target="_blank">Eliza Wheeler</a> making the <a href="http://www.us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780399257926,00.html?Miss_Maple%27s_Seeds_Eliza_Wheeler#" target="_blank">NY Times Bestseller's List</a>:<br />
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Finally, it's good to get out every once in a while to blow the stink off, but it's even better when I can get some work done while I'm out there!<br />
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An Art Day with my illustrator friends: <br />
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<br />
A Writing Retreat with my author friends: <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTzWo5jDHP8fkm9feoLzBmdb-J8YsPWF7NMcJF_DIz9ksdnrUv0Ay-BWNX8CBMTh0v9UxI-p7zjJyeqx5XfSulmzvWombBKH6zm3lku_RRW5kRahhr0MYX8mkoUSEmISMf-H7EmnWPlCM/s1600/400401_10151204274482640_1205308940_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTzWo5jDHP8fkm9feoLzBmdb-J8YsPWF7NMcJF_DIz9ksdnrUv0Ay-BWNX8CBMTh0v9UxI-p7zjJyeqx5XfSulmzvWombBKH6zm3lku_RRW5kRahhr0MYX8mkoUSEmISMf-H7EmnWPlCM/s320/400401_10151204274482640_1205308940_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Why yes, I did just force a mini-photo album onto my blog in an effort to prove to potential editors and agents that I am a sane person with reasonable social skills. What of it? ;)Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-11569177579395490792013-05-01T16:07:00.000-07:002013-07-17T11:35:57.094-07:00New Pieces from My First Solo Art Show<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A closer view of the new pieces I made for <a href="http://www.nomadicconcepts.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-first-solo-art-show-traveling.html" target="_blank">my solo art show</a>:</div>
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<br />Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-60960126193645410952013-04-17T13:24:00.000-07:002013-07-17T15:45:49.754-07:00My First Solo Art Show – Traveling Caravan to San Diego
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Towards the
end of 2012, I entered into talks with a community music center in San Diego
that had created a program for local artists to display their work to be viewed
with musical accompaniment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An author
friend of mine whom I had met at a local SCBWI event about a year earlier knew
the program coordinator and asked me if I wanted to be considered for a show. </div>
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"Uh, YES." </div>
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So introductions were passed around and my online portfolio was sent
to them and wall measurements were sent back, and after a while, the slot for
my show rolled around, and my husband (who had just had a hitch installed on
our car so we could tow our bikes around,) happily rented a small uHaul trailer
and some moving blankets, and devised a complicated weight and leverage system
with bungee cords within the trailer for my art to travel in as frictionless an
environment as possible. Computer engineer hubbies are the best!</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So we made
an entire weekend of it. Our friends caravanned down with us and got rooms in
the same hotel, and we ate, toured, and hot tubbed together. They even helped
hang the art up and went around buying snacks and drinks for the opening night
party. Not even a flat tire could slow us down (Well, it did actually. A little
bit, so good thing we had multiple cars!) </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The party
was deemed a success. Over thirty people came down from Los Angeles for the
opening, and a lot of them had never seen my fine art before. I was glad to
have a chance to share with them another slice of my life. I was touched by the
effort that everyone had put in to support me and my art. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For the two
months that the show ran, I would receive occasional updates from the
coordinators letting me know that people had been asking a lot of questions about
the art and asking for my card. It was definitely strange to be physically far
away from my art. I kept worrying that something bad would happen. None of the
art was damaged, thankfully, though there is a small dent in the frame of one
of the smaller pieces. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Similar to
how I felt prior to my first time participating in the Venice Art Walk, I
experienced some anxiety when facing the prospect of selling all my favorite
pieces. But each time, I come to the conclusion that I would be willing to part
with them for the right price, and I raised the price accordingly for those
pieces. Supply and demand, baby. </div>
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Well, once again I found that
though there is limited supply, I’m even more limited on the demand side, so I
was able to bring home all my favorite originals, having sold only prints.
