Keeping my hand in

Every year, thanks to my good friend Erin, I get a commission to do a series of illustrations of wildlife subjects for the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. The Trust have a deal with Castle Rock Brewery - they brew a series of 'wildlife themed' beers through out the year, and the Trust gets a donation for every pint sold.

And I provide the images for the beer-pump handles. You can see this year's selection here. As a one-time wannabe artist, it's good for me - it makes me sit down and paint, which I wouldn't otherwise do, and it forces me to tackle subjects I wouldn't choose myself (a cranefly?) - but it's rather time consuming.

Even with my rather slap-dash painting technique, 10 images will take me at least 10 evenings, so Personal Demons is on hold - again.

Actually, it was on hold anyway - I was suffering a wee touch of writer's block. I'm halfway through the time period covered by the book - two weeks - and I was fine as long as my characters were at school. But having decided to write it pretty much 'real time', I was faced with the hurdle of getting them through the weekend. And I hadn't really planned anything for the weekend.

Anyway, the great advantage of this project (for me) is being able to call on my potential readership. So I did just that - I explained to Jack where I had got my characters to, and asked him to get the kids to work out what happens next. Already they're coming up with some interesting ideas, not necessarily always what I wanted to hear, but sometimes it's useful just to clarify what I didn't want to happen.

So, once again the project proves its worth, and I heartily recommend it to you (yes, you), fellow author.

Steve

PS - apparently my aunt in Germany knew I had a blog, so I must have some sort of search engine visibility!