How to use this Page

Holly Thompson just posted the cover of Tomo on her book blog:

http://tomoanthology.blogspot.com/2011/10/announcing-tomo-cover.html

The illustrated figures were created by illustrator John Shelley. I took the cover and created the promo graphic above. As I mentioned a while ago, I'm tickled that my illustrated short story "Kodama" was chosen to be included in this anthology for teens.

Edited by Holly Thompson, Tomo will be published by Stone Bridge Press in March 2012.

You can find a list of the other contributors as well as more information about the book at:

http://tomoanthology.blogspot.com/

Holly Thompson just posted the cover of Tomo on her book blog:

http://tomoanthology.blogspot.com/2011/10/announcing-tomo-cover.html

The illustrated figures were created by illustrator John Shelley. I took the cover and created the promo graphic above...feel free to repost it anywhere you'd like to help promote this anthology; please do link the graphic to http://tomoanthology.blogspot.com. (and thanks!)

As I mentioned a while ago, I'm tickled that my illustrated short story "Kodama" was chosen to be included in this anthology for teens. Proceeds will benefit young people affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

Edited by Holly Thompson, Tomo will be published by Stone Bridge Press in March 2012.

You can find a list of the other contributors as well as more information about the book at:

http://tomoanthology.blogspot.com/

A while back, I posted about being nominated for the 2011 Sue Alexander "Most Promising Work" Award.

The winners of the award were announced yesterday (I just found out):

First prize: Marilyn Hilton

Runners-up: Pati Hailey and Karen Bonner

Congrats to all the winners!

Though I didn't win, I'm still hugely motivated to finish my YA novel. Many thanks to all involved in nominating for and judging the Sue Alexander Award. Just being nominated is a great honor, and gives me hope for eventually getting my novels published. Who knows? Maybe this one will be my first. :-)

My sister, Ruth Ohi, just posted a book trailer for her newest picture book, Chicken, Pig, Cow and the Class Pet. She created it using iMovie, and the soundtrack was composed by my niece. And yes, I am fairly exploding with pride here. :-)

Ruth has illustrated over 53 books (12 of which she also wrote).

My sister's site: http://www.ruthohi.com

(Above: I just got my very first NY Public Library card, yay!)

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I'm in NYC at the moment, and don't have reliable Internet access where I'm staying.

Visited Surtex and the National Stationery Show (I have a weakness for paper and office supplies) and am meeting this afternoon with Justin Chanda and Laurent Linn at Simon & Schuster to go over the first set of layouts for I'M BORED, a new picture book written by actor/comedian/writer Michael Ian Black and illustrated by yours truly.

I'm participating in Writers For The Red Cross, and am donating a selection of my writer greeting cards as well as a hand-drawn doodle and handwritten instapoem to the winner of the bid. Read more here. Bidding doesn't start until the event officially kicks off on March 1st.

About the event, from the site:

This online event celebrates Red Cross Month (March 1-31). It is intended to raise funds and awareness for the Red Cross and its work in communities across the country. We’re auctioning off publishing-related items and services donated by authors, publicists, agents, and editors. We’ll also have daily guest posts from authors about “What the Red Cross Means to Me.” All donors who give over $25 will also be able to select one free book from a range of books donated and shipped by publishers for the event.

To find out more about Writers For The Red Cross and about the other participants, organizers and bookstore partners, please visit the Writers For The Red Cross site.

Ok, so that may not have been the most coherent blog post title I've ever written but I CAN'T HELP IT! Because I just found out that I'm going to be working with LAURENT LINN at Simon & Schuster as I illustrate Michael Ian Black's new picture book, I'M BORED.

Soooooooooo excited about meeting Laurent in a couple of weeks.

I love Squarespace, but their spam-handling tools are abysmal. Supposedly this will be addressed in an upcoming release but so far there's no word on when that release will be.

As a result, anyway, I have to put ALL comments through a moderation stage where each comment needs individual approval (ugh). Time-consuming and a hassle, but it's either that or let all the spam comments through...and there have been a LOT of spam comments which I've had to block.

I've been a bit behind in comment moderation but have caught up now. Apologies for anyone who has been wondering why their comment hasn't been posted!

Hey, check out this Business Insider article: "10 Ways People Are Using The iPad To Create Content, Not Just Consume It." Heh.

A children's book publisher I admire a great deal recently invited me to send them a picture book story. Well, I did...and THEY LIKE IT! They've asked for a few sketches, so that's what I'm working on right now. So if I'm a bit scarce in Inkygirl for a little bit, that's why.

Meanwhile, I've just sent a proposal for a nonfiction book to my agent for her comments, and will be sending that off soon.

Sooooooooooo excited! Please keep your fingers crossed for me, thanks. :-)

I've been featured on the Padgadget site! You can read the article here:

Padgadget Creative Corner - iPad Artist Debbie Ridpath Ohi

I am pleased to announce that I will be illustrating a picture book written by author/actor/comedian Michael Ian Black for Simon & Schuster. Tentative publication date: Spring 2012.