(Still, print sales = yay!)</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Considering
that the venue ended up being off the beaten path, and more of a place to bring
your kid for music lessons, I’m not surprised that my fine art did not sell
like hotcakes. Had I known more about the reality of the location as opposed to
their pitch, I probably would have shown more of my children’s illustrations. As
it was, I had created four new print pieces to fit in the hallway through which
most of the children traversed. </div>
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We hung them low enough for the kids to see,
hoping they’d ask their parents about it. The added benefit being that I could
conceivably use the pieces in my illustration portfolio. Perhaps I priced them
too high as well, as there was much interest, but very little than actually
resolved into sales.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5VVivsG4g9Ptjeyx57LZtrrNuQ00utaEqRfpgdw2j8JIgEh_R-l8PKZ4lusrTgxGhu51zTrwxM-ISJndsG07V1L6zr-odS2Y13vVjmgWp5tAU_41wkTiEcy66Qe-nD7wOI-pDz7ifZE/s1600/164467_10151246183245178_1921132271_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm5VVivsG4g9Ptjeyx57LZtrrNuQ00utaEqRfpgdw2j8JIgEh_R-l8PKZ4lusrTgxGhu51zTrwxM-ISJndsG07V1L6zr-odS2Y13vVjmgWp5tAU_41wkTiEcy66Qe-nD7wOI-pDz7ifZE/s320/164467_10151246183245178_1921132271_n.jpg" width="213" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhttaOGwrj8tB9nHDSnIjMIdAyD0GTD3kxX4MP_T3wC7zEuDE2ET_tR7m1_48JYvHfq0drrwIAmlY3rvf_W5izSUCILkMaJcgNLGAg3wOUi3nVV7WkMAO4giMtI1mfO_-ocNqk4GpQ-YCg/s1600/600621_10151246182875178_314915454_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhttaOGwrj8tB9nHDSnIjMIdAyD0GTD3kxX4MP_T3wC7zEuDE2ET_tR7m1_48JYvHfq0drrwIAmlY3rvf_W5izSUCILkMaJcgNLGAg3wOUi3nVV7WkMAO4giMtI1mfO_-ocNqk4GpQ-YCg/s320/600621_10151246182875178_314915454_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That said,
it was certainly flattering to have a live musician “jam” to my art for a few
hours in front of my nearest and dearest. One of the best parts: the thrill of
being able to put “Solo Art Show” on my CV.</div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-63640405482148438462013-03-27T11:09:00.000-07:002013-07-18T16:36:43.340-07:00Threadless Competition - onesie design<style>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In between
work on my picture book ideas and writing projects, I enjoy illustrating
one-off designs which I post on <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/juliacollard*" target="_blank">Zazzle</a> and other custom merch sites. However, I’ve
been somewhat frustrated with <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/juliacollard*" target="_blank">Zazzle</a>, since their ranking algorithms seem to
bury my items in the search results in the US. I could be completely wrong
here, but it’s a working theory, since most of my orders come from abroad. This
makes me think I’m missing out on the majority of possible sales. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The quality of my work itself couldn’t
possibly be the reason for lagging sales in the US! </i>You see where this is
going, and it’s not just a river in Egypt.</div>
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Recently, a friend got me excited
about <a href="http://www.threadless.com/profile/2459824/nomadicconcepts/designs" target="_blank">Threadless</a>, a site where illustrators submit their work of a particular
theme into a contest, and the winning choice is crowd-sourced. There was a
onesie design contest (or "infant creeper" as some places call them, making me wonder if the word onesie is trademarked - hi lawyers! *waves*) by a children’s clothes retailer, and feeling somewhat
