The blackberry, with it's thorns, blossoms, and berries, symbolizes my life of late. The thorns, or course, are pain. The blossoms, beauty that persists in spite of everything. And the berries? Well, they are the fruit of my love and labor, and though the berries are long gone from their vines, I have jam by the jarful.

I made this palette before the blossoms became berries, as you can see by the dusky pink. The blackberry blushed furiously from within her green leaves, perhaps from being slowly stripped by cold nights, and the searing smell of winter.

So, with this post I am back to blogging, and I want to let my readers know that you are my blossoms, and my fruit. Thank you for making the thorns bearable.

Now I'm going to eat jam from the jar with a spoon.

One of my funny muses is experiencing the sublime joys of eating purple cabbage. I'd like to say she's laughing, but that would not be truthful. Lulu is merely in between chews.

Oh, my cuteness!

Rough! Rough-rough! That's me, barking an explanation of the illustration. It's a rough sketch for the cover of Volume One of The Nik Notebooks.

But why bark? I'm at the end of H1N1 and it's all about the respiratory system. The bark has stolen my sweet voice and hidden it away somewhere. I'm sure I'll find it later.


ABOUT THE COVER:
Nik is in a cave she has just discovered within the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains in Guanajuato. Phosphorescence painted on the cave walls gives the room an eery glow.

Nik is startled when she sees a frightening image of Quetzlcoatl, an ancient feathered serpent diety who eats humans whole, painted on the cave wall. Many Mesoamericans worshiped a form of this diety, but the most famous images of Quetzlcoatl come from the Aztec Indians. This one is mostly silver.

And it's rough! Rough-rough!

Outside a wind blows, ripping the last ragged colors from our trees, and inside — my refrigerator — on the bottom shelf, fall's perfect palette in the form black dinosaur kale, a green acorn squash flushed with fiery orange, the pale globe of a crisp green cabbage, and the cheery spears of carrots wait to be transformed from cold, earth knowing vegetables to a steamy, colorful meal.

I have of late, but wherefor I know not, lost all my mirth.

Actually, I do know. Familial collapse and swine flu took all the words from my fingertips.

But witness this! Words issue forth!

There is hope yet, and mirth will return like birdsong.

Now in Discovery Park, the towering big leaf maples are still mostly mantled in green, but some leaves already let go of life, and have fallen to the ground.

I pick these up, transfixed by their intricate veins, brilliant with chlorophyll, and the surrounding leaf tissue dying in a yellow haze.

Glowing gold turns dusky pale, before crumbling and decaying into humus, that rich soil home to worms and beetles and so many countless life forms invisible to our eyes.

The fallen leaf is an end and a beginning. Blessed are the big leaf maples.

"You have two brains: a left and a right. Modern brain scientists now know that your left brain is your verbal and rational brain; it thinks serially and reduces its thoughts to numbers, letters and words... Your right brain is your nonverbal and intuitive brain; it thinks in patterns, or pictures, composed of 'whole things,' and does not comprehend reductions, either numbers, letters or words."

— The Fabric of Mind, Richard Bergland, Scientist and Neurosurgeon

I have finished another revision. I submitted it to my critique group and am awaiting their feedback before I do more revisions. I designated the interim as time for illustrations.

Easier said than done. I'll compare switching from serious writing to serious drawing to the Olympics. After training exclusively for the figure skating competition, what makes me expect I'll ace the hundred meter crawl (even though it was my event before I took up figure skating)?

The above quote explains why. Betty Edwards, who wrote Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, also discusses the science behind drawing and writing requiring different hemispheres of the brain, with the drawing, or visual side, being almost wordless.

I am glad to know why transitioning from one talent to another is so difficult and I'm sure it's unreasonable to think I could just step off the ice and jump in the pool and swim a graceful hundred meters. But I still find it really frustrating that I can't.

Any transitional tips out there from other athletes competing in multiple events, or writer/illustrators managing to produce within each craft?

Chocolate cherry, Brandywine, Yellow Pear, Sun Gold, Green Zebra. All summer, the sun and soil have been interacting with my tomato plants to produce a variety of beautiful fruit with the most amazing skin

Their colors astound me. How do you talk about the way skin reflects a whole spectrum of color on close examination but looks uniformly red or yellow or pinky brown at arm's length?

