The Inhumanity

If I have to draw one more rough sketch of Rapunzel or her hair, I'm going to jump out of the window next to me. We have to do a picture book of a famous fairy tale but we can't include the narrative ourselves. And each part has to be interesting looking. Dynamic. Beautiful. Intriguing.

Next up we are doing a concept book (ABCs, 123s, etc.). I have a great idea, so once we get past this torture, I'm golden. All this creative work is working a part of my brain I haven't really used in three years; it's tough going but I'm determined. To. Not. Fail.

I Really Should Be Working...

I have a small (cough!) list of things to do tonight, but I wanted to do a quick update. We're having fantastic thunderstorms outside right now which always makes me happy (when I'm safely tucked inside someplace) because it makes for such a great show. I accomplished a lot today but only a smattering of it was for my actual classes. I'm starting to get a little worried about how my commitments to the conference and our numerous lectures/pot lucks are going to affect my work, but we're almost over the first major hump so here's hoping that I can start to have my evenings back and not spend them in the Hollins Room at the library! (I love the lectures, but four days in a row?!)

I guess I should introduce you to the lovely ladies who have been keeping me company this past week:

Michelle, Michele and Robin

Our little No Bake cups were a hit at the pot luck and I guess we'll see tomorrow if they caused any digestive problems (we did do a few things out of order with the peanut butter ones). :-)

I now have less than a week to go before Bryan and I get to see each other. 5 days to go! I'm also hoping to get my mom up here, partially to see this amazing place and also to do a little advising in the art department (I swear on my favorite children's books that I will not submit any of her work!).

This piece won't get looked at until Thursday, but I thought I'd give you a glimpse. I'll post the rest after it has been revised a little. This is the very beginning of my first novel, gulp:

I tapped my fingers on the keys of my laptop, drumming along to the beat of the Jason Mraz song I was listening to. I was, to be put it simply, bored.
I had exhausted every gossip site, checked my five different e-mail accounts, looked up various friends’ myspaces. I had even, believe it or not, read some articles on CNN.com. I was lying on my bed, my legs at right angles as I propped myself up by my elbows with a pillow underneath my torso. It was dark outside, but I was having one of those days where time ceases to be of importance; I was just waiting to feel tired so I could sleep. Ending that sorry excuse for a day was my only desire, but I couldn’t do it. I had turned to my computer in the hopes that a technology coma would set in, but the whir of the machine and the obnoxiousness of Perez Hilton had done nothing but make me feel more pitiful as I spent another night alone.

Roanoke and a Saturday Off

I don't really talk too much about the actual city that serves as home to Hollins because I really don't get out much. But today, two of my classmates and I ventured out downtown and saw the sights.

Roanoke really is a cute place. It has a pretty active downtown scene with several museums, a thriving market and the usual array of specialty shops. We are actually going to see the play Into the Woods down there later this week. I'm especially excited because I found out, after researching the play, that my old classmate Natalie Newman will be playing the part of Cinderella. She graduated with me at NBHS and I probably haven't seen her since the summer of 2000. She has had a pretty steady career on stage since graduating from Elon University's musical theatre program so I am excited to see her perform again.

Today we just walked around, wandered into a few shops and toured "the hotel" also known as the Hotel Roanoke and Convention Center. For a relatively small town, Roanoke has this bizarrely huge Swiss-esque hotel by its main railroad tracks. It is owned by Virginia Tech now but it really is an amazing structure.
Very fairy tale like. They were doing a bridal photo shoot while we walked around, which was a little bizarre because they had two brides but only one groom.

We then got lost. I was driving, so it really doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out how that happened. We eventually found our way home again but I was very lucky to have two of the sweetest human beings on the planet in my car because they totally didn't care that we went through two extra towns to get back to our part of Roanoke.

After dinner and a lecture on campus, we went for a walk and we actually went up this dirt road to a graveyard that is home to some of Hollins' most famous families (i.e. the ones the buildings are named after). It was incredibly creepy and maybe a little stupid for the three of us to be walking around in the dark in a remote graveyard that is on a knoll that is a pretty good clip away from the campus proper. I was comforted by the fact that there were three of us, but we didn't hang out long.

When we got back to the dorm, we made No Bake little cupcake things for our Potluck dinner tomorrow at Amanda's house. We misread the directions for both of the desserts and I still have some peanut butter on my pants from our hapless attempts at cooking in our non-kitchen, but we laughed up a storm.

I have been very lucky this summer to meet two people whom I mesh with very well. They both live in Greenvilles (one in SC and the other in NC), and we have a great time together. We all live upstairs in Carvin (convenient) and I find myself very thankful that things worked out the way they did. I had tried, in vain, to get a room in Sandusky (the other dorm), but I had missed it by a day. Now I can't imagine being anywhere but Carvin with such cool people. I typically don't have a lot of female friends. I can't really say why that is--I just don't know a lot of women who share my interests or personality traits. Being at Hollins certainly gives me better odds because our program is dominated by women but most of my friendships here have never gotten past a superficial level. When I think about all the time I spent on my own last year, this past week has really blown me away because I have been able to be a lot more social. I think it makes the whole experience more rewarding and I find myself a little sad I will not get to see these two women (perhaps :-)) on my London trip next year. I'm working on one of them, so we'll see.

Freak Out

We critiqued our little picture books today. Mine fared well but some of my classmates have definitely upped the ante. I was definitely stressed this afternoon when I was trying to figure out how to do my next assignment. We have to do a wordless picture book of a minimum of 16 pages. It can be rough but you have to be able to get a gist of what's going on in each picture. And it has to be based on a well known fairy tale or fable. That's tough. Regardless of what I choose, I'm going to either have to draw it 12 or 13 times or I'm going to have to cut it out 12 or 13 times. Plus my classmates introduced me to some new techniques today that I would like to draw but it's just daunting to do something like this. If I could actually draw I could do it in fifteen minutes (as my artistic students have proven on more than one occasion). Instead I'm going to be slaving over this assignment for anywhere from 5 to 25 hours. I'm already hyperventilating and it's not due until Wednesday.