More (MUCH more) later.

An update to those who saw post earlier this week: Yes, I'm still waiting until my good news is official before posting about it.

On a related note, I LOVE MY AGENT. I know I don't have to stress about contractstuff, knowing that Ginger is   looking out for my interests.

Meanwhile, I've been approached by two other publishers interested in my work (writing and/or illustrating). After the long dry spell I've had in terms of submissions, this is all a tad overwhelming. And very, very exciting.

More coming soon, I hope!

The image above was one of the pieces in my portfolio, and was displayed on the screen at the Golden Kites Luncheon, when the award winners were announced.

I'm writing this from a hotel room in the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in L.A., where I'm attending the SCBWI Summer Conference. It's been a FANTASTIC conference. I dare anyone to come to this event and not leave super-inspired, armed with new knowledge about the craft and business of writing. I've been taking all my notes on my iPad.

This was also the first time I attended this conference where I attended some illustrator tracks in addition to writing tracks. My California illustrator friend, Beckett Gladney, convinced me to sign up for the Portfolio Showcase at the last minute. I was highly resistant, telling her my work wasn't good enough yet, that I wouldn't have the time to polish the pieces I wanted to include.

But (as good friends do), she pushed hard enough that I finally thought heck, I might as well. I'm always encouraging people to step outside of their comfort zones and push their own personal envelopes, so I should listen to my own advice. My mega-talented author/illustrator sister, Ruth Ohi, also encouraged me to enter, offering me portfolio and art tips.

When I almost pulled out because of lack of time, Beckett helped me by going into my Flickr set of illustrations online, picked out the pieces she thought would showcase my strengths, and printed them out for me. She also sewed a gorgeous handmade cover for my portfolio that attracted a lot of positive comments (to you artists out there: Beckett sells custom-made portfolio covers in her Etsy shop).

At the hotel, we spread all the pieces on the floor of our hotel room, and she helped me put my portfolio together. I was surprised by her choice of pieces -- they weren't the images I would have chosen. But I trusted her instincts, and I'm glad I did. Because...

I WON TWO AWARDS AT THE SCBWI PORTFOLIO SHOWCASE!

Not only did I place in the top three (an Honor award) overall, but I was also selected as one of the six Mentorship Award illustrators. The Mentorship Award is given to illustrators participating in the annual Portfolio Showcase "whose publishable work shows great promise and potential." Yesterday morning, I had individual critique sessions with six members of the SCBWI Board Illustrator Committee  as well as publishing industry pro, Rubin Pfeffer.

I was completely stunned, considering the level of craftsmanship I saw in the portfolios display in the showcase.

I'll post more info when I get back from L.A., but I had to post the news here because you've all been so supportive of my cartoons and doodles. THANK YOU! Special HUGE thanks to my friend Beckett and sister Ruth for encouraging me to do this.

After talking with the Mentors yesterday morning, I'm SOOOO excited about new possibilities in my creative work that I hadn't considered before.

Part of me is still wondering if I'm going to be waking up at some point.

Ok, so this post wasn't so brief after all. And AUGH, I can't believe it's already the last day of the conference!

Must log off now...

Believe it or not, I think I've finally moved over most of the old site. Most recently revamped: The Writer's Guide To Twitter. I'll be gradually adding to this FAQ, so if you think of any questions you'd like me to answer or research, please let me know!

Hurray, Inkygirl has been successfully moved to Squarespace! If you're reading this post in your old feed, then all is well  - I'd appreciate it if you'd post below to let me know. I encourage you all, however, to update your feeds to my new RSS info; you can find the list of feeds in the top right corner.

I'm actually going to be displaying two blogs on the Inkygirl page: my regular Inkygirl info plus a separate comics blog. I decided to keep my comics separate to make it easier for people to find the comic they want since I'm tagging/categorizing as I upload my archives.

In addition to Inkygirl, I've moved over Blatherings, Will Write For Chocolate, My Life In A Nutshell, Filking.net and my Filk FAQ, iPadGirl and DebbieOhi.com. I have about half a dozen other blogs to go, but when I have the basic infrastructures in place, I'll go back and do finetuning and link-fixing.

If you notice anything amiss or would like me to fix certain pages sooner than later, please do let me know! And thanks for sticking with me through this transition period. I'm hoping not to have to move again for a very long time.

I’m going to be redirecting Inkygirl.com to point to my new Squarespace site this weekend.

I’m also doing a massive restructuring of the site to incorporate several of my other blogs/sites into Inkygirl, like Will Write For Chocolate. Instead of having so many blogs in so many sites, I’m going to try bringing most of them under one of two sites: business and personal.

In order to properly manage this, I’ve realized that I need to point Inkygirl.com to my new Squarespace home BEFORE it’s complete. I’m hoping to get the new structure in place by Monday, June 15th, 2010 as well as any popular posts like my Writer’s Guide to Twitter, etc.

