May – the beginning of the Summer (by sarah)

It's a new month, a new season and I have a new to-do list. It is time for reordering and sorting. I handed in my last piece of coursework on Tuesday for the PGCert and have plans to take the project I've designed to the next level.

It is called Cuddly Science and you be hearing a lot more about it 🙂

Apart from that I'll be running workshops at The Brewery in Cheltenham for a Poetry Fun day and performing along side the wonderful Joy-Amy, I will also be performing at a slam at the Swindon Poetry Festival and at In Verse. I have the first of the music festivals this month too 🙂

I will also be doing some workshop with the kids at Jean's drama group.

And just to be a tad insane I am taking a ten week course in Improv and Stand Up - as in I'm going off to learn some stage crafty stuff myself. I've been meaning to do something since I left Imperial to be honest but it is now more urgent as I need better performance skills than I have to deliver Cuddly Science to the quality I want. It is ok at the moment but needs to be more - plus I felt that the performance poetry stuff could do with these sorts of skills as well.

It is also a matter of confidence and the accumulation of new skills. I find the concept of stand up comedy pretty terrifying and yet it was what I was edging towards with the Science Show-Off stuff I did. Also I don't like being scared of stuff - once I was scared of heights - petrified of them, my solution was to become a climbing instructor.

Apart from all of that there is the comic book to still be working on and the continual give aways for The Monster Blogs 5 year anniversary 🙂 I also want to get going with a bit more of the Science Writing and communication stuff in general, I still need to do some training for being a STEM Ambassador (science, technology, engineering and maths), to go into schools and things.

As always I am a glutton for punishment and the being of May is Picture Book Writing Week - so I will be attempting to write 7 picture books in the next 7 days. I am going to be focusing on the accompanying texts for Cuddly Science 🙂

The rest of month I will in general be working on my kids books and illustrations - 30 hours min. The summer in general will also involve game design and an update of the blogs.

On the domestic front we are having issues with the insurance company and the dinning room roof still but in general we are starting to get there with the house. There are some infrastructure bits that still need sorting and the garden will hopefully be getting a bit of a make over with the girls swing installed. The allotment is going to be the main priority for a while though as we still need to dig over a lot of it and plant tons of stuff.

We've sorted the play room and are almost there with the girls room, still don't think we will get around to painting the walls this year though 🙁

But we should finally get the curtains up!

The Climbing Princess / Ballerina / Fairy (by sarah)

Once upon a time there was a little toddler called Mary, who was given a small pink case by her cousin Annabelle. Within the case was a sparkly thing with lace and some silky pink shoes.

Mary loved the dress and put it on straight away, then she put on the shoes and got daddy to lace them up. She announced to the cats, 'I's a pretty princess!'the cats ignored her and continued bathing in the sunlight on the window sill.

Mummy saw the dress and said, 'oh Mary your a little ballerina.' But Mary didn't know what a ballerina was, Daddy explained ballerina's were ballet dancers and Mary got very excited, she loved dancing. She began to twirl and swirl, giggling and telling the cats to watch.

Then Mummy suggested that Mary should get changed as today was climbing day, with lots of rough and tumble at the climbing centre. Mary shock her head, 'I'm a CLIMBING PRINCESS!' she said and tried to escape out of the door before Mummy could catch her and make her change.

Mummy gave up as Daddy was going to be late for work if they hung around anymore. Mary thought this was great and smiled and scrunched her fluffy, glittery, lacy skirt - after all it was a magic dress.

At the climbing centre, everybody loved Mary's dress and asked her about it. She told them all how she was a climbing princess and ran to the slide, she had to climb up a little climbing wall to get into the top of the slide.

Her ballet shoes did not slow her down one bit, in fact they were quiet like the climbing shoes she liked to wear. Mummy appeared with the climbing shoes and Mary changed her shoes after it was explained the climbing would damage her silky shoes.

Mary hurtled about rescuing teddy bears and dinosaurs from different parts of the bouldering room. She would climb up to them and then cuddle them down to safety. The dinosaurs only some times where scary and chased her and her friend around. Then it was time for big climbing - with a harness!

