ellenmillion

Book done. Dies now. It's not quite NaNo count (46,400), but I'll write a short story or start BROKEN LYNX if I want to. In another day or two.

My husband raised an eyebrow at me. "I'm impressed," he said. "You set an impossible goal, and you met it, with utterly no carnage. That was the best part. No carnage."

So, there we go. Book done. No carnage.

I have been committing art. And writing.

Dragon of Glass revisions are done, print cover is laid out, it's got a new epilogue and about about 5k new words in total (which is lovely, because it was too short!), and I'm super excited to release it next week! I did a lot of new things for me. (And for Zoe, for that matter.) I'm really curious to see how it does and am basically going in with no expectations. I'll have pre-order up later this week!

Dragon Prince's Quest is almost at 18k, and I'm still loving it, though I took a break to do the final polish on DoG. Have a sketch of Carina and Toren:



If you count up ALL the words, I've written about 16,000 since Nov 1 (DPQ started at 6500), and considering I started 5 days late, that's not bad. I had a couple of 3k days there, and I'd like to settle in and do a few more of those at least. There's still a shot at finishing this month!

Happy Veteran's Day, I'm back to writing now... zoom!

To begin with, I'm not a big fan of pumpkins. (What they call pumpkin spice, yes, but I feel like apple cider spice got unfairly scooped in advertising when it came to naming flavors...) So every year, my daughter makes puppy eyes at me asking about getting a pumpkin to carve, and every year, I reluctantly let her do it, and every year, I'm finding pumpkin seeds stuck down with pumpkin goo to my floor and furniture for a week after the great pumpkin carving massacre.

I can see the appeal of Jack-O-Lanterns, though; it's exciting to have angry vegetables with fire in them.

But this is the last year we are doing living pumpkins, and here's why:

We bought this year's pumpkin through a fundraiser at my daughter's school. It had a little rotten spot that we carved out as part of the design. In retrospect, I should have been more wary of this pumpkin.

Because we did not get a pumpkin.

We got an X-files case.( Like X-files, it gets gross... )

This weekend was a whirlwind of piano lessons and cleaning and rearranging the garage, doing laundry, taking in trash, getting water, and milk from the farm, grocery shopping, getting gas, chopping wood... and building a stick fort in the "back yard" with Guppy.

We don't really have a "yard." We have 36 acres of wild birch forest backed up against a 365 acre greenbelt. I can barely make out one light from one neighbor up the hill through the trees... if it's dark, and there aren't leaves on the trees. (Of course it's not often dark when there ARE leaves on trees.)

Yesterday, driving home from piano lessons, we saw a grouse and then chased a fox down the driveway. Not deliberately. He just chose to saunter down the driveway we needed to go down. We went slow and he looked annoyed but not hassled, and then he ran off past the house into the forest.

It's a weird in-between season right now - last week was slushy snow (and terrible roads), but the ground was still too warm for it to stick. This week is colder and dry.

I finished the rough draft of Dragon of Glass on Friday. Probably the most unsatisfactory "the end" yet, because I know how much work it needs before I can even send it out for edits. I'm already planning to re-write several scenes. I let it set over the weekend so I can look at it with fresh eyes on Monday. Ready to be done with this one already. Fake Fur is ridiculous fluff up to 8k now.

There was a Sketch Fest this weekend - I did two loose sketches, which was nice. Oh! And the second Alaska Animals translation coloring book is moving again. (As is a freelance project that Will. Not. Die.)

I may run away for a day at the hot springs this week because I am desperate need of soaking.

Love love LOVE having daughter back in school again. She's loving it, too. Her room is a disaster, and I had to pop a dozen balloons today just to get her karate clothes.

I have reluctantly put writing Dragon of Glass on the backburner for a bit because ALL THE THINGS are due. I got edits for Balance back to the editor. On that topic, I'm delighted to announce here that it is included (as Elva Birch) in Once Upon an Enchanted Forest:



Pre-order is now available:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Ylh9KB
Barnes and Noble Nook Book: http://bit.ly/2YnrZjm
Barnes and Noble Paperback: http://bit.ly/2JJD8CW
Kobo: http://bit.ly/32FK8bD
Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/once-upon-enchanted-forest-anthology-romantic-witchcraft/id1474135521
Add to Your Goodreads Shelves: http://bit.ly/2Y6xPS8


Sketch Fest this weekend!!

Landing page updated! Prints and originals available! https://ellenmillion.dreamwidth.org/1640226.html

Obviously, some of these are sketches and if you picked them, I would finish with your color/design choices.

Five more to go. But not right now.

sholio gave me three (very random) words to write about: Dandelions, velociraptors, skateboards.