inspired, I entered two pieces into the competition. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL9zVvMSp5l_QcbWhQRodhqfrdhrKLD4ct78dWbw7TFZabBCxD0uFYhL_zh7Yox6Z60hDFTHnr1NnLOQc2ntmQackGn70kqOFYoucW5Ohhl0vwhrg7Huy39VAq2WnO9P9fp_AjvD5yPpM/s1600/502948-91b944e664d3a971b4230dc3b3109280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL9zVvMSp5l_QcbWhQRodhqfrdhrKLD4ct78dWbw7TFZabBCxD0uFYhL_zh7Yox6Z60hDFTHnr1NnLOQc2ntmQackGn70kqOFYoucW5Ohhl0vwhrg7Huy39VAq2WnO9P9fp_AjvD5yPpM/s320/502948-91b944e664d3a971b4230dc3b3109280.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA-cGwkQ_PISE8_BGlBnl5Gs9SWeC6JzuIXvOq7e1lZkm3bXX-CuDFRY8a8RYuVyCZbF9Bn1g-yMYLgWvrEp0pqMxsnnO4GHFB_-QX9a4DDySV2Nq70_TsMg4XFB5zdnFmrbA6sWiibo/s1600/504384-0c5833d22f82ece63027eb1bfeb6ff28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbA-cGwkQ_PISE8_BGlBnl5Gs9SWeC6JzuIXvOq7e1lZkm3bXX-CuDFRY8a8RYuVyCZbF9Bn1g-yMYLgWvrEp0pqMxsnnO4GHFB_-QX9a4DDySV2Nq70_TsMg4XFB5zdnFmrbA6sWiibo/s320/504384-0c5833d22f82ece63027eb1bfeb6ff28.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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No, this isn’t a feel-good story
where I win and I’m carried on the shoulders of other illustrators through the
gates of Illustrator City. I didn’t win. BUT…according to <a href="http://support.threadless.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=15140" target="_blank">the FAQs on the Threadless website, I managed to earn a very high score</a> on the <a href="http://www.threadless.com/wittlebee/unicyclesaurus-burns-fossil-fuel/" target="_blank">Unicyclesaurus design</a>, a 3.16, and I should pat
myself on the shoulder for it. *<b>pat, pat</b>* Now where’s my book deal? HA! ;)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0KNt8r1uAIf5kBBrNzSrXMC4bS5hohqeJgJ6z-ap0PBVPu_PDS-ybY2YzK4ccQHB8fjIxR0QpcYi5mXtJvyB6vsE438wbtZ-OP8uSNQ6fos_ZOa7fuX_HlbV1gyf1W409_NDztu7RTx4/s1600/3730027_10113648-stscrd01_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0KNt8r1uAIf5kBBrNzSrXMC4bS5hohqeJgJ6z-ap0PBVPu_PDS-ybY2YzK4ccQHB8fjIxR0QpcYi5mXtJvyB6vsE438wbtZ-OP8uSNQ6fos_ZOa7fuX_HlbV1gyf1W409_NDztu7RTx4/s320/3730027_10113648-stscrd01_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I posted a few pieces on <a href="http://society6.com/NomadicConcepts/Bare-Hugs_Cards" target="_blank">Society6</a>, such as the above <a href="http://society6.com/NomadicConcepts/Bare-Hugs_Cards" target="_blank">Bare Hugs</a> print, but so far no sales. <a href="http://www.zazzle.com/juliacollard*" target="_blank">Zazzle</a>'s still bringing in consistent sales, no matter how small the amount may be. So I guess I'm back to square one. *shrugs* I'll take it as a sign that I should get back to writing and illustrating picture books. </div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-15873520758331032982013-02-28T13:39:00.000-08:002013-07-17T15:51:06.600-07:00Key Art for a Middle Grade Novel, SPIRIT'S KEY<style>
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Earlier this year, my friend, <a href="http://edithcohn.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Edith Cohn</a>, let it
drop that her middle grade book, SPIRIT'S KEY, sold and she’d be debuting in Fall 2014. After
much squeeing and jumping up and down, we "Prepublished" all went back to whatever we were
doing to try to Make It, and I secretly harbored jealousy deep within my
shriveled little heart. ;) But I couldn’t stay "mad" when she asked me to do some
key art for her…very literally key art, since it’s of a key!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4aa7K0j6csmk9m4W_PwEX7tjsYa5HeqPkWNeqdyuU2xp3rFKOaUeGsRa_GzRnh-ww7rdVXcasBwWCqyGg1aBKkoXEpQ5l3iP08WqjKt-OWXrjOmAa0G99khFQv5-WSgZgmC-ChIH4EZI/s1600/32ed203770d378ae13ff8844a8526a6b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4aa7K0j6csmk9m4W_PwEX7tjsYa5HeqPkWNeqdyuU2xp3rFKOaUeGsRa_GzRnh-ww7rdVXcasBwWCqyGg1aBKkoXEpQ5l3iP08WqjKt-OWXrjOmAa0G99khFQv5-WSgZgmC-ChIH4EZI/s320/32ed203770d378ae13ff8844a8526a6b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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She's using the key logo for her website, her business cards and her promotional bookmarks, and it's exciting to see my work out there.<br />