Mary climbed up and up and up, all the way to the top of the wall.

She then shouted, 'I's a fairy, look! I flying!' as she let go of the wall and drifted down to the ground once more.

Then she climbed back up and fluttered down as a fairy, again and again and again, until all the other children had grown tired. It was then lunch time and Mary had a ham sandwich with no butter - special just for her, pom bears, raisins and juice.

After all the excitement Mary decided she was a tired princess and sat and read books.

Mary couldn't wait to be a climbing princess or fairy or ballerina, again but she also wanted to be a panda and sleepily asked Mummy if she could be a climbing panda next time.

Easter Collection – digital launch (by sarah)

It is Easter Sunday and I thought it was about time I put Sarah Snell-Pym's Easter Collection out there in digital audio format - ie downloadable tracks. I've been giving and selling copies of it on CD for the last two years though this year is the first time I've put them online for sale.

There is a Face Book event and I'll be giving away some stickers and things and maybe a hard copy - CD's etc...

The whole Album is free to download for the next week though I have priced individual tracks at £1.

A Day of Many Things (by sarah)

I am resting my bones today - I've had a hectic last few days and after a fall and during a bit of a flare up. This means I am doing Easter crafts with the girls and there will be a picnic in the garden.

Yesterday however was a day of many things.

It started early with getting Mary to nursery and Al to work, then me and Jeany walked from Al's office into Gloucester to the climbing wall. Jeany had her second climbing session of the holidays - this time Rock Ratz instead of Rock Mice, which is more challenging for her. Whilst she was in the session I did two hours of course work for my PGCert in Practical Science Communication.

Then once she was out and we were eating lunch, I did some art practice which is important for both the comic book and my college project. I drew eyes.

(Some of them I made up myself but most of them come from a manga drawing book.

We then went to the library where we bumped into two lots of friends 🙂 Jeany hunted easter eggs in the children's Library whilst I looked at story line, set out and drawing styles in various graphic novels - my conclusion is that I've been worrying too much about my drawings and my story lines are more coherent and less bitty (I think), than those I got through yesterday.

Jean won a wrist band and we moved on as I had a voucher for a free coffee 🙂 We sat in the coffee shop - Jean had picked up a for sale book at the library - just a bit of light reading you understand!

Apparently it is book five of a series and she wants the rest :/

I worked on my college work again and then scripted 3 pages of comic book, Jeany kept nagging me as she wants to know what happens in the rest of it and I'm not writing it fast enough apparently!

We then picked up a watering can and few other bits, I found a grumpy cat graffiti and we saw street performers though we didn't stop as Jeany wanted to go and read - she has said she wants to be a street performer and she is SOOOOO going to be a scientist. 😀

She got mistaken for being 12 a lot - that's 4 yrs older than she is.

We then walked down to Al's office again (Jean was navigating as I'm a bit out of it at the moment - couldn't find the library from the climbing wall!), all bundled in the car to go and get Mary. It was Mary's parents evening at nursery so we picked her up and had a picnic in the park. Al then went off to the kid free parent evening to get the little report and be shown her work whilst I stayed at the park with the girls. I am so proud of my little climber - she really hurtles up things 🙂

They really loved the spiny thing in the park.

I also found blossom to photograph for my 100 Flowers in 100 Days Challenge.

Then it was off to Copa in Cheltenham for a improve/acting/comedy workshop with the lovely Joy Amy - again this is actually part of what I am developing for college. I can't make a production without understanding stage craft and though the workshop was comedy a lot of the skills will be transferable and when dealing with kids being able to improvise is always important.

Whilst I was in learning how to be comedic, Alaric and the girls went off to Cranham to pick up some furniture his cousins have given us for the girls.

It was a busy day.

Concept Sketches (by sarah)

I have started on the character design and concept sketches for The Punk Universe stuff - comic book, novels et al. Here is one of Punku - remember she is only half human - this is also her in her hardship state ie lack of food and haggered. It was a quick sketch and there are issues with it, like it looked better before I put the shading in and she now looks a bit old but it is a start.

(dear me! The ears!)

More about this project can be found on Purple Monster.