Here’s why:
“The Mona Lisa has a huge social media presence. Her picture is everywhere. But she doesn’t tweet. She’s big on social media because she’s an icon, but she’s not an icon because she’s big on social media.”
(from this entry from Seth Godin’s blog)
I keep coming back to a piece of advice I saw for selling markets ages ago: make cool stuff and tell everyone about it! the end.
It’s not perfect, but it does what I want.
I came across this quote on my Mastodon.art feed many months ago, attached to what I thought was a very cool picture. I boosted it, but also had the presence of mind to write it down on a Post-It note that I stuck above my computer*.
As far as I’m concerned, it deserves to be listed alongside the greatest art quotes of all time.
I come back to frequently. Because as a perfectionist-in-recovery it’s so easy to want to noodle and noodle (or sometimes NOT EVEN START) on a piece until you feel it is “perfect.”
But “perfect” isn’t the point, not to the viewer. The point is to evoke something.
Lots of things I enjoy evoke joy or laughter or awe or mystery without being absolutely flawless. (And sometimes, the flaws even add to my reaction!).
This quote’s helped me say, “You know what? I could noodle/add/whatever a ton more on this, but at this point, IT’S DOING WHAT I WANT. So even though it’s not technically perfect, I can be satisfied with it.”
And then I get to move on to the next thing!
*I didn’t write down the original speaker, though! If you’re the originator of this quote, I’d be delighted to credit you!
Once upon a time, magic left the world for a night. It sighed back in through the scullery door in the morning with the cat, but by then, the Queen of the Northern Elves had fallen into a deep sleep, and, greatly diminished, the returned magic could not wake her.
From the author who brought you The Purrfect Christmas and A Gingersnap Cat Christmas comes an enchanting collection of three original yuletide fairy tales, written in the tradition of Jane Yolen and Ursula Vernon.
A little Christmas present from me to you. If you like reindeer, Santa Claus, elves, and mythic origin stories, you’re probably gonna dig this.
Buy from your favorite eBook retailer here (includes Amazon)
More info and excerpt here on MIDWINTER MAGIC’s Pixelvania Publishing page.
Hi so I spent over two hours today painting a decent-looking stylized reindeer for my latest eBook Midwinter Magic (and that was just on one file, and doesn’t count all my OTHER painting and sketching and thumbnailing time) (honestly, it felt like 5 hours on just that last file, though), but I can’t reveal the cover yet so you’re going to now suffer through my thumbnail sketches and WIPs.
sufferrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
j/k I hope you enjoy!
The ones above were done after researching what other fairy tale collections were doing. Blue was a very popular color, as was sticking huge typography in the center of a rectangle. I first did these in pencil and came back after the next batch of thumbs and colored ’em.
I did not have a title at this time.
Still no title I liked. Playing with the idea of folk art patterns and reindeer. 
Trying my hand at Scandinavian folk art patterns (there’s multiple schools of Scandinavian folk art with cool fancy names but I’ve forgotten them all). Of course this was after some research, but I don’t think any of these were direct copies, just me fooling around on watercolor paper with markers.
Oh, right, it’s called “Rosemaling”! I remember because I invented my first Krita brush to try and emulate the single-stroke style color changes and stuff for this fnower. You can totally YouTube it! There’s guilds and everything!
Messing around with Krita’s tiling function got me this fun little tiling pattern. 
I fell ill in the middle of this project (both the writing and the drawing). By the time I got some energy back I felt like I was running late. I got my act together and came up with a title that didn’t embarrass my ancestors, then came back to thumbnailing. My default book cover solution is “slap an animal on it” but at least this time it wouldn’t be a cat.
Marker attempts at reindeer/caribou, done with reference, but still trying to keep a stylized feel. The top left one was used in a few mockups I won’t show here.
Armed with a title, I went into Inkscape and chose fonts I thought would work. Then, for good measure, I grabbed some reindeer product silhouettes and slapped ’em on in some sort of artistic way (thanks, Trace Bitmap tool!!)
I liked these poses, but…other than that….this was bad. Really bad. I wound up going back to my thumbnails page, picking one I liked, and just elaborating on it in Krita.
I thought the final image would be, like, folk art flower patterns on a blue background, with a reindeer shape cut out in the middle, revealing some cool winter snowflakey pattern beneath (very hand-drawn-looking, in other words), but, uh, I traced a deer in one of the thumbnails, slapped a background from Unsplash.com behind it, went, OH! and went in a totally different direction.
How’d it turn out? Stay tuned for the cover reveal tomorrow morning!
…and you’re all, what Girlfriend story?
It’s a horror short I started last September, but it got put on the backburner when I started working on Gingersnap Cat. I was feeling a little fatigue on the Nosferatu Novel and thought I’d pick it up again. I can feel I’m nearing the end, so I’m really trying to put in my time on it. (It’d be great to have it out before Halloween!)
And now you know…the rest of the backstory. Good day!
PS If you’re looking for a nice uneasy read, you gotta read the original novella for THE BIRDS, it’s unnerving in a lovely way.
I’m writing this novel in islands…the ending’s finished, section two’s started, but I’ve halted on it so I can write ahead in section one…like building a bridge made of sly goblins and thirsty draculas. At least I left off on an exciting part of section two!
As an indie author on a shoestring budget, you may be wondering how you can make your print books look like they belong on your readers’ shelves next to the “big boy” books published with gobs of money and professional art departments behind them.
Using my Visual Arts BA powers and some slightly blurry photos of our booka nd DVD shelves, I thought I’d try to explain some of the elements of good spine branding. Spinal branding? Ouch. Sounds painful.
Let’s get started.
AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER (Asian-influenced animated series)
Here’s the three-volume set of the marvelous fantasy cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender.
At the very top we have the logotype for the series itself, which any fan recognizes from the show’s intro sequence. But even if you’ve never seen the show, there’s a lotta info packed into that itty bitty logo: first, the Nickelodeon logo (in its signature orange) lets you know the station its from…and all that that implies (animation, kid-friendly, playful, positive energy).
Ah, Word! You and your quote smart unquote quotes!
Finally got smart and added in a new AutoCorrect rule in Microsoft Office 2010: replace —“ (which is what it loved to do to me, all the time) with —” (which will save me a lot of backspacing. In case you have this problem:
File>Proofing>Autocorrect Options (it’s a button near the top).
To make sure you’re getting left double quotes and right double quotes, use the Character Map to insert those marks in the appropriate fields.
Just began writing in the most beautiful Leuchtturm notebook EVER.
Notebook: Leuchtturm 1917 Master Ruled (Hardcover)
Sticker: Bought at MistyFig’s Gift Shop (Etsy storefront). Quark art by Amy King.
Why yes, Quark *is* holographic!
Yup! Formatting for this section of the novel is DONE (as far as the eBook is concerned)! Woohoo! That wasn’t bad at all! (I psych myself out with this project all the time.)
Goodness gracious, I hope my volunteer editor gets me the last two parts soon! I want to reread this! X3
Someday I hope you get to read it, too!
