Big Meetings today...

Had a Manga meeting today and a couple of my "guys" met with approval, and I'll start sequencing a scene soonish...

It's a little "Who leads off with what foot" now with me and the other creator, but I could see it falling into a coordinated dance. Do I wait for the text or do I draw it out and let him decide where the text should go? That kind of thing...

I also got the LBKF Contract today! Yeah, more legalese to read, but Miriam did go through it with me. I'll be a key player in selling the book and getting it out there, so I'll need to figure some time going forth for that big task. I think from here on out, I'll be having big purses that can carry a book or two! Or when we're on vacation "Ooo, honey, can we stop at that bookstore?" Yeeee! I can't wait!

So files are being sent far away to the magical place books are born. It has an ISBN and other fun copyright stuff as well. We talked about the price, and it's still up in the air as we wait to find out if the neato cloth cover will work out. Hopefully around $16ish (which is really good for a hardback book).

Earlier today we had our SCBWI meeting and had a really good speaker talk about the role of children's books. She's an editor for a magazine, and was a preschool teacher for years. It was so encouraging for me to hear her talk about themes and I could think of a book for each theme. I also liked her tough stance on hard issues (fear, death, divorce) in kid's books. Her opinion is that life is freakin' hard, and if a good story can help a child face and deal with the hard stuff in a safe environment, then it better equips the kid for life. One of the other members commented that "Publishers don't like those negative themes, and they don't want things with 'secrets' in them" to which I rolled my eyes. Now, I may be a commercial artist, but I hope to say I'll never completely sell out to what a publisher wants in that kind of way. The speaker did say it was her opinion as an editor she was expressing, but that notion was horse hokey.

Not all of the themes she talked about were negative, some were really inspiring. One theme was about writing your name, how special that really is and how that could become a rite of passage. Another theme is music and how a story can be about how music makes you feel. I liked the idea that simple things, like a cloudy night, could be made into a tradition or a special event.

The other nice thing at that meeting were all the people who knew about LBKF! I think it must've been in a newsletter or something. It was really nice to hear the congrats, and some of those members from a year ago knew that I was trying and when I started writing/illustrating the bunny.

And, lastly, I finally have a wonderful day off for ME! I love Harry Potter and my family, but I am waaaaay overdue for a day to paint my own agenda :)