Thought I'd do a general round up of how things are going.
Due to the fact that the infant distraction has only three months now before he arrives in our lives and has seriously started fidgeting to let me know this, the artwork has taken on something of an urgent note. After all I can sit and edit with my editor while my hands are full of a little wiglet but I can't hold a paint brush with the same ability. Oh for having four hands! I think every mother in history has made that particular cry, particularly working mothers.
Either way, I am now trying my best to do as much of the artwork before the arrival date as I can. This includes a Brain Froud inspired series of fairy oil pastels that I'm hoping to sell as the originals as I've done them on A2 and therefore they are too big to scan and JPEG. I've managed to do two already and though I'm not totally happy with the second I'm going to keep it in with the rest. In that way I find oil pastel work to be very refreshing. As you cannot correct mistakes with oil pastels I do not go in for all the little details that normally signify my other work, instead concentrating on the broad outlines and basic shades. As such, I can complete an A2 piece in about an hour on average, rather than several days if not months. For me being able to slam down a piece of work so darn quickly gives an instant confidence boast, even if it hasn't come out quite right, and since it is so fast I find I'm not quite so emotionally involved with the piece. In short, it is something of a holiday for me, even though I am still working. It also puts to use the oil pastels that I've had sitting in my cupboard for goodness only knows how many years so they are not wasted space. I'll probably continue to work on the A2 pieces until I run out of oil pastels.
On the editing side, it is slow going at the moment as the operation my editor was going to be going in for has been cancelled at the very last moment so she is still not in a very good way. Hopefully, we'll be able to crack on with the second book very soon but it is going to depend. It takes a while to reorganise everything after a disappointment like that and her condition does mean that at the moment her health has to be her first priority. However, I do have a different editor working with me on 'Gloomlight' so hopefully that project will continue at a much faster pace.
Speaking of such, I am finally on to sorting out the thirteen tribes of the vampires for 'Gloomlight'. O.K. fourteen if you count the Nostropho, which even the other vampires don't. The other vampires look down on these creatures as the distasteful dog in the house, or maybe more like how Victorians looked down on the people in the 'freak shows'. The sort of 'you know you are distantly related but only a real social imbecile actually states it' way of looking down on some one without quite tilting your head back to show you are looking down your nose at them. The vampires like to feel superior to everyone and everything around them and the Nostropho seriously let the side down, hence why the other vampires have no compunctions about putting down their animalistic brethren down when they find a hive. That and it is a good excuse to let their hair down and let the beast side of their natures out. Though they consider themselves superior to humans, the vampires have learnt in their long history of persecution and know that if they give the humans too much of an excuse then the stakes and pitchforks are going to come out so they keep the fangs in check and limit they violence. Finding a Nostropho hive is an opportunity to let go of all restraints and kill for the sheer pleasure of killing. That and Nostropho are dangerous creatures to tackle, even for a vampire, so there is the element of risk that a vampire simply doesn't get in one on one combat with a human, which makes it all the more fun of course.
Hopefully I'll have some state lines to publish soon.
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