Light as a Feather

I never thought I would miss blogging every day, but already I'm feeling nostalgic for that early morning ritual of stumbling to my computer in the dark to write yet another post!

I'm also missing reading all those great posts from other bloggers that would fill my in-box every morning--hopefully they'll all start up again soon, too. 

At the same time, I feel like I've been through an initiation of some sort, an "ordeal by blogging." To celebrate the end of a long (and intensely interesting) month, the first thing I did when the Challenge finished was go to my drawing table to draw these feathers. Not only did I feel "as light as a feather" to have put blogging behind me for a day or two, but I'd been postponing this small project for a few weeks and really wanted to try it out. 

The feathers came from the last meeting of my colored pencil group when we were all given a handful of wild turkey feathers with the assignment to draw them for the next meeting. On Sunday I finally had some spare time, so I used my new Faber and Castell Polychromos pencils and three different kinds of paper. The subject seemed to fit my mood to a T. While I was drawing, my mind was also jumping all over the place with plans for the coming month, including:

• New re-prints of two of my books: The Great Scarab Scam and Better Than Perfect. More on this coming soon!
• Submitting my new novel, The Abyssal Plain with new query letters and synopses.
• Going back into ceramics. Before the#AtoZChallenge I bought a fresh batch of stoneware clay and made three pots that are now ready for a bisque firing (maybe this weekend?). As soon as they're out of the kiln I'm going to try decorating them in an Asian splash-ink style based on last year's trip to Taiwan. This is an entirely new direction for me and I'm excited to see the results.
• And finally, speaking of Taiwan, out of the blue I've started to write a series of poems to go with my Taiwan paintings, drawings, and now pottery. This has been a huge surprise to me--talk about a change of plans! The first poem came to me in the middle of the night last week and I had to get up to write it. Now I can't stop!

It's going to be a busy month--how about you? Any plans you want to share? Leave a comment, and have a Happy May!

Tip of the Day: Working through the alphabet isn't just for blogging or the month of April: how about trying an A-Z art journal, poetry or short story series, a picture book for children, or even an entire novel outline with each chapter based on a letter of the alphabet? The possibilities are endless--and once you finish one project, you can start all over again with a fresh approach.