Getting Unstuck

Moon over Los Angeles

What do I do when I'm in the middle of a project and I get stuck? (It happens to everybody!)
    The first step is to go back through what I've written and look for gaps.  Filling holes often provides the connections that make ideas link together.  When this doesn't work, I often find it more productive to get away from the project temporarily. Basically, to get a good night's sleep. When I go back to the project the next day with a fresh, and sometimes, an empty mind, it is easier to see the big picture and not get hung up on the nitty gritty.
    As far as my illustrations go, one of my techniques for getting unstuck is to lay them all out in order, either on the floor, or on a big table. That way I can see sequences and whether the pages flow from one to the next.  I can also tell if I have a good mix of close-ups, medium shots, and panoramas.  I can also check to see if I've been consistent with my colors and backgrounds.
And, in either case, it is always useful to take my project to my writers' group.  It is amazing how an outside viewpoint can zero in on a problem section, that I, as the author or illustrator, am too close to see.

School of the Air, Australia

School of the Air main classroom in 1999

   The School of the Air is one of Australia's solutions to teaching children who live in remote places.  To find out how it got started, go to my travel blog, The Intrepid Tourist for my entry on Alice Springs.  The School of the Air teaches about 200 children, some of them living as far as 1000 kilometers from Alice Springs.  In 1999, when I was in Australia, I visited the main facility in Alice Springs. I listened in as a teacher gave a lesson to a six year old student.  Kids get group lessons by grade level each morning for an hour and then once a week each child gets an individual lesson.  The kids get lesson packets every two weeks in the mail and the work is supervised either by a parent or a governess.  We saw samples of work on display at the school headquarters and it was well done.  In many ways these kids have all the advantages of individual attention in their home schooling and at the same time they are able to grow up on their cattle stations and be part of that life too. 
    School of the Air goes to grade 7 and after that the kids go to boarding school.  Our tour guide on the cattle ranch where we stayed (it was also a B and B) had grown up there and went to School of the Air with his brother and two sisters (in the 1970's and 1980's).  We saw the room that they had used for their lessons, which has been preserved as it was when they were growing up.  Although we had driven into the ranch on a dirt road that was in bumpy but reasonable condition, until recently there was no road at all.  Getting into town was an ordeal, especially if it rained and the creeks filled with water, so School of the Air was the best option. After our visit, I had an increased appreciation of the challenge of bringing up children and educating them in remote places like Australia's outback.

Judy Lopez Book Awards (WNBA)

On June 12th, I had the pleasure of attending the Judy Lopez Award dinner, celebrating Kate Klise, winner for her book Grounded, and honor book recipients Rita Williams-Garcia (One Crazy Summer), Matthew Kirby (The Clockwork Three), Lewis Buzbee (The Haunting of Charles Dickens), and Jewell Parker (Ninth Ward). Both Kate Klise and Rita Williams-Garcia were there in person to accept their awards. In her very entertaining acceptance speech, Kate Klise told how a middle-school reader had described her book saying that “it was about death, but funny too” and then used that as a tag line in her speech for her view of life in general.  She told how, as a child, she dearly wanted to look like Farrah Fawcett but ended up, when her father took her to the local barber, with a haircut more like that of one of the Beatles.  Now, with gorgeous long blonde hair, she definitely looks much more like Farrah Fawcett!  I was lucky to sit at the same table as Rita Williams-Garcia and learned that her daughters may have helped inspire the characters in her book.  For those of us who lived through the sixties, her book, One Crazy Summer, about the Black Panther breakfast program in Oakland, brought back memories of items seen on the news, but now viewed through the eyes of children.  It is no wonder that the book has received so many awards!
The Judy Lopez Awards are given by the Women’s National Book Association/Los Angeles Chapter.  They are granted annually to works of literary excellence for nine- to twelve-year-olds.

Bald Eagle Cards for July 4th

Cards available at www.Etsy.com/shop/CarolineArnoldArt  (larger prints also available)

Illustrations from my book A Bald Eagle’s World are available as cards and prints at my Etsy gallery, CarolineArnoldArt.  These giclee prints make perfect gifts for anyone with a birthday or other celebration close to the Fourth of July.  While I was creating the art for the bald eagle book, I kept the second screen of my computer on the live video cam at one of the bald eagle nests on Catalina Island.  This year, there are THREE bald eagle nests in the Channel Islands that you can watch!  You can go to this website and see real, live eaglets perching on the edge of their nests waiting for their parents to bring back food (until they fledge in a month or so).  You may see the parents as well.  Wait through the annoying ad at the beginning of the video feed and then just enjoy watching the young eaglets!

Giant Books in Iowa City

A long time ago, I was a graduate student in art at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and I trudged up and down the hill from my downtown apartment to the art building on the other side of the river.  I wish I were there today!  Now, the town is peppered with giant “books” celebrating Iowa City as a UNESCO City of Literature.  My walk today would take me past Treasure Island, Moby Dick, House by Tracy Kidder, Home by Marilynne Robinson, Clifford Goes to Dog Daycare, Alice in Wonderland, and many more!  What a terrific way to celebrate books of all kinds.  For photos of the amazing book statues, go to Book Marks, book art of Johnson County.
Additional note:  Here's a website where you can see MORE Bookmarks with photos of both the fronts and the backs of the giant books.  The back side has actual text that you can read.

Connect Online

On May 28th I went to a terrific program in Walnut Creek, CA, sponsored by the Northern California SCBWI, featuring Author Mike Jung talking about how he developed his online presence BEFORE selling his first book!  His talk, Don’t Be a Pinhead: Building on Online Presence Before Landing a Book Deal, showed how he uses the internet to connect with people and become part of the online community.  His first book, Geeks, Girls and Secret Identities, comes out next year from Arthur Levine Books.  For photos and highlights of his talk, read Edna Cabcabin Moran’s post on her blog Just Sketch.  It will inspire you (and me) to do a better job of building your own online presence!

Wiggle and Waggle in My Big Backyard

I was thrilled to find out that my book Wiggle and Waggle was the May book of the month in My Big Backyard, one of the children’s magazines published by the National Wildlife Federation. My Big Backyard is for children in the primary grades. NWF also publishes Ranger Rick for older children and Wild Animal Baby for younger children.  My grandchildren love ALL the magazines, which are filled with photos, stories, games and projects, all about nature and animals. May is the perfect month to start learning about worms as it becomes time in most places to start planting summer gardens.  My idea for the book grew out of digging up dirt for my own garden and seeing the wiggly worms in the earth.  You can order a copy of the book from the NWF bookstore and a portion of your purchase helps support NWF.