Overcommitted
As a freelance illustrator, it is often difficult to turn down new projects when they come along because you never know when your next dry spell will be. In July and August a number of South African educational publishers made enquiries for me to illustrate readers for them. I had not had the opportunity to work on educational books before and they don’t come around all that often here, and well, work is work; so I said yes. The work is fast paced, with extremely tight deadlines, but in a way, easier than picture books as they are very specific about what they want illustrated and give very detailed briefs. This doesn’t give one much creative freedom, but it is necessary when the time frame is so short so you don’t have to spend hours brainstorming. There is not a lot of back and forth, the art style is simpler, and usually artwork is accepted with minimal, if any, changes.
Although I had heard horror stories, I actually found the educational work quite enjoyable and the people very nice. The only problem was the schedule. I illustrated four readers in the space of eight weeks. I already had 2 picture books on the go during that time, as well as some other smaller illustration projects and website jobs. I was over committed. So there were A LOT of late nights to 3:00 or 4am, weird hours catching naps in the day, and for one deadline I worked right through the night until 7am. I do not recommend it! I felt jet lagged and took over a week to recover when I finally could breathe again in November.
New Picture Books
One of the picture books I have been working on during this time, has a nice long timeline, so that one is still in progress (watch this space); and the other picture book I managed to complete at the end of October, with the launch happening in Eswatini in December. It’s the third book in Allan Low’s Bundu Bunch series and is called “The Bundu Bunch get a Surprise”. I have limited copies of the books, if anyone is interested, otherwise they are available direct from the author, or on Amazon.
My own Stories
At the same time as all of this, I have been participating in a ten week online class through the Quentin Blake Centre where we have been writing and illustrating our own non-fiction picture book under the guidance of award winning illustrator Owen Davey. I have learnt so much from Owen, and the individual feedback on my project has been invaluable. I am in the last stages of creating the dummy book and will be sending it to my agent to pitch soon, and fingers crossed, it makes it out into the world.
Now that my schedule is a bit more freed up I’ve also started illustrating and writing two other story ideas that came to me in the midst of my overworked brain fog. For those that don’t know – as an author-illustrator, if you want to get your story published by a publisher, you need to have the manuscript completed and you also usually need a “dummy book” which is the full book sketched out in rough, as well as one or two colour art pieces to show how your finished art would look. Then you send this off to a number of publishers that you think would be a good fit for your story (or an agent does this for you), and then you wait and see if anyone likes it enough to take a chance and publish it. It’s a bit of a strange system in that you need to put in hours and hours of (unpaid) work in the hopes of someone picking it up. I already have three dummy books and story ideas that didn’t go anywhere, but they are all good practice and skill development, so I will keep on keeping on.
I am extremely thankful to my indie author clients who choose me to illustrate their stories, and are my bread and butter at the moment.
New York, New York!
Some exciting news is that I will be attending the SCBWI Winter Conference in New York at the end of January! I will be going as part of our regional team for SCBWI SA. It can apparently be freeeeeeezing in New York that time of year. Possibly (hopefully) even snowing! Which is… exciting? …terrifying? I have been living in Durban for so long now that I do not have a winter wardrobe of any kind. Send boots!!
Any tips on things I MUST DO while in New York, would be most welcome. I have only ever done one day in New York – I did the red bus tour, The Museum of Natural History, The Top of The Rock, and walked the Brooklyn Bridge and sat in the park next to the Hudson watching the boats. This time I have only The Guggenheim and the MOMA on my list so far. I have three days of touristing and will meet with up my sister and her kids (aged 8 – 13) so kid-friendly recommendations would be great too!
Apologies for the long post. It’s been a while.
TL;DR:
I’ve been very busy, and I’m going to New York in Jan. Please send recommendations.
