"Welcome back!" the sign-in screen says as I begin to update the W.I.P. page of my site. It's been a while. A worldwide virus. A worldwide civil rights protest. A mourning in our family among so many others'. And a time to struggle forward. So the little greeting stretches a smile across my face at the same time as my eyes well up.

Silly, I know. But crying's good. It staves off depression and fuels desire for change, despite the limits of a world compressed to my mom's and my homes, phones, books, screens, walks and grocery stores. Donating what I can to causes, grieving/healing with my family, and personal work are things I can do.

So. Aside from weeding and cleaning, I'm writing, sketching, painting, scanning, designing, or researching a little, every day. Anything to move forward even just a bit.

I hope you are finding your way through this time, too.

Working on a new style for an early graphic novel has been liberating. And frightening. After all, this style seems limited to the project. But none of my old methods fit for it, so . . ..

This long initial stage already had me feeling vulnerable, but knowing the character and not being able to catch his/her/their face was completely unsettling. Should I submit the dummy and say, well, someone else should illustrate the book? There are so few words, the manuscript would be mostly illustration notes to show what was happening.

No, who would want to trust that? I’m an author-illustrator at heart, thinking in scenes. All my stories for young children are spare with the words. Character shown visually is a big part of how I write. When you do that, words need to work extra hard with strong support from the pictures. It needed to be me.

Turned out, it was a good idea to complete the 64-page dummy. It gave me a certainty about the feel and pacing of its three stories. It also clarified what I needed in the missing face (which looks suspiciously like a certain rescue cat.)

Here’s part of a sketchbook page with a possible good one. I like the innocence and playfulness plus the potential to be very catlike—which is to say at the very least a teensy bit troublemaker-ish.

The main cat’s face is starting to feel right. I’m going to try it out and see if it works.

Sometimes I wish I studied cartooning along with illustration and graphic design. I would already be used to something like this new style I’m attempting. Maybe then I wouldn’t have such pesky difficulties to struggle over.
 
But for my early graphic novel, I’m aspiring to a slightly cartoony style for younger children—different from the odd not-quite-cartoony style used long ago for Boston Magazine and my regular not-quite-realistic children’s illustration styles.
 
Going for a specific level of grunge and bad drawing with over-enthusiastic claws and tiny fangs is chancey stuff. It tends to be a difficult leap from 22 years of illustrating children's educational, trade nonfiction, and magazines . . . mostly done on tight schedules . . .. Actually, practically everything . . . except my own illustrations and writing . . . was done on tight schedules . . ..
 
Yep, there it is. I’m illusplaining. Making excuses. In case this doesn’t pan out.
 
But a funkier look seems to fit the project. For now, I’m going with a claim of “outsider’s style.” Perhaps it will be new and interesting to those jaded by good cartooning.
 
Got to try, anyway.

Nope. It's not a typo. I'm in flux. If you count novels, picture books, or partial chapter books, I'm a writer. If you count poetry, I'm an author. But I've been writing, critique-grouping and not submitting for quite a while.

Bravery came first for illustration and graphic design, so I made a living out of it. Now I'm semi-retired and working hard again on my own writing and writer/illustrator projects.

Okay, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that when I’m writing, I think in visual scenes. When Illustrating, I think of deepening the story.

• I love words, but keep things spare when writing for children, choosing the best and fewest that fit the project.
• I love the sound of a good sentence and read aloud to check. The length of the manuscript doesn’t change that.
• I love dialog—if you don't succumb to the deadly "as you know, Bob" exposition, it shows so much without telling the reader what to think. It's a pace-controller, too, if you like.
• Dummies for picture books? Yes. Outlines for novels? No. But for both, I'm thinking ahead, pacing things out, knowing where they need to end up in order to matter.
• I love warm humor, it shows us the good sides of life, especially when times are awful.
• Revising helps me sort and show what I really mean—way better than talking or early drafts.
• Chapter endings need to tempt a page turn.
• And page turns—I think of them all the time.
• I’m slightly OCD (you may have guessed). I care about each project's production process. I work from the intended result, backward, often after asking too many questions.

A friend of mine who used to be my husband, still says, after I recover from something germy, “You’re not back to normal, you’re back to your usual self.”

That just about sums it up, I think, for all creative people. He’s a creative thinker, too. Scientists need to be, at least part of the time, so . . ..