I've always thought the secret of being a great artist begins in actually seeing the world. And I mean really seeing, not just that a tomato is red, but what kind of red is it made of?

Does it have a rose pallor like the Brandywine, or does it blush green on a pink mantle like the Chocolate Cherries which is impossible to capture here because that color is so dynamic. And there is such a thing as a truly red tomato, like the brilliant Sweet Million, uncompromising in its redness.

I love the names of the tomatoes and I love their colors — a vivid distillation of summer and chemistry. This palette is derived from them.

If Nancy Drew were still sleuthing, would she invest in the new, affordable night vision goggles, however great the risk of seriously mussing her carefully groomed, titian hair while actually wearing them?

In my current graphic novel, our heroine Nik, who doesn't invest much effort in her hair at all, is in a stable at night in Mexico, listening in — unseen behind bags of feed — on an argument between two thieves.

She says to herself, under her breath, I knew should have traded that first edition of TBD* for those night vision goggles.

The night vision goggles she's talking about are only $80 and marketed as a toy (the photo looks super science fiction because I tweaked it — a lot).

Anyways, Nik does not have a pair of night vision goggles, but that night in the barn is not the first time she's wanted them. After all, she is an aspiring teen sleuth, but I don't want her interest in night vision goggles to make her seem weird or creepy. Honestly, night vision goggles are weird and creepy, even when marketed as a toy.

I am hoping for feedback on this one. Do I ditch her desire for night vision goggles or can it coexist with a the image of a wholesome teenage sleuth? What would Nancy Drew do?

TBD* is to be determined. I'm thinking collector's comic, or children's book, depending on the actual price.

Spring symbolizes new beginnings and green is its color. But I also look forward to new beginnings in Fall, when hot colors blaze like embers.

In the same way trees discard their leaves and gather nutrients deep inside their roots where no one can see, so do we have new beginnings in shedding what's no longer needed and turning inside to find where we will begin again.

What new beginnings to these colors suggest to you? Pruning your hydrangeas, making a quilt, taking down a jar of summer picked raspberry jam?

These colors were inspired by a fading peegee hydrangea, a still blooming honeysuckle and a maple leaf so darkly green it looks like I'm seeing it by moonlight.

The latest Bellingham shmooze, hosted by Kjerstin Anna Hayes, promised a discussion on Keeping All Hats in the Air: How Do You Juggle All the Aspects of Your Writing or Illustrating Career?

A small group gathered for a lively and enlightening journey into this tricksy topic, all of which was valuable. But the most effective commentary for me had to do with internet habits and the realization that too much of a good thing is not a good thing (Kjerstin has a nice post on the hats in the air part of the discussion).

My online habit saw me logging on first thing in the morning. Between my own blogging, reading blogs, reading email, sending email, etcetera, POOF! My morning was gone. I had invested my most creative hours online. The shmooze helped me realize my internet habit needed an overhaul. I made a rule: no more internet in the morning — I will devote these hours to my creative life. The limits I set are working for me, but some people may need more help.

Enter Mac Freedom. This software turns off interent access for up to eight hours! Harsh, but sometimes that's necessary. To read more about it, there is a good article in Salon. Unfortunately, Mac Freedom is only available for mac users. For an article from CNN Health about why moms are particularly susceptible to internet addiction, click here.

Color tells us things. What time it is, and what season we're in. Color can warm us, then shift, and turn cold. What do these colors suggest to you, on these last waning days of summer?

These colors exist in our September garden. The coral bark maple leaves play the spectrum from yellow-green to knock-out orange punch. The stewartia's leaves turn a brooding, russet-red, while the fuzzy leafed fucshia still invites hummingbirds to sip from its glorious, inverted cups.

When I focus on writing, I forget all about illustrations. I've been focused on writing for months now, and surely my illustration skills are suffering.

Enter Illustration Friday. A word is assigned, and participants illustrate the word. It's liberating not to have to think of a subject, and fun to explore ways to express the word. I am probably going to consistently use characters from the Nik Notebooks. I need to practice drawing them as much as I need to practice drawing.

There are a number of things about this illustration I'd change, if it were not intended to be an exercise, and if I wanted to retain my death grip on ideas of perfection. But I am learning how to get things done, and letting go of getting those things done perfectly. Perfection is a crutch, and I am tossing it out with the recycling.