Other than a slightly increasing work load, everything is going well. I went to a lecture tonight about children's book publishing. These lectures should be titled: "Reality Check with a Dash of Pipe Dream." They make you very aware of the challenges of trying to become a published author but then they tell you about how some first-time novelist just got a six-figure sum for her novel about a girl that is a modern member of the Knights Templar. Yeah, carrot on a stick. Let me tell ya.

I guess I can say now, since it's technically Saturday, that I have survived week one of six of my 2nd semester of graduate school. Which means that I only have five weeks, about a gazillion entertainment committee meetings to organize, a conference to help run, a couple chapters of my first novel to write, a 100 pages of everyone else's work to read, a play to attend, another 50 pages of various picture books to create, a meeting with Chip to remember to do at some point, an advising appointment to also remember to attend, and two visits with Bryan to look forward to. Oh dear.

Things That Go Meow In the Night

I present to you my first ever children's picture book:

Please keep in mind this was just a classroom exercise in a children's book signature (a set of 8 pages).

The Controversy of Skippyjon Jones

So I went to my Creating Picture Books class, which is held in an art studio (kind of neat). The class is pretty fascinating. Our teacher is Ashley Wolff, who is most known for the series of books featuring Miss Bindergarten. She brings her border collie with her to class, and it's a very fun environment. I had a little trouble creating things in class because I didn't have all my materials with me, but I hope that I will get comfortable enough to work on cue. I did try to do too much with my first project, but I let go of my determination to DO IT MYSELF and asked for some help. She really is pretty insightful.

Within that same class, we got into a lot of discussions about the politics of children's book illustration. We had all brought some of our favorites (I brought the Lorax, I Love You Stinky Face and the Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales). Someone brought Skippyjon Jones. Now I love that book. I have given it to both of my nephews, and I usually give it to people when I attend their baby showers. So imagine my surprise when one of my classmates said it is racist. Huh?

The premise of the book is that Skippyjon, a Siamese cat, wants to become a chihuahua. Not just a little dog but a dog bandit who likes to sing in English words with -o's attached to them so it sounds almost like Spanish. The whole book, to me, is about an imaginative kitty who mimics a Zorro-like character. I love the way the language rolls of the tongue and the humor that is sprinkled throughout the text.

I can see, now that it has been brought to my attention, that some Hispanic readers might be irritated with the stereotypes of Spanish bandits (played by the real chihuahuas) and the over simplification of Spanish words. Kind of like those Taco Bell commercials with the chihuahuas, Skippyjon just hits too close to home for some people. But this book, much like those little fast food dogs, is incredibly popular and has won many awards including the E.B. White Award for Best Read Aloud Book. On Amazon.com, 112 people gave it 5 stars and 12 gave it 1 star (mostly for the reason stated above). There is now a whole series of books about Skippyjon. I am usually one of those people who is very aware of how certain pieces of literature might affect people but this one definitely slipped past my attention.

And now, post discussion, I still can't say I feel differently about the book. I can see how it might offend some people, but it's kind of like leprechauns. I'm sure that there is still a minority of Irish people who find them offensive, but I would like to think that human beings today do not actually associate such creatures with real people from Ireland. Same thing for bandits who like tacos. I would hope that young children would not think that a small Siamese cat's fantasies have anything to do with a real person who lives in Mexico. These issues are so challenging because I am not a part of the culture that might be offended by Skippyjon, so how can I really say whether it is offensive? One of my classmates mentioned The Story of Little Black Sambo as a book that was popular in its time but is now seen as offensive. She suggested that someday, despite its numerous awards, Skippyjon might face the same fate. I am open to anyone's thoughts on this issue because I really am perplexed. Are there any other current and popular children's books that could also be seen as racist?

And so it begins...

Today was my first day of class. But my class wasn't until 6PM. So I pretty much had the day to do whatever I wanted. I went swimming for the first time at Hollins. I hung out with some classmates. I tried to draw (cough, cough). I finished the Seussical script and made some rudimentary notes about what we can do to adapt it for our production. I TRIED TO DRAW, PEOPLE!! I drew a pretty good thumb (don't ask), but everything else was pathetic. What amuses me is that some illustrators use very simple drawings, and, for some reason, it works. When I copy their drawings, it looks amateur and silly. If I could go back and tweak one gene in my body, I would make sure I got my mother's artistic talent. I wouldn't even change the fact that I have to be super careful about diet and exercise just to be normal-sized. Just give me the magic fingers!

My class itself was good. Very chill, very open to whatever it is we feel like writing. Still, this program can be deceiving. Sure, you think you just write things, you read things, end of story. But it takes a long of organization to make sure, for that one class, that you write in your journal every day, prepare your presentation on time, read all your classmates work (twice!) and make good comments on their stories each week and write 10-15 pages a week yourself. Not to mention compiling it all into a portfolio at the end. So, it's no joke, but I like that my teacher isn't making me write in every genre. I can't write kid's poetry. Sorry, but I teach teenagers. I can't write about Pat the Cat who likes to play Pattiwhack.

Here is a snippet of something I wrote during our exercise in class today:
I had to orchestrate my own adventures during those long and monotonous afternoons, and, in that special universe, I was a tree shaker, a girl locked in a magical castle, a spirited warrior trained to save the human race by reading as many books as possible. I was caught in a world of silence where I had to bang the drums of my imagination to remember I was alive. For me, all it took was the right tree.