I'm excited to have this new development for the book, especially as it's been one of my best sellers over the years, and it's been quite a few years! Some of my favorite memories from the early days of writing the book:
The idea came to me while I was teaching my first workshop at West Georgia College, now the University of West Georgia.
I was still in the middle of building my house in the middle of 5 acres of woods and farmland.
My initial idea was to simply make photocopies of my workshop notes and staple them together. (Whew. Would've been a lot of stapling. Glad I didn't choose that option!)
And then I realized I could have a complete trade paperback. A revelation in publishing.
Chapter 3 on "Creative Conflict" was reprinted in a textbook for the Atlanta College of Art. Prior to this I never knew you could sell and get royalties for just a part of your book. The textbook was for the college's class on making videos.
International sales have been as far away as New Zealand and Singapore.
I'm proud to say the book has been used in both male and female prison writing programs throughout the country.
It's also been a featured textbook in several university masters' programs, including the Masters in Professional Writing at Kennesaw State.
I wrote the entire book in longhand first--still my preferred method!
To celebrate the release of my new trailer, The Essential Guide for New Writers is on super-sale at my website.
Instead of the usual price of $10.95, the price is now only $5.95, and all USA orders include Free Shipping! What are you waiting for? Get on over and get your copy today!
Tip of the Day: I wrote The Essential Guide as a way to express my love of writing. When I sat down to type out my handwritten notes, writing was, and continues to be, my passion. I just love to write--and I wanted to share that joy with other writers. Whatever you feel passionate about is always a good indicator of what you should be working on.
I can't believe how long it's been since my last blog post: over a month. Guess I've been busy! Most of August found me editing my new novel, The Abyssal Plain, and practicing the techniques I learned in a recent 2-day art class, Splash Ink Watercolor.
I was attracted to this class for two reasons: first, the word "ink" made me think of fountain and gel pens, freewriting, and calligraphy. And I just love ink! Second was the course description that mentioned using our imaginations to paint--always a good sign of something interesting up ahead.
In a nutshell, Splash Ink is based on Chinese art and theory. One of the things that surprised me the most was that the word "splash" actually means "pour" in Chinese, so the class wasn't quite as messy as I thought it would be. (I wore my absolute worst clothes and shoes on both days, terrified that we would be throwing paint all over the room and each other. Thankfully, this never happened and was straight out of my over-active "imagination." Splash Ink can be safely attempted in any work space or studio with a plastic tablecloth and paper towels.)
To start off the first day of class, our wonderful instructor, Ming Franz, gave us each 12 sheets of good quality rice paper measuring roughly about 14" x 14" that we divided into sets of 4. The sets of 4 were kept together and taped to plastic boards. After taping, we then sprayed water onto the top sheet until all 4 sheets were saturated. We then poured ink and liquid watercolor and/or acrylic paints onto the top paper in the following order: sumi ink first, then blue, red, yellow, and white paint. Using the white paint was the most surprising to me as I've always heard, "Don't use white in a watercolor!! Ever!" But for this method it was essential. Somehow the white paint seemed to soften, blur, and highlight the other colors all at the same time, a very nice effect.
After pouring the color and letting it seep down into all 4 sheets, the next optional step was to sprinkle salt onto the first sheet. We could also drip diluted dish washing liquid into the damp color for added depth and texture. Another option was to place pieces of scrunched-up plastic wrap in selected spots. Last of all we then carried our boards outside into the New Mexico sun to let the papers dry--which in our super-dry climate took about 30 minutes.
Once everything was dry we were able to separate the pages, and wow: 3 sets of 4 abstract backgrounds in varying degrees of dark to light depending on the order of the papers . Here is one of my lighter pieces that was #3 in a set of 4:
This next much darker sheet was the first of a set of 4. I also used some of the crunched-up plastic wrap to fill out the design:
Day 2 was where the magic really began--we got to paint over the backgrounds with either acrylic or gouache (opaque watercolor) paints. Our homework assignment between classes was to study and meditate on our pieces so that we could "find the picture" inside each one, kind of like looking at clouds or cracks in the ceiling. There's an elephant! No, it's a giraffe! Ming also suggested we look through books and magazines for reference photos we could bring to class and that could help turn our background pieces into finished paintings.
For me, a magazine picture of falling autumn leaves over rushing water seemed to fit the red paint splashes I already had on this particular piece:
I was sorry the class was for only two days, because I certainly had a lot more backgrounds to fill. I ended up with even more when I took 4 of my least favorite sheets and cut them down into quarters, giving me a stack of little "mini-sheets" to practice on. Here's the result of my first small attempt at home; I called it "On the Way to Taos" as that's exactly what it reminded me of:
Now that the class is over, I hope to continue using Splash Ink and adapting it to my own style and choice of mediums. I think it would be an incredible way to illustrate a book, especially one for children, or perhaps a dark and mysterious Gothic novel for grown-ups. Maybe I'll have to do this one day for a new edition of Overtaken!
Tip of the Day: To learn more about Ming Franz and Splash Ink, take a look at Ming's book, Splash Ink With Watercolor (Looking East, Painting West). Not only will her beautiful artwork inspire you to try some painting of your own, but you might want to experiment with using Ming's paintings as writing prompts--a great idea for yourself or your writer's group. Happy creating!