So here, one day late, is my piece for Illustration Friday. The word is caution. That's Nik on the bridge, which is an engineering miracle. Maximo and Lulu are in the backpack.

I am working on my third major revision, hoping this will take it to the 100% polish required for sending with a query. The inspiration for my graphic novel, and its heroine, Nik, is the Tintin series, by Belgian writer and illustrator Herge. Pictured left, a page from Flight 714.

One of the many items on this revision's to do list was a word count. I want my book to be the same length and format as a Tintin. Sound stunningly original? Maybe not, but this is what my book needs to be, so no arguing.

First, I did a word count of Flight 714, one of the later Tintin books. Total: 10,800 words.

Then I did my own word count. Dialogue only. No stage directions or speaker designations — a graphic novel is often written very much like a script. Total: 9,300 words.

Close! That's only a 1,500 word difference. And Flight 714 is pretty wordy — see in the picture? But that is why it is so fulfilling to read a Tintin. Not only do you have amazing artwork, but you actually get to read it.

Since colors evoke feelings, and memories sometimes, I want to try a more interactive approach to Color Monday.

I'll number the posts instead of naming them after my inspiration, so as not to make this all about my experience. What about yours? Do these colors mean anything to you? Do they bring any feelings to the surface of your skull?

The story of these colors and my reflections:

These are the colors of our bathroom tiles. Rejected from several high end jobs, I gathered everything I could that I thought could go together at a rejects sale. We scored. I'm reminded of semi-precious stones, hawaiian bays and newly sprouted growing things.

The new graphic novel, “A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge,” written and illustrated by Josh Neufeld, and published by Pantheon, gives us new access to Hurricane Katrina.

Josh Neufeld was in New York when the Twin Towers fell. Feelings of helplessness and anger experienced in the tragedy's aftermath inspired him when Hurricane Katrina hit. He realized this time, there was something he could do, and he volunteered for the American Red Cross.

Stationed in Biloxi Mississippi, Josh became a disaster response worker. He blogged about his experiences, and conducted interviews with survivors. Based on this extensive research, “A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge,” follows the narratives of seven people who survived Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

Besides revising my graphic novel manuscript until it shines, and I am talking 100 percent wattage, I am on my quest to find an agent. I have compiled a very short list of three potential agents.

Why three? Three is a good number, and I have to read their lists (or the books they have agented). That's quite a bit of reading, but to know an agent, you need to read their list. I can't imagine getting to know more than three people through this method at a time. Because this is not a cocktail party getting to know you. This is more like researching the person you are going to marry.

Thanks to Martha Brockenbrough, for pulling my post SCBWI Conference "What do I do next?" frenzy into this one clear focus.

So I begin the next phase of my quest to find an agent. Reading!

This Color Monday will debut a new format. The original format of digital palettes were derived from my day job as colorista — designing palettes for web sites. I had the format so I used it for Color Monday. I do love the clean digital cmyk intricacies of color mixing. When finished, the palettes feel harmonious and right for the emotional resonance intended.

But I sit in front of the computer all the time, writing, designing, rewriting, redesigning ad nauseum. I forget that I am an artist too, who needs unpredictability, and accidents of color to bleed in front of me on the scrappy surface of a 4 x 6 slice of index card.

I first set down my novels on index cards, 4 x 6, in tiny writing, often pink, scene by scene, before fleshing it out officially, digitally. Why not turn a writing tool into an art tool? Give exploratory beginnings, and unformed ideas the opportunity to take shape within the set parameters of 4 x 6 index card. I work well with parameters, and small spaces.

Infused with this new approach to Color Monday, I thrilled to sit down in my studio, brushes, paints, pencils arrayed before me like an artists smorgasbord. Inspired by lunch, I painted green and yellow wax beans, sun gold and chocolate cherry tomatoes, an unripe green zebra, and one golden plum on a 4 x 6. Yum.

I'm back from LA and here is my report. The conference was fracking awesome. How could it not be with four days of non stop talent imparting secrets to mining emotion, finding voice and never giving up, ever, on your dreams?

All that awesomeness is still with me, even though I'm back to work, and the daily routines of life. I made new friends, who will stay with me, and my heart is different. Maybe more mature, somehow. Maybe a little more luminous.