Dandelions

I kind of love dandelions. Not as much as, say, my daughter does, but they are so cheerful and bright and determined. Lots to admire.

And of course, it's hard to see the word and not think about my recent book DandeLION Season, which I just did a new cover for.

And not at all least, it will always remind me of wyld_dandelyon!

Velociraptors

Naturally, Jurrasic Park popularized these... a tad incorrectly, since velociraptors are actually chicken-sized. (The movie versions are actuall Utahraptors, iirc) I feel like there should be more cute velociraptors in the world. Like... chicken coop velociraptors that you can raise in backyards. Maybe I should do a velociraptor #juncorn. (Nothing is too weird for #junicorn, see evidence, below.)

Skateboards

I've always wished I was the kind of athletic person who could navigate one of these and do cool tricks and such. It is not to be. I like the sound they make.

# # #

I have not caught up on #junicorn, and the way this month is going, I may not... I have a book to launch this weekend and eye surgery next week that may keep me offline a bit. But here are some more!



The landing page is here: https://ellenmillion.dreamwidth.org/1640226.html

May was stuffed, but that's not unusual. Let's review!

Writing

It's worth a note that I'm deliberately listing writing first now. At some point in the last two years, I have made a conscious shift in my creative energy from visual art to words. This is in no small part because it is far more fiscally rewarding, but also because it's a lot more inspiring right now. I am absolutely loving the worlds I'm writing in.

Bearly Together: 4300 (I hope to add to this today)
Tropical Dragon's Destiny: 14000
Balance: 7300 (plus editing and submitting)
Magnolia and Chef's Christmas story that needs a title: 5500
Total: 31,100 - which JUST meets my goal, even if it wasn't how I intended to distribute the wordcounts. I consider this a minor miracle, given this month.
[ETA] 1400 words added to Bearly together on the last day, for a final count of 32.5k.

Things related to Writing:

Lots of advertising things
I've laid out a paperback version of Tropical Tiger Spy that should be here next week!


Art things!

I did one new portrait for Portrait Adoption:


(Click to adopt!)

I also dug several pieces out of my archives and added them to my portrait adoption page.

I did not do anything for Sketch Fest because the end of school made the month a freaking madhouse. (June Sketch Fest is next weekend!)


Life things!

We went traveling for 10 days to Chicago and Wisconsin, which was lovely.
Guppy successfully completed first grade. There were many playdates this month.
She also did a school concert and a piano recital (after four lessons!)
I decided to close Portrait Adoption.

MARCH REVIEW

I swear this month went faster than Februrary.

My biggest release was the Alaska Animals Translations (eeeee!), which was the accumulation of three years of work. There was much squeeing. I am contracted for a second book!

I also wrote 31k, mostly on Tropical Lion's Legacy (and associated untitled short story I hope to finish today), but also on Run and on Bearly Tolerable, which has a good start and is outlined to the end.

I survived Spring Break (barely).

I noodled some artwork for Sketch Fest and mocked up one cover and am 80% done with the pencil work for a portrait of Mal that is full of spoilers.

I released a 10-page hunky shifters coloring book download on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/676772560/hunky-male-shifter-coloring-pages-for

I did not get anything done for Fatemakers, which was the only other thing on my to-do list for the month, but it was a rollercoaster month in a lot of ways, so I'm really happy with what I did do.

PLANS FOR APRIL

* 3 pages for the 2nd Alaska Animals book
* Publish Lion's Legacy
* Revise Tropical Tiger Spy and launch changes
* 30k (1k a day) in writing total, spread out over whatever projects, with 20k earmarked for Bearly Tolerable so it's finished in May.
* Some other art progress of any kind.

Sketch Fest is scheduled for Friday!

I am so, so, so excited to finally be able to share this!

I've been working on this project (not non-stop, but periodically in great bursts) for two and a half years, and it's been in non-disclosure, so I've only been able to share tiny sneak previews and natter about it in a general, non-specific sort of way.



Tanana Chiefs Conference commissioned me to illustrate a coloring book of Alaskan animals as part of a language preservation project! Each animal has a facing page with illustration matching the page and translations of the animal name in 10 Interior Alaskan native languages. I did 18 animals, one two-page spread (with about 12 animals), and 23 border pages, plus a landscape for the opening page. I'll be sharing them in bits and putting them in my portfolio over the next few weeks!



This coloring book is an educational outreach and is going to be distributed throughout the Interior villages and at culture camps. It is not currently for sale, but TCC is looking into making them available -- I will update you when I know anything.

This project was a big challenge for me, and I learned SO much, and I'm really proud and honored to be a part of it.