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Another piece of art she asked me to make was an illustrated map of the island on which the story takes place. She sent me a back-of-a-napkin-type sketch and a PDF of her book, and here's what I came up with:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKFSHsVSTIipZwounFUWQS8DGePpaAKVWf7GlwoV_R3jcRHFQepkwA_d7q7oqatdqtP8SJwi8gIT8bu3u__dNVpx-UcOjZ1AxeR1jz9Mc_hrJu-gBz-EobVmzmIF0aToIe3Uzoc9jurs/s1600/baldislandmap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKFSHsVSTIipZwounFUWQS8DGePpaAKVWf7GlwoV_R3jcRHFQepkwA_d7q7oqatdqtP8SJwi8gIT8bu3u__dNVpx-UcOjZ1AxeR1jz9Mc_hrJu-gBz-EobVmzmIF0aToIe3Uzoc9jurs/s320/baldislandmap.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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See the key in there? It's like a Where's Waldo poster, ha! I had a lot of fun working with Edith, so I think I'm going to try my hand at making a mock cover for her as well. I'll update here when I do. In the meantime, (though I don't think it will take me <i>that</i> long,) look for her book in stores next year! :)</div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-906521051841677146.post-13202322974835885742013-01-10T12:10:00.000-08:002013-07-17T14:33:06.094-07:00Yoganimals: New Picture Book Idea<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Once again,
I have come up with another list-based idea for a picture book. This time, it's a play on yoga positions named after animals, starting with the question of
what if all those animals got into their namesake positions, like pigeon pose or crow pose? </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnjMVhbzZCf45x6lmwS7UYf7cM6HQ70KiaxxaHqIUlypFTgZwFSoaP0n73lbyCy1RRkbZKm3Bl78NAlGSP-nc2w-pIMggOAEoDkkfHJiQLj-xGhgrpCF8YiJo5onRuaBbxquoBgYPm5Vw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-17+at+10.23.02+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnjMVhbzZCf45x6lmwS7UYf7cM6HQ70KiaxxaHqIUlypFTgZwFSoaP0n73lbyCy1RRkbZKm3Bl78NAlGSP-nc2w-pIMggOAEoDkkfHJiQLj-xGhgrpCF8YiJo5onRuaBbxquoBgYPm5Vw/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-17+at+10.23.02+AM.png" width="314" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOLsrvgZq8UWhheUBt4JzTNFqj8fStoeYFYDxvsUbC6jLvSj-gBZXb2UWmB5zgzU9wYvD_OhsCKavA0afci4QVCLwiweoACPZxtye1alMuaKf44-VKV5H-ULRPi9ultyq9L6hyphenhyphenxzAUxjw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-17+at+10.20.12+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOLsrvgZq8UWhheUBt4JzTNFqj8fStoeYFYDxvsUbC6jLvSj-gBZXb2UWmB5zgzU9wYvD_OhsCKavA0afci4QVCLwiweoACPZxtye1alMuaKf44-VKV5H-ULRPi9ultyq9L6hyphenhyphenxzAUxjw/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-17+at+10.20.12+AM.png" width="314" /></a></div>
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It's a work in progress. What do you think?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTDdc9fvvFdk6bfAVnOPYgbEvtdhaYU2JjxTGJq5vrTTVvhXKOjxvWUT8hilCkcAdzqiiKX-JDAntWGOxDMfPTN-gwVmgQUFLCdA4Dk0EudhNG4I3O42e3FcGAOzSxLGbV6I-SWMj_Ma8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-07-17+at+10.20.37+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTDdc9fvvFdk6bfAVnOPYgbEvtdhaYU2JjxTGJq5vrTTVvhXKOjxvWUT8hilCkcAdzqiiKX-JDAntWGOxDMfPTN-gwVmgQUFLCdA4Dk0EudhNG4I3O42e3FcGAOzSxLGbV6I-SWMj_Ma8/s320/Screen+Shot+2013-07-17+at+10.20.37+AM.png" width="235" /></a></div>
Julia Shahin Collardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05986457854400656606noreply@blogger.com0