Between now and then, however, there will be chaos and wonkiness.

My overall goal is to get Inkygirl and my other sites on a more stable platform that requires less ongoing technical administration. I want to focus on the content and not have to worry about keeping my Wordpress installations and plug-ins up-to-date, or doing damage control after Wordpress hacks.

Ultimately, I plan to make Inkygirl a more valuable resource for writers.

Thank you for your continuing support and patience, everyone!

- Debbie

p.s. Please keep your bookmarks pointed to Inkygirl.com, not the Squarespace URL, thanks!

So it looks as if Inkygirl’s been hacked again. This time the hack is more subtle (no malware) and only noticeable in search engines. If you try entering “inkygirl” in Google right now, here’s what you get as the top hit:

Chris Pearson encountered the same hack and posted a solution, but it didn’t work for me. I admit to being frustrated, especially after Jeff spent so long cleaning up after the first hack, and all the time I’ve been spending on repairs as well.

And this has got me thinking more about time management issues. In the early days of the World Wide Web, I was as excited about the tweaking/design of my websites as I was about the content.

I’ve always tried to have good content but I also admit to spending a ton of time tweaking templates, looking for useful plug-ins, playing around with different Wordpress features.

As more and more people started using the Web, however, inevitable security and hacking issues have increased. This last incident (or incidents) has prompted me to seek another blogging platform. I would much MUCH rather spend more time writing and creating than tweaking and admin.

Yes, I realize that any platform I choose will have its security issues. But whereas I used to want total control over my site’s design and features, now I’d rather find a service that will do most of the behind-the-scenes work (including putting out security issue fires) so I can just focus on the content.

Some of you have suggested Tumblr and Blogger. I’ve tried both sites and they’re easy to use, but I have to confess I’m hesitant to commit to any free hosted service that doesn’t have a clear business model, just in case they decide to start charging (like Ning just did) or worse, shut down without warning. Not as much of a problem if you only have one blog, but I maintain quite a few, not just for myself but for others as well.

I plan to consolidate some of my blogs/sites and cut down on the number of domains I use. I’m thinking of reorganizing most of my own blogs under one personal site and one work site rather than have the scattered all over the place.

I’m looking for a service that won’t roll out new versions unless they’re rock solid and thoroughly tested, will let me modify CSS if I want but also have templates so I don’t have to do much appearance set-up, has as little downtime and glitches as possible, and good customer service.

Right now I’m checking out Squarespace and Typepad. If any of you have had experience using either of these services, I’d love to hear about it.

As some of you may already know, some of my sites were hacked on the weekend. If you notice some missing images and features from this site, that’s why — I still haven’t finished the finetuning after major damage control had been done.

Many thanks to those who e-mailed, tweeted and sent me Facebook messages about the problem, and to Cid of Cidwrites.com and others for their advice. Biggest thanks to my technonerdboy hubby, Jeff Ridpath, who spent pretty much the whole weekend helping me get things back to normal.

For anyone else out there who uses Wordpress as their blogging platform, be aware that what happened to me could very easily happen to you. You might think you don’t have to worry because you just have a small site or figure that you don’t have any valuable info on your site anyway but trust me…it’s worth taking a few precautions to avoid going through the hassle of having to scrub your site clean and have to reinstall everything.

And if you get flagged by Google as a malware site, then you have the added embarrassment of the warning that comes up whenever someone tries to access your site. Even after you scrub your site, then you have to fill out an application to get Google to review your site.

Here are some things I learned from the experience that you may find useful:

- Make sure your passwords are strong. Read Protect Your Blog With A Solid Password. Don’t use any words that can be found in the dictionary. Other BAD passwords: names spelled backwards, phone numbers, birthdays, qwerty, asdf, yourname1, default, letmein, password1, your car license, middle names. Don’t use the same password for multiple sites.

- Keep your versions of Wordpress updated. As Alex King says, “Upgrade immediately. Always. No exceptions.”

- Keep your versions of plugins updated. Remove any plugins you aren’t using. Some older versions of plugins have security holes that hackers can use.

- Take regular backups of your file directories as well as your database. One security tips post I found recommended WordPress Database Backup.

- Be wary of letting an application have write access to your files. Keep your file permissions as restrictive as possible.

- Limit your use of plugins. I try to do this anyway, because I was finding that having too many plugins really slowed down page loading on my site.

- Turn off any features you don’t use.

And yes, I’m on the lookout for another blogging platform. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to post below! I’m looking for a solid, secure blogging platform that is free or has a reasonable annual fee that includes multiple blogs.

Anyway, here are some useful resources I found while researching Wordpress and security issues:

Wordpress Security Tips and Hacks

20+ Powerful Security Plugins and Some Tips & Tricks

12 Comments on Inkygirl is BACK…and some security tips for other bloggers, last added: 6/1/2010