I think I went to the conference naive, and entered a rite of passage. All that talk about finding the agent of my dreams in one long weekend. Silly, but sincere. It just doesn't work that way. I'll paraphrase Kelly Sonnack, an agent at Andrea Brown Literary, who says the relationship she seeks to foster with her creatives most resembles a marriage.

We're not talking weekend fling. A marriage is a very big deal. It takes a tremendous amount of commitment, love, faith and perserverence. Isn't this what all of our creative endeavors deserve? Frack yes.

I am about to embark on the fastest revision in the world, at least from where I'm sitting. This will be my lesson in procrastination. I thought I had plenty of time to work on this revision because my critique group wasn't getting together until August 17th.

But then I decided to go to the LA SCBWI Conference to find an agent for the above mentioned revision and I got a cool, but time consuming job. All that time I was watching Battlestar Galactica, with no travel plans or gainful employement, I should have been revising so I would have been ready for anything, in this case, the conference! A friend asked "are you going to have your manuscript ready to hand off in case anyone asks?" And I said, because I've been watching Battlestar Galactica, "frack!"

So it's time for a little quote from Seneca: LUCK IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PREPARATION MEETS OPPORTUNITY.

I've got the opportunity, now I need to prepare for luck.

We are lucky enough to live on a hill facing west, and we have a little view of the Olympics. The sunsets are always beautiful, even when subtle, and we always admire them.

But sometimes the sunsets are so spectacular your jaw drops. Velvety blue sky above dusky lavender, and orange cherry red.
I tried to capture just such a sunset, that came and went yesterday, for this color Monday: jaw dropper.

So we stayed with a friend and his two boys in a little cabin on the Oregon Coast, and My husband Markus wrote a thank you postcard which I was to sign. I often draw pictures of the dogs in lieu of a signature.

In this case, as two recipients of the post card are ages nine and almost seven, it was even more important I draw a picture. The boys are in love with the dogs. And instead of fighting over one (this does happen, as Lulu is more malleable), they always share, and take turns. So sweet! Anyway, here is the little sketch of Maximo and Lulu.

Markus, Maximo, Lulu, and I were invited down to Arch Cape a couple weeks ago. Arch Cape sits between Cannon Beach and Manzanita, on the incredible Oregon Coast. It's super close to Oswald State Park. It has hiking trails, cliff views of the coastline, overturned trees with root balls bigger than houses, and a surfing beach. And tidepools. And schools of slender fish flashing silver in the currents.

I picked up a few shells on the beach. A razor clam, a mussel, and pretty, little, swirly-topped shell that looked like a pointy turban. The two little boys we stayed with claimed that these pointy turban shelled creatures put up sails and ride the waves.

The shells, that came from the Pacific, and now sit empty on my desk, are the inspiration for this week's color palette. Calciferous and colorful, I call them oceanshells.

It's settled. I'm going to LA for the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) Summer Conference in West Hollywood.

My mission: to meet the agent of my dreams. These dreams just started, and I haven't slept well since.

At our last critique group it occurred to me, even though I had received a personal invitation from Editor X to submit my graphic novel directly, this might not be the best plan for me or my graphic novel, though this was the only plan I had.

I saw the wisdom in representation. I just couldn't commit to the idea of an agent for myself. I had an invitation to submit directly to an excellent editor, and finding the right agent has been compared to dating. We all know how that goes. I wanted to bypass any potential pain.

But now I see the wisdom in finding representation for myself, especially as a first time writer/illustrator. An agent has your back. An agent gives you options. I don't care how long it takes, I want to enter this market like a heavyweight contender with my agent in the corner, and my work in the ring.

There are eight agents on the LA faculty. Will one of them become my agent? Stay tuned for the next installment of the agent of my dreams.

It's a sad story as to how I came to have this Anna's Hummingbird, one of our northwest natives. It flew into a picture window I had washed so the window was reflecting the sky. The bird died and I was devastated.

To assure that accident wasn't repeated, I made a long string of prayer flags which zig zag across the window warning other birds to turn around.

I dried the hummingbird, and now it sits in another window where I can admire it's beautiful feathers. In different shifts of light, it's back shimmers like new leaves in the spring, bright green glass bottles, or the shimmering blue of an aqua sea. It's throat is studded with feathers the color of claret, shifting to glow like hot coal when the light changes.

On this Color Monday, not only am I making a study of this exuberant palette, but I am paying tribute to Anna's Hummingbird.